Spider Shepherd 11 - White Lies (34 page)

‘How are things moving on that front?’

‘Slowly.’

‘Then there is one thing you might consider. It’d be risky, but it would be guaranteed to get things moving.’

Button picked up her wine glass. ‘I’m listening.’

Shepherd was sleeping when they came for him, dreaming fitfully about running through a wood, branches tearing at his face and arms, dogs barking somewhere behind him. He was being hunted but he didn’t know by whom or why, just that he was being chased. He wasn’t aware of the bolts being drawn back or of their footsteps crossing the floor; the first he knew was when they hauled him to his feet.

They dragged him out of the cell and along the corridor. Shepherd’s feet were painful but he managed to stay upright. He was bracing himself for more torture when he realised that they were taking him back to the room where he had met Al-Farouq. He relaxed a little.

Al-Farouq was standing looking out of the window at the tinkling fountain. He waited until the men had pushed Shepherd down on to the chair before turning to look at him, a broad smile on his face. The brass teapot was on the table again, and this time there were plates of food – some chicken and what looked like lamb, some naan bread and yogurt, and fresh fruit. Shepherd couldn’t see the sun through the window so other than the fact it was daytime he had no clue as to the time. The men who had brought him to the room stood either side of the door, their arms folded. A third man stood in the far corner of the room, cradling an AK-47. He had a curved knife sticking out of a thick leather belt.

Al-Farouq sat down and waved at the food. ‘Please, help yourself,’ he said. ‘I am sure you must be hungry.’

Shepherd thought about ignoring the offer, but he knew that his body needed protein. He reached for a piece of chicken.

‘Good,’ said Al-Farouq. ‘You need your strength.’ He poured two cups of mint tea as Shepherd chewed on the meat. He pushed one cup towards Shepherd and then sipped from the other before smacking his lips appreciatively. ‘You are special forces, aren’t you?’ asked Al-Farouq. ‘SAS?’

Shepherd said nothing as he continued to chew.

‘Or MI6? You do not look like a spy, though.’ He smiled. ‘Real spies are nothing like they are in the movies. They are generally overweight and bald. Too much time sitting at desks. Soldiers are fit and usually have their own hair. You look like a soldier to me. And I am told you fought well at Parachinar. You stormed the building, even though you knew you were outgunned.’ He nodded and sipped his tea again.

Shepherd took another piece of chicken.

‘You cannot stay silent for ever, you know that?’ said Al-Farouq. ‘The pain you have suffered this far is nothing compared with what can be done to you. Have you ever had chilli rubbed into your eyes? Or your toenails removed with pliers? I know they have been beating your feet with canes, but can you imagine the pain if they were beating your testicles?’ He shrugged. ‘My people are expert at inflicting pain. They have spent a lifetime perfecting the art.’

Shepherd swallowed and took another piece of chicken.

‘You are a Brit? At least tell me that.’

Shepherd stared at Al-Farouq, weighing his options. He could get away without speaking only for so long. At some point they would hurt him so badly that he would have to talk, if only to stop the pain. He was on a downward slope health-wise; the chicken he was eating would give him a few hours of energy but his body was already breaking down its fat stores and before long would start work on his muscle. At least if he showed signs of cooperating, they would continue to feed him. ‘Yes,’ he said.

Al-Farouq beamed. ‘Excellent,’ he said. He nodded enthusiastically. ‘And why were you with the SSG?’

‘I was there as an adviser,’ said Shepherd. ‘The mission was to rescue a British citizen.’

‘Rafiq?’

Shepherd nodded. ‘Yes. Rafiq Mahar.’

Al-Farouq sipped his tea again. ‘You should try the tea,’ he said. ‘It is delicious.’

‘I am a prisoner of war, and I formally request that you inform the British embassy of my whereabouts,’ said Shepherd.

Al-Farouq chuckled softly, his eyes as hard as flint. ‘I would be more than happy to do that,’ he said. ‘But I will need your name, first.’

Shepherd chewed on his chicken but didn’t say anything.

‘His name isn’t Rafiq,’ said Al-Farouq eventually. ‘You know that, of course? So that was very clever of you, to call out his cover name.’ Al-Farouq nodded slowly. ‘Very clever indeed. Does he know you, I wonder? Does Manraj know you?’ He smiled, like a shark going in for the kill. ‘Why don’t we find out?’

He clicked his fingers at the man standing to the left of the door and said something to him in Pashto or Arabic. The man left the room. Al-Farouq watched Shepherd eat in silence. Shepherd swallowed his chicken, then drank some tea before grabbing a chunk of lamb. Eventually there were footsteps in the corridor and the door opened. Shepherd looked over his shoulder. He caught a glimpse of a warrior with an AK-47 peering in and then he stepped to the side and Shepherd saw Raj. He looked a lot older than the last time they’d met, even though only two years had passed. There were subtle changes in the structure of his face, the result of the plastic surgery he’d undergone, and he had a straggly, unkempt beard. But it was his eyes that worried Shepherd the most. There were blank, almost dead, as if all the life had been sucked from him.

He walked with his shoulders slumped, his arms by his side, his plastic sandals scuffing across the floor. His escort closed the door and Raj stood there, swaying from side to side.

‘Tell me, Manraj,’ said Al-Farouk, waving a hand at Shepherd. ‘Do you know this man?’

Raj looked up, his face a blank mask. He stared at Shepherd and tilted his head on one side.

‘He has come from England to see you,’ said Al-Farouq. ‘Do you know him?’

Raj shook his head. ‘No,’ he whispered.

Richard Yokely sat in the operations room at Basra airfield, twenty-five miles to the north of Kabul. He had his feet up on the table as he munched on a club sandwich. By his side was a carton of Tropicana orange juice. He was wearing a headset and had three cellphones lined up by his feet. On the other side of the airfield, the Navy SEALs were all primed and ready to go. All they needed was a location.

A call came in through his headset. Charlotte Button. ‘Are you good to go, Richard?’ she asked.

‘Locked and loaded,’ said Yokely. ‘I have her number being monitored. You’ll get a feed of her calls and text messages. I have two teams on foot and two teams in vehicles close to her as we speak.’

‘And the eye in the sky?’

‘Taking off at this very moment,’ said Yokely. ‘Should be over Islamabad in a little over two hours.’ He looked across at one of the blank screens and then looked at his wristwatch, a multi-dialled Breitling. He was expecting a live video feed from the RQ-170 Sentinel within the next ten minutes as it made its way to Islamabad. Yokely swung his feet off the table, stood up and looked out of the window. In the distance he could see the pristine white drone waiting for take-off.

The Sentinel was one of the most secret airplanes in the world. It had never been photographed close up and its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, remained tight lipped about its specifications. It was a tailless flying wing, some twenty metres across, with the upper surface of the wing kitted out with pods packed with sensors and communication equipment, and it had full motion video capability. It was powered by a single General Electric turbofan engine producing more than nine thousand pounds of thrust. Unlike the better-known Reapers and Predators, the Sentinel didn’t carry weapons. The Sentinel was all about surveillance and stealth. It was pretty much invisible to radar, which meant it could operate at a lower height than most drones, with a working altitude of about fifteen thousand metres.

The Sentinel was being launched from Basra but once it had reached operation altitude control would be handed over to a three-man team from the 30th Reconnaissance Squadron, some 7,500 miles away in Nevada’s Tonopah Test Range Airport. Three years earlier a Sentinel flown by a team at Tonopah had beamed back live footage of the Navy SEAL attack that had led to the death of Bin Laden. Since then the Sentinels had made regular flights into Pakistan airspace, leading to protests by the Pakistan government and calls for the US to stop its spy flights. As always, the protests were ignored. Once the Nevada team had control of the drone they would fly it just under a hundred miles to the Pakistan border, and another hundred miles or so to Islamabad, where it would start beaming live video to Yokely’s operations room and to Charlotte Button in London. Yokely had set up lines of direct communication with the piloting team in Nevada, with Charlotte Button in Thames House in London, with Lieutenant Commander Dick Blanchard in Virginia Beach, and with his CIA technical expert, Eric Feinstein, in Langley, Virginia.

‘And the SEALs?’ asked Button.

‘Getting some shut-eye. Their plane is fuelled and all their gear is on board. They can be in the air in thirty minutes.’

‘What plane are they using?’

‘They were thinking about using a converted Boeing 727 in case they get picked up on Pakistan’s radar, but they’re going to be so close to the border they’ve decided to stick with the Hercules C-130. The plane will be staying at thirty thousand feet so if they do get spotted they’ll just assume it’s an airliner that’s drifted across the border. How are things at your end?’

‘Getting all my ducks in a row,’ she said. ‘Two hours sounds about right. I’ll call you once we’re ready.’

‘I’ll be waiting,’ said Yokely, swinging his feet back up on to the table and reaching for his orange juice.

Lex Harper opened the rear doors of the Transit van and stretched. Mohammed Ullah had just shut his front door and was walking along the pavement, fingering a set of prayer beads in his right hand. He was wearing a dark green quilted jacket over a long flowing shirt and baggy trousers, and sandals over thick grey socks.

Harper was wearing a parka with the hood down so that the imam couldn’t fail to notice the white-knitted Muslim skullcap he was wearing. ‘Good morning, brother,’ said Harper as the imam drew level with him.

‘Good morning,’ said Ullah.

‘Are you by any chance Mohammed Ullah?’

‘I am,’ said Ullah. ‘Do I know you?’

‘I’m your neighbour,’ said Harper. ‘I live at number fifty-four. Some of your mail was put into my letterbox by mistake.’ He took his left hand out of his coat pocket and held out three brown envelopes. ‘I was going to pop them round later.’

‘Thank you brother, that is good of you,’ said Ullah. He held out his hand for the letters.

Harper took a step closer to the imam. As Ullah took the letters, Harper’s right hand emerged from his parka, holding the stun gun. He jammed the prongs against Ullah’s chest and pressed the trigger. There was a loud cracking sound and Ullah stiffened. His eyes bulged and his mouth opened wide and then he dropped to the ground. Harper caught him and dragged him to the rear of the Transit and rolled him inside. He looked around to reassure himself that no one was looking before jumping into the back and pulling the doors shut behind him. He used a roll of duct tape to bind the imam’s wrists and ankles, then shoved a piece of rag into the man’s mouth and used duct tape to hold it in place. Ullah was still unconscious when Harper slid into the driving seat and started the engine.

Charlotte Button showed Willoughby-Brown and Bashir into the meeting room. It was one of the smaller rooms, windowless with a framed oil painting of the River Thames on one wall and a long beech table with six chrome and leather chairs around it. She sat down first, taking a seat at the head of the table. ‘Thank you both for coming in,’ she said.

‘No problem,’ said Willoughby-Brown, though he was well aware that Button had given him no choice in the matter. He took the seat at the far end of the table and Bashir sat down next to him.

Button had brought a cup of tea with her but she pointedly didn’t offer them a beverage.

‘Any news from Pakistan?’ Button asked Willoughby-Brown.

The MI6 man shook his head. ‘The military have gone very quiet.’

Button nodded. She smiled over at Bashir. ‘So, Taz, what can you tell me about Salma Jawanda?’

The look of surprise on Bashir’s face was priceless, thought Button, but she kept a straight face.

‘I’m sorry?’ Bashir looked across at Willoughby-Brown, who looked equally perplexed by the question.

‘Salma. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about her already.’

Bashir frowned. ‘I don’t understand the question.’

‘It’s simple enough. How is Salma?’

‘She’s fine, I suppose.’ He looked over at Willoughby-Brown. ‘Salma is a friend of mine.’

Button laughed. ‘Come on now, Taz. She’s more than a friend. A girlfriend at the very least.’

Bashir looked helplessly at Willoughby-Brown.

‘Charlotte, seriously, what’s going on here?’ asked Willoughby-Brown.

Button ignored the question and kept her gaze focused on Bashir, who seemed to be having trouble swallowing. ‘How did you meet her, Taz?’

‘A restaurant,’ said Bashir. ‘She was eating alone and so was I and we got talking. She’s from a good family, she went to the top university in Pakistan. The University of the Punjab. In Lahore.’

‘And what does she do for a living?’

‘She works in public relations.’

‘And she is your lover, correct?’

Bashir sat back and put his hands down on the table. ‘I really don’t see that’s any business of yours.’

Button looked over at Willoughby-Brown. He was frowning now. ‘You were having a relationship with a local?’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘She’s a friend. I went out with her a few times. What’s the problem with that?’

‘She’s a very pretty girl, isn’t she? Stunning?’

‘I suppose so. Yes.’

Button looked at Willoughby-Brown again. ‘She is very, very pretty,’ said Button. She opened the file and slid a head-and-shoulders photograph across the table. He picked it up, looked at it, and then put it down. ‘I knew nothing about this,’ he said.