Free Zero Option by Chris Ryan

loving care of the MT section, which at once set about destroying their glamour and making them look as nondescript as possible. By the time our lads went down to take delivery of the bikes their appearance had changed completely. Not only had every trace of scarlet paint been scraped, rubbed or grit- blasted off and replaced by a drab sand-colour, but the engine numbers had also been ground .off the crank cases with emery wheels and the serial numbers scraped off the frames. The ignition keys had been stripped of their numbers so that no identification remained, and the engineers had cut different numbers of notches in their rims, one to seven, so that they could still be matched to the right bikes.

As Whinger remarked, such treatment didn't exactly enhance the value of the machines - but then, after the operation had gone down, we weren't planning to auction them off in the main souk in Tripoli.

We'd all ridden quads before, but we got a quick run-down on this latest model from Mike Molloy, the MT officer, a grizzled little terrier of a captain. 'They're fully automatic,' he said, sitting on one to demonstrate.

'No clutch. The gear pedal's this one, by your left foot.

As you move off, just keep coming up with your toe Super Low, One, Two, Three, Four . For reverse, push this red button on the panel between the handlebars, then down with the gear lever. Nothing to it.

'Watch your starts, though. The motor's quite poky,

and if you give it too much throttle it can put you on your back. As you'll see from the manual, wheelies are not recommended.' To demonstrate his point he started the engine, kicked into gear and revved up sharply. For a second I thought he'd overdone it. The bike seemed to leap into the air. It shot forward, but at the same time the front wheels came high offthe ground so that it was almost vertical, and Mike was clinging on like a jockey on the back of a rearing horse. A tiny bit more power and he'd have gone right over backwards, but in fact he came down safely and switched off. 'See what I mean?' he said.

'Another thing to look out for is the tyres. As you realise, they're designed to operate at very low pressures - two point nine p.s.i. - cross-country. If you find you've got to run on tarmac, blow 'em up to at least double that or you'll knacker them.'

We were given basic instruction in maintenance changing wheels, mending punctures, adjusting brakes, fiddling carburettor jets and so on - but Stew Stewart arranged to come back another day and go through the drills for things like ignition faults and fuel blockages.

Most of the guys ignored the manuals that came with the bikes, but a couple of them gave short, satirical readings from the printed instructions. Whinger started honking off in a pseudo-Japanese voice: '“Always check for obstacles before operating in a new area.”' He gave a short, sardonic laugh. 'Thanks, mate. Just send us a load of large-scale maps of eastern Libya, all five thousands sheets! “Always obey local off-road riding laws and regulations.” Phone the Libyan Embassy, Geordie, and ask for a copy of the desert off-highway code. “Never go fast over the top of a hill.” For fuck's sake! If Gadaffi's nasties come after us I'll be going like shit off a shovel, I can tell you, even if I'm right on the summit of the biggest bloody mountain in North Africa.'
    That afternoon we loaded into a four-tonner and drove away to the Brecon Beacons for practice over rough terrain - through mud and water, up, down and across steep grass“ slopes. For. me , this was another psycho logical hang-up to be overcome. It was a motorbike accident which had led to my getting captured in Iraq: as the squadron had been moving up to a new location in the desert I'd dropped into a hole and smashed my left arm - and then, as an American casevac team was lifting me out along with other wounded, the chopper had been shot down. Now, once again, I was going to be riding a bike behind the lines in