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

by Stephen Leather

  Next came the PR people, unconsciously wiping down the seats again before placing embossed name cards on the VIP seats. They were followed by florists and flower arrangers placing huge bouquets of fresh flowers along the front of the orchestra pit and at strategic intervals around the theatre. Before anyone could leave, a man who was clearly the head of the event organisation arrived and fussily removed a few flower-heads and ran a finger along a couple of ledges ostentatiously looking for dust, before giving a curt nod, at which all of them left.

  A group of men in coveralls were next to enter. They began a search of the area, moving slowly and methodically through the VIP seats, using detectors and probes. About halfway through the search a couple of sniffer dogs and their handlers turned up. A few minutes later, the area was given the all clear and they all left, leaving the auditorium deserted, save for a few uniformed security men who stationed themselves at the entry doors.

  While Shepherd had been an interested observer inside the Opera House, Geordie and Jimbo were safely inside the intermediate cordon, furnished by Ronnie the Warrant Officer with the correct security passes identifying them as part of the technical support group to the Aussie SAS counter-terrorist team. They had kept in touch with Shepherd since he had entered the Opera House using a non-verbal click system on the radio.

  The Aussie SAS had brought explosive charges in case it was necessary to blow the doors, but Geordie rapidly disabused them of that idea. ‘Have you not heard of explosive overpressure?’ he said. ‘If you detonate those charges on the doors, you’ll kill more people than you save. If we need to blow the doors, we’ll use this,’ he said, pointing to the harpoon. He and Jimbo had already done all the recces they needed to do, pacing out the distance from the main entry doors to the point where they would place the harpoon and checking the towing shackle on the front of the 4x4 camouflaged Ute they had borrowed from the Aussies. They had even gone inside the Opera House to check distances and angles that might not have been apparent from the scale drawings they had been given.

  The only slight worry was that Rupert would be driving the Ute while Geordie and Jimbo were poised to burst into the building. ‘Whatever you do don’t cock it up,’ Geordie said to the officer. ‘Reverse nice and steady if I give you the signal, and for fuck’s sake, don’t panic and stall it. Think you can manage that?’

  Rupert gave a hesitant nod that did not inspire much confidence. ‘Would you rather I got one of the Aussies to do it?’ Geordie said.

  Rupert gave a rather more vigorous shake of the head. ‘No, it’s fine, I’ll do it.’

  Inside the Opera House, things now began to unravel as Shepherd had suspected they would. Being a security guard at the Opera House usually involved nothing more arduous than ejecting the occasional person trying to get in to a performance without a ticket or drunks who had overstayed their welcome in the bars. The guards had inevitably become lazy and complacent and were thrown off balance by the sudden arrival of a small crowd of Chinese men, dressed in near-identical, off-the-peg shiny suits, demanding entry and growing angry when the security men tried to insist that they weren’t allowed in.

  The voices became angrier and louder but just when it looked like they might come to blows, an Australian official hurried over, overruled the security guards and allowed the Chinese in. Arrogantly they walked around checking everything that had already been checked and then left, but not before haranguing the security guards again.

  ‘Round one to chaos,’ Shepherd thought. He contacted Geordie on the radio and asked for an audio sitrep, abandoning the click system for a whispered verbal report. Geordie brought him up to speed, reporting that there had been violent demonstrations at key points around the city, the self-appointed Chinese security teams were creating havoc and several dozen of them had assembled outside the Opera House, and were verbally and physically clashing with the spectators who had already begun to assemble. ‘It’s got all the makings of a glorious cock-up,’ Geordie said.

  ‘Yeah, they’re doing a good job, those guys,’ Shepherd said. ‘They’ve already cocked up the sterile area around the VIP seating. It should be searched again but that’s not going to happen, because the Oz diplomatic people are too frightened of upsetting the Chinese.’

  When he checked in with Geordie again an hour later, his fears were confirmed. The Chinese were disrupting the whole security operation, breaking cordons, breaching entry points and turning the focus of the security operation from watching for potential intruders and terrorists to minimising the chaos caused by the Chinese security teams.

  Things continued in a similar vein throughout the day, with new groups of Chinese security, even more important than the previous ones, demanding and gaining entry. Event organisers higher and higher up the food chain also entered, looked around and, having made the point of how important they were, left again having done little and achieved nothing. Eventually the first of the distinguished guests began arriving, having run the discreet security gauntlet of magnetic barriers, facial recognition television, chemical sensors, odour sniffing devices, explosive swab detectors and handbag searches. ‘Too bloody late, mate,’ Shepherd thought. ‘The fox will already be inside the coop.’

  CHAPTER 28

  The Chinese Premier frowned as he examined his reflection in the full-length mirror in his suite. He prided himself on his figure and his immaculate appearance and the bulky outline he saw in the mirror was not at all to his taste. However, for all the precautions they had taken, the Kevlar body armour concealed beneath his jacket was a very necessary safeguard; it did not always take a skilled assassin to topple a leader, one stray bullet could sometimes be enough.

  Chou Zhenhua’s path to the leadership had begun in the most humble circumstances, growing up in the provincial backwater of Xinjiang, far from Beijing and the centre of power. He joined the youth wing of the Communist Party and steadily worked his way up the hierarchy, always volunteering for the least glamorous jobs, willing to do the drudgery of writing minutes and compiling reports, that others were happy to hand to him.

  When he graduated from the youth wing to the senior party, he ingratiated himself with potential patrons and allies in a similar way, while working behind the scenes to undermine rivals and enemies. There was never anything with his fingerprints on it, just a murmured comment in someone’s ear, or an apparently bland memo, concealing a scorpion sting in the tail. He courted the old generals and senior politicians alike, always apparently no threat to anyone, just a stolid, bureaucratic, safe pair of hands who could be trusted to keep the local party or the ship of state heading steadily in the same direction.

  He impressed the Beijing leadership with the ruthless way he crushed protests and rebellion by the native Uyghur population in the city of Turguan, imprisoning many of the protesters and publicly executing all the leaders. Summoned to Beijing as a result, but still only a middle-ranking Party functionary, his relentless rise continued and as his power grew, so his mask began to slip even more. He was cold, friendless and feared. He never raised his voice above a quiet monotone, but there was no longer any disguising his ambition, nor the sense of menace in his icy glance or sibilant speech. No matter how busy and involved in national politics he became, he always had time to take personal charge of any “necessary measures” against the Uyghurs in his home region.

  He became deputy premier and then assumed the leadership when his rival was implicated in a major corruption scandal. Chou, like the rest of the politbureau, was no less corrupt but much more adept at covering his tracks. Nothing was in his name. His substantial and ever-growing wealth was apparently owned by relatives and nominees, and laundered through strings of obliging capitalist banks and shell companies, spread around the globe.

  Now his power was absolute and his authority unchallenged, striding the world like a colossus. This engagement - the final, climactic event of his Australian state visit - had been planned with meticulous care, even including a “dress rehearsal” with the banq
ueting hall of the Chinese Embassy standing in for the Opera Theatre at the Sydney Opera House. Every eventuality appeared to have been catered for but there was always an element of doubt, no matter how slight, in case some unlikely but possible scenario had been overlooked.

  With a final tug at his jacket, he turned away from the mirror. Waving away the aides who were clustered around him, he glanced at his watch, a Hublot. It was less ostentatious than a Patek Philippe, but still a rare, extravagant departure from his carefully cultivated image as a homespun man of the people. It perhaps indicated that he now saw his position as impregnable. Not that he would ever be complacent, because his own rise to power was a pathway that other men of equally ferocious ambition might one day seek to emulate.

  Distracted by that thought, he was almost out of the door of his suite before an aide at last caught his attention and placed a hat into his hands. He normally went everywhere bare-headed and, lined with Kevlar, the hat was both heavy and a little ugly but, because of the known terrorist threat, his head of security had begged him to wear it and for once he had bowed to his wishes. Even so, he carried it in his hand rather than wearing it as he emerged from the hotel and, flanked by a phalanx of his own security men and New South Wales Police, walked the few steps to his waiting armoured limousine.

  A battery of press photographers and camera crews recorded his departure, the sound of Nikon motor-drives and shouted questions from reporters not quite covering the shouts and jeers from the crowds of protestors, kept penned by the police at a safe distance from the hotel. China was by far Australia’s biggest trading partner and nothing was going to be allowed to disrupt the Chinese head of state’s triumphant progress through the city.

  Chou’s armoured limousine was sandwiched between the black 4x4s carrying his battery of armed bodyguards and the paramedics who accompanied him everywhere, ready for anything from a heart attack to an assassination attempt. Two vehicles carrying Australian Special Forces rode shotgun at the rear, and the column was flanked by a score of police outriders on motorbikes, riding ahead in pairs to block each intersection in turn, until Chou’s motorcade had sped past. Policemen on foot, stationed at two metre intervals the length of the route, stood with their backs to the road, their gazes fixed on the crowds penned behind steel crash-barriers. They had orders to confiscate any flags or banners other than the paper Chinese flags issued in thousands by Chinese advance-men working the crowds before the motorcade passed by.

  The drive to the Opera House through streets cleared of all other traffic took only a few minutes. A huge crowd of protesters once more bayed their impotent fury from the temporary compound where they had been herded, far from the steps of the Opera House. Their democratic right to protest had been maintained but nowhere in the constitution did it say that the right had to be maintained within earshot of the object of their protest.

  The motorcade of limousines and their attendant heavy security was followed by a rather more prosaic convoy of minibuses ferrying officials from the Chinese embassy. Six minibuses had left the embassy compound late that afternoon, but seven of them arrived at the security cordon surrounding the Opera House and were waved through by the guards.

  Watched by an honour guard of NSW police lining the steps, Chou’s bodyguards had fanned out, their suspicious gazes flickering over every inch of the surrounding area. Chou emerged from his limousine at the head of the Chinese delegation, now wearing his hat. He was greeted by the Australian Prime Minister and the Premier of New South Wales and then escorted into the building by the Director of the Opera House.

  Even though the event had been switched to the smaller Opera Theatre and despite issuing free tickets to city, state and government employees and their partners, it was little more than half full. The audience were all in their places, excluding the three front rows. Row One for the VIPs and the Chinese guest of honour, Row Two for senior members of the Diplomatic Corps and their consorts and Row Three for Secretaries, ADC’s and bodyguard team leaders. Around the walls the Chinese security guards in their shiny suits stared suspiciously at the seated audience. The opera chorus and stars, most wearing green uniforms and high boots with weapons on their shoulders, then filed out of the wings and formed two ranks on the stage. A hush fell over the auditorium and everyone in the audience got to their feet, some looking expectantly over their shoulders. Applause broke out at the rear of the theatre and was picked up by those at the front as the great procession came through the doors. The members of the Diplomatic Corps led the way with the Prime Minister of Australia and the Guest of Honour, Comrade Chou, bringing up the rear.

  However, instead of making for his seat, Chou’s phalanx of bodyguards steered him towards a doorway at the side of the theatre. He disappeared inside, accompanied by his bodyguards, and the door clicked shut behind them.

  When the Chinese Premier re-emerged a couple of minutes later, only the keenest-eyed observer would have noted that just half the number of bodyguards were now accompanying him.

  He was escorted to the place of honour, front and centre in the auditorium with the still puzzled Prime Minister on his right and the State Premier on his left. However he sat staring straight ahead, ignoring all their attempts to engage him in small talk. Bizarrely he was still wearing his hat and made no move to remove it as the house lights dimmed and the orchestra played both national anthems.

  There was a short pause with everyone politely remaining standing until the VIPs in the first and second row had sat down, but suddenly there was a commotion on the stage. Several of the uniform chorus had unslung their weapons into the firing position and they at once began firing long bursts, trying to take out the bodyguards lining the walls and those seated behind the VIPs. Pandemonium broke out as diplomats and government ministers were sprayed with blood, while simultaneously the Chinese security guards returned fire and some members of the chorus on stage started to shoot each other.

  Shepherd felt rather than heard the great main fire doors on the outside of the building slamming violently shut - part of the Opera House’s standard security procedures in emergencies. The pressure change caused his ears to pop. He shouted into his radio to Geordie, ‘Go! Go! Go!’, glanced at his tie-off on the belay point and then threw himself into space above the stage. He controlled his descent with his left hand while he held his MP 5K, primed and ready to fire, in his right.

  As the shooting started, the theatre erupted in panic with people scrambling over the seats, pushing, shoving and trampling others in their rush to escape, while others flattened themselves to the floor between the rows of seats and remained there, trembling with fright. The Australian Prime Minister’s bodyguards hurled themselves upon him, almost burying him under their bodies and then, shielding him from all sides, they tried to hustle him out of the building and bundle him into his limousine. With all the doors and exits in automatic lockdown, they could get no further than the foyer.

  As Shepherd abseiled downwards, out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of the Chinese leader, who in the midst of all the gunfire, carnage and panic, made no attempt to escape and merely hunched down in his seat. He remained motionless, staring at the floor in front of him from under the brim of his hat, while volleys of gunfire echoed around him as the bodyguards flanking him fired at the surviving terrorists.

  Even as he slid down, Shepherd had already begun taking out the shooters on the stage and killed several before the others were even aware that he was there. Just as he was about to target them as well, the abseil rope feeding out of the bag on his leg snagged sharply on itself, causing him to jerk to a halt and then swing like a pendulum a few feet above the stage.

  As soon as the main doors had slammed shut from the inside, Geordie fired the harpoon and it smashed through the steel-framed doors as if they were paper. As the steel “umbrella” frame deployed, Jimbo shouted ‘Go!’ and Rupert put the Ute into gear and pulled away. The carbon rope tautened and with a sound like a bomb going off, the doors were catapulte
d out of their frames. Even before the dust had cleared, Geordie and Jimbo were sprinting through the hole with the Aussie SAS assault team hot on their heels. As they burst into the auditorium they were confronted by a scene of confusion and chaos, with members of the on-stage chorus and the Chinese security teams apparently targeting each other. They glimpsed Shepherd on his abseil rope above the stage but then focused on their own tasks, methodically working their way up the theatre, taking out any terrorist targets that presented themselves as they ran.

  Shepherd needed two hands to clear the rope and as one of the terrorists brought up his weapon to shoot him, Shepherd kicked out and sent the terrorist tumbling into the orchestra pit. As Shepherd swung back he heard fresh shooting and saw Geordie and Jimbo sprinting towards the stage, double-tapping targets as they ran.

  Still swinging on the end of his abseil rope, Shepherd caught the last of the terrorists on the stage in a leg lock, clamping his legs around his neck so tightly that he slowly rendered him unconscious. As the man collapsed, Shepherd released his hold and used his fighting knife to cut through the abseil rope. He dropped the last few feet onto the stage, ran to the edge and looked down into the orchestra pit, then double-tapped the terrorist he had knocked there, as the man frantically tried to bring his own weapon to bear.

  CHAPTER 29

  While his men had sprung into action, in line with the plan which he had waited so long to bring to fruition, Sabit hung back in the shadows at the side of the stage. Only when the Chinese security guards had been eliminated and Comrade Chou brought on stage at gunpoint, would Sabit emerge. Chou would then be forced to his knees, the charges against him read out while one of Sabit’s men filmed him, and then Sabit would pronounce sentence - death - and carry it out, shooting Chou between the eyes, revenge at last for the thousands of Uyghurs he had imprisoned, exiled, tortured or executed. The video would flash around the world. China would be plunged into chaos and the Uyghur people would rise up and overthrow their oppressors. Whether Sabit survived to enjoy that moment was irrelevant. His fate did not matter, because he would already have fulfilled his vow and his life’s aim.