Contents

Cover

About the Book

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Army Foundation College, Harrogate

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Coming soon

Maps

Glossary

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Andy McNab

Copyright

About the Book

The first instalment of THE NEW RECRUIT serialization: a thrilling action-adventure produced with assistance from real recruits.

The Army Foundation College in Harrogate is a long way from home for seventeen-year-old Liam Scott. The training is intense; has he got what it takes to stay in the game when he’s faced with CS gas and the firing range?

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

THE NEW RECRUIT

For the 2012 intake of Junior Soldiers in training at Army Foundation College, Harrogate

Thank you for all the help you gave me during the writing of this book. Without all of you I wouldn’t have been able to ensure that this story was a true reflection of what you do for our country. Hopefully it will make you proud of what you have become. I know I am, and that anyone who reads this book will feel the same.

These maps show the approximate location of Afghanistan and Helmand Province in relation to the surrounding areas.

Army Foundation College, Harrogate

‘Just do it! Come on, it’s a piece of piss.’ Liam’s own words burned.

Another figure, shaking his head, refusing to budge, ignoring him.

‘So you’re chicken, then? Is that it?’ Liam bent his arms and flapped them like wings.

‘Not listening.’ Dan’s voice was firm as he backed away from Liam, but in the wrong direction. Towards the edge of the building, where they were free running.

‘Dan! Stop! The gap!’ Liam’s stomach turned over as he realized the danger.

A laugh. ‘You expect that to work, too? Sort yourself out, Liam. Known you too long, mate.’

Liam shouted again, but still Dan backed away, each step taking him closer and closer to the drop . . .

A scream ripped itself out of Liam’s throat. Sitting up, for a moment all he could see was darkness. He was drenched in sweat and his breaths were hard and fast, his heart thumping as though it wanted to burst out of his chest.

Movement . . .

Something was at the end of his bed and the night bent round it as though afraid. Liam had once felt the same, but not any more. Not now. If time hadn’t healed him, a life-change had.

‘Hey, Liam . . .’

The voice froze the air. Liam’s heart was racing now, but it was more due to adrenaline than fear.

A shadowy figure leaned forward. Slowly, deliberately, as though to do so any faster would cause it to topple, collapse, crumble. Its face was a mess of blood and bone, the features barely recognizable, one eye gone, the other wide and staring, unblinking.

Liam breathed deep, squeezed his eyes tight shut, balled the heels of his palms into them till he saw stars, sensed tears slip out to run down his face.

Come on, Liam, sort your bloody head out. It’s not there, not real. If you can’t handle this then you’re going to be no use as a proper soldier!

The shadow was gone.

Lying slowly back in his bed, forcing his breath to slow down, Liam focused on the other sounds in the room. The faint tick of a watch. A bubble of water doing its best to push through a weary heating system. And the deep-sleep breathing of other exhausted young soldiers in the same room.

As he tried to drift back to sleep, he thought of his last days at home, down in London. His mum was in the kitchen, creeping about timidly to make his dad a lunch he wouldn’t even eat. His dad, barely sober from the night before – and even in the morning already halfway through another can of Special Brew – was signing the papers for him to enrol at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate.

‘So if I sign this, it means you’re out of the house for good, right? About fucking time, if you ask me.’

‘Just sign it, Dad.’

‘What if I don’t?’

‘For once, don’t be an arsehole. And I’ll only be home on leave, that’s it.’

‘You know there’s a war on, right?’

‘Anything’s better than here, Dad.’

And that was it, job done.

Rolling over onto his side, Liam did his best to ignore the pain in his muscles. They hadn’t stopped aching from the day he’d arrived.

He checked his watch. With little more than a couple of hours left, he forced his eyes shut.

1

‘THIS PLACE IS a shit tip!’

And with that, Corporal McKenzie, a man who made up for being short by being wide and loud and angry, smashed his boot into the bin. It clattered across the floor of the room Liam shared with eleven other junior soldiers, and slammed into the radiator under the window. The sound was deafening.