Osama

‘Joint debrief,’ he stated. ‘We’ll get to the bottom of this.’

Joe shook his head. ‘Forget it.’

‘No can do, Joe. You know that…’

‘I said, forget it.’

‘And I said, no can do. I’m ordering you to—’

‘I want out, boss.’

A pause.

‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

‘What do you think this is? A fucking poker game?’

Yeah, Joe thought to himself. And the Yanks have all the aces.

‘Get yourself cleaned up,’ said Fletcher. ‘I want you back here in an hour.’

Joe was barely listening. Two brushes with death in as many days. His best mate blown to pieces in an Afghan minefield.

‘I quit,’ he said.

‘Bullshit. Our numbers are too low for you to start throwing your toys out of your pram, Joe.’

‘I said, I quit.’

‘Then I’ll recommend that the adjutant defers you. Six months. And another six months after that. If you want to go AWOL, that’s your choice. Now clean yourself up and get your arse back in here.’

Such powerful anger rose in Joe’s gut that for a minute he thought he might give Fletcher his own reason to head home: a broken limb, or worse. It descended on him like a fog, and the effort it took to stop himself exploding in a barrage of violence against his own OC was so profound that it seemed to make his whole body shake.

He stood up, his eyes burning.

‘Get out of my way,’ he whispered. His voice trembled.

Fletcher didn’t move. ‘You need to calm down, Mansfield.’ His voice was as low as Joe’s. He was clearly aware – as was Joe himself – that their argument was being observed.

The OC couldn’t have said anything worse. Joe pushed past him and, ignoring the sharp looks from the twenty-odd support personnel in the hangar, he stormed towards the exit.

And there he stopped.

The broad-shouldered American commander was standing in his way. He was fully bald, highly tanned and wore a superior expression that only made the rage inside Joe burn more fiercely. ‘Say, Sergeant Mansfield, maybe it’s time for you and me to have a little summit.’

‘Maybe it’s time,’ Joe breathed, ‘for you to get out of my way.’

Joe noticed a couple of Yanks immediately drawing close to their boss, flanking him on either side. Joe sized up the fucking cavalry. They were a metre behind their boss and were both thickset, with crewcuts and aviator shades on their foreheads.

‘Same goes for Dumb and Dumber,’ Joe added.

The American commander’s face gave no sign of irritation or offence. His voice, though, was threatening. ‘Let’s get this straight, soldier. This is an American air base…’

The Yanks flanking him started grinning in a stupid, arrogant way, clearly enjoying the show. The two intelligence officers Joe had seen on his way in had also joined the little party. Standing a couple of metres apart from Joe, they glanced at each other in amusement.

‘…and on an American air base you—’

The commander didn’t finish his sentence.

There was nothing subtle about Joe’s attack. He just raised his knee hard into the American’s bollocks. The Yank doubled over in pain, at which point Joe shoved the heel of his right hand into his nose. The big man fell backwards. Blood spattered from his nose over the clothes of the two intelligence guys. His body clattered against the door of the hangar. It rattled and echoed, and anyone who hadn’t had their eyes on Joe sure as hell did now.

Joe looked at his palm. It was smeared with blood. For an instant, the gruesome image of the chunk of Ricky’s flesh he’d pushed out of the way in the minefield flashed into his mind. And then another vision: the dead body in the courtyard of the compound in Abbottabad, staring blindly at Joe as he hid in his OP of rubble.

And then hands – strong, forceful hands – pulling him back, away from the confrontation. The two Yanks shouting at him, telling him to cool it. One of them had allowed his shades to fall onto his face. Joe caught sight of himself and was shocked by the look on his face.

He struggled. He was screaming something, but he didn’t even know what. He realized that one of the men holding him back was JJ, whose expression was more alarmed than anything else. He wrestled himself free of his mate and the other two Regiment guys who were trying to hold him back just as the American, his face bloody and standing at a safe distance of about three metres, roared some kind of instruction that Joe barely heard.

More men. Yanks. Five of them swarmed round him and hustled him to the floor. He felt a crack in the bottom of his ribcage as one of them kicked him hard; the heel of a second boot was raised, ready to stamp into his face…

But then JJ and the others were there, pulling the Americans away. He saw his mate raising a fist, clearly ready to do one of the Yanks some damage, but a voice stopped him from doing it.

‘Enough!’

Fletcher’s voice rang across the hangar. Looking up, Joe saw him bearing down on the Americans, his eyes furious.

‘Get the hell out of my hangar!’ Fletcher was shouting. ‘Get the hell out!’

Commotion. Bustle. Joe felt himself being pulled up to his feet. He saw that the Americans had left, but now he was faced with the full fury of his OC. ‘What’s fucking wrong with you, Mansfield?’ Everyone else in the hangar had fallen silent.

‘I told you: I quit.’

‘And I told you it’s not an option.’

‘Then there’s going to be a load more Yanks with broken noses over the next few days.’

A pause.

‘Fine,’ said Fletcher. ‘You want to spend your days stacking shelves in Tesco’s and reading bedtime stories, be my fucking guest.’

Joe felt his cheek twitch, but he didn’t say anything.

Fletcher had turned his back on him and started pacing. Joe could see his shoulders rising as he took deep breaths to calm himself. When he turned and spoke again, his eyes still flashed, but his voice had calmed down a bit.

‘You’re on the next flight out of here,’ he said. ‘But it’s temporary. You even think about shaving that beard off, I’ll throw you to the fucking dogs. Do whatever you need to do to get your head sorted out.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my head,’ Joe murmured, but he knew he didn’t sound convincing.

Only now did Fletcher turn round to look at him. ‘That wasn’t a piece of friendly advice, Mansfield. That was an order. Follow it. Get back to your bunk while I sort this shit out, unless you want me to book a room at one of the Yanks’ facilities. I’m sure they’d love to entertain you for a couple of hours.’ He headed towards the exit, but stopped when he was almost at the doors, turned and called back: ‘Think about the rest of us when you’re down the Dog and fucking Duck, won’t you?’

The OC stormed out. Joe could feel the eyes of everybody in the hangar staring at him. He could also feel his hand shaking again. About ten metres to his left, he saw JJ approaching warily. He didn’t want to talk. Not to JJ, or anyone. He followed the OC’s lead and strode out of the hangar.

Thirty seconds later he found himself half walking, half running through the maze of bunkhouses, not knowing where he was heading for, his mind spinning.

And thirty seconds after that, he realized he was sitting on the ground, his head bowed and buried in his hands. He didn’t remember dropping down there, but that hardly mattered. It was all he could do to concentrate on breathing slowly and deeply. On getting air into his parched and dust-filled lungs.