Black Ops: The 12th Spider Shepherd Thriller

by Leather, Stephen

  ‘Not bad looking in a rugged sort of way. I suppose we’ll have to call her Mick One And A Half.’

  Button again ignored the interruption. ‘Her name’s Bridie and she works for the London end of the family business, collecting cash for the boys, but she’s eager to do more for them. We’ve had her under observation for quite some time. She’s a bit of a loose cannon, a hard drinker like her father, a borderline alcoholic in fact, but she’s chafing at her slow rate of progress up the New IRA food chain. Her dad loves her, of course, but the rest of the New IRA’s Army Council see her as a bit of a spoilt daddy’s girl. She’s always trying to find ways to improve her reputation with them but she’s also perpetually short of cash and constantly looking for opportunities to make some money on the side. She could be your way in. But she’s not a target.’

  Harper nodded. ‘Understood. But we’re missing a trick, aren’t we? What if we not only eliminate your two problems but find a way to put a serious hole in the New IRA’s existing funds as well?’

  Button studied him for a moment. ‘Go on.’

  ‘We make my legend that I’m a major criminal, a gang boss and arms dealer, a Swiss citizen, but of unknown East European origins, and if they can persuade me to do business with them, I’m just the man to supply anything they need.’

  ‘And if they start asking awkward questions about your background?’

  Harper smiled. ‘Seriously? I’ll just do what any gang boss and arms dealer would do in those circumstances: I’ll tell them to fuck off. Come on, Charlie, do you think the New IRA men would answer any questions about their origins if I was dumb enough to ask any? They’ll do some checking of my legend, of course, but if your people are up to their job, that won’t throw up any red alerts, will it?’

  He waited for her nod of assent before continuing. ‘I use the promise of supplying weapons as bait to draw them in, but instead of killing them straight away, I’ll set up a deal with them.’ He paused. ‘Actually, make that two deals. I’ll make it a condition that I supply them with some lesser weapons first – shorts, semi-automatics, that sort of thing – to establish trust on both sides. They’ll all be ex-Soviet or East European and untraceable, and I’ll plant tracking devices so that you can follow them to wherever they’re hiding their arms. That deal will cost them some modest funds but I’ll then do the big deal with them for some serious kit: plastic explosive, heavy machine guns, mortars, missiles, whatever they want basically.’

  ‘Sounds to me like you’re over-egging the pudding.’

  ‘You want to hit them financially, then there has to be a con. And a good one. This way we get to take a serious chunk of money from them. And you get to bust all their arms caches.’

  Button frowned. ‘I don’t know, it’s risky. The more layers you add, the greater the risk of compromise or cock-up.’

  ‘And the greater the rewards when it pays off. This way, you get exactly what you want. You’re not just eliminating a terrorist and his money-man, you’re also giving the New IRA a whole savage kick in the balls. As well as the key people they’ll lose, you’ll hit their funds, empty their weapons caches and sow an atmosphere of mistrust and paranoia among the survivors. They’ll be wondering how were they betrayed, who grassed them up? It could make the whole organisation implode.’ He studied her expression for a moment. ‘Relax, Charlie, like any other good con, the marks will sell themselves on the deal because they’ll be desperate to get their hands on what they think I’ve got to sell.’

  There was a long silence. Button’s brow furrowed as she thought through the implications and pitfalls. Harper merely leaned back with his hands behind his head and waited.

  ‘Okay,’ she said eventually. ‘Tell me what you need.’

  Harper grinned and leaned forward. ‘A Swiss passport in a generic East European name – Müller would do – and two credit cards, one Amex and one Visa because, contrary to their advertising slogans, Amex doesn’t always do nicely. If you want to throw in a debit card backed by a pleasingly well-lubricated account, I wouldn’t say no either, because this job is going to need a lot of walking around money. And some of your comms wonder kit would be handy too, providing you’re still sure the Yanks can’t crack it.’

  ‘That’s all doable. How many sets will you need?’

  Harper did a quick mental calculation. ‘I’ll need a research and surveillance team of four people, to cut my time on the ground and identify the routines and weaknesses in the targets’ security and locate and screen the locations we’ll need to use, so five sets including mine – no wait, make it six,’ he said, studying the photograph of O’Brien’s daughter again. ‘There’s someone else who might be very useful.’

  Button passed him four more photos. ‘There are a few more people you need to be able to ID.’ They were all thickset, tough-looking men, in their mid-thirties to mid-forties.

  ‘Nice-looking boys,’ Harper said. ‘I’m guessing they’re the muscle.’

  She nodded. ‘Some or all of them will probably be bodyguarding the targets.’

  ‘So, no dramas if any of them get caught in the crossfire?’

  ‘None at all,’ Button said. ‘They’ve all got form: bombings, knee-cappings, shootings, arson. Nasty pieces of work, one and all.’

  ‘Right, it’ll take me forty-eight hours to sort out a plan and brief my team,’ Harper said. ‘Then we’re in business.’

  As Button snapped her briefcase shut, they heard a furious argument erupting down the hallway, with a woman screaming obscenities and a man’s voice swearing back. A door slammed with a violence that made the walls shake and they heard heavy footsteps going down the stairs. Button gave a weary shake of her head. ‘Right, I’ll have a Swiss passport in the name of Müller and the rest of your legend delivered to you by this time tomorrow. Same place?’

  ‘Why not?’ Harper, said with a broad smile. ‘It’s already starting to feel like home.’

  Button put her coat back on, flashed him a tight smile, and left. Harper stood at the window, peering through a crack in the curtains to watch her go. He saw her pull three anti-surveillance moves as she headed down the road and he nodded his approval. She might well be behind a desk most of the time, but Charlie Button had never forgotten her tradecraft.

  Harper waited fifteen minutes then put on his coat and took a walk to a nearby park, a patch of urban wasteland with its patchy grass strewn with litter, broken glass and blackened patches where fires had been lit. A group of half a dozen youths in hoodies gave him curious looks and muttered to each other, but Harper stared at them until they looked away. He made four calls on one phone and then removed the SIM card, broke it in half, and tossed it into an overflowing waste bin.

  They took Shepherd to Islington Police Station in the back of a windowless van with his wrists bound together with plastic ties. Two hard-faced specialist firearms officers sat in the back with him, cradling their carbines. That seemed like overkill and he doubted that they’d even be able to get a shot off in the confines of the van, but he said nothing. There was nothing he could say. They were just cogs in the machine and weren’t able to make any decisions that would affect the outcome of what was happening. Even if he could convince them that he was an MI5 officer they didn’t have the authority to release him. Shepherd just went into shutdown mode, sitting quietly with his head down as he waited for it all to be over. They had taken the transceiver off him, and the earpiece, but he’d had just enough time to tell Brewer that he was about to be taken into custody.

  The armed cops said nothing; they just stared at him stonily. Even if he spoke to them he doubted they would reply. He hadn’t been cautioned or charged which meant that anything he did say would only cause them problems down the line. They knew that everything had to be done by the book, which meant that any questioning had to comply with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

  The van stopped and he heard a metal gate rattle back then the van moved forward and stopped again. He heard muffled voices and
then the rear doors opened and a uniformed officer in a stab-vest unlocked the cage to allow one of the armed officers out. The second armed officer motioned for Shepherd to get out. Shepherd shuffled along the bench seat and stepped down. He was grabbed by the arms by two more officers and pulled roughly away from the van. He blinked in the sunlight. There were half a dozen armed officers all pointing their weapons at him. He was in a police car park and from the windows of the main building, dozens of faces looked down.

  They bundled him a few yards to a ramp that led to a grey door where there were two more armed cops. They hustled him down a corridor and into a custody suite where a grey-haired sergeant stood behind a computer terminal. The sergeant was wearing glasses but he looked over the top of them to scrutinise Shepherd.

  ‘This is him?’ he said. He had a West Country drawl that suggested haystacks and cider. His workstation was raised about a foot off the ground so that he was able to look down on Shepherd, even though he was several inches shorter.

  ‘It’s him,’ said one of the armed cops.

  There were half a dozen uniformed officers standing by a door, all staring at Shepherd. One of them was an inspector. He was in his late twenties and had fast-track graduate-entry written all over him, his uniform neatly pressed, his hat on perfectly straight, his hands clasped behind his back as if he were on parade.

  ‘Name?’ the sergeant asked Shepherd.

  Shepherd ignored him. He looked over at the inspector, the highest-ranking officer in the room. ‘Can I have a word, inspector?’

  The inspector frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘I need to talk to you in private.’

  ‘That’s not going to happen,’ said the officer. He jutted his chin up as if to reinforce his decision.

  ‘I have some information that you need to hear.’

  ‘I would suggest that you do not say anything until you have a solicitor present.’

  ‘There’s no need for that,’ said Shepherd. ‘This is all going to be sorted out in the next hour or so. Just put me in a room or a cell if you’d prefer and I’d really appreciate a cup of coffee and a sandwich if you could grab one from the canteen. I haven’t eaten for a while.’

  The inspector looked across at the custody sergeant. ‘I think we need the doctor in here to assess his mental condition,’ he said.

  ‘Look, I’m just trying to make this easier for you,’ said Shepherd. ‘Within the next hour someone is going to come and take care of this. They’ll be accompanied by a senior officer and he’s going to want to know what you did in the way of processing. And trust me, the more you do now the more you’re going to have to undo down the line. Just let me sit in a cell for an hour and I’ll be out of your hair.’

  The inspector looked at Shepherd coldly for several seconds, then nodded at the sergeant. ‘Fingerprint him, DNA him and bag his clothes.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Name?’ asked the custody sergeant.

  Shepherd stared at the officer but didn’t reply.

  ‘We can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way, but the end result is going to be the same.’

  Shepherd still said nothing.

  The sergeant waved a constable over. ‘Turn out his pockets,’ said the sergeant.

  The constable pulled a wallet from Shepherd’s back pocket. He took out a driving licence and compared the photograph to Shepherd’s face before handing it to the sergeant. The sergeant pushed his spectacles further up his nose and smiled as he examined the licence. ‘Craig Brannan. Date of birth, July fifteenth 1975.’ He smiled down at Shepherd. ‘See now, that wasn’t too difficult, was it?’

  Shepherd continued to stare at the sergeant but kept his mouth shut. He’d done all he could do, said all he could, now it was just a matter of waiting for it to be over.

  ‘Ever been in trouble with the police before, Mr Brannan?’ asked the sergeant. He tapped away on his computer for several seconds and then smiled thinly. ‘Apparently not.’ He looked at the constable. ‘Anything else in his pockets?’

  The constable fished out Shepherd’s keys, two sets, one for his flat and one for his car. He put them down on the counter. ‘That’s everything.’

  The sergeant looked down at Shepherd. ‘Your driving licence has your current address, does it, Mr Brannan?’

  Shepherd stared sullenly at the sergeant but didn’t reply.

  The sergeant smiled. ‘Well, we’ll know soon enough, won’t we.’ He nodded at the constable. ‘Right, let’s process Mr Brannan as quickly as possible, shall we? I’m sure the anti-terrorism boys will be wanting a word with him soon enough.’

  Shepherd spent just thirty minutes in the cell. They had taken a DNA swab from the inside of his cheeks, scrapings from under his fingernails, swabbed the palms and backs of his hands, removed his clothing and given him a white paper suit and paper shoe covers for his feet. They had made him place his hands on the LiveScan fingerprint recognition screen and taken his prints and photographed him from the front and sides including a full body photograph. They didn’t give him a coffee or a sandwich but every five minutes or so an eye would appear at the peephole to check on him.

  Eventually the door opened and the custody sergeant waved for him to stand up. ‘You’re free to go,’ he said. He avoided eye contact with Shepherd as he motioned for him to leave.

  Shepherd stepped out of the cell where a uniformed chief superintendent was standing next to a man and a woman. She was blonde and pretty. She wore a black suit with a white blouse and had a large Prada black leather bag over her shoulder. Shepherd doubted she could have been older than twenty-five, but she carried herself with more confidence than the chief superintendent who was probably twice her age. Her companion was in his early thirties, his hair slightly too long to be fashionable, in a dark brown leather jacket and carrying a black leather holdall. The audience that had been gathered in the custody suite before – including the uniformed inspector – had gone, as had the armed cops.

  ‘We’re sorry this has taken so long,’ said the girl, offering a well-manicured hand with scarlet nails. ‘Katy.’

  Shepherd doubted that Katy was her real name, but he shook hands.

  ‘This is Bernard.’

  Bernard nodded and shook hands with Shepherd.

  ‘Ms Button sends her apologies,’ said Katy. ‘As I’m sure you can understand she’s a bit busy at the moment.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ said Shepherd.

  Bernard handed him the holdall. ‘Your clothes are already being processed so it’ll take us time to get them back. In the meantime there’s a change of clothes in there and we’ve got a car outside to run you home.’

  Shepherd unzipped the bag and looked inside. Black jeans, a blue polo shirt, socks and underwear, and a pair of Nikes. He looked at the training shoes and smiled when he saw that they were his size. There were times when MI5 could be so bloody efficient, and other times when they couldn’t organise the proverbial piss-up in a brewery.

  ‘There’s a room over there where you can change,’ said the chief superintendent. ‘We’ll have your belongings in a minute or two.’ He looked uncomfortable, as if he wished he were anywhere else but in the custody suite at that moment.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Shepherd.

  The chief superintendent extended his hand. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to shake your hand. What you did out there, you saved a lot of lives. I’m sorry for the way you were treated.’

  Shepherd shook his hand firmly. ‘No problem, your men were just doing their jobs.’

  ‘I appreciate your understanding,’ said the officer. He turned to address the custody sergeant. ‘This lady and gentleman are to have full access to anything they want, including the CCTV footage. Whatever they want, they get. Understood?’

  The custody sergeant nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

  Bernard went behind the counter and started tapping on the custody sergeant’s keyboard. Katy took Shepherd over to the room where he could change into
his clothes. ‘We’ll be here for a while removing all trace of you from the system,’ she said. ‘Your car is in the car park, the driver knows where to go. Ms Button said she’d call you later this evening.’

  Shepherd smiled. ‘I’ll look forward to that.’

  The MI5 car dropped Shepherd outside his apartment in Battersea. The two-bedroom flat had impressive views over the Thames and was some compensation for the fact that he had been away from his Hereford home for the best part of three months while overseeing the surveillance operation. He took the lift up to the ninth floor and let himself in. The burglar alarm began to beep and he tapped in the four-digit code before heading to the shower to wash the smell of the cells off him.

  Later he cooked himself a steak and ate it with a salad and a bottle of lager as he watched the various news channels cover the Euston station attacks. Sky News seemed to have the best police sources as they had already identified Khalaf and had sent a camera crew to his address in Stoke Newington. They had also managed to get hold of footage from half a dozen of the mobile phones that had been filming the events at the station. The images were shaky and blurred but gave a good indication of the panic that the attackers had caused. There was one video of one of the attackers slashing at a teenage girl with his machete, his face contorted with anger, then the attacker had turned towards whoever was holding the phone and the picture shook and went blank. Sky showed the short videos again and again with various commentaries provided by the presenters.

  The BBC’s coverage seemed to be concerned mainly with so-called terrorist experts, mainly academics, pontificating about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism and making wild guesses as to what the authorities would do in the wake of the attack. There were interviews with Muslim groups who were placing flowers at the scene and a statement from the Muslim Council of Great Britain saying how they deplored the attacks. CNN had managed to find two American tourists who had been at the station and ran the interview with them at least twice an hour even though they had fled as soon as the attacks had started.