Live Fire

by Stephen Leather

  Mark squinted at the bullet. It was a live round, not a blank. ‘Shit,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, shit,’ said Mickey. ‘Next time be more careful.’

  ‘Shit,’ repeated Mark, still staring at the round in disbelief.

  Yates put his gun into the belt of his trousers and knelt down to untie the man in the chair. ‘I did okay?’ said the man.

  ‘You did great,’ said Mickey. ‘Big joke.’ He handed the man a wad of banknotes.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Shepherd. ‘Big, big joke.’

  ‘Come on, don’t get all bitter and twisted,’ cajoled Mickey. ‘It was a bit of fun.’

  ‘Yeah, fun like a heart-attack,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Look, mate, it was a test, sure, but you passed with flying colours. You’re on our crew now, and the next job, you’re coming with us.’

  ‘When?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘Soon. But, trust me, it’ll be worth waiting for. A shed-load of dosh, more money than you can shake a stick at,’ he said. ‘Now do you want to come see our mate Tel? We said we’d go in today.’

  ‘Do you want me to shoot him, too?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘Good to see you haven’t lost your sense of humour,’ said Yates. ‘You can sit on the back of my bike if you like.’

  They went outside, blinking in the hot sun. The Thai got into the Cherokee Jeep with Barry Wilson and they drove off down the track, clouds of dust billowing up behind them. Shepherd and Yates walked over to the Harley.

  ‘I’m guessing you didn’t all go through an initiation like that,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘There was no need,’ said Yates. ‘I grew up with Mickey and Mark, lived just down the road from them. We went to school with Davie, played in the same five-a-side footie team as Tel, and Barry used to work in the garage where we took our bikes. We’ve known each other for years, so we know where we stand.’

  ‘Never been any problems?’

  ‘Hell, we’re family, and families are always at each other’s throats. But we’re tight, Ricky. Tight like you wouldn’t believe.’

  ‘You had any run-ins with the cops?’

  ‘A few, over the years. But unless they actually catch us in the act, there’s bugger-all they can do.’

  ‘Because you stick together?’

  Yates nodded. ‘That good-cop-bad-cop crap doesn’t work when you’re as tight as we are. If they tell me that Mark or Mickey is going to roll over on me, I laugh in their face.’

  ‘Are the cops that stupid?’

  ‘Bloody right,’ said Yates, climbing onto his Harley. ‘They think they can put the frighteners on anyone but it doesn’t work with us. And no one can grass us up because we don’t talk to outsiders about business.’ He started the engine. Shepherd climbed on to the back. ‘That’s where you are, mate. You’re on the inside. You’re one of us now.’

  Mickey and Mark came out of the warehouse together. ‘Don’t blame me if you end up in the bed next to Tel,’ Mickey said to Shepherd. ‘They’re deathtraps, those bikes.’

  ‘He’s in safe hands,’ said Yates. ‘I’ve never had an accident.’ He tapped his head. ‘Touch wood.’

  Mickey shook his head and climbed into the driver’s seat of the Range Rover. Mark made a gun with his hand, pointed it at Shepherd and pretended to fire two shots. Shepherd mimicked the gesture and fired three into Mark’s chest, complete with sound effects. Mark laughed and joined his brother in the Range Rover.

  Black was the last to leave the warehouse. He climbed onto his Suzuki. Yates gunned the Harley’s engine and put the bike in gear. They sped off down the track, closely followed by Black. Shepherd had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Like Yates had said, he was on the inside now. They trusted him, and they’d accepted him. The only thing left to do was to betray them. Betraying people was what he did for a living, but it didn’t make him feel any better about it.

  The room where Terry Norris was being treated was bigger than Shepherd’s hotel suite had been. There was an LCD television with full cable and a DVD player, a small dining-table and a sofa. The hospital was the one that Shepherd had driven by when he’d arrived in Pattaya, the large concrete tower with the red, white and blue sign on the top. Norris was in bed with a cage holding the sheet off his legs, which were still healing. There were several monitoring machines on a table next to his bed but they didn’t appear to be connected. A pretty nurse in a tight-fitting white uniform and scarlet nail polish had ushered the men into the room and left now, flashing them a beaming smile.

  ‘She can take my temperature any time,’ said Yates, from the sofa. ‘Are all the nurses as pretty as her?’ he asked Norris.

  ‘Most of them, yeah,’ said Norris. ‘But they’re all good girls. They smile and they flirt but they’re either married or virgins.’

  ‘I didn’t think there were any virgins left in Pattaya,’ said Mark.

  ‘Where’s Davie?’

  ‘He had to pick something up,’ said Yates, sitting down at the dining-table and beginning to peel an orange.

  Norris noticed Shepherd. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘These guys lack most of the social graces. I’m Tel.’ Next to him on a bedside table was a plate with the remains of steak dinner and a glass of what seemed to be beer.

  ‘Ricky,’ said Shepherd. Norris held out his hand and Shepherd shook it. The other man’s grip was firm. ‘How’s it going?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘I just want to get out of here,’ said Norris.

  ‘We’re getting your villa sorted,’ said Mickey.

  ‘Did the docs say when you can leave?’ asked Yates.

  ‘Next week or the week after, maybe,’ said Norris. ‘The legs are healing and my blood’s back to normal.’ He looked across at Shepherd. ‘My spleen was ruptured so they had to take it out.’

  ‘Bugger,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Yeah, I broke three ribs, lucky I didn’t lose a lung.’

  ‘Ricky here was in Afghanistan,’ said Mark.

  ‘Yeah?’ said Norris. ‘Where were you based?’

  ‘Kabul for a while,’ said Shepherd. ‘Then Zabul province. The Taliban’s backyard. You?’

  ‘Camp Bastion most of the time, but they moved us around Helmand, wherever the Taliban popped up.’

  ‘See much action?’

  ‘Too much,’ said Norris. ‘But the bastards wouldn’t fight fair. Ambushes, IEDs – they do everything to avoid a fair fight. We should just nuke the lot of them.’

  ‘Ricky got shot,’ said Mickey. ‘Took a bullet in the shoulder.’

  ‘Friendly fire?’ asked Norris, only half joking.

  ‘Nah, it was the Taliban,’ said Shepherd. ‘But the Yanks did like to shoot at us, didn’t they?’

  ‘Worst soldiers in the world, bar none,’ said Norris. ‘Who were you with?’

  ‘Three Para,’ said Shepherd. ‘You?’

  ‘First Battalion, the Royal Anglian Regiment. Why did you leave?’

  Shepherd rubbed his shoulder. ‘After I got shot, I wanted to get the hell out. They couldn’t pay me enough to go through that again.’

  ‘You know they pay traffic wardens in London more than our troops out in Iraq and Afghanistan?’ said Norris.

  ‘Yeah. Shows you where we stand in the order of things,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Ricky’s joining our team,’ said Mickey. ‘He’s going to help us on the new job.’

  Norris nodded. ‘You done much before?’ he asked Shepherd.

  ‘A bit,’ Shepherd said. ‘It’s fair to say I earn more than a traffic warden now.’

  ‘He’s on the run after a tiger kidnapping back in the UK,’ said Mickey. ‘Had a shoot-out with CO19.’

  Shepherd grinned. ‘A gun went off accidentally. What can I say?’

  ‘Dangerous things, guns,’ said Norris. He gestured at his useless legs. ‘I was two years in Afghanistan and I didn’t get a scratch. I come out here and a drunken prick ruins my life.’ He shook his head. ‘Life, huh?’

  ‘There’s no rhyme or reason to
it,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘I should have stayed in the army,’ said Norris. ‘But who knew, yeah?’

  ‘Don’t get all morose, you soft bastard,’ said Yates. ‘We’ll get you sorted.’

  ‘Like Christopher Reeve?’ said Norris, sourly. ‘He died in his chair, remember.’

  ‘Tel, Reeve was paralysed from the neck down. You’ve got your arms, your body’s fine …’

  ‘I just can’t walk. Or shag. Or ride a bike. Or use the bathroom on my own.’

  ‘That could change,’ said Mickey.

  ‘Yeah. And pigs might fly.’ He cursed under his breath.

  ‘We’ll do whatever it takes, Tel,’ Mickey assured him. ‘If we find a surgeon who can help, money’s no object, you know that.’

  Norris put his hand on Mickey’s. ‘I know,’ he said, and added to Shepherd, ‘You’re on a good team, you know that? Mickey here’s a diamond.’

  ‘Yeah, but a rough one,’ said Shepherd.

  The door opened. It was Black, with a stunning girl in a white miniskirt. Her hair fell right down her back and she had a tattoo of a butterfly on her left ankle. ‘Brought you a visitor, Tel.’

  Norris sighed. ‘I’m paralysed, you soft bastard.’

  ‘Yeah, but you can still enjoy a lapdance, can’t you?’ said Yates. ‘Or she can give you a bed bath. With her tongue.’

  ‘Be rude to refuse, mate,’ said Mark, ‘now that we’ve gone to all the trouble.’

  ‘It’s not the gift, it’s the thought that counts,’ said Mickey, slipping a large cigar out of its case.

  Yates got up off the sofa. ‘We’ll leave you to it,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve already paid her and given her the money for the taxi home, so throw her out when you’re done,’ said Black.

  ‘You’re all heart, guys,’ said Norris. As the men left, the girl was already slipping out of her dress and giggling.

  Mickey strode out of the hospital and lit his cigar. A small boy ran over with a water pistol. Mickey pointed his cigar at the boy. ‘You shoot me with that and I’ll bloody throttle you!’ he growled. The boy backed away. ‘I mean it!’ shouted Mickey. The boy turned tail and ran off down the road. Mickey out held his cigar for Shepherd to admire. ‘It’s a bloody Cuban, they cost a fortune out here,’ he said.

  Shepherd laughed. ‘You showed him, Mickey.’

  ‘I didn’t want it to get wet,’ he said.

  ‘Happy new year,’ said Shepherd.

  Mickey went to his Range Rover. Mark had already climbed in and turned up the volume of the stereo. ‘Are you out and about tonight?’ asked Mickey. He lit his cigar and blew smoke into the air.

  ‘Why? Someone else you want me to shoot?’

  Mickey chuckled and took a long drag on the cigar.

  Yates, Wilson and Black walked out of the hospital. Yates was waving his mobile phone. ‘That nurse, the cute one,’ he said, ‘she gave me her phone number.’

  ‘Must be your winning personality,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Nah, he gave her a thousand baht,’ said Black.

  ‘You’re just jealous,’ said Yates.

  ‘Jealous of what?’ said Black. ‘I’m gay, remember?’

  ‘How can we forget?’ said Yates. ‘Maybe she’s got a brother.’

  ‘You’ve got too much testosterone,’ said Black. ‘That’s why you’re going bald.’ Yates’s hand went instinctively to his head and Black laughed. ‘Got you,’ he said.

  Black and Wilson got into the back of the Range Rover.

  Shepherd gestured at the hotel behind them. ‘How’s Tel getting on for money?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Mickey.

  Yates climbed onto his Harley and fired up the engine.

  ‘The hospital bills can’t be cheap and it’s not as if he’s going to be earning any more, is it?’

  ‘Tel’s as much a part of this crew as anyone,’ said Mickey. ‘We pay his bills and he gets a piece of any jobs we do.’

  ‘So what are you saying? It’s a seven-way split even though there’s only six of us on the job?’

  Yates roared off on his bike.

  ‘I’m saying we’re a team and that we look after each other,’ said Mickey. ‘The same thing would happen if it was you in there.’

  ‘Like a mutual-aid society, is that it?’

  ‘Don’t take the piss, Ricky. It’s the way it is and that’s the end of it.’

  ‘Hey, I’m not complaining. I just want to know where I stand.’

  ‘You’re on our team now. That’s where you stand. You take care of the team and the team takes care of you. And if you’ve any problems with that, now’s the time to say so and be on your merry way.’

  Shepherd held up his hands. ‘I’m all sweetness and light,’ he said.

  ‘I’m serious, mate,’ said Mickey. ‘We’ve never been caught, never even come close. We only deal with people we know and trust. Every job we’ve ever done has been planned down to the last detail. But the main reason we stay one step ahead of the law is that we’re a tight group. No one can split us up, Ricky. No one can screw us over, because there’s no reason for any of us ever to want out. We split everything, equal shares. We cover each other’s backs. No one can come between us. We’re family. And families take care of each other, come what may.’ He flapped a hand at the hospital behind them. ‘Tel’s family. So are you now. If, God forbid, anything goes wrong and you end up in there, we’ll take care of you. That’s how we work.’ He puffed on his cigar. ‘It’s going to be fine,’ he said. ‘I can feel it in my bones.’

  In his shabby office above a charity shop in Brixton, the Malaysian slid a manila envelope across the table to Bradshaw. ‘Three passports and three driving licences, just as you required,’ he said. He was a lawyer and specialised in immigration cases, but he had a sideline offering fake passports, driving licences and other documents to those who couldn’t obtain them legitimately. Bradshaw had been given the lawyer’s name by a friend of the imam who had tutored him in the Bradford mosque. The imam had told him that the Malaysian had a cousin who worked for the Passport Agency at their London headquarters, and that he was totally trustworthy.

  Bradshaw opened the envelope and tipped out the passports and driving licences. He flicked through them. The passports were dated as having been issued five years previously, but they were brand new. One contained his photograph, the other two were for Talwar and Kundi. The names were fictitious, as were the dates and places of birth.

  ‘And these are perfect?’ said Bradshaw.

  ‘They are genuine passports,’ said the lawyer. ‘They will pass any inspection. They are machine readable but they do not have the chips that the new passports have. And they cannot be renewed. I would not advise using them to enter the United States, where the checks are more stringent.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Bradshaw. ‘We’ll only be using them in Europe.’ The licences had been issued that week using different photographs from the ones in the passports. Again, they looked perfect.

  Bradshaw passed him an envelope containing fifteen thousand pounds. ‘For ten thousand pounds apiece I can get you completely genuine passports,’ said the Malaysian, taking the money out of the envelope. ‘The new design with the chip, the details entered into the Passport Agency computer so they can be renewed without any problem in ten years’ time.’

  ‘If I need more, I’ll be back,’ said Bradshaw.

  ‘Recommend me to your friends,’ said the lawyer, counting the money. It was all in brand new twenty-pound notes.

  Bradshaw stood up, put the passports and licences back into the envelope and stowed it in his jacket pocket. ‘I’ll do that,’ he said.

  Shepherd was in a local supermarket putting a carton of eggs into his wire basket when his mobile rang. It was Mickey. ‘What are you doing, mate?’

  ‘Shopping,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ve no food in the villa.’

  ‘You should get yourself some staff,’ said Mickey, ‘a maid and a cook. Cost you a co
uple of quid a day.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re probably right,’ said Shepherd. That was a lie. He’d decided against employing any domestic staff because he didn’t want anyone overhearing his phone conversations with Button and Sharpe. ‘What are you guys up to?’

  ‘Eating,’ said Mickey. ‘Place called Jameson’s. Can you come on over?’

  ‘I’ve eaten,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘We need to talk,’ said Mickey. ‘It’s time to get things moving.’

  ‘The next job?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Where’s Jameson’s?’

  ‘Side-street off Second Road. You can’t miss it, it’s signposted.’

  ‘I’ll drive over now,’ said Shepherd.

  It took him twenty minutes to find the place: an Irish pub with a black and white façade. He left his Jeep in the car park next to Mickey’s black Range Rover and walked inside. Shepherd saw Mickey and Mark sitting at a corner table with massive fry-ups. He sat down and a waitress brought a menu. ‘Just beer,’ said Shepherd. The Moore brothers both had bottles of Singha by their plates.

  Mark waved a fork at a television on the wall. ‘Did you see that, mate?’ he asked, through a mouthful of egg and bacon. ‘The bloody Muslims have killed a judge back in England.’

  The television was tuned to Sky News and a blonde woman with an impossibly smooth forehead was talking earnestly to camera. In a box to the left of the screen there was a grainy colour picture of a middle-aged man in an orange jumpsuit with panic-stricken eyes. ‘I saw the video on the Internet. They slit his throat.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘London,’ said Mickey. ‘Happened last week but they only put the video up yesterday.’

  ‘They won’t show it on Sky,’ said Mark, ‘but you can watch the whole thing on the Internet. Blood goes everywhere, mate. Everywhere. Horrible way to die.’

  ‘Did anyone claim responsibility?’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t be the Catholics, would it?’ said Mark. ‘Bloody Muslims, who else?’

  ‘There are lots of different groups,’ said Shepherd. ‘Factions.’

  ‘Don’t think they said,’ muttered Mark. ‘Probably Pakis. Makes me sick. If they hate Britain so much they should push off back to Pakistan.’