Liberation Day: A Nick Stone Mission - Softcover

McNab, Andy

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2,191 ratings by Goodreads

9780770428976: Liberation Day: A Nick Stone Mission

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0770428975 ISBN 13: 9780770428976

Publisher: Seal Books, 2004

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December 2001. A Zodiac inflatable slips away from a submarine off the North African coast. If he hadn't needed American citizenship so badly, Nick Stone wouldn't have agreed to do this one last job, but the CIA's offer of a new life in the United States, and the chance to share it with Carrie, the woman he's fallen in love with, is one he cannot refuse. The job seems simple enough for a man of his particular skills: infiltrate into the Islamic republic of Algeria, kill a money-laundering local businessman and bring back his severed head to the West. Stone isn't told why the man has to die like this, and he doesn't want to know. He just guesses it's got something to do with the democratic world's fightback after the terrible events of September 11th. But as events unfold alarmingly fast, Stone realised that by no means has he been told the full story - and that in reality the job has only just begun. Then comes the devastating news that Carrie, enraged by his broken promise never to work with the CIA again, has turned her back on him for ever. Operating in the dangerous underworld of the South of France, where al-Qaeda has embarked on a panicked round-up of funds using their ancient banking system of hawalla, Stone is in at the deep end of a very dirty war. In the most daunting mission he has yet undertaken, as one bloody twist leads to another, Stone ultimately finds himself confronted by the most desperate dilemma a man could ever face...

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About the Author:

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, which was filmed in 1998 starring Sean Bean, and IMMEDIATE ACTION. He is the author of the bestselling novels, REMOTE CONTROL, CRISIS FOUR and FIREWALL. His latest novel is LAST LIGHT. Besides his writing work, he lectures to security and intelligence agencies in both the USA and UK.

1: TUESDAY, 6 NOVEMBER 2001, 23:16 hrs

The submarine had broken surface ten minutes earlier, and its deck was still slippery beneath my feet. Dull red torchlight glistened on the black steel a few metres ahead of me as five of the boat's crew feverishly prepared the Zodiac inflatable. As soon as they'd finished it would be carrying me and my two team members across five kilometres of Mediterranean and on to the North African coast.

One of the crew broke away and said something to Lotfi, who'd been standing next to me by the hatch. I didn't understand that much Arabic, but Lotfi translated. 'They are finished, Nick -- we are ready to float off.'

The three of us moved forward, swapped places with the submariners, and stepped over the sides of the Zodiac on to the anti-slip decking. Lotfi was the cox and took position to the right of the Yamaha 75 outboard. We bunched up near him, each side of the engine. We wore black bobble hats and gloves, and a 'dry bag' -- a GoreTex suit -- over our clothes with rubber wrists and neck to protect us from the cold water. Our kit had been stowed in large zip-lock waterproof bags and lashed to the deck along with the fuel bladders.

I looked behind me. The crew had already disappeared and the hatch was closed. We'd been warned by the captain that he wasn't going to hang around, not when we were inside the territorial waters of one of the most ruthless regimes on earth. And he was willing to take even fewer risks on the pick-up, especially if things had gone to rat shit while we were ashore. No way did he want the Algerians capturing his boat and crew. The Egyptian navy couldn't afford to lose so much as a rowing-boat from their desperately dilapidated fleet, and he didn't want his crew to lose their eyes or bollocks, or any of the other bits the Algerians liked to remove from people who had pissed them off.

'Brace for float-off.' Lotfi had done this before.

I could already feel the submarine moving beneath us. We were soon surrounded by bubbles as it blew its tanks. Lotfi slotted the Yamaha into place and fired it up to get us under way. But the sea was heaving tonight with a big swell, and no sooner had our hull made contact with the water than a wave lifted the bow and exposed it to the wind. The Zodiac started to rear up. The two of us threw our weight forward and the bow slapped down again, but with such momentum that I lost my balance and fell on to my arse on the side of the boat, which bounced me backwards. Before I knew what was happening, I'd been thrown over the side.

The only part of me uncovered was my face, but the cold took my breath away as I downed a good throatful of salt water. This might be the Mediterranean, but it felt like the North Atlantic.

As I came to the surface and bobbed in the swell, I discovered that my dry bag had a leak in the neck seal. Sea-water seeped into my cheap pullover and cotton trousers.

'You OK, Nick?' The shout came from Lotfi.

'Couldn't be better,' I grunted, breathing hard as the other two hauled me back aboard. 'Got a leak in the bag.'

There was a mumble of Arabic between the two of them, and a schoolboy snigger or two. Fair one: I would have found it funny too.

I shivered as I wrung out my bobble hat and gloves, but even wet wool keeps its heat-retaining qualities and I knew I was going to need all the help I could get on this part of the trip.

Lotfi fought to keep the boat upright as his mate and I leant on the front -- or bow, as Lotfi was constantly reminding me -- to keep it down. He finally got the craft under control and we were soon ploughing through the crests, my eyes stinging as the salt spray hit my face with the force of pebble dash.

As waves lifted us and the outboard screamed in protest as the propeller left the water, I could see lights on the coast and could just make out the glow of Oran, Algeria's second largest city. But we were steering clear of its busy port, where the Spanish ferries to'd and fro'd; we were heading about ten Ks east, to make landfall at a point between the city and a place called Cap Ferrat. One look at the map during the briefing in Alexandria had made it clear the French had left their mark here big time. The coastline was peppered with Cap this, Plage that, Port the other.

Cap Ferrat itself was easy to recognize. Its lighthouse flashed every few seconds in the darkness to the left of the glow from Oran. We were heading for a small spit of land that housed some of the intermittent clusters of light we were starting to make out quite well now as we got closer to the coastline.

As the bow crashed through the water I moved to the rear of the boat to minimize the effects of the spray and wind, pissed off that I was wet and cold before I'd even started this job. Lotfi was the other side of the outboard. I looked across as he checked his GPS and adjusted the throttle to keep us on the right bearing.

The brine burned my eyes, but this was a whole lot better than the sub we'd just left. It had been built in the 1960s and the air con was losing its grip. After being cooped up in diesel fumes for three days, waiting for the right moment to make this hit, I'd been gagging to be out in the fresh air, even air this fresh. I comforted myself with the thought that the next time I inhaled diesel I'd be chugging along ninety metres below the Mediterranean, back to Alexandria, drinking steaming cups of sweet black tea and celebrating the end of my very last job.

* * * * *

The lights got closer and the coastline took on a bit more shape. Lotfi didn't need the GPS any more and it went into the rubber bow bag. We were maybe four hundred metres off the shore and I could start to make out the target area. The higher, rocky ground was flooded with light, and in the blackness below it, I could just about make out the cliff, and the beach Lotfi had assured us was good enough to land on.

We moved forward more slowly now, the engine just ticking over to keep the noise down. When we were about a hundred metres from the beach, Lotfi cut the fuel and tilted the outboard until it locked horizontal once more. The boat lost momentum and began to wallow in the swell. He'd already started to connect one of the full fuel bladders in preparation for our exfiltration. We couldn't afford to mince about if the shit hit the fan and we had to do a runner.

His teeth flashed white as he gave us a huge grin. 'Now we paddle.'

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