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tonight, but also light to be seen by.
    The Sea Knight that would ferry them off the aircraft carrier, over the southern Mediterranean and into the Libyan desert, was in a state of readiness. Tailgate down, rotors slowly spinning. Beyond it, parked to the side of the runway, were two F-16s. Beyond them, a whole fleet of aircraft. This Nimitz -class supercarrier could portage ninety fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, and tonight it had a full complement. Danny had been on the George Bush for twenty-four hours already, having arrived with his unit from a staging post in Malta. He had spent most of that time below decks in the SF quarters, a spartan collection of rooms that held little more than bunks for the guys to sleep in, an operations room with co-ax points for their radios, mapping areas and satellite comms, and a briefing room where they could plug in their laptops. They only ventured out for meals, taken with the rest of the ship’s crew, at a table set aside for their use. Below decks, only the lull of the ship and the boom of fast air taking off and landing gave any hint that they were at sea. Now though, up here, he was surrounded by sea, a saline mist and the deafening industrial grind of the vessel’s steam turbines and nuclear reactors. It resembled not so much a ship as a floating city.
    Like any city, the George Bush took a lot of running. With a ship’s company of more than three thousand, just keeping everyone fed – not to mention dealing with their sewage – was a round-the-clock enterprise. The aircraft carrier even had its own naval police force. Crime was far from unheard of. These ships hosted muggings, rapes, even murders – the usual depravities to be found among a population of this size. But the most dangerous place to be, by far, was here on the flight deck. It only took a pilot to misjudge his position by a few metres to turn this seaborne airfield into a disaster area. So the US Navy personnel running the show were strict. Nobody was on deck who didn’t have a legitimate reason to be there. Marshals with different coloured luminous jackets and hand-held signalling beacons conducted their business around the grounded aircraft. Aircraft-handling officers in yellow, ordnancemen in red, fuel handlers in purple, inspectors in black. The flight crew of the Sea Knight were loading up, along with the two US army shooters who would take the roles of door-gunner and rear-gunner for the next three hours.
    And Danny. He stood twenty metres from the chopper, his pack on his back, his personal weapon slung low, his Kevlar helmet in his hands. The US military personnel all but ignored him as they swarmed round the Sea Knight, readying it for take-off, even though they were doing so for the benefit of Danny and his mates. The wind blew his blond hair all over the place and salty spray stung his skin. On the southern horizon he could see lights twinkling. Tripoli, he figured from his mental map. Amazing how some of the world’s worst shitholes could look all Thomas Cook from a distance. Something nudged him in the back. He turned round to see Boyd, their patrol leader. Like Danny, he was dressed in Crye multicam, belt kit fitted and M4 slung low and attached to his body with a short halyard. Unlike Danny, he already had his helmet on, complete with NV goggles – disengaged for now – and a small torch attachment. The helmet itself was cut away around the ears to make space for his earpiece, and a thin boom mike hung just below his lower lip.
    ‘Hey, Snapper!’ he shouted over the noise of the deck in his thick Northern Irish accent. Danny didn’t mind the nickname. Snapper was Irish slang for a kid, and at twenty-three Danny was the youngest in the patrol. Boydie was well known for stamping his authority on an op, and anyway, a bit of ribbing came with the territory.
    ‘Aye?’
    ‘What d’youse call a Libyan militant with no arms and no legs?’
    ‘A good start?’
    Double thumbs up from Boydie