Deep Black - Andy McNab [50]
I stretched out my hand. ‘All right?’
He gave me the once-over. ‘You’re in shit state. You still getting it in?’
‘Nah, been busy, mate.’
‘Hey, my boy’s nineteen, at university now.’
I was taken aback. Connor had gone off message. Maybe he thought I was a lost cause when it came to the god of training. ‘That old?’
‘Yep. I’m only getting it in twice a day.’ That hadn’t taken long, then. He was on a twenty-second loop. ‘I’d rather be swimming but the fuckers won’t fill the pool. They can, you know – I’ve heard other hotels have, but the fuckers here won’t fill it.’
I was dying to tell him the al-Hamra had a full pool but I’d be here all night listening to him honk about it.
‘Who do you work for?’
‘CNN. It’s a good team. I’ve been with them since Christmas. We came up from Kuwait with the Marines. It was difficult getting the training in to begin with, but there’s no problem now. If the fucking pool was working I could get some decent stuff in.’
‘What’s it like here?’
As if in answer, another burst of AK rattled around the streets somewhere beyond the safety of the garden.
‘Belfast times ten. The Yanks out here, I feel sorry for them. They haven’t got a fucking clue what they’re doing. They’re not trained for all this shit.’ He stood with his hands on his hips, panting away. ‘Even during the war, we’d be harbouring up for the night and they wouldn’t send out clearing patrols. Then they’d honk in the morning that they were getting hit. For fuck’s sake! I took two American patrols out myself, just to make sure we were secure.’
There was a massive wave of AK gunfire just the other side of the wall. This time, everyone ducked. Then we heard the warbling of the women. It was OK. It was a wedding.
35
Connor thumbed towards the noise. ‘The Yanks still haven’t worked out Thursday nights yet. The wedding opens up, the Yanks think they’re firing at them, and they open up in return. The wedding guests get pissed off, they start firing back, and soon everybody’s got their heads down. I’ll tell you what, watch yourself here – nobody knows what the fuck’s going on.’
Connor was still honking about the Americans, something he had always liked doing. I wondered if it was because they couldn’t understand his accent.
‘The Yanks reckon the militants are stringing cheese wire across the roads to chop their heads off as they scream through in their Hummers. But you know what? All that’s happening is the locals are running cable from the parts of the city that have power, and shoving them into their houses. Decapitation, my arse – they just want to get the fucking kettle on!’
He roared with laughter as more tracer zipped across the horizon, followed a split second later by the rattle of gunfire. ‘There they go again. The party will start soon. Any cabbying after that will be the real gear.’
‘There’s a no-firing-till-after-the-confetti rule?’
‘Is there fuck. They don’t even know the twenty-minute rule. I had to tell them yesterday, while we were filming them.’
One of the rules of urban guerrilla warfare is that if you’re static for more than twenty minutes, guerrillas will have time to react and get an attack going.
Connor laughed. ‘I should be paid more, I’m training the US Army! Bet they’ve got a full-on gym.’
The clatter of tracked vehicles came from not many streets away. Armoured troops were on the move. ‘I bumped into Rob Newman and Gary Mackie. Not together, but they’re in the city.’
‘Yeah, fucking Mackie, the bastard. He’s got a gym. All I’ve got is the bottom of this fucking thing. Still, at least I don’t get zapped in it.’
That seemed to be the end of the conversation for Connor. He turned to walk away, closing one nostril