John Steel Collection - Books 1-3

Chapter 1

Sergeant John Steel sat with his eyes closed. The loud drone of the C-130 transport engines was an annoying hum through the noise-cancelling headsets. Nevertheless, Steel wore a satisfied smile because he and his men were going home for a spot of R&R after their last mission. It had felt like years since he was last home, but their time in Bosnia had taken longer than expected.

Steel thought back on the mission, which had proven to be challenging as well as successful. Steel and his men were members of the British 22 SAS Regiment on an intel-gathering mission, which had quickly turned into a ‘contain or destroy’ mission.

They had been sent in to gather information on a major arms deal. Their job was to get photographs and eyes on intel on the seller and the buyer. But things had escalated when the buyer was confirmed as a Czechian terrorist called Lobo.

Every three-letter agency around the globe wanted Lobo. Most of them preferred him dead than captured.

The seller was confirmed as a man simply known as Mr Brown.

The MI8 division of the British secret service had suspected that Mr Brown worked for a mysterious organisation that had popped up on their radar. However, the name of the organisation – or any solid information on them – was still a mystery.

The team’s new mission was simple, get eyes on the arms, capture Brown, and eliminate Lobo. If things went wrong, the contingency plan was to destroy the weapons and eliminate both Brown and Lobo. Either way, none of them was leaving the area unless the coalition forces moved them.

The meeting was in an old factory complex abandoned after the conflict in the ’80s. It was made up of four warehouses that sat side by side and the main building that had been shelled and shot up pretty good. Whitehall had confirmed using satellite and pictures from drones that the weapons were in one of the warehouses. But unfortunately, the data was two days old, so they had no idea which warehouse they were in.

Mission had been a success as far as taking control of the weapons was concerned. Lobo had taken a .50 calibre sniper round to the chest courtesy of Scott McManus, or Whisky, due to his ever-growing collection.

Mr Brown had escaped briefly, only to be captured later by team four – who had been waiting at the docks. Finally, the weapons were destroyed using a hellfire missile from a drone.

Steel smiled as he stared out of the scratched, thick windowpane. He and his men were going home for a well-deserved leave. There was to be no tea and medals because this OP never existed. Steel was used to that because it was all part of the job he signed up for.

The week before the operation in Bosnia, Steel had an interview with military intelligence. His work with the special forces had gotten him noticed, which had gotten Steel earmarked for a position with the new MI8 section. A section that his father, Lord Steel, was partly responsible for creating in his role with the ministry for military intelligence.

But now Steel was heading back to Britain, back to his family home in the countryside, back to his loving wife, Helen.