Table of Contents
Endpaper
About the Author
Title
By the Same Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Sunday, 9 May 1998 0200
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
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Picture Section 1
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Picture Section 2
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Epilogue
Afterword
Photograph Acknowledgements
Endpaper
Andy McNab joined the infantry as a boy soldier. In 1984 he was 'badged' as a member of 22 SAS Regiment and was involved in both covert and overt special operations worldwide.
During the Gulf War he commanded Bravo Two Zero, a patrol that, in the words of his commanding officer, 'will remain in regimental history for ever'. Awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM) during his military career, McNab was the British Army's most highly decorated serving soldier when he finally left the SAS in February 1993. He wrote about his experiences in two phenomenal bestsellers, Bravo Two Zero and Immediate Action.
He is the author of the thrillers, Remote Control, Crisis Four, Firewall, Last Light, Liberation Day, Dark Winter, Deep Black, Aggressor, Recoil and Crossfire. He has also written four novels for children, Boy Soldier, Avenger, Payback and Meltdown.
Besides his writing work, he briefs security and intelligence agencies in both the USA and UK. He is also patron of the Help for Heroes campaign.
www.rbooks.co.uk
SEVEN TROOP
www.rbooks.co.uk
Also by Andy McNab
Non-fiction
BRAVO TWO ZERO
IMMEDIATE ACTION
Fiction
REMOTE CONTROL
CRISIS FOUR
FIREWALL
LAST LIGHT
LIBERATION DAY
DARK WINTER
DEEP BLACK
AGGRESSOR
RECOIL
CROSSFIRE
For more information on Andy McNab and his books, see his website at www.andymcnab.co.uk
SEVEN TROOP
Andy McNab
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
ISBN 9781407039015
Version 1.0
www.randomhouse.co.uk
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
A Random House Group Company
www.rbooks.co.uk
First published in Great Britain
in 2008 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Andy McNab 2008
Andy McNab has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of non-fiction based on the life, experiences and recollections of Andy McNab. In some cases names have been changed to protect the privacy of others. The author has stated to the publishers that, except in such respects, the contents of this book are true.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 9781407039015
Version 1.0
This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.
Addresses for Random House Group Ltd companies outside the UK
can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk
The Random House Group Ltd Reg. No. 954009
This book is dedicated to:
Mr Grumpy
Hillbilly
Padre Two Zero
Nish
SEVEN TROOP
Sunday, 9 May 1998
0200
The cottage stood in the middle of an acre of flat, open land. It was nearly two o'clock in the morning, but light still blazed from the windows. At the front of the building, small spotlights were trained on a footbridge over a stream. I stared down at the water.
Voices drifted from the path that led to the back of the house. They got louder and the tip of a cigarette glowed red in th
e dark.
Two shapes emerged from the shadows and headed towards me.
I straightened. 'Halt. Who goes there?'
'One big nose, one ayatollah.'
'Advance and be recognized.'
I'd worked with both these guys many times, often undercover. In the old days we'd worn jeans and bomber jackets, whatever it took to blend in with the locals on the Shantello and Bogside estates. Tonight's disguises were something else again. Frank was got up like a refugee from The Sweeney, in a spear-point collared shirt, leather coat with big, fuck-off lapels, and stick-on ginger sideburns to match his hair. Nish, in a bright waistcoat and floppy golf hat, looked like he was auditioning for Showaddywaddy.
The muffled thump of music came from the back of the house. I'd set up a marquee with a big TV so the guests could sit and eat while they watched some of the worst numbers ever composed battling it out at the Eurovision Song Contest in Birmingham.
I'd come as a 1970s porn star, complete with a droopy moustache and a gold medallion – my next-door neighbour's brooch – on a lavatory chain. Almost everyone else had come as a member of Abba.
Frank and Nish came and leant on the rail alongside me.
'Together again.' Frank gave us both a nudge. 'The Three Musketeers.'
I laughed. 'Three Wise Men's more your style these days, ain't it?'
'Nah.' Nish sucked at his Silk Cut. 'Three Wise Monkeys. Or, here you go . . .' He gobbed into the water below. 'Three Coins in the Fountain.'
Frank smiled indulgently. They were trying hard. We all were. It should have been a fun night. Building works, mostly to divert the River Stour from my living room, had delayed the housewarming for a year, but now here we all were.
Or not quite all.
Of the eight former Ice Cream Boys on the invitation list, one hadn't turned up. He was in police custody.
'I keep thinking about him.' Frank pushed one of his cardboard sideburns back onto his jaw. 'What makes a man do such a thing?'
Nish studied the water. 'Maybe he's even madder than I am.'
Shanksy had already left Seven Troop by the time I arrived, but he was a legend in the Regiment. Dr Thomas Shanks was a veteran of the 'Secret War' in Oman in the mid-1970s – where he'd won the Military Medal for rescuing a mate under fire – and had gone on to become a hospital consultant. Two days ago, he'd pulled an AK47 from the boot of his car outside a pub in Leeds and gunned down the girl he'd said he loved.
Shanks had worked in hospitals in the Midlands and in 1995 had become a locum anaesthetist at Pontefract General Infirmary. Within a fortnight he'd met Vicky, a local girl training as a nurse. They began living together and got engaged. But things had turned sour: two weeks ago she'd called things off and started going out with a former patient.
Last Wednesday she'd found a letter from Shanks at her hospital flat; it contained the engagement ring she'd returned to him and told her he was miserable and depressed. The following day, he'd called her in a pub in nearby Castleford, where she was having a drink with her new boyfriend, his son and his son's girlfriend. Over and over again, Shanks demanded that she tell him she no longer loved him. He called her a selfish cow and a bitch. Vicky eventually put the phone down on him and moved with the rest of her party to a neighbouring bar.
When Shanks tracked her there she agreed to speak to him, but he became abusive and bundled her through the doors and out into the street. A fight broke out. Shanks grappled with the new boyfriend and kicked him as he lay on the ground.
The boyfriend's son held Shanks back while Vicky and the others went back to the first pub. At 9.50 p.m. they noticed him in the car park and Vicky went out to speak to him. Moments later she was seen running back, with Shanks in hot pursuit.
She only got as far as the edge of the car park. The first burst of 7.62mm hit her six times in the chest, elbow, abdomen and buttock, but she somehow found the strength to get to her feet. When she reached the pub doorway a second burst took her down for good.
The place was packed for the landlord's farewell. Everyone was watching videos of previous parties when the firing began. At first they thought someone had laid on some fire-crackers or was bursting balloons as some kind of surprise. Then a few rounds screamed through the room, splintering wood and smashing glasses and mirrors. It only lasted a few seconds, but no one dared move. When they got up, they saw the gunman walk casually to his car and drive off.
Vicky was lying in a pool of blood. She couldn't talk. They tried to stem the flow with bar towels and somebody got a quilt from upstairs to cover her until the ambulance arrived.
She died two hours later, after emergency surgery in the hospital where she'd worked.
Shanks bought half a pint of bitter at another local, phoned his ex-wife in Birmingham to tell her what he'd done and headed there to see his nine-year-old daughter. He wanted to see her before the police caught up with him. Then he changed his mind and made for Scotland. He went to see his brother in Glasgow, maybe to get cash and gear before heading into the hills. He gave himself up the next day, after a nationwide manhunt.
'He probably just couldn't decide on his costume,' Nish said.
Tommy Shanks was a legend, not just for his soldiering skills, but also for being a total anal-retentive. He would spend hours working out what to wear for a night on the town. Most people just threw on a pair of jeans and a polo shirt. Not Tommy. It had to be a proper shirt, pressed so you could cut your fingers on the sleeves.
'Don't take it personally.' Nish slapped me on the back. 'Your party ain't that bad.'
Frank gave him one of those despairing looks parents give their kids. He'd been the first through the skylight when the SAS had broken the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980. He'd always been rock steady. If he was covering your back, you were in good hands. But now he was even more off his trolley than Nish: he'd become a vicar.
One of his favourite sayings was: 'I just show them the door to the kingdom of heaven and they can walk through it if they want to.'
I still hadn't opened it. I was pretty sure God would throw the bolts before I turned the handle.
'Cheer up, Frank.' I tugged at one of his sideburns.
'You'll burn in hell, McNab.' He gave me the same disapproving look he'd given Nish. His brow furrowed. 'Why? Why kill her?'
In all the years I'd known him I'd rarely heard him raise his soft Geordie voice at anything or anyone, and now was no exception.
'What's that shit you always say?' Nish grinned. ' "Better to spend one day as a tiger than a thousand years as a sheep"? Well, fuck it, why not?'
Frank wasn't biting. 'I mean, here's a guy who's a hospital consultant one minute, and he drops a girl in a car park the next. What makes a man throw two lives away, after all he's been through?'
Tommy was one of six brothers and two sisters brought up in working-class Glasgow. His father was an epileptic sawmill labourer, and Tommy was only ten when he came home from school one day and found him dead. Five years later, after his mother began drinking heavily and became aggressive towards the children, he went to live with an uncle.
He left school then and became an engineering apprentice, then joined the army two years later. He was posted to Bahrain as a signaller, from where he applied to join the SAS. Within eighteen months of first joining up, Tommy Shanks became one of the youngest ever to pass Selection.
He served for ten years, then worked for a security company specializing in VIP protection. He was stabbed seven times by a gang and very nearly died.
After he'd recovered he went back to the classroom and gained a place at Birmingham University medical school. He and his wife Julie, a teacher, set up home in the Midlands and had a daughter. He graduated in 1986 as a Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery.
He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a reservist captain, but resigned in 1989. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991 he joined the medical team at 32 Field Hospital in Saudi Arabia and was given a cocktail of about twenty undisclosed inoculations
to offset the effects of chemical warfare.
When his marriage faltered on his return, he took a job as an anaesthetist at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton, where colleagues described him as a typical tough Scot, who didn't suffer fools gladly. He ended up at Pontefract Royal Infirmary, but all wasn't well on the work front. He flew into rages when other medics didn't match his high standards.