True Colours ss-10

by Stephen Leather

  ‘It’s my job, and I’m good at it, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy lying to people,’ said Shepherd. ‘I do get a kick out of putting away bad guys, though. I can’t deny that.’

  Sharpe took another pull on his pint. ‘So what is it you want?’

  ‘You know I got shot, back when I was in Afghanistan? Well, the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to be accurate.’

  ‘I’ve seen the scar,’ said Sharpe.

  ‘I nearly bought it,’ said Shepherd. ‘Closest I ever came. A young SAS captain died during the same operation. Died in my arms.’

  Sharpe said nothing and sat watching Shepherd, his face impassive.

  ‘His name was Harry Todd,’ continued Shepherd. ‘Typical Rupert, wet behind the ears but thought he knew everything.’ Shepherd shrugged. ‘Afghanistan was a baptism of fire for him. He fucked up and three Paras were killed.’ He stopped talking and stared at the floor as the memories flooded back.

  ‘Fucked up how?’

  ‘He thought he had this SEP. A Surrendered Enemy Personnel. Basically a Taliban fighter who wanted to change sides. The story was that this muj wanted to bring in his mates and they needed an escort. Todd got a hard-on for the guy and sent him out with three Paras. We found them dead a few hours later. Two of them shot in the back of the head, one shot as he was running away. And no sign of the muj.’

  ‘It was a trap?’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘Yeah. It was a trap. The muj — his name was Ahmad Khan — had set the whole thing up. Told Todd what he wanted to hear and Todd sent three Paras to their deaths.’

  ‘I hope he was out on his arse,’ said Sharpe.

  ‘Nah, he wasn’t RTU’d.’

  ‘RTU?’

  ‘Returned to unit,’ said Shepherd. ‘That’s generally what happens when someone screws up. But they let Todd stay on.’ He shrugged. ‘As it turned out, it would have been better for him if he had been RTU’d.’

  Sharpe sipped his lager and waited for Shepherd to continue.

  ‘Some time later Todd found out where Khan was. He’d been seen at an al-Qaeda place over the border in Afghanistan, a staging post for money they’d been collecting from opium farmers and the like. Todd put together a team and we went out on a search and destroy mission.’ He drained his glass, then took a deep breath. It wasn’t a memory that he enjoyed reliving. ‘We flew in by helicopter, six of us including the captain. Four-man perimeter while me and Todd set explosives and blew the place. The concussion killed everyone inside so we set fire to the place and exited. That was when Khan started firing. Killed the captain and caught me in the shoulder.’ He shook his head, trying to blot out the memory of the captain dying in his arms. ‘Khan did a runner and the guys got me to the chopper.’

  ‘That was why you left the SAS, right?’

  ‘It was part of it,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘So what’s the problem now?’ asked Sharpe.

  Shepherd sighed. ‘I need another drink,’ he said, and stood up.

  Sharpe finished his lager and held out his empty glass. ‘Amen to that.’

  Shepherd went over to the bar and returned with fresh drinks. He sat down and stretched out his legs. ‘The thing is, it looks like Khan is in the UK. I don’t know how he managed it but he’s here.’

  ‘Probably got asylum,’ said Sharpe. ‘He’s not the first and he won’t be the last. Remember we let Robert Mugabe’s chief torturer claim asylum here not so long ago?’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘It’s a crazy system, there’s no doubt about that,’ he said. ‘In the old days any Afghan threatened by the Taliban could claim asylum if he got to the UK. Then after the Coalition invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban could maintain that their lives were at risk so they could claim asylum. Now that the Taliban is regaining control, we’re back to stage one. It’s crazy.’

  ‘If it was me, I’d put them all up against a wall and shoot them,’ said Sharpe.

  ‘Afghans?’

  Sharpe grinned. ‘The bloody politicians who got us into this state,’ he said. ‘You explain to me why we’ve got Taliban, former or otherwise, living here?’

  ‘Ours not to reason why, Razor. You know that. We’re just instruments of the state.’

  ‘And what do you want from me?’ asked Sharpe.

  ‘I need you to have a root around the PNC for Ahmad Khan,’ said Shepherd. ‘And run the name by the intelligence guys.’

  ‘I’d have thought your mob would have had more intel on him,’ said Sharpe. ‘You’ve got access to the PNC, right?’

  ‘Sure. But every time Five accesses it the request is flagged and I don’t want a trail.’

  ‘But you’re happy for my name to be flagged?’

  ‘No, I know you’re smart enough to get in and out without anyone knowing you were there.’

  ‘You know that’s a sackable offence now?’ said Sharpe. ‘The days of pulling up reg numbers for mates are long gone.’

  ‘Yeah, and I know how you always play by the rules, Razor,’ said Shepherd, his voice loaded with sarcasm.

  ‘So this isn’t official?’

  ‘If it was official, Razor, why would I be plying you with drink and asking for a favour?’

  Sharpe nodded thoughtfully. ‘I’ll sniff around. But that won’t be any help if he’s here illegally. In fact, if he’s got into the country under a false name and is living below the radar …’ He shrugged and left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘If it was easy, I wouldn’t be asking you, would I?’

  Sharpe grinned. ‘Don’t try manipulating me, Spider. I’ve known you too long.’

  ‘I’m serious, this is a tough one. But I need to find him.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘He’s the guy that shot you, right? I’m assuming you don’t want to shake him by the hand and tell him that bygones are bygones.’

  ‘Best you don’t know.’

  ‘Best I do, actually,’ said Sharpe. ‘If something happens to this Khan character I don’t want my name in the frame.’

  ‘That’s why it needs to be done on the QT,’ said Shepherd.

  Sharpe held Shepherd’s look and Shepherd could see the concern in his friend’s eyes. ‘Revenge can get nasty, Spider,’ he said quietly.

  ‘He shot me. He killed my captain, shot him in the head and he died in my arms. And he shot three Paras in the back.’

  ‘It was war, right?’

  ‘Even in a war situation you don’t shoot people in the back. There are rules. Some of them are in the Geneva Convention and some of them aren’t written down, but there are rules.’ He took another sip of his drink. ‘He shot them in the back, Razor. Two of them while they were sitting in a Land Rover, the other one when he was running away. And now he’s in the UK. That can’t be right.’

  Sharpe nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, the days of the Queensberry Rules are long gone,’ he said. ‘OK, I won’t ask you what you’re going to do because it’s best I don’t know. Just be careful, yeah?’

  ‘Always,’ said Shepherd.

  Sharpe reached over and clinked his pint glass against Shepherd’s whiskey and soda. Then he raised his glass in the air. ‘To crime!’ he said.

  Shepherd laughed and repeated the toast and then the two men drank.

  ‘There’s something else,’ said Shepherd as he put down his glass.

  ‘There usually is,’ growled Sharpe.

  ‘I need you to check up on the guy who gave me the info on Khan. A former Para by the name of Alex Harper. Everyone calls him Lex. He was a Para with me in Afghanistan. He was my spotter for a while.’

  ‘Spotter?’

  ‘I did a bit of sniping and you always need a spotter, someone who watches your back, helps ID targets, checks the wind and stuff. Sniping’s a two-man game and Lex was my number two. Bloody good, he was. Pulled my nuts out of the fire a few times.’

  ‘I’m sensing a but, here.’

  Shepherd laughed. ‘Yeah, a lot’s changed in ten years, that’s for sure,’ he said
. ‘He’s left the army and lives out in Thailand now.’

  ‘Ah, the Land of Smiles,’ said Sharpe.

  ‘Yeah, well, turns out it’s a small world. He knows the Moore brothers and he’s in the same line of work.’

  ‘Armed robbery?’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘Yeah, he left the army and did a few banks. I think in his mind he was a sort of Robin Hood, told me that it was a way of getting back at the banks because of what they did to the country.’

  ‘That’s logical for you.’

  ‘In a crazy way he made sense,’ said Shepherd. ‘The banks screwed the economy, the MoD has to get rid of men to save money, Lex loses his job, so Lex hits back at the banks.’ He shrugged. ‘Sort of made sense at the time.’

  ‘He hurt anyone?’

  ‘Doesn’t seem to have done,’ said Shepherd. ‘You know that the key to successful blagging is shock and awe. It’s a bit like being an armed cop — if you get to the stage where you actually have to pull the trigger, you’ve pretty much failed.’ He swirled his whiskey and soda around his glass. ‘Anyway, he’s moved on now. Drugs. The big league.’

  Sharpe grimaced. ‘That’s not good,’ he said.

  ‘You’re telling me.’

  ‘You need to watch yourself, Spider. Seriously.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘I mean it. If you get caught in bed with a drugs dealer your feet won’t touch the ground.’

  Shepherd put up his hand dismissively. ‘I’m not stupid, Razor.’

  ‘Never said you were, but you sometimes have a blind spot where friends are concerned. You can cut people too much slack, you know? I get that he was a Para, I get that he saved your bacon in Afghanistan.’ He realised what he had said and laughed. ‘Ha ha, bacon in a Muslim country. Not much chance of that.’

  ‘Very funny, Razor. Hilarious. I sense another racism and diversity course on the horizon.’

  ‘OK, dietary humour aside, people change. And if you get caught passing confidential information to a drugs dealer, you’re screwed and you’re screwed big-time.’

  ‘I hear you. I’ll be careful. And whatever happens, you know your name won’t be mentioned.’

  ‘Just be careful,’ said Sharpe. ‘So what do you need?’

  ‘Lex is clever, he knows how to keep off the grid. There’s nothing on him on the Five databases, I’ve already checked, but I don’t want to go on to the PNC, so can you do that for me? Then maybe reach out to Intel and to Drugs? See what, if anything, is known. He was in Spain for a while, but now he’s based in Thailand. He’s super-careful about CCTV and communications, so he might have been lucky.’

  ‘I’ll check,’ said Sharpe.

  Shepherd took his wallet and slipped a piece of paper across the table. ‘I got some basic info from his army record,’ he said.

  Sharpe picked up the piece of paper, folded it, and slid it into his pocket. ‘This Lex was a friend of the Paras who were killed?’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘Yeah. In fact, if I hadn’t warned him not to go with them, he’d probably be dead now too.’

  ‘So he’s out for revenge, too?’

  Shepherd nodded again. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So why not just let him have what intel we get and leave it up to him? Keep yourself out of it.’

  Shepherd sighed. ‘It’s not as easy as that.’

  ‘It never is,’ said Sharpe.

  AFGHANISTAN, 2002

  Little Lailuna loved to sing, but singing was forbidden by the Taliban. Afghanis had kept caged birds from time immemorial but they were now banned, for the beauty of their song and of their plumage was considered too distracting for those whose lives should be devoted to the serious study of the Quran. The flying of kites, which had always drawn watching crowds as they swooped and soared against the backdrop of the azure sky and the snow-capped peaks of the Hindu Kush, was also outlawed, as were films, magazines containing pictures, and music, singing and dancing.

  Little Lailuna didn’t know that as she sang for her classmates. She was only five years old, and she loved to sing. She didn’t know that Taliban patrols attacked and beat women and even girls as young as nine years old for not wearing the chadri — the Afghan burqa. Nor did she know that high-heeled shoes were also forbidden as ‘no man should hear a woman’s footsteps lest it excite him’. Or that women were forbidden to speak loudly ‘lest a strange man should hear their voice’, and they were banned from leaving their houses unless accompanied by a male blood relative.

  She was so lost in her song that Lailuna didn’t hear the Taliban militants pull up outside the school building in a Toyota Landcruiser. Lailuna was singing to her classmates, her back to the dusty street. She saw their smiles fade and she faltered and stopped as she saw them back away from her. She turned around and her eyes widened as she saw the four tall, bearded men in the black robes and turbans of the Taliban glowering at her. They were carrying canes. She shot a glance at her teacher, who was now ghost white and visibly trembling. Still Lailuna did not understand. ‘Shall I finish my song?’ she asked, hesitantly.

  One of the Taliban swung back his bamboo cane and began lashing out at her, striking her on the legs and back. She fell to the floor crying, but still the cane whistled down, again and again. She curled up into a ball, still sobbing, and through her tears saw her teacher kicked, punched, dragged away and thrown into the back of the Toyota.

  The men returned to herd Lailuna and her classmates out of the building with more kicks and blows. Then they took a can of petrol, splashed it around the classroom and set fire to it, and as the building burned, they told Lailuna and the other girls to go home and never return, that the school was finished. Then the Taliban jumped into the Toyota and drove off with Lailuna’s teacher in the back. The teacher was never seen again. Lailuna ran home and hid in the dark corner beneath the stairs. She was still there when her father, Ahmad Khan, returned several hours later, and it was some time before he was able to persuade her to tell him what had happened. He sat with her throughout the night as she tossed and turned in the grip of nightmares.

  Ahmad Khan had been born the son of a poor farmer from Nangahar province in the far east of Afghanistan. The remote and lawless lands straddling the border were ruled by warlords and tribal headmen, and neither the Afghani nor the Pakistani governments had more than minimal control or influence over them. Khan’s father grew opium poppies in the arid, stony soil, the only cash crop that would produce enough income to feed his family. Khan’s father was a devout Muslim, a haji who had scraped and saved for over twenty years to raise the money for his pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the five pillars of his faith that was required of all Muslims at some point in their lives.

  Khan had suffered an eye infection as a child which went untreated because there was no doctor in the village and richer men than his father could not afford the cost of the doctor in Jalalabad, fifty miles away. For a while it looked as if he would lose his sight, but in time he recovered, though his left eye, while still functioning, was left with a strange milky-white pupil instead of its previous hazel colour. When they saw him, some of their more superstitious neighbours muttered about ‘the evil eye’, and ushered their children away from him. From then on Khan was something of an outsider even in his own community, feared more than liked.

  His two younger brothers worked the fields but Khan’s father had always had greater ambitions for his eldest son. His dream was that Khan would one day become a mullah or imam — a leader of the faith — or a hafiz — devoting himself to memorising the entire Quran. With that in mind, his father had enrolled him in a madrassa across the border in Peshawar. But Khan was more interested fighting than studying, and when he turned nineteen he recrossed the border to join the mujahedin fighting the Russians in the dying days of the war against the Soviets. Most Afghan men were good shots, but Khan was exceptional, a lethal sniper at long range and equally deadly with an AK-47 or an RPG.

  Eventually the Soviets withdrew after their final humiliati
on at the hands of the mujahedin and Khan returned to the family farm and reconciled with his father. He shared the work in the poppy fields and married the wife his father had chosen for him, the young, doe-eyed daughter of a cousin, named Bahara — ‘the bringer of spring’. For a while, Khan remained aloof from the fighting that again engulfed the country as the rival mujahedin factions plunged Afghanistan into civil war.

  Time after time, rival warlords either stole his opium crop or demanded tribute for leaving it unmolested. So when Mullah Omar, ‘The Commander of the Faithful’, pledged that his new movement would eliminate corruption and the rule of the warlords, and bring peace and order to Afghanistan, Khan was one of the first to enlist in the cause — known as the Taliban.

  He rose rapidly through the ranks and was a commander by the time that the Taliban liberated Kandahar province, and was one of those who hanged the principal warlord from the barrel of one of his own tanks. Herat followed next and within two years Kabul had also fallen to the Taliban, with Mullah Omar taking power and renaming the country ‘the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’.

  Khan returned home to his wife, but although several years had passed since their marriage, still they had not been blessed with a child. He had almost despaired, believing that Bahara must be barren, but at last she told him she was pregnant, and in time she gave birth to a daughter. Born during the full moon, she was christened Lailuna — bright moonlight. Three years later came a double tragedy. Pregnant again, Bahara died in childbirth and her baby, the son they had both dreamed of, died with her.

  That was why Lailuna was everything to him now, all that he had. She was the sun, the moon, the stars in the winter sky, the blossom on the mulberry trees in spring, and when she sang, her voice was as sweet to him as the song of the mountain nightingale, whose beautiful call was always the first, long-awaited harbinger of summer.

  Khan’s father grumbled that raising children was women’s work and urged him to marry again, but Khan refused. When he was away, he left Lailuna in the care of his sister, but whenever he was at home, his daughter was at his side. Few Afghan girls were educated, least of all in the frontier territories, but Khan defied his father’s opposition to the idea and sent her to a small school in the nearest town. Funded by foreign charities, it was run by an Afghan emigree who had returned to her native land after living abroad for twenty years. There Lailuna blossomed. If Khan’s Taliban comrades disapproved of his actions in seeking an education for his daughter, they kept their opinions to themselves, for he was a great warrior, feared and respected by all.