Michael Asher by The Real Bravo Two Zero Read Free Book Online Page A

depression, with signs of erosion and tiny caves cut into the rock walls. I looked at McNab's and Ryan's descriptions again � Ryan's in particular was very specific, recording that the overhang went back well under the wadi wall, and that the detached rock stood about seven feet high. I was cer�tain this couldn't be it � the caves were no more than eroded apertures, too small to have hidden even a dog. I was beginning to think that either I had made an error in my map-reading or there had been no LUP here at all when I stumbled on a cul-de-sac at the end of a third branch-wadi. I stared at it, amazed at what I had found. The space was perhaps ten metres wide and filled with vegetation and stones. On the eastern side was a deep rock overhang, like a shelter, enclosing a pocket of shade. There was a smaller overhang to the right, divided from the larger one by a vast, detached boulder, almost pyramid-shaped, behind which a group of men huddling together might have been completely hidden. I went over the descriptions yet again and knew there could be no possible doubt. I was standing on one of the sacred sites of late-twentieth-century Special Operations. I had found Bravo Two Zero's LUP. As cover from view, the wadi-end was perfect, but as a defensive position, as McNab himself says, it left much to be desired. I searched the place thoroughly, thrilled by the knowledge that I was almost certainly the first Westerner to visit this spot since Bravo Two Zero had holed up here in January 1991. This had been the place where the patrol had been compromised and where Vince Phillips had spent his last peaceful night. My search revealed nothing but the rim of a canvas bucket, tucked between some stones, but I pulled at it gingerly, knowing there could still be booby traps here, even ten years later. Luckily, there was no flash-bang, and when I examined it I couldn't be certain whether it was British army issue or some Bedouin thing. Letting it go, I scrambled out of the wadi on the northern side, trying to match my view against what McNab and Ryan might have seen as the day dawned on the morning of 23 January 1991, ten years before. Although McNab's MSR could not be seen from here because of the dead ground, I knew it was there, no more than a stone's throw away, because our convoy of four orange and white GMCs was parked up there, on my side of the granite ridge that cut across the desert to the north. Due east lay a rambling clutch of what appeared to be farm-buildings and a water-tower among sparse bushes and shrubs, standing on a flat-topped hill. Curiously, McNab does mention seeing a house with trees and a water-tower, but due south of this position rather than east, where I could see none. Even more curiously, he cites an almost identical settlement � trees, water-tower, a building � as having stood due east of the point where the patrol had been dropped by helicopter, which, according to him, lay twenty kilometres south of here. Ryan does not report having seen the farm at all, but recalls having heard dogs barking within 500 metres of the helicopter drop-off point, which he says was only two kilometres south of the place I was standing. If I had come here expecting to get a clear picture of what had really happened, I was disappointed. The only thing I could be sure of was that I had found the LUP. CHAPTER five THE MORE I LOOKED AT THE farm-house, the nearer it appeared. I could have sworn it was less than a kilo�metre away. Of course, it might not have been there at all ten years ago, but even so, it was still possible that some�one there might at least be able to give me hearsay information, or even put me in touch with a witness. I decided to go up to the house, pacing out my way with the Magellan as I did so. The ground was flattish and stony, interspersed with patches of baked clay, but there was another plunging wadi between me and the house which had signs of cultivation in its bed. As I slithered down the