Hot Blood

by Stephen Leather

  Yokely grinned. ‘That’s where information retrieval comes in,’ he said. ‘You’re not going all liberal on me, are you? This is a war. We’re not playing games. The winners win and the losers die. And I for one am glad that I’m not bound by the same rules you are.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe you’re right, it’s the rules and regulations that give me a sense of fairness. Providing I follow the rules, everything I do is morally justifiable.’

  ‘Sure. Let’s not forget that you’ve killed in the line of duty. Anyone else who kills gets put in jail. You got an award.’

  Shepherd sipped his coffee.

  ‘My offer’s still open,’ said the American, quietly. ‘I can use a man like you.’

  ‘I need rules,’ said Shepherd. ‘I really do. I’m not sure how I’d be able to cope in an arena where there are no checks and balances.’

  ‘You need a strong moral centre,’ said Yokely. ‘You need to believe one hundred per cent that you’re right.’

  ‘Isn’t that what most dictators would say?’ said Shepherd.

  Yokely pointed a warning finger at Shepherd, but he was smiling. ‘Now you’re trying to upset me,’ he said. ‘You’re very good at that.’

  When the plane started to descend, Shepherd looked at his wristwatch. They had been in the air for less than three hours. Fifteen minutes later they landed at an airfield that appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. ‘Where are we?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘Classified,’ said Yokely.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Shepherd. ‘You could tell me, but you’d have to kill me.’

  ‘No, I just won’t tell you,’ said Yokely. ‘I’m serious, Spider. It’s classified.’

  The pilot emerged from the cockpit to open the door. Two soldiers in green uniforms and peaked caps entered the cabin and walked to the back of the plane, their gleaming boots squeaking with each step. Shepherd didn’t recognise the uniforms or insignia but they were definitely from one of the former Soviet Union countries.

  They picked up the unconscious Arab and dragged him to the front of the plane. The man in black followed them, carrying his magazine. Yokely flashed him a mock salute as he went by and the man saluted back. Shepherd looked out of the window. The soldiers dragged the Arab across the Tarmac towards a waiting vehicle. Shepherd couldn’t identify the uniforms but he knew the vehicle: it was an open-topped Waz, the Russian equivalent of a Jeep. The soldiers threw him across the back seat and climbed into the front. The man in black was talking to a uniformed officer. Both were smoking.

  The pilot closed the door and went back into the cockpit. They taxied to the runway and were soon in the air again. Shepherd fell asleep and didn’t wake until the wheels touched the runway. ‘Where are we?’ he asked, rubbing his eyes. ‘Or is it still classified?’

  ‘Gatwick,’ said Yokely. ‘I’m just dropping you here.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Yokely grinned. ‘Sadly, that’s classified,’ he said. ‘While you were asleep I had my guys in Langley run some basic checks on Wafeeq and the driver who’ll take you back into London has an envelope for you. There’s a picture, I gather. The rest is up to you.’

  As he left the plane Shepherd shook the American’s hand. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I owe you one.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ said Yokely. ‘And don’t think I won’t remember.’

  The pilot closed the door as Shepherd walked away from the plane. A Lexus was waiting for him, this time a white one, and the driver was black, in a grey suit. He handed Shepherd an envelope and held open the rear door. Shepherd climbed in.

  He called the Major on his mobile. Gannon was at the office in Portland Place, with Armstrong, Shortt and O’Brien. Shepherd said he was on his way and ended the call.

  The Lexus drove to the airport perimeter where a uniformed security guard, accompanied by two police officers cradling MP5s, waved them through without asking for identification. Shepherd stared out of the window, trying to gather his thoughts. It was hard to believe that in less than eighteen hours he’d flown to Baghdad on a plane that probably didn’t officially exist, then assaulted and beaten up a man for information with absolutely no comeback, and delivered another prisoner to a country where he was sure to be tortured. And it had all been arranged by a man who seemed able to travel the world without Customs and immigration checks. Shepherd wondered how much power Yokely had. He seemed to be beyond all limits.

  Shepherd opened the envelope. Inside he found a computer printout with a few paragraphs of type and a blurry surveillance photograph of two Arabs drinking coffee at an open-air café. One had been circled with a black pen.

  The driver dropped him in Portland Place. Shepherd pressed the intercom buzzer and was let in.

  The Major was sitting at the head of the table, talking into a mobile phone. He waved at Shepherd to take a seat. O’Brien was pouring coffee and asked Shepherd if he wanted some.

  ‘Cheers, Martin,’ said Shepherd. There was a stack of Marks & Spencer sandwiches and rolls next to the coffee maker and Shepherd helped himself to a salmon and cucumber sandwich before sitting at the table.

  The Major ended his call. ‘How did it go?’ he asked Shepherd.

  ‘I’ve identified one of the men in Geordie’s video – the one with the RPG,’ said Shepherd. ‘His name is Wafeeq bin Said al-Hadi. He’s almost certainly in Iraq, but no one knows where exactly.’ He opened the manila envelope. ‘This is all I have, picture-wise.’

  ‘Where did you get it?’ asked O’Brien.

  ‘Friends in high places,’ said Shepherd, and exchanged a look with the Major. Gannon knew where the information had come from but Richard Yokely was protective of his privacy.

  ‘So we know who, but we don’t know where,’ said Armstrong. He took out a Marlboro, tossed it into the air and just managed to catch it between his lips.

  Shepherd tapped the computer printout. ‘According to this, he’s got a brother in Dubai, a legitimate businessman. He’s not hiding so we can get to him.’

  ‘John Muller’s got an office in Dubai,’ said the Major. ‘He’s visiting Geordie’s brother but he’ll be in London tonight. I’ll get him on the case. What’s the guy’s name?’

  Shepherd slid the printout across the table to the Major. ‘It’s all there,’ he said.

  ‘Diane, isn’t that your boyfriend over there?’ said the sergeant, nodding at the group of civilian contractors who were piling out of an SUV. Three were Americans but the fourth was a good-looking Iraqi. His name was Kevnar and he described himself as a Kurd, rather than as an Iraqi. He was in his late twenties and Diane Beavis thought he was just about the most attractive man she’d ever seen. He looked like the young Omar Sharif in the movie Doctor Zhivago. It was one of her all-time favourites. And, like Omar Sharif in the movie, Kevnar was a doctor. At least, he’d trained as a doctor. Now he worked as a translator for an American logistics company. Doctors were much needed in Baghdad but they were paid about two hundred dollars a month by the government. Translating earned him three times as much. She’d laughed at his name the first time he’d introduced himself because it sounded so like Kevlar, the bullet-proof material that had saved so many American lives.

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend, Sarge,’ she said, flushing. She’d met Kevnar a few times and he always had a smile for her; they’d chatted twice. She doubted he’d be interested in her. She was thirty-seven next birthday and had been career army for eleven years. She’d had the occasional sexual partner over the past decade but no one who could have been described as a boyfriend. She was pretty much resigned to spinster-hood and had persuaded herself that she’d never wanted children anyway.

  ‘Go on, we can spare you for five,’ said the sergeant. They were waiting to rendezvous with an Iraqi repair crew who were going out to fix a mobile phone mast on the outskirts of the city. The last time a crew had gone out their truck had been blown apart by an RPG and the phone company had requested armed support.

  ‘Thanks, Sarge,’ sh
e said. John Petrocelli was career army, too, but had only joined up five years ago. He was on the fast-track to greater things, but Beavis had more or less given up on promotion, as she had marriage and motherhood. She’d joined as a grunt and she’d leave as one.

  It was her second tour of duty in Iraq, and she was enjoying it as much as the first. Iraq was one of the few theatres where women were put in combat roles, usually on searches and raids. The reason was simple: many Iraqi women were covered from head to foot in the traditional burkha and would resist to the death any attempt by a man to search them. But they had to be searched because the burkha was perfect for concealing weapons and explosives. This meant that on every mission involving potential contact with locals there had to be at least one woman in the unit.

  Beavis had come under fire several times and had already been awarded the Combat Action Badge. Many of her male colleagues complained about being in Iraq. They hated the heat, the food, the lack of entertainment and, most of all, being pitted against enemies who refused to fight like men. Combat in Iraq consisted of ambushes, sniper attacks and IEDs. The insurgents specialised in sneak attacks and killing from a distance, taking lives without risking their own. It wasn’t a form of combat for which the infantry had trained, and it meant that every time they left the Green Zone they were in a constant state of tension, not knowing if or when they would be under attack. Beavis had never complained about being posted to Iraq. It was stressful, and at times uncomfortable, but she had never felt more alive than when she was out on patrol with an M16 in her hands.

  She held the weapon barrel down and strolled over to the group, trying not to appear over-keen. The contractors were big men from West Virginia, whose bellies hung over their belts. They wore sidearms and carried shotguns.

  Kevnar grinned when he saw her. He had a great smile, thought Beavis. It was the first thing she’d noticed about him. He was always smiling, always happy. She smiled back and wished she’d been able to put on a smear of lipstick. His smile revealed perfect teeth, not a filling to be seen. Beavis’s parents hadn’t bothered with fluoride when she was growing up so she had half a dozen crowns at the back of her mouth. She realised that she was staring at his and forced herself to look away.

  ‘You are busy today, Diane?’ asked Kevnar.

  She loved his accent. The only word she could come up with to describe it was ‘treacly’. It was soft and sweet, and made her shiver. ‘We’re guarding some phone technicians,’ she said.

  ‘Be careful,’ he said.

  She was touched by his concern. The last time they’d spoken she’d asked about his family, and what he’d told her had reduced her to tears. He’d had a wife and two small children, a boy aged three and a girl just about to turn one. He’d been working as the doctor in the small Kurdish village where he’d been born. Late one evening a farmer had turned up on his doorstep. The man’s daughter was about to give birth to her first child and was in a lot of pain. The farmer had brought his tractor with him and had driven Kevnar to the farm. It had been a difficult birth but finally the woman produced a healthy girl. When Kevnar got back to his village the next morning, the first sign he saw that something was wrong were the dead dogs lying in the street. Then he’d seen an old woman face down in the gutter, mouth open, blood running from her nose. Further along the street there were more dead dogs, and the village baker was lying on the ground outside his shop, dried blood all over his face.

  Kevnar had leaped off the tractor and raced home. His wife and children were dead in their bloodstained beds. Saddam Hussein had decreed that the Kurdish village should be used to test a new batch of nerve gas that his scientists had been developing. Two hundred and nineteen people had died that night. It hadn’t been war, it hadn’t been punishment; it had been nothing more than a scientific test. Beavis couldn’t imagine how Kevnar must have felt, but he had smiled and shrugged, and said it was in the past and he had to live for the future.

  ‘We’re going for a meal tonight, myself and two of the Americans,’ he said. ‘There is a restaurant I have suggested they try, just outside the Green Zone. You would like it, I’m sure.’

  Her breath caught in her throat. Was he asking her on a date? Her heart began to race. ‘That sounds fun,’ she said.

  ‘Are you allowed to eat out of the Green Zone?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘We’re not prisoners.’ She undid the strap of her helmet and removed it, shaking her dyed blonde hair and wishing she had a comb. ‘I’d love to come, Kevnar,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps afterwards I could show you where I live,’ he said.

  ‘That would be great,’ said Beavis. ‘Where shall I meet you?’

  The bullet smacked into the side of her head, just above her right temple. It exited on the opposite side, blowing out a chunk of brain matter and blood that splattered across the road. Kevnar was running for cover before her body hit the ground.

  Shepherd held the phone to his ear, listening to the ringing tone. A wire led from the bottom of his Nokia to a laptop computer in front of Amar Singh. Charlotte Button was sitting behind the desk, sipping a cup of tea. Ali answered.

  ‘Tom, it’s Graham May,’ said Shepherd. ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘You haven’t fired those guns yet, have you? Remember, I’ll only take them back if you haven’t, and that goes for practice shots.’

  ‘When can we have the rest?’ asked Ali.

  ‘Two days max,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ve been thinking maybe it’s not a good idea for me to drive up to you. You can collect them from here, same as last time.’

  ‘Same place?’

  ‘Probably,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ll let you know the day before. Listen, Tom, I might have something else you’d be interested in.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You heard of C4?’

  ‘It’s an explosive, right?’

  ‘Damn right. Top of the range. The American military use it.’

  ‘And you’ve got some?’

  ‘It’s on the way. Should be here at the same time as the Ingrams.’

  ‘I don’t think this is the sort of thing we should be talking about on the phone,’ said Ali.

  ‘It’s not a problem,’ said Shepherd. ‘We’ve both got throwaway mobiles. I’ll be dumping this one as soon as our deal’s done. Now, are you interested or not?’

  ‘How much can you get?’

  ‘As much as you need.’

  ‘What’s it cost?’

  ‘Five hundred pounds a kilo.’

  ‘What would a kilo blow up?’

  ‘Half a kilo would blow up a car, no problem,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘And what about detonators? Explosives are no good without detonators.’

  ‘As many as you want,’ said Shepherd. ‘Fifty quid a go.’

  ‘I’ll have to talk to my friends,’ said Ali.

  ‘Don’t leave it too long,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ve got other buyers.’

  ‘For explosives?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Shepherd. ‘I can shift all I’ve got coming. I’ll need to know soon.’

  ‘But we get the guns, right?’

  ‘Don’t worry, like I said, they’re on their way.’

  ‘I’ll call you when I’ve talked to my friends,’ said Ali.

  ‘Do that,’ said Shepherd. He ended the call, put the phone on the table and sat back. ‘Okay?’ he said to Button.

  She stood up. ‘It was fine,’ she said.

  Singh disconnected the phone from the computer.

  ‘Do we wait for them to call, or do I call again in a day or two?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘Let’s leave the ball in their court,’ she said. ‘SO13 has them under surveillance. Nothing’s going to happen without them knowing.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Shepherd. ‘Look, I need a favour – some personal time over the next few days. Are you okay with that?’

  ‘Spider, we’re in the middle of an operation.’

  ‘All I h
ave to do is take a phone call.’

  ‘And hand over the guns, plus the explosives.’

  ‘I’ve plenty of days owing.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘I’m in the process of moving house.’

  ‘To Hereford, right?’

  ‘I want my boy to be closer to his grandparents. Look, I’ll be around.’ He held up his mobile. ‘I’m always at the end of the phone.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Button, reluctantly. ‘I won’t put you down for any more cases, but if the Birmingham business starts moving, I’ll need you back.’

  ‘About that,’ said Shepherd, ‘there’s something else I need to ask you.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘You won’t like it.’

  ‘I consider myself warned,’ said Button. ‘Get it off your chest.’

  ‘It’s an Anti-Terrorist Branch case, right?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘How much of the operation is theirs?’

  ‘Most. We’re just providing the arms dealers. It’ll be an SO13 case when it gets to court.’

  ‘And, hand on heart, you don’t know who their undercover guy is?’

  Button’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’m not in the habit of lying, Spider, to you or anyone else. Now, what’s your problem?’

  Singh headed for the door with his laptop. ‘I’m off,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks, Amar,’ said Button.

  Shepherd waited until Singh had closed the door behind him. ‘The problem is, I think Ali’s their undercover guy.’

  Button shrugged. ‘You might be right.’

  ‘But you don’t know for sure?’

  ‘That’s twice you’ve suggested that I’ve been less than honest with you. SO13 wouldn’t tell me and, frankly, I didn’t feel that I had to know.’

  ‘You heard that story about him being knifed after seven/seven? Well, it didn’t ring true. I’ve told enough cover stories in my time and his lacked conviction. Anyway, the scar wasn’t right. It wasn’t a machete or a knife that did it. Looked to me like an industrial injury.’

  ‘So, as I said, you might be right. What of it?’

  ‘Ali’s running the show, you’ve seen that. He’s the top dog. Without him they’d just be a group of disaffected kids.’