Spider Shepherd 10 - True Colours (26 page)

‘OK, so here’s the big question. If you’ve got access to all that information, how come you needed me to check up on Khan? You found me, why couldn’t you find him?’

Harper nodded as he drew on his cigarette and held the smoke deep in his lungs before exhaling. ‘Because you’re in the system. You’ve got a passport and credit cards and a driving licence and you pay your council tax like a good citizen. And like I said, I already had your basic details. Easy peasy. But Khan was a whole different kettle of fish.’

‘You tried under his real name?’

‘Real name doesn’t really apply, does it? We knew him as Ahmad Khan in Afghanistan but who’s to say that’s his real name? A guy can use any name he wants out there, most births aren’t even registered. That’s why when they do come over here they get to stay. You can have fingerprints, DNA, iris scans, the works, but they’re no bloody use if you’ve nothing to compare them with.’ He dropped what was left of his cigarette on the floor, stamped on it, then picked up the flattened butt and put it into his pocket. He leaned across the table. ‘So, time to shit or get off the pot, Spider. Did you find him?’

Shepherd nodded. ‘Yeah, I found him.’

Harper grinned. ‘I knew you would. Hammersmith? Near the court?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Family?’

‘Not that I know of. He’s not known as Ahmad Khan any more. Now he’s got a British passport under the name Farzad Sajadi.’

‘That’s interesting.’

‘What’s your plan, Lex? What do you want to do?’

‘What do you want to do?’ Lex’s eyes bored into Shepherd’s. The two men stared at each other for several seconds. It was Spider who looked away first. There was something different about Lex’s eyes, a coldness that hadn’t been there when he’d been Shepherd’s spotter in Afghanistan. The relationship between a sniper and a spotter was as tight as any relationship could be. It was all about trust. A sniper had to concentrate on his target with every fibre of his being, and that meant the spotter had to be watching his back. A sniper had to be able to trust his spotter completely, and in Afghanistan Spider had trusted Harper, literally, with his life. But the Lex Harper sitting next to him on the bench in Hyde Park wasn’t the same man who’d partnered him in Afghanistan. But then Shepherd had changed, too. Everyone changed. Time and events made sure of that.

Shepherd rubbed his right shoulder as he thought back to the day that Khan had shot him. He had nearly died that day in 2002. And the officer he was with, Captain Harry Todd, had died as he lay in Shepherd’s arms, shot in the head and throat. He shuddered as the memories flooded back. Khan had shot Todd twice but either of the wounds would have been fatal. And if the round that had slammed into Shepherd’s shoulder had been an inch to the left, Shepherd would have died too.

‘Spider?’ Harper was looking at him with concern in his eyes.

‘Yeah, sorry,’ said Shepherd. He shook his head to clear his thoughts.

‘You thinking about Captain Todd?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That bastard Khan ambushed him. And you. You weren’t even shooting when you came out of that building, you were no threat to him.’

‘What do you want to do, Lex?’

Harper leaned towards Shepherd. ‘Remember what the captain wanted? That French phrase?’

‘
Droit de seigneur
?’

That’s the one. The right to be in at the kill. That’s what I want, Spider. I want to see the bastard die.’

‘You’re talking about murder.’

Harper shook his head fiercely. ‘I’m talking about justice, and you more than anyone should know how important that is. He killed the captain. He shot three of my mates in the back. And he damn near killed you.’

Shepherd nodded. Everything Harper said was true. But that didn’t make what he was suggesting the right thing to do.

‘Well?’ said Harper.

‘You’re up for this?’

‘Damn right,’ said Harper. ‘Are you?’

Shepherd closed his eyes. His brain kicked into overdrive, pulling out images from his almost perfect memory. The blood trickling down Todd’s face. More blood frothing from the wound in his throat. The way the life had faded from the captain’s eyes and his body had shaken and then gone still. Then the nightmare journey back to the helicopter, Shepherd lying on a makeshift stretcher being dragged behind a moped, bouncing and banging across the rough terrain, every movement sending bolts of pain through his shoulder as the blood seeped into the trauma bandage covering the gaping wound, the wound that he saw every morning in the bathroom mirror. He opened his eyes and smiled thinly at Harper. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m up for it. But first we have to make sure.’

‘Make sure?’

‘We need to know it’s definitely him.’

‘You said you’d ID’d him.’

‘I said I’ve identified the guy in the picture. But we need to be one hundred per cent sure that it’s Khan.’

‘An Afghan with a milky eye and a straggly beard? How many of them do you think there are in the world?’

‘To be honest Lex, I don’t know. And neither do you. We need to get a close look at him. And I’ll get Jock along. Jock got up close and personal with Khan so I want to know what he thinks.’

‘How the hell is Jock?’

‘Haven’t seen him since Afghanistan. The Regiment’ll know where he is. Soon as I’ve got Jock on board, we’ll go take a look at Khan.’

Shepherd drove back to Hampstead and found a parking space fairly close to his flat in a side road off Hampstead High Street. The cramped one-bedroom flat was on the second floor of a block built during the sixties to fill the gap left when two mews houses were demolished by a stray German bomb during the Second World War. Shepherd let himself in, tapped in the burglar alarm code and made himself a cup of coffee before phoning Major Gannon. The call went through to voicemail but Shepherd didn’t leave a message. He was taking his first sip of coffee when the phone rang. ‘Sorry, Spider, I was in the range – how’s things?’

‘All good, boss,’ said Shepherd. ‘You?’

‘Helping train a group of SFOs,’ said the Major. ‘Slow going.’

Specialist Firearms Officers had originally been confined to specialist units that were used only in emergency situations, but recently they had become a familiar sight on the streets of British cities. While public opinion would have preferred to have kept the traditional bobby armed only with a stick and a whistle, times were changing, and the armed units were the only defence against criminals armed with guns and knives. Most of the country’s police forces now sent their SFOs to the SAS for training.

‘I had a run-in with armed cops a while back,’ said Shepherd. ‘Found myself on the receiving end of a taser.’

The Major laughed. ‘And how was it?’

‘Hurt like hell,’ said Shepherd. ‘And as I was covered in petrol at the time, it could have been lethal.’

‘Better than a bullet,’ said the Major.

‘No argument there,’ said Shepherd. ‘Boss, I need a favour. Jock McIntyre. Any idea where he is?’

‘Now there’s a blast from the past,’ said the Major. ‘It’s been a couple of years since I’ve seen him. I was in Iraq with him five or six years ago and I used him in the Increment a few times.’ The Increment was one of the government’s best-kept secrets, an ad hoc group of special forces soldiers used on operations considered too dangerous for the country’s security services, MI5 and MI6. The Major had headed the unit for several years. ‘I haven’t heard from him for at least three years.’

‘He’s left the Regiment?’

‘Yes, he had a couple of close calls during the last tour and he started drinking more than was good for him. I had him in for a couple of chats and we put him through a detox programme but it didn’t do much good. He’d put in the years so he left with a decent pension but he wasn’t happy about going.’

‘He wasn’t dishonourably discharged?’

‘Hell no, he was always professional in the field. It was just when he got back to Hereford that he had problems. He’d have a few too many drinks in the pub and then get into fights with the local yobs. You know what it’s like here, Spider. There’s always some tough guy who wants to prove he can take on the SAS. Most of the guys just walk away but Jock seemed to welcome the attention. It got so that we had to ban him from the local pubs.’

‘Can you find out where he is? I need to get in touch.’

‘Something I can help with?’

‘It’s personal, boss.’

‘Personal is sometimes when you need the most help, Spider. You were there when I needed you, I’m here for you if you need me.’

‘I appreciate that, boss,’ said Shepherd. ‘But it’s no biggie, seriously.’ Shepherd wasn’t happy about lying to the Major but the fewer people who knew what he was planning, the better.

‘No problem,’ said the Major. ‘I’ll take a walk over to the admin office and pull his file. OK to call you on this number?’

‘Yeah, I’m at home,’ said Shepherd.

‘Hereford?’

Shepherd laughed. ‘Sorry, no. London. I’ve been in this flat so long it’s starting to feel like home.’

The Major ended the call and Shepherd went through to the pokey kitchen and opened the fridge. There were a couple of Marks and Spencer salads, a pack of cheese slices and a pack of yoghurts. Shepherd wasn’t a great food shopper and tended to eat out more often than not when he was away from Hereford. He pulled out the salads but both were a week past their sell-by date and he tossed them into the bin by the cooker. There was half a pack of Hovis bread that was just within its sell-by date so he made a couple of slices of cheese on toast and took them and a cup of Nescafé back into the sitting room. He had barely flopped down on to the sofa when his phone rang. It was the Major and he had an address in Reading and a phone number for Jock McIntyre. ‘I think the number’s out of date,’ said the Major. ‘There’s a note in the file saying that someone from the SAS Association tried to get in touch last year but didn’t get any reply.’ The SAS Association looked after former members of the Regiment who had fallen on hard times and paid out more than £120,000 a year in financial support. ‘According to the file he’s separated from his wife and working as a security guard.’

‘A security guard? Jock?’

‘He’s not the Jock you remember, Spider. Look, if you do see him, get him to get in touch with me, will you?’

‘Will do, boss.’ Shepherd ended the call, finished his sandwich, and then tapped out McIntyre’s number. It went straight through to voicemail.

The Major hadn’t given Shepherd a work address for McIntyre so Shepherd’s only option was to try catching the man at home. He figured it would take just over an hour to drive to Reading. It wasn’t a town that he was familiar with but the Major had given him the postcode and the X5 had satnav. He looked at his watch. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. There was probably no good time to get there – there was no guarantee that McIntyre was still at the address, and if he did still live there he could be working days or nights.

He locked up the flat and walked downstairs. He’d parked a short walk away and within minutes he was driving west, the destination programmed into the car’s satnav. The navigation system took him to a street of run-down terraced houses close to the town centre. The houses were on three floors, with a large bay window on the ground floor, two smaller windows on the first floor, and a single arched gable window set into the roof. Most appeared to have been converted into flats and had multiple doorbells by the front door.

Shepherd parked on the opposite side of the street and walked over to McIntyre’s address. He was in Flat 3 but Shepherd couldn’t work out whether that was the top-floor or the ground-floor flat. He pressed the bell and waited. There was a small speaker below the three bell buttons but it remained resolutely silent. He pushed again, and then a third time. He was just about to turn away when the door opened. A large black woman in a bright green African-style dress and a matching headscarf started to back through the door, pulling a double stroller. Shepherd helped keep the door open as she manoeuvred the stroller on to the pavement. ‘Thank you,’ she said. Two small boys looked up at Shepherd with matching grins. They couldn’t have been more than eighteen months old, still at the stage where every stranger was a source of amusement. He couldn’t help smile back at their cheery faces and one of them put a hand to his mouth and blew Shepherd a kiss.

‘No problem,’ said Shepherd. ‘You don’t happen to know Jock McIntyre, do you?’

‘The Scottish man?’ said the woman, pulling the door shut. ‘He drinks a lot, and he scares my children sometimes.’

‘I’m told he lives in Flat 3.’

‘That’s right, the top,’ said the woman. ‘He lives above me. The one good thing is he’s quiet. I never hear him when he’s home.’

‘But he’s not in now?’

‘I don’t think so. Did you ring the bell?’ She was clutching a leather handbag to her ample chest as if she feared he might try to take it from her.

Shepherd nodded. ‘I’ll come back later.’ He turned to go.

‘Is he your friend?’

‘Sure.’

She looked at him earnestly. ‘You should tell him not to drink so much. Sometimes he falls over on the stairs. He’s going to hurt himself. Alcohol is a bad thing.’

‘I’ll tell him,’ said Shepherd. He went back to the car as the woman manoeuvred the pushchair down the street.

Shepherd was about to get into the car when he saw a small shop down the road, so he wandered down and bought a bottle of water, a box of Jaffa Cakes and a copy of the
Daily Mail
. Back in the car, he reclined the front seat, nibbled on the Jaffa Cakes and read the paper.

It had been dark for almost an hour when McIntyre came walking down the road from the direction of the station. He was carrying a backpack slung over one shoulder and was walking slowly, as if every step was an effort. It was a far cry from when Shepherd had seen him in Afghanistan, where McIntyre had no problem running with thirty kilos of equipment on his back plus a loaded weapon and ammo. He had been one of the fittest men in the Regiment and one of the few who could give Shepherd a run for his money in the stamina stakes.

He had his head down and his shoulders were hunched as if he had the cares of the world pressing down on him. His sandy hair had greyed over the years and there was a grey pallor to his skin as if all the colour had been drained out of him.