Dead Men: The Fifth Spider Shepherd Thriller

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Think I’ll watch the fight,’ said Jack. ‘Heavyweight championship.’

  ‘Two black guys trying to kill each other. Might as well drive over to Manchester,’ said Billy.

  ‘Ha-ha,’ said Jack. He sipped his lager and sat in the armchair opposite the plasma television. He lit a cigarette. His Glock, a bulbous silencer screwed into the barrel, lay next to the ashtray.

  ‘Look, I’ll do the night shift if you want. I’m not tired,’ said Billy, as he sat on the sofa and swung his feet on to the coffee-table.

  ‘You know Katra doesn’t like feet on the furniture,’ said Jack.

  ‘Yeah, well, she doesn’t like us smoking in the house, either.’

  Jack chuckled. ‘You’re just pissed because she likes me more than you.’

  ‘In your dreams,’ said Billy.

  ‘You asked her out yet?’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘I’m here to work,’ said Jack. ‘And so are you.’

  ‘This isn’t working,’ said Billy. ‘It’s babysitting.’

  ‘Spider’s not paranoid,’ said Jack. ‘If he says someone’s after him, he’s not making it up.’

  ‘Arab terrorist, international hitman, it’s all a bit Andy McNab, isn’t it?’

  ‘You ever meet McNab? He’s out in Hollywood, I heard, advising on action movies.’

  ‘Where did we go wrong?’ asked Billy. ‘He gets lost in the desert, now he’s out in Hollywood and we’re babysitting a boy and an au pair in Hereford.’

  ‘Billy, stop bitching. Spider’s Sass and he needs help. Watching TV and having Katra cook for us is hardly shit work, is it?’ He sipped his lager. ‘Anyway, we’ll be back in Baghdad soon enough.’

  Tariq crept around the side of the house. He had stuck the gun into the belt of his trousers, the silencer in his jacket pocket. He was carrying a brown-paper bag containing a sheet of sticky-backed plastic and a small hammer.

  The kitchen was in darkness and he peered through the window. He hadn’t seen a dog when he’d had the house under surveillance and there was no sign of a food or water bowl. He knelt down, peeled the back off the plastic, then pressed it against the pane of glass closest to the door lock. He listened for a few seconds, then drove his elbow into the glass. It splintered and most of the glass remained stuck to the plastic. Tariq peeled it away and kept it glass side up as he placed it carefully on the ground.

  He pulled the gun from his belt and screwed in the silencer, then reached through the hole in the glass and flicked open the Yale lock. He turned the handle and pushed open the door. As he stepped into the kitchen his shoe crunched on a small piece of glass that had escaped the plastic. He realised he was holding his breath and forced himself to relax.

  He cocked his head to one side, frowning. He could hear sounds from down the hall. A fight. A crowd roaring and the thud-thud-thud of punches. A boxing match. His heart started to pound again. Shepherd should have been in bed with the girl. His finger tightened on the trigger. It didn’t matter. With the silencer on the gun, the girl and the boy wouldn’t hear a thing. He could shoot Shepherd downstairs, then go up and kill his family. Salih had said he should kill Shepherd if he was in the house and his family if he wasn’t, but in killing them all he would show he was committed to what he was doing, that it made no difference if his target was a man,a woman or a child. They were infidels. A human being who did not believe in Allah was not a human being. He was lower than an animal, lower even than the insects that crawled along the ground. He went up on tiptoe and moved silently across the kitchen floor. He paused at the door. The television was in the front room, the sound turned low so that it wouldn’t disturb the sleepers upstairs.

  Tariq moved along the hallway. The sitting-room door was open. He raised his gun. There were eleven bullets in the magazine. He’d taken them out in his room, counted and recounted them,wearing gloves as Salih had instructed. They were so small, the bullets. Just an inch long, bright and shiny. It was hard to believe that something so small could kill a man, but Tariq had seen at first hand the damage that bullets could do. As part of his training, at a camp near Malakand on the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, he’d been taught how to shoot and how to kill, how to make explosives by mixing ammonium nitrate fertiliser and aluminium powder. His instructors had shown him how to strip and fire a Kalashnikov, and many different types of handgun.

  Most of his training had been on target ranges, but during their second month three prisoners had been brought in, bloody, battered, begging for their lives, and tied to posts. Tariq and five other British Muslims had been lined up in front of them and told to fire. Tariq had needed no urging. He had been the first to pull the trigger. His shot had hit the prisoner on the left, blowing away a big chunk of his head. His second shot had missed but then he had remembered his training and held the gun with both hands. His next three shots had hit the chest of the man in the middle. Tariq had turned the gun on the third man, even though he was already riddled with bullets, and he had carried on firing until the hammer clicked on empty casings. He had screamed then, as had the others, screamed and yelled and danced, kicking up dust, as the instructors clapped and cheered. Killing was easy, Tariq had learnt that day. It was easy and it was pleasurable. As he’d danced and chanted praise to Allah, he’d realised he had an erection. He’d been turned on by the killings. For a moment he’d been ashamed, but then he’d realised that the erection was a gift from Allah, a reward for what he’d done.

  Tariq felt himself harden as he moved towards the open door. His left hand crept involuntarily towards the front of his trousers and his penis twitched in anticipation. He’d kill the man, then the boy – and then he’d rape the girl before he killed her too. He’d rape her in the name of Allah.

  He took another step and saw Shepherd in an armchair, watching television, a bottle of beer and an ashtray containing a burning cigarette on the table beside him. As Tariq watched, the man picked up the cigarette, took a long drag on it, then blew smoke at the ceiling. To be sure of a clear shot, Tariq had to take at least two steps into the room.

  Shepherd flicked ash, then groaned as the bell sounded for the end of the round. Tariq took a deep breath and readied himself. He wanted to say something to Shepherd before he killed him, to tell him why he was taking his life. He wanted to tell Shepherd that his son was going to be killed and his woman raped, that the last thing his woman would feel was Tariq coming inside her. His penis was rock hard now and his testicles ached. It was going to be the best sex he’d ever had, Tariq knew, sex followed by death. He shivered.

  Upstairs, a toilet flushed. Tariq froze. It must be either the woman or the boy. He pressed himself against the wall. It wasn’t a problem. Whoever it was would go back to bed. Tariq heard footsteps coming down the stairs. His heart pounded and for a moment he felt so light-headed that he thought he would pass out. Was it the boy or the woman? Whoever it was, they were half-way down the stairs and were only seconds from reaching the bottom – at which point they would see him. He would have to shoot them first, then turn and shoot Shepherd.

  Tariq raised his gun and moved away from the wall. He stepped sideways, both hands on the butt of the gun, swinging it up to aim at the figure on the stairs. He gasped when he saw it was Shepherd. The man was wearing a denim shirt and over it a nylon shoulder holster. As Tariq hesitated, Shepherd ducked, reached for his gun and yelled, ‘Jack!’

  Tariq backed away from the stairs. He couldn’t get a clear shot. He heard the man in the sitting room shout, ‘Billy!’ and turned, his finger tightening on the trigger. His mind whirled when he saw that the man in the sitting room was also Shepherd. Two Shepherds? How could that be? He felt as if he was moving through treacle. Was he dreaming? Was it all a nightmare? The Shepherd in the sitting room was reaching for a gun on the coffee-table next to the ashtray, a big automatic with a silencer.

  Tariq pulled the trigger and there was a loud popping sound, but his hands were shaking so much that the shot went wide
and buried itself in the sofa.

  The man in the sitting room rolled on to the floor and Tariq pulled the trigger again. The gun kicked in his hands and there was another loud pop.

  Then Tariq felt a thump in his back and gasped. His first thought was that he’d been punched, but a burning pain was spreading between his shoulder-blades. He’d been shot. He turned, his mouth open in surprise. The man on the stairs was holding his gun in both hands, a confident smile on his face. ‘Drop the gun,’ he said.

  Tariq tried to breathe but a gurgling sound came from his lungs. His body felt as if all the energy was draining from it, and the slightest movement was an effort.

  ‘Drop the gun,’ repeated the man on the stairs.

  Tariq lifted it. If he was about to die, at least he would take one of the infidels with him. ‘Allahu Akbar,’ he whispered, and pointed his weapon at the man’s chest.

  The man fired twice and Tariq felt two blows to his chest. There was no burning pain this time, just a spreading coldness. The strength went from his legs and he fell to the floor. The last thing he saw was the smile on his killer’s face.

  Shepherd’s phone rang. He groped for it as he squinted at the clock on his bedside table. He grunted, ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Spider, it’s Jack.’

  Shepherd sat up, immediately wide awake. It was after two o’clock in the morning and Jack Bradford could only be calling with bad news. ‘What’s happened?’ he said, fighting to keep his voice steady. Bradford had called on Shepherd’s personal phone and all the power sockets in the room were switched off so Shepherd knew they weren’t being overheard.

  ‘Spider, it’s okay. Everyone here’s fine.’

  Shepherd exhaled deeply.

  ‘We had a visitor, an Asian guy. He had a gun and a silencer. Could have been that Salih you were expecting. Anyway, we’ve taken care of it.’

  ‘What about Liam?’

  ‘Slept through the whole thing. Katra, too. A couple of shots went off but we’ve cleared up the damage. Bit of blood on the hall floor but we can clean that up. A bullet went into the sofa and another buried itself in a wall.’

  ‘And the guy?’

  ‘Dead as disco,’ said Bradford. ‘So, now we’ve got a decision to make. Do you want us to call the cops or not?’

  As a SOCA officer Shepherd was duty-bound to call it in. But if he did, his home would be crawling with scene-of-crime officers in their white suits, and detectives from the local force. There’d be journalists too, from the local paper at first but they’d soon be joined by others from the nationals, and television crews. Within hours it would be a circus.

  ‘Spider?’

  ‘Give me a minute, Jack. I’m considering my options.’

  ‘Whatever you decide is fine by us,’ said Bradford. ‘The guy took a couple of shots at me so he had it coming. We can take the body out of here and drop it in some very deep water long before it gets light. Won’t ever be your problem.’

  What Bradford was suggesting was legally wrong, no question. The brothers had killed a man, and while it was obviously in self-defence, disposing of the body would be a criminal offence. If they were ever caught, it would spell the end of Shepherd’s career, and they would all be sent to prison. But if the killing was made public, there was a good chance it would end Shepherd’s career anyway. There would be an inquest, and the journalists would keep digging until they found out who Shepherd was and what he did for a living. He’d have to move house, and that would mean uprooting Liam yet again when he was finally getting some stability in his life. There was another option. He could call Charlotte Button, tell her everything and hope she would protect him. If she had been his former boss, Sam Hargrove, he wouldn’t have hesitated. But after what Major Gannon had told him, Shepherd wasn’t sure how far he could trust Button. If Gannon was right and her loyalties lay solely with MI5, she might decide to hang Shepherd out to dry.

  ‘Jack, if you and Billy did get rid of the evidence, how comfortable would you be with that?’

  ‘I wouldn’t give it a moment’s thought, Spider.’

  ‘No one heard the shots?’

  ‘Silencers all round,’ said Bradford.

  ‘How did he get in?’

  ‘Broke a glass pane in the kitchen door,’ said Bradford. ‘I’ll tell Katra I did it accidentally and we’ll get it fixed tomorrow.’

  ‘He’d have had a car,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘I’ll check for keys. He won’t have parked it too far away. I’ll take it somewhere and burn it.’

  ‘Where did you shoot him?’

  ‘The hall.’

  Shepherd smiled, despite the seriousness of the situation. ‘In his body, Jack. Where did the rounds go?’

  ‘One in the back, two in the chest.’ Bradford sounded crestfallen.

  ‘Okay, I’m a bit dubious about dropping the guy in the drink with three rounds in him. If ever the body surfaces, the cops will be able to ID the gun.’

  ‘We can dump the weapon.’

  ‘Better to get the rounds out,’ said Shepherd. ‘Get the rounds out and put the body in the car. Use a can of petrol to get the blaze going, and leave the can on the lap of the body. Put a lighter in his hand before you start the fire. Do it somewhere where the car can burn out. The cops will probably put it down as suicide.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ said Bradford.

  ‘Go through the body first, see if you can get an ID on the guy. But leave everything on him when you torch the car.’

  ‘Got you.’

  ‘Jack, if you have any reservations about this at all, I’d understand.’

  ‘I know what cops are like,’ said Bradford. ‘No offence.’

  ‘None taken.’

  ‘If we come clean on this we’ll be answering questions for weeks. Billy and I don’t have time for that. We’ve got work to do. Plus the way the cops are now we might end up in court and then we’re screwed work-wise for life, no matter how the case pans out. So, fire it is.’

  ‘Call me if you need me. And if anything goes wrong, Jack, anything at all, it’s on me, understand?’

  ‘Nothing will go wrong, Spider.’

  The line went dead. Shepherd got out of bed and went downstairs to make himself a cup of coffee. He doubted he’d get any more sleep that night.

  Salih removed the back of his phone, lifted out the battery and the Sim card. It had been two hours since Tariq had phoned to say he was going inside the house. He hadn’t called back. There was no point in Salih checking the number. If Tariq had succeeded,he would have heard. That Tariq hadn’t called meant he was either dead or had been captured. Either way he was of no further use to Salih. He broke the Sim card in half and dropped it into the lavatory. It had probably been a set-up from the start. Whoever had turned Merkulov had wanted Salih to attack Daniel Shepherd so they could catch him in the act. Well, they’d failed. And forewarned was forearmed.

  Dawn was breaking and the sky was streaked with orange behind the Belfast hills when Shepherd’s phone rang. It was Jack Bradford. Shepherd went into the garden to take the call. ‘Everything’s done,’ said Bradford. ‘He was in a hire car, nothing of any interest in it. His name’s Tariq Chadhar, twenty-three years old, had a driving licence with an address in Luton.’

  ‘Twenty-three?’

  ‘That’s what the licence said.’

  ‘And the guy looked twenty-three?’

  ‘Sure. You think the licence is fake?’

  ‘He’s young to be a professional hitman,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘They start young, these days,’ said Bradford. ‘Especially if he cut his teeth in Iraq or Afghanistan.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Shepherd. ‘Liam and Katra still asleep?’

  ‘Like logs,’ said Bradford.

  ‘I owe you big-time,’ said Shepherd. ‘Are you and Billy okay to stay there until I’m back?’

  ‘As long as you need us,’ said Bradford.

  ‘And the house is like it never happened?’

 
; ‘So far as we’re concerned, Spider, it never did.’

  Shepherd ended the call. He rubbed the back of his neck. He hadn’t run since he’d moved to Belfast and being confined to the house for hours on end was driving him crazy. He went upstairs, changed into a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a French Connection T-shirt. He pulled on a pair of training shoes and laced them. He preferred army boots but they would attract too much attention.

  He let himself out of the front door, then jogged in his driveway as he worked out a decent route. He ran down the hill, his feet pounding on the pavement. The roads were deserted and there were no pedestrians about. A couple of dogs watched him run by, and he scattered a flock of pigeons. He was angry, but he wasn’t sure who with. The man who’d turned up at his house was dead, so there was no point in being angry with him. Shepherd doubted that the man the Bradfords had killed was the assassin who had been on Button’s trail; he was too young. And a professional wouldn’t have gone into a house where there were two bodyguards. So who was he, and what had he been doing at Shepherd’s house? Maybe Yokely’s mystery assassin was a red herring. Maybe the Asian had been working to a different agenda. Shepherd had come up against several Asians over the past few years. Maybe it was one of them or a relative out for revenge.

  He upped the pace, his hands in tight fists. The big question was, how had the man known where Shepherd lived? He had only recently moved to Hereford and wasn’t on the electoral roll. And if the man had staked out the house before he went in, he must have known Shepherd wasn’t at home.

  What if it had been the assassin Yokely had warned him about? Perhaps he had traced calls made from Shepherd’s mobile and been able to trace the landline that would have given him Shepherd’s home address – but, then, he’d also have known that Shepherd was in Belfast. So if the assassin had found Shepherd’s address, why had he sent an amateur?

  The more he tried to solve the puzzle, the more his mind whirled. For some reason he was under threat, and that had to be his prime concern. Jack and Billy would stay with Liam and Katra, but Shepherd himself needed protection. He’d not bothered with a weapon while he was in Belfast because the nature of the investigation didn’t warrant it. But that had changed.