Spider Shepherd 10 - True Colours (49 page)

Shortt scrolled through the phone’s menu and opened the map application. The map showed the position of the van as a small arrow, and there was a flashing dot to the left of the road some way ahead. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said.

‘Let me know when we need to turn off,’ said Harper, checking his rear-view mirror.

The speedometer flickered at about ninety and Shepherd bent low over the motorbike’s tank to lower his wind resistance. He’d been caught by two speed cameras as he sped west but that didn’t worry him, he was more concerned about being pursued by traffic cops, but so far he’d been lucky. He was moving faster than the van, he was sure of that, because Harper had Khan in the back so he wouldn’t be doing more than the speed limit. There was a chance, just a chance, that he’d get to them before they had an opportunity to pull the trigger. Shepherd didn’t need the GPS to tell him where the grave was, his photographic memory was more than up to the job. The question was whether or not he’d be able to get there in time.

There was a line of cars ahead of him waiting to overtake a sluggish coach. Shepherd gunned the engine and pulled out into the opposite lane, flashing past the cars and coach, the wind ripping at his clothes, now almost dry after his soaking in the pool.

A car coming in his direction flashed its lights at him in disapproval but Shepherd wasn’t concerned about what other drivers thought about his speed. All he cared about was getting to the New Forest before Harper put a bullet in Khan’s head.

Ahmad Khan could barely breathe. The duct tape across his mouth was enough to suffocate him but the sack they’d pulled over his head meant that every breath was an effort. He tried to stay calm and to breathe slowly and evenly because he knew that panic would only increase his oxygen consumption. He began to lose track of time and started counting slowly, marking the minutes with his fingers, but the lack of oxygen made it difficult to concentrate and he began to drift in and out of consciousness. At some point the van began to shake and vibrate and he realised that they had driven off the road and were crossing rough ground. They slowed and the lurching intensified and then they stopped.

He heard the rear doors being opened and a gruff voice. ‘Get him out.’

Hands seized his legs and dragged him across the floor of the van, then more hands grabbed his shoulders. He heard feet tramping across vegetation as they carried him, face down. Then he felt a lurch and he flipped over and he was falling. For a second he imagined that he had been thrown over the side of a cliff but then he hit the ground, hard enough to force the air from his lungs. He rolled on to his back. The sack was pulled roughly from his head and he blinked his eyes. They were outside and he was surrounded by trees. He lay there, staring up at the branches above his head, the duct tape across his mouth pulsing in and out in time with his breathing.

Something moved in front of his face. A water bottle. Evian water. Khan thought he might be hallucinating then he realised that the bottle had been taped to the barrel of a pistol. Khan recognised the gun. A Makarov. A common weapon used by the Taliban, usually after it had been prised from the dead hand of a Russian soldier. It wasn’t a common weapon in England. He stared at the gun, wondering what its significance was. He knew what the significance of the water bottle was. It was a silencer, to deaden the sound of the shot that would take his life.

The man holding the gun sneered down at him. ‘Do you know who I am, you piece of raghead shit?’ the man snarled.

Khan shook his head. Maybe they had the wrong man. Maybe this was all some horrible mistake.

‘You killed three of my mates and now I’m going to kill you.’

Khan looked to his left. There was another man there. In his forties. White. Staring at Khan with cold eyes. The man’s face was familiar, but Khan knew very few Westerners. It had to have been in Afghanistan. Which meant that he was a soldier.

‘Look at me, you bastard!’ shouted Harper. ‘I’m the one who’s going to put a bullet in your head.’

Khan looked up at the man again. Three of his friends, he had said. When had Khan killed three men? He had killed many men over the years, which three was he talking about?

‘You shot them in the back, you fucking coward. At least you get to see my face.’

‘Just do it, Lex,’ said a third man, standing somewhere beyond Khan’s feet. Khan tried to get a look at him but all he could see was a gun. A revolver.

Khan tried to speak but he could barely breathe and the only sound he could make was a grunt from the back of his throat.

The man with the Makarov grinned. He was wearing gloves. Black leather gloves.

‘The men you killed were friends of mine,’ said the man. ‘I’m going to tell you their names so that they are the last things you think about before you die.’

Khan blanked out the man’s words. There was only one thing he wanted to think about just then. If he was indeed going to die then he wanted his last thoughts to be of his darling daughter, the light of his life.

Khan heard the roar of an engine off to his left. Then a flash of light through the trees. His heart leapt as he thought that perhaps rescue was at hand, that somehow the police had found out what was happening and were coming to save him. The engine noise got louder and he realised it was a motorbike and not a car, and then he saw it, bumping across the rough ground.

The man with the Makarov saw it too and he brought up the gun with both hands and fired.

The bullet glanced against the side of Shepherd’s crash helmet and ricocheted off to the side. He swung the handlebars to the right but hit the curved root of a beech tree and before he could do anything he was hurtling off the bike, arms flailing. He hit the ground hard but rolled and scrambled behind a tree. He flicked up the visor as a second round thudded into the trunk by his head. ‘It’s me, Spider!’ he screamed at the top of his voice.

‘It’s Spider!’ echoed McIntyre, holding up his hand.

Harper lowered his gun as Shepherd stepped out from behind the tree. The engine of the bike was still roaring and the air was growing thick with exhaust fumes. Shepherd pulled off the helmet and dropped it on to the ground, then knelt down and twisted the ignition key and pulled it out.

‘Sorry, mate,’ said Harper. ‘You gave me a shock there.’

‘You might think about identifying your target before pulling the trigger,’ said Shepherd, straightening up.

‘Yeah, well, we weren’t expecting you on a bike, were we?’ said Harper. ‘Anyway, you’re here now, better late than never.’

He walked over to Khan and pointed his gun at the man’s face.

‘Put the gun down, Lex,’ said Shepherd, walking towards Harper.

‘What, having second thoughts, are you?’

‘We’re not shooting him, Lex.’

Harper continued to point his gun at Khan’s face. Khan stared at Harper, his eyes cold and emotionless as if he didn’t care whether he pulled the trigger or not.

Shepherd reached into his pocket and took out his Swiss Army knife. He folded out the blade and stepped between Harper and Khan. ‘Spider, mate, I’m slotting him tonight, come what may,’ said Harper quietly.

‘He killed Captain Todd,’ said McIntyre. ‘And he shot you, Spider. The bastard deserves to die.’

‘Then let’s at least hear his side of the story,’ said Shepherd, kneeling down next to Khan. He used the blade to sever the duct tape at the back of Khan’s head, then pulled it away from his mouth. ‘Did you shoot me?’ he asked Khan.

Khan shook his head. ‘No, sir, I did not.’

Shepherd put a hand on Khan’s shoulder. ‘And Captain Todd. Did you kill him?’

Khan shook his head again. ‘No.’

‘Of course he’d say that!’ shouted Harper. ‘He knows we’re going to slot him, Spider. He’d say anything to save his skin.’ He waved the gun at Khan. ‘Get out of the way. If you don’t want to do it, you can leave it to me.’

‘He didn’t do it, Lex,’ said Shepherd quietly.

‘Bullshit.’

Shepherd turned back to Khan. ‘But you were there, outside the al-Qaeda house in Pakistan? It was you I saw. Outside the house?’

Khan nodded. ‘Yes, I was there.’

‘We know he was there, we saw the bugger,’ said Shortt. ‘And we saw him kill Captain Todd.’

‘And the three Paras!’ shouted Harper. ‘Let’s not forget the three lads he shot in the back.’

‘Take a breath, Lex,’ said Shepherd.

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ yelled Harper, waving his gun over his head. ‘We brought him out here to slot him, let’s just get on with it.’

Shepherd looked over at Khan again. He forced a smile. ‘Tell him,’ he said. ‘Tell him what happened the night that Captain Todd was killed.’

F
or a week Ahmad Khan remained at home, working in the fields and regaining his strength, and then he returned Lailuna to the care of his sister. When she realised that he was going away again, Lailuna wailed as if her heart would break, but he promised her, ‘This is the last time I shall leave you behind. Next time we go together, I swear to you.’

He walked away without looking back, knowing that the desolate look on her face would weaken his resolve. He made contact with Joshua using one of the dead drops he had set up on his instructions, and the following night, waiting as arranged in the shadows at the side of a road outside Jalalabad, he was picked up by an American patrol and taken to a meeting with Joshua at the American FOB. ‘You’re not exactly flavour of the month with the British, just now,’ Joshua said as Khan was brought into the room where he was waiting. ‘They think you deliberately led their men into a trap.’

By way of answer, Khan simply removed his shirt and turned slowly around, allowing Joshua to see the fresh scars that covered his back and torso. Joshua listened intently as Khan told him the story. ‘So, do the Taliban still trust you?’

‘Two of the leaders don’t,’ Khan said. ‘My time is definitely running out. It is time for you to do as you promised and give me and my daughter a new life in the West.’

‘I will,’ said Joshua. ‘But before I do, I need you to carry out one more task for me. You know the money house you talked about across the Pakistani border? We have intelligence suggesting that some al-Qaeda operatives are based there and are using it as a source of funds and weapons. We’ve identified the broad area where it’s sited but we have not been able to locate it precisely. I need you to locate it, penetrate it and identify who’s using it.’

‘And then? What will you do?’

‘And then we’ll deal with it, one way or another.’

‘You will destroy it?’

‘That’s a decision that will be taken at a higher pay grade than mine.’

Khan stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘I need a reason to go there, I can’t just turn up and tell them I happened to be passing. They’re not stupid.’

‘I’ve thought of that.’ Joshua smiled. ‘We’re going to put a price on your head, a large reward for your capture alive. That’ll strengthen your credibility with the Taliban and also give you a powerful reason to cross the border into the tribal areas until the heat has died down.’

‘Even so, why would the Taliban want me to go to the money house?’

‘Because we’re going to make a large cash payment to the headman of your village to buy his loyalty. You’re going to relieve him of it on behalf of the Taliban and then volunteer to deliver it to the money house.’

Khan nodded thoughtfully. ‘And if someone captures me before I cross the border and hands me over to claim the reward you’re offering?’

‘Then you’ll have got your wish because you’ll be in our hands and on your way out of Afghanistan.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Khan said, ‘as I’m sure you knew I would, but Lailuna must be in a place of safety before I do.’

‘Agreed,’ Joshua said. ‘Bring her to the site of the dead drop at dawn tomorrow. I’ll have soldiers there, including a woman, to pick up your daughter. She’ll be waiting for you at Bagram when you return.’

‘And if I do not return?’

‘Then you have my word that she will be taken to my country and we will find a good American family to give her a home.’ He paused. ‘The drop of money to your village headman will take place at noon tomorrow and you would be well advised to be out of the area and on your way to the border by nightfall, because word will already be spreading about the price we’ve put on your head.’

Khan nodded. ‘I shall leave before the sun goes down,’ he said.

‘There’s one other thing,’ said Joshua. He held out what looked like a regular 5.45 round for Khan’s AK-74. ‘This is an HOTB – a Hostiles Ordnance Tracking Beacon,’ he said. ‘We use them to track and intercept enemy supplies – we just need to insert one of these into a shipment and then we can ambush it somewhere along the line, at a time and place of our choosing. I need you to have this with you at all times. We’ll have an AWAC in the air over the area where you’re heading. The HOTB sends out a constant pulse which the AWAC can track. When it stops pulsing, we’ll know that you’ve reached the money house and the point where the signal stops will give us the precise coordinates. There are two ways to stop it. You can fire it in your rifle; put it in your magazine, pull the trigger and it’ll seem like a misfire – there’s a .22 cap in the base which will go off and destroy the inner workings. A misfire will be perfectly plausible, most Taliban ammunition is made in Peshawar and it’s notoriously unreliable. But you can also silence it by crushing it between a couple of rocks.’

‘So when it is silenced, you’ll launch the attack?’

‘I’m not sure about the timing. But by killing the signal we will know the exact location of the house. When you silence the HOTB we’ll send in surveillance drones to check out the area and we’ll then deal with the target.’

‘A drone, perhaps?’ said Khan.

Joshua shrugged. ‘Given the sensitivity of relations with Pakistan, the attack is likely to be by special forces on the ground, and probably British ones at that, rather than by bombs or missiles. The attack, if it does come, will probably be at night and you would be wise not to be in the immediate vicinity of the building at the time.’

Khan was dropped off close to his village later that night and woke Lailuna well before dawn. They slipped out of the still-sleeping village and made their way to the dead drop. Khan told her only that she was going to meet an American woman who would look after her for him, and when he came back, they would be going on the long journey together that he had promised her. As he heard the noise of the approaching American armoured vehicle, driving without lights, he hugged Lailuna, but he was dry eyed and showing a confidence he did not feel as he entrusted her to a young blond woman in army fatigues. While her comrades formed a defensive perimeter around them, she greeted Khan, ruffled Lailuna’s hair and gave her a candy bar.