Tall Order: The 15th Spider Shepherd Thriller

by Stephen Leather

  A waitress appeared and poured wine into Button’s glass.

  Ellis lifted her glass and toasted Button. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming and thank you for …’ She smiled. ‘You know what for.’

  They clinked glasses and both drank. Button took a sip of the chilled white wine, but Ellis took two large swallows. When she put the glass down, the waitress reappeared and refilled it. Ellis caught Button’s look and she smiled defensively. ‘One glass, darling. And we are celebrating.’

  ‘You’re entitled,’ Button said.

  Ellis nodded. ‘The funeral is on Tuesday.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  Ellis took a deep breath to steady herself. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Does anyone at Five know that you were Eleanor’s godmother?’

  Ellis shook her head. ‘No, and there’s no reason for them to, either. Her parents are civilians, there’s no blood connection and they were never mentioned during my positive vetting.’

  ‘And how’s Tony?’

  ‘He’s a rock. But you know Tony. He’s a great one for locking away his emotions. He’d have made a great spy.’

  ‘I’ve always thought that.’

  ‘He was approached at Cambridge. He turned them down without a second thought. Funny old world. If things had gone differently he could have been running Five and I’d be … What would I be, Charlie?’

  ‘Not a housewife, that’s for sure,’ said Button. ‘Five is lucky to have you, Patsy. This country is lucky to have you.’

  Ellis blinked away tears. ‘I can’t thank you enough, Charlie.’ She reached across the table and held Button’s hand.

  ‘Hush,’ said Button. ‘I’m happy to do whatever you want.’ She lowered her voice and leaned towards her. ‘But I have to ask. Does it make you any happier?’

  Ellis sniffed. ‘What about you? When you killed the men who murdered your husband? How did you feel?’

  Button sighed. ‘I wasn’t happy. It didn’t bring him back. But at night, when I was trying to get to sleep, the fact that I had done something to avenge him, yes, it was a comfort. If they had still been walking around, breathing air and living life, that would have eaten me up. But they were dead and fuck them, they deserved to die.’

  Ellis forced a smile. ‘Exactly,’ she said.

  ‘But why not have them questioned, Patsy? The people I’m using are well able to do basic interrogations. They might have useful intel.’

  ‘And what would I do with said intel? How could I explain it?’ She sat back and picked up her glass. ‘Fuck them,’ she said.

  Button nodded in agreement. ‘Yes. Fuck them.’

  Ellis let go of Button’s hand. The two women clinked glasses and this time they both drank enthusiastically. Ellis beat the waitress to the bottle and refilled both glasses. They ordered. Button asked for the fish pie, which she had pretty much every time she visited Sheekey’s. Ellis ordered the lemon sole.

  They waited for the waitress to leave before continuing. ‘I have Farooqi’s laptop for you,’ said Button. ‘And his phone.’

  ‘Where is he? The police went around to his flat but he wasn’t there and the security chain was broken.’

  ‘I don’t know exactly but he won’t be found until we want him to be found. What do the police think?’

  Ellis smiled ruefully. ‘They tend not to be great thinkers, in my experience,’ she said. ‘All I have is a report that an armed response unit went in and the cupboard was bare. They are assuming he did a runner but that doesn’t explain the busted door, obviously. Because there were no signs of a struggle inside the apartment they are assuming that the damage was done earlier.’

  ‘Farooqi was questioned and he said that he was awaiting activation,’ said Button. ‘His handler used the codename Saladin.’

  Ellis frowned. ‘Saladin? That sounds familiar.’

  ‘The first sultan of Egypt and Syria and led the Muslim military campaign against the Crusaders. At one point he ruled over Egypt, Syria, the Yemen and a big chunk of North Africa. But as he died in 1193, we can assume it’s not him.’

  ‘I thought your degree was in English.’

  ‘Google,’ said Button. She sipped her wine. ‘Now according to Farooqi, Naveed called him to say that Saladin had given him his task.’

  ‘So they shared the same handler?’

  Button nodded. ‘I can’t find anything on him but you might have more luck. According to Farooqi, Naveed met this Saladin at a London mosque. We don’t know which one unfortunately.’

  ‘I’ll reach out to the Americans. And the Europeans. Though since the Brexit referendum, European cooperation has fallen to new lows.’ She ran her finger around the rim of her wine glass. ‘The problem is, they’ll want to know where the intel came from.’

  ‘It’s on the laptop.’

  ‘And how did I get the laptop?’ She forced a smile. ‘It’s getting complicated, Charlie.’

  ‘I did warn you. But you need to get your technical boys to look at it. Who knows what intel is on it?’

  Ellis nodded. ‘The problem there is that I can hardly turn up at Thames House with his laptop, can I?’

  ‘How about we send a tip so that Farooqi’s body is discovered. We could put a left luggage ticket on the body, which leads to the computer. The phone can be on the body. Once we’ve set the scene we can give the police an anonymous tip.’

  Ellis nodded. ‘That sounds very workable.’

  ‘Farooqi and Zaghba weren’t shot. The proverbial blunt instruments did the trick. And there was racist graffiti left at both scenes. We can use the spray cans to point at a racist group. And I have the murder weapon that was used to kill Farooqi.’

  ‘Can you do that?’

  ‘Just say the word.’

  Ellis nodded slowly. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Yes. Please.’ She sipped her wine but the sip quickly turned into a gulp. Her hand trembled slightly and she took extra care when putting the glass back on the table. She forced a smile. ‘So this Saladin is running the jihadists who have come over from Syria? There could be others?’

  ‘I would say that’s a definite possibility,’ said Button. ‘Obviously he needs looking at. He could be someone from the higher echelons of ISIS, he could be an up-and-coming unknown, for all we know he could be a bloody Brit.’

  ‘The degree of sophistication suggests that he’s been around for a while,’ said Ellis.

  ‘But until we get some hard intel, it’s all guesswork. I’ll get the laptop set up, put the hammer and cans in place, then I’ll make a call.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ said Button. ‘As soon as I have my ducks in a row, I’ll let you know.’ She took a sip of wine. ‘Patsy, I’m on the outside these days of course, but I did have a thought.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘This Saladin has to be the ultimate target, obviously. It looks as if he planned the bombing and put it all together.’

  ‘That being the case he has probably already left the country.’

  ‘Yes, true. But Farooqi has a line of communication in place. Through the email draft folder. I presume that it’s a two-way street. So a message could be sent to Saladin and if GCHQ was on the ball …’

  ‘They could track his location.’ Ellis nodded. ‘Good idea, Charlie.’

  ‘But that means keeping Farooqi’s death under wraps. You’d need a D Notice on it immediately. Complete news blackout. As soon as it becomes known that Farooqi is dead …’ She shrugged but didn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘I’ll make sure that happens,’ said Ellis. She smiled. There was a haunted look in her eyes and Button figured it would be there for some time to come. ‘The Masood family is a bit more problematical,’ Ellis went on. ‘The Greater Manchester Police have kept a lid on it but I think it’ll be in the papers tomorrow or at least the day after. Not that I’m shedding any tears over them. They were all potential jihadists, just waiting for the call.’

  �
�Who is handling the investigation in Bolton?’

  ‘GMP, but bearing in mind the family’s jihadists connections the Met has offered to send some of their anti-terrorist police up to assist. Five Asians shot dead in their beds. We obviously need to muddy the waters but it’s not the normal sort of racist attack, is it?’

  ‘I did have a thought about that. We could make it look drug-related.’

  Ellis raised her eyebrows. ‘That might work.’

  ‘Lots of drug-related activity in that neck of the woods. We plant the gun on a local dealer, make it look as if the Masood family were dealing or importing. It wouldn’t be hard. It’d put the cops on the wrong track and provided they had a name in the frame they probably wouldn’t bother looking elsewhere.’

  ‘Can you fix it?’

  ‘Of course. Just say the word.’

  Ellis thought about it for several seconds, and then nodded slowly. ‘Yes. Do it. Please.’

  ‘And do you have other names in the pipeline?’

  ‘The cops have pulled in half a dozen of Naveed’s contacts and are interrogating them as we speak,’ she said. ‘As you know, usually they are released within a day or two, no charges and no bail.’

  ‘What about the employee who took the vest in for Naveed?’

  ‘Usman Yussuf? No sign of him but we’re looking. Border Force are on the lookout but I won’t be holding my breath.’

  Button knew what Ellis meant. There were few if any checks on people leaving the country, mainly as the result of government cutbacks. But even if Border Force had the manpower, usually people leaving the country weren’t a priority, the theory being that if they left they would be someone else’s problem. Button nodded. ‘How is the investigation going, generally?’

  ‘It’s not really an investigation, more fact gathering. We know who took Naveed to the stadium. We know who took in the vest. Forensics are trying to piece together what’s left of it to see if there’s any sort of signature but that could take for ever. Shepherd is doing his thing with the CCTV and we’ll follow up on all Naveed’s contacts. But the way things stand, we’ll probably never know all the details. As you said, Saladin is the key, but at the moment all we have is a name.’

  Their food arrived. As always the fish pie smelled delicious and Button tucked in with relish. Ellis picked at her fish but clearly didn’t have much in the way of an appetite. Considering what she had been through, Button was surprised she could eat at all. She didn’t seem to have any problem with the wine, though, and even before Button had got halfway through her pie, Ellis had ordered a second bottle.

  Chapter 46

  Present Day, London

  Y okely and Leclerc flew into London on separate flights. McNee had booked them rooms in the Sheraton Skyline Hotel at the airport and he and Yokely had breakfast in the restaurant while they waited for Leclerc to arrive. Over coffee and eggs and bacon, Yokely briefed McNee on Rashid Makhdoom’s family.

  ‘Rashid lived with his parents in a house in Stoke Newington, North London,’ said Yokely. ‘It’s a big immigrant area, lots of Turks and Iraqis there. It’s not far from Finsbury Park Mosque. According to David’s MI5 contact, Rashid is a cleanskin, not on any watch lists. His brother is a different matter. Latif Makhdoom is three years younger and was born in London. He went to Pakistan a year ago, ostensibly to attend a wedding there, but MI5 believe he crossed the border into Afghanistan and spent several months training with al-Qaeda. Their father made the trip with Latif and the wedding does seem to have taken place but the father returned on his own.’

  McNee nodded. ‘So the father must have known what the boy was up to.’

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ said Yokely. ‘Plus both the boys lived at home; the parents must have seen their sons being radicalised. The fact that the father went to Pakistan with the son while the mother stayed at home is a red flag to me. Now, Latif was on MI5’s radar but Rashid wasn’t. There’s no evidence that Rashid was training in Afghanistan but the Brits are pretty lax with their borders, as we know. People are checked coming in but there are no checks on people leaving most of the time. Right, we’re going to take care of the whole family. I’m thinking a fire?’

  ‘It happens,’ said McNee.

  Yokely handed McNee a piece of paper with the address of the house. ‘Go ahead and put a plan together.’

  McNee buttered a triangle of toast. ‘What about the other UK guy? Shabir Rauf? What’s his situation?’

  ‘David’s up north checking him out. Rauf has an uncle on the no-fly list, but Rauf himself is another cleanskin. We’ll take out the uncle for sure. Let’s see what else David comes up with. The imam at the mosque Rauf attended is a firebrand and is known to be sending potential jihadists over to Afghanistan for al-Qaeda training.’

  ‘So the imam too?’

  Yokely nodded. ‘Definitely.’

  David Dalton arrived in London late afternoon and went straight to their hotel. He met Yokely, McNee and Leclerc down in the bar. They grabbed a corner table away from prying eyes and over beers he gave them details of Shabir Rauf’s imam, an Egypt-born cleric who had been granted British citizenship shortly before the 9/11 attacks. His name was Mohammed El Saadawi and MI5 had been watching him for some time after it had become clear that young men from the mosque were travelling to Pakistan and staying for months at a time, presumably crossing into Afghanistan for al-Qaeda training. The imam taught special classes in the evenings, ostensibly studying the Koran, but in reality he was grooming his favoured students to be jihadists and once he was satisfied they were ready, he arranged for them to be sent to Afghanistan for specialist training.

  ‘The mosque is in a place called Dewsbury, south of Leeds,’ said Dalton. ‘It’s one of the biggest mosques in the UK and can hold up to four thousand men.’

  ‘Four hundred, you mean,’ said Leclerc.

  ‘Four thousand,’ said Dalton. ‘It’s huge. There are more than three hundred thousand Muslims in Yorkshire. The mosque is in a place called Savile Town and of the four thousand people living there fewer than a hundred are white British. You have to see it to believe it.’ Dalton had a briefcase with him and he opened it and took out half a dozen surveillance photographs. He spread them out over the table. The imam was tall and stick-thin with a long beard and a hooked nose. In several of the photographs he was wearing a long thawb robe and riding a woman’s bicycle.

  ‘He rides to and from the mosque on this bike,’ said Dalton. ‘He’s single, and according to MI5 has a thing about pre-pubescent boys, which at some point they hope to blackmail him with.’

  ‘Is he under surveillance?’ asked Yokely.

  ‘Not at the moment. Not on a regular basis, anyway. My contact says they’re working on putting an undercover agent into the mosque so they’re leaving him pretty much alone until that comes off. Do you need to talk to him, or just off him?’

  ‘A chat would be good,’ said Yokely. ‘What do you have in mind?’

  ‘He rides to the mosque every morning at about half four in time for morning prayers. It would be easy enough to pick him up. And there’s a self-storage place that’s open twenty-four hours a day on the main road to Leeds. I could fix us up with a unit. No one would disturb us and the roads are quiet at that time of the day.’

  ‘Morning it is. We can do the family in Stoke Newington tonight and head straight up to Dewsbury to grab the imam first thing.’

  ‘So no sleep then?’ asked McNee.

  ‘Plenty of time for sleep when you’re dead,’ said Leclerc.

  McNee scowled at the Canadian. ‘I can keep going longer than you, Peter, any day of the week.’

  ‘Challenge accepted,’ said Leclerc.

  ‘I don’t think it’s doable,’ said Dalton. ‘Even at night it’s a four-hour drive minimum to Dewsbury from Stoke Newington. We’d need to be in place by four.’

  Yokely grimaced. Dalton was right. ‘Okay, so we come back to the hotel here and check out first thing. Get to Dewsbury early afternoon. We
can do a recce of his house and mosque and get the lie of the land. And we can check out the storage unit facility.’ He sipped his beer. ‘What about disposal?’ he asked Dalton.

  ‘I can pay for the unit for a year in advance. Providing there’s no smell, it won’t be disturbed. Wrap it in plastic and we’re good to go. We can either leave it there to decompose or move it later.’

  ‘Do that,’ said Yokely.

  ‘What about the uncle?’ asked McNee. ‘Didn’t you say he was on a no-fly list?’

  ‘The Americans won’t let him fly but he’s got a pretty common name – Mohammed Ahmad – so there could just be some confusion,’ said Dalton.

  ‘The Brits aren’t looking at him?’

  Dalton shook his head. ‘No, he and his nephew aren’t on any British watch lists.’

  Yokely nodded slowly. ‘Okay, then maybe the uncle has a pass. Let’s see what the imam says. And what about the ringleader, this Hakeem Khaled?’

  ‘Nothing so far,’ said Dalton. ‘MI5 haven’t heard of him and neither have the anti-terrorist cops. If he was a Palestinian who was given asylum there’ll be a Home Office file on him but my contacts there are non-existent.’

  ‘Mine aren’t much better,’ said Yokely. ‘Homeland Security don’t know of him, either, and there’s no record of him flying into the country under that name. Looks like Khaled is managing to keep below the radar. But I’m on his case. Okay, can you get everything ready for Dewsbury? And we’ll need night-vision goggles for tonight.’ He looked over at Leclerc. ‘And we’ll need your lock-picking skills, Peter.’

  Chapter 47

  Present Day, Birmingham

  T here were two men in the van that had been painted in the livery of a Birmingham plumbing company. The men wore matching blue overalls and heavy workboots and soft black leather gloves. They had parked in front of the lock-up and had spent ten minutes just sitting there, getting the lie of the land. The lock-up was secure and pedestrians were few and far between.