[Spider Shepherd #13] - Dark Forces

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Mate, you don’t have to do this,’ said McGovern. ‘Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll match it. I’ll double it.’ He held up his hands. ‘Just name your price.’

  ‘I’ve been paid,’ said Shepherd. He pulled the trigger. Fake blood burst from McGovern’s chest. He looked down, his mouth open. Shepherd pulled the trigger twice in quick succession and two more blood spouts erupted at the top of McGovern’s shirt. McGovern slumped to his knees, then fell forward into the grave. Shepherd walked slowly to the grave and shot a few seconds of McGovern lying face down, then he switched off the phone. ‘All done, Larry,’ he said. ‘Up you get.’

  McGovern pushed himself to his knees. His face was splattered with mud and he spat noisily. Shepherd looked at Duff. ‘How did it look?’ He held out the gun.

  ‘Perfect,’ said the technician. He took the weapon and handed it to his assistant, who placed it in a metal case.

  ‘The blood was good?’

  Duff nodded.

  McGovern peered down at his mud-soaked jacket. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he said. He undid it and stared at the blood dripping through the holes in his shirt, then did it up again. ‘This suit is fucking ruined.’

  ‘I thought you’d fall on your back,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘I thought forward would be more real,’ said McGovern. He held out his hand. Shepherd grabbed it and pulled him out of the grave.

  ‘Think it’ll convince them?’ asked McGovern.

  Shepherd held out the phone and replayed the video. ‘Looks good to me.’

  McGovern was staring at his mud-soaked knees. ‘Who’s going to pay for the suit?’ he asked.

  ‘Just get it dry-cleaned,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’ll be fine.’

  ‘It’s fucked,’ said McGovern.

  ‘Larry, if anyone else had taken this contract you’d be fucked, never mind your suit.’ He pointed at the gold bracelet on McGovern’s right wrist. ‘I’ll need that. They’ll want proof.’

  McGovern put his hand over the bracelet. ‘My wife gave me this.’

  ‘She divorced you five years ago.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s worth a couple of grand.’

  ‘They’ll know it’s yours and that you wouldn’t have given it up without a fight.’ Shepherd held out his hand and clicked his fingers. ‘Come on, don’t fuck about.’

  McGovern grimaced but unhooked the bracelet and handed it over.

  ‘The guys will want their equipment back,’ said Shepherd.

  McGovern took off his jacket. Duff’s assistant unbuttoned McGovern’s shirt and helped him take it off, then removed the wiring, battery pack and transmitter that had been taped to his body. He put the shirt in one plastic bag and the equipment in another. Duff handed McGovern a sweatshirt.

  McGovern looked at it contemptuously. ‘Are you serious? What did you do – raid your wardrobe?’

  ‘Play nice, Larry,’ said Shepherd. ‘Everyone here is trying to help you.’

  ‘Because you want to put the O’Neills behind bars,’ said McGovern.

  ‘And keep you alive,’ said Shepherd. ‘Let’s not forget that.’

  McGovern pulled on the sweatshirt. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Now we take you to a safe house,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Which is where?’

  ‘One of the reasons it’s safe is because you won’t know where it is,’ said Shepherd. ‘No phone, no Wi-Fi, no nothing.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning on tweeting that I was still alive,’ said McGovern.

  ‘We need you out of sight, out of mind,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘As long as it takes,’ said Shepherd. He gestured at a waiting SUV. ‘Time to go.’

  ‘Days, right?’

  ‘I don’t know, Larry. I can’t be making promises at this stage. The O’Neills wanted you dead and were prepared to pay good money for that. Luckily we got wind of it and I took the contract. We tipped you off, which is why we’re all here now. But how it moves forward …’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘I really don’t know. I hope that after this the O’Neills will trust me and invite me in. If so, all well and good. But it might just be one of a series of tests, in which case it could drag on.’

  ‘That’s not on,’ said McGovern. ‘I can’t stay hidden for months. I’ve got a life.’

  Shepherd’s eyes hardened. ‘Larry, you’ve got a life because I gave you one. If anyone else had taken the contract, you’d be lying in that hole for real.’

  ‘And don’t think I’m not grateful for that. But the world’s going to think I’m dead. It’s going to fuck up my finances for one thing. My lawyer’s going to hear I’m dead, which means my will gets opened. My business is going to fall apart.’

  ‘Larry, you’re a gangster, not a businessman.’

  McGovern pointed a finger at Shepherd’s face. ‘I have legitimate businesses,’ he said. ‘I have two dry-cleaning firms, a pub, a car wash, a florist.’

  ‘Cash businesses to launder money,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘They’re still legit, and if I’m dead they’ll fall apart.’

  ‘I don’t think the O’Neills are going to broadcast the fact that they’ve had you killed,’ said Shepherd. ‘So far as the world’s concerned, you’re missing.’

  McGovern scowled, still not convinced. Shepherd put his arm around his shoulder. ‘Larry, trust me, I don’t want this to drag on one minute longer than necessary.’ He walked him to the SUV. There were two men in the front, MI5 heavies. Shepherd knew they were both armed. The rear passenger windows were impenetrably dark. He opened the offside back door for McGovern to get in. ‘You’ll be fine, Larry. Cable TV, decent food, and your booze bill is on us.’

  ‘Hookers?’

  Shepherd laughed. ‘You’re dead, Larry. You won’t be needing hookers.’

  McGovern climbed in and Shepherd slammed the door. The SUV drove off through the forest. Shepherd pulled out his phone and replayed the video. It looked convincing. He just hoped it would convince the O’Neill brothers.

  It was a five-hour drive north along Route 6 from Palmyra to Tel Abyad. There had been three white SUVs. Mohammed al-Hussain had sat in the middle vehicle, armed IS fighters front and back. They had switched vehicles in Tel Abyad after stopping at a café down a quiet alley where al-Hussain had been given time to use a foul-smelling bathroom with an open toilet that was nothing more than a hole in the ground. After he had washed as best he could, an old man appeared with a pair of scissors and an open razor and spent twenty minutes carefully trimming al-Hussain’s beard until it matched the photograph in the British passport. Afterwards al-Hussain and the other men had prayed on threadbare carpets, then eaten a quick meal of chicken, hummus and flatbread, with iced water, sitting at a table, while above them an old wall-mounted TV showed an Al-Jazeera news programme with the sound muted.

  After the meal they had given al-Hussain fresh clothes to change into. They were clearly used but had been cleaned. There was a denim shirt, faded jeans, socks, underwear and almost-new Nike trainers. His old clothes were taken from him and put into a black plastic rubbish bag. He kept the British passport that Commander al-Lihaib had given him, his prayer beads and his wristwatch, a TAG-Heuer that had been an eighteenth-birthday present from his parents.

  ‘I need to see the watch,’ said the fighter who headed the security team. He was in his late fifties, his skin the colour of teak, his right hand covered with scar tissue. His name was Ahmadi but everyone called him Al Am, the Uncle. His orders were obeyed without question.

  Al-Hussain took it off and handed it to him. Al Am looked at it and turned it over. As he did so, al-Hussain remembered the engraved inscription on the back: ‘To a wonderful son, from his proud parents. May Allah protect him.’ Al Am looked at him and shook his head.

  ‘I understand,’ said al-Hussain.

  ‘And the bag. We must take it from you now.’ He held his hand out for al-Hussain’s backpack. He took it off and held it for a while, like a newborn baby, cradled a
gainst his chest, his head resting on the top. He didn’t want to let go of his weapon, but knew he had no choice. If he was discovered with a sniper’s rifle, his cover would be destroyed and he’d be shot or worse. The notebook had to go. In fact everything, every single thing, that connected him to his former life had to be handed over to the IS fighter. To keep anything that gave away his true identity risked exposing him and ending the mission. And the mission was all that mattered.

  ‘You will take good care of my bag,’ said al-Hussain, as he took it off. ‘You will take it back to Commander al-Lihaib. You are to give it to him and no one else.’

  ‘I will do that,’ said Al Am. ‘Inshallah.’ If Allah wills.

  Al-Hussain held out the bag. His fingers stayed touching the nylon material for several seconds and he sighed audibly as it was taken from him. ‘Now tell me your name,’ said Al Am.

  ‘My name?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  Al-Hussain frowned. ‘I am Mohammed al-Hussain.’

  Al Am shook his head. ‘You are not. From now on you are Hammad Rajput. From England. Until this mission is over you must put all thoughts of Mohammed al-Hussain out of your head.’

  Al-Hussain grimaced at his mistake, but said nothing.

  Al Am placed the wristwatch inside the bag, then slung it over his shoulder. ‘It is time to go.’

  ‘Thank you for getting me this far.’

  ‘It has been an honour and a privilege,’ said Al Am, bowing his head.

  Mohammed al-Hussain was put into the back of a rusting black pick-up truck. The two IS fighters who had driven him from Palmyra sat in the front and he was joined by another man, in his late twenties with skin burned almost black by the sun, who cradled an AK-47 with a folding metal stock in his lap. He turned to al-Hussain and smiled, revealing several missing teeth.

  ‘Assalamu alaykum,’ said the man. ‘Kayfa anta?’ How are you?

  ‘Bi-khair alhamdulillah.’ Fine, praise be to Allah.

  ‘There’s water under the seat if you’re thirsty.’

  Al-Hussain nodded. ‘I’m grateful, thank you.’

  Shepherd had the black cab drop him outside Selfridges. He went inside and spent fifteen minutes wandering around, reassuring himself that he wasn’t being followed. He headed outside and grabbed the third cab that drove by with its light on and said, ‘Paddington station,’ in a loud voice as he climbed in. As soon as the vehicle pulled away from the kerb he asked the driver to drop him at the Mayfair Hotel.

  Howard Wedekind was sitting at a corner table with a vodka and tonic in front of him. He looked like a typical accountant, balding and wearing a rumpled suit with a scuffed briefcase at the side of his chair. He had the yellowing fingers of a smoker and, from the way he was tapping them on the table, Shepherd figured it had been a while since he’d had a cigarette.

  ‘You’re late,’ said Wedekind.

  ‘I said four-ish,’ said Shepherd, sitting down.

  Wedekind glanced at his watch, a cheap black plastic Casio. ‘It’s half past.’ There was something off about his left eye. It was slightly closed and the pupil seemed a bit further to the side than it should have been.

  ‘Which is four-ish,’ said Shepherd. ‘In a few more minutes it’ll be five-ish and I’ll be officially late.’ He smiled at a waitress in a short skirt. ‘Bombay gin, Schweppes tonic, lime and ice,’ he said. She smiled and tottered away on impossibly high heels. Shepherd turned to watch her, playing the ladies’ man for Wedekind’s benefit. ‘I’d give her one,’ he said.

  ‘How did it go?’ asked Wedekind.

  ‘Same as it always goes. He begged me not to shoot him, he offered me money, then I shot him.’ He shrugged. ‘Same old, same old.’

  ‘As easy as that?’

  ‘I didn’t say it was easy,’ said Shepherd, ‘but there’s a predictability about it. First they don’t believe it’s happening, then they try to negotiate or threaten their way out of it, and finally they accept it. Or they try to rush you. But Larry wasn’t a rusher. You’ve got my money?’

  ‘Obviously I’d like proof of death,’ said Wedekind, his voice a low whisper.

  Shepherd reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the gold bracelet he’d taken from McGovern. He gave it to Wedekind, who smiled as he weighed it in the palm of his hand. ‘He loved this, Larry did. Never took it off.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, not any more.’ He fished a small memory card out of his wallet. ‘If the lads want to see McGovern’s final seconds, show them this.’

  Wedekind stared at it in amazement. ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘Serious as cancer.’

  ‘You filmed it?’

  ‘Howard, there’s a reason they call it a handgun. One hand is all you need.’

  ‘This is a fucking first,’ said Wedekind, taking the card.

  The waitress returned with Shepherd’s gin and tonic. She bent down low, giving him a fairly decent view of her impressive cleavage and flashed him a smile, then straightened up and tottered away.

  ‘I can’t believe you filmed it,’ said Wedekind, putting the card into his wallet. ‘The boys are going to love that. And no one will ever find the body?’

  ‘Buried deep in the New Forest,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ve put a dozen in the woods and no one’s ever the wiser. You’ve got to bury them deep enough so dogs don’t get the scent, but other than that it’s easy-peasy.’ He raised his glass in salute and took a long drink.

  ‘You’re a pro all right,’ said Wedekind. ‘A breath of fresh air in this business.’

  ‘That’s why they call me the Hammer,’ said Shepherd. ‘I nail it every time.’

  Wedekind bent down, opened his briefcase and took out a brown envelope. He handed it to Shepherd. ‘Your fee.’

  Shepherd took it and put it into his inside pocket.

  ‘You don’t want to check it?’ asked Wedekind.

  ‘I know you can afford it, and I also know you know what would happen if you tried to short-change me,’ said Shepherd. He grinned as Wedekind’s eyes tightened. ‘I’m just messing with you,’ he said. ‘This is a long-term thing, Howard. I’d rather work for your firm than a succession of strangers. Strangers can be a liability. I know you, you know me, there’s a bond. Trust.’

  ‘I hear you,’ said Wedekind.

  ‘I mean it. This job I just did, it was by way of a test. It wasn’t about the money. It was about me proving to you that I do what I say I’ll do.’ He patted the pocket containing the money. ‘And proving to myself that you’ll pay for my services. The big question is, where do we go from here?’

  ‘I’ll be in touch, you can count on it,’ Wedekind said.

  ‘Good to know.’

  The pick-up truck left the road before they reached the Turkish border, about an hour after darkness had fallen, as quickly as if a black sheet had been thrown over the desert. They drove for five miles, then saw another pick-up, this one a mud-spattered red. Four men in long robes stood around it, holding Kalashnikovs.

  The truck slowed to a halt about fifty feet from the other vehicle. The driver twisted in his seat. ‘Stay here,’ he said. He climbed out, as did the fighter in the passenger seat. The man sitting next to Mohammed al-Hussain slipped his finger onto the trigger.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ al-Hussain asked him.

  The man smiled, showing the gaps between his teeth. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Inshallah.’ God willing.

  The two fighters walked to the other four and the driver said something. One of the men replied, and shortly afterwards they all embraced. The man beside al-Hussain slid his finger off the trigger and visibly relaxed.

  Their driver indicated that they should get out of the car and beckoned them over. They did as they were told and he came to talk to them. The sky overhead was a carpet of stars, and a chilling breeze blew from the north. The terrain ahead was bleak desert, sand and rocks. The only indication that Syria would become Turkey was a concrete wall topped by razor wire. The Turkish border town of Akçakale
lay a few miles away on the other side. Behind them, half an hour’s drive, was Tel Abyad. ‘Everything is good,’ said the driver. ‘They will take you over the wall into Turkey and another vehicle will pick you up there.’

  ‘Thank you for bringing me this far,’ said al-Hussain. ‘Assalamu alaykum.’ Peace be upon you.

  The man hugged him. ‘Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakaatuhu,’ he said. Peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy and blessings. He hugged him again, this time kissing him softly on both cheeks. ‘It’s time for you to go.’ He directed him to the second pick-up truck. Al-Hussain walked slowly towards the four men. For a wild moment he wondered if it was some sort of trap and they were about to kill him in the desert, but they greeted him warmly.

  Two of them pulled a tarpaulin loose in the back of the truck to reveal two aluminium folding ladders. They seized one each and carried them to the wall. Al-Hussain followed them, shivering in the cold night air.

  One of the men placed his ladder against the wall and hurried up it. He used clippers to cut away a section of the razor wire, then waved for al-Hussain to join him. Al-Hussain went up the ladder carefully and sat on the top of the wall. He helped lift the second ladder up and the fighter at the top placed it on the other side. He went down first, then waved for al-Hussain to follow him.

  He stepped carefully over the top of the wall making sure not to catch his shirt on the razor wire, then hurried down to join the other man, who was already jogging over to the final barrier, a wire fence again topped by razor wire. It was only eight feet high but they didn’t intend to climb over it: the fighter already had his wire clippers in his hand and bent down to cut a hole.

  Al-Hussain stood with his hands on his hips and surveyed the scene ahead. He stiffened as he spotted a dark SUV. He shifted his head from side to side, trying to get a clearer view, and realised two figures were standing at the rear of the vehicle. He bent down. ‘Are they waiting for me?’ he whispered.

  ‘Of course,’ said the man. He snipped another strand of wire. In less than three minutes he had cut enough to force a hole in the fence big enough for both men to slip through. He held the wire back for al-Hussain. ‘Be careful,’ he said, holding al-Hussain’s arm. ‘There is a ditch.’