Destabilising governments, terrorism and assassination
Book: Fortress Author: Andy McNab Reviewed by: Samantha Keogh Review made possible by: Penguin
When SAS trooper Tom Buckingham attacks a seemingly friendly Afghan soldier he is sent home in disgrace rather than being proclaimed a hero.
Facing an end to his military career, bitter and confused, he is easy prey for billionaire Vernon Rolt who has amassed an army of down-and-out ex-servicemen whom he has given back their self-respect and whose loyalty to him is unshakeable.
Meanwhile militant Muslims are rioting in British streets following the death of one of their number – ostensibly at the hands of the police.
It is not clear to the authorities whether Rolt, who has political ambitions and his own agenda about the impending visit by the American president, is behind the trouble.
Time, it seems, for the Machiavellian intelligence services to nudge a vacillating Tom into infiltrating Rolt’s organisation, a task for which he is perfectly qualified.
Tom realises he is being manipulated but agrees to get involved on his own terms.
He is sent to the US on the pretext of talking an American computer software company into funding Rolt’s organisation.
Instead he finds himself thrown into a series of events aimed at destabilising governments, terrorism and assassination.
He has some choices to make.
Andy McNab may have been a fine soldier (you don’t spend 17 years in the British Army, nine of them in the SAS, without learning a little about soldiering) but his credentials as a writer are indisputable.
