‘It’s a game of luck.’
‘Do you play?’
‘I’ve played.’
‘Do you win?’
‘Fifty-fifty.’
‘Then you’re not playing properly. There’s an element of luck but poker is basically a game of skill, of playing the odds and the percentages. I am a good player. And the way I was being beaten …’ He threw up his hands. ‘They were cheating.’
‘So why run up a tab?’
‘When I first started playing it wasn’t rigged. It was only when I moved up to the high-roller tables that it started to happen. I chased my losses for a while but then it became clear they were cheating. I’d have a pair of kings and I’d go in heavy. Two or three would stay with me to see the flop. The flop’s got nothing but there was an outside chance of a flush maybe, or a straight, so I’d go all in. One guy stays with me and he’s chasing a straight. Who the fuck does that? It makes no sense at all. But time and time again I’d lose. Now, you get that nonsense in cheap tournaments or when just a few dollars are at stake, but I was playing for thousands and I was supposedly playing against professionals. No way would they make stupid calls. So I was being conned. No question.’
‘And you refused to pay?’
‘Of course. They were fucking cheating. Had to be. Then they had the balls to come and push me around. You think I should just let that go?’
‘I understand your position, Stefan. But the reason I’m here is to put an end to it. My bosses run the business and just want things to go back to the way they were.’
‘They started it,’ said Bazarov.
‘They didn’t know what was going on, I can promise you that,’ said Shepherd. ‘What about your father? Does he know what happened here?’
Bazarov’s eyes narrowed. ‘What the fuck does my father have to do with any of this?’
Shepherd stared back at him. ‘I was just asking.’
The Russian’s eyes narrowed even further, until they were just slits. ‘Do you know my father?’
‘Not personally, no.’
‘What the fuck does that mean? “Not personally”. What are you getting at?’
‘It’s a straightforward question to help me ascertain what the position is here, that’s all. The men who shot Rosenfeld and the Serbs, I’m guessing your father didn’t send them because I can’t think he’d send hitmen from Moscow just to fire warning shots. Am I right?’
Bazarov pointed a finger at Shepherd’s face. ‘You need to be very careful when you talk about my father. He doesn’t like being talked about. Especially by people who don’t know him.’
‘I’ve got nothing but respect for him,’ said Shepherd. ‘But I’m guessing that this is a personal problem between you and the online casino. Your father isn’t involved.’
‘I don’t need my father to fight my battles.’
‘I’m not saying you do,’ said Shepherd. ‘From where I’m looking, I don’t think you want him to know, right?’
‘What the fuck do you mean by that?’
‘Your father sent you here because of the shit that went down in Moscow. You shot Timofei Ivakin and witnesses identified you. Now, I know you and your father aren’t worried about the cops, but the boy you killed was the son of another Moscow gangster and that’s why your father sent you packing. What did he say? Lie low until he’s taken care of it? What’s he planning to do? Pay his way out of it or kill Leonid Ivakin?’
‘You need to be careful when you talk about my father.’
‘Yeah, you said. The question that comes to my mind, though, is this. Just how mad is your dad going to be if he finds out you’ve been shooting people again? Did he say keep a low profile, keep your head down? Because that’s not what’s happening, is it?’
‘He wouldn’t want me being ripped off,’ said Bazarov.
‘No doubt,’ said Shepherd. ‘But the whole point of sending you to Marbella was to keep you below the radar. If you start a gang war here in Spain, Leonid Ivakin might hear about it. Then what? Does he send people here to take care of business? Then it gets very messy, doesn’t it?’
‘This is starting to sound like a threat.’
Shepherd shook his head. ‘I’ve no interest in threatening anyone, Stefan. I’m a peacemaker. That’s why I was sent here, to make the peace. My bosses aren’t happy that their head of security has been shot, but providing that’s the end of it I think they’ll be okay to let it drop. The question is, do you plan to take it any further? Because if you do, my bosses will take action. And it won’t be peacemakers they send.’
‘That’s definitely a threat,’ sneered Bazarov.
‘Stefan, I know you’re a hard bastard. I know you can hurt people. You’ve shown you have no problem with taking a life. Could you kill me? I’d say no. You try and you’ll end up dead, I can pretty much promise you that. That’s not a threat, it’s a statement of fact. But could you kill Rosenfeld? Of course you could. And Carlos García. He’d be dead tomorrow if you wanted it. But what I’m saying is that if this does escalate, if people do start to die, then other people are going to notice. In London and in Moscow. I’m here to try to stop that happening.’
‘By shooting me?’
‘What bit of “peacemaker” don’t you understand, Stefan? Look, the online casino may or may not have ripped you off. Rosenfeld acted rashly by sending the Serbs in to do a spot of debt-collecting.’
‘They pushed me around,’ said Bazarov. ‘They disrespected me.’
‘And they realise the error of their ways. As does Rosenfeld. It was a mistake, and if it’s any help, you have my apology for what happened. They did what they did without the approval of their bosses in London. No one is going to be pressing you for the debt to be repaid.’
‘There is no fucking debt,’ snarled Bazarov.
Shepherd held up his hands. ‘No argument here,’ he said. ‘That’s not an issue any more. The issue is where we go to from here. I’ve spoken to the Serbs and they won’t be taking it any further.’
‘Because they’re scared.’
‘They’re not scared. But they weren’t aware of who you are and who your father is. So far as they’re concerned, you were just a client who had reneged on a debt. Here’s the thing, Stefan. There is no debt, the Serbs have no quarrel with you. I just want your assurance that the matter’s closed and we can put it to bed. We don’t need anyone to be shaking hands but we do need to know that there’s no bad feeling.’
Bazarov nodded slowly. ‘I’ve made my point,’ he said. ‘Providing my point is well taken, there’s no bad feeling. We can all move on.’
Shepherd smiled. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’
‘But tell me one thing. If I hadn’t agreed, if I’d wanted to go to war, would you have shot me?’
Shepherd smiled. ‘That’s not what I do, Stefan,’ he said.
Bazarov returned the smile but his eyes were ice cold. ‘I’m not sure that’s true,’ he said.
The drive from London to Sheffield took almost four hours, including a short toilet break at a service station on the M1. Their destination was a semi-detached house in a cul-de-sac. Just before they reached it they passed a large brick mosque with twin minarets. It had the look of an industrial building and if it hadn’t been for the green tops of the minarets they would have passed for chimneys.
‘That’s the Madina Masjid,’ said Sunny.
‘It’s a good mosque, brother,’ said Ash. ‘You have a lot of friends there.’
‘No,’ said Mohammed al-Hussain. ‘I have no friends in England.’
‘I mean brothers who support what you’re doing. Many of the brothers there have been for training in Pakistan.’
Al-Hussain leaned forward. ‘No one must know I am here,’ he said.
‘Sure, yeah, of course, brother,’ said Ash, hurriedly.
‘Bruv, you can relax, we’ll take good care of you. Me and Ash, we trained in Pakistan. We know how it goes.’
Al-Hussain didn’t say a
nything. He had taken a dislike to Sunny but there was nothing to be gained by antagonising him.
‘We did all sorts of good shit out there. Fired AK-47s and saw them let off RPGs. It was the dog’s bollocks, hey, Ash?’
Ash smiled thinly but he still didn’t speak.
When they arrived, Ash stopped the car in front of the garage at the side of the house. Sunny got out and opened the up-and-over door. Ash drove in carefully and Sunny brought the door down behind them.
Ash got out and switched on a long fluorescent tube that flickered for several seconds before filling the garage with a clinical white light. Al-Hussain stepped out of the car, holding his bag, and Ash took him through a side door into a large kitchen with a circular table and four chairs. Two more Asian men were sitting there, both in their twenties, with long, unkempt beards. One was wearing a knitted skull cap.
‘This is Jay. And Adam.’
The two men nodded but didn’t get up. There were glasses of water on the table and a bowl of peanuts. The shells lay scattered over the table and on the floor.
‘This is Hammad,’ said Ash. ‘Can I get you a drink, Hammad? Or food?’
‘Perhaps later,’ said al-Hussain. ‘At the moment I would like to bathe, to pray, and then to sleep.’
‘There is a room prepared for you upstairs,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow we can take you to the weapon.’
‘It’s not here?’
Ash shook his head. ‘We were told it had to be kept in a safe place until it is needed.’
Al-Hussain nodded. ‘Of course. That makes sense.’
Sunny was letting himself in through the front door as Ash took al-Hussain upstairs. ‘You all right, bruv?’ he asked. ‘You got everything you need?’
‘I’m fine,’ said al-Hussain.
Ash showed him into a bedroom at the rear of the house. There was a single bed, a dressing-table and a cheap wardrobe. At the foot of the bed there was a neatly folded yellow towel, a bar of soap and a small bottle of shampoo. ‘I hope this is okay,’ said Ash. By the pillow al-Hussain saw several mobile phones, still in their boxes, and a dozen sim cards. ‘They said we were to provide you with phones,’ said Ash. ‘We paid in cash at different shops.’
Al-Hussain placed his bag on the floor. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘No need for thanks. We’re all happy to be involved. Finally we get to do something.’
‘Things worth having are worth waiting for,’ said al-Hussain. ‘Where is the Qibla?’
Ash hesitated, frowned, then took out his iPhone. ‘I’ve got an app with a Qibla compass,’ he said apologetically. ‘I’ve not been here long.’ He studied the screen of his phone, then pointed at the wardrobe. ‘That way,’ he said.
‘Do you have a prayer rug?’
‘I’ll bring one up, brother. And if there is anything else you require you only have to ask. We are here to serve you.’
‘Thank you,’ said al-Hussain again.
Ash stepped forward, put his hands on al-Hussain’s shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks, then hurried from the room. He left the door open and al-Hussain closed it.
The afternoon traffic heading for Gibraltar was backed up for more than a mile to the border. Shepherd had spent a few hours in a cheap Spanish hotel getting some sleep, then snatched a sandwich and coffee before heading back to catch the first BA flight to London, scheduled for just after three p.m. After he had sat for a full thirty minutes in the queue without moving, he decided he’d be better off walking. He pulled off the main road, found a parking space, called García on his mobile, then walked to the border.
His passport was barely looked at on either side, and after he’d crossed to Gibraltar it was only a few hundred yards to the airport terminal. García was waiting at the coffee shop in the airport and stood up when he saw Shepherd walk towards him. ‘Is everything okay?’ he asked. He mopped his brow with a white handkerchief as if he was surrendering to enemy forces.
Shepherd sat down. They were next to a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the runway and the Rock beyond it. The BA plane had arrived from London and passengers were disembarking onto the tarmac. A queue had already formed to Immigration. Shepherd passed Rosenfeld’s car keys to García. ‘I left the car in Spain,’ he said gruffly. ‘Next to the blue building. The traffic was a nightmare.’
‘The Spanish are offended at something your foreign secretary said, so there’s a go-slow,’ said García. ‘Don’t worry about the car. I’ll have it collected.’
‘Get me a coffee, will you?’ said Shepherd.
‘What sort? Latte? Espresso? Cappuccino?’
Shepherd waved him away. ‘Surprise me.’ As García scurried over to the counter, he sent Willoughby-Brown a text message with his flight number. He needed to talk to the man and he preferred face to face.
García returned, carrying a tray with two coffees and a cheese baguette. Shepherd sipped his coffee while García bit into the baguette.
‘So what’s happening?’ asked García. ‘Is everything okay?’ His handkerchief was back in his hand and he mopped his brow again.
Shepherd shrugged. ‘It depends on how you define okay. Why didn’t you tell me the Russian was refusing to pay because the games are rigged?’
‘They’re not rigged.’
‘Bazarov says they are.’
‘Most players who lose blame the system. They’re just shit players.’ He dabbed at his forehead.
‘He seems pretty sure. You need to tell me what’s going on, Carlos.’
García looked pained. ‘You’re asking for operational details and I don’t think I can discuss those with you.’
‘Well, you need to rethink that because, the way things stand, I’ll be going back to tell the brothers you’ve fixed the game. Or do they already know? Was it their idea?’
García shook his head. ‘They don’t know.’ He picked up a coffee but his hand trembled and he put it down again.
‘You need to tell me what’s happening,’ said Shepherd. ‘Is Bazarov right? Did you rig the game?’
‘It’s not rigged. That’s not what happens.’
Shepherd sighed. ‘Stop pissing around, Carlos. Cut to the chase.’
García took another bite of his baguette. ‘Look, sometimes our player levels are down and we keep our numbers up using automated accounts. It makes us look busy and that pulls in more business. Once our levels are up we pull out the automated accounts.’
‘Fake players?’
‘Not fake. They’re playing but they’re using the company’s money.’
‘So the computer’s playing?’
‘Yes. That’s it. Just until the level of genuine players rises.’
‘And how does the computer know how to play?’
‘Jake set up sub-programs, each acting as a separate player.’
Shepherd sat back and folded his arms. ‘Let me get this straight,’ he said. ‘A high-roller logs on to play but there aren’t any other players. Rather than telling him, you let him play against the computer.’
García didn’t say anything.
‘So, your mark could be sitting at a table with five or six players but he’s the only real player. All the rest of the hands are being played by a computer? Your computer?’
García nodded but didn’t look up.
‘And presumably the computer knows exactly what to do. When to fold, when to raise?’
García nodded again.
‘So the computer is always going to win. And if the computer is playing five hands against the mark’s one, it’s a foregone conclusion, isn’t it? The only hand that is going to be betting is the winning hand. The computer isn’t going to bet a losing hand, is it?’
‘It plays to win,’ said García.
‘So the Russian was right. The game is rigged.’
‘It’s not rigged. The mark …’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘He’s not a mark. He’s a client. He plays his hand, the computer plays the others. If the client has the best hand, he’ll win.
’
‘Except the computer will always fold a losing hand and only play a winning hand. It can presumably see all the hands.’
‘Not the client’s.’
‘But all the other hands.’ He pointed at García’s face. ‘You know this is cheating. You can play with words as much as you want but we both know what’s been going on.’
‘But not all the time,’ said García. ‘It’s a temporary measure, and it only kicks in when traffic is low.’
‘Do the O’Neill brothers know about it?’
García screwed up his face. ‘They don’t want to be bothered with the nitty-gritty. All they care about is the bottom line and we’re making money.’
‘That’s changed since Jake took a bullet in the leg, Carlos. They can’t afford to have a bloody gang war going on in Gibraltar. Online gambling is supposed to be a legitimate business and you’ve turned it into a gang war.’
García picked up his cup again but the shaking was worse and coffee slopped onto the table. He put it down and mopped up the spill with a serviette. ‘That was Jake’s fault. He sent the Serbs to get the money. He didn’t tell me until afterwards.’
‘Yeah? Then you need to keep him on a shorter leash,’ said Shepherd. ‘You’re supposed to be running the show. The brothers will hold you accountable.’
‘How much trouble am I in, Terry? Am I fucked?’
‘You’re not totally fucked. If you do the right thing now you might get out of it in one piece.’
‘I’ll do whatever it takes,’ said García.
‘That’s good to hear,’ said Shepherd. ‘Bazarov is prepared to let sleeping dogs lie,’ he said, ‘and, considering who his father is, that’s a win-win situation for you and Jake.’
García nodded but didn’t say anything.
‘Kolarac has taken the money, but you’re going to have to pay the Serbs’ hospital bills. They’re not exactly happy, but I think they know that, tough as they are, they can’t win an all-out war with the Russians.’
García forced a smile. ‘So it’s all okay?’
‘It’s getting there,’ said Shepherd. ‘You need to put two hundred thousand euros into the company account. I’ll say the money’s back and leave it at that. If you want to tell the O’Neill brothers that the Russian paid up, that’s between you and them. I’m pretty sure they won’t ask any questions.’
[Spider Shepherd #13] - Dark Forces Page 16