CHAPTER 29
While his men had sprung into action, in line with the plan which he had waited so long to bring to fruition, Sabit hung back in the shadows at the side of the stage. Only when the Chinese security guards had been eliminated and Comrade Chou brought on stage at gunpoint, would Sabit emerge. Chou would then be forced to his knees, the charges against him read out while one of Sabit’s men filmed him, and then Sabit would pronounce sentence - death - and carry it out, shooting Chou between the eyes, revenge at last for the thousands of Uyghurs he had imprisoned, exiled, tortured or executed. The video would flash around the world. China would be plunged into chaos and the Uyghur people would rise up and overthrow their oppressors. Whether Sabit survived to enjoy that moment was irrelevant. His fate did not matter, because he would already have fulfilled his vow and his life’s aim.
But when the firing broke out, he was horrified to see some of his men turning their guns on each other and he realised that Chou’s men had somehow infiltrated his group and the operation had been betrayed. Even worse, although he had known about it in advance, Chou had allowed the attack to go ahead. His mind racing, Sabit saw with terrible clarity, the trap into which he, his men and the cause of Uyghur freedom had been led. Chou’s aim was also to use the full glare of publicity, not to free the Uyghurs but to enslave them further. If he survived an assassination attempt, his prestige and status would be enhanced and he would also have the perfect excuse for the most brutal purge yet of the Uyghurs.
Sabit saw Chou, still in his seat, apparently unmoved by the shooting echoing around him. Burning with fear and rage, Sabit drew his weapon and, stepping over the body of one of his men, moved forward onto the blood-soaked stage, his gaze fixed on Chou. If he could not fulfil all his aims, he could at least take Chou to hell with him.
CHAPTER 30
Shepherd scanned the auditorium for any remaining threats when he saw Sabit, dressed in the green uniform of the chorus, striding forward, his gaze and the barrel of his AK 47 fixed on Chou. One of Chou’s Chinese bodyguards had seen him and fired, but the rounds went wide and Sabit dropped him with a short burst, then swung his rifle back towards Chou and his finger again tightened on the trigger.
Shepherd took aim and fired. Two rounds smashed into Sabit’s head. The first drilled into his skull half an inch above his ear, the second punched another hole half an inch above the first. The two rounds created a single exit wound, a gaping hole on the opposite side of his skull, through which Sabit’s lifeblood and brains exploded. Clamped in his death grip, his own weapon sent out a burst of fire but Sabit’s lifeless body was already slumping sideways and the rounds merely stitched a line of impacts up the theatre wall and into the ceiling above.
Shepherd had already turned his attention back to the auditorium, still scanning for further threats, but Geordie, Jimbo and the Aussie SAS men had already eliminated the remaining terrorists and were now flexi-cuffing all the Chinese who were still standing for vetting and interrogation, before allowing the emergency services in to attend to the wounded. Last through the theatre doors came Rupert, elated that for once he had not cocked up the task he had been set.
As soon as the shooting ceased and silence fell, Shepherd saw the Chinese leader get to his feet and, flanked by his surviving bodyguards, he hurried to the door at the side of the theatre. As if passing through a revolving door, he emerged again only moments later and this time his full retinue of bodyguards was accompanying him. To Shepherd’s bafflement, instead of leading him out of the theatre, they then returned him to his seat.
Shepherd moved quickly over to Geordie and Jimbo. ‘Everyone okay?’ he asked, but before they could reply they were interrupted by a British army colonel, who had been seated in the third row and whose full dress uniform and face were now covered in someone else’s blood.
‘Excellent job men,’ he said, mopping at his face with a handkerchief. ‘I’m the Military Attaché from the embassy and I know who you are, because my in-tray has been full of signals about you for the last few weeks, but the Chinese leader wants to thank you personally.’
Shepherd was about to demur but the Chinese leader had already risen from his seat and was being ushered towards them. The SAS men smiled through gritted teeth as the introductions were made, but when Chou, through his interpreter, said ‘Thank you, you saved my life,’ Shepherd couldn’t stop himself from replying, ‘Really? That’s not what it looked like to me. I don’t think you were in any danger at any point.’
The translator nervously relayed the statement to Chou. The Chinese leader’s smile froze on his face and he directed a look of pure hatred at Shepherd before turning his back and walking away.
‘There are going to be medals for this,’ the Military Attaché said, blissfully unaware both of what Shepherd had just said and the permafrost in the atmosphere as Chou went back to his seat. ‘Which of you chaps is in charge?’
Shepherd, Geordie and Jimbo all immediately pointed at Rupert and said in unison. ‘He is.’
Police, paramedics, fire crews and flustered Australian officials were now pouring into the theatre. While the paramedics checked the bodies for signs of life and police began searching the wings and the backstage area for any surviving terrorists, officials crowded around the Chinese party, desperate to placate Chou, who appeared to be in surprisingly high spirits considering his narrow escape. He was smiling broadly as he at last made his way out of the theatre.
CHAPTER 31
Reunited with their RAF aircrew, the SAS team were soon in the 125 high above central Australia and heading west. They had been hustled out of the Opera House, and were then hustled out of Sydney, Richmond and Australia in rapid succession.
Shepherd and the others were reviewing CCTV footage of the incident at the Opera House on a laptop, while Jock watched from his hospital bed on the satellite link. ‘We haven’t really had chance for an after action debrief,’ Shepherd said, ‘because we’ve been too busy getting the bum’s rush from Australia, but there were things going on in the Opera House that the powers that be definitely don’t want made public.’
He ran the footage of Chou entering the theatre, disappearing into the side-room and then re-emerging, and then showed the sequence after the shooting had stopped when Chou again went in and out of the side-room.
‘So what the hell was going on?’ Jock said.
‘It’s simple, isn’t it?’ Shepherd said. ‘Chou was using a double. Real Chou came out of his hotel, joined the motorcade and did the meet and greet on the steps of the Opera House and then disappeared through the side door in the theatre. He then apparently re-emerged a few seconds later and took his seat, but that wasn’t the real Chou. It was the double.’
He rewound the footage again. ‘Notice how only half the bodyguard team are there when he comes out again? Why were the others not with him? Because they were guarding the real Chou in the side room. And how do we know the other is a fake? Well he doesn’t address a single word to the Aussies, nor respond when they try to talk to him. I think the Chinese knew that there was going to be an attack and they made sure that the Chinese Premier was never in harm’s way.’
‘So,’ Jock said, ‘the overall conclusion is that the Chinese government agents had penetrated the terrorist organisation, knew in advance that the attack was going to happen and had taken steps to neutralise the threat but still used a body-double in case Chou was hit by a stray bullet or one of the terrorists got lucky?’
‘But if they knew about it in advance, why did they allow it to happen,’ Jimbo asked, ‘rather than rounding up or eliminating them beforehand?’
‘Because it suited China’s agenda that way,’ Shepherd said. ‘And to hell with how many innocent people were killed and wounded in the process. What better pretext could there be for launching a final crackdown on Uyghur dissidents? And I’ll bet that the Australian and British governments were aware of this too, but chose to keep it under wraps for their own political and economic purposes.�
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While they had been discussing it, Aimee had been watching rolling news coverage of a press conference about the incident on her own laptop. ‘Speaking of which,’ she said, ‘he really is a prime shit.’ She turned her laptop round so they could see footage of Rupert, in dark glasses, being humble for the benefit of the world’s media. Already he was being dubbed “The Opera House Hero” by reporters looking for an easy story, coupled with suggestions that he should be “awarded the Victoria Cross for his brave actions during the siege of the Sydney Opera House.”
‘You know what?’ Geordie said. ‘When I first saw Rupert I thought he was a bit of an arsehole. As I got to know him better, I still thought he was an arsehole, but now I really feel I know him and do you know what? He’s definitely an arsehole.’
‘That’s one thing we can all agree on,’ Shepherd said with a laugh. He reclined his seat and stretched out his legs. ‘Now keep the noise down, will you. I need to catch up on my beauty sleep.’
EPILOGUE
City of Ghosts
By a Special Correspondent
Turguan, Xinjiang, 14 May
Turguan in the Chinese Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, has always been a place with one foot rooted firmly in the past. An oasis and caravanserai on the edge of the vast Taklamakan Desert in the days when the Silk Road was one of the world’s principal arteries of trade, its native Uyghur people still weave their cloth in patterns that would have been familiar to Genghis Khan.
Turguan went into a long decline as the Silk Road’s significance faded, but in recent years it had begun to thrive again. The discovery of oil turned it into a boom town and its importance grew as the Chinese drove the great China National Highway ever westwards, channelling their goods through Asia and the West. That brought much needed jobs to one of the poorest regions in the country, but also increased its strategic importance to Beijing, leading to repression of the fiercely independent Muslim Uyghurs.
Sporadic protests and rebellions were met by increasingly ferocious government crackdowns, but even twelve months ago Turguan remained a bustling frontier city. Now, following the attempt by Uyghur terrorists to assassinate the Chinese leader during his state visit to Australia, a draconian solution to the “Uyghur problem” has been enforced and Turguan has become a city of ghosts, its outskirts half-buried by the advancing sand dunes.
The only Uyghur people on the streets are old men and women. After the assassination attempt, in a final effort to subdue and control this fractious province, young Uyghur men were rounded up. Thousands were imprisoned and thousands more exiled to isolated forced labour camps near the Mongolian frontier. Young Uyghur women were offered the choice of exile or arranged marriage to some of the floods of ethnic Han Chinese being relocated - so many that the Uyghur have become a minority population in their own homeland. Children were taken from their parents and sent to orphanages or adopted by childless Han couples all over China.
Government edicts prohibit any gathering of three or more people and forbid women to wear the traditional veil and men to grow beards. All manifestations of Uyghur culture - language, customs, even their traditional textile patterns - have been banned.
Try to speak to one of the few Uyghur visible in the city and the usual reaction is a frightened glance up and down the street and a hurried ‘I can’t speak to you’. Chinese security men are everywhere, their mere presence an implicit threat to those who remain.
Only one old man was brave - or foolhardy - enough to speak to me. ‘Look around you,’ he said, the sweep of his extended arm taking in the town and the desert beyond. This was our homeland, granted to us by Allah. Neither Genghis Khan, nor Timur, nor any Chinese emperor could destroy us. Yet now we are broken. One man, who grew up among us, has destroyed us: Chou.’ He spat into the dust as he uttered the name. ‘In twenty years’ time, our language, our culture, the Uyghur people ourselves, will have ceased to exist.’
He would have said more but my Chinese “escorts” who had been shadowing my every step, intervened and surrounded me. I was steered away towards the town’s mayor, a functionary appointed by Beijing who could be trusted to parrot the party line. When I shrugged off my escort for a moment and looked back, I saw soldiers dragging the old man away.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen Leather is one of the UK’s most successful thriller writers, an eBook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan “Spider” Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. Before becoming a novelist he was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mirror, the Glasgow Herald, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. He is one of the country’s most successful eBook authors and his eBooks have topped the Amazon Kindle charts in the UK and the US. The Bookseller magazine named him as one of the 100 most influential people in the UK publishing world.
Born in Manchester, he began writing full-time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into fifteen languages. He has also written for television shows such as London’s Burning, The Knock and the BBC’s Murder in Mind series, Two of his novels, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were filmed for TV and The Chinaman is now a major motion picture starring Pierce Brosnan and Jackie Chan.
To find out more, you can visit his website or find him on FaceBook.
TALL ORDER
Hodder and Stoughton have published fourteen books featuring Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd written by Sunday Times bestselling author Stephen Leather. The fifteenth, Tall Order, will be published in July 2018.
He is one of the world’s most successful terrorists – codenamed Saladin. He plans and executes devastating terrorist attacks and then disappears, like a ghost.
Ten years ago he blew a plane out of the sky above New York, killing the wife and son of the US Defense Secretary, along with hundreds of innocent civilians.
CIA assassin Richard Yokely was sent to kill Saladin – but he failed. Now, ten years later, Saladin has struck again, killing dozens of fans at a London football match.
But one of the latest victims is related to someone who has the power to track down and kill Saladin, and Spider Shepherd is put on the case.
There is only one man who can identify Saladin – a psychologically-damaged former Navy SEAL called Dean Martin. But Yokely killed Martin ten years earlier. Or did he?
Shepherd has to track down Martin, make him a warrior again and take him back to the killing fields on the Afghan/Pakistan borders to identify and take long overdue revenge on the world’s most wanted terrorist …
You can preorder Tall Order now on Amazon UK and Amazon US
ALSO BY STEPHEN LEATHER
Pay Off
The Fireman
Hungry Ghost
The Chinaman
The Vets
The Long Shot
The Birthday Girl
The Double Tap
The Solitary Man
The Tunnel Rats
The Bombmaker
The Stretch
Tango One
The Eyewitness
Penalties
Takedown
The Shout
Spider Shepherd thrillers:
Hard Landing
Soft Target
Cold Kill
Hot Blood
Dead Men
Live Fire
Rough Justice
Fair Game
False Friends
True Colours
White Lies
Black Ops
Dark Forces
Light Touch
Spider Shepherd: SAS thrillers :
The Sandpit
Jack Nightingale supernatural thrillers:
Nightfall
Midnight
Nightmare
Nightshade
Lastnight
San Francisco Night
New York Night
Action-Packed Spider Shepherd SAS Novel
Moving Targets_An Action-Packed Spider Shepherd SAS Novel Page 26