Tom Marcus - I Spy: My Life in MI5

ALSO BY TOM MARCUS

Fiction

CAPTURE OR KILL

Non fiction

SOLDIER SPY

Its the screams you hear first. There are men and women everywhere, from all walks of life, running, hiding, some frozen into petrified stillness. This isnt a normal scene in London, but its one that is fast becoming anticipated.

Zero Six.

More carnage, as I see glimpses of bodies, the walking wounded and those who have already lost the fight. One or two people are recording what they can on their phones, handsets shaking uncontrollably. Theres a flash of the three targets, wearing what look like very crude suicide vests, stalking more prey. The armed police close in, running fearlessly towards the fight.

Zero Six.

Right now, I know that MI5 officers will be reacting to a protocol designed to put every conceivable asset on the ground within minutes. Surveillance teams already on the ground will be re-deployed. Those who had just finished and were at home with their families, or somewhere desperately trying to switch off, will be in their cars and with the teams immediately. The intelligence officers would be briefing the teams live on the radios, no time to bring them in. The operators in the teams, not just surveillance but the technical attack teams, the office geeks within Thames House, our cousins in Vauxhall Cross and the wobbly heads in Cheltenham would be working together with one goal in mind: to stop the killers.

Zero Six, roger, en route.

The first shots ring out, and I know from the controlled manner this is almost certainly the police firearms officers. Over the past few years, due to the huge spike in the scale of terrorist activity and their capability, the Counter Terrorism Unit is now without question the best trained police force in the world. Tonight, just south of London Bridge, they are proving it, as the echoes of gunfire continue to bounce around the buildings, a brutal counterpoint to the screams.

My lungs spasm, gasping for air, as I realize I am frozen with my phone to my ear, waiting for an update from my team leader or the operations officer back at base.

Breaking news here on Sky, as whats being described as a terrorist attack in the heart of London...

Lowering my phone, I look at the blank black screen. No call. No messages. No longer frozen, I take a step back, soaking in my surroundings. Fuck. The TV is on, this is on the news. Im not on the ground. Im no longer in MI5. Im not hearing my radio. It was an auditory hallucination. Ive relapsed. Get out, get out NOW!

Its late at night and everyone in the house is asleep. I grab the door keys and leave, my legs instantly propelling me into a run I didnt know I needed. Moving faster and faster, I cover the couple of miles to a large wood.

Im brought up short after vaulting a dry-stone wall that acts as a land boundary to a farm. Its dark around here the immediate area is almost pitch black thanks to the looming treeline.

As my heart and lungs struggle to replace the oxygen my muscles have burned through, I find myself sitting on this low wall looking towards a break in the trees through which I can see a valley and hills in the distance.

Zero Six.

FUCK OFF, THATS NOT ME ANYMORE!

Im not MI5 anymore but I always will be. Im no longer part of my team, but I can always hear them. Im no longer hunting the most dangerous terrorists in the world, but every day Im watching and waiting for them.

Even moving back along this dark muddy track Im trying to pick out a route in the shadows that will take me home a completely different way. Some call it paranoia; even the doctors Ive dealt with in the past would classify my day-to-day behaviour as paranoid. PTSD or not, the curse engrained into me also keeps me alive.

Spotting a different route to take, I cut across an open field, dark silhouettes of cows moving slowly in the distance. Im walking rather than running, giving myself time to face the demons I had convinced myself were gone. My mind is calmer by the time I creep back into the house. Resisting the urge to turn the news on, I strip out of my wet clothes and sit on the sofa thinking about the team. Theyll be on the ground right now, helping to hunt down anyone associated with the London Bridge targets, anyone who could be waiting for the right time to launch their own attack.

I can imagine the speed at which the intelligence officers on the desk would be shifting through terabytes of live data, creating a triage of threats from thousands of targets.

I can almost hear the radio transmissions, the team leader calling in assets, continuous updates from Thames House, bikers blasting past every operator, all task-focused and doing everything humanly possible to prevent more attacks like this. Unfortunately, you cant stop every single one, its impossible. And we will get hit again. It might be next week, might be next year, but it will happen. The thing to remember is that our intelligence and military is the best fighting force in the world. Like any world champion, some attacks will find a way through our defences, but we can take the blows and keep fighting. Our guard never drops. Together with my team, I helped stop hundreds of attacks over the years. They continue to do so today.

I wrote about some of my experiences as an MI5 officer in Soldier Spy. On the one hand, remembering the past showed me that having PTSD wasnt my fault. I wasnt a victim, just someone who got caught out in the open at all the wrong times. Revisiting my career for I Spy has allowed me to describe some of the operations I couldnt include in the first book and go deeper into the challenges that defined me, and the lessons learned along the way.

The memories of my team are so vivid, they stay with me. To this day I want to be back with them and instantly hate myself for it, because going back would take me away from my family. What I can do is remember them in my writing, and pay tribute to the bravery of the men and women of MI5.

First published 2019 by Macmillan

This electronic edition published 2019 by Macmillan

an imprint of Pan Macmillan

20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

Associated companies throughout the world

www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-5098-6412-6

Copyright Tom Marcus 2019

Jacket images Shutterstock

The right of Tom Marcus to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third-party websites referred to in or on this book.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.