Live Fire

by Stephen Leather

  ‘They’re British, Mark,’ said Shepherd. His beer arrived.

  ‘Nah, mate. You’re British, I’m British, most of the guys drinking in this pub are British. But some nutter whose parents came over on the boat from Pakiland and who starts chopping the heads off judges, he ain’t British. He might have a British passport, but if I had my way I’d take it off him and send him packing back to Pakiland.’ He punched his brother’s shoulder again. ‘Get it? Pack ’em off to Pakiland.’

  ‘You hit my arm once more and I’ll shove that fork up your arse,’ said Mickey. ‘You sure you don’t want to eat, Ricky? Kim does a great breakfast.’

  ‘It’s eight o’clock in the evening,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘It’s an all-day breakfast,’ said Mark.

  ‘It’s a one-way ticket to intensive care,’ said Shepherd. He was amazed at the amount of cholesterol the brothers were putting into their bodies. Fried eggs, bacon, mushrooms, onions, chips, and thickly buttered toast. While there was no doubting their fitness, they both had thickening waistlines and Shepherd was all too well aware that once you hit middle age it was a lot easier to put weight on than lose it. But the breakfast did smell good and the bacon was just the way he liked it, well done but not too crisp. He sighed. ‘Okay, you’ve talked me into it. I’ll have the same.’

  Mark waved the waitress over and ordered for him.

  The newsreader was replaced by a serious-looking man in a trench coat standing in front of JFK airport in the United States. A news headline flashed across the bottom of the screen. ‘American Passenger Jet Crashes Into the Sea.’ The reporter said that the plane had been bound for France and that the Coast Guard were looking for survivors. The authorities hadn’t said which flight it was but the airport was operating normally and there was nothing to suggest it had been a terrorist incident.

  Shepherd leaned forward. ‘When are you going to tell me what you’ve got planned?’ he asked, his voice low.

  ‘After we’ve finished here,’ said Mickey. ‘We’ll take you to our office.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  Mark tapped the side of his nose and winked. ‘Need to know, mate,’ he said. ‘But you’ll be wishing you’d worn something warmer.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s in the nineties outside.’

  Mark and Mickey laughed. ‘You’ll find out,’ said Mickey. ‘Davie, Barry and Chopper are on the way. We’ll wait for them and then get started.’

  Shepherd shivered and stamped his feet on the metal floor. ‘I’m freezing,’ he said. His breath feathered in the icy air. ‘How long are we going to be in here?’

  ‘Bracing, innit?’ said Mickey. He raised his shot glass to Shepherd. It was made of ice, and the vodka it contained was just below zero. ‘Cheers.’

  Shepherd touched his own ice glass to Mickey’s and knocked back the vodka. The alcohol warmed his chest as it went down, but it didn’t make his fingers or toes feel any better. A small Thai girl wrapped in a padded coat with a fur-lined hood was jiggling up and down, her arms wrapped around herself. Mickey pointed at their empty glasses. ‘Come on, love, top us up. And let’s try the raspberry one this time.’

  Yates, Black and Wilson put their shot glasses on the bar and the girl poured raspberry vodka into them, then bounced up and down again.

  They were in the Minus 5 Ice Bar, a short walk from Jameson’s, on the ground floor of a hotel building. Two slim girls had flirted with them at the entrance before leading them through an all-white bar to a corridor with rows of padded coats and a box of gloves. Mickey had sneered disdainfully at the warm clothing and ushered them to what appeared to be the door to a meat locker. One of the girls pulled it open and they entered a bar where the temperature was just below freezing. The furniture had been carved from ice and draped with fur and the space was dotted with ornate ice sculptures.

  ‘Down the hatch, lads!’ shouted Mickey, and all five men sank their vodka, then slammed the empty glasses on the bar.

  Black’s glass shattered into ice shards. ‘Don’t know my own strength.’ He laughed.

  ‘Mickey, what the hell are we doing here?’ asked Shepherd. ‘I’m freezing my balls off.’

  Mickey hugged him. ‘Don’t be such a softie,’ he said, and waved at the girl. ‘More vodka, darling, the pepper one this time.’ He pointed at one of the large speakers near the ceiling. ‘And turn up the volume, will you?’ The girl did so and Mickey pointed at an ice sofa. Shepherd sat down, Mickey next to him. ‘The reason we talk business in here, old lad, is that it’s just about the most secure place in Pattaya. The manager lets us have the place to ourselves when we’re here, the girl speaks hardly any English, and as we’re in a metal box lined with ice there’s no chance that the place can be bugged.’

  ‘I get that, but why can’t we wear the coats?’

  ‘Because we’re English and we’re used to the cold.’ He banged his shot glass against Shepherd’s. ‘Down the hatch!’ They both drank, then Mickey put his mouth so close to Shepherd’s ear that he could smell the alcohol on his breath. ‘Okay, here’s the story,’ he said. ‘There’s a money depot we like, state-of-the-art security but we’ve found a way in.’

  ‘Here in Thailand?’

  Mickey laughed. ‘There’s no point in robbing baht, mate,’ he said. ‘No – good old British pounds and lots of them.’

  ‘I’m wanted back in England – have you forgotten that?’

  Mark squatted down next to Shepherd. ‘Ricky Knight is wanted, but you can go back under any name you want,’ he said. ‘We can get you a new passport, easy as pie.’

  ‘Not if they’ve posted my picture and red-flagged me.’

  ‘That red-flag nonsense is bollocks,’ said Mickey. ‘We can fly into Dublin and from there to Heathrow. There’s no immigration checks on flights from Dublin. But if you’re nervous you can take the train to Belfast and fly from there.’

  ‘Or the ferry,’ said Mark. ‘Getting back to the UK is the easy bit.’

  ‘So what’s the hard bit?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘It’s all relative,’ said Mickey. ‘What we do is never easy, but with the right planning and preparation, anything is possible.’

  ‘Yeah, I had an uncle who told me that once. Nothing is ever impossible, only improbable. Mind you, he died without a penny to his name.’

  ‘Trust me, we can all get into the UK,’ said Mickey, ‘and out. We’ve done it before. Now, the place we’re looking at is just outside London. Like I said, state-of-the-art security but the take is worth the trouble. We’re talking millions, Ricky. Millions.’

  ‘Sounds tasty. But how do you know so much about a depot in England if you’re based here?’

  ‘We’ve got a guy who does the research, and he’s done us proud with this one,’ said Mickey. ‘In and out in six minutes – we’ll be long gone before the cops arrive.’

  ‘In and out of a high-security depot in six minutes? How?’

  Mickey tapped the side of his nose. ‘That’s need to know, mate. And, at the moment, you don’t need to know.’

  ‘I thought I was part of the family.’

  ‘You are, mate. But you’re like a cousin, the one who always gets drunk at weddings and throws up over the bride. We have to learn to trust you.’

  It was after three o’clock in the morning when Shepherd got back to his villa. He’d left his Jeep in town, knowing he had drunk far too much to be at the wheel of a car. The local police didn’t seem interested in enforcing the drink-driving laws, but Shepherd knew his limitations as a driver. He used his remote control to open the electronic gates, then tapped in the code to deactivate the burglar alarm. He did a quick walk-through of the villa because he knew from experience that security systems were not infallible, and once he was satisfied that the place was secure he went down the corridor to the master bedroom and took one of the pay-as-you-go phones from the safe. He lay on the bed and called Charlotte Button. She answered on the third ring. ‘It’s on,’ said Shep
herd. ‘It’s on and it’s big. Millions, Mickey said. Somewhere outside London.’

  ‘Cash?’

  ‘A money depot.’

  ‘And what’s the plan?’

  ‘They won’t tell me yet. They’re being all Secret Squirrel but they can’t stay like that for long. Soon as I know, you’ll know.’

  Bradshaw, Kundi and Talwar went to Sarajevo on separate flights. Bradshaw flew British Airways from Heathrow, Talwar also departed from Heathrow but on an Austrian Airlines flight, and Kundi went Lufthansa from City airport. Each carried a holdall, and at the bottom of each holdall were paperback books. Five-hundred-euro notes had been carefully inserted between the pages so that they wouldn’t be picked up by the airport scanners. Together they took six hundred thousand euros out of the country.

  They met up in the coffee shop at Sarajevo airport and Bradshaw rented a car, using one of the licences he’d bought from the Malaysian lawyer in Brixton. He drove while Kundi sat in the front passenger seat with a street map on his lap. They drove to the Holiday Inn and parked behind the hotel.

  Bradshaw twisted around to face Talwar in the back seat. He pointed at the three holdalls on the seat next to him. ‘You guard them with your life,’ he said.

  ‘I will,’ said Talwar.

  ‘If anything goes wrong, the men who gave me that money will track us down and kill us as a warning to others,’ said Bradshaw.

  ‘I understand. Don’t worry,’ said Talwar. He took off his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief. It was a nervous habit, Bradshaw knew. Like Chaudhry’s gum-chewing, Kundi’s cigarette-smoking and al-Sayed’s rash. They were all signs of the pressure the men were under.

  ‘We’ll talk to this guy, and if he comes through, I’ll call you and you bring the money,’ said Bradshaw.

  ‘And if you don’t call?’

  ‘I will call,’ said Bradshaw. ‘Just be ready.’ He had bought Vodafone pay-as-you-go mobiles for them all in London and had set them up for international roaming.

  He and Kundi got out of the car. Bradshaw held the door open for Talwar so that he could get into the driver’s seat, then he and Kundi walked into the hotel’s reception area. ‘What does he look like?’ asked Kundi.

  ‘He’s Dutch,’ said Bradshaw. ‘Mid-thirties. Crewcut. He used to be in the French Foreign Legion so he’s one tough son-of-a-bitch. I haven’t actually met him but we’ve spoken on the phone.’ His mobile rang and he took it out of his pocket. ‘Yeah?’ he said, but there was no one on the line. A big man in a black coat was watching them, holding a mobile phone. He put it away as he walked towards them.

  ‘Is that him?’ asked Kundi.

  ‘No,’ said Bradshaw. ‘That’ll be one of his heavies.’

  The man came up to them, his hands deep in his coat pockets. ‘You are Bradshaw?’ he asked, with a heavy Slavic accent.

  Bradshaw nodded.

  ‘You have ID?’

  ‘I have a passport, but not in that name.’

  The man cocked his head to the side. ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘I’m Paul Bradshaw, but I’m travelling under another name.’

  ‘So you have nothing to confirm that you are Paul Bradshaw?’

  ‘You just called my phone. Isn’t that proof enough?’

  The man frowned. He took his right hand out of his pocket and scratched his ear. ‘Show me your passport,’ he said eventually. Bradshaw did as he was told. The man looked down his nose at Kundi. ‘You too.’ Kundi gave the man his passport. The man studied both documents, then handed them back. ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  He took them out of the hotel to where a black stretch Mercedes was waiting, its engine running. He opened the rear door and spoke to whoever was inside, then nodded for Bradshaw and Kundi to get in. He slammed the door behind them and got into the front passenger seat. Alex Kleintank was sitting in the back. He was in his early thirties, clean-cut and wearing a black suit with a grey shirt. He offered his hand to Bradshaw. ‘You’re Paul?’ he said, with only a trace of a Dutch accent.

  ‘Alex?’said Bradshaw. ‘Good to meet you.’ They shook hands. He made no attempt to introduce Kundi but Kleintank nodded at him.

  ‘So, you were in the army with Chris?’

  Chris Thomas had been Bradshaw’s conduit to Kleintank. After leaving the army, Thomas had set up a private security company with a fistful of contracts in Iraq and had sourced most of his equipment from Kleintank. He had contacted Kleintank and vouched for Bradshaw, though he had no idea what Bradshaw wanted to buy. Bradshaw had said he was acting as middleman for an African dictator who wanted arms, and Thomas had taken him at his word.

  The limousine moved away from the kerb. ‘I’ll take you to our warehouse,’ said Kleintank. ‘I’ll think you’ll be happy with what I’ve got to show you.’

  They drove through the city. Even though the conflict that had ripped apart the former Yugoslavia had ended years earlier, reminders were etched into the buildings in the form of bullet holes and shell damage that had yet to be repaired. As a child, Bradshaw had watched the news bulletins about the Yugoslavian ethnic cleansing and the mass graves filled with butchered civilians but he hadn’t understood what the fighting was about. It was only years later, after he had become a Muslim, that he had finally seen it for what it was – an attack on Muslim brothers by Christian Serbs. The West had stood by and watched as the Serbs butchered Muslim men, women and children. For years they had refused to intervene. Bradshaw knew why that was: it was because, at its core, the Christian West hated Muslims, all Muslims. In the same way that the West had stood by and watched as Hitler had sent the Jews to the gas chambers, the Serbs had been given free rein to slaughter the Muslims of Yugoslavia.

  ‘You’ve been to Sarajevo before?’ asked Kleintank, disturbing Bradshaw’s reverie.

  Bradshaw shook his head. ‘Why do you base yourself here?’

  ‘Because it’s Europe but not Europe,’ said Kleintank. ‘There are always advantages to be found in the grey areas. And the police are more malleable than elsewhere.’ He grinned. ‘Money talks louder here than in the European Union.’

  ‘Are you okay if I smoke?’ asked Kundi.

  The Dutchman smiled. ‘Not in the car, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘My wife and I are ex-smokers and she hits the roof if she smells smoke in the car. She always assumes the worst.’ He grinned. ‘Wives, huh? What can you do with them? Are you two married?’

  Both men shook their heads.

  Kleintank’s grin widened. ‘Enjoy your freedom,’ he said. ‘Trust me, it goes out of the window when you put a ring on their finger.’

  The Mercedes pulled up in front of a weathered stone building with a tiled roof. The upper floors were pockmarked with bullet holes but the tiled roof had been patchily repaired. A man in a sheepskin jerkin pulled open a big wooden door and the car drove inside. The warehouse was piled high with wooden and metal boxes, and a yellow fork-lift truck was parked at the far end of the building. Kleintank got out, Bradshaw and Kundi following him. Three men in leather jackets were sitting at a table playing cards. There were handguns in front of them, and stacks of new banknotes. They stared impassively at Bradshaw and Kundi, then returned to their game.

  ‘Over here,’ said Kleintank, from beside a stack of wooden boxes. Some had Chinese characters stencilled on the side, others cyrillic lettering. One of the boxes was already open, revealing half a dozen gleaming Kalashnikov assault rifles.

  Kleintank pulled back the lids of two boxes standing side by side on the concrete floor. Nestling in straw were two missile-launcher units and two missiles. ‘The Holy Grail,’ said Kleintank. ‘The SA-7, built under licence in Slovakia.’

  ‘SA-7b, to be precise,’ said Kundi.

  ‘You know your missile-launchers,’ said Kleintank. ‘You said you wanted two. I can sell you the pair for sixty thousand euros.’

  ‘They are blue,’ said Kundi.

  ‘Blue, red, green, the colour doesn’t matter. What matters is t
hat they go bang when you pull the trigger and, believe me, these will go bang.’

  Bradshaw put a hand on Kundi’s shoulder. ‘What’s wrong, brother?’ he said.

  ‘They’re practice weapons,’ said Kundi. ‘That’s what they do in the West – they paint their practice weapons blue.’

  Bradshaw’s jaw tightened. ‘What’s going on, Alex? Are these the real thing or not?’

  Kleintank held up his hands. ‘They’re not fakes,’ he said. ‘They’re the real McCoy. Those are live one-point-eight-kilogram high-explosive fragmentation warheads with impact fuses.’

  ‘They’re practice weapons,’ Kundi repeated. ‘I fired one in Pakistan. They are not guided – there is no infrared guidance unit.’

  ‘But they can be fired,’ insisted Kleintank. ‘They will bring down a bridge or a building.’

  ‘We’re not interested in shooting at bridges or buildings,’ said Bradshaw.

  ‘I had two Stingers, but I had a cash buyer,’ said Kleintank. He nodded at the weapons. ‘I could sell them to you for fifty thousand euros the pair. That’s a good price.’

  ‘They’re not what we want,’ Kundi said.

  ‘I need to talk to my friend,’ said Bradshaw. He walked with Kundi to the far end of the warehouse.

  ‘He’s trying to cheat us,’ said Kundi. ‘He knows exactly what he’s selling us.’

  ‘But they will fire, right?’

  Kundi nodded. ‘They will fire. But they are used for training purposes. He is right, you can point one at a building and you’ll hit it, but they’re useless against a moving target. Two were fired at an Israeli passenger jet taking off from Mombasa in 2002 but both missed. The Kenyans found the abandoned launch units near the airport and they were both blue.’

  Bradshaw rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ asked Kundi.

  ‘That a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,’ said Bradshaw. They went back to the Dutchman.

  Kleintank was talking on his mobile phone but snapped it shut as the two men walked up. ‘So, do we have a deal?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re not what we want,’ said Bradshaw. ‘Do you know anyone else who might have one with a guidance system? Either a Grail or a Stinger?’