CAMP RUSSELL, TARIN KOWT
The gate slammed behind Matt. He stood there for a moment inside Camp Russell and surveyed the area. Matt wasn’t sure what to make of this new information. The short stroll had helped him put things into perspective. It was obvious that he wasn’t briefed in on something going on, but was it truly as dire as he had first thought?
Looking around, he noticed that in the short time he’d been at Echos the ring road around the base perimeter had been covered with gravel. Things sure moved fast in Afghanistan and nothing is ever as it seems. One minute there’s a dirt path and then blink and it becomes a gravel track, he thought.
As he passed the rear of the gym JJ emerged, carrying some boxes and a plastic bag. ‘Hey there, boss, how’d the meeting go?’
Matt opened his mouth to reply but couldn’t think of the words. ‘It was okay, mate,’ he said finally.
‘Cool. Well, I took the Green Berets for a session – a couple of their lads are good grapplers.’
Matt looked down at JJ’s cut-off camouflage shorts and brown desert boots. Those items, teamed with an orange Adidas running top, would probably not have looked out of place on a Mardi Gras float. He wondered if the Green Berets were suitably impressed by the big guy’s fashion sense.
‘Oh, this came for you,’ said JJ, passing Matt a couple of boxes. ‘The mail came in while you were gone.’
Matt looked down at the mail; there was a box from his mother back in Victoria and a smaller box from London. Rachel? he wondered.
‘JJ, we might have a problem, mate,’ said Matt, turning his attention back to the platoon sergeant. ‘While I was in Echos I met this Dutch intelligence chick – she works for their Apaches. She told me about some operation that the SOTG have been conducting that I’ve never even heard of.’
JJ gave a laugh. ‘Nothing unusual there. Compartmented grey operations are the new black where the SAS are concerned, apparently. Seriously, boss, what’s so special about tooling around wearing dish-dash and speaking Pashtu? Commandos were doing the same type of operations sixty years ago in the Pacific. The SAS are a bunch of wankers.’
‘Yeah, well, I think there’s more to it than that. I need some time to put it all together in my head, to be honest. I have to be careful here because I think we’re being played.’ Matt walked on with JJ and watched as two of his platoon, Eddie and Kiwi, patiently stretched rolls of cling wrap across the door of the second accommodation block. They were taking extreme care to ensure that there were no visible lines.
‘Can’t you just ask the CO? If there’s a problem, you should just raise it. I mean, what’s stopping you?’
‘Nothing,’ said Matt. He thought for another moment. ‘Other than the fact that we are being sent out on missions that the enemy probably already know about and that as a result one of my guys is dead – not to mention the Afghan National Army guys.’
‘Yeah, I see your point.’ JJ moved in front of Matt to block his view of the accommodation block.
‘Right, so what’s all that about then?’ Matt pointed to the goings-on behind JJ.
‘Not sure, boss. Do you want to come to mine for a brew?’
‘No thanks – seriously, though, what are those dudes actually doing?’
‘Those guys? Nothing. Just cleaning up, I guess. Sure you don’t want a coffee? I’ve got a new blend; it’s not the stuff that’s been eaten and thrown up by cats that you officers prefer, but it’s pretty damn good.’
Matt sighed. ‘Nah, I just need to crash out for a bit and think some shit through.’ He watched as the lads JJ was subtly trying to conceal from his view smoothed out the cling wrap. ‘Let’s get together later this afternoon, though. I think it would be a good idea to go over our old patrol reports and see if I can piece some of this together. After that I’ll go see Sam.’
Matt looked again at Eddie, who was now squatting behind his quad bike ten metres from the accommodation door. Kiwi was slightly less visible around the corner of the building, a fire hose nozzle protruding about an inch and aimed at head height.
JJ stepped slightly to his left.
‘I know what you’re doing, JJ.’ Matt moved to get a better view of the two men as they set themselves into position.
JJ laughed. ‘It’s just a bit of fun, blowing off some steam, you know.’
‘Make sure these guys don’t destroy the place, mate. Also, book the range for tomorrow afternoon – let’s go and check zero all the weapons.’
‘Sure thing, boss.’ JJ was hiding a smirk. Matt looked back to the accommodation block just in time to see Cinzano in full flight trying to exit the building. He let out a scream of shock as his face was met with the giant strip of cling wrap.
Now Matt understood what was going on; he had heard some muttering about it in the common room. It had occurred to the lads that Cinzano had established a routine. He would go for a shower every day straight after returning from the gym. Right before his shower, he would go into the toilets and hang his towel over the toilet door. His team devised a plan that started with the removal of all the toilet paper from the cubicles and liberating his towel from the back of the door before he noticed that the toilet roll was missing.
Cinzano came out butt-naked in a desperate search for poo tickets. Then, realising his towel was gone, he sprinted towards his room, where his team were ready for him. They chased him back down the long white corridor, three of the guys spraying him with foam from fire extinguishers while the other two fired BB pellets from a gun they had bought at the markets.
Yelping at the impact of the pellets on his bare butt, Cinzano sprinted towards the exit at the other end of the hallway. Just as he thought he had escaped, his face hit the clear film, the plastic muffling his scream as it stretched across his mouth and around his head. He tripped and fell to the ground just outside the accommodation block. Kiwi calmly finished the job, spraying him from head to toe with water. Naked, soaked and covered in cling wrap, it surely couldn’t get much worse for Cinzano . . . Except it did, as the rest of the members of Yankee Platoon came out from their hiding spots, all armed with baby powder and flour bombs. Cinzano was peppered with the bombs as he lay writhing on the ground. He looked like a giant cannelloni. Yankee Platoon has executed the perfect ambush, thought Matt.
He turned to say something to JJ, but at that moment he saw in the distance Terence Saygen running up the steps of the headquarters building, his troops throwing stores into the back of their Bushmasters out the front. The place was a hive of activity.
‘What’s going on there, do you think?’ said Matt, gesturing towards the scene.
JJ turned his attention from the antics of Yankee Platoon and watched as the SAS guys readied their weapons and carried out team kit inspections.
‘Not sure, boss. What do you think?’
‘Just something else I haven’t been bloody briefed on, mate – but I think it’s high time I go and find out. I’m going to drop these off in my room and then head over there.’
One way or another, Matt vowed as he walked away, I’m getting to the bottom of this Operation Odin’s Raven today.