Table of Contents
By the Same Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Glossary
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
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Extract: Meltdown Prologue
CLASSIFIED - CLASSIFIED - CLASSIFIED
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Picture 1
Picture 2
'Get to Columbus Circle now – run, it'll be quicker. I'll get there as soon as I can.'
Danny was staring, listening intently as his grandfather continued.
'Do whatever it takes, but you've got to make sure the two det leads are disconnected from the battery, then you have to twist the leads together. Remember everything I told you before.'
Danny nodded and turned to go.
'Wait!' said Fergus. 'You must twist the leads – otherwise they become an antenna and any electricity in the air could still detonate the device. Just keep her there until I arrive. Now go!'
Danny sprinted from the room and Fergus followed. Danny was tearing down the fire escape stairs.
Fergus limped towards the elevator, his leg burning with pain. Maybe he would be lucky; maybe he could pick up a cab and get to Columbus Circle quickly.
But it looked as though saving Elena was going to be down to Danny.
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Also by Andy McNab and Robert Rigby
BOY SOLDIER
PAYBACK
MELTDOWN
Adult titles by Andy McNab
BRAVO TWO ZERO
IMMEDIATE ACTION
AGGRESSOR
CRISIS FOUR
DARK WINTER
DEEP BLACK
FIREWALL
LAST LIGHT
LIBERATION DAY
RECOIL
REMOTE CONTROL
Also by Robert Rigby
GOAL!
The official tie-in novelization of the movie
GOAL II
The official tie-in novelization of the movie
ANDY
McNAB
and ROBERT RIGBY
AVENGER
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 9781407046976
Version 1.0
www.randomhouse.co.uk
AVENGER
A CORGI BOOK 978 0 552 55223 3
First published in Great Britain by Doubleday,
an imprint of Random House Children's Books
Doubleday edition published 2006
Corgi edition published 2007
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © Andy McNab and Robert Rigby, 2006
The right of Andy McNab and Robert Rigby to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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
Set in Palatino
Corgi Books are published by Random House Children's Books,
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www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk
ISBN: 9781407046976
Version 1.0
THE RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
GLOSSARY
ACA Alias cover address
Brush contact Covert operation in which material or information is exchanged
Contact In a fire fight with the enemy
CTR Close target recce
DLB Dead Letter Box
ECHELON The code name of the British Security Services' electronic listening satellite
End ex End exercise, but also used to end a mission or operation
ERV Emergency rendezvous
FARC Colombian drug traffickers
The Firm The Secret Intelligence Service, MI6
FOB Forward operating base
GSW Gunshot wound
HE High explosives
IED Improvised explosive device
Int Intelligence
K Deniable operator
LS Landing strip
LUP Lay-up point
Mag A weapons magazine that holds the rounds
Make ready a weapon To put a round (bullet) in the chamber, ready to be fired
MoD Ministry of Defence
MOE Method of entry
MoU Memorandum of Understanding – agreement between governments
NVGs Night viewing goggles
On stag On guard
OP Observation post
PE Plastic explosive
'Pinged' When someone is first seen
Recce Reconnaissance
The Regiment What SAS soldiers call the SAS
RV Rendezvous (meeting place)
Sit rep Situation report
SOP Standard operating procedure
SSU Special security unit
Stand to Get ready to he attacked
VDM Visual distinguishing mark
SURVEILLANCE TALK
Complete Inside any location – a car, building, etc.
Foxtrot Walking
Held Stopped hut intending to move on – i.e. at traffic lights
Mobile Driving
Net The radio frequency the team talk on
Roger OK or understood
Stand By! Stand By! Informs the team something is happening
Static Stopped
The trigger Informs the team that the target is on the move
TALK
Spoofing Hiding a computer's IP address
Root access When the hacker has control of the system under attack
Script A program written by a hacker
Script kiddie Novice hacker
Exploits Hackers' targets
CLASSIFIED – SECRET
SIT REP
Operation Black Star
Aim: Covert elimination, at whatever cost, of bomb master 'Black Star', known to be recruiting teenage suicide bombers via the Internet.
NB: Black Star's objectives unknown. No demands have yet been made, and the bombers appear to have no political affiliation.
Real name of target: Unknown.
Location: Unknown.
Special circumstances surrounding operation: Elena Omolodon (see below) recruited to assist in Operation Black Star with Danny Watts (see below) and Fergus Watts (see below).
FERGUS WATTS
AGE: 53
HEIGHT: Five feet, eleven inches
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Hair – grey; eyes – blue; build – lean, wiry; distinguishing physical marks – noticeable limp due to bullet wound in right thigh
BACKGROUND: Infantry. SAS, Warrant Officer, special skills – explosives. Tours of duty include – Northern Ireland (decorated), first Gulf conflict (decorated), Colombia. Recruited as a Deniable Operator ('K') to infiltrate FARC, Colombia. Cover story – traitor, 'gone over' to rebels for money. Watts's cover was deliberately blown by GEORGE FINCHAM (former head of the Firm's security section – now deceased). Watts wounded and captured after gun battle with Colombian anti-narcotics police. Imprisoned by Colombian authorities. Subsequently led mass jail break. Returned to Britain, route and date unknown. Traced through grandson, Danny. Captured but escaped from safe house with help from grandson and Elena Omolodon. Watts and grandson on run in Spain for six months, then encouraged to return to UK to assist in exposing Fincham as traitor. Fincham killed during firefight at culmination of Operation Payback. Watts severely wounded and now in recovery at ACA, Oxford.
DANNY WATTS
AGE: 17
HEIGHT: Five feet, ten inches
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Hair – brown; eyes – blue; build – slim; distinguishing physical marks – none known
BACKGROUND: Orphaned at six, parents died in car crash. Various foster families until moved to Foxcroft, south London, residential home for teenagers, where he met Elena Omolodon. Applied for army officer training bursary. Rejected. Had never met grandfather ut fed 'traitor' story and located (method unknown). Assisted in escape of Fergus Watts from safe house before going to Spain. Returned to UK with grandfather and received superficial wounds in Operation Payback firefight. Now undergoing further covert operations training at ACA in preparation for possible second phase of Operation Black Star.
ELENA OMOLODON
AGE: 16
HEIGHT: Five feet, five inches
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Hair – black; eyes – brown; build – slim; distinguishing physical marks – none known
BACKGROUND: Mother (Nigerian) deceased, father (Joey Omolodon, Nigerian) terminated during Operation Payback. Befriended Danny Watts at Foxcroft residential home. Assisted in initial escape of Fergus Watts from safe house and subsequent actions. Received superficial wounds in Operation Payback firefight. Now under 24-hour surveillance at ACA as lead contact for Black Star, whose help she sought on the Deep Web during Operation Payback.
Important: Omolodon unaware of father's termination. Imperative this situation remains unchanged if Operation Black Star is not to be jeopardized.
PROGRESS: TO BE UPDATED DAILY
Day 29
Psychiatric evaluation (see attached report from Dr Ruth Jacobson) indicates Omolodon's current stress levels rising as Black Star's grooming process becomes more intense. We continue to monitor the situation. Currently believe any risk to either the girl's health or the operation to be overstated.
Brush contact training continues badly. Danny Watts is generally enthusiastic but remains headstrong and unpredictable and a potential liability to the operation.
Fergus Watts's loyalties and the extent of his knowledge remain a matter of major concern. He suspects the Firm's involvement in Joey Omolodon's disappearance and I believe continues to operate to his own agenda.
IMPORTANT
There is no change to my conviction that all three individuals remain a threat to national security and will be expendable when Operation Black Star is concluded. Plans for their elimination should therefore be put in place at the earliest opportunity.
M. Deveraux
M. Deveraux
1
Charles Samuel Pointer III, Charlie Three to his friends, Chuck to his doting dad, was going to get a job.
His father would be impressed. Even though Charlie Three didn't need the work he was setting up for the Christmas vacation, he knew full well that his dad, Charles Samuel Pointer II, admired initiative and determination above all other qualities. Ever since the pioneering days back at the start of the twentieth century, the Pointers had been demonstrating their initiative and determination.
Charlie's great-great-great-grandfather had shown the initiative to emigrate with his wife and two children from Eastern Europe to the United States of America. And like thousands of other immigrants, Josef Podowski arrived at Ellis Island, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, with nothing more than the clothes he stood up in and the determination to succeed in his new life.
And he did. He was a grafter and he was clever. Even way back then, Josef saw that the future was in communications, and so he made it his business to get in there, starting at the bottom and working his way up.
A couple of generations on, with a lot of hard work, plenty of that famous initiative and determination, and a change of name from Podowski to Pointer, and the family fortune was well on the way to being made.
Charlie Three's grandfather, the great Charles Samuel Pointer I, chose the new family name. He reckoned it sounded substantial and solid, pioneering yet well established and, most importantly, American.
The business continued to thrive and grow, and on the morning that Charlie Three left for his job interview, it was established as one of the nation's top computer and Internet research and development organizations, firmly placed at the cutting edge of the industry.
Some day Charlie Three was going to take over that business. But there was a Pointer tradition: no one got an easy ride; everyone had to get out there and show what they were made of by demonstrating that famous initiative and determination.
Charlie knew that maybe he wasn't quite as brilliant as his father, and certainly not as dazzling as the great CSP One, as he was known in the family. But Charlie was a trier, and as the only child, it was up to him to carry on the great Pointer tradition. There was no way he was going to let the old man down.
He had kept the interview a secret from everyone, even his father. The job was nothing special; a post boy, a gofer, working for an international finance company over the busy holiday period.
But Charlie Three knew that would impress his dad even more; he could already hear the old man's words when he told him he had the job. 'That's my boy. Get in there at the bottom, Chuck, and show 'em what us Pointers are made of.'
Charlie Three was up early. He dressed smartly and was feeling good as he stepped out into a bright morning and walked away from the family's East 96th Street penthouse apartment, which overlooked Central Park. He took the subway downtown towards Wall Street and the financial district, went through the security barriers into the building, and then joined the lines of workers drinking Starbucks and reading papers as they waited for one of the elevators to take them up to their offices.
On the way up to his floor he took a few deep breaths and repeated the old family maxim to himself: 'Initiative and determination. Initiative and determination.'
The elevator came to a standstill and Charlie Three stepped out onto his floor. He walked along the corridor and went through
glass doors into the finance company reception area.