Read Online Street Soldier by Andy McNab - Free Book Online Page B

could never have imagined that Gaz’s death, which had driven him into the gym that day, would change the course of his life so totally. Hard work had got him a life, pay, mates. For the first time ever he had plans that extendedbeyond the next time he could get a car, get wasted, get laid – ideally all on the same evening.
    After his parole Sean had done his six-month Combat Infantryman’s Course at Catterick, in Yorkshire, his first time beyond the M25. Then he had been posted with the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, part of the 1st Armoured Infantry Brigade, based in Tidworth, on Salisbury Plain. The Fusiliers used the Warriors, and that was what had sold the regiment to him.
    The time he had spent inside felt like years ago – a different life led by a different person.
    He looked across at the soldier opposite him. Toni Clark. She winked at him from beneath the rim of her helmet and he smiled back. Like him, she had the tactical recognition flash of the Fusiliers on her sleeves: a square divided into two triangles, blood red on top and mustard yellow underneath.
    She was a tall, well-built West Indian woman in her mid-twenties, and the moment Sean set eyes on her he had fallen in love . . . with the 2-litre 1992 Ford Escort Cosworth that she drove and spent most of her pay on. Sean was the one member of the platoon who understood half of her technical talk, and once she realized that he really was interested in the car and not just a kid trying to get into her knickers, they had bonded.
    Not that he would mind getting into her knickers, ifthe right time came up and they were a long, long way away from the army. It had been drilled into him, and into everyone, many times during training. Relationships between soldiers were Not Allowed.
    You go into combat on the understanding that your fellow soldiers will support you equally and without bias. They need to know and trust that this will be the case in return. You will assist each other exclusively on the basis of need, not on who you happen to be shagging.
    Right now, shagging was the last thing on Sean’s mind.
    He gripped his SA80 automatic rifle. He had got to know it well in the past year. It looked like something out of a science fiction movie, with its stubby barrel, its curved magazine behind the pistol grip, the blunt stock with all the workings crammed into it, and the ACOG – the Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight – clamped to the top, looking like a small weapon itself. Sean could strip and snap one back together again blindfolded. And he would be the first to admit that holding and firing one – loosing off NATO standard 5.56mm ammunition at over 600 rounds per minute – was nothing short of awesome.
    The Warrior thundered to a halt and a voice barked through each soldier’s earpiece via the PRR – the Personal Role Radio mounted in a khaki pack on everysoldier’s left shoulder which kept them wired into each other.
    ‘ Move! ’
    The rear door hissed open on its pistons. Curtis West and Ravi Mitra were first out, and Sean was on his feet, spilling out of the back with the others. As his boots hit the ground, he snapped his weapon up to his shoulder, scanning the ground ahead and around. Soldiers never focused on just what lay in front. They made sure they were aware of attack from all quarters and ready to respond.
    Dust from the Warrior settled around them; they looked like ghosts fading under the sun. Sean dropped to the ground, one knee up, the other in the dirt, staring through the ACOG with both eyes open. It had taken him a while to get used to this – taking in the ACOG’s enhanced view and the natural sight of his own eye at the same time – but now it was second nature. Closing one eye meant shutting yourself off from everything apart from what you saw through the small aperture, and that was suicide. By keeping both eyes open, a soldier stayed aware of everything around him. He got the full field of vision from both eyes, with a magnified