Free Liberation Day by Andy McNab

not as if it’s a bad thing you have done, you have nothing to be ashamed of.” He turned around and gestured toward the mug in his hand. I accepted with a grudging nod. Carrie’s mother would go ape if the wood got marked, so I took two pineapple-motif coasters from the pile in the center of the table as George continued, now with his back to me. “This isn’t a war of choice like Vietnam or Kosovo. This is a war of necessity. It’s in our yard now, Nick. Carrie should be proud of you.”
    I glanced into the folder and saw my passport, driver’s license, and other documents. “This could have waited, George.”
    “What you did for us out there, it had to be done, Nick. This is not the time to be showing the world we’re nice guys. This outreach thing that’s going on, every schoolkid gets a Muslim pen pal, that kind of thing, it makes no sense. This isn’t a time to hug, this is a time to be feared.”
    I flipped through the passport and there was something wrong, big-time wrong. These weren’t Nick Stone’s documents; they belonged to someone called Nick Scott, who had the same face as me. I looked up sharply. George was still pouring creamer. “I didn’t want a new name, I wanted my own back.”
    He came and sat down with the two mugs of coffee, passing one across the table then waving my last words aside. He kept the other in his huge left hand, his veteran’s onyx signet ring glinting on his ring finger. He took a tentative sip; too hot—the mug went on the coaster. “Do you know over six hundred people died in floods over in Algeria two days ago? You were lucky to get in-country before the storms.”
    I cupped my hands around the mug and felt the heat. “I heard something.”
    “You know why? Because the drains had been blocked to stop terrorists planting bombs under the streets and killing people. Kind of ironic, isn’t it?”
    I didn’t know where this was headed, but I wasn’t feeling good about it. I just wanted to get out of here and go and find Carrie.
    “Know what my job is nowadays, Nick? To make sure we don’t have to block our drains. You’ve helped me do that, and the first thing I want to say today is thank you.”
    This was really starting to worry me. I picked up the dull-looking brew with not enough cream, and took a sip.
    “For years, we’ve been fighting this war with our hands tied. Now people are looking for scapegoats because America doesn’t feel safe anymore. America says, ‘The government should have known, the CIA should have known, the military should have known. Thirty billion of our tax dollars spent on intelligence, why didn’t anyone know?’” He paused to lift his mug. “Well, here’s the news. On nine-eleven America had the exact level of protection that it was willing to pay for. We’ve been telling government for years that we need more money to fight this thing. We told them this would eventually happen but Congress wouldn’t give us cash. Doesn’t anyone watch C-Span anymore to see what their own government is doing? Maybe they’re just too busy watching Jerry Springer. What do you think?”
    I shrugged, not really understanding what he was going on about, not that it mattered. I just got the feeling the place we were going to wasn’t one where I wanted to be.
    “Did any of the complainers see the intelligence chiefs talking about the new terrorism? We kept telling Congress, live on TV, there wasn’t enough money to build intelligence networks in the areas where these scum are operating—and that they needed to untie our hands so we could deal with this situation. We’ve told them for years that this is a clear and present danger within America’s borders that needs to be taken on and defeated but, hey, guess what? Congress just said no, looking at ways of saving a nickel.”
    He took a long, slow breath of frustration before continuing. “So why didn’t America demand more protection from their Congressmen? Because they were watching one