Short Range (The Spider Shepherd Thrillers Book 16)

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Try not to think of it as fun, Harry,’ said Shepherd. ‘Just try to act exactly the way you did before you started helping the police. Don’t do anything differently.’

  The teenager flashed Shepherd a sarcastic smile. ‘You think I’m stupid, too,’ he said.

  ‘No, I don’t. I think you’re doing an awesome job. I’ve worked undercover and I know how difficult it is. I do respect you for what you’re doing, I’m just trying to help you through it, that’s all.’

  ‘So you’re what, an undercover cop?’

  ‘I used to be. Not so much these days.’

  ‘Did you carry a gun?’

  ‘Sometimes. If I had to.’

  ‘Can I have a gun? That would be so sick.’

  Shepherd couldn’t help but smile at the teenager’s enthusiasm. He shook his head. ‘Never in a million years,’ he said. He opened the door and ushered Harry out, then watched as the boy walked away.

  He closed the door and went back to the kitchen. Sharpe was making himself a sandwich.

  ‘So you let him keep the money?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘It was discussed at length,’ said Sharpe. ‘Our guv thought we should take the money off him and put it into evidence, but we thought best to let him keep it. That way everything continues as normal and young Harry doesn’t get pissed off.’

  ‘Whether or not Harry is pissed off isn’t the issue, is it?’ said Shepherd.

  ‘We just want to keep him as happy as possible, and if we took the money off him he might start resenting us,’ said Bacon.

  ‘What happens when the case is over and done with? Surely he’ll have to give the money back?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘Our guv says no,’ said Sharpe.

  ‘You just need to be careful is all I’m saying,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘I think this is us being careful,’ said Sharpe. ‘If we took the cash off him it would be put in evidence which means if we go to full disclosure the defence might spot it and realise we had an inside man.’

  ‘Inside boy,’ said Shepherd. ‘He’s a few years to go before he’s a man. Razor, if this goes to disclosure the defence is going to know about Harry’s role anyway. Even if he’s not identified they’ll still be able to work out who he is. We need to make sure that Morris and his posse all plead guilty.’

  ‘They will, Spider, don’t worry.’

  Shepherd sat down. He picked up his mug of coffee and sipped it thoughtfully. ‘What about the money?’ he asked. ‘Harry delivers the bag, but how does the money get to Morris?’

  ‘Courier,’ said Sharpe.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Three or four times a week they do a courier delivery,’ said Sharpe. ‘A large jiffy bag that goes to a post office box company in London. We got a warrant to check the bags last week and surprise, surprise, they were full of cash. One of Morris’s men does a weekly pickup. That’s how all the county lines pass on their cash, so each pickup is tens of thousands of pounds. Whoever does the pickup then takes the money to a currency exchange on Edgware Road. Presumably they get it into the banking system, for a fee. There’s a separate team following up the money angle.’

  ‘This is one hell of an operation, Razor.’ Shepherd raised his mug in salute. ‘Kudos.’

  ‘Yeah, I just wish we could move in now. The longer we leave it, the bigger the risk that something goes wrong. At the moment Morris has no idea what’s going on, but if he were to find out …’ He shrugged and left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘Let’s see what happens on Sunday,’ said Shepherd.

  Shepherd had parked his black BMW X5 a short walk from the safe house, as it was his own car and not a pool vehicle. He drove back to his rented flat in Lambeth and parked in the building’s underground car park. The flat was tiny, a small sitting room with a kitchen area, a bedroom and a shower room. The reason he had chosen it was because it came with a designated parking space and it was a short walk across Lambeth Bridge to Thames House.

  He let himself into his flat and made himself a coffee. The flat was pretty much unchanged from the day he’d moved in, a year earlier. There was nothing of a personal nature, no photographs or mementos, other than a couple of books and a copy of National Geographic magazine. When Shepherd used a flat or house to go with a legend, one of MI5’s dressers would go in and stamp the legend’s personality onto the premises with framed photographs, sports equipment, letters and souvenirs and select a decor and furnishings that would fit. Anyone visiting the Lambeth flat would assume that the occupier had no interests, no social life and no personality, which is just how Shepherd wanted it.

  He took his coffee over to the small grey sofa and sat down, swinging his feet up onto the square Ikea pine table. He took out his phone to call Katra. It had been two days since he had last spoken to his girlfriend and he was well aware that he was calling to give her bad news.

  He tapped out her number. He never used his phone’s address books, he made all calls from memory. ‘Dan, hi, where are you?’ she gushed as soon as she answered.

  ‘London,’ he said. ‘Hey, I’m sorry about this but I’m not going to be able to get back this weekend.’

  ‘Work?’

  He laughed. ‘Of course it’s work,’ he said. ‘You think I’d stay away by choice?’

  ‘I’m starting to wonder,’ she said.

  ‘It’s just work, and I can’t get out of it,’ he said. ‘I’m backed up the rest of this week and then there’s a job on Sunday that I have to do. I could get back on Saturday but I’d have to leave so early on Sunday that I wouldn’t be relaxed. The weekend after is still on, though, and that’s when Liam is coming so we’ll have a proper family weekend.’

  ‘Promise?’ said Katra.

  Shepherd winced. He hated making promises because events could easily throw any plans he made into disarray, but he could tell that Katra was upset and he wanted to make her feel better. ‘I’ll be there,’ he said.

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Just family problems,’ she said. ‘Mum’s getting short of money.’

  ‘I’ll sort everything out when I’m back,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you transfer some money last week?’

  ‘Last month,’ said Katra. ‘She’s having trouble making ends meet.’

  ‘We’ll talk it through next week,’ said Shepherd. ‘I promise. And we need to talk about moving to London. This commuting is getting on my nerves.’

  ‘Mine too,’ she said.

  ‘Now that Liam’s in the Army, maybe now’s the time to sell the Hereford house.’

  ‘I think that’s a great idea,’ she said. ‘This house is too lonely now.’

  ‘We’ll discuss it next weekend,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, Dan,’ she said.

  She sounded a bit happier than when he’d started the call, but Shepherd wasn’t sure how happy she’d be once they started discussing the finances of a move. Their house in Hereford was lovely with plenty of room and a decent garden and a garage. It had been perfect for when he had been with the SAS, and when Liam was still at school. There was no reason to keep it now that he was London-based, albeit with a fair amount of travel. The problem was the cost. The three-bedroom house in Hereford was probably worth less than half the price of the shoebox in Lambeth. He doubted that Katra realised how expensive London property was, and that if they did have to move, even on his MI5 salary they would struggle to find anywhere close to London that matched the house they had in Hereford.

  The Range Rover stopped in front of the single-storey industrial unit and the front passenger side window wound down. Frenk Kriezis pointed the remote control at the red metal door and it rattled up. The car drove slowly inside. It was followed a few seconds later by a white windowless Mercedes van.

  The industrial unit was on a small estate in Chingford, north-east London, close to Epping Forest. It was late at night and the other units on the estate were all locked up. Kriezis climbed
out of the front passenger seat of the Range Rover. He pressed the remote again and the door rattled down.

  The driver climbed out too. His name was Marko Dushku and he was one of Kriezis’s oldest friends. He had lived in the next house to Kriezis in his village, the eldest son of a barber. He had been slow as a child and Kriezis had helped him with his homework. What Dushku lacked in intelligence he made up for in brute strength. He was a big child and grew to be an even bigger man, standing six feet six inches tall, broad shouldered and with hands like shovels. Despite his bulk, Dushku’s weapon of choice was a cut-throat razor that had once belonged to his father. The razor looked tiny in his massive hand but he wielded it with lethal accuracy. He obeyed Kriezis without thinking; his loyalty was absolute.

  The driver of the van opened the door and got out and stretched. His name was Jetmir Shkodra and he too was a big man, standing exactly six feet tall. He had also gone to the same village school but had been in the class below Kriezis and Dushku. His name meant ‘good life’ but Shkodra’s childhood had been anything but good. His father had abused him and his mother, getting drunk and beating them in turns with his belt. Shkodra’s mother was the family earner, doing laundry in her kitchen and ironing late into the night. The beatings had continued until Shkodra was fifteen. The father hadn’t realised that the son had grown into a man and midway through slapping his belt against his son’s backside Jetmir had snapped, grabbing the belt and strangling him with it. His mother had hugged Shkodra and assured him that he wasn’t at fault, and the two of them staged a suicide, hanging the body from the back of a door with the belt around the neck. The local police did the bare minimum and if they had any doubts about the cause of death they didn’t raise them. Shkodra’s father was pretty much hated by everyone in the village and while a hundred people attended his funeral, it was more to confirm that he was dead than to pay their respects. Shkodra had been with Kriezis from the start, when they built their own protection business based on a documentary they had watched about the Kray twins of London. There had been no subtitles but their English was good enough to understand the basic business premise: that if you were violent enough and scared people enough they would give you money for the violence to stop. Shkodra was a natural, and meting out beatings to shop owners and businessmen became a way of reliving what he had done to his bastard of a father.

  Shkodra walked around to the rear of the van and pulled open the double doors. There were four black men lying on the floor of the van, bound and gagged with grey duct tape. Standing over them was another of Kriezis’s men, Gëzim Prifti. Gëzim was the Albanian word for happiness, but Gëzim Prifti was a man who never smiled. He was a former soldier and had served with the Albanian Army in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-commanded International Security Assistance Force in Kabul. He had been badly injured when an IED exploded next to his unit’s truck; his left leg was a mass of scar tissue and he walked with a pronounced limp. The Army had discarded him and Kriezis had met the man in a bar in Tirana, Albania’s capital city, nursing a tumbler of brandy and glowering at anyone who went near him. Kriezis realised he had met a kindred spirit and a bottle of brandy later they were singing Abba songs in a karaoke bar. Kriezis had offered Prifti a job though he had been suitably vague about what his duties would be. Prifti wasn’t stupid and knew that he wasn’t being hired for his vocal skills. He became Kriezis’s main enforcer, breaking legs and snapping arms as enthusiastically as he belted out ‘Dancing Queen’, and he killed without hesitation when ordered to.

  Prifti and Shkodra rolled the four bound men out of the van and onto the ground. They were all conscious, their eyes wide and fearful. Prifti jumped down, grabbed four coils of rope and handed two of them to Shkodra. There were steel girders running across the vaulted metal roof and one by one they threw the ropes over.

  Kriezis lit a cigarette as Dushku went over to help. One by one they tied a length of rope around the legs of the bound men and hauled them so that they were hanging by their feet. They tied the ropes to metal benches that were bolted to the walls.

  When they had finished, Kriezis stubbed out his cigarette and took a crowbar from the back of the Range Rover. ‘Which of you is the boss?’ asked Kriezis, swinging the crowbar. ‘Who should I be talking to here?’

  Dushku walked along the line of swinging men, ripping the duct tape from their mouths. They all coughed and spluttered as they swung back and forth.

  Kriezis banged the crowbar on the concrete floor. ‘I asked a fucking question,’ he shouted.

  ‘It’s my crew,’ gasped the man to his left. His head was shaved and it glistened with sweat.

  Kriezis walked over to him. ‘You’re the boss? You don’t look like a boss to me.’

  ‘What the fuck is this about?’ asked the man.

  ‘We need to talk about your long-term business plan,’ said Kriezis. He prodded the man in the stomach with the end of the crowbar. ‘You look fat. A fat boss sets a bad example to his men.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ said the man and he spat at Kriezis’s leg.

  Spittle flecked across Kriezis’s jeans and he scowled. ‘Why the fuck would you do that?’ He looked over his shoulder at the two men standing by the van. ‘Did you see what he did?’ He shook his head. ‘What the fuck, hey?’ He looked back down at the man. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘They call me Vicious.’

  Kriezis laughed. ‘Vicious? Are you serious? They really call you that?’ He walked along to the man hanging next to Vicious. ‘Is that his name? Really? That’s what you call him?’

  ‘That’s his name,’ said the man. He had long dreadlocks that brushed the floor as he swung backwards and forwards.

  ‘And what’s your name?’

  ‘Two-by.’

  Kriezis frowned. ‘Two-by? What sort of name is that?’

  ‘It’s short for two-by-four.’

  Kriezis’s frown deepened. ‘What the fuck is two-by-four?’

  ‘It’s a piece of wood that measures two by four.’

  ‘So you get a nickname from a piece of wood?’

  ‘I broke a guy’s legs with a piece of two-by-four.’

  Kriezis laughed harshly. ‘I get it now.’ He looked over at Prifti and Shkodra. ‘Maybe after today you’ll start calling me Crowbar.’ The two men laughed and Kriezis wagged the crowbar at them. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said. ‘I hate nicknames. You should be proud of the name your parents gave you, not hide behind a made-up name.’

  He turned back to the swinging men. He walked slowly over to the third man and prodded him in the groin. ‘What about you? What do they call you?’

  ‘Biggs.’

  ‘Because you’re fat?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Biggs.

  Kriezis nodded and prodded the last man in the group. ‘And you?’ He was thin and tall, his head was almost touching the floor.

  ‘Foota.’

  ‘Foota? Why?’

  ‘They say I’ve got big feet.’

  Kriezis peered at the man’s gleaming white Nikes. ‘You have, too,’ he said.

  He stood back, slowly swinging the crowbar back and forth. ‘So, we’ve got Vicious, Two-by, Biggs and Foota. Eeny, meeny, miny, mo.’ He stepped forward and smacked the crowbar against the side of Vicious’s head. The skull cracked and blood splattered across the concrete floor. Vicious went into spasm as blood trickled down his scalp and dripped onto the floor.

  Kriezis swung the crowbar again, this time hitting the other side of the man’s skull. Several teeth flew across the floor. Kriezis hit him again and again and continued to hit him even after the skull had been obliterated and the floor was splattered with blood and brain matter. When he eventually stopped he was sweating profusely and his face was flecked with Vicious’s blood.

  ‘Not so fucking Vicious now, are you?’ he said. He laughed and tapped the bloody crowbar onto the floor. ‘So, who’s the number two in this gang? Because it seems to me that number two is now number one.’

  He walk
ed over to Two-by and prodded him in the chest with the crowbar. ‘Is it you? Were you his right-hand man?’

  ‘Fuck no,’ said Two-by.

  Kriezis drew back the crowbar. ‘You look like second-in-command material,’ he said.

  ‘No!’ screamed Two-by. ‘No fucking way! Foota’s the number two. He and Vicious run things. I’m nothing, man. I’m just a gopher. I run fucking errands. I’m nothing, man.’

  Kriezis smiled. ‘Is that a fact?’ he said. He walked slowly over to Foota. ‘Is that right, big feet? You’re in charge now?’

  ‘Just fucking do what you have to do,’ said Foota, closing his eyes tightly.

  ‘You were his number two?’

  ‘Yeah, I was his fucking number two. Now get this shit over with.’

  Kriezis drew back the crowbar, took aim at the side of Foota’s head, then relaxed and placed the end of it on the floor. He gestured at Prifti and Shkodra. ‘Get him down.’

  The two heavies hurried over to Foota. One untied the rope and the other lowered him to the ground. He used a knife to cut Foota’s ankles free. Foota sat on the floor looking up at Kriezis, breathing hard. ‘How long did you work for Vicious?’ asked Kriezis.

  ‘A year. Maybe two.’

  ‘Was he a good boss?’

  Foota mumbled incoherently.

  ‘Get on your feet,’ said Kriezis. ‘Talk to me like a man.’

  Foota pushed himself up off the floor. The circulation was returning to his legs but he still struggled to stand.

  ‘You understand what just happened?’ Kriezis asked.

  ‘You’re taking over,’ said Foota. ‘I get it.’

  ‘The question is, would you be happy working for me?’

  Foota sniffed but didn’t answer.

  ‘Because you know what the choice is, don’t you? I do to you what I did to Vicious and then I give the choice to Two-by. And I think we both know that Two-by’s going to agree to anything. The way he gave you up, he’d say or do anything to save his own life.’ Kriezis smiled evilly. ‘What about you, Foota? What would you be prepared to do?’

  Foota looked Kriezis in the eye, shrugged again, but didn’t say anything.