Visceral and compelling,Eight Lives Downis the most exciting and nerve-jangling work of military non-fiction sinceBravo Two Zero. If fate is against me and I'm killed, so be it, but make it quick and painless. If I'm wounded, don't let me be crippled. But above all, don't let me fuck up the task. So goes the bomb technician's prayer before every bomb he defuses. For Chris Hunter, it is a prayer he says many times during his four-month tour of Iraq. His is the most dangerous job in the world to make safe the British sector in Iraq against some of the most hardened and technically advanced terrorists in the world. It is a 24/7 job in the first two months alone, his team defuses over 45 bombs. And the people they're up against don't play by the Geneva Convention. For them, there are no rules, only results death by any means necessary. The job of a Bomb Disposal officer is a lonely one. You are alone with the sound of your own breathing and the drumming of your heart in a protective suit in forty-plus degrees of heat. The drawbridge has been pulled up behind you as you advance on your goal. It's just you and the bomb. But for Chris Hunter, just when life couldn't get any more dangerous, the stakes are raised again. From the Hardcover edition.

Chris Hunter retired in March 2007 from the Defense Intelligence Staff, where he was the MOD’s senior IED intelligence analyst. He is a former chairman of the Technical Committee of the Institute of Explosives Engineers and continues to work as a counterterrorism consultant. He works regularly with U.S. military and law enforcement personnel, including a number of government agencies and the U.S. Special Forces. He has served on numerous operations in the Balkans, East Africa, Northern Ireland, Colombia, and Afghanistan and was awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for his actions during his tour in Iraq. He lives with his wife and two daughters in the west of England.

Prologue


February 2004

Now I am in my other world. Outside sounds become muted and I am aware only of the sound of my own breathing and the drumming of my heart. This is the moment when I leave everything else behind. The moment when the drawbridge closes behind me and I am truly alone.

The long walk to the target seems to take for ever. I’m carrying 90lb of equipment and wearing a bomb suit that weighs another 80lb. Sweat drips into my eyes and my visor is beginning to mist up in the fearsome tropical heat. The Colombian Jungle Commandos have taken up fire positions in the rainforests and mountains that tower above the ICP. Their job is to stand between me and a sniper’s bullet.

I try not to hold my breath as I take each step, but it isn’t easy. Only 75 metres to go; I’m halfway to the target vehicle. The twinflex firing cable snakes out of my carrying case as I go.

I’m struggling to see. My visor has completely steamed up now. I wipe away the condensation with a cloth. Twenty seconds later it’s steamed up again. The humidity in this place is outrageous.

I go over the threat assessment again in my mind. There are three options. There’s the timed IED, which could go off at IGHT LIVES DOWN any moment. There’s the command initiated device, usually detonated by wire or radio control; it requires an observer, and this terrain offers thousands of potential firing points. I hope to God it’s not RC: the Colombians don’t have any radio jammers, and as I’m here working with them, nor do I. Finally there’s the VO, the booby trap. The Colombian police officers have walked all around the car, so there’s unlikely to be anything buried in the ground, but there’s still every chance of a VO inside it.

So, what is the terrorist trying to achieve? Does he want to get me? Trying to confuse as to intent is a classic Provisional IRA tactic, and I know they’ve been here teaching the FARC boys some new tricks. That’s why I’ve been sent here.

The sweat is pouring off me and my heart’s beating like a drum as I finally reach the target vehicle, one of those 1950s grocery vans you only see in Tintin books. It’s still; eerily silent. There are no tripwires and there’s no disturbed earth, but I can see the improvised mortar through the windscreen. It’s pretty much identical to the last PIRA mortar I saw in Northern Ireland, the barrack buster, a huge projectile which contains as much explosive as your average car bomb. This one’s in a highly volatile state because it’s a misfire – which means it could go live any second. And it’s pointing directly at the village of Espinal.

If it launches now I’ll be engulfed by the blast. As it lands moments later, the fuse will kick into life and the 120kg of ammonium nitrate and sugar explosive will detonate, fragmenting the bomb into hundreds of supersonic pieces of molten metal. All windows within 200 metres will implode, wreaking havoc and causing massive casualties. Hundreds of pieces of shrapnel will smash through unprotected vehicles and structures. Shards of glass will sever limbs, and what little remains of the shredded bodies will almost certainly be destroyed by the napalm fireball that follows.

In May two years ago, three hundred people crowded into a small church in Bojaya, whispering prayers as they hunkered down on the cement floor, seeking sanctuary from the FARC gunfire outside. They thought they would be safe there. They were wrong. A PIRA-designed improvised mortar exploded on the church roof, which collapsed, killing 119. At least forty-five of the victims were children.

I’ve been an operator for seven years and completed three tours in Northern Ireland. I’ve studied the IRA obsessively and I know their tactics inside out. There could be any

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Excerpted from Eight Lives Down: The Most Dangerous Job in the World in the Most Dangerous Place in the World by Chris Hunter
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