have a pretty incestuous set-up, with the same crews moving from war zone to war zone. None of their protection was carrying: the guys all had their party kit on, lurid Hawaiian shirts and Bermudan shorts. It was fun time, and we were the right side of the fence. They outnumbered the women by about sixteen to one, and hovered round the few available like flies round shit.
Jerry picked up a beer for himself and a Coke for me and we gave the place a good scan, me keeping an eye out for Rob, him for anybody who looked like they might know the secret of the Bosnian ayatollah. We must have looked like the proverbial spare pricks.
Sporadic gunfire punctuated the hubbub of conversation, but it was obviously too far away to worry about. I wondered how they defined too close for comfort. A hundred metres? Fifty? Or wait till someone drops? That really would be effective enemy fire.
A huge contact sparked up nearby. This time everybody did look up. An amazing amount of heavy .50 cal tracer stitched hot dotted lines across the sky. Every pair of eyes followed its trajectory, but once they realized it wasn’t going to fall on our heads, their owners got back to their chats and beers.
I was just treating myself to a swig of Coke when I got a huge slap on the back that made my teeth bang against the bottle.
‘Wanker!’
I recognized the broad Geordie accent even before I turned round. I’d known Pete Holland for years, but thankfully not that well. He was one of those guys who had an opinion on everything, and a lot of them disappeared when you held them up to the light. Built like a prop forward, he was known in the Regiment as a good Bergen carrier, a strong back you could depend on to get kit from A to B. So strong, in fact, he could make the muscles in his back bulge like bat wings. His nickname was, of course, Lats-Like-A-Bat.
We shook hands. ‘All right, mate? How’s it going? This is Jerry.’
It wasn’t long before Jerry made his excuses and left, probably so I could start quizzing Lats about Nuhanovic. But I’d need to be pretty fucking desperate before I went that route. He’d want to know why, where, when – and how much I was willing to pay him for answering.
Pete had a beer in one hand and a spare in the other, what he called ‘having one on the loading tray’. He’d been in the Artillery before the Regiment. That was his problem: once he’d started on the beers, the loading tray was as busy as a factory conveyor belt. He could have given Ezra a lifetime’s work.
He nodded at the two Balkan boys I’d seen in the coffee-bar area, who had just joined a group at the end of the pool. The one with the goatee had a huge smile on his face as he offered round his pack of cigarettes. ‘Not working for them cunts, are you?’
I shook my head. ‘A journalist. That guy Jerry. You?’
He stuck out his jaw and pranced around on the spot as if he was sizing up to throw a punch. ‘Doing me own thing. A wee bit of freelance. I’m on a good number, BGing some Japanese. Five hundred a day. Champion.’ He took a hefty swig of free beer.
How did you answer that? ‘Five hundred. Good for you, mate. Listen, those flat-tops. They Bosnian, Serb, what?’
‘Fuck knows. I fucking know what they’re up to, though.’ He pointed at the others in the group with his bottle. ‘Don’t these cunts know what they’re doing? Some of them are younger than my two girls.’
It clicked. These two were part of the Balkans’ globalization campaign. It didn’t sound like they’d be spending much time with the ayatollah.
He took another swig, not that he needed it, and I realized what the posturing was all about. He was trying to keep his balance. No wonder he was on his own. Anybody working for a decent firm and found drinking on a job would be thrown out, no exceptions, no second chances. And word flew round the circuit quicker than tracer. He wasn’t an independent by choice. No one would vouch for him. It was a big deal to do that. If the guy you vouched for turned out to be crap, that meant so were you. It was just the way it was.
I hoped he hadn’t come over and slapped me on the back because he thought I was a kindred spirit. ‘You and the Japanese in the hotel?’
‘Aye, I’m here and there. You know how it is.’
I didn’t. I hadn’t a clue what he was on about.
37
The Canadian woman floated into the pool area with Mr Gap in tow. He looked as if he’d stepped straight out of the shop window, only tonight his polo shirt was green. She was in a black cheesecloth dress that she knew made the best of the buttons she had left unfastened between her breasts.
Lats couldn’t keep his eyes off them as she joined the bunch by the barbecue. He put down his empty bottle and kicked into the next as he fished in the bin for another. ‘I’m gonna fuck her. She with that dickhead in green?’
‘Don’t know, mate.’
‘I’m going to give her the old special-forces chat-up. Know what I mean?’
This time I did know what he was on about. ‘Well, good luck, mate. I’ve got to go talk to my man about tomorrow.’
It was a mistake shaking the hand that had just come out of the ice bin. As I walked away I felt like I’d just had a close encounter with the living dead.
Jerry hadn’t wasted any time. He’d hooked up with a guy who looked a bit like a New Age traveller. Randy was a TV cameraman, though I wondered if he’d remember that come the morning. Waccy baccy was probably as easy to get hold of here as beer and Randy had been making the most of it. ‘I’ve been here seven fucking months, Jerry,’ he drawled. ‘Ain’t no Bosnian Messiah here, no way, my man.’ So much for not talking to the media. ‘I came in with the Marines—’ He stopped and looked up as three helicopters screamed overhead, one after the other. We couldn’t see them: they were unlit. Randy staggered backwards and pointed up, shouting, like a driver with road rage, ‘Quiet! For fuck’s sake, be quiet – it’s my fucking birthday.’
Once he regained his balance he had a fit of giggles, then leaned an arm on Jerry’s shoulder. ‘I got a way with choppers. See, they get off my case pretty damn sharp, man. It’s those fucking tanks I have issues with, man.’
Over Jerry’s spare shoulder, I saw Rob coming into the pool area from the lobby. He looked as though he was heading for a different kind of party. There were sweat stains on his T-shirt from where he’d just removed his body armour, he had a pistol on his belt and an AK in his hand. I didn’t think he’d be staying long.
‘Good to meet you, Randy.’ I had a crack at trying to shake his hand, but he was too busy waving at another burst of tracer. ‘Jerry, I’ve got to go – Rob’s here. See you later.’
Randy tried to focus his eyes on mine, but gave up. ‘Yeah, me too. I’ve gotta get out of here. Right out of fucking Iraq. Seven months, man.’
Rob was searching the crowd. He smiled as I approached. ‘Sorry, mate. I’m not hanging about. Ten minutes and that’s it.’
‘You with your man?’
He shook his head as his eyes scanned the party. ‘At the al-Hamra. Thought I’d come and say hello. How’s your search for the Bosnian getting on? You have a name for him?’
‘Nuhanovic. He’s their answer to Mahatma Gandhi. You heard anything?’
‘Nah. It’s just a picture you want?’
‘Jerry, the guy I’m with, says he’s going to be famous one day.’
‘For what?’
‘World peace, mate. Putting us out of a job.’
He held out his hand and pointed at nowhere in particular. ‘Just don’t tell that to any of the Serbs on the circuit, will you?’
‘You want a Coke?’
