Shepherd tilted his head on one side. ‘You mean she’d have qualms about trying to recruit me if that’s what she wanted?’
Stockmann laughed. ‘Now you’re feeling not wanted, is that it?’
‘Of course not. I wouldn’t want to work in the private sector and she knows that.’
‘But it’s nice to feel wanted?’
She was teasing him and Shepherd couldn’t help smiling. ‘I don’t need that sort of approval, as you know. But it would be nice to see her again at some point. It’s just that we don’t mix in the same social circles.’
‘Would you like me to mention it to her?’
‘Good grief, no. I’m sure it’ll happen at some point.’
Stockmann sipped her beer. ‘So, all’s well with you?’
‘Sure. I guess.’
‘You guess?’
‘It is what it is, Caroline. I work for the government, and that’s never easy. I’ve got a new boss and that’s never easy either.’
‘Jeremy Willoughby-Brown?’
‘You’ve met him?’
‘No, but Charlie’s spoken about him.’
‘He was instrumental in forcing her out.’
‘I think she knows that would have happened anyway.’
‘So she doesn’t bear a grudge?’
‘If she did, I wouldn’t tell you. Obviously. Charlie’s fine, as I said. She’s not one for looking back.’
Shepherd took a drink. He knew that wasn’t necessarily true. Charlie had lost her husband to an al-Qaeda assassin and her lust for revenge had led her along the path that had ended with her being forced out of MI5.
Stockmann sipped her drink again, and Shepherd guessed she was leaving a silence for him to fill. ‘Thanks for coming, anyway.’
‘It’s not a problem,’ she said. ‘I’ve often wondered how you’ve been getting on.’
‘All good,’ said Shepherd. ‘Or maybe not. If it was all good I probably wouldn’t have needed to call you.’
‘So it’s not completely social?’ said Stockmann. Shepherd began to answer but realised she was joking and stopped. Instead he shrugged and she laughed. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Tell me how I can help.’
‘To be honest, I just need somebody to talk to,’ said Shepherd. ‘I can’t tell most people what I do for a living, never mind run my problems by them. And I miss our chats.’
She raised her glass to him. ‘That’s mutual.’
‘You know Miles Davies?’
‘The jazz musician or the psychologist?’
‘Mind-Set.’
She nodded. ‘Of course. He’s very well regarded.’
‘I hated the whole thing,’ said Shepherd. ‘The interview all done by computer.’
‘Oh, there were human beings watching you, don’t worry about that.’
‘I figured as much.’
‘I’m sure you already know this, but how you react to the questions is more important than the answers you give. You’ll have been recorded and then your micro-expressions analysed.’
‘It works?’
‘I assume so. Personally I prefer to do things the old-fashioned way.’
‘Me too.’
‘Was there a problem with the evaluation?’
‘No. All good. Passed with flying colours.’
‘But that doesn’t seem to have put your mind at rest.’
Shepherd wrinkled his nose. ‘The thing is, when you did my evaluations we talked. You asked how I was feeling and I’d tell you. You’d give me a view. Guidance. I didn’t get that from Mind-Set. I didn’t get anything.’
She flashed him a sympathetic smile, sipped again, then carefully placed her glass on its beer mat. ‘So how are you feeling?’
‘I’m okay, I guess.’
‘What are you working on?’
‘The long-term penetration of a South London crime family.’
‘And how’s that going?’
‘Slowly. But we’re getting there.’
‘Winning their trust and then betraying them. That’s never an easy thing to do.’
‘These guys are nasty pieces of work, so it’s easier than usual. They’re responsible for at least a dozen murders and a shedload of beatings. They’re into drugs and extortion. They’ve ruined a lot of lives.’
‘But they’re good to their mother?’
Shepherd chuckled. ‘I’m not sure that’s true,’ he said. ‘They rule by fear so they have it coming.’
‘And what else is occupying your time?’
‘I’m out in Lincolnshire with 13th Squadron, working with their drone units,’ he said.
‘Ah, the Stabbed Cats.’ She smiled at his confusion. ‘That’s 13th Squadron’s nickname,’ she explained. ‘Their motto is “We assist by watching” but, considering what they’re doing with their drones, that’s a tad ironic. What’s your role?’
‘Target identification,’ he said.
‘Your memory, of course.’
Shepherd nodded. ‘Basically I sit with them and make sure they hit the right targets.’
‘And how’s that going?’
‘We’ve a pretty good success rate.’
‘You don’t sound enthusiastic.’
Shepherd leaned back in his chair. ‘It’s not combat.’
‘Well, it is combat. It’s just not hand to hand.’
‘I find it a bit strange to be killing people from thousands of miles away.’
‘You’ve killed from a distance before. You were a sniper in the SAS.’
Shepherd looked away and didn’t answer.
‘There isn’t a difference, is there? A sniper pulls his trigger and someone dies half a mile away. Sometimes further. You do the same in Lincolnshire and someone dies in where? Syria? Iraq?’
‘Syria at the moment,’ said Shepherd.
Stockmann didn’t say anything.
The silence grew, and Shepherd smiled. ‘The old psychiatrist’s trick,’ he said. ‘Fill the silence.’
‘I do hope you’re not suggesting I’m an old psychiatrist.’
Shepherd laughed. ‘You know what I meant.’
‘Because I don’t like to think of myself as old and I’m a psychologist, not a psychiatrist.’
‘I was trying to lighten the moment,’ he said.
‘I think we like to describe it as a technique rather than a trick,’ she said. ‘But perhaps you’d prefer it if I was more direct.’
‘We could give it a go?’
‘I asked you if your work with 13th Squadron was successful and you complained that it wasn’t combat. Do you have an issue with the drones?’
‘I think I do, yes.’
‘Because they kill from a distance?’
Shepherd nodded.
‘And that’s making you think about your sniping career?’
‘Wow. You go for the jugular, don’t you?’
‘I’m just trying to get a feeling for what’s troubling you. And I can sense you are troubled.’
Shepherd took a pull on his drink and discovered his glass was empty. He looked at the bar, then back at Stockmann. She was grinning. ‘I wasn’t playing for time,’ he said. ‘It’s just I’ve finished my drink.’
She drained her glass and handed it to him. ‘Why don’t you get us refills?’ she said. ‘I have to send a couple of texts.’
Shepherd went to the bar, bought fresh drinks and returned to their table just as she was putting her phone away. He sat down and she sipped her pint, then smacked her lips appreciatively. ‘Go on, then. I’m listening.’
Shepherd swirled the ice around his glass. ‘I was a bloody good sniper, back in the day,’ he said. ‘I had a knack for it. Some people do. But I never really thought about what I was doing. You pull the trigger and hundreds of yards away someone dies. You see them go down but it’s not real. I mean, it doesn’t feel real. When you kill someone close up all your senses are involved. You can hear them die, smell them, feel them. It’s real. Sniping is just visual. Pull the trigger. The r
ifle kicks. The target goes down.’
‘How many men did you kill like that?’
‘I never counted. Some snipers do. They keep meticulous records, dates, times, windage, distance.’
‘But not you?’
‘It never mattered to me that much.’
‘But your memory is infallible, right?’
‘Right.’
She smiled. ‘So how many?’
He raised his glass in salute. ‘You’re good,’ he said.
‘Of course I am.’
He drank, then put down his glass. ‘Forty-six,’ he said. ‘Though it’s not possible to say they were all confirmed kills.’
‘And at the time the kills meant nothing?’
He nodded.
‘And now?’
‘I don’t know. It’s difficult to explain.’
‘Try.’
He thought for a few seconds before answering. ‘At the time it was just a job. My kills were mainly in Afghanistan and we were killing men who wanted to kill us. Kill or be killed. I was killing them one day, but if I didn’t, there was a chance they’d kill me the next.’
‘That’s how you rationalised it?’
‘I do now. Back then I didn’t think about it.’
‘I guess that’s the training,’ she said. ‘Army and SAS. You follow orders and you kill the enemy. You don’t want soldiers stopping to consider their actions – it slows things up.’
‘Exactly,’ said Shepherd.
‘But how do you feel about it now?’
Shepherd grimaced. ‘Now?’ He took another pull on his drink. ‘Snipers are cowards. Like the bastards that plant IEDs. It seems to me that if you can’t look into a man’s eyes as you pull the trigger, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it.’
‘That’s quite a change,’ said Stockmann. ‘Any idea what prompted it?’
Shepherd rubbed the back of his neck. The tendons were as tight as cables. ‘I do, yes.’ He took another drink. His glass was empty again but he resisted glancing at the bar. ‘Not long after I left the SAS two mates of mine were killed in Afghanistan. Shot by a sniper. It might not have been the same sniper, but that’s not important. Neither of them was in actual combat when it happened. One was taking medical supplies to a hospital. His name was Scotty, from Edinburgh. One of five kids. The youngest. Hell of a nice guy. He’d talked our medic into giving him a load of antibiotics and stuff and he was taking it out to a local hospital. I say hospital, it wasn’t even a clinic, just a doctor and a nurse doing the best they could with no money and no resources at a time when the Taliban were running riot. Anyway, en route to the hospital Scotty sees a baby sitting by a pile of rubbish. Just sitting there, with what looked like blood on its arm. No one else nearby so Scotty tells the driver to stop and he runs over. Bends over the kid and bang, gets shot in the shoulder. Goes down hard. Another SAS guy runs over without thinking and he gets hit too. His name was Bam-bam. That was what he said whenever he did the double-tap. Bam-bam. He couldn’t help himself. The shot took off the top of Bam-bam’s head. Dead instantly. The rest of the guys stayed in the Vector and called for back-up.’
‘Vector?’
‘A six-by-six protected patrol vehicle,’ said Shepherd. ‘Scotty had commandeered it to deliver the drugs. The guys in the Vector realised that Scotty was still alive so they started to move it to give them cover while they got Scotty inside. They were doing that when a woman appeared from one of the buildings nearby. She walked right by Scotty and Bam-bam, picked up the baby and walked back to the house.’
‘It was a trap?’
Shepherd nodded. ‘The sniper waited until the Vector was almost in position before he put another bullet into Scotty. Into his head. Reinforcements arrived ten minutes later but the sniper was gone.’ He shuddered. ‘That was when I lost any respect for snipers.’
‘And it put into context what you had been doing all those years in the SAS?’
‘I had a bit of a rethink, yes.’
‘You feel guilty? About what you did?’
Shepherd shook his head quickly. ‘Not guilty, no. The men I shot, all of them, deserved it. And it was kill or be killed. Not at the exact moment I pulled the trigger, but every man I killed would have killed me. And could have killed me.’
‘So if not guilt, what?’
‘Shame, maybe. I’m not proud of what I did. I did what I had to, what I was ordered to, but I’m not proud.’
‘You said shame. Do you feel ashamed?’
‘A bit. Yes. With hindsight I would have preferred to have killed them face to face.’ He shrugged. ‘But I don’t give it much thought.’
‘Not consciously, no. But it’s clearly preying on your mind.’
‘Not preying, exactly. But when I was asked to take part in this drone operation …’ He leaned towards her. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I know the men we’re taking out deserve it. The latest were a couple of jihadists helping a sniper in Syria who would have killed a senior Syrian Army officer if we hadn’t intervened.’ He forced a smile. ‘Actually, we missed him, but took out the Brits. They were helping the sniper and I’ve no doubt that if they hadn’t been killed in Syria they’d have been back in the UK one day committing atrocities here. But there’s something very disturbing about what we’re doing. We sit in a container in the middle of England, press a button and two men die on the other side of the world. They probably didn’t even see it coming.’
‘And that’s disturbing why?’
‘Because it reduces combat to a video game. It makes it … I don’t know. Less real, maybe.’
‘You know it’s real. You know that people die as a result of your actions. Same as when you were a sniper.’
‘Sniping was different. Yes, I killed from a distance. But they could just as easily have killed me. Same as they killed Bam-bam and Scotty.’
She chuckled. ‘I think this might be your famous sense of fair play going into overdrive,’ she said. ‘You think drones are too one-sided.’
‘They are. No question. We’re using missiles costing a hundred thousand dollars against men with AK-47s. It doesn’t get more one-sided than that.’
‘Well, to be honest, the days of one-on-one combat have gone for ever,’ said Stockmann. ‘Trench warfare will never return, hopefully. Men won’t charge each other with guns blazing. These days, the enemy fights with IEDs, snipers, kidnappings and beheadings. And when they’re done, they merge back into the civilian population.’
‘It’s so bloody unfair,’ said Shepherd. ‘We fight our wars in uniform, following the Geneva Convention. They fight like cowards.’
‘Because that’s their best chance of winning,’ said Stockmann. ‘If they put on uniforms and fought by our rules they’d be defeated in weeks. They learned from the way the Viet Cong beat the Americans. You fight, drop your AK-47 and pick up a hoe. Fight like that long enough and you wear your enemy down.’
‘So what are you saying? We have to play them at their own game?’
‘I’ve no idea how to fight wars. I’m a psychologist, not a general.’ She took another drink. ‘War has never been an easy business, that’s for sure. But if we have to go to war, I’d rather our boys fought the good fight from the safety of an airbase in Lincolnshire than risked their lives on the ground in the Middle East.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘But in your case, that’s rhetorical. There’s no way you’ll be sent into the desert with a gun again, is there?’
Shepherd smiled thinly. ‘I hope not.’
‘So what’s really troubling you about the snipers and the IEDs? It’s not guilt. You say it’s shame and I get that, but that doesn’t explain why it’s weighing so heavily on your mind.’
Shepherd looked at the bar, then back at her. ‘Do you want another drink?’
‘Sure. After you’ve answered my question.’
Yet again she was right. He was trying to avoid answering her. ‘Liam is signing up. He’s joining the army.’
Her eyebrow
s shot up. ‘How old is he?’
‘Eighteen.’
‘So, no university?’
‘He puts up a very good argument. And he knows his own mind.’
Stockmann leaned back in her seat. ‘That’s … a surprise.’
‘You’re telling me.’
‘You must be in two minds.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘He’s following in your footsteps. That has to make you proud. He admires you and what you’ve done. But, on the other hand, you more than anyone know the dangers.’
‘He’s got a good head on his shoulders. And he’ll be well trained.’
‘But none of that amounts to anything when a sniper has you in his sights.’
He raised his glass to her. ‘Thanks for pointing that out.’
‘I’m just verbalising what you’re obviously thinking,’ she said. ‘All this anger towards snipers, you know where it really stems from. It’s Liam you’re worried about.’
Shepherd smiled tightly. She was right, of course.
‘He’s signing up to be a soldier at a time when warfare is changing,’ she continued. ‘And in the brave new world it doesn’t matter how courageous you are or what skills you have. A lot of the time the difference between life and death comes down to dumb luck. To not being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘But that’s not reason enough to tell him not to sign up, is it?’ he asked.
She pushed her empty glass across the table towards him. ‘Only you can answer that.’
Shepherd was in a black cab heading back to Battersea when his phone rang. It was Willoughby-Brown. He let the call go through to voicemail while he asked the taxi driver to drop him at the nearest corner. He paid and got out, then called Willoughby-Brown. ‘We’ve tracked down the two men you recognised,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘The mosque in the photograph is the Madina Masjid in Sheffield. We’ve had it under observation since Seven Seven and we’ve checked recent CCTV footage and it looks as if they appeared in Sheffield two weeks ago. As I said, they haven’t applied for asylum or benefits and they’re not on any databases – not under those names, anyway.’
‘Are you going to pick them up?’
‘We’re keeping an eye on them, see if we can find out what they’re up to.’
[Spider Shepherd #13] - Dark Forces Page 30