Tall Order: The 15th Spider Shepherd Thriller

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Still nothing on Benikhlef,’ said Traynor.

  ‘I have another couple of names for you,’ said Yokely. ‘The first one is a Saudi but he spends a lot of time here in Dubai. Abdul Aziz Al Amin. The other is also a Saudi but he seems to live in Dubai. Mohammed Al-Hashim. He has a nephew, Hamid bin Faisal, but he’s dead.’

  ‘I’ll get back to you as soon I have anything.’

  Yokely waved over a waiter and ordered a bottle of Nuits-Saint-Georges. They were halfway through the bottle when McNee arrived. He sat down as Yokely poured wine into his glass.

  ‘All good?’ asked Yokely.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said McNee.

  They all clinked glasses.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ asked McNee. ‘Are we taking care of this Abdul Aziz Al Amin?’

  ‘At the moment he’s top of my list,’ said Yokely. ‘And the uncle is a close second. We’ll get Al Amin sorted tomorrow morning. Then Michael can drive us to Abu Dhabi and we’ll fly out of there.’ He clinked his glass against theirs. ‘We have a plan, gentlemen.’

  As they ordered their food from a waiter, there was a dull thud down in the marina, followed by a yellowish ball of flame that enveloped Benikhlef’s yacht. Within seconds the whole boat was aflame and the fire spread quickly to the boats on either side

  There were people on the boat to the starboard side of Benikhlef’s and they frantically jumped off and ran along the jetty. People were getting off boats all around the marina and staring at the fire, many of them videoing it on their smartphones.

  The boat to the port side of Benikhlef’s yacht was ablaze now but there didn’t seem to be anyone aboard. The jetty had now caught fire and flames were spreading quickly.

  ‘I think you might have overdone it, Gerry,’ said Yokely.

  McNee shrugged. ‘Guys, it’s not an exact science.’

  ‘Clearly not,’ said Yokely. ‘Let’s just hope they’re all insured.’

  Chapter 36

  Present Day, London

  C harlotte Button woke up to the sound of her mobile phone ringing. She groped for it and sat up, blinking her eyes until she could focus on the screen. It was just after six in the morning and Patsy Ellis was calling.

  ‘Yes, Patsy.’

  ‘Sorry about the early call, but I have some information for you,’ said Ellis.

  Button ran a hand through her hair. ‘No problem, I was planning on an early start anyway.’

  ‘I just wanted to fill you in on a development,’ said Ellis. ‘CCTV has thrown up a member of the stadium staff who appears to have supplied Naveed with his suicide vest. His name is Usman Yussuf. He works in the accounts department, apparently.’

  ‘Send me the details and I’ll pass them on to my people,’ said Button.

  ‘Unfortunately there’s a problem. Yussuf is a complete cleanskin and we don’t have his address on any of the databases. The only people who do have an address for him are the stadium’s human resources department and they’re not in the office yet.’

  ‘Are the police aware of him?’

  ‘Unfortunately yes, so I don’t see there’s any way you’ll be able to get to him first. Really I’m just calling to keep you in the loop. There is a chance he’s already gone into hiding or left the country, but if he hasn’t I expect him to be picked up early this morning. As soon as I have the details, I’ll send them to you. I’ll also be looking at Yussuf’s family and friends to see how that pans out. How are things progressing?’

  ‘Quickly, and efficiently,’ said Button. ‘Acton was interrogated and dealt with last night. Bolton and Birmingham were taken care of in the early hours. I passed on the information about Masood’s sons and they were all in the house, so they were done in one fell swoop. We need to talk about muddying the waters because it’s going to be a huge media story.’

  ‘How about lunch?’

  ‘Lunch?’

  ‘That meal between breakfast and dinner. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.’

  ‘I assumed you’d be in the office all day. The threat level is still at critical, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s still critical, but we all have to eat,’ said Ellis.

  ‘Then lunch it is,’ said Button.

  Chapter 37

  Present Day, London

  S hepherd walked into the café and looked around. It was just after seven-thirty and the clientele was a mixture of night workers grabbing a meal on the way home and early starters tucking into breakfast. Don Margrave was at a corner table with a full fry-up in front of him – eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms and beans. There were two slices of toast on the side and he was already halfway through a mug of tea. He didn’t get up but put down his knife and shook hands with Shepherd. ‘Wasn’t sure if you were going to be eating,’ he said by way of apology.

  ‘No problem. I can’t stay long – we’re all flat out at the moment, obviously.’

  He sat down and a waitress came over. He ordered tea and a bacon roll. ‘I tell you what, throw a sausage and an egg on it,’ he said.

  ‘Breakfast roll it is,’ she said and went over to the hatch to relay the order to the cook.

  ‘So you’re still with the Super-Recognisers?’ asked Margrave.

  Shepherd nodded. ‘Exiled to Siberia, but to be fair we’re leading the fight on the stadium thing. We ID’d the van driver who took him to the stadium and the employee who got the vest in for the bomber.’

  ‘Nice one.’

  ‘Yeah, there’s no doubt the system works. It’s just …’ He shrugged.

  ‘It’s as boring as fuck?’

  Shepherd laughed. ‘Yeah, it’s fighting crime through a computer terminal and while it gets results, it’s not what I signed up for.’

  ‘Kicking down doors and handcuffing bad guys loses its appeal after a while,’ said Margrave. He took a bite out of a slice of toast and washed it down with a gulp of tea. Margrave was a high-flyer with the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, also known as SO15. Margrave was in his late twenties but had already been assigned a senior role with the National Counter Terrorism Policing Network, under which all the police forces in the UK shared intel in the fight against terrorism. The NCTPN worked with the Home Office and MI5 and liaised with intelligence and criminal justice agencies around the world. Shepherd had met Margrave shortly after he had been assigned to NCTPN and had kept in close touch with him. He was a good no-nonsense copper who seemed to be more concerned about getting the job done than climbing the slippery promotion pole.

  ‘I hear you. But I wasn’t built for sitting at a desk.’

  ‘I did notice you’d put on some weight since the last time I saw you.’

  Shepherd laughed. ‘Yeah. Katra has moved down to London to take care of me while I’m based here, and she is one hell of a cook. That plus the fact I’m sitting at a terminal all day means I’m a few pounds heavier.’ He patted his stomach. ‘You’re right. I’m going to start exercising more.’ The waitress brought over his roll and a cup of tea. Shepherd grinned. ‘I’ll start tomorrow.’ He poured a splash of ketchup on his egg, bacon and sausage and took a bite.

  ‘So what do you need?’ asked Margrave, attacking his meal again. ‘I’m assuming this isn’t social.’

  Shepherd took a swig of his tea. ‘I just want to pick your brains about the way the stadium investigation is progressing,’ he said. ‘All the intel from my group is flowing one way and there’s not much getting out to the media. But I wanted to give you the nod about something we turned up last night. We know how Naveed got his explosive vest. One of the stadium employees, a Usman Yussuf, took it in and hid it in a storage room. Then he left his keycard in a toilet. Naveed collected the keycard, got the vest, and bang!’

  Margrave frowned. ‘That’s news to me.’

  ‘We only got the intel a few hours ago. The problem is we have his name and we know what he does at the stadium, but someone screwed up and we don’t have an address. He’s not on the electoral roll or the PNC and he doesn’t have a driver’
s licence. Until we can access the human resources database at the stadium we don’t have an address.’

  ‘Our guys know this?’

  ‘Sure, the Met gets all the intel we produce, and I liaise with my bosses. But even MI5 databases don’t show him.’

  ‘A complete cleanskin?’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘Probably by design. My boss has informed Border Force but you know how useless they are so there’s a good chance he’s already out of the country. But if he has stayed put obviously your guys need to go in first thing.’

  ‘I’ll make sure that happens,’ said Margrave, reaching for another slice of toast.

  Shepherd took a bite of his roll and a gulp of tea before continuing. ‘So what’s happening about the driver of the van that took Naveed to the stadium. Khuram Zaghba. Lives in Acton?’

  ‘Our guys went around but there’s no answer, so they assume he’s not there.’

  ‘They didn’t kick the door down?’

  ‘They need a warrant for that.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘He’s just a van driver, he’s not wanted, not believed to be armed. A couple of detectives went around and knocked on his door.’

  ‘If it was me I’d have sent an armed response unit in.’

  ‘In a predominantly Muslim area? Recipe for disaster, that would be.’

  ‘Don, we have him on video delivering a suicide bomber to his target. If that doesn’t merit an armed response then I don’t know what does.’

  ‘Decisions like that are taken above my pay grade,’ said Margrave. ‘But I’m told that a warrant will be obtained later today and they’ll have a locksmith with them this time.’

  ‘Better late than never,’ said Shepherd. ‘Though if he was in there when the detectives were knocking he’s probably done a runner by now.’ He took another bite of his roll. ‘How’s the investigation going with regard to Naveed?’

  ‘Total cleanskin, as you probably know, but really that’s because he slipped through the cracks like so many of these so-called refugees we allowed in. You wonder about the sanity of those in charge, don’t you? A guy turns up on our doorstep and claims to be a sixteen-year-old unaccompanied minor. We just welcome him in and put him with a foster family without running any of the most basic checks. I mean, does no one think about giving these guys a medical? Any dentist worth his salt would be able to give you the true age within a year or two. We’ve had so-called sixteen-year-olds being put into schools where they are a foot taller than their classmates and we’ve had rapes and assaults by the score, most of them hushed up. It’s as if there was a bloody conspiracy, run from the top. We estimate there are hundreds of guys like Naveed scattered around the country. Add that to all the home-grown jihadists we’ve got coming back and it’s a bloody nightmare. We’ve done away with almost all border checks on people leaving the country, and British passport holders can now swipe themselves through an automatic gate to get back in without even talking to Border Force. I mean, how stupid is that? If a Brit comes back from six months in Syria or Iraq or Pakistan then you’d think that someone would take them to one side and ask them what the fuck they’ve been doing. And if they don’t have a reasonable explanation then at the very least put an electronic tag on them for a year or two.’

  Shepherd chuckled. ‘I’m sure the human rights brigade would have something to say about that.’

  ‘Fuck them, you and I both know what it’s like in the real world, Spider,’ said Margrave. ‘Most of the time we’re playing catch-up with these guys. Naveed’s story will come out eventually and will show that he was an ISIS fighter who lied about his age to get into the UK solely for the purpose of committing a terrorist act. But will those who let him into the country be held responsible? Of course they won’t. And the liberal media will bleat about it not being an Islamic problem, that the percentage of jihadists is tiny compared with the overall Muslim population, but that’s not the bloody point, is it? The point is that one nutter like Naveed can kill more than thirty innocents and injure more than a hundred at a bloody football match and for what? They want Britain to become an Islamic state? Well that’s never going to happen, is it? And I will personally kill anyone who tries to stop me eating bacon.’

  He continued to tuck into his breakfast. His emotional outburst was clearly having no effect on his appetite.

  ‘Anything on his phone records?’ asked Shepherd. ‘Someone must have been running him.’

  ‘I haven’t seen them. Can’t you access the records through Five?’

  ‘Yeah, but like I said I’m out of the loop.’

  ‘I’ll have a look and let you know.’

  ‘Did he have a computer at home?’

  Margrave shook his head. ‘No. But he had a smartphone. It looks as if he had it on him when he detonated.’

  ‘I’m looking at all the Internet cafés within walking distance, checking CCTV footage to see if Naveed was using them. You might want to get the computers checked at school. He must have been getting his instructions from somewhere. Any thoughts on the vest? It’s unlikely that Yussuf would have put it together.’

  ‘That’s down to the forensics boys and whatever they can find at the scene. Could take weeks.’ He popped the final piece of toast into his mouth and swallowed. His plate was clean and he sat back and burped. He grinned. ‘Better out than in.’

  ‘The key to this investigation is to track down Naveed’s handler,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘He might not even be in the country,’ said Margrave. ‘If they communicate by email or text, he could be anywhere.’

  ‘What mosque did Naveed go to, do we know?’

  ‘Argyle Road was his regular one, but according to his foster parents he visited several in the area. In the early days they dropped him off and picked him up but over the last few months he insisted on going alone. Said he didn’t want to be driven to his place of worship by non-believers.’

  ‘Nice. Where are the foster parents?’

  ‘Helping us with our inquiries, as they say. We moved them out of the house while the forensics boys do their thing, but they’re happy to cooperate. They’re livid, actually. They say that the boy should never have been sent to them, that they told social services several times that he wasn’t what he claimed to be and the husband had actually been thinking of calling the anti-terrorist hotline. The school had also complained about him as he had been bothering some of the girls, but that problem was solved when he just stopped going.’

  Shepherd shook his head in annoyance. There had clearly been a plethora of red flags about Naveed and if anyone had taken it upon themselves to have acted, the terrorist incident at the stadium could have been nipped in the bud.

  Margrave looked at his watch. ‘Okay, I’ve got to dash. Good to see you again, Spider. I hope you get back on active duty sooner rather than later.’

  ‘You and me both,’ said Shepherd. He still had half his breakfast roll to finish. ‘I’ll get the bill.’

  ‘You’re a prince among men,’ said Margrave. He stood up and picked up his raincoat from the back of his chair. ‘If anything comes up, I’ll call you.’

  ‘Don’t forget Yussuf.’

  Margrave tapped the side of his head with his finger. ‘I might not have your eidetic memory but I can remember one simple name,’ he said. ‘I’m on it.’

  Shepherd picked up the remains of his roll as the detective left the café. He hated being on the outside of an investigation and not being able to see the big picture. If it wasn’t for picking Don Margrave’s brains he wouldn’t have a clue how the operation was progressing. He just hoped that Patsy Ellis would follow through on her promise to move him back to a more active role within MI5, because if she didn’t he would probably have no choice other than to leave and find employment elsewhere. That wasn’t a prospect he was looking forward to. If he left MI5 under a cloud his options would be restricted and that would mean having to work in the private sector. He shuddered. That wasn’t something that appealed
at all. He enjoyed working for the forces of good, even though more often than not he felt rules and regulations were constantly holding him back. At least he knew he had right on his side and that the targets he went up against deserved to be put behind bars. Things in the private sector were considerably less cut and dried and morality often took second place to whoever was picking up the bill. He put down the remains of his breakfast roll. He’d lost his appetite.

  Chapter 38

  Ten Years Ago, Dubai

  T he ringing of Yokely’s cell phone woke him from a dreamless sleep. He groped for the phone. The number was withheld but that was true of most of the calls he received, so he pressed the green button to take the call. It was Karl Traynor from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. ‘What time is it there?’ asked Traynor.

  ‘Early,’ said Yokely, sitting up and squinting at the digital clock on the bedside table. ‘Just after six.’

  ‘Ah well, the early worm catches the bird, as they say.’

  ‘That makes no sense at all,’ said Yokely. ‘Okay, so what do you have for me?’

  ‘I struck gold with one of the names you gave me. Abdul Aziz Al Amin. He’s covered his tracks well and I probably couldn’t prove to a court what he did, but I’ve no doubt he’s dirty. None of the option buys came through his bank accounts or companies of his, but there are just too many links for it to be coincidental. For instance, there was a flurry of purchases through a broker based out in the Cayman Islands. The brokerage is really nothing more than a plaque on a wall but Al Amin has half a dozen of his companies in the same building. There were more purchases from a bank in Jersey and Al Amin has accounts at the same branch. And there’s money moving out of his accounts that matches the value almost to the dollar of the price of several of the sell options. He’s been very clever at covering tracks, but I think I’m on to him.’