Fair Game (3 page)

‘That is a lie!’ snapped Nadif’s father. ‘My son did nothing. He said nothing. They attacked him and now he lies in hospital.’

‘Did they steal his wallet and phone?’ Taban asked the father of the boys.

‘Both have been returned,’ said the man. ‘But that is not why they were fighting with Nadif. Nadif abused their sister and that is why they struck him.’

‘They slashed him with knives,’ said Nadif’s father. ‘He said nothing about their sister. That is a lie.’

‘They have admitted their guilt and compensation will be paid,’ said Taban slowly, choosing his words with care.

‘This isn’t right,’ said Nadif’s father. ‘If I had gone to the police they would be in prison now. But they sit over there as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Do they look sorry for what they did to my boy? Do they look as if they care?’ He glared at the teenagers. One of them sneered back at the man but his mother slapped his shoulder and he looked down at the table.

Taban leaned forward and took the father’s hand in his. ‘Everyone here feels your pain,’ he said. ‘That is why we have the
gar
, to make things right. That is how we do things. We do not go to the police, we do not use the infidel’s courts. We sort things out within our community. That is the way it has always been and it is the way it always will be. We do not allow the infidel to pass judgement on us. We resolve our own conflicts.’

The father nodded. ‘I understand,’ he said.

Taban let go of the man’s hand and sat back. ‘How much do you think would be reasonable by way of compensation?’ he asked Crazy Boy.

‘Four thousand pounds is not enough, not considering the injuries,’ Crazy Boy said to the men at the table.

‘How much, then?’ said the father of the boys. ‘They have admitted their guilt, they have expressed remorse, what was taken has been returned. We want to put this behind us and move on.’ He toyed with his trilby.

Taban looked at Sadiiq. ‘What do you think, Sadiiq?’ he asked.

Sadiiq nodded thoughtfully. ‘The injuries are severe and the attack was unjustified,’ he said. ‘Eight thousand pounds is what should be paid. And when Nadif is well enough to receive visitors, the two boys must go and ask his forgiveness.’ He looked at Nadif’s father. ‘That forgiveness will be granted.’

The father nodded.

Taban looked at the parents of the teenagers. ‘So eight thousand pounds from your family, to be paid by the end of the week.’

‘Thank you,’ said the father.

His wife nodded quickly. ‘Thank you so much,’ she said. ‘May God bless you.’

Taban looked across at Nadif’s father. ‘An apology will be made, and compensation will be paid. The matter will then be closed.’

Nadif’s father nodded slowly.

‘Then our business here is concluded,’ said Taban. ‘Let us all go in peace.’

The parents hurried out of the café with their teenagers, avoiding eye contact with Nadif’s father.

Crazy Boy stood up. Nadif’s father looked up at him expectantly and Crazy Boy patted him on the shoulder. ‘I am sorry about what happened to your son,’ he said. ‘Tell him I’ll see him tomorrow.’

The man nodded and muttered his thanks.

‘Is there anything you need?’ asked Crazy Boy.

The man shook his head, but Crazy Boy pulled a wad of fifty-pound notes from his pocket and peeled off half a dozen. He stuffed them into the man’s hand, then patted him on the back.

Two Knives already had the café door open for Crazy Boy. He had remained at the door throughout the
gar
. He was one of Crazy Boy’s foot soldiers, his most loyal. His true name was Gutaala, which meant ‘Leader’, but Two Knives was no leader of men, he was a follower. It was Crazy Boy who had given him his nickname when they were teenagers in Somalia. He hurried down the street after Crazy Boy.

‘I don’t understand, a fine is nothing,’ said Two Knives. ‘Why didn’t you really punish them? They put Nadif in hospital and they know he works for you.’

‘Because true punishment has no place in the
gar
,’ said Crazy Boy. ‘And the money isn’t a fine, it’s compensation.’ He put his arm around Two Knives. ‘You think the old men there would agree to true punishment, to an eye for an eye?’ He shook his head. ‘They believe that the shame that is brought to a family is punishment enough. That and money ends it in their eyes.’ He gripped the back of his friend’s neck and squeezed tightly. ‘But not in mine, brother,’ he said. ‘You will wait for the family to pay the money, and then you will do what has to be done.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Two Knives. ‘The
gar
decided that the family pays compensation and that is the matter closed.’

‘That they did,’ said Crazy Boy. ‘But what the
gar
decides and what I decide are two different things. You wait until the blood money has been paid and then you and your brothers pick them up and show them what happens to anyone who crosses us. I want them to lose their hands and their feet and their pricks and their heads and I want the pieces fed to dogs. Do you understand?’

Two Knives grinned and nodded. ‘That’s more like it,’ he said.

‘Make sure that no one sees you pick them up, make sure that no one can connect what happens to them to me. But I want them to die screaming and I want to see a video of their last moments.’

‘It will be a pleasure,’ said Two Knives.

Ahead of them was a large Mercedes. The driver already had the door open for Crazy Boy and another of his bodyguards was standing by the front passenger door. Crazy Boy slapped Two Knives on the back and climbed into the car.

Charlotte Button was sitting at a corner table in a West Belfast pub, wearing a cheap coat and with a half pint of Guinness in front of her. There was a copy of the
Belfast Telegraph
on the table with a pair of wool gloves and by her feet a Tesco carrier bag filled with provisions.

Shepherd bought a Jameson’s whiskey with ice and sat down opposite her. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you’d shop at Tesco,’ he said. ‘I would have you as more of a Waitrose customer.’

‘It’s cover,’ she said. She gestured at her coat. ‘I’m trying to blend. You don’t think I’d wear this for any other reason, do you?’

Shepherd smiled. The coat and the bag of shopping might have been in character but she was too pretty and too well groomed to blend and she was wearing a slim gold watch on her wrist that belied any attempt to pass herself off as a Belfast housewife.

He sipped his whiskey. ‘I have to leave today,’ he said.

She slid a sheet of paper across the table. ‘You’re booked on half a dozen flights out of Belfast this evening,’ she said. ‘Or you can drive and take the ferry.’

‘The car stays here,’ said Shepherd. ‘And there’s a good chance they’ll be watching the airport and the ferry terminal. I’ll take the train to Dublin and fly from there.’

‘I’ll make the reservations,’ she said. ‘I’ll text you the booking references.’

Shepherd shook his head. ‘I’ve tossed the phone and the Sim card,’ he said. ‘I’ll buy my own ticket.’

‘You’re angry,’ she said, and it was a statement and not a question.

‘Damn right I’m angry,’ he said. ‘My life is on the line, here, Charlie. Everyone in that warehouse saw me shoot those guys.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘This isn’t about apologies, it’s about the mother of all cock-ups. The whole point of me going undercover is that I go in and out with no one knowing what’s happened. I gather intel, but someone else clears up the shit.’

‘Spider, you’re not telling me anything that I don’t already know.’

‘I think it needs spelling out, Charlie. I shot two members of the Real IRA. They know what I look like.’

‘But they don’t know who you are.’

‘That’s not the point,’ snapped Shepherd. ‘The point is that they know what I did and if I ever cross paths with them again . . .’ He threw up his hands in disgust. ‘Bloody amateurs.’

‘We can make sure that you never work in the Province again.’

‘And what if they come looking for me, Charlie? What are you going to do? Put me in the witness protection programme? I spent more than three months in Ireland, I must have been caught a thousand times on CCTV. If they have access to any of the cameras then they’ll have my picture.’

‘Your legend was watertight. If they do go looking for you they’ll be looking in the wrong place. They think you’re an American, remember?’

‘They’re not stupid, Charlie. They’ll know that the Americans wouldn’t put one of their own people undercover in Northern Ireland.’

‘But they won’t know who you are or where to look for you.’

‘We shouldn’t even be in this position,’ said Shepherd. ‘I was blown, Charlie. My cover was blown to smithereens mid-operation. That’s never happened before.’ He sighed and shook his head contemptuously. ‘How the hell could something like that happen, Charlie? How could MI5 and Special Branch be on the same case and not know?’

‘Because we were coming at it from different directions,’ said Button. ‘Special Branch had an operative undercover in the cell, you were getting close to the Operations Director. They knew what the target was, but for whatever reason didn’t share that intel.’

‘And if the Real IRA hadn’t got that Special Branch inspector’s phone, the operation could have gone ahead and a lot of people could have died. What was going through their minds, Charlie? Don’t they know we’re on the same side?’

‘I’m assuming that if the undercover agent hadn’t been blown they’d have ambushed the bomb along the way. The SAS were ready and waiting.’

‘Again, if the Sass were there, why weren’t we told?’

‘We’ve no direct link with the SAS, Spider. That would go through the Cabinet Office in London.’

‘So no one had the big picture, is that what you’re saying? If that’s the case, it’s no wonder that things go wrong.’

‘It’s complicated,’ said Button.

Shepherd smiled thinly. ‘Yeah, that’s what I say to Liam whenever he asks me a difficult question. Complicated or not, what happened yesterday was a major fuck-up, if you’ll pardon my French.’

‘I can understand how angry you are.’

‘Can you, Charlie? When was the last time you shot two people? I shot them because it was the only option I had, but if it had been handled differently we could have taken them alive.’

Button nodded but didn’t say anything.

‘Answer me this, Charlie. MI5 and the Northern Irish cops are both after the dissidents, right? So why don’t they share intel? Why don’t they talk to each other?’

‘It’s a question of trust, or the lack of it,’ said Button. ‘It goes back to the 1998 Omagh bombing. MI5 had pretty good intel that there was a major bomb planned for Omagh or Londonderry but didn’t inform the RUC and twenty-nine people died. And even before then there was the alleged involvement in shoot-to-kill cases.’

‘Alleged?’ said Shepherd. ‘Didn’t Sir John Stevens say in his report that they’d helped the UDA in fifteen murders and been involved in fourteen attempted killings and sixty-two murder conspiracies?’

‘You and your trick memory,’ said Button. ‘Anyway, we’re talking about water under the bridge. Their murderers are all back on the streets, so it’s no use now bitching about what MI5 might or might not have done back in the day. But trust is a two-way street, Spider. And MI5 have plenty of reasons not to trust the PSNI. Back in 2002 the Provos broke into PSNI headquarters at Castlereagh and stole a stack of files. The Chilcott review looked at the break-in and recommended that MI5’s role in Northern Ireland be expanded. The PSNI weren’t happy, of course, especially when word went around that MI5 itself was behind the break-in.’

‘Any truth in that rumour?’

Button chuckled. ‘You don’t really expect me to answer that,’ she said.

‘Dark forces,’ said Shepherd.

‘Dark forces or not, the lack of trust means that communication isn’t what it should be. The PSNI has a tendency to hang on to the assets it has because it thinks it gives them an edge over Five. Five regards the PSNI as inherently unreliable so intel sharing isn’t high up its list of priorities.’

‘And because of that, two men died. At my hands.’

‘You saved their agent’s life, Spider. And I can tell you, he had a wife and two kids.’

‘Yeah? Well, one of the guys I shot had five kids, Charlie. And his widow’s going to be bringing them up alone.’

‘They knew what they were doing, Spider. Nobody forced them to join an execution squad.’

‘I know that,’ said Shepherd. ‘But all it would have taken was for someone at the PSNI to let Five know that they had a man in a bombing cell and to have worked with us. And how the hell was the operation blown in the first place? How did they get the Special Branch officer’s phone?’

Button smiled wryly. ‘You won’t like this,’ she said. ‘It was in his coat in a pub and it got stolen. By the time he realised it was missing it was too late.’

Shepherd shook his head in disgust. ‘Bloody amateurs,’ he said.

‘The guy you saved, he wants to meet you,’ said Button. ‘He wants to thank you.’

Shepherd grimaced. ‘Not interested,’ he said. ‘I’m due some time off, right? Six months undercover with hardly a break.’

‘Take as long as you want. And you should talk with Caroline Stockmann.’

‘I don’t need a shrink, Charlie. I won’t be losing any sleep over what I did.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to go. Can your guys clean up the flat?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll have your things sent on to Hereford.’

‘There’s nothing there I need,’ he said. ‘It was all part of the legend, there’s nothing personal. Burn the lot. What about you? Are you going to London?’

‘There’s a debriefing at Loughside tomorrow. I’ll be in London later this week.’

Shepherd stood up. ‘I’ll see you when I see you,’ he said.

She looked up at him, the concern obvious in her eyes. ‘Are you OK?’

Shepherd shrugged. ‘I’ve been better,’ he said.

Shepherd got back home in Hereford at four o’clock in the morning. The house was in darkness and he made himself a cup of coffee and two slices of toast. He had just bitten into the second slice when Katra appeared at the kitchen door. She was wearing her favourite pink flannel pyjamas and had tied back her dark brown hair into a ponytail. She blinked the sleep from her eyes as she smiled.