Hot Blood (22 page)

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 have 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.’

‘Except that they’re in their twenties and three of them have been to Pakistan for six months, which would have given them plenty of time to slip away to an al-Qaeda training camp.’

‘Which three?’

‘The brothers, Asim and Salman, and Fazal.’

‘That’s your intel or SO13’s?’

‘It came out during the briefing,’ said Button. ‘These guys want to buy guns and explosives, Spider. They’re not planning a stag weekend.’

‘It felt to me as if Ali was the one in charge. Which means he’s been acting as an
agent provocateur
.’

‘No one forced them to go along with him,’ said Button.

‘Agreed. But you have to wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t been around to gee them up.’

‘In all probability someone else would have spotted their potential. But if it had been someone else, maybe we’d be dealing with four more suicide-bombers down the Tube.’

‘But we were the ones who mentioned explosives,’ said Shepherd.

‘You suggested they were available.’

‘And Ali said he’d talk to the others. He was the first to mention detonators. I reckon I’ve just been pitching to an SO13 agent. I’m getting a bad feeling about this, that’s all I’m saying. I think we set them up. I think Ali was setting them up from the start and we helped him.’

‘No one forced them to buy those guns,’ said Button. ‘The Ingram isn’t the weapon of choice for the country set. It’s for mass killing. It’s a gun you fire on a crowded bus knowing you’re going to kill and maim dozens of people. And the fact that we’re the ones offering him the explosives and detonators is a good thing, Spider. What if they’d ended up dealing with the Russians or the Serbs? Then they’d be on the loose with the real thing and we’d be none the wiser.’

‘Would they, though? Or would they just be sitting in their mosque up north mouthing off?’

‘There’s a parallel here,’ said Button, patiently, ‘in a case you worked on a while back under Hargrove. A woman who wanted her husband killed. You posed as a hitman and she asked you to kill her husband. The premise is the same. You were giving her the opportunity to hire a killer and once you made contact you suggested various ways in which her husband could be killed.’

‘She was already looking for someone to kill him,’ said Shepherd. ‘It wasn’t as if we put the idea in her head.’

‘Spider, we’re going round in circles. Anti-Terrorist wouldn’t have called us in if they didn’t think these men were a real threat. They don’t have the resources to go on wild-goose chases. But your feelings are on record, okay?’

Shepherd had pushed it as far as he could. ‘And you’re okay with me having a few days off?’

‘Providing you’re available for this Birmingham case, yes. Are you okay? You look tired.’

‘I didn’t sleep much last night,’ he said.

‘Maybe a couple of days off is what you need,’ she said. ‘I’ve been working you pretty hard over the last couple of months.’

Shepherd felt a twinge of guilt at her concern for his welfare, but he could hardly admit to her that the reason he was tired was because he’d spent the previous night flying to and from Baghdad.

Shepherd was in his bedroom packing clothes into a holdall when his personal mobile rang. It was Jimmy Sharpe. ‘Razor, what’s up?’

‘I’m in deep shit,’ said Sharpe. ‘Can you talk?’

‘I’m on my way out but, yeah, what’s the problem?’

‘That new shrink’s pulling the plug on me.’

‘She’s
what
?’

‘Racist tendencies make me unsuitable for undercover work, she said.’

‘She told you that?’

‘Button called me. And that pisses me off – she didn’t have the balls to tell me face to face. Had to do it on the phone.’

‘Bloody hell, Razor, what did you say to her?’

‘Told her to stuff her bloody job.’

‘I meant to Stockmann. What did you tell the shrink?’

‘It was just a chat, same as it always used to be with Gift. To and fro, a bit of banter, showing her I hadn’t lost my marbles and that I can still walk in a straight line without falling over my feet.’

‘So how did the racism issue come up?’

‘We talked about the recent cases. About the Pakis and that.’

‘And you called them Pakis, of course?’

‘Don’t you bloody start,’ snapped Sharpe. ‘Paki is short for Pakistani. I’m a Scot, you’re a Brit, a Paki’s a Paki. What am I supposed to say? A citizen of Pakistan?’

‘Anything else?’

‘It was just chit-chat, Spider – and, okay, I might have let my guard down – but now Button says I should be looking for a transfer.’

‘Did she say you were off the unit?’

‘Not in so many words. She didn’t flat out sack me, but the writing’s on the wall.’

‘What do you want me to do, Razor?’

‘Put in a good word. Tell Button how it is. She listens to you.’

‘She’s our boss, Razor. It’s her unit.’

‘If you don’t do something, I’m out. And I’m not going back into uniform at this time of my life.’

‘It won’t come to that, and you know it. There are other options.’

‘I don’t want other options. I want to stay in SOCA.’

Shepherd looked at his watch. He had four hours before his flight left Heathrow. ‘Let me see what I can do,’ he said.

He ended the call, fished Caroline Stockmann’s business card out of his wallet, then called her mobile. She was surprised to hear from him, and even more surprised when he asked to meet her. She lived in North London but he figured he had just about enough time to swing by her house on the way out to the airport.