Moving Targets: An Action-Packed Spider Shepherd SAS Novel (Spider Shepherd: SAS Book 2)

by Stephen Leather

  Shepherd looked up at him. ‘Thanks, but assistance to us? Seriously? Such as?’

  His smile faded. ‘Erm- Well, I thought I might be able to help you on things like risk assessment. I know the army are not very good at such things.’

  ‘Risk assessment? On us or the hostages?’ Geordie said, making the question sound more like a declaration of war.

  Shepherd smiled. ‘I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted journey. We’ve already got everything we need for risk assessment right here,’ he said, nudging the sports bag with his foot just hard enough for the weapons it contained to make a metallic sound.

  The Liaison Officer’s face flushed in a mixture of embarrassment and anger.

  ‘Look,’ Jimbo said, adopting a more kindly tone. ‘I’m sure you mean well and we appreciate the offer, but we train relentlessly for just this kind of terrorist situation and we’ve dealt with at least a dozen actual incidents, as well as countless contacts with enemy forces all over the world. We’re the most highly skilled and highly trained counter-terrorist force in the world so, with great respect and sugar on top, what could the Metropolitan Police possibly teach us that we don’t already know?’

  The policeman opened his mouth to speak again but then fell silent and sat down on the far side of the room. The ensuing silence was broken by the arrival of another newcomer, this time a man dressed in similar black coveralls to the ones the SAS wore, with a leather belt and cross-straps, and a rolled-up black balaclava on his head. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, with short dark hair and bony, prominent features. An MP 5K was strapped across his chest and he had an automatic pistol holstered on his hip.

  He took in the different groups in the room at a glance, then nodded to Shepherd and said in lightly accented English. ‘I am Guy,’ he said, pronouncing it the English way. ‘You and your team come with me, please.’

  The rest of the people in the room had stood up expectantly and the Met Liaison Officer said, ‘What about me?’

  Guy shook his head. ‘These people have something I need. Everybody else stay here until someone comes for you.’

  He ignored the glares that the Germans were directing at him and led the SAS men out of the room. As he did so, Shepherd heard Guy mutter to himself ‘A bas les Boches.’

  They followed him down the corridor. ‘What have we got that he needs?’ Geordie whispered.

  ‘Knowledge,’ Shepherd said.

  Guy led them into another room with a high vaulted ceiling, this time decorated with overblown scenes from the life of Joan of Arc. A bank of TV screens half-covered one wall, some showing internal CCTV images of the hostage situation and the surrounding area, while other, larger screens were streaming news channels from countries across the world. A few more men in black coveralls were sitting in a semi-circle, talking quietly but with their gaze never leaving the CCTV images. Others in police uniform or civilian clothes were monitoring telephones and radio handsets. Everything had a calm, quiet, efficient and organised feel.

  ‘Bit different from the chaos in Athens, isn’t it?’ Jimbo said as he looked around.

  Guy turned to face them. ‘I’m the GIGN assault group commander, and we’re facing a very puzzling situation.’ Shepherd knew that GIGN was the tactical unit of the French National Gendarmerie, tasked with counter-terrorism and hostage rescue. ‘In all my years’ experience I’ve not seen anything quite like it. As you’ll have realised, the Louvre is one of our key sites, and we have reconnoitered, rehearsed and practised endlessly for just such an eventuality. We know every sniper position and entry point and my men have an Area of Exploitation almost within touching distance of the hostage takers. So if we’re given the go-ahead, this would all be finished in a few seconds, but I’m getting pressure from my bosses not to do anything, Normally we would expect the hostage takers to be negotiating to get out of the building and probably out of the country, and we would be counter-negotiating to keep them bottled up. But there is no apparent attempt to negotiate and they have not asked for transport, food or water. In fact they have asked for nothing at all. Yet still our bosses want us to do nothing while the poor souls inside are terrified of being killed.’

  ‘Perhaps your bosses are worried about the paintings,’ Geordie said.

  ‘Pah! That cannot be it. Everything on show is probably fake anyway.’

  ‘Then perhaps your political masters are not giving you the whole picture,’ Shepherd said. ‘We had the same situation in Athens and the suspicion there was that, in clear breach of the counter-terrorist agreements that all our governments have signed up to, a ransom deal was being negotiated behind the scenes. Perhaps the same thing is happening here?’

  Guy paused while he pondered that. ‘Perhaps. Anyway, since you were involved in the Athens incident, which may well be connected to this, I’d be grateful for any input and help you can give us.’ He smiled. ‘And if an immediate action becomes necessary, perhaps you will feel a little less constrained by our government’s caution than we are.’

  While they were talking, Shepherd was intently studying the CCTV images of the terrorists. ‘It looks like a carbon copy of Athens,’ he said. ‘And these guys have the same dead eyes.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Guy, our mate Jock would love to be able to see these pictures and he could give us some valuable input. He was injured on a recent op, so he’s in hospital in the UK, but while his body has taken a battering, his mind is still razor sharp, so if your people can fix a link to get the real time CCTV pictures to him, I’m sure he’ll make a valuable contribution.’

  Guy shrugged. ‘That will not be a problem.’ He called one of his communications specialists over, explained the problem and then left him and Rupert to sort out the mechanics of it.

  ‘Do you think Rupert’s up to it?’ Geordie said.

  ‘It doesn’t involve combat or require too much in the way of brain power,’ Shepherd said. ‘So he should be all right.’

  ‘Don’t you need your bosses approval?’ Jimbo said to Guy.

  He grinned. ‘If you’ll excuse the Anglo-Saxon English, ‘Fuck ’em!’

  ‘So how does a Frenchman come to speak such fucking fluent Anglo-Saxon!’ Shepherd said.

  ‘Well, I’m only fifty per cent French. My mother is English and my father was a middle ranking French colonial officer. They met in Reunion when he had been posted there to administer to the indigenous people and she was back-packing around the world in her gap year. So I grew up bilingual. I spent my early years moving around the remaining colonial territories and attending a succession of mediocre schools but I had a close up view of the French state in action.’ He gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘Not always an uplifting experience, because the grandiose press releases and lofty mission statements produced by my father, among others, were often in sharp contrast to the harsh reality for the people we ruled. So, if you like, those experiences gave me a vocation to protect the underdog, and when I finished my patchy education I enlisted in the Gendarmerie Nationale. After pounding the beat for a couple of years, my knowledge of English got me seconded to GIGN. I soon realised that I wanted to be much more than just a liaison officer, so I applied for and passed Selection. After spending time in all the various sections of the Force, I found myself in the Assault Group, and luckily I’m now its boss.’

  ‘I doubt that luck had much to with it,’ Shepherd said with a smile. ‘Unless things have changed a lot in recent years, GIGN team leaders are like SAS ones: chosen on merit.’

  While they’d been talking, Shepherd, Geordie and Jimbo had been donning their assault gear and weapons, ready to go forward with Guy. As they fitted their MP 5Ks Shepherd glanced at the weapon across Guy’s chest. ‘One thing must have changed though, I thought you guys were “encouraged” only to use French manufactured weapons?’

  Guy smiled. ‘My political bosses don’t have to do what I have to do. So my men and I smile and nod at them, and then go ahead and use the best available, wherever it might happen to come
from, and if the top guys don’t like it, well, they can come and do the job themselves!’

  Every person who would be involved in the assault was issued with a radio and given a call sign which they wrote on small yellow patches worn on the chest, high up on both sleeves and on their backs. That allowed instant identification in the event of reduced visibility due to the use of smoke or gas, and told medics treating any man down their blood group and any other relevant medical information.

  They were about to leave the Incident Control Centre and move forward through the Louvre when Shepherd’s sat-phone rang and he heard a familiar Glaswegian accent. ‘Spider, I’m starting to unravel a few things. First, just like Athens, these guys are walking IEDs - they’re suicide bombers - but it looks as if they’re wired up not to cause massive casualties but, again like Athens, to prevent them being captured alive and stop their bodies being ID’d. I’m certain they’re holding pressure release switches in their hands so when they want to wipe themselves out or if they’re shot, the hand automatically opens and detonates the charge, blowing their heads and hands apart and making identification much harder, if not impossible. I’ve also noticed that they never go far from the hostages, so we’ve got to find some way to prevent them from becoming collateral damage if these guys decide to off themselves. So you need weapons with enough kinetic energy to throw them back a few yards when they’re hit.’

  ‘I think I know what might do it,’ Shepherd said. ‘I’ll get back to you. Out.’ He broke the connection and turned to Guy. ‘Have you got any baton rounds or solid shot 12-bore ammo in your armoury?’

  ‘We have both. The baton rounds and launchers came from H & K, when we bought the MP 5’s, and for the solid shot we have Remington 12-gauge which we’ve been using to blow locks and hinges off doors. We’ve also been experimenting to see if they would shatter an engine block and bring the vehicle to a halt. I’ll get some brought up.’ He unleashed a torrent of French into his throat-mic and within a couple of minutes another of the assault team arrived at a run, carrying two shotguns with bandoliers of ammunition, and two Heckler & Koch 104A plastic bullet launchers.

  ‘Are these what you were thinking of?’ Guy said.

  ‘Just the job,’ Shepherd said. ‘Now let’s run through the pros and cons and decide which of them will do the job best.’

  After a brief discussion they plumped for the shotgun, purely on the grounds that it held seven rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber against the single shot of the H & K 104A.

  They then divided into two pairs, Shepherd carried a Remington and was supported by Guy with an MP 5K, with Geordie taking the other Remington and Jimbo backing him with an MP 5K.

  ‘If it all kicks off, remember to aim high,’ Shepherd said to Geordie. ‘Go for the forehead.’

  Guy made a final quick check with the negotiators, who reported ‘No change, they are still not talking.’ The four men then signed themselves out of the Control Centre and left the building.

  A police cordon had been thrown around the whole area, keeping spectators and media far enough back to remove any possibility of unauthorised live television pictures being seen by the terrorists or a look-out in the crowd alerting them. Unseen by anyone, Guy and the SAS men crossed the road, pulling their balaclavas down as they made their way down the ramp to the vehicle entrance to the museum. Another two members of the assault team were guarding the door, stationed there not so much to restrict access - the police cordon would do that - as to ensure that the terrorists remained contained.

  Maintaining absolute silence, Guy led them through a series of galleries. In other circumstances they would have been stopping to stare at the priceless paintings, familiar from a thousand illustrations in magazines and on TV but, focused entirely on their task, they passed them with barely a glance. As they entered another gallery, they linked up with the GIGN advance team who were maintaining a watch on the terrorists from a surprisingly close position. Shepherd and the others crouched down and crawled into place alongside them. From there, they were able to see and confirm what Jock had told them: each of the terrorists was holding a pistol in one hand while the other one was clenched tightly in a fist.

  Shepherd was concentrating so hard that Geordie had to nudge him twice to get his attention, before indicating with his thumb the portrait of the Mona Lisa hanging alongside them. ‘For fuck’s sake don’t hit that,’ he breathed, ‘or we’ll end up in the Bastille!’ It took a great effort of will to concentrate on the human tragedy unfolding in front of them while one of the most priceless artifacts known to man was only feet away from them.

  Shepherd spent a long time studying the faces of the terrorists through the high-powered, stabilised binoculars that gave much better detail in the dim light than he would get through passive night goggles. Eventually, he thought he had identified the leader of the terrorists, who appeared to be silently communicating with the others through a series of nods and glances. He would be Shepherd’s first target if the op went live. He then turned his attention to the hostages who, just as in Athens, appeared to be mainly Asian. He was trying to see if there appeared to be any “sleepers” among them, who would have to be dealt with, if and when the situation turned hostile.

  For no visible reason the terrorist boss suddenly lifted his head, put a hand to his ear, and then without saying a word to the others, calmly began to shoot the hostages closest to him. Taking the lead from their boss, the other terrorists at once began to do the same.

  ‘We can’t wait for your assault team, let’s go!’ Shepherd shouted to Guy.

  ‘Oui! Allez! Allez,! Allez!’ Guy said, reverting to French for a moment.

  They immediately split into their pairs, sprinting forward until they were only a few yards from the terrorists. Firing from the hip, Shepherd hit the terrorist boss in the middle of the forehead with a solid shot slug, knocking him backwards by several yards. He was probably dead already but, mopping up in Shepherd’s wake, Guy put a near-simultaneous double tap of nine millimetre rounds from his MP 5 into him. If he wasn’t dead from the Remington slug, he was definitely dead now.

  As the terrorist somersaulted backwards, his body jerking as Guy’s two rounds ripped into it, his fist unclenched. His head and hands were instantly vaporised by the blast as the explosives he was wearing detonated. He was well away from the hostages and caused little or no damage to them. Shepherd and Guy had already switched to their next target and the next, while Geordie and Jimbo were doing the same with other targets. The surviving terrorists had now stopped killing their hostages and were trying to direct their fire at the special forces men, but unlike the hostages, these were not passive targets but lethal killers. They were never still for a second, diving and rolling across the polished floors but maintaining such deadly accuracy that every round they fired struck a target. In the space of a handful of seconds, the terrorists had all been eliminated.

  Most of the terrified hostages, though even more bewildered and disorientated by the rapidity and ferocity of the assault, had suffered only minor cuts and bruises from shrapnel from the explosives. However, four of them, the ones shot without warning by the terrorists, lay on the floor. One sprawled in a spreading pool of blood, but his agonised cries showed that he at least was still alive. The other three were unmoving and almost certainly dead.

  Shepherd felt sick to his guts at the sight and, as always when innocent people were killed or caught in the cross-fire, his first thoughts were about the families, waiting at home for their loved ones, just as Sue was waiting in Hereford for him. Those three hostages would now never be coming home. His next thoughts, following close on the first, were also always the same: ‘Were we too slow to act? Was there anything we could have done that would have kept those people alive?’

  CHAPTER 21

  The silence was deafening after the carnage and the noise of the gunfire and explosions. Shepherd slowly became aware of what was happening around him. The rest of the GIGN assault team had arr
ived and immediately cordoned off the hostages before quickly body-searching them and then rough-handling them out into the open air under escort. There was no guarantee that there was not still one or more terrorist sleepers among them, so they were all kept off balance, pushed and shoved roughly along a human chain of GIGN men, while others kept their weapons trained, alert for any suspicious movement that might indicate a terrorist reaching for a concealed weapon or grenade.

  Some of the hostages were already in the first stages of Stockholm Syndrome and quite happy to obey the instructions of anybody who shouted orders at them, others were so overcome with a mixture of shock and relief they had to be helped bodily away from the scene. Shepherd looked around the gallery. It was now splattered with blood and gore and he wondered which unfortunate employee of the Louvre would have the job of clearing it up.

  As they put their weapons in safe mode and were starting to relax, Geordie nudged Shepherd. ‘You know what we were saying on the way in? Take a look at her now.’

  ‘Take a look at who?’ Shepherd said, but then followed Geordie’s gaze and saw that the armoured glass protecting the Mona Lisa was now starred and crazed where a bullet fired by one of the terrorists had struck it.

  He grinned. ‘Thank God it was an Italian painting, if it had been a French Impressionist, we’d all be facing the guillotine by now.’

  ‘You still might,’ Guy said with an answering smile. ‘Thanks for your help, but now I suggest you get out of here quick before the big bosses arrive and start asking embarrassing questions. I must stay here to sort out this mess, but you can have your own debrief and inquest. It will save you several days of your time, being questioned by an examining magistrate, and I can assure you that they won’t like it if they find out that their faces have been saved by the English again. So let me know the outcomes of your debrief, but now go!’