Free Michael Asher by The Real Bravo Two Zero Page A

this was not so, because McNab points out that they used a shuttle system, and in fact only half the patrol was carrying at any one time � bringing the time to twenty hours: more than double what McNab says. Two kilometres, though, would be a comfortable distance to carry such weights in nine hours, silently and tactically, with appropriate rests and time to scout the country ahead as well. The fact that Abbas said the heli came in only two kilometres away is doubly interesting, because it not only coincides with what Ryan wrote, but would also explain why McNab had seen a settlement with a water-tower at both the helicopter drop-off point and the LUP � Abbas's house could be seen from both. Incidentally, the fact that the helicopter was heard is inadvertently revealed in McNab's book when one of his interrogators tells him so, and as for his assertion that according to the intelligence officer's briefing, the house 'should not have been there', Ryan clearly states that the satellite images they had been shown revealed crops and habitation. We halted on the flat ground opposite the overhanging rock shelf of the LUP and Abbas pointed down into the cul-de-sac. 'It was from here that I saw them for the sec�ond time,' he said. But that time I was armed. When I got back to the house with the bulldozer I went straight in and got my AK47. While I was loading it, my father, Fadhil � who is dead now, may God have mercy upon him � asked me what I was doing. "I've seen some strangers in the wadi," I told him. "I don't know who they are � whether they are Iraqi army or foreigners or bandits � but I'm going to find out what they're doing." I wasn't really concerned with the war at that stage � it didn't enter my mind. .I was only worried because there were these armed strangers near my home, where there were women and children. I was afraid some harm would come to my family. My father was over seventy then, but he insisted on coming with me. He got out his old rifle. It was a Brno five-shot, one of the old type with the bolt action that you have to cock shot by shot. It was almost as old as he was. Then, as he was getting his rifle out, my brother Hayil arrived and asked what was up. We told him and he said, "I'm coming too," and got out his AK47. So we were three � me, my brother and my father.' Abbas pointed again to the watershed, about five metres below us. 'When we got to this point, I saw eight men down there. I suspected they were foreigners, but I still couldn't tell for certain. They saw me, but I was holding my AK47 down by my side so they couldn't see it.' (In fact, Ryan notes that he saw the Arabs holding their rifles by their sides.) `Why didn't you attack them then and there?' I asked. `They would have been- sitting ducks.' `There were two reasons. First we only had rifles, and there were rocks to hide behind in that wadi. They could have got behind the rocks and we would never have been able to kill them. There 'were eight of them and only three of us � my father was an old man, and I have a crippled ankle and can't run, so we wanted to be sure of our ground before we did anything. The second thing was we still did- n't know who they were, and if we'd shot them and they turned out to be Iraqis we could have got into big trouble. Remember, they'd seen us but hadn't done anything, and it's very hard to just shoot someone down in cold blood, whoever they are. So for now we just watched. `Soon � it was late afternoon, about five-thirty or so �they started moving south down the wadi in single file. They were carrying packs that looked very heavy, and were spaced about ten metres apart. We didn't do any-thing, but just walked parallel with them along the wadi to see where they would go.' He led me along the edge of the wadi on the same route, where the hooves of thousands of sheep and goats had cut grooves in the surface over generations. As we went, I tried to imagine how it must have felt for both