‘Slim,’ said Will Slater who, like Nichols, was studying the screens. ‘Slim to non-existent. That’s Hajji country down there.’ That was the Arabic word for a Muslim who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, but it had become the standard term used by the military to refer to Iraqi insurgents.
Nichols and Slater were sensor operators, responsible for studying the output from the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle that was circling Baghdad at twenty thousand feet. The drone was transmitting high-resolution real-time images of the city below from cameras so powerful they could easily pick out individual numberplates. A variable-aperture television camera gave them a live feed of what was happening on the ground and an infrared camera supplied real-time images at night or in low-light conditions. A synthetic aperture radar system capable of penetrating cloud and smoke was constantly producing still images that were transmitted to the ground-control station. As well as its hi-tech surveillance equipment, the Predator was equipped with two Hellfire missiles and a multi-spectral targeting system that combined a laser illuminator, laser designator infrared and optical sensors. It could fire its own missiles or pinpoint a target far below for tanks or manned aircraft to attack.
Phillip Howell, a CIA pilot who was one of the best Predator operators in the business, was piloting the twenty-seven-foot long drone. Yokely had asked for him because he had worked with him before and he knew that the surveillance operation would be as challenging as they came. Howell seemed relaxed as he piloted the drone: he had his feet up on a table as his right hand played idly with the joystick. He scanned the screen that showed the readings, but the one he relied on most featured the output from the colour camera in the Predator’s nose cone.
‘How are we doing for fuel, Phil?’ asked Yokely.
Howell looked at the gauge and did a calculation in his head. ‘Seventeen hours, give or take,’ he said. The Predator’s fuel tank held a hundred gallons, enough to keep it in the air for twenty-hours if it was circling or give it a range of 450 miles at its top speed of eighty miles an hour.
It had taken off from Balad airbase, a fifteen-square-mile mini-city just forty miles north-west of Baghdad; since the coalition forces had moved into Iraq it had become the second busiest airport in the world, beaten only by London’s Heathrow. It had two parallel eleven-thousand-foot runways and was surrounded by dusty, parched desert dotted with stumpy eucalyptus trees. The nearby town was a hotbed of Iraqi insurgency and every night mortars rained from the sky – the soldiers stationed there had christened the base ‘Mortaritaville’. Yokely and his three companions were in one of the Predator ground-control stations, a container-sized steel capsule. After they had been launched the Predators weren’t flown by Iraq-based operators but by people seven thousand miles away at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. The data transmitted by the drones could also be beamed to US commanders in Saudi Arabia, Qatar or even in the Pentagon. Yokely, however, had insisted on local control. He wanted to be at Howell’s shoulder as the craft prowled over the city, keeping a watchful eye on Spider Shepherd. And the data was for their eyes only. Yokely had no intention that anyone in Washington DC should know what they were doing.
Two air-conditioning units the size of washing-machines hummed at the far end of the capsule. On the opposite wall a line of clocks displayed east-coast time, west-coast time, Iraq, Tokyo and Zulu time.
‘Whose brilliant idea was this?’ asked Slater.
Yokely gestured at the screen. The Land Cruiser was driving slowly down the main road, manoeuvring around two burned-out cars. ‘He came up with it himself.’
Next to the screen showing the real-time video feed a smaller screen presented a computer map of the area with a blinking cursor that positioned the transmitter in Shepherd’s boot. The Predator’s onboard receiver was picking up a burst of GPS data every ten minutes from the transmitter, which was then downloaded to the computer in the ground-control station.
‘He’s mad, you know that?’ said Slater.
‘I expressed my reservations, but he wouldn’t be dissuaded. And let’s not forget it gives us a fighting chance of locating Wafeeq bin Said al-Hadi. He’s high on our most-wanted list.’
‘Spider’s a Judas Goat,’ said Nichols. ‘It’s how you catch a man-eating tiger – tether a goat and wait for the tiger to come a-calling. But the snag is . . .’
‘The goat usually dies,’ Slater finished.
‘Let’s lose the gloom and doom, guys,’ said Yokely. ‘That’s why we’re here, to stop that happening.’
‘Are we looking to capture or kill Wafeeq?’ asked Howell, using the joystick to put the Predator into a gentle roll to the right so that he kept Shepherd’s Land Cruiser in the centre of the camera’s vision.
‘We’ll take it as it comes,’ said Yokely. ‘I’m easy either way.’
‘And your man there? Does he stand more than a snowball’s chance in hell of getting close to this Wafeeq?’
‘If anyone can pull it off, Spider can,’ Yokely told him.
Shepherd braked to allow four young children to cross in front of him, all boys in tattered shirts and threadbare shorts. Only one was wearing sandals. They waved at him and he waved back. One ran to the passenger window. ‘Chewing-gum?’ he shouted. Shepherd shook his head. The three other boys joined him and chorused, ‘Chewing-gum, chewing-gum.’ The oldest couldn’t have been more than twelve.
Shepherd was sorry he didn’t have anything to give them. He thought of Liam, with his PlayStation, his football, his music lessons, the expensive trainers and his iPod. He wanted a laptop computer for Christmas and he’d probably get one. ‘Sorry, guys,’ said Shepherd, holding up his hands. ‘I haven’t got anything.’ They carried on chanting for chewing-gum. Shepherd leaned forward and popped the button to open the glovebox. He fumbled inside and found a roll of mints, wound down the window and gave them to the biggest. They ran off, laughing and shouting. Shepherd couldn’t imagine Liam getting so worked up about a packet of sweets.
He wound up the window and put the vehicle in gear, checking the rear-view mirror as he pulled away. There was a taxi about fifty feet behind him, with three men inside.
He picked up the transceiver. ‘There’s a taxi behind me, I’m pretty sure it was hanging around earlier,’ he said.
‘Roger that,’ said the Major.
Shepherd drove slowly down the road. Few other cars were around. A rusting Vespa scooter loaded with three large Calor-gas bottles overtook him – an elderly man in a faded blue dishdasha was bent over the handlebars, twisting the accelerator as if he was trying to squeeze more power out of the ancient machine. Shepherd checked his mirror again. The taxi was still there, matching his speed. He pumped the accelerator, making the Land Cruiser judder, then put the gearstick into neutral and hit the accelerator again, making the engine roar. He looked in the mirror. The taxi was still there, matching his speed, which was now little more than a crawl. Shepherd took a deep breath. His heart was racing and he could hear the blood pounding in his ears. This was like no other undercover operation he’d ever been on because, for the first time, he was deliberately putting himself in harm’s way.
He braked, took another swig from his water bottle, looking in the mirror as he drank. The taxi had stopped, too. Three women in headscarves and long dresses walked by the Land Cruiser carrying cloth bags filled with bread. They were gossiping and didn’t look at Shepherd as he popped the bonnet and climbed out of the vehicle.
Across the road a concreted area, surrounded by a wire mesh fence, was filled with rusting car bodies, most of which had been raked by gunfire. Two young boys watched him through the fence with wide eyes.
Shepherd peered under the bonnet of the Land Cruiser. Sweat poured down his back under his shirt and body armour and he wiped his forehead with his sleeve. It was in the high forties and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. He stared at the engine. The full realisation of what he was doing hit him. He was in the most dangerous city in the world, offering himself like a lamb to t
he slaughter. He heard a car door open, then another and another. Three doors. Three men. A few seconds later there were three slams. Shepherd’s heart went into overdrive and he took a few deep breaths, forcing himself to stay calm. His instinct was to reach for his gun but he gripped his right hand into a fist and banged it down on the radiator cap. He was unarmed so there was no reason for them to get violent. He had to play the part right. Scared, confused and not a threat. A victim. He flinched as he heard gunshots, then realised they had been distant. A Kalashnikov. It was followed by the rat-tat-tat of M16s. Then silence.
Shepherd stared at the engine with unseeing eyes. He was listening to the footsteps of the men who had left the taxi. They’d be armed, he had no doubt of that. They’d have seen the logo of Muller’s security company on the Land Cruiser so they’d know he was carrying a weapon – they’d only approach him if they knew they had him outgunned. He heard the scrape of a sandal on the pavement, then a slap, which Shepherd guessed was its owner stepping into the road. That made sense. They’d come at him from both sides, catching him in a pincer movement. Probably distract him from one side, then overpower him from behind. In a perfect world they’d pull a bag over his head and drag him to the taxi, but Shepherd knew that the world was far from perfect and the odds were that they would hurt him. The adrenaline was kicking into his system, giving him the near-irresistible urge for flight or fight. But he couldn’t run or fight: he had to stand his ground, play his role and hope that what they had in mind was hostage-taking, not murder.
He heard rapid footsteps behind him and turned to see a small boy in a faded Liverpool shirt running full pelt with an apple in each hand. A bearded shopkeeper in a striped apron screamed something at him and shook his fist. Shepherd smiled. He hadn’t been averse to nicking the odd apple or orange when he was a kid – until he’d realised that stealing was wrong. The kid kept running and the shopkeeper went back inside.
Shepherd turned back to the engine. A fat man in a dark brown dishdasha walked past briskly, his head covered with a red and white checked shumag scarf. He was followed by an equally overweight woman in a black abayah that covered her from shoulders to feet. She was frowning, clearly unhappy about something – probably that she had to carry two cheap suitcases tied up with string, Shepherd thought. She was breathing heavily and her face was bathed in sweat. The man looked over his shoulder and barked something in Arabic. She nodded and walked faster. Suddenly Shepherd remembered Fariq’s wife and smiled to himself: she was from Baghdad but he couldn’t imagine her covering herself and walking behind her husband. It would probably have been the other way around.
His smile vanished when two men appeared at his right shoulder. Tall, thin men with spindly arms, wearing sweatshirts, cotton trousers and plastic sandals. One had a zigzag scar that ran from his left eye to his chin. His eyes darted from left to right and he was breathing heavily. The other man was calmer and stared at Shepherd with unblinking brown eyes. He had a straggly beard and metal-framed spectacles, and his hands were low, below the wing of the Land Cruiser.
Shepherd could feel hostility pouring from them. Under other circumstances he would have gone into full-attack mode. He’d have pulled his gun and shot them both at the slightest provocation. Even if he hadn’t been armed he was confident he could take them. Both were within reach: he could chop the bearded man across the throat, then step round the car and hit the second, probably a kick to the knee to disable him, then a punch to the nose. Shepherd’s adrenal glands were in overdrive and his legs were trembling, not from fear but because an animal instinct was screaming that it was time to move.
‘Hi,’ he said, playing his role. He was an idiot, lost in a city he didn’t understand, a stupid infidel who was out of his depth and didn’t know it. He forced himself to smile. ‘Engine trouble.’
‘American?’ said the man with glasses.
‘British,’ said Shepherd.
The man wearing glasses lifted his hand. He was holding a gun. Shepherd stared at it. The man’s finger was tight on the trigger. It was a Russian-made 9mm Makarov. The body armour Shepherd was wearing would almost certainly stop a 9mm slug, even at such close range. The man had made a big mistake in pointing it at his chest. If he’d been in attack mode, Shepherd would have been able to grab the gun and pull his own, confident that even if the man’s weapon fired he’d still be able to get in a killing shot. But Shepherd was in victim mode, which meant he had to stand where he was and stare at the gun as if it was the most terrifying thing he’d ever seen. ‘What do you want?’ he said. ‘You want money?’
He heard footsteps as the third man moved along the other side of the Land Cruiser. Soft, careful steps, as if he was walking on tiptoe. Shepherd fought the urge to turn, even though he knew that the man behind him was almost certainly going to hit him – hard. He continued to stare at the gun. If they wanted to kill him they would have done it already: they could have put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. He heard the sound of a foot scuffing along the Tarmac. Close. Very close.
‘I’ll give you my wallet,’ said Shepherd. He slowly lifted his left hand. ‘And you can have my watch.’ The man said nothing. He raised the gun so that it was pointing at Shepherd’s face. Shepherd stared at it, trying to block out what was happening behind him. The Makarov looked like a larger version of the German Walther PP but internally there were many differences. Shepherd was familiar with the weapon and knew how to strip and clean it, but it wasn’t a gun he liked. He heard the man behind him take a breath and knew that the blow was coming. Time seemed to stretch into infinity as he anticipated it. He had no idea if he would be hit with a gun, a cosh or even a brick, but he was sure that it would hurt. He wanted to turn and face his attacker, meet force with force. Every fibre of him fought against standing still, but that was what he had to do so he stared at the gun and pushed his tongue against the roof of his mouth so that he wouldn’t bite it when he was hit. He felt his shoulders tense against the blow he knew was coming, then something hard slammed into his head just behind his ear. He felt as if he’d been struck by a bolt of lightning. His legs went weak, as if all the strength had been sucked out of them, then everything went red and, finally, black.
The Major’s mobile rang and he answered it immediately. ‘Yes, Richard,’ he said. Balad airbase was out of range of the transceivers they were using so they’d decided that mobile phones were the best way to keep in touch. The Major didn’t want to rely on the Iraqi system so he’d asked Muller to bring a satellite phone with him. It sat on the back seat of the Land Cruiser between Muller and O’Brien.
‘He’s been taken,’ said Yokely.
‘How did it happen?’
‘Three Mams cold-cocked him from behind, then dragged him to a taxi. They locked him in the boot. We’ve got a visual on it now and the transmitter’s working fine. They’re heading south.’
‘Mams?’
‘Local jargon. Military-aged males.’
‘Do you think he’s okay?’
‘They hit him once with something small, maybe a gun. He went down straight away. Unless he’s very unlucky he’ll just have a sore head.’
‘Can you get a licence plate?’
‘We’re working on it but they’re in built-up areas and the drone’s high up so we can’t get the angle. Tell John the Land Cruiser is being stripped as we speak. I’ll text you the address but I don’t think there’ll be much left by the time he gets there.’
‘We’ll start heading their way,’ said the Major.
‘No rush,’ said Yokely. ‘I doubt they’ll be going too far so we’ll have a location for you soon. My bet is that they’ll hold him for at least a day until they pass him on.’
The Major thanked Yokely and ended the call. He nodded at Pat Jordan who was in the driving seat, chewing gum. ‘Game on,’ said the Major.
Shepherd was aware of the vibration first, then the smell. He was being shaken from side to side and his head banged against the floor of the boot ev
ery time the taxi went over a bump. The smell of the exhaust was sickening and he felt more light-headed with every breath he took. Then he became aware of the noise, the roar of the tyres over Tarmac and the clunk-clunk-clunk of an engine with worn cylinders.
He was lying on his left arm. He rolled over to get his weight off it and tried to look at his watch, but his wrists were tied. He twisted round, trying to find fresher air, pushed his hooded face close to the boot lock and breathed through the gap. He hoped they didn’t plan to keep him there for much longer because the carbon monoxide in the exhaust would kill him as surely as a bullet to the brain. He felt a sharp pain at the back of his head where he’d been hit, and consciousness began to slip away again. He shook his head. He didn’t know if the blow to the head or the carbon monoxide was making him drowsy, but he knew that he had to stay awake. He bit down on his tongue, hard enough to taste blood, using the pain to keep himself focused.
The Major’s mobile rang. It was Yokely. ‘They’ve taken him inside a house,’ said the American.
‘Is he okay?’ asked the Major.
‘They carried him in and he wasn’t moving, but if he was dead they’d have left him in the trunk.’
‘That’s reassuring,’ said the Major, coldly.
‘I’ll text you the co-ordinates but you should keep your distance. He’s still in Dora and Westerners stick out there.’
‘We’ll hang back,’ said the Major.
‘We’re going to bring the plane in for refuelling now,’ said Yokely. ‘Everything seems quiet and I’d rather be up there with a full tank. We’ll be down for about two hours. The transmitter’s still working fine so we’ll know if they move him. I’m getting our NSA guys here to monitor the tracker through the Iraqi phone service.’
‘Any sign of him moving, let me know,’ said the Major. He ended the call, then rang Armstrong to brief him on what the American had said. Armstrong was parked half a mile away in another Land Cruiser with Shortt, Bosch and Haschka.
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