Tall Order: The 15th Spider Shepherd Thriller

by Stephen Leather

  After the sound of the motorcycle had faded into the distance, he stepped out of the house. He looked around, then when he was satisfied the pavements were empty he waved for O’Hara to follow him out. He held the door open for O’Hara, quietly closed it behind him and then hurried over to the Toyota and opened the boot. O’Hara dropped the still-unconscious man into the boot and closed it.

  ‘See now, that worked out quite well, didn’t it?’ said O’Hara.

  ‘Yes, Mick,’ said Harper, his voice loaded with sarcasm. They got into the car. Harper started the engine and drove on to the road. He waited until he was several hundred yards from the house before switching on the car’s lights. He looked over at O’Hara and grinned. ‘Mind you, the look on his face when you had him by the throat, it was priceless.’

  ‘I think he shat himself,’ said O’Hara. He chuckled. ‘He’s going to be doing a lot worse than that by the time we’re done with him, right?’

  ‘Damn straight,’ said Harper.

  Chapter 30

  Present Day, London

  ‘G ot him!’ said Eric Fitzpatrick. He sat back and punched the air triumphantly. Shepherd rushed over to his workstation but was narrowly beaten by Sergeant Hurry. Fitzpatrick had frozen the CCTV footage showing a young Asian man at the door to the storage room, holding a black nylon kitbag.

  As Shepherd and Hurry joined him he pressed the key to restart the footage. The man on the screen used a keycard to open the door and slipped inside. The door remained closed for almost a minute, then it opened again and the man reappeared, this time without the bag in his hand. Fitzpatrick froze the picture. ‘Usman Yussuf,’ he said. ‘He works in the accounts department. He’s been employed there for almost a year. He keeps his face away from the camera most of the time but you can see enough of it when he comes out to make an ID.’

  ‘I’m going to need an address.’

  ‘Yeah, bit of a cock-up there,’ said Hurry. ‘We’ve got names and dates of birth to go with all the human resources photographs but we don’t have addresses.’

  ‘You’re joking. How did that happen?’

  ‘I guess whoever compiled the database thought that identification was what mattered. And we’ve identified him. But for an address we’ll need to get access to the human resources database and they don’t start work until nine o’clock.’

  Shepherd looked at his watch. Nine o’clock was only a few hours away. Plus there was a chance that Yussuf would turn up for work himself, which would make their job a whole lot easier. ‘Eric, follow him on the cameras and see where he goes.’

  ‘Will do,’ said Fitzpatrick.

  Shepherd went back to his desk. It took him just a few minutes on his terminal to ascertain that neither the DVLA nor the PNC had any information on Usman Yussuf. He didn’t have a driver’s licence and he wasn’t on the police database. Shepherd logged into MI5’s database and drew a blank there, too. He was a genuine cleanskin, totally unknown to the police and security services. He phoned Patsy Ellis. This time it took longer for her to answer and she had clearly been asleep, but she thanked him for calling and told him not to worry about the lateness of the hour. He briefed her on what little they knew about Yussuf.

  ‘Good work, Dan,’ she said. ‘I’ll contact Border Force and get a watch put out for him at all airports and ports in case he decides to run. Let me know what else you turn up.’ She ended the call.

  He looked at his watch and wondered if he should phone Katra but then decided against it. If she was asleep she wouldn’t thank him for waking her up, and if she was awake she would want to know when he’d be coming home and that was a question he couldn’t answer just then.

  Chapter 31

  Ten Years Ago, Dubai

  A ll the flights from Sarajevo were full and the only tickets Yokely could get at short notice meant leaving at nine o’clock in the morning with a twelve-and-a-half-hour stopover in Istanbul, with the second leg of the flight getting in at just before six o’clock the following morning. Leclerc was waiting for them at Dubai Airport and took them to an SUV in the parking lot. Michael Bardot was in the driving seat. He was a big man and had put on a few pounds since leaving the SEALs, but even in his polo shirt and chinos his military background was still in evidence, with his razor-sharp haircut and impenetrable Oakley sunglasses. He fist-bumped Yokely and did the same to McNee.

  ‘Okay, so, good news, bad news,’ said Leclerc. ‘Benikhlef lives in a penthouse in one of the luxury blocks in Dubai Marina. ‘Full-on security, CCTV everywhere, so even if we could get in we’d be caught on camera. The vehicles are fully secure in the underground car park, and there’s no way we could mount a surveillance operation outside the tower. There are some very rich and powerful people in that building so it’s as secure as Fort Knox.’ He smiled at the look of disappointment on Yokely’s face. ‘The good news is that he keeps a mistress on a boat in the marina and he’s there most evenings.’

  Yokely nodded his approval. ‘That is good news,’ he said.

  ‘It’ll make disposal easier, too,’ said McNee. ‘We can make the boat go boom, we don’t even need C4. I can set it to blow with just fuel and a timer.’

  ‘The one drawback is that the mistress will be there,’ said Leclerc. He looked over at Yokely.

  Yokely shrugged. ‘If she’s his mistress she’ll know who he is and what he does. Same with the bodyguards. Collateral damage. It’s all good.’

  ‘Then we can do it tonight,’ said Leclerc.

  ‘How are we fixed for kit?’ asked Yokely.

  ‘Michael has done us proud,’ said Leclerc. ‘A nice selection of semi-automatics and silencers and a couple of Ingram MAC-10s.’

  ‘All part of the service,’ said Bardot.

  ‘And the potassium chloride?’

  ‘I have a litre,’ said Bardot. ‘Overkill but it’s easier to buy in bulk.’

  ‘And what about Hamid bin Faisal?’

  ‘He’s a Saudi but he has a residence here.’

  ‘Any family?’

  ‘An uncle. Runs a marketing company, mainly running promotions for luxury clothing companies.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Mohammed Al-Hashim.’

  ‘Any suggestions that the uncle is involved in terrorism?’

  ‘He’s not on any watch lists,’ said Bardot.

  ‘Do you have an address for Hamid bin Faisal?’

  Bardot nodded. ‘And the uncle.’

  ‘Let’s check out his home first before we decide what to do about the uncle.’ He looked at his watch. ‘How about we do that now? Strike while the iron’s hot?’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Bardot.

  The drive to bin Faisal’s house took just over half an hour. It was a gated development but there was no security and Bardot followed a white SUV through as the gates opened. ‘I checked it out this morning, there was no one at home and he seems to live alone.’

  ‘What does he do for a living?’ asked Yokely.

  ‘He works for his uncle. I phoned the company yesterday and was told he’s on vacation until the end of the month.’ He nodded at a two-storey yellow villa, flat-roofed with a large satellite dish on the top. There was a Wrangler Jeep parked outside.

  ‘Does he own or rent?’ asked Yokely.

  ‘His uncle owns it. The uncle owns a fair bit of property around Dubai.’

  Bardot parked in front of the villa. He took them around to the back where there was a wooden decking area. There was a door that led to the kitchen. There was no burglar alarm and it took Bardot less than a minute to pick the lock and get them inside.

  Leclerc went upstairs while McNee checked out the kitchen.

  Yokely looked around the sitting room. There was hardly any furniture, just a sofa and a coffee table and a bookcase. Yokely looked at the bookcase. One shelf was filled with Islamic books, mainly in Arabic but there were a few in English. There were several copies of the Koran. The largest was a hardback and it was peppered with Post-It notes. Sectio
ns had been highlighted in yellow. Yokely read through some of them. It wasn’t pleasant reading.

  ‘As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help.’

  ‘Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority.’

  ‘The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement.’

  ‘I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.’

  ‘Surely Allah loves those who fight in His cause.’

  It was as if bin Faisal was looking for justification for what he was planning to do in the United States. Yokely closed the book and put it back on the shelf with the others. There were a handful of New York guidebooks, and a folded map of the city. Yokely unfolded the map but there were no marks on it. There were several military books, mainly detailing the equipment used by armed forces around the world. There was a folded sheet of paper in one of the books. Yokely opened it at the marked page – it was a chapter on ground-to-air missiles.

  There was an empty box on the floor that had contained a video recorder, almost certainly the camera that had been used to film the downing of the jet.

  Leclerc came down the stairs with an Apple laptop. ‘Password protected,’ he said, handing it to Yokely.

  Yokely looked at his watch. It was just before nine in the morning. ‘How about Gerry and I check into our hotel and we can give the computer a going over?’ he said to Leclerc. ‘You and Michael can drop us off and then go check out the uncle’s whereabouts.’

  ‘The uncle’s on your list?’ asked Leclerc.

  ‘He was taking care of a jihadist who blew a passenger jet out of the sky, Peter. So yes, the uncle’s on my list.’

  Yokely and McNee checked into the Jumeirah Dar Al-Masyaf at Madinat Jumeirah. The hotel was as luxurious as any Yokely had ever seen, set among lush gardens, waterways and massive swimming pools, with traditional abra boats and golf carts ferrying guests between their villas and the resort’s many restaurants.

  The hotel wasn’t far from the Palm, and Yokely could see it in the distance from one of the rooms in his palatial villa. After he’d tipped the bellboy who had spent five minutes showing him all the facilities on offer in the villa, Yokely placed the computer he’d taken from bin Faisal’s house on a desk. He used his cell phone to call Sam Hepburn at the NSA. Hepburn sounded sleepy when he answered but he was as enthusiastic as ever. Hepburn was one of the smartest men Yokely had ever met, holding two degrees from MIT and a Masters from Harvard, but he was far from being a nerd. He played tennis at a level that would have allowed him to join the professional circuit if he’d wanted to and ran at least five miles a day, most of that on a running machine in his office. He’d once told Yokely that he slept for only four hours a night and Yokely had no reason to think he was lying.

  ‘It’s a MacBook, one of the latest models by the look of it,’ said Yokely. ‘It’s password-protected.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ said Hepburn. ‘Can you switch it on and connect a phone to it?’

  Yokely took another cell phone and connected it to one of the laptop’s USB slots. He gave the number of the cell phone to Hepburn and a minute later the phone buzzed. The screen stayed the same, prompting for a password, for several minutes, then the prompt went and the desktop flashed up with more than twenty files on a background of what appeared to be a mosque in a Middle Eastern country.

  ‘There you go,’ said Hepburn. ‘You’re in.’

  ‘Can you do me another favour?’ asked Yokely. ‘I’m pretty sure the owner was using a draft file to communicate with his handler. Can you have a quick look? I’m assuming he’s not been stupid enough to store his passwords.’ It was a standard way of keeping communications off the grid. The National Security Agency and the British equivalent – the Government Communications Headquarters – could indeed read any email ever sent. But if two people shared an email account and only ever left messages in the draft folder, there was no transmission so no way that the email could be intercepted.

  ‘Give me a couple of minutes,’ said Hepburn. ‘I’ll call you when I’m done.’

  Yokely went over to the minibar and opened it. Despite the Muslim ban on all things alcoholic, it was packed with wine and spirits, including two very good bottles of champagne. Yokely took a bottle of Evian water and went out on to the terrace. He sat on a wooden bench and lit one of his small cigars. He was halfway through it when Hepburn called him on his cell phone. ‘It’s a Google account,’ said Hepburn. ‘At least, it was a Google account. It was closed three days ago. Have you got a pen? I’ll give you the email address and password.’

  Yokely wrote down the details. ‘Can you recover any messages that were on the account?’

  ‘It’ll take time and I’ll need you to leave the laptop online while I do it. It’s either that or do it through Google and they tend not to be too cooperative these days.’

  ‘I’ll leave it on and connected,’ said Yokely. ‘What about when he set up the account? He must have put in some details when he started off.’

  ‘I’ll check.’

  ‘You’re a star, Sam.’

  ‘No need to blow smoke up my ass, Richard. I’m on the case.’

  Yokely spent the afternoon and early evening in his room. Hepburn called him back just before five o’clock. ‘All done,’ he said. ‘If you check the laptop now you’ll see all the messages are back, including the ones that were in the draft folder.’

  ‘You’re a wizard, Sam,’ said Yokely. He thanked Hepburn and sat down in front of Hamid bin Faisal’s laptop. He went through to the email account that bin Faisal had used to communicate with whoever was running him.

  There were more than a dozen messages in the folder, half from bin Faisal and half from someone using the name Saladin, and Yokely cursed under his breath when he saw that they were all in Arabic. He reached for his cell phone and called Michael Bardot. ‘I need your Arabic skills, now,’ said Yokely. Bardot said he’d be right up.

  Yokely helped himself to a beer from the minibar. He was halfway through it when Bardot knocked on the door.

  Yokely showed him the laptop and Bardot sat down and leaned forward to peer at the messages. ‘Okay, this guy Saladin is checking that he has the right visa to visit the States. That’s one of the earliest. The later emails are telling him what to do when he gets to the States and explaining that there will be someone at the airport to meet him. They’ll be holding a card with his name in Arabic.’

  ‘Anything about what he is supposed to be doing there? Details of what they have planned?’

  Bardot shook his head. ‘There’s a lot of Islamic rhetoric. Bringing the fight to the infidels, the joy of jihadism, a lot of quotes from the Koran, all the usual shit.’

  ‘What about details of the people he’d meet in the States?’ asked Yokely.

  ‘Again, just general stuff. Loyal warriors, their names will live for ever, true jihadists, almost as if he’s worried that he might be changing his mind.’

  ‘It’s a lot to organise, and if any one link falls apart the whole operation fails,’ said Yokely. He walked over to the window and looked out over the Persian Gulf. On the horizon, oil tankers were heading west towards the Arabian Sea loaded with oil for the infidel. If it wasn’t for the oil, the Emirates would be nothing but desert and the mega-rich Saudis would still be riding their camels from oasis to oasis. And much of the money that paid for the oil was used to fund terrorism around the world. The West was effectively funding the attacks on itself and no one seemed capable of b
reaking the circle.

  ‘So who is this Saladin?’ asked Bardot.

  ‘It’s the guy who was running the jihadists in New York,’ said Yokely. ‘I’m assuming Saladin is just an alias. He’s obviously not going to use his real name.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ said Bardot. ‘Saladin was one of the greatest Muslim warriors. Full name An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub. He led the Muslim fight against the European powers during the Third Crusade.’ Bardot sat back. ‘He’s going to be hard to find, this guy, isn’t he? He goes to a lot of trouble to cover his tracks.’

  ‘Everyone makes mistakes,’ said Yokely. ‘Or they run into bad luck. Either way, we’ll get him eventually.’

  Bardot looked at his watch. ‘I’m going to have to get moving,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back to pick you and the guys up at eight.’

  ‘Everything’s lined up?’

  Bardot nodded. ‘All good to go,’ he said.

  ‘And Jamahl Benikhlef?’

  ‘I’ve got his place being watched now by a couple of guys I use in Dubai. They’re reliable and they don’t know what we’re up to, no need to worry on that score.’

  Yokely grinned. ‘I’m not worried, Michael,’ he said. ‘You’re a pro. I wouldn’t be using you if you weren’t.’

  Chapter 32

  Present Day, Birmingham

  H arper bent down and undid the makeshift gag from around Israr Farooqi’s mouth. Farooqi spluttered and spat out the pan cleaner. His chest heaved as he sucked air into his lungs. He was lying on his side, his hands still tied behind his back with the electrical cord.