by Andy McNab
Because whenever his mind did flip into operation, he still thought back to Zara and Emma, and everything that had happened, and the burning question still flashed up time and time again: How the fuck did it come to this?
The captain had told them to be aware. Well, Sean was aware.
And he was ready for a fight.
GLOSSARY
ACOG – Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight, providing up to six times fixed-power magnification, illuminated at night by an internal phosphor
AK-47 Kalashnikov – a selective-fire (semi-automatic and automatic), gas-operated 7.62mm by 39mm assault rifle
ANFO – Ammonium Nitrate, Fuel Oil – one of the most popular low-explosive lifting charges in use today
Biorepository – a place that collects, processes, stores and distributes biological specimens for future research
Boko Haram – an Islamic extremist group in Nigeria
C-17 Globemaster – a large military transport aircraft
CamelBak – back-worn hydration pack
COBRA – Cabinet Office Briefing Room: the location for a type of crisis-response committee set up to respond to instances of national or regional crisis
EOD – Explosive Ordnance Disposal. Sits alongside improvised explosive device disposal (IEDD) as a particular form of bomb disposal
Fusiliers – an infantry regiment of the British Army, part of the Queen’s Division
GSW – Gun Shot Wound
Guerrilla – a member of an unauthorized military unit, usually with a political objective such as to overthrow a government
Heckler & Koch MP5 – 9mm submachine gun built by Heckler & Koch
HG85 grenade – a spherical grenade that, on detonation, fragments the outer shell
IED – an Improvised Explosive Device, which can be placed on the ground or used by suicide bombers; sometimes activated by remote control
Int – army term for intelligence: information collected on, for example, enemy movements
Lancers – The Royal Lancers, a cavalry regiment of the British Army
MC – Military Cross: a medal awarded to officers and other ranks in the British Armed Forces, in recognition of acts of bravery during active service
MI5 – a British intelligence agency working to protect the UK’s national security against threats such as terrorism and espionage
Mk 7 helmet – a general-issue combat helmet for the British Armed Forces
MO – Medical Officer
MoD – Ministry of Defence. Their aim is to protect the security, independence and interests of our country at home and abroad. They ensure that the armed forces have the training, equipment and support necessary for their work
Molotov cocktail – generic name for a variety of bottle-based improvised incendiary weapons; more commonly known as a petrol bomb
NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization: an organization whose essential purpose is to safeguard the freedom and security of its members through political and military means
NCO – Non-Commissioned Officer, for instance a corporal or sergeant
No. 8 Temperate Combat Dress – this replaced the Nos. 5 and 9 Dress, in what is known as the Personal Clothing System (PCS). It is based around a Multi-Terrain Pattern (MTP) windproof smock, a lightweight jacket and trousers with a range of ancillaries such as thermals and waterproofs
NSP – Normal Safety Procedure
OP – Observation Post
PCS – Personal Clothing System: the new uniform for the British military phased in after 2011
Phosphorous smoke bombs – a smoke bomb that spreads quickly, burning white phosphorous and creating a dense cloud of concealment
PLCE – Personal Load Carrying Equipment: the current tactical webbing system of the British Armed Forces
Pressel switch – a switch operated by a push-button, usually hanging from a wire and used especially on radios and other communication equipment
PRR – Personal Role Radio: small transmitter–receiver radio that enables soldiers to communicate over short distances, and through buildings and walls
PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: a condition of persistent mental and emotional stress occurring as a result of injury or severe psychological shock
RPG – Rocket-Propelled Grenade
SA80 – semi-automatic rifle made by Heckler & Koch, the standard British Army rifle
SAS – Special Air Service, tasked to operate in difficult and often changing circumstances, within situations that have significant operational and strategic importance
SCO19 – a Specialist Crime & Operations branch within Greater London’s Metropolitan Police Service. The Command is responsible for providing a firearms-response capability, assisting the rest of the service, which is not routinely armed
Sitrep – Situation report
Special Branch – units responsible for matters of national security in the British and Commonwealth police forces
TLDR – Too long, didn’t read
Warrior – a series of British armoured vehicles, originally developed to replace the older FV430 series of armoured vehicles
Wolf – a light military Land Rover
YOI – Young Offender Institution, a type of British prison intended for offenders between eighteen and twenty, although some prisons cater for younger offenders from ages fifteen to seventeen, who are classed as juvenile offenders
About the Author
Andy McNab was a covert ops commander in the SAS and the British Army’s most highly decorated serving soldier.
Besides his writing, Andy now advises intelligence agencies in the UK and US.
For more information about Andy and his books, visit www.andymcnab.co.uk
Also by Andy McNab
THE STREET SOLDIER SERIES
Street Soldier
Silent Weapon
THE LIAM SCOTT SERIES
The New Recruit
The New Patrol
The New Enemy
DROPZONE
Dropzone
Dropzone: Terminal Velocity
BOY SOLDIER (with Robert Rigby)
Boy Soldier
Payback
Avenger
Meltdown
OTHER NOVELS:
Aggressor
Battle Lines (with Kym Jordan)
Brute Force
Crisis Four
Crossfi re
Dark Winter
Dead Centre
Deep Black
Detonator
Exit Wound
Firewall
Fortress
For Valour
Last Light
Liberation Day
Recoil
Red Notice
Remote Control
Silencer
State of Emergency
War Torn (with Kym Jordan)
Zero Hour
NON-FICTION:
Bravo Two Zero
Immediate Action
On the Rock
Seven Troop
Sorted!:The Good Psychopath’s Guide to Bossing your Life
(with Professor Kevin Dutton)
Spoken from the Front
The Good Psychopath’s Guide to Success (with Professor Kevin Dutton)
Today Everything Changes
Read on for an extract from the first book in the STREET SOLDIER series.
Undercover, under threat – only Sean Harker can save the streets from all-out war.
Chapter 1
A helicopter roared in enemy airspace. Its searchlight speared out of the warm night and swept over the rooftop. Sean Harker swore and ducked into the shadow of an air vent.
He pressed himself against the rough, damp brick. He had dressed for the darkness, as per orders. Black jeans, black top, black hood pulled over his blond hair. If the light caught him, nothing would stand out more in its merciless glare than someone who was obviously trying not to be seen.
But it was just a routine patrol, not looking for anyone in pa
rticular. The light moved on and the helicopter didn’t react to him. It disappeared into the darkness.
Sean stayed where he was until he saw Matt emerge from the shadow of another vent. Then he stepped out, just as Curly crept from behind the small generator shed. Sean had spent half the night crouching down, and his thighs cramped. He flexed his arms and back and gazed out across the graffiti’d maze of rooftops and alleys. Then he and Curly looked to Matt for orders. Matt jerked his head, and the three of them silently gathered together by the skylight.
One of its panels was cranked open, and fumes of oil and petrol and ganja rose up from the workshop into the summer night. Sean took a deep breath through his nose. They were the smells of his childhood.
The vehicle workshop was all lit up and the security shutters were down. Men in grimy overalls lounged in an office behind a glass partition, catching a last smoke and a drink before heading off. Even if they had looked up, they wouldn’t have seen the three lurkers. They would be looking out of a brightly lit space into the night.
Finally it looked like they were leaving. One of them stood by the keypad to the security alarm, ready to tap in the code. Matt gave Sean the nod and Sean delved into his pocket for his phone. He had already loaded up the recording app. Slowly, so that no one down there would spot a sudden movement out of the corner of their eye, he stretched his hand through the open panel, holding the phone out to catch the sounds below.
Bleep, bleep, bleep. The electronic tones echoed around the workshop – they had the recording. They could play it back at their leisure to work out the code. Then they could let themselves in, switch off the alarm, and they’d have all the time in the world to get what they had come for.
Sean grinned at the others and began to withdraw the phone. Matt gave an approving thumbs up. A grinning Curly went further and gave him a nudge.
Sean’s hand bumped against the frame of the skylight and the phone was knocked out of his fingers. He made a futile grab at thin air at the same time as he heard it hit the concrete floor.
Perhaps even that wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t instinctively hissed, ‘Shit!’
A cry came from below. Curly and Matt flung themselves flat, away from the skylight. Sean was frozen for only a second longer, but it was long enough to be caught by the searching torchlight. More shouting below – not in English, but he got the gist of it. There’s someone on the roof !
Running footsteps echoed. Without a word the three pelted towards the top of the fire escape, a vertical iron ladder with safety hoops around it …
And skidded to a halt. The workshop’s back door was right by the bottom of the ladder and it was just opening. They wouldn’t get down before the work crew emerged.
Sean ran over to the far side of the building. There was no escape here – it was a sheer drop into the forecourt. The only other way was the narrow alley at the back of the shop. It couldn’t be more than three metres wide.
‘Oh shit oh shit oh shit …’ Curly was muttering.
Matt cuffed him on the head. ‘OK.’ He backed away from the edge. ‘They’re gonna come up one by one. We’re just going to have to pick them off one at a time—’
‘No. No need,’ Sean said. They stared at him. ‘They only saw me. They don’t know anyone else is here.’
‘So what?’ Matt demanded. ‘We just let them take you? Fuck that!’
‘No.’ Sean shook his head emphatically, and pointed at the vents where they had hidden. ‘Get back there.’ He felt the excitement rise within him. A tense, nervous thrill, like his lungs and his stomach and his balls were all cramping into a tight knot. It was scary and weird and good. ‘Go on!’
He grinned and ran back to the top of the fire escape. The first of the work crew had his foot on the bottom rung.
‘Wankers!’ Sean shouted, and ducked out of sight. He turned quickly to face the others. ‘Guys. I can do this. Hide over there.’ He jerked his thumb at the air vents. Matt took a breath, about to argue. Sean looked him in the eye. ‘Please?’
Curly turned to Matt for orders. Matt just stared at Sean like he was mad, but he could see it was their only option. Slowly, not taking his eyes off Sean, he backed into the shadows, with Curly at his side.
Sean bounced on his toes, and felt his heart thud inside him. And as he heard footsteps on the iron rungs, he began to run back across the roof towards the alley.
His long legs ate up the distance in a few paces. He drew a deep breath into his lungs, leaped onto the low wall with a single bound, and flung his lean, six-foot frame into the darkness. Air soared around him …
… Except that he wasn’t going to make it. He was dropping faster than the far wall was approaching. It was only three metres away, but he had picked a really bad time to learn that three metres was further than it looked.
His arms began to windmill, striving for that little extra momentum.
‘Shi-i-i-t …’
His torso thumped into the wall with an impact that knocked the breath from his body. He flung his arms forward to get a hold. Pain flared in his armpits as his weight ground them into the sharp edge of the roof.
But he wasn’t falling any more. With an effort, he hooked his elbows over the top of the wall, dug his toes into the cracks and levered himself up until he could fall forward onto the flat roof on the other side.
He rolled onto his back, stared up at the night sky, and laughed. Pain stabbed through every bruised rib and he didn’t care. ‘Ha!’
Angry, baffled yells behind him made him grin. The work crew lined the edge of their roof. They were three metres away and might as well have been on the other side of the city.
‘You little shit!’ one of them shouted. Another seemed like he might seriously try and jump over, but then he looked down and thought better of it. If Sean could barely do it with a run-up, no way was it possible from a standing start. None of the men had noticed the other two figures, still in the shadows on the other side of the roof.
But now one of them was fumbling inside his coat for …
Shit! Sean pushed himself to his feet and was running for cover even before he was upright. If the guy was armed, he wasn’t going to hang around.
He ducked down behind the coaming of an aircon unit, breathing heavily. He hadn’t thought much beyond this point, and had no idea if you could get down from this place. If there were skylights, then he would break in, risk the alarms, and smash his way out of a window downstairs before reinforcements arrived.
But he had to be quick. He only had a couple of minutes before they sent people down to ground level, and then back up inside the building.
He needn’t have worried. His eyes lit on the railings at the top of a fire escape – a proper one: a metal staircase winding its way down into the next alley. He charged towards it, hearing the angry shout from across the way.
Sean threw himself down the metal stairs and kept his grip on the iron railing long enough to fling himself in the direction of the main road. The pain in his ribs he told to piss off, and for the time being it obeyed. The alley was an obstacle course of overturned bins and sagging boxes, all vomiting their contents across his path. Sean half ran, half hurdled, his whole life shrunk down to one aim: get to the main road; get out of here.
He burst out into the road like a cannon ball. The pavement was lined with the turning-out crowd – people heading home from a late screening or a restaurant. The air was rich with the sweet aroma of fast food. Faces loomed in front of him and then whipped away, just as shouts rose up behind him. Shit. They were still on his tail. At least they probably wouldn’t start shooting in front of all these witnesses.
Sean put his head down and urged himself on.
RHCP DIGITAL
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First published by Doubleday 2017
This ebook published 2017
Text copyright © Andy McNab, 2017
Cover image credit: collaboration JS
With thanks to Ben Jeapes
The moral right of the author has been asserted
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978–1–448–19704–0
All correspondence to:
RHCP Digital
Penguin Random House Children’s
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL
