Moving Targets_An Action-Packed Spider Shepherd SAS Novel

by Stephen Leather

  His patrol leader, Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd, propped himself up on one elbow and glanced around. Even in late summer, the towering peaks of the Hindu Kush – ‘Hindu Killer’ was the literal translation, though those forbidding mountains had also claimed their share of Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians, Jews, Muslims and followers of almost every other religion – were still capped with snow, gleaming white against the deep blue of the eastern sky. The surrounding terrain was mostly bare rock, desert sand and scrub burned brown by the long Afghan summer, but closer to the fast-flowing river running through the valley there were stands of larches, pines and cedars. The riverbanks were lined with poplars, their golden leaves shimmering in the bright sunlight. In the fields alongside the river the crops were ripe and ready to be harvested, including the number-one cash crop, here as elsewhere in the country – the opium poppy.

  ‘You’re not wrong, Jock,’ Shepherd said. ‘Tell you what, if you take some leave, you could stay on for a few weeks at the end of this op and really get to know the place. Geordie’ll join you, won’t you mate?’

  Geordie Mitchell, his thinning hair plastered to his scalp by the heat, paused in the middle of making yet another brew on the primus stove. ‘Don’t talk shite, man,’ he said. ‘When we finally get out of this shithole, I’ll be on the beach at Whitley Bay.’

  ‘That won’t be much different from here then,’ Jimbo Shortt said, yawning and stretching his six foot two inch frame. ‘Because Whitley Bay’s another bloody desert: lousy beer, crap food and the women all look like Soviet shot-putters.’ He ducked as Geordie flicked a used teabag at his head.

  ‘No, that’s just Geordie’s missus,’ Jock said.

  Geordie grinned at Jock as he handed him his mug of tea. ‘I’m afraid yours has got a horsefly in it, Jock. I was going to have that one myself but after what you said about my missus …’

  Jock scowled, then scooped out the fly with the tip of his combat knife and flicked it onto the ground.

  ‘That’s a waste of good protein,’ Jimbo said. ‘Spider would have eaten that.’ Years before, when they were on jungle training in Belize, Shepherd had eaten a tarantula for a bet, earning himself a nickname that he’d never been able to shake off.

  Jock gave a weary smile. Army banter was nothing if not predictable, pandering to every British stereotype going. Scots were invariably ‘Jocks’, Welshmen were ‘Taffys’, Irishmen were ‘Micks’, north-easterners were ‘Geordies’ and officers were ‘Ruperts’, though never to their faces. Jock was a Scot, therefore Jock was a tightwad, QED. Just as any Premier League footballer with a GCSE in woodwork was automatically nicknamed ‘Brains’ or ‘Professor’ by his teammates, so any SAS man taller than the Regiment’s average height of five foot nine was usually christened ‘Lofty’. Some squadrons had as many as four or five, because somehow, Jimbo excepted, no one ever got around to thinking up a different nickname for any of them. There was only one ‘Spider’, however. Nicknames were used not because they were usually shorter than the real ones, but because for security reasons SAS men, just like spooks, never used their real names when on operations and the habit was maintained even when back at base and off duty.

  There was an unbreakable bond between the four members of Shepherd’s patrol, forged in numerous contacts and incidents over the years. They had not long crossed back into Afghanistan after the latest one, a highly successful covert op deep into Iran, and they had all been hoping that their success might at least have earned them a bit of leave and the chance for some long-overdue R & R back in ‘the Big H’ – Hereford. However, their superiors had had other ideas and they had at once been reassigned as part of the Quick Reaction Force operating out of Bagram Airfield, fifty kilometres north of Kabul.

  Five thousand feet up on a plateau among the western mountains of the Hindu Kush, Bagram had been built in the 1950s as part of the Great Powers’ rivalry over Afghanistan, which had been going on since the ‘Great Game’ in the nineteenth century. American money had funded the construction of Bagram, but it had become a Soviet base during ‘Russia’s Vietnam’ – the Soviet war against the Afghan mujahideen. After the Soviets’ humiliating defeat and withdrawal, Bagram had been the scene of ferocious fighting between the Taliban and Shah Masood’s Western-backed Northern Alliance, both of whose forces occupied opposite ends of the airfield at times and shelled each other relentlessly.

  The Taliban had eventually prevailed but now that their brutal, fundamentalist regime had been overthrown by the US-led invasion, Bagram had become the major American base in the country, with scores of giant Hercules and C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft landing daily, adding yet more military supplies to the mountains that had already been shipped in. It was more than fifteen years since the Soviet withdrawal, but rusting wrecks of destroyed Soviet and Afghan air force aircraft, helicopters, tanks and military vehicles still lined the runway. They had simply been bulldozed out of the way and then left where they were to rot. In the dry Afghan air that would be a very slow process. The runway also bore the faint outlines of hundreds of overlapping craters that had been repaired countless times. Every building was also still pocked with bullet holes and the blast and scorch marks from mortar rounds, RPGs and artillery shells.

  The plateau surrounding Bagram was scarred with the scorched outlines of the Taliban’s bombed-out camps, destroyed in the ferocious air assault that had preceded the US-led invasion. Risking their lives to cross the minefields surrounding the base, looters had quickly stripped the ruined camps of anything valuable, even robbing and defiling the corpses of the dead. But earthenware water jars, rotting clothes, filthy mattresses studded with bullet holes and stained with blood, and even human bones still lay around the bomb craters and blackened sites of missile strikes, all within sight of the base’s perimeter fence.

  US troops from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, the 10th Mountain Division, and Special Operations Command from MacDill Air Force Base in Florida now occupied the base. The SAS had been allocated a small corner, separated from the rest of the airfield by razor-wire fences and some hastily bulldozed berms shielding it from IEDs, RPGs, snipers and suicide bombers. The battle for Bagram might have been over, but the war with the Taliban showed no signs of going away. The only other British troops there were a unit of Royal Marine Commandos who kept themselves to themselves, which, given the traditional hostility between the competing arms of the British forces, suited Shepherd and his patrol mates just fine.

  Being assigned as part of the QRF required the SAS men to maintain an extremely high level of fitness. That meant a daily workout, which, in line with their unofficial motto of ‘Train hard, fight easy’, included long runs wearing boots and carrying heavy Bergens over the forbidding Afghan terrain, coupled with weight-training and martial arts to build strength and agility. Their kit and weapons were always kept close at hand, ready for action at a moment’s notice for whatever might be operationally required: rescuing a hostage, kidnapping a Taliban commander, ambushing a suicide bomber, target marking for a retaliatory air strike, or anything else that the Allied commanders could dream up.

  Shepherd’s team had been on QRF duty for three weeks, but so far the only alarms had been false ones. Apart from the stand-to an hour either side of dawn and dusk, which they always carried out when on ops, hyper alert for any threats from the rugged terrain surrounding the base, they spent the long late-summer days training and practising with their weapons on the Close Quarter Battle range they had dug out of the side of one of the berms. With the exception of Geordie, whose milk-bottle complexion had only two shades, white and bright red, they were all bronzed from the sun. They wore a mixture of army kit and local Afghan clothing, making them look more like brigands than British Army soldiers, and all had a heavy growth of beard. While other troops shaved every day and used camouflage cream to break up the shape of their faces, the SAS troopers did not shave and so didn’t need to use cam cream.

  The only items in their equipment that were immac
ulately clean were the AK-47s they carried and lovingly tended with the extensive weapon-cleaning kits they all had. They had chosen those particular weapons not only because they were utterly reliable and not prone to the jams that could affect most other similar rifles, but also because their near-universal use by regular and irregular forces around the world meant that wherever the SAS were fighting, they could always obtain spare ammunition. On QRF or other ‘official’ postings, they could draw ammunition from the stores on their base, and when on covert ops, they simply collected it from the bodies of their dead enemies.

  Their AK-47s had all been lightly oiled and the only sign of wear on them was around the change lever, where they had used emery paper to rub away the metal until the lever would slip from safe to auto and semi-auto fire with the least resistance. All of them knew from experience that this would give them a potentially crucial edge in a contact with the enemy. The power of their weapons and the phenomenal accuracy of their shooting meant that even a few milliseconds’ advantage would be enough to guarantee their survival and their enemies’ deaths. The downside was that the change lever had to be kept firmly in the safe position on patrol, and over time this had caused each of them to develop callouses on their right thumbs and the beginnings of ‘trigger finger’ – the inflammation of the hand’s flexor tendons that caused it to form a claw-like shape. As a result, long-term SAS men were always flexing their fingers when at rest in an effort to ease the symptoms.

  Earlier that day, bored with army rations, Jock had bought a young goat from one of the Afghan farmers who were always clustered as close to the gates as the base guards would allow. There could have been Taliban spies among them too, so they were closely watched. Jock was relaxed as he haggled with the farmer, then eventually he strolled back into the base, leading the goat on a piece of cord.

  ‘You’re never going to kill that are you?’ Jimbo asked.

  Jock gave him an incredulous look. ‘Directly or indirectly you’ve been responsible for the deaths of scores of men in your SAS career and now you’re worried about the fate of a goat?’

  ‘That’s different,’ Jimbo said. ‘I’ve never seen a goat toting an AK47.’

  Jock shrugged. ‘I take it you’ll not be wanting your share of the goat curry tonight then? Anyway,’ he said, pulling out his combat knife, ‘if you don’t want to see it having its throat cut, this might be a good time to go for a stroll.’

  Jock killed, skinned and jointed the goat with practised ease. He tossed some of the meat into a mess tin and began cooking it with some onions he had liberated from the American PX and a generous dollop of the curry powder he always carried with him in a closely sealed plastic bag. Jock had eaten dog, cat, rat and a few other even less appetising things over the years, and with enough curry powder, they all tasted OK.

  CHAPTER 3

  Hamid sat cross-legged on the dirt floor, finishing his simple meal of rice and lentils, then wiped his bowl with the last scrap of naan. He was seventeen but despite his wispy beard, he looked much younger. He sipped a mouthful of green tea, the last he would ever drink, and paused for a moment, lost in thought, before rising to his feet. All day he had watched the line of sunlight streaming through the tiny, high window as it inched down the wall and across the floor, but now night was falling; it would soon be time.

  In the last of the light, he took a creased and heavily thumbed photograph from his pocket and gazed once more at the familiar image. It was a group portrait of him and his father, mother and brothers, all squinting into the low sun in front of a canvas backdrop of an idealised landscape, erected by the itinerant photographer who had stopped at their remote village some years before. It was Hamid’s only link with his family and his home, for there were no phone lines to their village, and even if he had been able to write them a letter, they could not have read it. They were all illiterate. As he took a last look at the picture he felt a momentary pang of regret and a faint hesitation, but then he squared his shoulders. He was ready. He carefully placed the photograph face down on the upturned wooden crate that served as a table, and poured some water from an earthenware jug into a battered metal bowl.

  He completed his ritual wash with care, unfolded his prayer mat and, as he heard the muezzin calling the faithful of Kabul to prayer from the minaret of the Grand Mosque a few streets away, began his own devotions. He added what fragments he could recall of the prayers before dying that the mullah had performed at the deathbeds of his grandparents. ‘There is no God except Allah, and Muhammad, peace be upon Him, is the messenger of Allah. O Allah, forgive the bad deeds of your servant Hamid, make those who are guided aware of my sacrifice, grant benefits to those whom I have left behind, and forgive me, O Lord of Worlds. Make my grave wide for me and light the way for me. Grant me paradise, protect me from hellfire and help my family to endure their sorrow.’

  At last he straightened up and folded away his prayer mat. Under the barks and yelps of the feral dogs that infested the streets he could hear the sound of generators starting up in the distance in response to the capital’s usual evening power cut. However, in this poor district almost no one had electric lights and there were no generators. He lit a candle as the last of the dusk light faded into night.

  He heard the sound of footsteps scuffing through the gritty dust of the street outside and a moment later Mullah Omar pushed aside the torn curtain that separated the room from the other end of the mud-brick house. ‘Salaam Alaikum, Hamid,’ he said. ‘It is almost time. I will help you prepare.’ The mullah was in his late sixties, his skin black and wrinkled from years of exposure to the unrelenting Afghan sun. He was tall and thin and bent forward from the waist as if a huge weight was pressing down on him. There was a massive wart on the side of his nose from which sprouted half a dozen long black hairs.

  Two men had followed the mullah into the room. They had kohl-rimmed eyes and were dressed in black robes with long black scarves wound around their heads, the forked tails of the scarves trailing down their backs. They did not speak to Hamid, nor look at him, but simply stationed themselves on either side of the door. Their rifles – the newer AK-74s, rather than the traditional AK-47s – marked them out as trusted, senior figures in the Taliban hierarchy.

  Mullah Omar was carrying a large, heavy bag, which he placed on the floor before carefully lifting out the contents. Hamid swallowed nervously when he saw the bulky ‘waistcoat’ – a cotton vest covered with a series of grey packs bound together with tape. The ends of two detonators were visible, protruding from the packs, electric wires linking them to a small black plastic box, featureless except for the round button on its upper surface. Inside the box was a battery and a simple electric circuit that would be completed when pressure was applied to the button on the outside.

  Hamid murmured a prayer under his breath but kept his gaze steady as the mullah gave him a questioning look. He held out his arms to help the mullah place the waistcoat on him. Mullah Omar adjusted it and then overlaid it with another improvised garment, a shalwar kameez to which the wife of one of his followers had sewn a score of fabric flaps like oversized pockets, all of which were now stuffed with nails, screws, fragments of sharp metal and shards of glass.

  When he was happy with it, the mullah taped the black plastic box to Hamid’s right side, just above the waistband. ‘You remember your instructions?’ he said.

  Hamid nodded. ‘As well as I remember my own name.’

  The mullah produced a white flag from his bag – white was a holy colour to the Taliban – unfurled it and draped it over two rusty nails protruding from the wall. It was far from the first time they had been used for this purpose and it would not be the last. He positioned Hamid in front of it, put an AK-47 in his hands and then produced a small Sony video camera. ‘Remember the lines we rehearsed?’ he said. He began to film Hamid as he made his last declaration. It was a message to his family but also to the wider world, a call to arms ending with Allahu Akbar– ‘God is great’.

 
; Mullah Omar nodded with satisfaction, switched off the camera and replaced it in his bag, wrapped in the Taliban flag. ‘Now for the rest of your disguise,’ he said, pulling a shapeless black bundle from the bag.

  As the mullah unfolded it, Hamid stared incredulously at the garment he was being offered. ‘Surely I cannot become a martyr dressed like this?’

  ‘It is the only way to be sure of success. And the gatekeepers of paradise will not care how you are dressed, they will only wish to know how many kaffir unbelievers you have killed.’ He watched Hamid narrowly for a few more seconds. ‘In paradise you will have the finest silk robes decorated with golden threads, and beautiful virgins will surround you. But now you must wear this. It is the will of Allah, blessed be His name.’

  After a moment’s hesitation, Hamid bowed his head and put on the garment. He pulled the hood over, muffling all sounds and reducing his vision to the small opening, half obscured by a fabric mesh, directly in front of him. ‘One more thing,’ the mullah said, handing Hamid a bundle. ‘Carry this, it will make your disguise more convincing.’

  ‘Surely they will see that it is false?’ Hamid said.

  ‘Only when they are close enough to touch and by then it will be too late.’ Mullah Omar shot a glance up at the now darkened window and nodded to himself. ‘Are you ready, Hamid? It is time. Remember in the final moment that as your mouth closes here, it will open in paradise with a shout of joy! Allah be with you.’

  He gave Hamid a careful embrace, keeping his arms well clear of the boy’s right side, then crossed to the doorway, pulled the curtain and stood aside. Hamid moved past him without another word. Tracked by his two Taliban minders, the mullah slipped out of the house into the narrow, twisting street. At once they were swallowed up by the darkness, the sound of their footsteps fading like whispers in the dark.