Arrivals - six months ago.

Paddy had phoned up early Monday morning just after he'd come back from taking the kids to school, apparently a slot had just opened on a job in Northern Iraq, he didn't ask how but assumed the worse, Penalty clauses in Armbursts's contract meant they were paying through the nose every day the slot went unfilled so Paddy had been told to get it filled as soon as possible no questions asked which meant he'd got the phone call.

The kids had thought it was really exciting, they'd seen the old pictures of him in uniform around the house and now daddy was going off to be a soldier, he didn't bother to correct them when they talked about him seeing them at the weekend. Linda had held out pretty well until they went to bed, then had been all tears, he gave her pretty much the same spiel he'd given her before..."He wouldn't be going out looking for trouble, he wasn't going to take unnecessary risks, he'd be working in a quiet part of the country, he'd be back soon and they'd be able to pay off a load of their debts. He didn't tell he thought he was replacing someone who'd caught a packet, some things he decided were best left unsaid.

Two days later he was standing in Istanbul International Airport's arrival hall, his old DPM burgen at his feet and a new daypack slung over his shoulder, waiting for the Armburst driver to take him to Armbursts's Istanbul office. Paddy hadn't given him much time to get his kit together and despite his best efforts not to outfit himself as a gun for hire, it soon became apparent by the tattoos and haircuts every 'Soldier of Fortune' off to work in Iraq was dressed in desert boots, tan cargo pants and t-shirt just like himself.

It was probably the clothes which gave him away to Pat. Pat Lowe was thirty had served twelve years in the army as a gunner but had left five years ago and had been work for Armburst ever since, it was his second trip to Iraq, he reckoned after his last tour in the south of the country the Kurdish north would be pretty much a breeze.

Paddy had met them at Armburst's Istanbul office a small villa on the coast just outside the city, he'd given them a quick brief them on the job which amounted in his words to "wiping the arse of an overpaid BP executive trying to bribe a pipeline contract out of the Kurds" and then sorting out their paperwork.

He hadn't been able to find out the reason why he suspected cost, but Armburst didn't fly its contractors into BRIAP rather they drove then over the border from Turkey into the Northern part of Iraq. It was cheaper and the ethnic Kurds who made up the the majority in the region were no friends of either the Baathist freedom fighters or Islamist jihaadi, this area of the country was considered fairly safe, at least when it was compared to the rest of Iraq.

Their driver for the first part of their journey was a young Turk called Mustaffa. Mustaffa's driving style was unique in as much as he was as happy using his knees to steer as hands and obviously didn't feel in any way obliged to watch the road while driving as he would happily turn to his passengers in the back seat either to explain how much better off Turkey would be in the Kurds all buggered off and lived elsewhere, or how Manchester United were the best football team in the world if ypou excluded Galatasaray.

Pat a Leeds supporter had felt obliged to tell Mustaffa his own opinions of Galatasaray, so he'd simply settled back in his seat switched on his Ipod and settled down to sleep through as much of the journey as possible. He'd woken four hours later to find a much subdued Mustaffa, it was only later that Pat told him their football conversation had become so heated Mustaffa had felt he needed to stop the car beside the road while he fought Pat for the honour of his home football team. As Pat described it he'd been forced to teach Mustaffa the error of his ways in three simple lessons.

At the town of Diyarbakir they'd swapped drivers, a sullen Mustaffa had thrown their bags into the boot of a tired and battered BMW, driven by middle aged Kurd by the name of Babik. Babik's English was far better than Musraffa's and it cam as no surprise to either of them that Babiks former job was as a school teacher, apparently cronyism meant he'd lost his job to a younger teacher who had connections in the PPK. Not that Babik minded as he was now earning three times his former wage working as a driver and fixer for Armburst.

Babik drove them South East to the border crossing at Zakho in Iraq. They'd arrived in the early hours Babik had told them both to sit tight then jumped out with all their paperwork, from the back seat of the car they'd see him running from one building to another building as he followed the Byzantine process of getting their paperwork approved and all the necessary stamps.
He cam back an hour later all smiles and drove them through the Turkish side of the border only to drive fifty yards before pulling over at the Iraqi immigration and customs section. They had to get out of the car while the Iraqi or rather Kurdish soldiers searched the car and their bags for. The immigration officers made a perfunctory check of their passports before stamping it from there it was only a few short kilometers to the city of Zakho.

They'd had breakfast at the side of the road just outside Zakho, hot sweet tea in small glass cups accompanied by a large plate covered in small pastries which the three of them had eaten with Gusto before heading off to Dohuk to meet the rest of the team and the principle. The first three months on the job were relatively straightforward apart from a couple of scares the biggest hardship was the fact electricity was in such desperately short supply he couldn't always recharge his iPod and hot water was a precious commodity.

It wasn't to last, when Pat and he got back from leave Paddy informed them the principle was heading south to Baghdad and they were going with him.