Black Ops: The 12th Spider Shepherd Thriller (6 page)

‘AKA Mick One.’

‘… is a New IRA activist,’ Button said, ignoring the interruption. ‘He is a key figure on their Army Council and eager to establish himself as the Gerry Adams for the twenty-first century, but the only way he’s going to achieve that is with a significant escalation of the New IRA’s campaign against British rule. Our past successes in penetrating the organisation and raiding their arms caches left them with few remaining weapons or explosives but, as I said, they are now very well funded and O’Brien is actively scouting the illegal arms trade, looking for a variety of weapons and explosives, including heavy weapons.’

‘And the source of their funds?’

‘Is your second target. They are being funded in the main by Michael Walsh – Mick Two,’ she said, as she saw Harper poised to interrupt again. She passed him another photograph, this time of a paunchy, grey-haired but still young-looking man in a sharp business suit. ‘He’s a Boston Irish-American multi-millionaire and idealist, who imbibed all the IRA myths with his mother’s milk, and is now using his wealth to try to make them come true. He’s been actively fundraising in the US and getting his rich Irish-American friends to chip in. Although he’s your second target, his American citizenship makes this an especially sensitive operation, so to avoid any possibility of our being implicated, the op must take place well away from the UK and without any identifiable trace of a UK connection. The way that O’Brien’s death is perceived is less important – though any evidence or even suspicion of a UK connection will inevitably lead to the New IRA attempting a “spectacular” by way of reprisal – but we’d prefer that Walsh’s death appears to be a falling-out among thieves, not an assassination.’

Harper nodded. ‘Let’s see if I can set it up in Germany then. Anything that makes the Yanks pissed off with the Krauts has got to be good news for you, right?’

Button held up a hand. ‘Where you carry out the op is up to you, I don’t need or want to know the details. But if you do carry it out in Germany, just make sure the German intelligence agencies don’t get the slightest whiff of what’s happening either before or after the event. Not only would that catastrophically damage our relations with them, but the German agencies are also as leaky as a rusty sieve and penetrated by US agents at every level.’ She paused. ‘Why Germany?’

‘I’ve an acquaintance there – a friend would be stretching it – who might prove very useful. She’s ex-Stasi and not only knows where all the bodies are buried, but some of the weapons too.’

‘Just be aware,’ Button said, ‘that while you have your “Get Out of Jail Free” card as far as all the UK agencies are concerned, that does not extend to any of our European partners. If you get picked up by the Bundespolizei, the Federal Intelligence Service or the Military Counter-intelligence Service in Germany or indeed those of any other allied or hostile country, you’re on your own and, if challenged, we’ll deny any knowledge of your existence.’

‘Understood,’ Harper said.

‘This isn’t just about the two men, Alex. We need more. A lot more.’

Harper nodded. ‘I’m listening.’

‘We need the organisation damaged, ideally damaged beyond repair. We want you to hit them financially, we want them in-fighting, not knowing who they can trust, we want them crippled as a terrorist organisation.’

‘Bloody hell, Charlie, you’re not asking much.’

‘Money’s no object and you can subcontract out as much of it as you need. With all that’s going on in the world just now, the last thing HMG needs is trouble in Ireland again. This needs to be nipped in the bud, and by nipped I mean killed. One more piece of information that may be useful.’ Button passed another photograph across the table to him, this time of a heavily made up, twenty-year-old woman with her half-undone blouse revealing part of a tattoo at her cleavage, and an inch of black hair showing at the roots of her peroxide blonde hair. ‘O’Brien has a daughter.’

‘Not bad looking in a rugged sort of way. I suppose we’ll have to call her Mick One And A Half.’

Button again ignored the interruption. ‘Her name’s Bridie and she works for the London end of the family business, collecting cash for the boys, but she’s eager to do more for them. We’ve had her under observation for quite some time. She’s a bit of a loose cannon, a hard drinker like her father, a borderline alcoholic in fact, but she’s chafing at her slow rate of progress up the New IRA food chain. Her dad loves her, of course, but the rest of the New IRA’s Army Council see her as a bit of a spoilt daddy’s girl. She’s always trying to find ways to improve her reputation with them but she’s also perpetually short of cash and constantly looking for opportunities to make some money on the side. She could be your way in. But she’s not a target.’

Harper nodded. ‘Understood. But we’re missing a trick, aren’t we? What if we not only eliminate your two problems but find a way to put a serious hole in the New IRA’s existing funds as well?’

Button studied him for a moment. ‘Go on.’

‘We make my legend that I’m a major criminal, a gang boss and arms dealer, a Swiss citizen, but of unknown East European origins, and if they can persuade me to do business with them, I’m just the man to supply anything they need.’

‘And if they start asking awkward questions about your background?’

Harper smiled. ‘Seriously? I’ll just do what any gang boss and arms dealer would do in those circumstances: I’ll tell them to fuck off. Come on, Charlie, do you think the New IRA men would answer any questions about their origins if I was dumb enough to ask any? They’ll do some checking of my legend, of course, but if your people are up to their job, that won’t throw up any red alerts, will it?’

He waited for her nod of assent before continuing. ‘I use the promise of supplying weapons as bait to draw them in, but instead of killing them straight away, I’ll set up a deal with them.’ He paused. ‘Actually, make that two deals. I’ll make it a condition that I supply them with some lesser weapons first – shorts, semi-automatics, that sort of thing – to establish trust on both sides. They’ll all be ex-Soviet or East European and untraceable, and I’ll plant tracking devices so that you can follow them to wherever they’re hiding their arms. That deal will cost them some modest funds but I’ll then do the big deal with them for some serious kit: plastic explosive, heavy machine guns, mortars, missiles, whatever they want basically.’

‘Sounds to me like you’re over-egging the pudding.’

‘You want to hit them financially, then there has to be a con. And a good one. This way we get to take a serious chunk of money from them. And you get to bust all their arms caches.’

Button frowned. ‘I don’t know, it’s risky. The more layers you add, the greater the risk of compromise or cock-up.’

‘And the greater the rewards when it pays off. This way, you get exactly what you want. You’re not just eliminating a terrorist and his money-man, you’re also giving the New IRA a whole savage kick in the balls. As well as the key people they’ll lose, you’ll hit their funds, empty their weapons caches and sow an atmosphere of mistrust and paranoia among the survivors. They’ll be wondering how were they betrayed, who grassed them up? It could make the whole organisation implode.’ He studied her expression for a moment. ‘Relax, Charlie, like any other good con, the marks will sell themselves on the deal because they’ll be desperate to get their hands on what they think I’ve got to sell.’

There was a long silence. Button’s brow furrowed as she thought through the implications and pitfalls. Harper merely leaned back with his hands behind his head and waited.

‘Okay,’ she said eventually. ‘Tell me what you need.’

Harper grinned and leaned forward. ‘A Swiss passport in a generic East European name – Müller would do – and two credit cards, one Amex and one Visa because, contrary to their advertising slogans, Amex doesn’t always do nicely. If you want to throw in a debit card backed by a pleasingly well-lubricated account, I wouldn’t say no either, because this job is going to need a lot of walking around money. And some of your comms wonder kit would be handy too, providing you’re still sure the Yanks can’t crack it.’

‘That’s all doable. How many sets will you need?’

Harper did a quick mental calculation. ‘I’ll need a research and surveillance team of four people, to cut my time on the ground and identify the routines and weaknesses in the targets’ security and locate and screen the locations we’ll need to use, so five sets including mine – no wait, make it six,’ he said, studying the photograph of O’Brien’s daughter again. ‘There’s someone else who might be very useful.’

Button passed him four more photos. ‘There are a few more people you need to be able to ID.’ They were all thickset, tough-looking men, in their mid-thirties to mid-forties.

‘Nice-looking boys,’ Harper said. ‘I’m guessing they’re the muscle.’

She nodded. ‘Some or all of them will probably be bodyguarding the targets.’

‘So, no dramas if any of them get caught in the crossfire?’

‘None at all,’ Button said. ‘They’ve all got form: bombings, knee-cappings, shootings, arson. Nasty pieces of work, one and all.’

‘Right, it’ll take me forty-eight hours to sort out a plan and brief my team,’ Harper said. ‘Then we’re in business.’

As Button snapped her briefcase shut, they heard a furious argument erupting down the hallway, with a woman screaming obscenities and a man’s voice swearing back. A door slammed with a violence that made the walls shake and they heard heavy footsteps going down the stairs. Button gave a weary shake of her head. ‘Right, I’ll have a Swiss passport in the name of Müller and the rest of your legend delivered to you by this time tomorrow. Same place?’

‘Why not?’ Harper, said with a broad smile. ‘It’s already starting to feel like home.’

Button put her coat back on, flashed him a tight smile, and left. Harper stood at the window, peering through a crack in the curtains to watch her go. He saw her pull three anti-surveillance moves as she headed down the road and he nodded his approval. She might well be behind a desk most of the time, but Charlie Button had never forgotten her tradecraft.

Harper waited fifteen minutes then put on his coat and took a walk to a nearby park, a patch of urban wasteland with its patchy grass strewn with litter, broken glass and blackened patches where fires had been lit. A group of half a dozen youths in hoodies gave him curious looks and muttered to each other, but Harper stared at them until they looked away. He made four calls on one phone and then removed the SIM card, broke it in half, and tossed it into an overflowing waste bin.

T
hey took Shepherd to Islington Police Station in the back of a windowless van with his wrists bound together with plastic ties. Two hard-faced specialist firearms officers sat in the back with him, cradling their carbines. That seemed like overkill and he doubted that they’d even be able to get a shot off in the confines of the van, but he said nothing. There was nothing he could say. They were just cogs in the machine and weren’t able to make any decisions that would affect the outcome of what was happening. Even if he could convince them that he was an MI5 officer they didn’t have the authority to release him. Shepherd just went into shutdown mode, sitting quietly with his head down as he waited for it all to be over. They had taken the transceiver off him, and the earpiece, but he’d had just enough time to tell Brewer that he was about to be taken into custody.

The armed cops said nothing; they just stared at him stonily. Even if he spoke to them he doubted they would reply. He hadn’t been cautioned or charged which meant that anything he did say would only cause them problems down the line. They knew that everything had to be done by the book, which meant that any questioning had to comply with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

The van stopped and he heard a metal gate rattle back then the van moved forward and stopped again. He heard muffled voices and then the rear doors opened and a uniformed officer in a stab-vest unlocked the cage to allow one of the armed officers out. The second armed officer motioned for Shepherd to get out. Shepherd shuffled along the bench seat and stepped down. He was grabbed by the arms by two more officers and pulled roughly away from the van. He blinked in the sunlight. There were half a dozen armed officers all pointing their weapons at him. He was in a police car park and from the windows of the main building, dozens of faces looked down.

They bundled him a few yards to a ramp that led to a grey door where there were two more armed cops. They hustled him down a corridor and into a custody suite where a grey-haired sergeant stood behind a computer terminal. The sergeant was wearing glasses but he looked over the top of them to scrutinise Shepherd.

‘This is him?’ he said. He had a West Country drawl that suggested haystacks and cider. His workstation was raised about a foot off the ground so that he was able to look down on Shepherd, even though he was several inches shorter.

‘It’s him,’ said one of the armed cops.

There were half a dozen uniformed officers standing by a door, all staring at Shepherd. One of them was an inspector. He was in his late twenties and had fast-track graduate-entry written all over him, his uniform neatly pressed, his hat on perfectly straight, his hands clasped behind his back as if he were on parade.

‘Name?’ the sergeant asked Shepherd.

Shepherd ignored him. He looked over at the inspector, the highest-ranking officer in the room. ‘Can I have a word, inspector?’

The inspector frowned. ‘What?’

‘I need to talk to you in private.’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ said the officer. He jutted his chin up as if to reinforce his decision.

‘I have some information that you need to hear.’

‘I would suggest that you do not say anything until you have a solicitor present.’

‘There’s no need for that,’ said Shepherd. ‘This is all going to be sorted out in the next hour or so. Just put me in a room or a cell if you’d prefer and I’d really appreciate a cup of coffee and a sandwich if you could grab one from the canteen. I haven’t eaten for a while.’