Spider Shepherd 10 - True Colours

by Leather, Stephen

  At just before ten that night, Khan thought he heard the drumbeat sound of helicopter rotors in the distance, but it was snatched away again on the breeze and, though he strained his ears, he heard no more. Half an hour later there was movement on the periphery of his vision near a copse of tall trees. It was a ripple in the darkness, sensed as much as seen. Khan eased off the safety catch of his rifle and slid it forward, sighting not on the area where he had seen the movement, but towards Piruz.

  Twice Khan tensed as small groups of dark figures moved down the track towards the money house, but on each occasion they were recognised by the guards at the door and admitted to the house. After remaining inside for perhaps an hour, they left again carrying bundles that might have contained dollars, opium or weapons and ammunition.

  A lone figure, perhaps one of the al-Qaeda fighters, left the house shortly afterwards and disappeared up the track towards the mountains, but after that there was only silence, and the lamp inside the building was extinguished before midnight.

  Nothing and nobody moved for another hour, but then Khan heard a faint noise, like the rustle of fabric. He strained his eyes into the darkness but saw nothing until two dark shapes suddenly materialised out of the night, no more than twenty yards from him. They carried a ladder between them, holding their rifles in the other hand.

  Khan saw the outline of night vision goggles on the men’s faces and crouched lower, laying a restraining hand on Ghulam’s arm, for fear that he might open fire. For the moment, neither Piruz nor the two guards at the door were aware of any danger, because the two men’s angle of approach meant that the building was blocking them from Piruz’s sight.

  Cloud still blanketed the sky, shrouding the moon and reducing its light to no more than a faint glow. Silent as ghosts, the two figures slipped between pools of shadow, blacker even than the surrounding darkness, until they reached the outside wall of the money house.

  As they turned to look back the way they had come, Khan caught a glimpse of their faces. He recognised the man called Spider at once and felt a pang of guilt mixed with unease as he saw that it was Captain Todd alongside him. The SAS men had no reason to trust him, he knew, and every reason to hate him. If they saw Khan, it could cost him his life, but if he allowed them to be ambushed and killed, his ticket to freedom and a new life in the West could well disappear.

  His mind raced. There was nothing he could do to alert them. He would simply have to watch and wait. He sensed Ghulam’s impatience and motioned for him to be still and silent.

  Khan watched as the SAS men placed their ladder against the wall. They paused to listen and scan the surroundings for movement, then Spider climbed up the ladder and fixed shaped charges against the wall on each floor.

  Again Khan had to restrain Ghulam from firing. He twisted around and leaned close to Ghulam’s ear, breathing, ‘Not yet, wait.’

  Spider slid back down the ladder and Khan saw him mime protecting his ears to Todd. Spider covered his own ears a fraction of a second before there was a massive blast and a flash of light tearing the darkness apart. By the time Khan raised his head again, the two SAS men had rushed up the ladder and were disappearing through a gaping hole in the upper storey. Smoke was also swirling from similar holes on the lower two floors. Ears ringing from the blast, Khan barely heard Ghulam’s whispered query. ‘Now?’

  Khan shook his head and breathed, ‘Not yet.’

  On the far side of the building, he saw Piruz start to rise from cover, then think better of it and sink back down, but a moment later Khan saw twin red dots appear on the house as Piruz and his comrade trained their laser sights on the building.

  The minutes ticked by in silence as Khan watched the building. Then flames flared inside and he heard the crackle of flames.

  Suddenly a figure burst from the blazing building. It was Captain Todd. At once the red dots flickered across the building. A moment later Khan heard a double tap and saw the SAS officer fall backwards.

  There was an immediate answering burst of fire from away to his right and, using it as cover, the second SAS man, Spider, burst through the hole in the wall. Firing as he ran, he dived and rolled and came up alongside his wounded comrade.

  As firing continued around them, Khan saw Spider crouching over Todd, clamp a dressing on his wound, then cradle the dying officer’s head against his chest.

  As Khan watched, Spider looked up and their eyes locked. The SAS man swung up his weapon, oblivious to the red dots now tracing a path across the ground towards him. Piruz and his partner were less than a second away from firing.

  Khan turned towards Piruz, took aim and squeezed the trigger once, then twice, and felt a surge of satisfaction as Piruz’s head exploded like a melon struck with an axe.

  In that same moment, Spider’s weapon flashed. Khan heard a double tap from it but also a simultaneous whipcrack from Ghulam’s AK-47 behind him. Spider’s weapon went flying as Ghulam’s shot smashed into his shoulder and sent him sprawling to the ground.

  Khan had flattened himself and rolled sideways a few feet, just as return fire from the SAS cordon, zeroing on the muzzle flash from his weapon, ripped through the ground where he had been lying. Although Piruz now lay dead, his comrade was still firing, rounds smacking into the ground and striking Todd’s already dead body, half shielding the place where Spider was lying.

  Khan zeroed in on the muzzle flashes and then saw the Taliban fighter’s face bottom-lit for a moment as he fired another burst. Even before his features had faded back into the darkness, Khan had put a single shot into his brain. He saw the Taliban fighter’s head disintegrate, the tail of his turban blowing out behind him as if caught in a sudden gale.

  Khan was already rolling across the ground again as a fresh torrent of fire from the SAS cordon blitzed the area. He heard a grunt, choked off as soon as it began, and when he looked back he saw Ghulam spreadeagled, a pink froth bubbling from the hole blown in his chest.

  Khan felt sick to his core. Ghulam’s loyalty to him had now cost him his life, for one glance at the wound showed there was nothing that could be done for him, and his own life was still in danger. He lay motionless as the suppressing fire from the SAS slowed and then ceased, and he watched as one of them ran to Spider, pulling a field dressing from his jacket. ‘Stay down,’ the soldier shouted, clamping the dressing over the wound. Khan heard him cry out, ‘Geordie, get over here! Spider’s hit!’ and saw Geordie sprinting to him, keeping low to the ground. The medic spared Todd no more than a cursory glance and then stooped over Spider.

  Khan began to worm his way back into the shadows and then rose to a crouch, but as he prepared to creep away, some instinct made him look back and, as he did so, he saw Spider looking directly at him. The SAS man tried to speak but coughed, choked and spat blood, and though Khan saw Spider raise his arm to point towards him, Khan was already moving behind the cover of the rubble heap. He heard a burst of fire and rounds whined and ricocheted from the stones but he was already running fast, keeping the rubble heap between him and the SAS, bent double to stop his outline breaking the line of the horizon.

  Lights had now flared in several of the outlying houses and he could see torches waving as villagers and Taliban fighters hurried towards the blazing money house. He dropped into cover and let them pass, then moved on as the glow from the burning house grew brighter and fresh bursts of firing erupted behind him. A few moments later he heard the sound of motorbike engines as the SAS tried to make their getaway.

  Khan found the track leading up into the mountains and moved along it, sure-footed even in the darkness. As he crested a rise, he heard the thunder of rotors away to his left and saw the lumbering shape of a Chinook rising into the sky, its mini-gun thundering, while answering fire struck sparks from its fuselage. He watched until it had vanished into the darkness and even the distant echo of its rotors had been silenced, and then, steering by the stars, he strode on into the mountains, making for the rendezvous with his American handler that
would lead him to Lailuna and a new life in the West.

  The four men stood in amazement as Khan finished his story. Harper’s gun was at his side, his finger no longer on the trigger. ‘No fucking way,’ he said. McIntyre and Shortt had also lowered their weapons and they looked over at Shepherd.

  ‘Every word is the truth,’ said Khan. ‘May Allah strike me dead if I say one word of a lie.’

  ‘He saved you, Spider,’ said Shortt. He slid the gun into his pocket.

  ‘Looks like it,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘The guy’s a bloody hero,’ muttered McIntyre. He looked at Khan. ‘You’re a hero, mate. They should have given you a medal.’

  Khan shook his head. ‘I am no hero, and I have done many bad things. But I did not shoot those three paratroopers in the back, I did not kill Captain Todd and I did not shoot you.’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘I believe you,’ he said.

  Harper turned around in a slow circle, staring up at the night sky. ‘I came that close to killing you,’ he said. He looked at Shepherd. ‘If you hadn’t turned up when you did …’ He shivered.

  ‘We all came that close,’ said Shepherd. He knelt down by the side of Khan and used his Swiss Army knife to cut the duct tape from his hands and feet. ‘Joshua kept his word and got you and your daughter out of Afghanistan?’

  Khan forced a smile. ‘He said we could go to the US, or the UK, or Australia. He could get me citizenship of all three. I chose London because I have friends here. Good friends. They helped me find a place to live, and a job. And my daughter has a place at a good college.’

  ‘And Joshua paid you?’

  Khan sat up and massaged his wrists. ‘He gave me money. Not a fortune, but enough.’

  Shepherd stood up and offered Khan his hand. Khan grabbed it and Shepherd hauled him to his feet. He looked at Khan, overwhelmed by feelings of guilt over the way that he had treated him. Khan had saved his life, and Shepherd and his friends had almost killed him, shot him in the head and buried him in the woods. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, knowing as the words left his mouth that they weren’t enough and never would be. ‘I’ll do whatever I can to make this right, I swear.’

  Khan smiled tightly, and massaged his wrists again. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘You thought I had killed your friends. If I was in your position, I would probably have done the same.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Shepherd. ‘And maybe not. But that doesn’t make what we did any less wrong.’

  Harper, McIntyre and Shortt nodded in agreement. One by one they stepped forward, apologised and shook Khan’s hand. Shepherd stood and watched, knowing that it was going to take more than words and a handshake to put right the wrong that they had done. And it was clear from the looks on the faces of the three men that they knew it, too.

  PATTAYA. THREE MONTHS LATER

  Lex Harper pushed open the door to the bar and looked around. His usual table over by the kitchen was free, and there were only three other tables occupied. Two regulars were drinking Chang beer and watching football on one of the big-screen TVs, there was a large, balding man in a vest, shorts and flip-flops sitting next to a bargirl half his age and a third of his body mass, and a European woman with short chestnut hair and a string of pearls around her neck who was toying with a cup of tea and an iPad.

  Harper liked the circular table because it gave him a clear view of the front door, he could sit with his back to the wall, and it was only a few steps to the kitchen, from where he could get to the alley behind the building. He picked up a copy of the Daily Mail and took it over to his table. The paper was sent via satellite each morning and printed in Thailand, making it as up to date as the latest edition back in the UK. As he sat down, one of his favourite waitresses walked over. Her name was Nok, which meant Bird, and there was something very bird-like about the way she stood by his side, pencil poised over her notepad, even though he ordered the same thing every day. ‘Full English breakfast,’ he said. ‘Coffee. And French fries on the side.’

  Nok bobbed her head and scurried away. Harper opened his paper and then realised that the European woman was looking at him. She was pretty and well groomed and he found it difficult to place her age; she could have been anywhere between thirty and forty-five. She wasn’t dressed like the normal Pattaya tourist, she was wearing a suit that looked as if it might be Chanel, and on her left wrist was a slim Cartier gold watch, clearly the real thing and not a Chinese knock-off. She smiled as he looked up. ‘Hot outside, isn’t it?’ she said.

  The question would have identified her as English even if her accent hadn’t given her away. ‘There’s only two seasons here,’ said Harper. ‘Hot and very hot. Are you here on holiday?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Business?’

  The woman smiled. ‘Actually, I’m here to see you, Lex.’

  She smiled but her cold brown eyes looked right through him. Harper swallowed and realised that his mouth had gone suddenly dry. ‘Do you know me?’ he asked.

  ‘I know of you,’ she said. ‘But of course that’s not the same thing. We have a mutual friend. Dan Shepherd.’

  ‘You know Spider?’

  ‘Oh yes, I know Spider.’

  Harper stared at her for several seconds. Then he nodded. ‘You’re with Five.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘There are no flies on you, are there, Lex?’

  Harper looked over at the door, wondering whether the Thai police were about to rush in. The woman smiled. ‘I’m not here to arrest you, Lex. I have absolutely zero jurisdiction here. And if I did want you arrested, I’m sure your police friends would tip you off long before we got to the stage of taking you into custody. I’m sure you already have a fall-back position. Cambodia perhaps? Or Brazil.’

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘My name is Charlotte Button. My friends call me Charlie. I don’t think we’re ever going to be friends, Lex, but you can call me Charlie.’

  ‘He did mention your name, now I come to think about it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘He mentioned your name, that’s all. He takes his job seriously.’

  Button smiled. ‘That’s good to hear. Does Spider know what you get up to?’

  ‘Some of it.’

  ‘The armed robbery, obviously?’

  Harper nodded.

  ‘The drugs?’

  ‘Import-export, I prefer to call it. Yes.’

  ‘And the killings?’

  Harper stiffened. The door to the bar crashed open but it was only the ice-man, carrying a sack of melting ice on his shoulder. He grunted as he walked through to the kitchen, water plopping on to the floor behind him.

  ‘I’m guessing not,’ said Button. ‘There are three we know about, Lex. Two in Spain. One in Liverpool. Competitors. Import–export can be a cut-throat business, apparently.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t look so worried. Knowing about and proving in a court of law are two different things.’

  ‘What the hell do you want?’ asked Harper.

  ‘You asked if I was with Five. But the lines are all getting very blurred these days. Five. Six. The Home Office. Border Force. National Crime Agency. There’s a lot of toing and froing. And a lot of cracks to fall through. I think you might be interested in one of the cracks.’

  Harper frowned. ‘Do you always talk in riddles?’

  Button smiled. ‘You would have killed Ahmad Khan, wouldn’t you?’

  Harper’s coffee arrived and he waited until Nok had walked back to the bar before speaking. ‘You knew about that?’

  Button shrugged. ‘What I know or don’t know isn’t the issue. But you would have happily shot him and buried him in the New Forest, correct?’

  ‘I thought he deserved it,’ said Harper. ‘Turned out I was wrong. Does Spider know that you know?’

  Button ignored the question. ‘And your competitors, they deserved it?’

  ‘What do you want from me?’ asked Harper. ‘Why are you here?’

&
nbsp; Button sipped her tea, then carefully put her cup back on its saucer. ‘Sometimes, Lex, when I’m working in the cracks, I need something taken care of. Or someone. And I rather think you might be able to help me with that.’

  Harper leaned towards her and lowered his voice. ‘You want someone killed, is that it?’

  Button chuckled softly. ‘Not right now, no. But in the future …’ She shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘You’re offering me a job?’

  ‘With a salary and benefits?’ She shook her head. ‘No. But the occasional contract.’ She smiled. ‘Such a strange word, that. Contract. So businesslike and yet at the same time, so Sopranos.’

  ‘This is what Spider does for you, is it?’

  She shook her head firmly. ‘Spider sees himself very much as the wearer of a white hat, and unless his opponent has a black hat he’s very uneasy about crossing that line. But you, Lex, you’re very much in the grey area, aren’t you? One of your competitors who is no longer with us, he was a friend for a long time. A childhood friend, in fact. But that didn’t stop you, did it? You’ve got a talent, Lex, and it’s a talent I would like to make use of.’

  ‘And what do I get out of this? If I agree?’

  ‘Money, of course. Though looking at your financial situation, that’s not much of a carrot, is it? You’re a very rich man, Lex. Well done, you.’

  Harper nodded and couldn’t help grinning. The conversation was making him very uneasy but there was no getting away from the fact that Charlie Button was charming and attractive. ‘I get by,’ he said.

  ‘What I can offer you is an assurance,’ she said. ‘A sort of “Get out of Jail Free” card, if you like. If you do accept my offer, you will never be bothered by any of the agencies that I’ve mentioned. You’ll never be stopped at an airport or pulled over by the police or have the taxman trawling through your records. You enjoy being the grey man, Lex, and you’ve very good at it, but I could help you become the invisible man, pretty much.’

  ‘And all I would have to do is the occasional job for you?’