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  ‘Look, you take the snipe stick, Spade, I’ll take yours. We have to act now. There ain’t no time. I’m gonna get to hut 1. You back me up with the Barrat. For now we have to assume both Trigg and Samson are toast, otherwise where the fuck was the suppressing fire from the back? They ain’t making their presence known so I think they’ve copped it, mate. We can’t run - we have to take these fucks out. I think they knew we were coming. I need you with my Barrat to help me get to hut 1. Once I’m there I’ll try and do what I do best...’

  ‘Which is?’ asked Spade who was now calmer.

  ‘Get shit done, of course. Back me up. I’m gonna circle to the right, flank ‘em, then come up from behind taking cover from the car near the burning fuel barrel - a long shot, I know, but the only shot at this point, you follow?’

  ‘I dig. Use you COM and let me know what you’re doing. What you gonna do once your there?’

  ‘Nothing fancy, bro, just try and kill the fuckers. Simple.’

  Running in zigzags, Tommy sprinted and ran to hut 1. Spade gave support with the sniper rifle and looked for Tommy in his scope. He saw Tommy kill two men with his M16 - both shots were close range – then Spade lost Tommy for a second. He saw him reappear and slit a man’s throat from behind. There were some more shots but Tommy again was out of focus. Spade waited impatiently for a glimpse of Tommy, or anybody. The firing had stopped at least.

  It had been a few minutes now. Spade decided to get up and go and try and find Tommy.

  As he got closer he shouted ‘Tommy? You ok, mate?’

  There was no reply.

  The night’s sandy wind could be heard again, mixed with the roaring flames from the burning fuel barrel, as Spade edged closer.

  There were dead bodies scattered on the desert floor and all around hut 1 which was also on fire, but no sign of the rest of the men. Spade stayed alert, frosty, just as Tommy had said. Spade preferred the gunfire compared with the eerie quietness as he at least knew were he stood when in the shit. He paced slowly towards hut 2.

  ‘Tommy? You in there? Trigg? Samson?’

  Still no reply as Spade edged closer.

  Getting to the door Spade switched back to night vision as he could see no lights were on in hut 2. He grabbed the door handle and twisted the doorknob ever so slowly.

  It seemed he heard the shots before he felt them.

  There were two shots at first, then a third, as Spade fell and tried in vain to keep his stomach intact with his hands as he followed his rifle in dropping to the floor.

  His night vision goggles had half slipped off one eye. In one eye he could see the floor in bright green, in the other he could see the pretty orange and yellow flames of the fires all around. He could kind of hear a muffled laugh, then he saw some boots approach him. Everything quickly started to fuzz. He couldn’t feel pain, just a feeling of coldness as he slipped away.

  Chapter Two

  Standing above Spade, Trigg admired his handy work.

  ‘Get some! Now that’s what a fucking double-barrel shotty does at close range, Samson. Fucking bang-bang-bang, none of this tip-tap silenced shit. Look at him, deader than dead, not even any need for a double tap. Nice.’

  ‘I agree,’ added Samson as he lightly tapped Spade’s head with his boot to check for signs of life.

  ‘Look at him, all zombiefied ’n’ shit. Tell you what, this plan of yours, Trigg, it’s going well so far. I’m liking it. I’m liking it very much.’

  ‘It’s how we roll, baby,’ laughed Trigg as he high-fived Samson.

  Coming out of hut 2, four Iraqi men stood and joined Trigg and Samson. Two of the men were dragging Tommy, who was unconscious, by his boots. Another man had a big suitcase which seemed heavy as he lowered it to the sandy floor. The last man approached Trigg smiling. He had a fuzzy old-fashioned styled side-parting haircut with a thick moustache reminiscent of Saddam Hussein’s. This man was obviously in charge as he said something in his native tongue and sent one of his men running round the back of hut 2 for their jeep.

  Wearing more or less the same attire, which was full combat gear, the Iraqi men were heavily armed and looked ready for battle.

  The man who approached Trigg spoke decent English as he shook Trigg’s hand firmly.

  ‘I trust we are done now, yes?’ he asked as another man opened the suitcase. It was full of heroin.

  ‘It seems so, my friend,’ laughed Trigg as he cut one of the foil bags then wet his finger as he dabbed it into the heroin. He smiled. Its bitter taste told him that the heroin was of high quality.

  ‘Now that is good shit,’ Trigg nodded as he approved the merchandise. Trigg knew good shit from bad when it came to heroin.

  ‘Please though, my friend, just tell me you’re gonna kill this fuck, will you? Why the fuck did you want him alive?’

  Chuckling as he helped his men put Tommy in the back of the jeep which had been brought round, the man in charge shrugged his shoulders. ‘We need him, Trigg. I say before - a soldier boy good for us, we can sell him, we can trade him, he good for our cause, gives us good, er - how do you say? - stature, respect. We also maybe have fun with him, you know, kick and punch him a little, and try out some new torture methods.’

  ‘But he is gonna die, right? We need him dead, comprende?’

  Samson asked as he looked nervously at Trigg.

  ‘Yes, but we have to gain some things first. I assure you men he won’t be seeing your lands again. It doesn’t matter if we do a beheading on camera, or a shooting, or maybe he will starve to death. Who knows, but dead he will be, very soon my friends, very, very soon!’ The man in charge looked so happy and excited to have a British soldier as a captive, he felt like he had struck gold.

  The deal was that Trigg and his men took out the men in hut 1. These men weren’t to be trusted, and the deal between the group of militants and Trigg was that Trigg killed them and delivered a British soldier. In return, Trigg got a case full of uncut heroin which he was to get back to England and offer as tribute to X Company.

  Making his way to the back of the jeep, Trigg watched Tommy, who was coming around, slowly opening his eyes. Tommy’s hands and feet were bound with rope and he couldn’t move much. He opened his eyes fully and saw Trigg staring at him.

  ‘Yeah, wake up faggot,’ screamed Trigg, ‘you see, you see what you made me do? You coulda been part of this Tommy, part a something special. You could have gone back with me, joined X Company, and maybe got your own turf, who knows? But now look at you - a soon to be dead motherfucker.’

  Confused and hurt Tommy looked at Trigg and shook his head. ‘Don’t do this Trigg. I know we have our differences but we were friends, Trigg. They are gonna do God knows what and kill me, you know that? I don’t deserve it, Trigg, come on, tell them to let me go! Come on, I’m going to be a dad, mate, a fucking dad, if not for me, set me loose for Emma and the baby. Come on, Trigg.’ Tommy looked in

  Trigg’s eyes but didn’t see any pity, any hope of him coming round. What Tommy once knew of Trigg was gone, and the cold-hearted greed-driven madman was what was left.

  Looking back at Tommy, Trigg aimed his gun at Tommy’s head. He moved his arm in a circle as he toyed with Tommy’s look of fear and pain.

  He gave Tommy a going away present in the form of a bullet to the shoulder. Tommy screamed in pain.

  The Iraqi men shouted in their own language as the man in charge of the Iraqis did too. ‘He is no good dead. Now we go my friend, now we go.’

  Rushing into the vehicle, all the Iraqis zoomed off into the windy night as Trigg stood with Samson and headed back to base.

  ‘Well, they got Tommy, and we just got made, eh, Samson. Fair trade don’t you reckon?’

  ‘Fucking is, Trigg,’ agreed Samson.

  Both Samson and Trigg looked around at the small patch of carnage littered with bodies.

  ‘Right Samson, we burn this whole place up, Dave and Spade too. We will say they fought bravely blah blah, they will get medals and shit,
will do their peoples proud.’

  ‘And Tommy?’

  ‘Oh fuck him; he’s an MIA (missing in action) my friend. Gone, toast. Fuck me, just imagine what they’ll do to him, ouch!’

  ‘Yeah’ sniggered Samson ‘He’s in for it all right.’

  Chapter Three

  HULL, COLEFORD PRIMARY SCHOOL – 1983

  ‘Friends are God’s way of taking care of us’, least that is what my mother used to tell me. Most of the time I would disregard my mother’s religious quotations but, for the day I met Tommy, she kind of had a point.

  ‘What a goal!’ cried a big fat kid called Timmy as he celebrated his goal. The playground was always bedlam during playtime, especially in summer. Kids running around going in all-different directions would have made anyone dizzy. It was hard for the playground supervisors to keep an eye on everyone, but they tried their best.

  The supervisors could have done a hell of a lot better on that morning.

  Playing on a small stretch of grass away from most of the noise and schoolyard mayhem, two children were in a world of their own.

  Sat down with his lollipop in his mouth, the little boy finished the daisy-chain and handed it to his little girl friend.

  ‘There you go,’ the little boy said, as he smiled happily, innocently, oblivious to the vultures circling.

  ‘Thank you. You’re my best friend,’ the little girl replied, and passed him a daisy chain in return.

  ‘Wow! Yours is even better and bigger than mine,’ he smiled, putting the chain round his neck. He had no idea this wasn’t what boys did. He had no idea that boys were supposed to be tough and didn’t play around making daisy chains with girls.

  ‘We need another player.’ Timmy wasn’t asking, he was telling the young daisy chain maker that his services were needed on the football field.

  Looking terrified he answered quietly, almost under his breath, he was sad ‘but I don’t like football.’

  Timmy approached him ’you what? You don’t like football? But you like playing with girls? Ha-ha!’ Timmy turned to the other boys, all watching and waiting for Timmy to stamp his authority. ‘You are playing football. We are short.’

  He then broke the poor boy’s heart. Walking close to him, the brittle boy quivered with fear as Timmy broke the daisy chain.

  The little boy found guts he never knew he had and kicked big Timmy in his shin. ‘I don’t want to play!’ he cried as he tried to pick his daisy chain up, but Timmy was on him in a flash.

  Kicking the little boy’s legs away from him, Timmy jumped on top of the little boy as he cried, and started to strangle him.

  That’s when I met him, that’s the first day I met Tommy, for that little scared boy was me.

  BANG! Out of nowhere I saw a fist hit Timmy, then again, then again. The look on his face was priceless, as was mine I should imagine, for up to that day that was the scariest moment in my life. I had never known violence, so this was like the scariest thing ever! I would have screamed for my mother if I thought she would have heard me.

  I was truly terrified.

  ‘Get off him fat boy,’ Tommy snarled as he stood with both fists clenched.

  ‘But Tommy, look at him, he’s a girl! He plays with girls and makes daisy chains.’

  ‘He’s a girl, is he?’ Tommy asked as he walked towards me and offered his hand. I took his hand and stood up, behind him.

  Spotting the daisy chain on the floor, Tommy picked it up. He quickly fixed it as the other kids looked on, wondering what he would do next. He put it on around his neck, he looked at me. ‘Fasten it would you?’ I did as he asked. He then looked at all the other kids, addressing them with his seniority.

  ‘Look. Everybody look! I wear daisy chains.’ His eyes wandered the crowd of kids which had gathered, waiting for a challenger to fight him.

  ‘Now who wants to call me a girl?’

  Nobody did. Ever.

  ‘The name’s Tommy,’ he smiled and offered his hand. I shook it with a beaming smile whilst wiping my tears with the other.

  ‘I’m Joey Graziano, and I’m seven.’

  ‘I’m eight next month’ replied Tommy. ‘And on my birthday, my stepmother’s buying me an army suit!’

  ‘Wow’! This kid was soooo cool. We left the girl where she stood and went and played war games, using sticks as guns and berries as grenades.

  From then on we were joined at the hip. We were best friends, no, scratch that...

  We were brothers.

  Chapter Four

  Things just aren’t the same for gangsters these days, the game’s changed. It is a whole new world out there where guns and grot wire have been replaced by lawsuits and back hand deals. The latter was how I wanted get him. You have to make some deals if you want things done, make friends in high places, we could never take Trigg on in a street war, no way. Still, Tommy was Tommy, and who could ever tell him, me? Yeah, right.

  I’d better start from the beginning. Tommy, guess it all starts with him. The man changed my life, saved my life even, because had it been me in his position, I’d have been dead. It could have been me in his position so easily, I still remember that day, as if it were yesterday.

  He saved me. I got my life, he got his, fate some would call it. Me? I think he just always tries to help others, no matter the cost to himself.

  The day in question is not the day I met him, when he saved me from big fat Timmy, no, no, this was the day, the day which would change our lives forever.

  So wise for his age, I swear everybody loved him, including the girls, but Tommy only had eyes for one girl, Emma, whom he had been sweethearts with since he was a late teen. He just stood out from the rest, good at every sport you could imagine, football athletics anything, he excelled. A real character that, always seemed to smile no matter what his predicament and, believe me, life threw him more than his fair share. He had the world at his feet; he was a star amongst all the kids.

  BRANSHOLME, HULL, ENGLAND, 1989

  We were both 13 years old. We had been inseparable for the best part of 6 years. Tommy had taught me how to fight. In return, I had taught Tommy how to do his times tables and helped him with his reading.

  Getting help with schoolwork was hard for Tommy. He had been in and out of different foster homes for a while now, a few years here a few years there. Hardly the best foundations for giving a child a good chance. Yet Tommy was always optimistic. His take on it would be as long as he got fed and had a roof over his head, he wouldn’t kick up a fuss.

  I always asked him over for tea at my house when I could, and my mother thought the sun shone out of his arse after he had helped me so many years back. That was a great thing about my mother. You see some people hold grudges, never forget being wronged by someone.

  My mother was the total opposite. She held love grudges, she never forgot when someone did her a right turn. If someone was nice to her or did her a favour, she wouldn’t forget it for life.

  I’m sure my mother would have adopted Tommy, but my stepfather, total cock that he was, didn’t want any more children. He could hardly bear the sight of me, so one more stray would have probably sent him over the edge. By the time my mother left him, it was too late.

  Tommy and I went to the same school. At first both Tommy’s attendance and work were exemplarily.

  But everything would change.

  What strikes me as odd that morning is that my mother had had a talk with me. She had heard I had stolen a policeman’s helmet, which was true of course as the policeman had stopped to help some people push-start a car in the road. To cut a long story short, he basically took his jacket and helmet off to help the people whose car had stopped.

  Myself, Tommy and a few other kids were hanging out. I saw the helmet, I took it and ran, thinking I was hilarious as my friends laughed and rolled over ’cause the hat was so big for my head it fell over my eyes as I ran, resulting in me tripping over and getting caught by the policeman.

  Being the best and most
lenient policeman I had ever met, he basically let me go with a clip around my ear, trashing the theory that ‘all coppers were bastards’ at the same time. I remember the policeman looking me up and down. A few people from down the street were watching so he couldn’t kick my arse. ‘I’ll let you off with a warning, young man,’ he said. But I could tell if people hadn’t have been around he would of broken his foot off in my arse. Kneeling down to my ear he whispered to me ‘I don’t forget a face. I’ll have you, you little shit.’

  I smiled.

  But with my luck being what it is, the old fuddy duddy from across the street, Mrs Crabber (whom we called Mrs Crapper), had seen the incident, put 2 and 2 together and come up with fucking 16. She basically told my mother I was this and that and I was stealing and blah blah fucking blah. My mother, bless her, knew Mrs Crapper was a walking, talking gobshittter, so took what she said on board and spoke to me. She talked about how crime didn’t pay and to never steal from anyone, and always help people. It was a proper mother-to-son lecture.

  We’ve all been there, so I took her words of advice on the chin. ‘Yes, mam,’ was my reply as I donned my serious face and vowed to be a good lad from now on. How the hell was I to know what was would transpire that day?

  Chapter Five

  There were many old wives’ tales and Urban Legends around my block growing up. Amongst the best was that the German Shepherd dogs in the garden of number 43 were actually werewolves. I knew it wasn’t true but still would never go in the garden should our ball ever go into number 43’s garden. ‘Fuck that’ was the usual response if anybody said ‘go fetch the ball.’

  Another one was of poor old Bethany Green. Word round the goody van was that old Beth was actually called Mary. Now Mary in actual fact had a disfigured face down to an accident with a chip pan many years ago. But, somehow, probably due to kids being kids along with kids being bloody cruel, a story had been concocted which we sort of believed. We believed she was called Mary, and if you stood outside her garden and said ‘Bloody Mary’ 10 times she would come and get you. The story was if she looked at you in the eyes you turned to stone like Medusa did in Clash of the Titans. We tried it once and I fucking nearly shit myself when I saw her. However I ran home and told my mother, who gave me a whack around the head and told me the truth about Bethany Green and her horrible accident. She even made me go cut her grass once a summer after that.