by Tom Marcus
Over the next couple of years I bounced around from job to job, from working in a call centre to flipping burgers at a drive-through. I couldn’t tell anyone about my background so it looked like I was hiding something, which meant I could only get basic, low-skilled jobs. This was perhaps just as tough as dealing with PTSD. I was willing to do anything to earn money and give my family a positive role model to follow but because of the secrecy that shrouded my previous career I couldn’t get anything that paid well, unless I was willing to take the many offers of work overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. But for me no amount of money was worth my family seeing me being beheaded on a cellar floor if I got caught out there.
As one mundane job rolled into another, it must have looked from anyone else’s perspective like I wasn’t committed to seeing a new career through, like I was some sort of waster. But I slowly started to realize that how I earned money didn’t define who I actually was as a person; it would be my actions that told my story. I once heard an agent handler in Thames House talking about family and it’s something that has always stuck with me.
‘A man is only a man if he puts his family first. If he puts the needs of his wife and children before anything else, then he can be called a man.’
This is just the beginning.
Watching the news, you could be fooled into thinking the world is descending into chaos. Radicals using religion to create genocide. Mass murderers using the name of God to kill innocent people. Countries flexing their military might in each other’s airspace. Let me set that straight: you are safe. Go about your lives loving those close to you, be aware of your surroundings, but don’t live in fear.
There are people working night and day in the shadows all around the world surrounding you with an iron curtain, stopping those who wish to cause you harm. Fear is a profitable business, and a shocking event will receive wider publicity than a happy one, which is why the press will always talk about a bombing rather than something positive.
I was in the counter-terrorism world for a long time. I’ve stopped some of the most catastrophic events from happening, alongside the teams. I was a tiny little cog in a massive machine, and there are thousands of people like me out there protecting you. Unfortunately, the IRA put it best when they said, ‘You [the government] have to be lucky 100 per cent of the time; we only have to be lucky once.’ It’s true. People who wish to harm us will take the opportunity to strike when they get the rare chance, but I don’t want anyone focusing on the attacks that have slipped through the net. I want people to focus on the hundreds if not thousands of attacks, over the decades worldwide, that we have prevented.
I very nearly paid the ultimate price when PTSD took over as I desperately clawed my way out of that dark place. I was extremely lucky to get the help I needed to recover, focused on getting my body fit and allowing my mind to regain its strength. As I move into a new chapter of my life, blindfolded as to what the normal world has to offer, I will take the same relentless drive into anything I do to show my family that anything is possible.
I am a soldier and a spy, our enemy’s worst nightmare and the country’s darkest asset. This is a word of warning to those who wish to hurt us: our nation is strong and united; that strength has been built on thousands of years of hardship, and if you even think about trying to hurt us, my friends will find you, and fucking destroy you.
Semper Vigilat.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to those who have made this book possible: Luigi, Rowland, Louise and the incredible team at Michael Joseph. All of you have become extremely important to me.
I also want to thank everyone at the Security Service in Thames House, especially my old team, for giving me the help I needed, when I needed it.
THE BEGINNING
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MICHAEL JOSEPH
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa
Michael Joseph is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published 2016
Copyright © Tom Marcus, 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover images © Shutterstock and London map © HarperCollins
ISBN: 978-1-405-92788-8
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
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