Andy fidgeted uncomfortably in the coach seat. It was an old coach and most of the seats were lumpy and uncomfortable, some with springs poking through the tattered and frayed covers. He’d tried sleeping, God knows he needed some. He had been awake since Monday morning; he had possibly managed to steal an hour of sleep here and there, but he wasn’t aware of having been able to do that. During the events of the last few days, in the periods when things had been quiet enough to try for some rest, his mind wouldn’t turn off, wouldn’t stop thinking about the kids and Jenny.

Running the same things over and over; the last two or three telephone conversations . . . he’d given Leona and Jenny an early warning. They’d had time to get in the essentials and get home and lie low. That’s all they had to do now, just lie low and let this thing play out.

Leona was a sensible, clever girl. Even though he’d not had time to put into crystal-clear words why she was in danger, why she couldn’t go home, Andy was sure she’d do as she was told. But the possible pursuit of some shadowy men from God knows where was only half the equation.

He wondered how things were in London; a big city, a lot of people - it didn’t take a genius to work out how nasty things could get if the British authorities had been caught on the hop by the oil cut-off. And knowing how useless the government in his adopted country could be at preparing for anything out of the ordinary - unseasonably heavy rain, too many leaves on the track, a drier than average summer - the prognosis wasn’t great.

He conjured up an image of Jenny and the kids at Jill’s house. Jill, a loudmouth with a big personality - a woman who quite honestly grated on his nerves, would be looking after them. He could visualise them huddled together in front of the radio, or her expensive plasma TV, hanging on every word from the newsreaders, eating tinned peaches and worrying . . . maybe even about him.

Private Peters, who was on driving duty, stirred.

‘Headlights up ahead,’ he called out over his shoulder to Andy, spread out across the row of seats behind.

That roused him instantly. His eyes snapped open. He shook away the muddy-headed drowsiness and once more swept thoughts and worries for his family to one side.

‘Kill our lights and stop!’

Peters turned the coach’s lights off, brought the vehicle to a standstill and quickly turned off the engine. It was then that Andy realised he’d made a really stupid call. He was reminded of the first time he and the other engineers had encountered Carter’s platoon, stranded out in the desert - and how lucky they’d been that time, not to have been shot at.

Whoever those lights belonged to had almost certainly seen them as well.

The lights on the road up ahead winked off in response. That wasn’t good.

He saw half-a-dozen muzzle flashes, and a moment later the windshield of the coach exploded. Peters jerked violently in the driver’s seat - a pale blizzard of seating foam blew out of the back of his seat and fluttered down like snowflakes. He flopped forward on to the steering-wheel.

He heard Westley’s voice, bellowing coarsely from a seat two rows further back. ‘This is a fuckin’ kill box! Everyone out!’

The firing from up the road continued, shots whistling in through the exploded windshield, down the middle of the coach as the men squeezed out of their seats and converged in the central aisle. The soldier beside Andy, scrambling towards the steps beside the driver’s seat, was thrown off his feet. He heard the exhaled ‘oof’ of the man, winded by the chest impact, the jangle of his equipment and webbing and the crumpled thud as he hit the floor.

‘Shit! They’re covering the exit!’ yelled Westley.

Andy, squatting on his haunches behind the ineffectual cover of the seat in front of him, looked around. They were sitting ducks in the coach.

‘Out of the windows!’ he shouted hoarsely.

Westley picked up on that and echoed the order with a much louder bark as he smashed the nearest window to him with the butt of his rifle.

‘Come on! Fuckin’ move your arses!’

Windows all along the length of the coach shattered, and the men tumbled out of the coach and landed heavily on the road outside.

Andy, being right at the front, just behind the prone form of Peters was trapped. He needed to get to his feet in order to roll out over the open frame of the window beside him, but the shots were still whistling down the coach, every now and then thudding into the head-rest beside him, blasting away another chunk of his meagre cover.

He recognised the deeper chatter of a heavy machine-gun being fired from somewhere ahead, not dissimilar to the Minimi this platoon had used to suppress the mob back in Al-Bayji to great effect. He realised he might as well be cowering behind a wet paper bag. Those high calibre rounds were having no trouble shredding their way through the coach.

He just needed a second’s pause in the firing to stand half a chance.

Outside on the road, he heard the lighter clatter of the platoon’s SA80s, zeroing in on the muzzle flashes up the road.

And that bought him his pause.

Shit, here we go.

Andy stood up and hurled himself out of the open frame into the darkness of the night outside. He covered his head and neck with his arms, suspecting that if a single high calibre round didn’t tear the top of his head off, he would undoubtedly smash his skull out on the concrete below.

He landed on his back, instantly winded, and stunned by the impact. The flickering lights, and tracer streaks in the air just above his face, were a blurred and beautiful kaleidoscope. If his lungs hadn’t been struggling so desperately to get some air back in them, this would have been a beautiful moment. He felt a hand fumble clumsily across his face and chin until it found the collar of his jacket and began to pull on it, dragging him roughly across the pitted and jagged surface of the road. By the flickering light of the muzzle flashes coming from the lads, he looked up and saw the bearded face of Mike, grimacing with the exertion, and beside him, Lance Corporal Westley calmly squirting short bursts of covering fire.

In that dreamy, stoned moment he felt like drunkenly announcing to both of them they were his bestest bloody mates ever . . . no really, you guys are just the best.

Another of the lads tumbled out from the coach above him, almost landing right on top of him.

‘For fuck’s sake Warren, you fucking clumsy ape!’ shouted Westley, still firing.

Mike continued to drag Andy, and as they rounded the back of the coach, he felt the fog of concussion beginning to clear.

Mike’s jacket exploded with a puff of cotton lining. Andy felt a light spray of warmth on his cheeks.

‘Fucking bitch!’ the Texan yelled as he dropped to his knees and clutched his side.

Andy, almost match fit again, scrambled to his feet, and pushed Mike round the corner of the coach. ‘Are you hit?’ he shouted.

Mike looked at him with incredulity. ‘Of course I’m fucking hit!’

Andy squatted down and pulled aside Mike’s jacket, lifted up his ‘Nobody Fucks with Texas’ T-shirt, bloodied and tattered as if a chainsaw had been rammed through it. By the wan light of the moon, he could see nothing.

‘Here, I have torch,’ said Erich leaning against the rear of the coach beside them. He flicked on a penlight and handed it to him.

Andy studied the wound. There was no entry hole, just a deep gash along the side of his waist. The shot had glanced down his side.

‘Ah, you’re bloody lucky, it’s nothing, Mike.’

Mike’s eyes widened. ‘Nothing? Try being on the goddamned receiving end of nothing.’

They heard Westley bellow an order from around the corner of the coach. ‘Fuck this! Pull back lads! Round the back! Now!’

A moment later, the small area of shelter which Mike, Andy and the soldier all but filled, was inundated with the rest of the platoon, rolling, diving, flopping into the narrow space; a tangle of panting, adrenalin-fried bodies.

‘Jesus-effing-Christ, those cunts up the road have got us cold,’ one of the men grunted between gasps.

The deep rattle of the heavy machine-gun up ahead of them ceased, as did the lighter chatter of several assault rifles.

Silence, except for the sound of laboured breathing all around him.

‘Hell this is fun. We should do it again sometime,’ muttered Mike.

Andy looked at Westley. ‘What will they do now?’

‘Shit, I don’t—’

‘Well, what would you do?’

‘Outflank,’ the Lance Corporal replied quickly, automatically.

Andy nodded. ‘Then that’s why they’ve gone quiet.’ He looked around at them. ‘We’re all jammed together on top of each other. We’re dead if we stay here. We’ve got to make a run for it. How are you fellas for ammo?’

‘I’m out,’ replied a voice in the dark.

‘Me too,’ said another, several more of them echoed that.

‘Just what’s in me clip,’ Westley added.

‘Couple of rounds left,’ said Derry, ‘after that, all I got is colourful language.’

‘Great,’ muttered Andy.

They heard a voice calling out. It was unclear, garbled by the distance and the echo bouncing back off distant rocky peaks either side of the road.

‘Shhh, hear that?’ muttered the Lance Corporal. ‘Anyone hear that?’

Silence, except for a gentle breeze that rustled through the shrivelled, dried trees above them on the slopes. Then they heard the faint voice calling out again, a bit clearer this time.

‘That sounded English,’ said Derry.

There was another long silence that settled about them, broken only by the rasping sound of their breathing, fluttering with tension.

‘Hey! You guys behind the coach! Hold up!’

Andy heard one of the boys whispering, ‘Is that a Yank?’

The voice again. ‘You guys! You American? You British?’

Westley turned to Andy, ‘For fuck’s sake. They’re Yanks!’

Andy cupped his hands. ‘We’re British! Hold your fire!’

There was no reply for a few seconds, then they heard the same man shout, ‘Come out in the open where we can see you, drop your guns!’

Westley turned to Andy. ‘You reckon they’re pukka?’

‘I don’t think we’ve got a choice anyway. I’ll go first.’

Andy took a deep breath and stood up, then with hands raised, he walked out from behind the coach, his face screwed up in anticipation of a shot slamming home. But no one fired.

He heard Westley mutter behind him, ‘The fight’s over lads. Come on.’

The Lance Corporal and the others emerged reluctantly, one by one, their hands raised, and their empty weapons left behind.

To Andy it felt like an eternity, exposed like that, knowing that even in the dark, whoever was out there had their cross-hairs trained on them, fingers resting lightly on triggers and watching them silently.

After a few moments, he heard the unmistakable clump of army boots walking down the road towards him. A torch snapped on, into Andy’s face.

‘You’re British, huh?’ said a deep, gravelly American voice.

‘Yes.’

‘How many?’

‘Fuck knows. There were fifteen of us, before you started firing, mate,’ snapped Andy.

‘Shit,’ said the voice behind the torch. ‘Real sorry about that.’

Two others were killed on the road beside the coach, Private Craig and the platoon medic, Benford.

Westley saw to them, collecting their dog-tags after Benford’s opposite number in the US platoon had briefly looked them over and pronounced all four of them dead. He and the other squaddies picked them up and laid them out side by side at the edge of the road.

Andy, meanwhile, realised Mike was nowhere to be seen. He finally found the American at the back of the coach, holding Farid. The old man had taken a hit in the stomach. His pale checked shirt was almost black with blood. On his belly, a small, perfectly round hole slowly oozed blood that looked as dark as oil by torchlight. But beneath him, the pooling blood, and shreds of expelled tissue, spoke of a much larger exit wound.

Mike looked up at Andy, silently shaking his head. ‘Not good,’ he said quietly.

Farid stared up at Mike with glassy eyes. He spoke, but in Arabic; private words, not for either of them. He spoke in short bursts, punctuated by painful spasms that caught his breath and made him screw up his eyes and grimace.

A US soldier approached down the aisle. He pointed his torch down on to the old man’s face. ‘Who’s the—’

‘Our translator,’ interrupted Andy. He didn’t want to know what euphemism the young American sergeant was about to use.

‘Our friend,’ added Mike, looking up pointedly at him.

The sergeant seemed to have the sense not to say anything, and nodded silently. He turned round and shouted up the aisle, ‘Get the medic! We got a live one here!’

Mike stroked the old man’s face. ‘Hey, we got some help coming. You hang in there.’

Farid focused on him and managed a faint smile. ‘I know you are good man. Good man inside.’

‘Just a normal guy, that’s all,’ said Mike. ‘Save it for later, okay?’

Farid placed a bloodied hand on his arm. ‘God is open door to all good men.’

The medic squeezed past Andy and crouched down to look at the old man. His examination was brief, and after gently easing the old man over and inspecting the rear wound he looked up at his sergeant, barely shook his head before saying, ‘I can hit him with morphine, but that’s really all I can do.’

‘Do it then,’ said the sergeant.

The drug had an almost instant effect, and Farid sagged, no longer tensing and flexing with the pain. He smiled. ‘I see my family soon. My son . . .’ the rest he muttered in Arabic.

‘You go see your son, and your wife,’ said Mike quietly.