Dead Men

by Leather, Stephen

  ‘Drastic?’ repeated Salih, with amused eyes.

  ‘You know what I mean. If I check him out for you and a couple of days later there’s a bullet in his skull my life will be over.’

  ‘He’s not my target, Viktor. You know that.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I sound paranoid, old friend, but one doesn’t fool around with the SAS.’

  ‘How much would you want – to check out this Shepherd?’

  ‘Twenty thousand pounds should cover it,’ said Merkulov.

  ‘Agreed,’ said Salih.

  ‘Whoever’s paying you has money to burn,’ said Merkulov.

  ‘Money is no object,’ said Salih.

  ‘Why does he want Yokely and Button so badly?’ said Merkulov. He finished his cigar and flicked the butt into the canal. It spun through the air in a shower of sparks, then plopped into the water.

  ‘I don’t care why people hire me,’ said Salih. ‘All I care is that they pay. You’re the same. Money is our only master. Nothing else matters.’

  Merkulov nodded. ‘They take revenge seriously, the Arabs,’ he said.

  Salih smiled. ‘I did not say my client was an Arab.’

  ‘No, I assumed …’

  Salih cut him short. ‘The American. Do you know where he is?’

  Ahead, a man in a black nylon bomber jacket was walking an aggressive Dobermann. He yanked on the dog’s chain and swore as he walked past them. His head was shaven and a tattoo of a cobweb ran across his neck. He glared at Salih and Merkulov, as if he blamed them for his dog’s misbehaviour.

  ‘I am working on it,’ said Merkulov, ‘but he is difficult to track. He is able to move between countries without leaving any record of his passing.’

  ‘That is why I pay you so much,’ said Salih. ‘If it was easy, I’d phone Directory Enquiries.’

  ‘I know where he isn’t,’ said Merkulov. ‘He isn’t in the Ukraine or anywhere in the former Soviet bloc. And my contacts across Asia are sure he isn’t there.’

  ‘That still leaves a big chunk of the world, Viktor.’

  ‘As I said, I’m working on it. Have you a deadline on this?’

  ‘Generally my clients would rather I fulfilled my obligations sooner rather than later,’ said Salih. ‘How could we get a number for him?’

  ‘Let me think about it,’ said the Russian. ‘Is it possible that he is in regular contact with Button?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Salih. ‘She’s SOCA and he’s American black operations. I doubt they would do much together.’

  ‘They must have done something for your client to want them both dead.’

  ‘Just because he wants them both taken care of doesn’t mean they’re connected,’ said Salih.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘I didn’t ask,’ said Salih.

  ‘It might be an idea to call him,’ said Merkulov. ‘Find out if there’s a connection.’ He gestured at the pocket into which Salih had put the envelope. ‘It might even be that Yokely is one of the numbers on that list. If we think he is in regular contact with her, we’d have a better chance of finding him.’

  Salih stopped walking and put his hands into his pockets. The man with the Dobermann disappeared around a bend in the canal. Salih looked over his shoulder. There was no one on the path behind them.

  ‘Is that man over there one of yours?’ said Salih, with a nod across the canal. The knife dropped from his sleeve as he brought his hand out of his coat pocket and slid easily into Salih’s open palm. He grabbed Merkulov’s hair with his left hand and pulled back the man’s head to expose the throat.

  Merkulov began to shout, but the knife slashed through his windpipe, reducing the sound to a watery gurgle. Arterial blood spurted in an arc from the Russian’s neck as Salih pushed him into the canal. The body slapped into the water, Merkulov’s legs thrashed for a few seconds, then stilled. Salih took a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped the knife clean, then dropped it into the depths.

  He took one final look around, then walked away along the towpath. Part of him wished he’d been able to confront the Russian, to tell him that he knew he’d betrayed him and see the despair in the man’s eyes before he’d taken his life, but he was nothing if not professional. Only amateurs gave in to the urge to explain to their victims. Only amateurs made their killings personal. Merkulov had betrayed Salih, so Salih had killed him. It had been inconvenient, but it hadn’t been personal. The Russian wasn’t the only intelligence source in London. Salih knew of three others, and he would have no problem in finding someone to get him the information he needed. He whistled softly as he walked, then smiled. It was the tune the jazz band had been playing. He took his mobile phone from his pocket and removed the Sim card. He broke it in half and tossed it into the canal.

  Shepherd sat down at his computer, went on-line and booked a return flight from Belfast to Birmingham with British Midland for the next day. He didn’t want Button to know he was leaving Belfast so he picked up one of his spare mobiles with a pay-as-you-go Sim card and went into the garden to phone Martin O’Brien. He had served with the Irish Rangers, Ireland’s equivalent of the SAS, then set up his own VIP protection company. Shepherd had known him for more than twelve years and there were few men he trusted more.

  Shepherd’s luck was in because O’Brien was in the UK and agreed to meet him at Birmingham airport. Shepherd told him what he needed and O’Brien agreed to help, no questions asked.

  As Shepherd ended the call, he saw Elaine Carter at her bedroom window. She was wearing pink pyjamas and waved. He waved back. Then she blew him a kiss. Shepherd grinned and returned it.

  Salih lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling blankly. He clasped his hands together and steepled his fingers. He had spent the best part of the night pacing round the hotel room, trying to marshal his thoughts, and soon it would be time for his morning prayers. He didn’t want to pray just yet because he had still to plan his course of action. He had been successful in the past because he never took risks. Everything he did was planned in advance, and for every action he took there was a fallback position in case something went wrong.

  The Russian had been trying to set him up, of that Salih was sure. He had known Merkulov for more than five years and in all that time the Russian had never once asked for details of a client. Such details were unnecessary. Merkulov supplied information and it made no difference who was paying for that information. That the Russian had been asking questions about Salih’s client had set alarm bells ringing, but when Merkulov had suggested Salih phone his client, he had known without a shadow of doubt that he had been betrayed. He had felt no remorse about killing Merkulov. If their positions had been reversed, the Russian would just as quickly have killed him.

  Merkulov had betrayed Salih, which meant that someone knew Salih was in England and that he was being paid to kill Richard Yokely and Charlotte Button. The question was, who had Merkulov betrayed him to? Not the police, surely, because they would have arrested the Russian and charged him with conspiracy to murder. Perhaps it was the security services, MI5 or MI6. Or the American.

  The Russian had wanted Salih to phone his client, which suggested that whoever turned him had access to phone-monitoring technology. Again, that pointed to the security services, or Yokely. Now that he had destroyed the Sim card, they couldn’t track his phone or identify its position. He had already fitted a new Sim card from a shop in Edgware Road.

  Salih ran through everything that Merkulov had known about him. He had known his name, and several aliases he had used in the past. He had known the pay-as-you-go phone number Salih had been using. And he had known who Salih’s targets were. It wasn’t much. Merkulov didn’t know what passport Salih was travelling on or where he was staying. He didn’t know what car he was driving or where he planned to go.

  There had been no one watching them at the canal, Salih was sure. If there had been, they would surely have tried to prevent him killing Merkulov. After Salih had left the canal he had walked to
Warwick Avenue Tube station, caught a Bakerloo Line train to the Circle Line, and had spent two hours going round it. He hadn’t been followed, he was sure. No one knew where he was, and without the phone they had no idea where he would go next. That suggested the security services weren’t on his case, because if they had turned the Russian they would almost certainly have had a surveillance team in place. That left the American.

  The big question, though, was when the Russian had been turned. Yokely would certainly have access to mobile-phone tracking capabilities, so he would know exactly where Salih had been. Salih had used the mobile in his hotel, so as soon as he had left the Underground he had checked out, having first wiped the room clean of all fingerprints. Then he had registered at the Hilton close to Paddington station, a large, impersonal hotel frequented mainly by business travellers.

  His trip to Windsor worried Salih, though. If Yokely had tracked his phone he would know that Salih had been in the vicinity of the office where Charlotte Button’s husband worked. Did that matter? Salih sighed. Maybe not. Yokely would already know that Button was his target, so he hadn’t learnt anything new in discovering he had been to Windsor.

  Salih closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. The downside was that Yokely knew he was a target, and that Salih had been paid to kill him. And he would know that Salih had also been paid to kill Charlotte Button. That wasn’t the end of the world. Salih had killed men before who knew they were targets, men who had surrounded themselves with armed bodyguards and hidden behind fortified walls. Anyone could be reached. It just took planning and patience. That Yokely knew he was being hunted made Salih’s job harder, but not impossible.

  The one thing Salih didn’t understand was why Merkulov had given him the information about the SOCA agent in Belfast. The man called Daniel Shepherd. Anything that the Russian had said to Salih, and everything he had given him, must have been cleared byYokely. That meant Yokely wanted Salih to know who Shepherd was and where he lived. It felt like a trap, but why set a trap when Yokely would have known that Salih was meeting Merkulov at the canal? Merkulov had made it clear he was having trouble getting information out of SOCA, yet he appeared to have had no problem in identifying Shepherd’s landline. That suggested Yokely had fed him information. But why? Did Yokely know Shepherd?

  Salih had been considering killing someone close to Button as a way of bringing her out into the open. Her husband was a possibility, as was her daughter, and now the man called Daniel Shepherd was an option. If Shepherd was her agent, she would surely attend his funeral. Was Yokely presenting Shepherd as a target? Salih sat up and shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. Did that mean Yokely wanted Button dead? Was he clearing the way for Salih in the hope that he would be satisfied with just the one hit? That made no sense, no sense at all.

  The possibility had occurred to Salih that Yokely wanted the Russian dead and had sent Merkulov to the meeting knowing that Salih would kill him. That would explain why no one had been at the canal watching him. But it didn’t explain why the Russian had given Salih the phone records and the address. Salih rubbed his temples. Maybe he was thinking too much. Maybe Yokely didn’t care about Daniel Shepherd. Maybe he didn’t even know who he was. Maybe Yokely assumed that Salih was naïve or stupid and had sent Merkulov to pump him for information. Salih lay down again. Was he overthinking the situation? Was he starting to get paranoid, seeing death in shadows when they were only shadows, nothing more? Surely if Yokely knew that Salih was trying to kill him, he would have had Salih arrested or worse. Salih and Merkulov had conspired to commit murder, and in England that carried the same sentence as perpetration of the act. So what was Yokely after? Did he want to know who had taken out the contract on him? Was that why he had sent Merkulov to the meeting?

  Salih’s mind whirled and he tried to relax, to allow his subconscious to get to work on the puzzle. His instincts had stood him in good stead in the past and he knew they would do so again. He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing deeply. Yokely was a professional, a man used to running black operations for the American Government. If he wanted Salih dead, he would have him killed without a moment’s hesitation. So, the fact that Salih was still alive suggested that Yokely did not know he had been paid to kill him. So the American had not turned Merkulov. But if not Yokely, then who? Or had it all been a terrible mistake? Had the Russian simply been too inquisitive? Had Salih simply misread his curiosity? If he had, then, far from being a trap, the Daniel Shepherd details might be an opportunity he could make good use of.

  Salih rolled off the bed and padded into the bathroom. First he would cleanse himself. Then he would pray. And then he would phone Tariq.

  Shepherd caught an early-morning flight from George Best Belfast City airport to Birmingham. The British Midland flight was packed and the woman in the seat in front of him reclined it as soon as the wheels left the runway. Shepherd closed his eyes and tried to think pleasant thoughts until the plane landed. He had only a Nike gym bag with him so he walked straight from the plane to the arrivals area where Martin O’Brien was waiting for him, his shaven head glistening under the overhead lights. He grinned and the two men hugged. ‘How’s Belfast?’ asked the Irishman.

  ‘It’s changed,’ said Shepherd. ‘You wouldn’t recognise it. No one’s shooting at you, for a start.’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed O’Brien. ‘A few years ago whoever would have thought that Belfast would be the safe place to go?’

  ‘Crime rate’s on the up. Before, they used to search them on the way into the shops. Now they search them on the way out.’ They walked together to the car park. Shepherd peered at O’Brien’s stomach. ‘Are you losing weight?’

  ‘I’m in training,’ said O’Brien. ‘I’m doing the Marathon des Sables next year.’

  ‘Get the hell out of here,’ said Shepherd. The Marathon des Sables was the toughest footrace in the world, a hundred and fifty miles across the desert in North Africa, run over six days with all supplies carried in a rucksack. It was equivalent to five and a half regular marathons with temperatures up to a hundred and twenty degrees.

  ‘I needed the challenge,’ said O’Brien.

  ‘You’re mad,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘You should do it with me,’ said O’Brien. ‘You still run, don’t you?’

  ‘I run, sure, but the Marathon des Sables isn’t about running. It’s about punishing yourself.’

  ‘It’s fifty per cent mental,’ said O’Brien. ‘If you think you can do it, you can.’

  ‘Yes, Grasshopper. But that doesn’t mean that if you believe you can fly you can jump off a tall building without there being consequences.’ He slapped O’Brien’s back. ‘Seriously, though, I admire you. How old are you now?’

  ‘Screw you, Spider.’

  Hereford was just under fifty miles from Birmingham airport and O’Brien’s Mercedes made good time. It was a little before six when they pulled up in front of the White Hart and he switched off the engine. ‘I’ve got two guys for you to meet,’ said O’Brien. ‘They left the Regiment a couple of years back and spend most of their time in Iraq now, working for Blackwater. Serious money. Jack was a demolitions expert, and Billy was a linguist, fluent in seven languages including Arabic and Farsi.’

  ‘I can’t afford Iraq wages, Martin.’

  ‘They both have places in Hereford and they’re killing time before they head out to Baghdad again. They’re happy to do it as a favour. Plus I told them you’re a cop and that you’ll take care of any parking tickets, speeding fines and the like.’

  ‘And get them off the odd murder charge?’

  ‘Can you do that?’ asked O’Brien.

  ‘No, I bloody well can’t,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘They’re good guys,’ said O’Brien, climbing out of the Mercedes. ‘Regiment wasn’t happy about them leaving but there’s not much they can do when security companies are paying five times what the army offers.’

  He took Shepherd through a back door into the pu
b where three men in their sixties were sitting on stools at the bar. They glanced across as O’Brien and Shepherd walked in, then returned to their conversation. The barman had the look of a former sergeant major with bulging forearms and world-weary eyes. He nodded at O’Brien, who nodded back.

  A man in his early thirties was sitting at a corner table, two half-finished pints of bitter in front of him. When he saw O’Brien he stood up. He was a couple of inches taller than Shepherd and a few pounds lighter, with broad shoulders and wavy brown hair that didn’t appear to have been combed in a few days. He was wearing a grey sports jacket over faded blue jeans.

  ‘Spider, this is Jack Bradford.’ Bradford was also wearing the Rolex Submariner with the black bezel favoured by SAS troopers.

  ‘Thanks for agreeing to this,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Pleasure,’ said Bradford.

  ‘Where’s Billy?’ asked O’Brien.

  Bradford gestured at the men’s room. ‘Taking a leak. Bladder like a marble, my brother.’

  ‘What are you drinking?’

  Bradford asked for another pint of bitter and Shepherd for a Jameson’s with soda and ice. ‘Billy’ll have a pint, too,’ said Bradford.

  O’Brien went to the bar and Shepherd sat down. Bradford took out a pack of Silk Cut and stuck one into his mouth. ‘Smoke?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’said Shepherd. ‘Yes,’he corrected himself. He grinned awkwardly. ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘Giving up?’

  ‘Just starting,’ said Shepherd. He took one of Bradford’s cigarettes and Bradford lit it for him with a battered Zippo. ‘Martin says you’re working in Iraq.’

  ‘Yeah, bloody madhouse it is too. American contractors riding around like cowboys, armed to the teeth and acting like they’re in the movies. I tell you, you’ve more chance of being shot by a trigger-happy Yank than you have of being blown up by an insurgent.’