Black Ops: The 12th Spider Shepherd Thriller (18 page)

There were a few seconds’ silence before he spoke again. ‘Fifteen hundred.’

‘I’d be happier with twelve.’

‘Fourteen or you can fuck off.’

‘Fourteen it is,’ said Shepherd. One thousand four hundred pounds for twenty-eight grams of cocaine worked out at about £50 a gram but that was still too cheap for the cocaine to be pure. Street cocaine was generally cut by ninety per cent so that just ten per cent was the real thing. Pure cocaine, if you could get it, was closer to £100 a gram. ‘And if your gear’s as good as Aidan says it is, I’ll be back for more.’

The line went dead and Shepherd nodded at Sharpe. ‘All good. One thousand four hundred.’

‘Have you got that on you?’

‘I will have if we hit an ATM. I’ve got a few cards on me. There’s one down the street. You get another drink in while I get the cash.’

‘What are you going to do with the gear once you’ve bought it?’

‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead.’

‘You’ll have to dispose of it. Which means a grand and a half down the drain.’

‘I don’t see I’ve got any choice, Razor,’ said Shepherd. ‘Make mine a Jameson and soda.’

S
harpe had just ordered himself another pint when Shepherd’s phone buzzed to let him know he’d received a text.
YOUR CAR IS OUTSIDE. BLACK VAUXHALL ZAFIRA
. He nodded at Sharpe. ‘We’re on.’

‘Shall I come with you?’

‘Best not. It’ll look strange, two up on a drugs buy. But I’ll keep my phone on so you can listen in.’ He called Sharpe’s number and Sharpe answered. Shepherd slipped his phone into his jacket pocket as he stood up.

‘What happens if anything goes wrong?’ asked Sharpe. ‘They know you’ll have nearly fifteen hundred quid in your pocket.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘I hope so.’

Shepherd nodded and headed out of the pub. The black Vauxhall Zafira was parked down the road. He walked along to it and climbed into the back. The driver seemed to be Turkish but it was hard to be sure because he had a flat cap pulled down over his face. ‘You got the money?’ he growled.

‘Sure,’ said Shepherd. He handed over a thick roll of twenty-pound notes.

The man counted them with gloved hands and then nodded. ‘Okay. Get out. Another car will come and give you the gear.’

‘What?’

‘Two minutes. He’ll give you the gear. I have to go now.’

‘Fuck that for a game of soldiers,’ said Shepherd. ‘I paid you. I want the gear now.’

The driver sighed and shook his head. ‘I don’t have the gear. I take the money. The next car gives you the gear. That’s how we do it.’

‘And how do I know you won’t drive off with my cash?’

‘Do you want your money back? You can have your money back. I don’t care. I’m just the driver.’

Shepherd stared at the back of the man’s head, then realised he didn’t have any choice. ‘Two minutes?’

‘Maybe less.’

‘Okay.’

Shepherd climbed out and as soon as he slammed the door shut the taxi drove off. He looked around and couldn’t help but chuckle. If he had just been ripped off, Sharpe was never going to let him hear the end of it. He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned to look into a shop window. Electrical equipment, solar-powered lights, lava lamps and radio-controlled cars. Shepherd was squinting at a radio-controlled drone that came with a TV camera when he heard a car drive up. He turned and saw another Vauxhall, this one blue, with a driver who was wearing a matching flat cap to the man who’d taken Shepherd’s money. The driver’s side window wound down as Shepherd walked over to the car. The man’s hand appeared holding a small padded envelope. Shepherd took it and almost immediately the car sped off down the street.

Shepherd went back into the pub. ‘Bingo,’ he said, sitting down at Sharpe’s table and sliding the envelope towards him.

‘Congratulations,’ said Sharpe. ‘Be a laugh if I arrested you for possession, wouldn’t it?’ He peered inside the bag. ‘Do you want to test it, or should I?’

‘Could you, without raising a red flag?’

‘I wasn’t planning on sending it to the lab,’ said Sharpe. ‘The taste test’ll do the business.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Spider, sometimes you have to do what you have to do. Don’t play the innocent with me, you’ve done enough drug deals in the past. You pull out a test kit and your card is well and truly marked. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and put a bit up your nose.’ He laughed and sipped his pint.

Shepherd didn’t say anything, but he knew that Sharpe was right. Undercover cops weren’t supposed to do anything illegal during the course of an investigation, but if you were surrounded by heavies with guns and everyone else had sampled the merchandise, a refusal could be fatal.

‘Give me a minute,’ said Sharpe. He stood up, slid the envelope into his pocket and headed to the toilets.

Shepherd took his phone out and killed the call to Sharpe’s phone, then called Liam. He answered on the third ring. ‘Where are you?’ asked Shepherd.

‘Home. Downstairs. I’m doing some homework.’

‘How is the school?’

‘It’s actually okay. Better than I thought it would be. I’m trying out for the football team tomorrow.’

‘So it’s working out?’

‘I think so.’

‘And what are you telling them when they ask why you moved schools.’

‘Just that I hated boarding. I tell them I thought I was going to Hogwarts but it was more like Borstal. It gets a laugh.’

‘I’m glad you’ve got something to smile about,’ said Shepherd.

‘Dad, I’m sorry.’

‘I know you are. I’m trying to get this sorted and then I’ll be back in Hereford.’

‘Any idea how long?’

‘Sooner rather than later, I hope. How’s Katra?’

‘She’s good. Keeps forcing food on me. I think I’ve put on a kilo already. She was bored with no one here.’

‘Don’t give her any problems, Liam.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean. No curfew breaking, no sneaking out.’

‘Dad, I’ll be as good as gold. I swear.’

‘I hope so. Okay, good night. God bless.’ Shepherd ended the call as Sharpe came back and sat down. He tossed the padded envelope across the table. ‘All good?’ asked Shepherd.

‘I’m no expert, but it’s definitely coke. Now what?’

‘Now I take this to the cops and that should be the end of it.’

H
arper was at his most expansive over dinner, keeping up a stream of conversation and making sure both men’s glasses were well topped up. He made a show of filling his own glass each time as well, but he was drinking little, merely sipping from his glass. Walsh also drank sparingly, but O’Brien was guzzling his wine down, swallowing first growth vintage claret as if it were water. Nor did he hold back from wolfing down every scrap of the five-course meal that Harper had ordered for them.

After dinner, they strolled across the square to the casino, where the doorman fell over himself to greet Herr Müller and his honoured guests, signalling frantically for a hostess to escort them into the gaming rooms. Herr Müller then led them to the roulette table and gave both men a stack of
€
100 chips. ‘Please,’ he said, as the American fumbled for his wallet. ‘Tonight you’re my guests.’ His smile was unforced; he was imagining Button’s face when she saw the bill for his expenses, almost all of them without a receipt.

O’Brien continued to drink steadily, growing more red-faced, sweaty and irritable with each glass. While Walsh won a small amount of money, O’Brien was losing on almost every spin of the wheel. Harper played shrewdly, placing his chips as if he hadn’t a care in the world, but betting only on odd or even or red or black to minimise his losses. When O’Brien was cleaned out, Harper bought them both vintage cognacs as a nightcap but then excused himself.

When he got back to his suite, the first thing he did was to turn back the carpet next to the bed and the wardrobe. He had placed a few cornflakes on the floor under the carpet that morning and they had been crushed to fragments. The ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign would have kept housekeeping out so, although nothing had been taken and everything was apparently just as it had been, he was sure the room had been thoroughly searched. He smiled to himself. They were definitely on the hook, all he had to do now was to reel them in. And for that he’d need more help. He picked up his phone and called a number in Germany.

S
hepherd left London in his BMW SUV early on Friday morning. He had programmed the address Button had given him into his SatNav but the place was still difficult to find. It was listed as an Agricultural Research Station, close to where the M1 intersected the M25, but there were no signposts and it took Shepherd half an hour of driving around narrow roads before he found a single-track lane that led to a wire fence. At a gate with a security barrier, his ID was checked and then he was waved through.

The ‘Agricultural Research Station’ turned out to be a two-storey pre-war brick-built office block with metal grilles over all the windows. There were half a dozen cars parked by the main entrance including a large black Vauxhall Insignia with a suited driver in the front who was watching a movie on an iPad.

There was an intercom by the side of the entrance and he pressed the single button. The door clicked and he pushed it open. Button was already walking down a corridor towards him, her heels clicking on the tiled floor. She had her hair held up with a gilt clip and was wearing a dark blue blazer over a Burberry skirt.

‘Perfect timing,’ she said. ‘Our explosives expert is just setting up, but before I take you to see him there’s someone else you need to meet.’

She took him back along the corridor to a windowless office where a tall man in a black leather jacket over a grey shirt and tight black jeans was sitting on a desk, swinging his legs back and forth.

‘This is Neil Murray, he’s Five but he’s been on attachment to the NCA for the last couple of months in an operation that’s been targeting a south London gang. They’re a nasty bunch, the south London equivalent of the Addams Family. Drugs, protection, extortion, and extensive money-laundering operations.’

‘How are you doing?’ said Murray. He slid off the desk and shook hands. Shepherd noticed that his nails were bitten to the quick and the fingers were stained with nicotine. Nail biting and chain-smoking were common among undercover operatives, though Shepherd had never succumbed to either vice.

‘All good,’ said Shepherd. ‘How are you enjoying the NCA?’

‘Better than I thought I would,’ said Murray. ‘I was worried it would be a SOCA-like bureaucracy but they seem to know what they’re doing.’ He looked across at Button, obviously just remembering that she and Shepherd had both worked for the now-defunct Serious and Organised Crime Agency. ‘No offence,’ he said.

Button smiled. ‘I was never a fan of SOCA either,’ she said. ‘Too many chiefs and not enough …’ She grimaced. ‘Whoops, can’t say that any more. Let’s just say it was top-heavy admin-wise.’ She turned to look at Shepherd. ‘Neil has been posing as a contract killer and has done several jobs for this family. He’s not actually carried out the contracts, obviously. We talk to the targets and they agree to cooperate by going into hiding for a few weeks. We fake a photo to show that the deed has been done and Neil gets the credit. The NCA is close to tying everything up and Neil will be moving back to us soon, so the timing is good. He knows the London agent I told you about, the one with connections to Smit in Amsterdam.’

‘His name’s Timmy Owolade, parents from Nigeria but born and brought up in west London,’ said Murray. ‘Nice guy as it happens and great fun in a karaoke bar. His brother is a crim in New York and that connection helps him with tit-for-tat contracts, stranger-on-a-train stuff, you know? A contractor from the US comes over to do a killing in the UK, Owolade sends someone from the UK to New York. Nice little operation. The NCA are getting ready to take him down so he’s the perfect patsy to get you close to Smit.’

‘Sounds good,’ said Shepherd.

‘I’m meeting him tonight at the Mayfair Hotel.’

‘And you want me there?’ Shepherd pulled a face. ‘It’s a bit on the nose, isn’t it?’

‘We thought we’d just have you passing through,’ said Button. ‘You can be popping in for a drink, you say a quick hello to Neil because you know him. You shake Owolade’s hand and then go. Neil can then fill Owolade in and hopefully he’ll bite.’

‘And if he doesn’t?’

‘Then we’ll try again another day,’ said Button. ‘I’ve already given Neil a file on everything we know about Fredrik Olsen, which frankly isn’t much. You can have a look at the file later.’

‘If he bites, I’ll give him your number,’ said Murray. ‘Then it’s up to you.’

‘Okay, that sounds as if it might work. But what am I doing in the Mayfair? A Danish contract killer having a quiet drink in London?’

‘I’ll fix you up with a date,’ said Button. ‘Faith Savill-Smith. You met her at Islington police station.’

Shepherd recalled the pretty blonde who’d got him out of the cell. She’d used the name Katy then, but Faith suited her better.

‘I’ll give you her number before you go. Any questions?’

‘What name are you using?’ Shepherd asked Murray.

‘Same first name. Surname Morris.’

‘How did we meet?’

‘Let’s say we worked on a job together. There’s one in the file about a hit in Milan. I’m very familiar with Milan so let’s stick with that. We don’t need too much backstory, but anything I tell Owolade I’ll run by you afterwards.’

Button looked at her watch. ‘Right, let’s let Neil get back to London and I’ll introduce you to Dr McDowall.’

‘I’m getting a medical?’ Shepherd gave Murray a wave as he followed Button out of the office and down the corridor.

‘That’s Doctor as in PhD. Two PhDs actually.’

Dr McDowall, double PhD, was barely out of his twenties, his skin as white and unlined as porcelain. He had a mane of black hair that emphasised the paleness of his skin and was dressed like a student who was having trouble making ends meet. He was wearing a stained Oxford University sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up, khaki cargo pants and plastic sandals. He had on spectacles that looked as if they had been supplied by the NHS and a plaited leather bracelet around his left wrist instead of a watch.