Once A Pilgrim: a breathtaking, pulse-pounding SAS thriller. James Deegan

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      Nothing was left to chance: that was the only way to make sure – or as sure as possible – that you walked back out of the room you’d breached.

      As ever, the intelligence picture was imperfect. The informant – who had been promised a lot of US dollars, a new ID and six seats on a US Air Force Globemaster out of Baghdad for himself and his family – was confident that Joker would be at the premises this evening, preparing a giant improvised explosive device for an attack on civilians in the central Shia district of Sadr City. What he could not say for sure was how many of Joker’s lieutenants and underlings would be there.

      Carr thought back to the conversation he’d had with the spook who had provided the intelligence for tonight’s target.

      ‘We want them alive,’ the spook had said, looking down his nose at the thickset Scot – a difficult thing to do, given that Carr was a good six inches taller than he. ‘Especially Joker.’

      Carr had shrugged. ‘Is that so?’ he’d said, with a smile. ‘You cannae even tell me what we’re up against.’

      ‘It’s very important,’ the intelligence officer had said.

      ‘Really?’ Carr had said. ‘Well, you’ll get him in whatever state he comes out of that building.’

      And he’d stared directly into the eyes of the spook, until the man had been forced to look away. ‘But we need…’ he’d said, almost plaintively.

      ‘What you need is to know what it’s like to step into a room where there’s an armed man trying to kill you. When you know that, then you’ll understand why that’s not an order I’ll be giving my men.’

      Truth was, Carr didn’t have a whole lot of respect for the intelligence community: a first in Politics from Cambridge and a nice, soft pair of hands were not much use out here in the nightmarish killing zones of Baghdad, and this particular miscreant was even worse than most of them. Carr had taken an instant dislike to the superior little fucker – not that the answer would have been any different with a spook he did like.

      ‘One chance,’ he’d said, finally. ‘He’ll get one fucking chance, and that’s if he’s lying face down on the floor when my guys go in. If not, you get him in whatever state he comes out.’

      Geordie Skelton threw away the dregs of his tea.

      ‘Look on the bright side,’ he said, to Carr. ‘The Squadron’ll run a damned sight better once I’m in charge.’

      Carr chuckled: Skelton was due to replace him as Sergeant Major at the end of the tour.

      ‘I might come back and see how you’re getting on,’ he said. ‘If I fancy a laugh.’

      He looked at his watch.

      01:15 hrs.

      Fifteen minutes until they rolled out of the gate of the FOB on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, which was home to TF Dagger.

      ‘Time to go, Geordie,’ he said. ‘Mount up.’

      Geordie Skelton grinned and stepped up into his vehicle, which would bring up the rear of the mobile column. Carr walked down the line, telling each vehicle commander in turn to mount up, until he reached the front. The plan called for Carr to lead the blokes to the lay-up position, from where the Squadron would move the final couple of hundred metres onto the target on foot. He would remain at the rear with Geordie and his driver, the OC, a signaller and his own driver, a young Brummie trooper called ‘Wayne’ Rooney.

      Rooney had joined the Squadron from The Rifles six months earlier, and he was already a promising blade. He’d looked momentarily downcast when Carr had told him he was missing out on the assault.

      ‘Everyone has to step out to work with the HQ now and then, Wayne,’ Carr had said. ‘Your turn tonight.’

      Rooney was already in his seat, and Carr winked at him as he climbed aboard.

      ‘Alright, son,’ he said. ‘Ready to roll?’

      ‘Yes, sir,’ said Rooney, not yet comfortable with calling his Sergeant Major by his first name. The informality of the SAS, when compared with the line infantry, could be disconcerting at first.

      Carr thought about correcting him but decided against, on the basis that it might worsen the young trooper’s discomfort. Instead, he smiled, strapped on his Kevlar helmet, and grabbed his Diemaco C7 – a Special Forces M4 variant fitted with a heavy duty barrel, night-sight, and a flash suppressor.

      The vehicle moved forward, and each vehicle behind followed on.

      The time to target was twenty minutes.

      They picked their way north, past shuttered shops, burned-out cars, and fire-gutted houses. Before the war, Dora had been a predominantly Assyrian Christian neighbourhood, but in the chaos of the early occupation the lunatic fringe had moved in and begun a programme of religious cleansing. It seemed like every third house was daubed with symbols which had been used to identify their occupants as Shia, or Christian, or Mandaeists – whatever they were.

      The streets were deserted – you had to be crazy to be out and about at this time of night. But that meant that anyone on the streets was crazy, so the men manned their vehicle-mounted weapons and scanned the route for enemy activity as they progressed to the target area.

      As they passed the bloated corpse of a donkey, Carr looked at his map with the route marked on it.

      ‘Next left, Wayne,’ he said, glancing at the young Brummie.

      ‘Yes, sir,’ said Rooney.

      ‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Carr, under his breath. He shook his head and grinned: it was too far back to remember, but he’d probably been just as bad himself as a new trooper.

      Twenty minutes after leaving the FOB, the vehicles pulled over and went static at the LUP.

      The teams all dismounted and shook out into the order of march, ready to move towards the target, each man going down on one knee and scanning the immediate area for any threat, the pitch black turning green in their night vision.

      Carr walked over to Geordie and the Squadron Commander for a final brief.

      Everything was good, no issues.

      Carr keyed his radio mike, and sent one transmission. ‘All teams, move to final assault positions.’

      The men started to go forwards slowly towards the target. It was only two hundred metres, but it took a full ten minutes, moving quietly, carefully: they’d been in Dora enough times to know that the locals would react aggressively as soon as they worked out what was going on. Every man in the area owned a gun, and most would relish the chance to have a pop. They’d all wake up as soon as the explosive charges effected the breaches, but there was no sense in giving them a head start.

      Eventually, the assault teams were at their final positions, and awaiting the radio transmission for the show to commence.

      Carr carried out a check on the comms to confirm that everyone was ready to go.

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