Desert OverWatch Read online

  ***

  Evening had approached when one of the crew dragged a bleating goat out of the belly crew compartment. He slit the animal’s throat and began to skin it while it was still twitching. Queasy, Regan turned away and lay on his back until he could smell the savoury waft of cooking. For the next couple of hours, he took the occasional peek from his vantage point as the missile crew ate the goat stew then sat around for the evening talking, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes.

  Regan kept up his vigil until night fell and seven of the launcher’s eight crewmen had bedded down. The eighth man patrolled around a hundred yards’ perimeter for a couple of hours, but as the night drew on he gradually lost interest in patrolling and sat down under the camouflage netting with his back against one of the launcher’s massive balloon tyres.

  Regan exhaled a long breath of relief; the sentry had sat on the opposite side of the launcher to the crew’s bivouac. Using loose sand to aid his descent, he slid down the dune to the bottom, where he slipped into the tracks the launcher had left behind. Crouching right down, Regan slipped beneath the vehicle and crawled over to the wheel the guard was leaning against.

  Steady, light snoring told Regan that the guard had fallen asleep. He considered modifying his plan, but decided that leaving the guard alive was too risky. He crawled to the front of the launcher, then came out from underneath, emerging to the side of the sleeping sentry. In an instant, he’d thrust his knife upwards under the guard’s chin.

  The speed and ferocity of his attack gave the sentry no chance to warn of the intruder. Regan knelt down beside the corpse and retrieved his knife, which he wiped clean on the dead man’s tunic before returning it to its sheath. He made his way forward to the payload, which nestled between the launcher’s forward cabins. Peering around, he assessed the best place for the charge.

  Now then where do I put you, my little beauty? On the launcher bed below the warhead? Nah. He doubted the charge would do much damage, there. It was too small. Then he spotted an access panel, right between the propellant and the big banger up front.

  Fucking perfect.

  He climbed up onto the launcher, set the timer on the charge and placed it inside the hatch. He’d just reached his quad and ducked down below the parapet of the tall sand dune, hands over ears, when the missile exploded. The rocket fuel ignited a millisecond after Regan’s explosive ripped the centre of the projectile apart, mixing the kerosene and red-fuming-nitric-acid propellant.

  The blazing liquid mixture radiated out to fifty yards around the launcher, incinerating its sleeping crew and engulfing the missile payload of 600Kg of high explosive. The explosion flicked the big vehicle up from the front, making it stand vertical before it crashed down onto its back, crushing what remained of the missile and leaving its wheels up in the air.

  Regan waited for the dust to settle, then stood. The twin cabs of the MAZ-543 launcher had been completely vaporised. Debris could be seen strewn across an area roughly five hundred yards in diameter. He took some photographs of the aftermath of his work, then mounted up on the quad.

  His ears throbbed all the way back to Clapham and it took a while for the whining, ringing sound to ease down inside his head. But he couldn’t stop grinning, even as he tucked the quad away again next to Irvine’s. He’d seen action and escaped unscathed. By the law of averages, he wouldn’t see any more this tour, and he’d get home in one piece as promised.

  ‘Alright Jim, how’d it go?’ Irvine said as Regan settled himself back in their hideout.

  ‘I modified its structure a little bit.’

  Irvine chuckled. ‘I’ll bet you did. Show me.’ He took the camera and scrolled through the pictures showing on its small LCD screen, his eyes widening with each click of the thumb. ‘Modified it? Fuck, mate…’

  Regan chuckled and took the camera back.

  ‘What about the crew, did they give you any bother?’

  Regan shrugged his shoulders, ‘Nope, never even heard so much as an Allah-Ackbar out of any of them. What about you, anything happened here?’

  ‘It’s been as quiet as a grave, I doubt the number of vehicles I’ve seen would make it into double figures.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Good, yeah. But dull.’

  Regan shuffled down onto his back. ‘I’m going to get me head down for a couple of hours.’

  ‘There’s a shocker. I’ll get back on the mic and update Errington, shall I? ’

  Regan reopened one eye. ‘Eh?’

  Irvine chuckled. ‘Never mind. Sleep well.’

  Chapter 4

  11th August

  Kelly’s sigh could’ve blown over a small wendy house. ‘For goodness’ sake, woman. Have a biscuit, at least. You’ll be no good to anyone if you faint.’

  Carla flinched as her sister slapped a pink wafer on the saucer, next to her cup of tea. Mugs were banned while Kelly was around. It was dignity, tidy hair, china teas and silver-service cutlery all the way. Carla picked the wafer up, but her stomach twisted violently and she felt nauseous just at the idea of putting it to her lips.

  ‘He will be fine,’ Kelly insisted. ‘Look, they’re in the rear end of nowhere. It probably takes a few days to get the phones to cooperate.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Carla sipped her tea. As she set the cup down, the tremor in her hand made the base rattle against the kitchen table and the tea spilt across the back of her hand. She barely felt the scald. She was light-headed after just three hours of sleep in two nights.

  ‘What’s Patrick up to?’ Kelly demanded. ‘I hear banging.’

  Carla got up from the kitchen table and went into the hallway. The closing credits of Crocodile Dundee were scrolling up on the TV screen in the lounge. On the floor by the bookcase where they stored all their videos, Patrick was rifling noisily through the selection of boxes for something else he hadn’t seen in a while. She smiled as he consulted with his infant brother, holding up this film or that before throwing each one onto the ‘no’ pile. Johnny lay on the floor next to him, wriggling away happily on his playmat.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Carla called over, as he held up James’ battered copy of Alien.

  With a remorseless grin, he held up Platoon.

  She shuddered. ‘Or that!’

  ‘How about no TV at all?’ Kelly suggested, stalking into the lounge. She plucked Karate Kid Part II from Patrick’s hand and turned the TV and video player off. ‘Come on, we can’t just stay here all day. Let’s go into Fleetsbridge for an all-you-can-eat.’

  ‘If James calls—’

  ‘A watched phone never rings, Carls. Besides, if he seriously expects you to stay in the house for the first week of every deployment just in case he deigns to call, he needs to get his head out of his arse.’

  Carla jerked her head sharply towards Patrick and glared at her sister. It took all her emotional control to keep her voice low and level. ‘Not in front of Paddy.’

  Kelly huffed a sigh as she bent to scoop Johnny off the floor. ‘Fine, so you stay here and babysit the phone, and I’ll take Patrick out for dinner.’

  Patrick’s eyes widened with indignant horror.

  Too exhausted to stand her ground, or to referee an argument between Paddy and his aunt, Carla pulled on clean clothes, got Johnny’s travel bag ready, and headed to the car. The drive into town was actually quite soothing. There was hardly any traffic on the roads, and the simple act of concentrating on lane changes and roundabout entry helped her focus on something other than James’ radio silence. By the time they’d been seated in the restaurant and had menus in front of them, she was starting to feel a bit more human. By the time she’d finished two slices of pizza, she was lively enough to enjoy a sword fight with Patrick, using the breadsticks.

  Carla had just signed the bill when Patrick saw Ted and Mike walking along the pavement, heading for the restaurant doors. He grabbed his coat and pelted outside, slowing to a more casual saunter just as he pushed through the door. Carla smiled as she watched him nattering
with his friends. Teri and Katelyn peered in through the window, caught her eye, and waved.

  Kelly handed Johnny back to her while gathering up the rest of their gear. ‘Are those boys his school friends?’

  ‘Ted’s in Paddy’s class, yes. But we all live on the married quarters estate.’

  ‘Do you get on with the other wives?’

  ‘Mostly, yes.’

  ‘Just mostly? Are they a bit dim, or something?’

  ‘They’re fine,’ Carla snapped. ‘We just don’t spend much time together socially.’

  Outside, Patrick’s conversation with his friends seemed to have taken a pleasing turn; his face lit up and he was doing his best not to jump up and down on the spot with excitement, which suggested that her pre-teen had been offered something fun to do with the other lads. She joined the little group forming outside on the pavement, Kelly following close behind.

  Patrick beamed up at her while they were all saying their hellos. ‘Ted and Mike are starting rifle club tomorrow at the range. Can I go?’ He snatched a sheet of paper from Ted’s hand and nearly stuffed it right up her nose. ‘They got me a spare permission slip in case you said yes.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said straightaway. Patrick needed all the activity and company he could get during the long stretch of the summer school break. She ignored the cool wave of disapproval coming from Kelly and enjoyed a rare, impulsive hug from her son as he threw himself at her while being careful not to squish his baby brother.

  Kelly scoffed. ‘They do rifle lessons at the barracks? Are they trying to breed child soldiers, or something?’

  Teri fixed Kelly with a tight smile. ‘It’s well-supervised, and it’s something for the boys to do without us having to drive them miles across town.’

  ‘They could do rugby,’ Kelly insisted. ‘Or some sort of Meccano class.’

  ‘The lads love a good shoot-out,’ Katelyn chimed in, oblivious to atmosphere. ‘And Patrick’s a crack-shot, just like his dad. You know what? The NCO that runs the junior rifle club spent five minutes with him at the last session and said, “that lad is either a Regan or an Irvine.”’

  ‘Good for him,’ Kelly said sourly.

  ‘Have you heard from Trevor?’ Carla asked, more to change the subject than anything else, but at Katelyn’s expression of surprise, something cold and heavy dropped deep into her gut.

  ‘I know they landed in Riyadh and got moved on.’

  Carla took a deep breath. ‘Have you spoken to him?’

  ‘Not directly. It’s a shame. I was hoping to, what with having big news’—she paused to grin and rub her tummy meaningfully—‘but he got his mate in Errington’s comms squad to give me a bell and let me know he was fine and about to go across the border.’ Seeming to notice all the blood leaving Carla’s face, Katelyn frowned. ‘What, did Jay not send word that he’d landed alright?’

  ‘No.’ Carla’s lips felt numb. The women stood in an awkward triangle, the boys peering up at them, bemused. Carla broke the quiet. ‘Congratulations, by the way,’ she managed, nodding down at the not-yet-visible swelling in Katelyn’s belly. ‘Nice to see you both. We’ll make sure Paddy’s up and ready for the SWAT-Juniors course.’

  Carla drove on autopilot getting them to Blockbusters, and then home. James told her very little about what happened on his deployments, but she was well aware of how frequently he got paired with Trevor Irvine.

  No news is good news. MOD haven’t called. He’s fine. Fine! But why the fuck hasn’t he called?

  She paced the kitchen as Patrick slotted the third Indiana Jones movie into the VCR, and when she couldn’t settle even twenty minutes into the movie, she stalked out to the shed to grab that bottle of Famous Grouse she’d been keeping out of sight and out of mind. Just outside the back door, she swigged long and deep from it, probably taking in the equivalent of four doubles in a single, extended glug. Mercifully numbed, she trudged into the kitchen and stowed the bottle at the back of the cupboard where she kept all the useless shit like the fondue set and the broken salad spinner. Then she tottered into the lounge. Kelly sniffed, gave her a sharp look, but didn’t mention the waft of cheap whisky.

  The accumulated weariness of a week’s worth of nightmares crept up on her and she dozed off just after Indiana and his father had made their escape from the fireplace in an Austrian Nazi stronghold. She was snatched from dreamland after what felt like seconds; Kelly was grinning down at her.

  ‘There’s someone called James on the line.’

  Carla erupted from the sofa and bolted into her bedroom, snatching up the bedside handset. ‘James, are you there?’

  ‘Yep, we’re all set. How are you bearing up, babe?’

  She nearly sobbed down the line at sheer relief at hearing his voice.

  ‘Carla? You okay?’

  ‘I’m here.’ She took a deep breath and steadied her voice. ‘It’s been a week, James. I was…’ scared out of my fucking mind ‘worried.’

  ‘Nah, I’m good.’

  She tried to keep the frustration from her tone, knowing he might only be on the line for a couple of minutes at best. ‘I’m glad. Of course I’m glad, but a lot of wives on the estate heard from their men in the first couple of days, so—’

  ‘We get sent to varied shitholes, darling. I’m sorry. I can’t help that. And I’m really sorry you’ve been so stressed out.’

  She heard him taking a deep breath.

  ‘Carla, seriously—I’m sorry. This is the first chance I’ve had to call home.’

  ‘I’m sure, but somehow your pal Trevor managed to get word home that he’d at least landed okay.’

  James’ sigh blasted down the line. ‘A lot of blokes owe Trev a favour of some kind. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone in the comms unit felt obliged to drop a line to Katy. I am sorry, though. I didn’t get a chance to check in with you between our landing, briefing, or first obs trek.’

  ‘What are you observing?’

  ‘How’s Pat and Johnny?’

  She knew better than to press. ‘The boys are fine, and Kelly got here yesterday.’

  ‘Is she still alive? Will I find our patio re-laid when I get home?’

  Carla lowered her voice. ‘The monster still lives.’

  ‘You really need her there?’

  ‘I have one set of eyes and one set of hands. I thought I could cope, but… there’s an age gap between those boys.’

  ‘I hear you.’ James breathed hard at the other end of the line. ‘I miss you, Caz. I wish I was in that big bed with you, right now.’

  ‘Are you sleeping on the ground?’

  ‘Not just at this minute, but that’s hardly the point. I don’t like camp beds, I don’t like shitty food, and I don’t like being away from you for so long.’

  Her heart leapt in hope. ‘So finish your tour, then get out of the forces.’

  There was a long pause at the other end, then a sigh. ‘I have to go. There’s a queue for the line. Look—I’m being moved forward for a while, but my main duty is to stare at a road and raise a red flag if I see a tank with a shitload of ACME missiles piled on the top.’

  Carla released her pent breath and almost giggled with relief. ‘Sounds gripping.’

  ‘It really isn’t, so I suggest you get back to whatever you were doing with Kelly and the lads. I’ll be in touch when I can.’

  ‘Love you.’

  ‘Home soon,’ James promised, and rang off.

  Carla hung up, feeling the live spark in her soul re-starting once again.

  ***

  ‘How’d it go Jim?’

  Regan stumbled from the media tent, unable to answer, right away. He could have his balls cut off and deep-fried for telling her as much as he had, but he hoped the sarcastic tone would disguise how literal he’d been with the truth. Her laughter was worth it. God, he missed that laugh.

  Morgan caught his eye and gave a taut nod while Trevor put a light hand to the back of his neck, steadying him. Regan breathed out slow and low, a
s advised by the psyche branch of the corps.

  Irvine guided Regan away from the media tent. ’Jim? You okay?’

  Regan pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. ‘I don’t know how much longer I can do this. She’s in bits. I’m thinking of buying myself out once this shit’s over. I can’t keep leaving Carla alone with Kelly as her second pair of hands.’

  Irvine put his arm across Regan’s shoulders. ‘Then that’s made my mind up too, mate.’

  Regan caught the sincere weariness in Trev’s face. ‘How long’ve you been thinking about it?’

  ‘Bout a year, now.’ Trev fumbled through his thigh pockets and produced a packet of Lambert and Butler. ‘The only good thing about being out here is that no one gets on my case when I have a fag.’ He lit up and exhaled slowly. ‘Katelyn’s in bits as well, and I don’t fancy training another partner.’

  ‘God forbid.’ Regan grinned.

  ‘Fuck, no. It took me long enough to knock you into shape and I can’t go through all that again.’

  Regan laughed. ‘You twat! What you mean is that I let you get away with murder and shit that no other sniper-one would.’

  ‘Well it’s the same thing, innit?’ Irvine said. ‘I’ve worked my subtle mind control on you. Most of what I get up to goes right over your head.’

  ‘Speaking of getting up to things, next time you lean on Austin to sneak a word home, ask Katy to let Carla know, yeah? She didn’t even get confirmation I’d landed.’

  Trev groaned. ‘Sorry. I thought she might have passed that on, at least.’

  ‘Yeah, never mind. She knows now. Shall we go over the mess and get some scran? I’m starving.’

  Morgan fell into step with them as they made their way over to get food. ‘How’s everything at home?’

  ‘Bit tense,’ Regan admitted. At Morgan’s encouraging smile, he finally let a little bit of his guard down. ‘Kelly’s descended.’

  ‘Oh, Christ—not her!’ Morgan grimaced.

  ‘You remember her?’

  ‘Can’t really forget her. Face like an angel, gob like a Gatling gun. I’ve never known a woman to fire out so many instructions in twenty seconds.’