Tall Order: The 15th Spider Shepherd Thriller

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Two people closely connected to a suicide bomber are killed within hours of each other.’

  ‘One was an assassination by a drugs dealer who is now in police custody, the other was battered to death in an apparent racist attack.’

  Shepherd shook his head. ‘There’s more,’ he said. ‘Israr Farooqi. Naveed made a call to him. He’s also a refugee from Syria.’

  ‘I’m aware of that.’

  ‘And he’s just turned up tortured and killed in a lock-up a few miles from where he lived. Someone had hacked off one of his toes.’

  ‘And there was racist graffiti at the scene, I’m told.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘But how do you know about that? There’s a D Notice in force.’

  ‘A pal in SO15 tipped me off.’

  ‘Really? And who might that pal be, pray tell?’

  Shepherd ignored the question. ‘So you know what’s happened? The Birmingham cops got a tip-off that a guy called Jon Barnes was involved and the cops found the murder weapon at his house, along with a can of spray paint.’

  ‘So there’s no mystery there then. It was a racially motivated killing.’

  ‘In a lock-up six miles from where the victim lived? And what about the fact that Farooqi was tortured? Barnes runs the Anti-Muslim Brigade, which makes a habit of burning out Asian families. It’s a big jump from arson to abduction, torture and murder.’

  ‘Who said anything about abduction?’

  ‘What, you think that he went there on his own?’

  ‘He might have done. We don’t know. Maybe Farooqi was lured there, maybe he went to meet someone. I don’t think you can start making assumptions about abduction.’

  ‘Fine. But you have to ask why this Jon Barnes suddenly moved from arson to torture and why he was stupid enough to keep the murder weapon and the paint.’

  ‘In my experience, generally racists aren’t that bright. It’s really a prerequisite of being a racist, don’t you think?’

  ‘But you can see a pattern here, can’t you? Masood, Zaghba and Farooqi, all connected to Naveed one way or another, and all dead.’

  Ellis held up her hands and shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’

  ‘You think it’s a coincidence?’

  ‘In the absence of any concrete evidence linking the deaths, yes, that would be my conclusion.’

  Shepherd took a slow, deep breath before continuing. ‘I’m told that MI5 now has Farooqi’s laptop and phone.’

  Her eyes hardened. ‘And who told you that? Your friend in SO15? I’m starting to wonder if your friend is in the right job.’

  ‘He was just keeping me in the loop,’ said Shepherd. ‘I have the requisite security clearance.’

  ‘But that’s not your brief, Dan. Your brief is to organise the review of any CCTV footage that is pertinent to the investigation, and to keep me informed of any developments. Not to go gossiping with the police.’

  ‘It helps me to have sight of the bigger picture,’ said Shepherd. ‘And by keeping abreast of developments I know what CCTV footage to be looking at.’

  She said nothing for several seconds as she stared at him with unblinking eyes. He met her gaze, unwilling to look away. He didn’t want to be confrontational but he wasn’t going to let her browbeat him.

  ‘So to be absolutely clear, what exactly are you suggesting?’ she said eventually. ‘That someone killed Masood and his family and framed a drug dealer for the murders, and that same someone killed Khuram Zaghba and also tortured and killed Israr Farooqi?’

  ‘I’m suggesting that we look for a connection, yes.’

  ‘See now, Dan, that sounds like a conspiracy theory you’ve read on one of the crazier parts of the Internet. On a par with the Americans never went to the moon and that planes never hit the twin towers.’

  ‘Maybe there’s some sort of cover-up going on. Maybe Masood, Zaghba and Farooqi were party to some information that someone wants to keep secret. Maybe they were killed to keep that secret.’

  ‘What secret? What could they possibly know? They’re hardly masterminds, are they? They are foot soldiers in this war. And who is killing them? ISIS? Racists?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Shepherd. ‘Maybe it was their own people. Maybe they did know something and someone in ISIS decided it would be safer to take them out. And it would make sense for them to make it look as if it was the work of racists to throw us off the scent.’

  ‘Wouldn’t they want the killings to stand as a warning?’

  ‘It’s never good publicity to kill your own,’ said Shepherd. ‘Look, what I’m saying is that there’s something not right going on. And that perhaps we should look at it.’ Shepherd stood up. ‘I just thought I should express my concerns.’

  ‘Duly noted.’

  He headed for the door.

  ‘One thing, Dan, before you go,’ said Ellis. ‘I will pass on your concerns. And I will get the three killings looked at again. But no more off-the-books chats with investigators. Your role is not, and I repeat not, to cut across ongoing lines of inquiry. Clear?’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘Clear.’

  ‘Just concentrate on the task you’ve been given.’

  ‘I understand.’

  She dismissed him with a curt wave of her hand.

  Shepherd left the office and went down in the lift deep in thought. Working undercover was often a matter of life and death and a key part of surviving was to be able to read people, to tell when they were being truthful and when they were lying. Shepherd knew without a shadow of a doubt that Ellis was hiding something. It was clear from her reaction that she knew that Farooqi’s laptop and phone had been sent to MI5 for analysis. Shepherd hadn’t pressed her because he could see that she was already on the defensive but there was clearly something not right. According to Margrave, MI5 had been quick off the mark to request the laptop and the phone. The question was, how had they known to ask for it? Farooqi lived in Birmingham and it had been the Birmingham cops who had received the tip-off about the body. They wouldn’t have known that Ali Naveed had phoned Farooqi, or that Farooqi was in any way connected to a terrorism investigation. Margrave had said that it had been officers from SO15 who had gone to Farooqi’s flat. So far as the Birmingham cops were concerned, Farooqi’s torture and murder were racially motivated. That being the case, there would be no reason to pass the details on to the Met and if the Met hadn’t been told then they couldn’t have passed the information on to MI5. The fact that MI5 had requested the laptop and phone so quickly and had been ready with a D Notice right from the off suggested they had prior knowledge of the discovery of the body – and that opened up a whole new can of worms.

  Chapter 58

  Ten Years Ago, Leeds

  M cNee’s breakfast place was a small restaurant frequented by truck drivers on one of the main roads out of Leeds. They talked as they tucked into plates of egg, bacon, sausage and baked beans.

  ‘We really need to find this Hakeem Khaled,’ said Yokely. ‘He’s the one who put it all together. The Brits don’t seem to know about him. Or at least he’s not on any of their watch lists. But they gave him a passport so he must be in the system.’

  ‘What about the States?’ asked McNee. ‘There must be a record of him flying in or out?’

  Yokely shook his head. ‘He must have used another passport under another name because there’s no record of a Hakeem Khaled flying in before or after the downing of the jet. I need to access the email account that El Saadawi used.’

  ‘There’s an Internet café down the road,’ said McNee. He looked at his watch. ‘Should be open in half an hour.’

  ‘Perfect timing,’ said Yokely.

  They finished their breakfasts and ordered more coffees. At nine o’clock, Yokely walked down the road to the café and paid for an hour’s Internet access. He left McNee and Leclerc drinking coffee, figuring that three Americans sitting around a single computer might look suspicious. He sat down in front of a terminal that had been used so often, t
he lettering on many of the keys had worn away.

  Yokely tapped in the password that El Saadawi had given him to access the Yahoo account. He opened the draft folder. There were two emails. Yokely opened the first one. He smiled when he saw that it was from Saladin, the name that Khaled had used when talking to Hamid bin Faisal. And his smile widened when he saw that the email was in English.

  The two men had taken it in turns to write on the draft email, and they had added to the message rather than deleting what had already been written. There was a lot of Islamic rhetoric and both men were careful with their language. There were no references to weapons or missiles or terrorist acts. Shabir was referred to by name, which was careless tradecraft, but all they talked about was how Shabir would be getting to the US and how he would be met. El Saadawi also talked about other worshippers at his mosque who he planned to send to Afghanistan for what he called ‘further study’.

  Yokely stared at the email for several minutes, deep in thought. Khaled wouldn’t know that El Saadawi was dead. There was a chance – albeit a slim one – that Khaled would respond to any messages left in the draft file. There was only one other person using the café and he had headphones on and was Skyping his girlfriend, so Yokely took out his cell phone and called Sam Hepburn at the National Security Agency. It was only when Hepburn answered that Yokely remembered the time difference – it was the early hours in Maryland.

  ‘Sam, sorry, were you sleeping?’

  ‘No problem, Richard, I had to get up to answer the phone,’ said Hepburn, his voice loaded with sarcasm.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Sam. But I’m in the middle of something important. Are you at home?’

  ‘That tends to be where I sleep, yes.’ Yokely heard Hepburn whisper to someone, probably his wife, telling her that it was a work call. ‘Go ahead, Richard, what do you need?’

  Yokely explained that he was about to leave a message in a draft folder and he wanted Hepburn to monitor the account and locate whoever responded.

  ‘I can do that, no problem,’ said Hepburn. ‘I can set it up from here. It’ll take me about five minutes. Give me the account name and password.’

  Yokely gave him the information, thanked him and ended the call. He waited five minutes and then added a message to the email in the draft folder.

  Think not of those who are slain in Allah’s way as dead. Nay, they live, finding their sustenance in the presence of their Lord. I will be in the UK next week. Can we meet?

  He closed the file and opened the second message in the draft folder. The original message had been created two months earlier and again the updates had been added with no deletions. There was an MP4 video file attached to the email. The name of the file was BRADSHAW. Yokely clicked on it. It was a white man, mid-thirties, holding a Grail missile. Behind him was an al-Qaeda flag. The video was about three minutes long. Bradshaw had a black and white checked keffiyeh scarf around his neck. He spoke earnestly, staring at the camera with deep-set eyes. The West was intent on destroying Muslims around the world, they hated the religion as much as they feared it, and it was the duty of every Muslim to fight the aggressor. He was going to teach the West a lesson they would never forget, he said. He finished his rambling speech with an impassioned ‘ Allahu Akbar’, the effect of which was somewhat spoiled by the fact that he then had to crawl forward to stop the videoing.

  Yokely sat back in his chair. Bradshaw was the man Alex Kleintank had talked about, the British Muslim convert who wanted to buy a Grail missile. From the sound of it, he had managed to acquire one. In a perfect world Yokely could just pass the intel on to Dan Shepherd or his boss, Charlotte Button, but Yokely and his team were supposed to be below the radar. And if Bradshaw was apprehended then that might well lead the British to Kleintank and El Saadawi and who knew what else. Yokely was going to have to take care of it, and quickly.

  He went back to the email. There was a discussion back and forth about renting an office by the Thames. A high floor with a view across the river and no CCTV coverage in the corridors. The office had been rented in the name of a shelf company and the keys sent to a mailbox in Mayfair. The video was to be released to various news outlets once Bradshaw had carried out his mission. Again there were many quotes from the Koran, including, ‘But do not think of those that have been slain in God’s cause as dead. Nay, they are alive! With their Sustainer have they their sustenance.’ It sounded as if Bradshaw was intent on a suicide mission.

  He cleared his browsing history, switched off the computer and walked out of the café. He lit one of his small cigars and walked slowly back to the restaurant, where McNee and Leclerc were still nursing their coffees. They looked at him expectantly.

  ‘Slight change of plan,’ he said. ‘We have a new target. A British jihadist who is planning to create havoc in London. I’ve got the address of an office he’s going to be using. And it looks like we’re going to have to move quickly.’

  Chapter 59

  Present Day, London

  T here were more than two dozen officers sitting at workstations when Shepherd got back to the unit. Sergeant Hurry was still at his desk and Inspector Hughes had drafted in another two Super-Recognisers to watch footage from the Argyle Street Mosque, going back three months. Anyone who was seen with Ali Naveed was identified and run through the various anti-terrorism databases. So far they had found three matches, young men who had returned from Syria after fighting with ISIS. All three were on MI5’s watch list, though none was under active surveillance. Shepherd figured the fact that they were now linked to a suicide bomber who had killed three dozen people meant that would almost certainly change.

  While Shepherd had been out of the office, Eric Fitzpatrick had turned his attention to another Internet café, this one on Ealing Road. He had seen Naveed entering two weeks earlier, three times in one day. Shepherd phoned Amar Singh and gave him the details and Singh promised to go over straight away to collect any computers that Naveed had used.

  Shepherd settled down in front of his screen and picked up the map showing the routes between Israr Farooqi’s flat and the garage. He’d watched the footage from three of the feeds in their entirety and had discovered more than a dozen vehicles that had been both close to the flat and also in the area of the lock-up. Eight were Uber cabs, seven of which were variations of the Toyota Prius and one of which was a Skoda. Six of the eight were driven by young men with Muslim names but none was on either the police or MI5’s database.

  Three of the vehicles were pizza delivery vans. Shepherd couldn’t get details of the drivers but the companies that owned the vans seemed genuine. He had marked them all down for further investigation as a pizza van would be the perfect cover for moving a body, dead or alive.

  One of the vehicles belonged to an emergency plumbing firm and there were so many sightings in the area that Shepherd figured it was out on calls, but again he made a note to have the van checked out.

  One of the cars was a red Hyundai hatchback driven by a young Muslim guy by the name of Muzhar Jhangir who was as busy as the pizza delivery vans, appearing on all three of the feeds at various times. Jhangir wasn’t known to the security services but he was of interest to the Birmingham Police Drugs Squad, who were reasonably sure that he was a heroin and crack cocaine dealer. He had only one conviction, for marijuana possession as a teenager, but there was plenty of intel that suggested he was connected to a major British-Pakistani drugs gang. Shepherd sent off a memo to the Drugs Squad telling them of Jhangir’s night-time activities and suggesting that they pull in his car at some point.

  Shepherd made himself comfortable and clicked his mouse to restart the feed he had been watching. It was mind-crushingly boring. All he was doing was watching cars drive down a road. The time code said it was just after one a.m. and the camera was covering a junction with traffic lights. Shepherd was already about halfway through the feed and the traffic had died down after the first couple of hours and most of his time was spent watching the lights change. A M
ercedes sports car pulled up at a red light. A Porsche pulled up next to it. There was no sound but Shepherd knew that engines were being revved and as soon as the lights changed the two cars raced off. Shepherd smiled to himself. Boys and their toys.

  The lights changed. Vehicles came and went. All Shepherd had to do was to keep his eyes open. Concentrating didn’t help; his memory functioned on automatic. When he did see a car he recognised, it was as if there was a tickle somewhere in his head, followed by the memory of where he had seen it before. He didn’t have to strain or try; it just happened.

  Half an hour passed. He recognised one of the Uber cars again. The guy was clearly having a busy night. Then a silver grey Toyota Avensis pulled up at the lights. Shepherd tensed and leaned forward to get a better look at the number plate. He had seen the car in an earlier feed, close to Farooqi’s flat. With no effort at all he could recall the time when the Avensis had appeared in the other feed. Ten minutes to midnight. The time on the feed he was looking at was one thirty-five. The timing was right if the Avensis had driven to the flat, picked up Farooqi and was now driving him to the lock-up.

  He tapped into the DVLA database and within seconds had ascertained that the car was taxed and insured and belonged to Nicholas Brett, a dentist in Leicester. Brett had been caught in speed traps in the Leicester area twice over the past year and had six penalty points on his licence. Shepherd checked him out on the Police National Computer but there was nothing. Other than a few speeding tickets, Mr Brett was a model citizen. Shepherd frowned, wondering why a Leicester dentist was driving around Birmingham at night. He pulled up the man’s driving licence and studied the photograph. Middle-aged, a full head of hair, almost smiling for the camera.

  He entered the number into the National Automatic Number Plate Recognition Data Centre database. The National ANPR centre was based in Hendon, North London, and its computers read and analysed more than 100 million number plates every day, storing the information for two years. The ANPR was run separately from the Police National Computer and officers would often cross-check the two databases. The police, and the security services, could use the ANPR database to track vehicles across the country, and often identify the drivers, depending on the quality of the pictures and video. They had real-time access to all the country’s ANPR camera data, though records less than ninety days old needed an inspector’s authority to be viewed, and over ninety days the inquiry had to be counter-terrorism-related and a superintendent had to sign off on it.