Black Ops: The 12th Spider Shepherd Thriller

by Leather, Stephen

  Harper knew the British-born Bangladeshi well and had bought untraceable weapons from him on several occasions.

  ‘Shit car, bruv,’ Jony said. ‘I thought you had better taste than that.’

  ‘I do. Sometimes it’s better not to draw attention to yourself, but you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?’ He looked him over. ‘Jesus, Jony, you look more like a throwback to the 1950s every time I see you. All you need is a quiff and a guitar.’

  Jony broke into a broad grin. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment, bruv.’ He was in his mid-twenties, dark skinned and with slicked-back hair that was always glistening with gel, and as usual he had turned up dressed in his ‘uniform’ of black leather jacket and black jeans with pointed, silver-tipped black boots. He passed Harper a cigarette, lit one himself, and lowered the window a couple of inches. He blew a plume of smoke out into the gathering darkness and then glanced across at Harper. ‘So what’s it to be, bruv? Need a handgun, one careful lady owner, no history?’

  ‘Not this time, Jony. I’ll be needing stuff for this job that even you can’t supply. But I’ve got some work for you just the same, if you’re interested. A little bit out of your normal run and you’ll have to base yourself in London for a few weeks, but there’s some serious money in it. Five grand a week and you won’t even have to get your hands dirty.’

  ‘You just played my favourite tune. I’m in.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know what the job is first?’

  ‘Nah, it doesn’t matter,’ Jony said. ‘For five grand a week I’ll do anything short of murder.’ He frowned and flashed Harper a worried look. ‘It’s not murder, is it?’

  Harper grinned. ‘It’s not murder, I just need you to bait a trap for me.’

  ‘And who’s the victim?’

  Harper passed him the photo of O’Brien’s daughter. ‘She’s called Bridie. Bridie O’Brien. I need you to chat her up.’

  Jony started laughing. ‘Not bad. Blonde, pretty, twenties; she’s just my type. If her dad owns a brewery I might be in love.’

  Harper grinned. ‘Come off it, Jony, we both know they’re all your type.’

  ‘All right if I fuck her then?’

  ‘Be my guest, just as long as you take care of business first.’

  ‘And you ain’t going to pay me just for chatting her up, right?’

  ‘That’s the easy part. You’ve got to pose as a dodgy wheeler dealer, though that shouldn’t be too much of a stretch, should it?’ he said. ‘You’re selling knock-offs of one sort or another – hot phones, booze, whatever – from the back of a van. She’s always in her local getting pissed, and is always strapped for cash, so it should be fairly easy for you to chat her up and then hire her for a couple of cash jobs, driving you around while you make deliveries.’

  ‘And you’re sure she’ll do it?’

  ‘Like I just said, she’s always strapped for cash, so yeah, why wouldn’t she? Then you need to find a way to let her accidentally catch sight of a couple of weapons.’

  ‘Whoa, bruv, that’s putting me right in the frame.’

  ‘She and her dad are hardcore, Jony. She’s not going to be trying to grass you up, but she is going to try and buy some weapons from you.’

  Jony put his head on one side. ‘And?’

  ‘The first time she asks you, you’re going to clam up. When she persists, you tell her you’re just the delivery boy. Your boss is a very big wheel in the illegal weapons trade, an East European guy who’s got contacts in all the old Soviet bloc countries and can get anything from a pistol to a nuclear bomb. But he never comes to this country and is very, very wary about new customers. When she persists – and she will – you’ll reluctantly agree to ask your boss.’

  ‘Which is where you come into the picture.’

  ‘Eventually, yes, but you need to knock her back the first couple of times she asks.’

  ‘Gotcha,’ Jony said. ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Except that you need to be very cautious around her. Make sure you keep plenty of distance on her and don’t let slip your real name or anything about you that would allow her – or her heavy friends – to identify or trace you. She’s not a real player herself, she’s just a foot soldier, but her dad is the genuine article – the boss of a seriously dangerous organisation, real hardcore. You don’t want to be messing with them and you sure as hell don’t want them knowing your contact details or anything that could help them track you down, because if they get the slightest hint that you’ve been playing them, you’re dead meat.’ He paused. ‘And when they realise they’ve been conned, they will definitely try to find you.’

  Completely unfazed, Jony gave a broad grin. ‘They’ll have a job; we all look alike to you white guys, right?’

  Harper laughed and handed Jony a thick envelope. ‘That’s your first couple of weeks’ payment and a bit extra for expenses. The address of her local’s in there as well; she’s there practically every night of the week apparently, but don’t be too quick to chat her up. Let her clock you a couple of times and catch sight of you shifting a few dodgy phones first. Softly, softly, catchee monkey.’

  Shepherd and Liam arrived back at Hereford after dark. They had driven the whole way in silence. When they eventually pulled up in front of their house Shepherd turned off the engine and looked at his son. ‘As soon as we get inside, pack a suitcase and I’ll drive you over to your grandparents.’

  ‘Why can’t I stay here?’ asked Liam. ‘Katra is here, she can take care of me.’

  Shepherd shook his head. ‘I don’t trust you, Liam. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.’

  ‘I’ll be good, Dad. I swear.’

  ‘Then you need to prove that to me. You need to earn my trust again.’

  Liam put his hands over his face. ‘I can’t face them, Dad. I can’t tell them what I did.’

  ‘You have to own up to your mistakes,’ said Shepherd. ‘That’s what men do.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I’m really sorry. But please, don’t tell Granddad and Grandma. Can’t we just say I wanted to come back to Hereford?’

  ‘Lying is never a good idea,’ said Shepherd..

  ‘You lie, when you’re working. When you’re undercover, you lie all the time.’

  ‘That’s different. Don’t try playing that game with me, Liam. When I’m undercover I’m pretending to be someone I’m not. It’s my job. You’re talking about lying to people who love you.’

  ‘I can’t tell Granddad. I can’t. And I don’t want Grandma looking at me knowing what I did. Please, Dad, I won’t lie but can’t I just say I’m changing schools and leave it at that?’

  Shepherd thought about it for several seconds. ‘Okay. You can say you wanted to come back to Hereford. But no lying. And you’re on a seven p.m. curfew every night, weekdays and weekends. And when you go out you tell them where you’re going and when you’ll be back.’

  Liam nodded. ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’m serious, Liam. This is your one chance to get back on the straight and narrow.’

  ‘Dad, I made a mistake. I won’t do it again.’

  ‘Okay.’ He opened the door and climbed out. ‘And we’re still not out of the woods on this, remember? I’ll do what I can but you might still end up in court, and if that happens there’ll be no way of stopping Granddad and Grandma from finding out.’ He opened the rear door of the SUV and helped Liam take out the trunk.

  Katra had the front door open for them as they walked up the path. She hurried out and hugged Liam. ‘You get bigger every time I see you,’ she said. She had her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and was wearing a pink sweatshirt over cut-off denim jeans.

  She smiled at Shepherd. ‘I’ll get his room ready,’ she said. ‘Then I can cook. I’ve got steaks.’

  ‘Steaks would be great, but no need to get his room ready,’ said Shepherd.

  Liam manhandled his trunk up the stairs. Katra went to help him but he waved her away and told her that he could do it himself. />
  Katra followed Shepherd through to the kitchen. He sat down while Katra made coffee. He explained what had happened and why Liam was no longer at the boarding school.

  ‘Drugs?’ she said. ‘Not Liam.’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Shepherd. ‘So he’s going to stay with his grandparents. I’m pretty sure I can get him a place in the Hereford Academy in Redhill. Do you know it?’

  Katra nodded.

  ‘You can drive him there and back, but I want him staying with his grandparents.’

  ‘He can stay here. I can take care of him.’

  ‘I don’t think I can trust him, Katra.’

  ‘I’ll watch him like a hawk.’

  Shepherd smiled. ‘I’m sure you would. But he was sneaking in and out of school to go to parties. I don’t want him doing that here.’

  ‘I’ll sleep outside his door,’ said Katra, and Shepherd laughed. ‘I’m serious, Dan,’ she said. She put a mug of coffee down in front of him. ‘This is his home. It doesn’t make sense for him to stay somewhere else.’

  Shepherd sipped his coffee. ‘You might be right,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll get up before him and I won’t go to sleep before he sleeps,’ said Katra. ‘I won’t let him go out unless he checks with you first.’

  Shepherd smiled at her enthusiasm. Katra had been his au pair for almost ten years and she was part of the family. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘How about you get started on the steaks?’

  As Katra busied herself cooking, Shepherd sipped his coffee. He realised that Katra had been with him for three years longer than he’d been married to Sue, Liam’s mother. Not long after Sue had been killed in a senseless road traffic accident, Shepherd had hired her to take care of Liam. She was barely out of her teens at the time, and spoke reasonable English but with a heavy Slovenian accent. Over the years her English had improved and her accent had evened out. If anything she had picked up a slight Australian accent from all the Australian soap operas she watched. He found it difficult to imagine life without her. Over the last few years she had spent far more time with Liam than his grandparents had. She was family now, and she was right, the house was his home. It was where he belonged. ‘I’m just going up to talk to Liam,’ he said.

  He went upstairs and knocked on the door to Liam’s bedroom.

  ‘Yes?’

  Shepherd pushed the door open. Liam was sitting on the bed and from the redness in his eyes it was clear he’d been crying. ‘Are you okay?’

  Liam nodded. ‘I’m nearly packed. I can leave some stuff here, right? This is still my home, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Shepherd. He walked over and hugged his son. ‘We just have to get this sorted out, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m really, really sorry, Dad,’ said Liam. He sniffed, then released himself from Shepherd’s hug and wiped his eyes.

  ‘Look, I’ve been thinking about you staying with your grandparents. If you promise to not let me down, it’d be all right if you stayed here.’

  ‘Really?’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘I’ve spoken to Katra. She can take you to and from school and do any cooking you need. But I’ll talk to her every day and if you put a foot wrong you go to your grandparents and I let them know why.’

  Liam nodded solemnly. ‘I won’t let you down, Dad.’

  ‘And keep your iPhone on and charged all the time.’

  ‘You’re going to track my phone?’

  ‘I just want to know where you are. And if I call you and you don’t answer, there’ll be hell to pay. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, Dad,’ said Liam quietly.

  Shepherd ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘We’ll get through this, I promise.’

  Just before Katra served up their steaks, Shepherd phoned Major Gannon at the Stirling Lines barracks at Credenhill, the SAS headquarters that were just a short drive from his home. ‘I need a favour,’ he said.

  ‘And I’m just the genie to grant it,’ said the Major.

  ‘I’m going to be a contract killer.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t be the first member of the regiment to follow that career path, but I did have higher hopes for you.’

  Shepherd laughed. ‘I should have been more specific,’ he said. ‘I’ll be playing the part of a contract killer and I could do with being brought up to speed on sniping, and explosives.’

  ‘Sniping’s not a problem, but what were you thinking about in terms of bangs?’

  ‘Charlie’s going to fix me up with one of her experts, but I figured it wouldn’t do any harm having a demolitions refresher. It was never my field, though like everyone else I did the basics.’

  ‘And you still have all your own fingers, which is always a good sign,’ said the Major. ‘What’s your time frame?’

  ‘Days rather than weeks,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’m in Hereford now and I’d like to strike while the iron’s hot.’

  ‘Pop around after breakfast,’ said the Major. ‘I’ll have something fixed up for you. How’s young Liam, by the way?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  Shepherd arrived at the Stirling Lines barracks at RAF Credenhill just before nine o’clock. He brought his BMW to a halt in front of the barrier and handed his Home Office ID to a uniformed guard. ‘Dan Shepherd, here to see Major Gannon.’

  The guard studied Shepherd’s ID, consulted a list on a clipboard and handed the ID back. ‘Do you know where to go, sir?’ he asked. A second guard had walked around the BMW, examining the underside with a mirror on a stick.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Shepherd.

  The guard raised the barrier and Shepherd drove slowly by the green featureless metal-sided buildings that made up Credenhill, home to the SAS since 1999.

  The Major had arranged to meet him by the armoury. As Shepherd drove up he saw him standing by the entrance. He was wearing a black Adidas tracksuit and army boots and had a small backpack slung over one shoulder. He’d put on a bit of weight since Shepherd had last seen him, but he thought better of mentioning it as he shook hands and bumped shoulders with him. Even without the extra weight the Major was a big man, broad-shouldered with a nose that had been broken several times.

  ‘This is all short notice, isn’t it?’ asked the Major as he pulled open the door and ushered Shepherd inside.

  ‘Yeah, I was only told yesterday.’

  ‘I’ve asked Pete to get a few rifles ready and he can talk you through them. Sniping was never one of my specialities. Are you okay to wait a day or two for the explosives briefing? Our best guys are off base at the moment.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ve got some business to take care of in Leeds tomorrow anyway.’

  Sergeant Peter Simpson, grey haired and stocky, grinned as the Major and Shepherd walked up to his counter. ‘The proverbial bad penny turns up again,’ he said in a gruff Geordie accent. Simpson was a member of the Royal Logistic Corps, which in SAS slang made him a Loggy. He had been a standard feature in the armoury for all the years Shepherd had been in the regiment and no one knew more about arms and ammunition.

  Simpson and Shepherd shook hands, then the sergeant took him and the Major down a corridor lined with wire-mesh cages. He led them into a room at the far end where a number of rifles had been arranged on a wooden trestle table. ‘I thought I’d run through the weapons here and then you can take whatever you want out on to the range.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ said Shepherd.

  The Major stood by the door, his arms folded.

  ‘Right, as you know, the regiment favours the Barrett M82, the HK PSG1 and occasionally the Dragunov.’ Simpson picked up a rifle and handed it to Shepherd. ‘But this, as you probably also know, is the standard sniper rifle throughout the British Army.’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘The Accuracy International L96A1.’

  ‘Got it in one,’ said Simpson. ‘It’s been the rifle of choice since it replaced the Lee-Enfield L42A1 series in the mid-eighties. Adjustable butt, integrated adjustable bipod and static iron sights, it
was designed to achieve first-round hit at six hundred metres but is capable of some pretty serious harassing fire up to eleven hundred total metres. It fires an 8.59mm round, heavier than the usual 7.62mm sniper’s round so is less likely to be deflected over extremely long ranges. It comes with a free-floating stainless steel barrel that can be changed in the field in just over four minutes. In fact, it’s so simply put together that even the average squaddie can carry out most repairs themselves. It’s practically idiot-proof.’ He nodded at the weapon. ‘You can strip it?’

  ‘Sure.’ Shepherd broke the gun apart into its separate components quickly and efficiently.

  When he’d finished, Simpson nodded his approval. ‘That trick memory of yours comes in handy, doesn’t it?’

  ‘To be honest, it’s muscle memory rather than memorising a check list,’ said Shepherd. ‘I replaced the barrel in complete darkness once, in the desert and under fire.’

  ‘Let’s see you put it back together then,’ said the sergeant.

  Shepherd grinned and reassembled the weapon almost as quickly as he’d taken it apart.

  Simpson took it from him and put it back on the table. He picked up a second rifle. ‘This is the L96’s big brother, arguably the best sniping rifle in the world,’ he said. ‘The L115A3. There aren’t too many of these in service because of the price – a hefty twenty-three grand. Most half-decent snipers can hit a man at up to one thousand five hundred metres and even at that distance the round hits with the equivalent energy of a .44 magnum fired close up. One hit, one kill, pretty much. Because of the longer range, it comes with Schmidt and Bender day sights that magnify up to twenty-five times, compared with the L96’s twelve times.’

  ‘Nice bit of kit,’ said Shepherd approvingly.

  ‘Fired one?’

  Shepherd shook his head. ‘I think we applied for one but it never came, at least not while I was in the regiment. The five-round magazine seemed a good idea. Lets you get off a handful of shots without reloading but a small enough magazine so it doesn’t get in the way. And the folding stock makes it that much easier to put in a backpack in a hurry.’