The New Enemy Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Read an extract from IMMEDIATE ACTION

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Andy McNab

  Copyright

  About the Book

  IT’S A DEADLY GAME OF HIDE AND SEEK

  Liam Scott has joined Recce Platoon, and it looks like he will be heading for Somalia. His mission is to gather intelligence from behind enemy lines, carrying out top-secret surveillance and dead-letter drops. But he’s new to the game and there’s a lot to learn.

  Soon Liam is monitoring a den of Al Shabaab militants and hunting a key terrorist target. Can Recce Platoon find their man and get out undiscovered? If the militants find them first, it’s game over . . .

  To all the Liams out there, and to the Ministry of Defence for their help and guidance to ensure this book reflects the true life of a young soldier

  1

  Present Day 1 a.m.

  Somewhere on the Welsh Borders

  The night sky was a grumbling black mass of boiling clouds, rain pouring onto an already sodden earth. Liam Scott had been on the run for most of the night now and he was starting to lose track of time. But all he was really concerned about was staying one step ahead of those who were out to catch him. Because when they did, the real pain would start.

  Dressed in a heavy, ankle-length trench coat, ill-fitting clothes, and boots that rubbed his feet and were tied to his ankles by bailer twine, he was completing the escape and evasion training part of the LRCC. Before joining the course he hadn’t given much thought to what it would involve and in some ways he was glad of that. If he’d known then what he knew now, he’d have had more than a few sleepless nights thinking about it.

  It was meant to be tough. In fact, not just tough, but utter hell. OK, so he knew he wasn’t about to get water-boarded or have his teeth smashed in, but that was no consolation. He knew he would get caught. He also knew once that happened a team of interrogators were going to put him through the mill. There was no messing with any of the training he’d gone through, but this was designed specifically to try and break you, mentally, physically and psychologically. If you couldn’t hack it, then you didn’t get through, simple as that. You were binned, sent back to your battalion.

  Pausing for a breather, Liam hid under the low branches of a fir tree, a tattered and torn thing that looked about as happy with the weather as he felt himself. He ran through the theory and practical training they had all received before being sent out on the exercise proper. It had been a lot of fun in many ways, and pretty interesting too: all about eating wild food, using the stars and the landscape for navigation, real Boy’s Own stuff, like they were all on a Scout Camp. Now, though, having been rounded up and thrown out of the back of a truck one at a time on an undisclosed route, with a shitty hand-drawn map, all that stuff seemed not just a long time ago, but to Liam at that moment, next to useless. He couldn’t read the stars because there weren’t any, thanks to the cloud and rain, the landscape bore little resemblance to the map he was trying to use, and stopping to find some lovely wild nuts and berries to nibble on just wasn’t an option. He was running for his life.

  Shouts from his left had Liam moving on again and running hard. His feet hurt like hell, he was cold, and the coat, tied round his waist with frayed rope, was heavy and cumbersome. His dark hair, cut military short, was slick with sweat and he knew it was only a matter of time before he was caught, but that was no reason to give up. He had to make the chase good, work like a fox ahead of the hounds, do his damnedest to keep running as long as he could.

  He kept to the cover of the trees, did his best to make as little sound as possible, but it was difficult with branches clawing at him, cutting him, scratching his face with every step. The dark and the rain didn’t help either. He had no torch, and the land around him was all shadows. He lost count of the number of times he tripped up, smashed his head into a branch.

  Ahead, Liam saw a change in the darkness indicating the trees were coming to an end. From then on it was open ground, for a while at least. He dropped low, paused, sucked oxygen into his lungs. He couldn’t go right – the voices were still closing in. And he couldn’t turn back. It was left or straight on, and both options were, to his mind, piss poor. He wondered how many of the other lads had already been caught – if he’d be the first.

  Crunching his eyes tight shut, he psyched himself to make a break from the trees. The next cover he could make out would be a stone wall. If he reached it, he would then follow it left to a small rise, keeping low all the way, then down into a shallow ditch, which would no doubt be knee deep in freezing cold mud.

  With a final deep breath he sprang forward like a jackrabbit, bolting away from the tree line and going hell for leather towards the wall. Blood pounded in his ears, his feet barely managing to keep him upright across the rough ground. He didn’t look back, just kept his eyes on the wall, and it was getting closer. He could make this. Had to.

  The ground beneath Liam’s left foot disappeared and he stumbled. Rabbit hole or just a dip in the soft ground, he didn’t know, but it had screwed his escape. He tumbled forwards and landed hard, slamming his face into mud, grit, stone. Air spewed out of him, his lungs emptying as pain and fear crackled through him like electricity. But it wasn’t over yet and Liam was back up on his feet and moving.

  The wall was close now and he kept on, forcing his legs to move faster, gulping air, wiping rain and muck and probably blood from his face.

  The wall came up quicker than he expected, but any sense of achievement was shot to pieces as, from behind it, grey shadows swooped in for him like crows. Hands grabbed him and he was dropped to the ground, someone on his back, snapping his wrists together with a plastic quick tie, another pulling a hessian sack over his head.

  Shit . . .

  Voices came at him – loud and hard and violent – but Liam wasn’t listening, knew there was no point. Dragged and pushed and punched forwards, he was then heaved into the back of a truck.

  He knew what was coming. And he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  The sack over Liam’s head stank of sweat and mould and fetid water. After a hellish journey, he’d been dragged out onto the ground like a sack of coal. Then, next to blind, thanks to the sack, he’d been pushed, half tripping, half running, into what he guessed from the echoes of his footsteps on the ground was a room of some kind. And all the way harsh voices had yelled at him, screaming insults, swearing, threatening violence.

  ‘Name?’

  The voice was a Rottweiler’s snarl. Liam didn’t recognize it at all and that put him even more on edge. This was a training exercise and he’d expected it to be carried out by the staff from the LRCC. So who the holy hell was this?

  ‘I said name, you deaf fuck!’

  A hand caught Liam across the back of the head. It wasn’t hard, but it was enough to make him flinch and he immediately cowered.

  ‘Christ, you are fucking deaf, aren’t you? NAME!’

&
nbsp; Liam gave the information asked for, but nothing else. As they’d all been told in training, under the Geneva Convention, there was a strict protocol on the information they were actually required to give.

  ‘So where are you from, Scott?’

  Liam repeated his name, but another slap caught him.

  ‘Actually, fuck that bollocks,’ said the voice. ‘We already know where you’re from, and all about your mummy and daddy. Got all that information already from one of the other lads. Spewed it out like a fucking pussy. He’s binned. You will be too.’

  Liam was trying to zone out. He knew they were simply doing their best to wind him up, get him to react. He had to remain strong. It was a mind game.

  ‘Daddy’s a bit of a bastard, it seems,’ the voice continued. ‘Didn’t think his lad would make the army. Well, looks like he’s right, doesn’t it? You’re a failure, Scott, aren’t you? Nineteen years old, and already a total fucking failure. How you got this far I haven’t a clue, you useless piece of shit.’

  ‘Scott, Liam, Lance Corp—’

  It wasn’t a slap this time that cut him short, but a soft kick to the back of his knees. It buckled him and sent him hard to the floor. His knees took the impact and pain stabbed up through his body.

  ‘First you fuck up with that ration bag, then you screw your CFT. You’re binned, mate, you hear me? So just give up now and save us all a lot of time. You’ll be doing yourself a favour.’

  Binned? thought Liam. What the fuck was this goon on about? They couldn’t bin him. He hadn’t failed, he couldn’t have done.

  ‘Get this wanker out of my sight!’ the voice said. ‘Fucksake – why does the army waste my time with tossers like this?’

  Hands grabbed Liam and he was dragged away from the room and the voice which was now laughing. Then he was pulled up and forced to stand in a semi-crouched position, arms held straight above his head. Icy water was thrown on him – the shock of it knocked the breath from his chest. Then what silence there was in that moment was broken by a blast of white noise. It was deafening and disorientating, and he couldn’t block it out. Soon his head started to throb with pain.

  Liam’s arms ached and his legs wanted to give way, but every time he moved in the slightest bit, hands would put him back into the same position and more water would be thrown over him.

  He had no idea how many people were around him, if he was going to get slapped again, or from what direction. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, he was dragged once more into the room with the voice.

  Liam heard paper being shuffled.

  ‘Says here your mate Cameron got blown to pieces on your first tour,’ said the voice. ‘What kind of soldier lets that happen, Scott? Where the fuck were you when he got hammered by an RPG?’

  Liam did his best to zone out, but the mention of the death of his friend had caught him off guard. Memories came at him like bullets, smashing into him, forcing him to remember.

  ‘I’ll tell you where you were,’ said the voice. ‘Looking after yourself, that’s where. All you give a shit about is yourself. And if there’s a chance of a medal, all the better, right?’

  Liam wanted to yell back that it hadn’t been like that. He’d been there with Cam, held his smashed body as they’d waited for him to be medevac’d out. He could still smell the blood, the smoke, the burned flesh.

  ‘Cat got your tongue?’

  Liam breathed out then said his name, rank, number.

  ‘Oh, just fuck off,’ said the voice.

  Once again, rough hands grabbed Liam and he was dragged out and forced into another stress position.

  And so it continued, interrogations followed by stress positions, the insults and wind-ups growing ever worse and more personal. He was stripped naked and laughed at, told the rest of the lads had already quit and were waiting on him to do the same so they could get home and warm. Then, with no warning at all, there was a change of tack.

  Liam’s hood was yanked off.

  ‘This is where it gets interesting,’ said the man sitting behind the desk in front of him. He was wearing plain army fatigues, but there was no insignia to give away regiment or rank. Steely-eyed, whoever he was, Liam wasn’t convinced by the snake-like smile that sat on the man’s face. ‘What will it take to get you to talk, eh?’

  Liam heard scuffling behind him as another man was brought in, hooded just like he had been. He too was silent, remembering his training, thought Liam, though that made it utterly impossible for him to tell who it was.

  The man behind the desk stood up and removed his pistol from his leg holster.

  ‘You going to talk?’ he asked.

  Liam was staring at the weapon. What the fuck was going on?

  The man nodded and the two soldiers who had brought the hooded figure in forced him to his knees.

  ‘Tell me, Scott,’ said the interrogator. ‘Is the loss of another man’s life something you can live with?’

  Liam squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head. This was going too far now, surely. What were they playing at? His mind was muddled and his grasp on reality was slipping.

  ‘I asked you a question, Scott,’ said the man, and pointed the weapon at the head of the man on his knees.

  ‘No!’ said Liam suddenly, the word out before he could do anything to stop it.

  ‘Oh, so you can speak!’

  ‘You’re taking the piss!’ said Liam. ‘This is just a fucking exercise!’

  ‘Oh, is it?’ asked the man. ‘You sure about that? You sure that any of us in here are legit? What if we’re not, you thought of that? What if we’re dangerous fuckers who’ve nabbed you and have been playing you a line all along? I mean, it wouldn’t be difficult, would it? A bit of observation and we’d know where to find you, where to hit hard, and where to take you. And here you are, all alone.’

  Liam was trying to think, to sort truth from fiction, but he was so tired and disorientated that he started to wonder if what he was hearing was right. What if the exercise had been blown? What if all this was for real and he was in the hands of some home-grown terrorists just looking for any intelligence they could get their hands on about how the army operated?

  The man readied his weapon. ‘I’m serious, Scott,’ he said.

  ‘You can’t!’ Liam yelled. ‘You fucking can’t!’

  The man on his knees started to cry, his whimpering, stuttering howls setting Liam’s teeth on edge.

  ‘Who the fuck are you to tell me what I can and can’t do, eh?’ shouted the interrogator. ‘Who? Tell me! Tell me everything about yourself, your family, your training, you hear? Everything!’

  ‘I can’t!’ Liam yelled back. ‘I just can’t!’

  Then he was dragged back out of the room, hood over his head, and a minute later back in a stress position. It was all he could do not to collapse and give up.

  ‘Hungry, Liam?’

  He could smell it – bacon and coffee.

  Once again he was back in that room, hood off, and staring at the man who had held a pistol at another person’s head the last time.

  ‘You’ve done well, Liam,’ the man said. ‘Thought we had you for a moment there. Have a seat and a bite to eat. The coffee is warm and sweet. Just what you need, right?’

  Liam hesitated. What was going on? He could hardly think straight now. His body was in agony and his mind slowly fraying.

  ‘Come on, mate.’ The man smiled. ‘What harm can it do? Sit down. Relax. It’ll do you good. Then we can talk, right? Like human beings?’

  The bacon butty looked delicious and the coffee was sending Liam’s senses crazy. Was the exercise over? Still he didn’t move.

  ‘You must be starving. Take it.’

  Liam’s brain was addled by what he’d gone through, but it was still sparking. What if something was in the food, the drink? It could be drugged. Even if it wasn’t, surely they were just trying to break him a bit more, right? Have him relax, drop his defences just a little?

  ‘This is your last
chance, mate,’ said the man. ‘Come on now, do us all a favour and stop this nonsense. We can have you back in a warm bed before you know it. You don’t really want this, do you? And how much more do you think you can handle?’

  ‘Scott, Liam,’ said Liam, holding onto what sanity he had left. ‘Lance Corporal—’

  ‘I know what fucking rank you are, you twat!’ the man yelled, and he grabbed the sandwich and threw it across the room. ‘You think this is a fucking game? Our job is to break you, you cocky little bastard! Now get the fuck out of my sight!’

  Dragged from the room, hood pulled over his head once again, Liam was forced to stand, half bent forwards, arms stretched out in front of him. The pain was now unbearable, but still he was kept from falling to the ground. He found himself drifting off into memories he felt safe in. They were all of his time in the army, the happiest time of his life so far.

  Hanging out in an FOB in Afghanistan, chatting with the lads about what they’d done that day, taking the piss out of each other, wondering about the day ahead.

  Talking to his mates.

  But that was in the battalion, back in 4 Rifles. He never should have left. Since he’d got it into his head that he might make selection for Recce Platoon and started this fucking Light Reconnaissance Commander’s Course, things had just gone to shit . . .

  2

  Two weeks earlier

  ‘Scott, mate, you’re on.’

  Liam opened his eyes, switching from comatose to fully alert in a beat. The air was cold and his face icy. It was raining. He was lying in his doss bag in a well-camouflaged hole big enough to hide himself, three other soldiers, and enough kit to keep them alive for upwards of a week or more. It was Liam’s first time carrying out an operation from a subsurface observation post, or OP. And so far, apart from the rain, it was going well. If this went to plan he’d be moving up soon to CTR and getting in close to the enemy.

  Two of the soldiers were still out cold, though they weren’t exactly being covert about it. The other, Corporal Finn Cordner, who had the build of a greyhound, had spent the past two hours staring through a spotting scope and snapping photographs with an SLR. It was now Liam’s turn.