Spider Shepherd 11 - White Lies (27 page)

‘What about his suitcase?’

‘Nothing there out of the ordinary. No underwear, though.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Socks but no underwear. Obviously likes to go commando.’

Button laughed. ‘Well, you learn something new every day,’ she said. ‘There’s something else I need you to do for me, Amar. I gave Spider a sat phone.’ She slipped him a piece of paper on which she’d written the number of the phone. ‘See if you can get a location on it.’

‘Is it chipped?’

‘Chipped?’

‘If it’s chipped I can get a location whether or not it’s switched on.’

Button shook her head. ‘It’s just a regular sat phone. I had no inkling it was going to go tits up.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Do you want me to drop you at the office? I’ve got a meeting this evening.’

‘Any Tube station is fine,’ said Singh. ‘What about his calls? Do you want me to monitor them?’

‘I’ve got that covered,’ said Button.

‘Any news on Spider?’

Button shook her head.

‘I hope he’s OK.’

‘You and me both,’ said Button.

Shepherd groaned and opened his eyes. The back of his head was on fire. He reached up with his right hand and it came away wet. It was too dark to see anything but he knew it was blood. He got to his knees and sat down with his back to the wall. They didn’t appear to have beaten him while he was unconscious but he was sure they would come back and this time there would be more of them. Fighting his attackers was never going to be anything other than a temporary victory, though he had taken some satisfaction from the damage he’d done. But at least he had managed to get a look outside his cell. And he knew that Raj was alive and close by. That information alone was worth whatever they would do to him over the coming hours.

The Lexus reversed into a space between a Sainsbury’s delivery van and a Honda CRV. It was a tight squeeze but Button’s driver had been driving for MI5 for two decades and made it look easy. She climbed out and looked up and down the road, her briefcase in her right hand. They were in a part of Bayswater where most of the white-painted houses had been converted into cheap hotels, and half a dozen tourists were walking single-file down the pavement, pulling their wheeled suitcases behind them.

She put her hands in her pockets and walked slowly down the road. The Goldleaf Hotel was in the middle of the row. A handwritten sign in the window promised ‘CLEAN ROOMS WITH BATHROOMS’ and a plastic printed sign above it confirmed there were ‘VACANCIES’. A brown and white cat was sleeping on the windowsill, though it opened one eye as Button walked up the stairs and pushed open the glass door. There was a small reception desk to the left of the stairs but there was nobody there, and Button walked slowly up to the second floor on a carpet that was threadbare in places. There was a framed picture of dogs playing poker on the landing and the floorboards squeaked as Button walked softly towards the door with a silver plastic number four on it.

She knocked and the door opened almost immediately, as if he already knew she was there. ‘How’s it going?’ asked Lex Harper. He was barefoot, wearing faded Wrangler jeans and a pale blue hoodie with the hood down.

Button didn’t answer. He moved aside and she walked in and looked around the room. It took all of two seconds to take it in. There was a single bed pushed up against the wall, a cheap teak dressing table with a chair in front of it and a door that opened into a small shower room. There was a teak wardrobe and next to it a shelf with a kettle on it and a tray with sachets of coffee, milk powder and tea bags in a glass beaker. ‘Salubrious,’ she said.

‘It’s one of the few places left where they don’t insist on credit cards and I can pay in cash,’ said Harper. ‘The only downside is that hookers bring their clients here so there’s a fair bit of noise throughout the night.’

‘More information than I needed, Lex,’ said Button. She pulled the chair away from the dressing table, took off her coat and hung it over the back before sitting down. She picked up her briefcase, rested it on her knees and clicked open the locks. ‘It’s about Spider,’ she said. ‘He needs our help.’

Harper sat down on the bed. ‘You mean us personally or MI5?’

She smiled tightly. ‘This is off the books, Lex. Everything you do for me is off the books. You should know that by now.’ She took a manila envelope from the briefcase. ‘What name did you use to fly over?’

‘An untraceable one,’ he said. ‘And I came in through Ireland so no one knows I’m here.’ He nodded at the envelope in her hands. ‘Are you offering me a legend, because I won’t say no.’

She handed it to him. ‘Here’s a passport in the name of Alex Harwood,’ she said. ‘Close enough to your own name so that you won’t forget. Just in case you have to pop overseas. Also two credit cards, one Amex and one Visa. And a debit card linked to an account with five thousand pounds in it. If you need more, contact me through email.’

Harper put the envelope on the bed next to him.

‘I’ve got a receipt for the flight over.’

‘I’ll make sure you’re reimbursed.’

‘It was first class from Bangkok to Amsterdam. That was all they had at short notice.’

Button sighed. ‘I won’t be quibbling about the cost,’ she said. She took another envelope from her briefcase, several times thicker than the first one. ‘Here’s ten thousand pounds in cash,’ she said.

‘That’s my fee, is it?’

‘Expenses,’ she said. ‘For the things I don’t want receipts for. Your fee will be paid into an offshore account.’

‘How much exactly?’

‘That depends on how successful you are.’ She closed her briefcase and slid it on top of the dressing table. ‘Spider’s been taken hostage in Pakistan. I need your help to get him back.’

Harper’s jaw dropped. ‘You’re not expecting me to go to Paki-land,’ he said.

‘I need your help here, in the UK,’ said Button. ‘He’s been taken by al-Qaeda in Pakistan. We don’t know where exactly, but I’m hoping you can come up with a location. We’re pretty sure that an al-Qaeda paymaster by the name of Akram Al-Farouq is with Shepherd, and another former MI5 agent, a British-born Pakistani called Manraj Chaudhry. Manraj, Raj we call him, was undercover in a Bradford mosque. A fundamentalist imam took Raj under his wing and sent him over for training in Pakistan. The imam’s name is Mohammed Ullah, he’s a Bangladeshi-born Brit. It looks as if Al-Farouq has been sending money to Ullah, and Ullah has been sending out fresh jihadists for training. I’ve got the names of some of the men who went from the Bradford mosque. Two of them are now back home.’

‘Sounds like you already know everything,’ said Harper.

‘I wish that was the case, but trust me, I’ve come to this very late and with Spider in jeopardy I don’t have the time to play this by the book. This Ullah has avoided surveillance for years, he’s an expert at flying below the radar, so conventional techniques aren’t going to work.’

Harper grinned. ‘So I fall under the heading of unconventional techniques, do I?’

‘I just want the job done, Lex. I want Ullah to tell us where Al-Farouq is. Or at least a way of getting hold of him.’

‘No limits?’

‘As I said, I just want the job done. Do whatever you have to do, just spare me the details.’

Harper flipped open a pack of cigarettes and lit one. He grinned as he saw a second look of contempt flash across Button’s face. He leant over and pushed the window open. ‘Please don’t give me any health and safety crap about not smoking,’ he said.

‘I wasn’t planning to,’ she said.

He blew smoke through the open window. ‘So how much trouble is Spider in? Are they open to a deal?’

‘They’re not negotiating. They haven’t even gone public. It’s not about ransom or a prisoner swap. Not at the moment, anyway. But even if they do open negotiations, that’s not going to happen.’

‘That’s right, the only terrorists that the British government negotiates with are the IRA,’ said Harper. ‘Oh, and we happily pay off Somalis when they take our ships.’ He saw that Button was about to say something and he waved apologetically. ‘Sorry, yes, I shouldn’t sound so bitter and twisted.’ He took another pull on his cigarette. ‘It’s an expat thing. It’s only when you leave that you see how our country is changing.’

‘Everything changes, Lex. Nothing stays the same.’

‘Yeah, well, sometimes things get better and sometimes they don’t,’ said Harper. ‘The whole Middle East thing has been a bloody disaster from start to finish. Tony Blair and George Bush have a lot to answer for.’ He grinned and shrugged. ‘Sorry. Political speech over. Time-wise, how long do you think we have?’

‘If we’re lucky, a few weeks. But if things get heated over there, it could be a matter of days.’

‘Spider’s been trained in surviving interrogations. He’ll cope. What about this Raj character?’

‘He’s a civilian,’ said Button. ‘Spider gave him some training but not much.’

‘And what happens if and when I get a location?’

‘At the moment I’m taking it one step at a time, Lex.’

Harper flicked ash through the window. ‘Better we get started straight away,’ he said. ‘Have you got a file I can look at?’

Button shook her head. ‘Nothing in writing. I’ll brief you verbally. Make notes if you want, but the fewer the better.’

‘I don’t have Spider’s photographic memory,’ said Harper. ‘But I’ll do my best.’

The Gulfstream jet turned off the runway and taxied towards the VIP section of the general aviation terminal. A black stretch limousine was parked close to the terminal. A big man in a dark suit and impenetrable sunglasses was standing by the side of the car, his hands clasped in front of him. There was an earpiece in his left ear and a thin black wire disappeared into the collar of his gleaming white shirt. A black sedan was parked some distance away and two equally large men stood by it, their eyes scanning the terminal building. The occupant of the limousine was the Secretary of State for Defense and he never went anywhere without at least half a dozen Secret Service agents. Another two agents emerged from the terminal building. One stayed by the door, the other jogged over to the limousine.

The jet came to a halt and the twin engines powered down as a set of steps unfolded from the fuselage.

A Secret Service agent appeared from the rear of the limousine, followed closely by the Secretary. He was wearing plaid golfing trousers and a canary-yellow sweater. His trousers flapped around his ankles as he strode across the tarmac, flanked by the Secret Service agents. One jogged up the steps first and disappeared inside. He reappeared after a few seconds and nodded at his companion, who then followed the Secretary up the stairs.

Richard Yokely was already on his feet and he grinned when he saw the Secretary’s attire. The Secretary of Defense returned the smile. ‘Generally Mohammed comes to the mountain, Richard. I’m assuming this is important.’

‘Would I pull you away from the golf course if it wasn’t?’ said Yokely. He shook hands with the Secretary and waved him to one of the beige leather seats, bigger than anything in the first-class cabin of a scheduled airliner. ‘Have you got time for a drink?’ he asked.

‘I’m good, Richard,’ said the Secretary.

‘Then I’ll get straight to the point,’ said Yokely, sitting down opposite him. There was a manila file on the table between them and Yokely flicked it open to reveal a surveillance photograph of an Arab man with a greying beard and circular spectacles. ‘Akram Al-Farouq is a high-value target,’ said Yokely. ‘One of the highest. Number three or four in the al-Qaeda leadership, depending on how you draw the flow chart. Between 2007 and 2009 he was behind a series of bombings that took hundreds of lives. His speciality has been truck and car bombings.’

The Secretary picked up the photograph and studied it. ‘I’ve heard of him, of course. But I don’t recall him being a bomb-maker.’

Yokely shook his head. ‘He isn’t. He’s an organiser. A facilitator. A planner. He puts people together to carry out the attacks and arranges the financing. One of his truck bombs killed a hundred and thirty-five people in the main Baghdad market in 2007. In April the same year we believe he was behind a series of coordinated car bombs that killed two hundred people across Baghdad. In August he organised four suicide bomb attacks in the Kurdish towns of Kahtaniya and Jazeera that killed almost eight hundred people. He was still at it in 2011; we have photographic evidence that he was behind three consecutive car bombings that killed a hundred and thirty-three people.’

‘And I presume you know where he is?’

‘I hope to have a precise location in the very near future.’

‘Where exactly? Iraq?’

Yokely shook his head. ‘No, not Iraq.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I think he’s on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.’

‘The border?’

‘Well, I suspect it will be on what the Paks will claim is their territory.’

The Secretary looked pained. He removed his spectacles and polished them with a pristine white handkerchief. ‘That’s awkward, as you know.’

‘Not as awkward as Abbottabad. The area is one of those movable feasts. Afghanistan has as much a claim over it as the Paks, it’s just the Paks seized it back in 1947 and as there’s nothing of any value there nobody kicked up a fuss. To be honest, the Paks don’t even control the territory. It’s run by the Taliban. The border is a mountain range but that’s it. There’s no border guards, no line in the sand. You’d walk across it and never know.’

‘It’s clear you’ve never worked for the Diplomatic Corps,’ said the Secretary. ‘I think you’ll find that countries are always keen to defend their borders, whether or not there are lines in the sand.’

‘The point I’m trying to make in my clumsy way is that if we were to mount a cross-border operation, we’d only be dealing with the Taliban, not the Pakistani military. If anything, we’d be doing them a favour.’

‘I doubt that they would see it that way.’ The Secretary put the photograph back in the file. ‘What sort of cross-border operation are you suggesting?’

‘A small snatch squad. Navy SEALs. In and out with a minimum of fuss.’

‘Not helicopters, I hope.’

‘I’m not a big fan of helicopters,’ said Yokely. ‘They have a nasty habit of crashing.’