Crossfire by Andy McNab Read Free Book Online Page B

the
BAOR and during the Cold War. I'd spent two
years in them myself as mechanized infantry, and
remembered them as slow and sluggish. But this
lot had been geared up with a brand-new power
pack so they could scream along at fifty m.p.h.,
keeping pace with the Challengers and Warriors.
They also had brand-new armour all round,
including bar armour to keep the RPGs at bay,
and a turret with a GPMG had been mounted
where the wagon's commander would normally
sit and poke his head out to watch thousands of
Russian tanks screaming towards him.
    Ours was the command vehicle, at the rear
of the column. Dom, Pete and I were crammed
into the back, along with Dave, two medics, the
company commander and his signaller.
    The company commander, a major, was on the
net to another rifle company, Chindit, to tell them
we were leaving early. Chindit were from 2
Lancs, who were defending the OSB (Old State
Building) in the centre of the city.
    They'd be backing us once the contacts started.
The plan was to let the militants run and drive
into the contact area and take us on. As soon as
that happened, Chindit Company, reinforced by
three extra Warriors from Rhett and his recce
platoon, would scream out of the OSB in
their Warriors and cordon them off. With so
many Warriors on the ground, the militants
would have nowhere to run. It was then the job
of both companies to dispose of as many
insurgents as they could in the killing ground
they had created.
    This was just one of the four strike ops that
would be going in tonight. The other companies
from 2 Rifles would be doing the same in other
areas, also with 2 Lancs backing them in their
Warriors. It was going to be one fuck of a party.
    I bent my five-inch plastic IR cyalume stick so
that the glass inside broke, mixing the chemicals
that made the thing glow, though only when
viewed through NVAs.
    Everyone else was doing the same, then attaching
them to the back of their helmet or Osprey. In
the confusion of contact it was a good way of
knowing where your mates were before you
decided to take a shot through your night sight at
a moving body.

11
    It was just as suffocating inside the Bulldog as it
was in the Warrior, even with the mortar hatches
open. Dust and exhaust fumes blasted in as we
roared towards the compound exit.
    Dave sat next to the door handle and pointed
out where all the wagon's shit was located.
'Behind the boss there, morphine and
tourniquets. Spare ammo is here.' He kicked the
metal boxes below his seat with his heel.
    Another rocket went off in the compound. He
waved a finger under the table that held all the
computer and signals kit the company
commander was gobbing off into. 'Pass 'em
about, will you?'
    I leant over and lifted the lid of a battered
plastic picnic cooler. It was packed with 500ml
bottles. Drinking water wasn't in short supply in
the compound. There were pallets of the stuff
people could just help themselves to, and almost
as many squirty bottles of hand cleanser. Out
here, soldiers had to wash their hands every time
they ate, had a dump or simply had nothing else
to do. Sickness and diarrhoea could affect anyone;
get a couple of guys with a bug and soon the
whole company's out of action.
    I threw him the bottle and passed a couple
more round. I reached behind the company
commander and tapped the scabby boots of the
gunner. He reached down from his turret and
grabbed it. Next thing I saw, he was pouring the
contents away and preparing to take a piss into
the empty bottle.
    The company commander pressed a series of
buttons on the control panel in front of him to
switch between the different nets he was listening
to and waffling on. His laptop showed the
positions of all call signs in the city.
    Dom and Pete were squashed up on my left.
Sonia, one of the medics, was by the door. The
other medic, sitting next to Dave, was dressed in
full party gear – body armour, bingo wings,
ballistic glasses, leather gloves. At a nudge from
the CSM he stood up through the hatch