Black Ops: The 12th Spider Shepherd Thriller (26 page)

After O’Brien and Walsh had left for the train station, Harper’s team removed all the office equipment and every other trace of the building’s temporary occupants, including the half-empty bottle of schnapps and the glasses that had been used. They went into rubbish bags that they would be dumping in a bin or skip somewhere on the other side of town as they drove away. When they shut the door on the building after a last careful check, the building looked exactly the same as it had done before they had moved in.

S
hepherd was eating a bacon sandwich and watching Sky News when his intercom buzzed. He checked the monitor by the door. There was a motorcycle courier standing outside, holding a large manila envelope. The courier took off his full-face helmet and smiled for the camera. ‘Delivery for Mr Shepherd.’ He was in his mid-twenties with ginger hair and slab-like teeth.

Shepherd buzzed him up and waited by the open front door. He signed for the package and opened it as he sat down in front of the television again. There was a UK passport and driving licence with his photograph and his date of birth minus one year, in the name of Peter Parkinson. There was a printout with details of Lex Harper’s movements over the past week and a copy of the passport he was using. He had booked into the Hotel Adlon close to the Brandenburg Gate. There were several surveillance photographs of Harper in Germany meeting with different people, and another printout detailing their names and backgrounds.

His main intelligence guy was Hans Hirsch, who had a German father and English mother. Hirsch had spent most of his childhood in the UK and joined the army at twenty-one. He had lost both hands when he picked up an IED in Bosnia but the prosthetics he had been given meant he could still do pretty much anything an able-bodied person could do. He was a member of the anonymous collective who carried out pro-bono hacking activities around the world when he wasn’t being paid by people like Harper. He wasn’t at all inconvenienced or shy about the loss of his hands, going so far as to adopt the nickname Hansfree.

There was considerably more information about a woman called Sally Sheldrake, who for some unexplained reason often went by the name Maggie May. It was probably her Security Service background, thought Shepherd, as he read her file.

Another former intelligence expert on Harper’s team was Billy Walker. He had worked for 14 Int in Northern Ireland in the latter stages of the Troubles. He was a linguist and was fluent in several European languages as well as Russian and Arabic. When he wasn’t working he lived like a hermit in an isolated cottage on the Yorkshire moors.

The final member of Harper’s team was another Billy – Billy Hall. He was ex-SRR, which was based in Hereford like the SAS, but after he had left, Walker had relocated to the Dominican Republic with a wife half his age.

Shepherd automatically memorised the facts and photographs and when he’d finished reading the files he burnt everything in the kitchen sink and washed the ashes away.

His phone rang an hour after the courier had delivered the files.

‘All good?’ asked Willoughby-Brown.

‘I wouldn’t say good, but yes, I’ve read the files.’

‘As soon as I’ve nailed down Harper’s location I’ll send you over,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘He’s moving around a bit at the moment but it’ll be Germany, almost certainly Berlin.’

‘And how do I explain it to Charlie?’

‘You don’t have to,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘She’s under observation twenty-four seven and I know what she’s doing even before she does. When I’m ready to send you over, she’ll find herself very busy. She’ll have no idea that you’re out of the country. And if she does get in touch, I’m sure you’ll think of something to say. You’ve made a career out of telling lies, haven’t you?’

‘Go fuck yourself, Jeremy.’

‘There’s no need to be like that, Danny boy. This is all for the greater good.’

Shepherd hung up and tossed the phone away.

H
arper drove his motorbike to Berlin and booked into the Hotel Adlon. It was on the Unter den Linden Boulevard, facing the Brandenburg Gate. It was discreet, opulent and eye-wateringly expensive. He helped himself to a bottle of champagne from the minibar before showering. He went out and used the credit card to buy himself a new wardrobe including a black Hugo Boss suit and dress shoes, jeans and an Armani leather jacket, mindful that Button had said that money wouldn’t be an issue.

Zelda came to see him early in the afternoon and they sat in the lobby and drank tea from delicate porcelain cups and nibbled freshly made finger sandwiches.

‘My clients want to see one of your Katyushas before they’ll go ahead and complete the deal,’ Harper told Zelda. ‘Do you have somewhere secure where that would be possible?’

‘I know just the place and it’s not far from where the Katyushas are being stored. We can use the old Soviet airfield at Finsterwalde. It’s about an hour and a half’s drive south of Berlin.’

‘Is it safe and secure?’

‘No one goes there; virtually no one has gone there since the Berlin Wall came down. After the reunification of Germany, the West German government has spent billions wiping out every trace of the Russian presence in the cities of the former DDR, but in the rural areas they’ve done little or nothing to remove them.’

‘And the local people?’

‘They have a schizophrenic attitude to the past. They prefer to pretend it never existed and the remaining Soviet installations and buildings are not only unused by them but avoided as well. I can drive you there this afternoon, if you want.’

‘Perfect,’ Harper said. ‘And do you have someone who can show them how the weapon works?’

She nodded. ‘I know a technician who was part of the crew who worked on them and fired them, though only on the ranges, never in action.’ She sounded almost wistful as she said it.

After they had finished their tea and sandwiches, they went outside and climbed into Zelda’s car, a brand new white Audi R8 Coupé, and drove south through grey, sleety drizzle.

Finsterwalde was a few miles from Cottbus in the south east of the former DDR, but as they approached the airfield, Harper saw a newly restored art deco control tower and a light aircraft taking off from the runway. ‘Hold it,’ he said. ‘I thought you said this place was abandoned.’

‘It is,’ Zelda said. ‘They reopened it with a shortened runway about fifteen years ago and rebuilt the control tower, and a few civilian planes use it, but that’s not the part we’re going to. The rest of the Soviet airfield, including all the hardened aircraft shelters and the underground hardened munitions bunker where the nuclear weapons were stored, has been abandoned and fenced off ever since the Soviets left in 1992. That was a sad day,’ she added, her eyes misting over at the thought.

‘For you, Zelda, maybe. For the rest of the world it was a good excuse for a party.’ Another thought struck him. ‘The nukes aren’t still there, are they?’

Zelda gave a derisive laugh. ‘Of course not, even the West German government was not dumb enough to leave them untouched. More’s the pity.’ She turned off the autobahn, drove a couple of miles along a minor road and then turned off on to a grassy, overgrown track and bounced and jolted away across a field and through a small wood. She came to a halt at a rusting, padlocked gate bearing a death’s head sign and the caption ACHTUNG MINEN.

‘And the mines?’ Harper said.

Zelda gave an airy wave of her hand. ‘There may still be some, but not on the paths we shall use.’

Harper tried to look reassured. They climbed over the gate, pushed their way along a bramble-clogged pathway and into dense birch woodland. She paused as they emerged into the open, gesturing to her right towards a strange-looking construction: three pairs of tall concrete columns, perhaps thirty feet high, supporting a flimsy corrugated roof. Beyond them was a massive concrete structure like a truncated pyramid. The face of it was painted in fading camouflage with newer graffiti tags spray-painted on it, and the top was covered by an earthen mound from which trees were now sprouting. In the centre of the concrete facade were two massive steel doors, at least eight inches thick, one of which hung open. A few feet inside, just visible in the gloom, was another set of double doors.

‘This was the nuclear bunker,’ Zelda said, ‘where the weapons and missiles were stored. It was built to withstand even a direct hit by one of your nuclear weapons.’

‘Sure, you keep believing that. And it’s just left open for any kids to wander into?’ Harper said, pointing towards the graffiti.

She shrugged. ‘Like I said, it’s been abandoned for over twenty years.’

‘It’ll take a hell of a lot more than twenty years for the radioactivity from those nukes to decay. You can’t really be thinking of holding the demonstration here?’

‘Of course not,’ she said, guiding him on along an overgrown concrete track leading away from the bunker. The track, its concrete surface cracked and pitted, and so strewn with weeds, fallen branches and debris that it was now barely distinguishable from the forest floor that surrounded it, split and split again, each branch ending in a concrete pan and a Soviet hardened aircraft shelter, still standing and apparently little altered by the passing decades. The super-strong reinforced concrete structures had been designed to withstand a direct hit by a 500-pound bomb or a near miss by a 1,000-pounder; everything, in fact, short of a nuclear blast. Modern precision-guided missiles would have obliterated them, but since the Cold War had never turned hot, their defences had never been tested in war and the Hardened Aircraft Shelters and most of the surrounding infrastructure of crew quarters and equipment and weapons stores was still in place. As Harper looked around him he had the feeling that the military airfield was merely in suspended animation, only waiting for the return of the squadrons of Russian Migs in order to spring back into life once more. He shivered; it was a place of ghosts and bad memories, but it would suit his purpose well enough to overcome those superstitious feelings.

Zelda was studying him thoughtfully. ‘You feel it too? Here the past seems very close at hand,
ja
?’

He nodded. ‘But only one of us thinks that’s a good thing.’

‘But, just the same, it is perfect for what we need for your clients?’

‘I think so, yes. I’ll have my surveillance team check it over, and then we should be good to go. Is Thursday too soon for you? The day after tomorrow.’

Zelda grinned. ‘I don’t see why not.’

B
illy Big, Billy Whisper and Maggie May spent most of Wednesday exploring the Finsterwalde base and keeping it, and particularly the hardened aircraft shelter where the demonstration was to take place, under observation. Apart from a couple of kids hurling stones against the steel doors of the nuclear bunker, there was no sign of anyone, suspicious or otherwise, and they reported back to Harper that it was safe for him to go ahead.

Harper phoned O’Brien’s hotel shortly after six. ‘We’re on for Thursday,’ he said. ‘You’ll be picked up at your hotel after breakfast. Make sure you have the cash with you.’

‘No problem,’ agreed O’Brien.

T
he two Billys picked up O’Brien and Walsh at their hotel in a rented Mercedes G-class SUV. The men climbed into the back of the vehicle. Walsh was carrying a briefcase, though this time it wasn’t chained to his wrist.

‘Mr Müller said we are to check the money,’ said Billy Whisper.

‘What?’ said O’Brien.

Billy Whisper repeated what he’d said but his voice was so quiet that neither man could make out what he’d said.

Billy Big twisted around in the driving seat. ‘We need to see the money,’ he said.

Walsh held up the briefcase. ‘It’s all here.’

‘We need to see it,’ said Billy Big. ‘Mr Müller insists.’

Walsh put the briefcase on his lap and clicked open the two locks. He lifted the lid and held up a bundle of
€
500 notes.

‘Fifty thousand euros,’ said Walsh.

‘Doesn’t look much,’ said Billy Whisper.

‘Yeah, well fifty grand is only a hundred notes,’ said O’Brien. ‘That’s why the euro is the criminal’s currency of choice.’ He laughed at his own joke as Walsh put the money back in the case and clicked it shut.

They drove in silence to the old airfield where Harper was waiting with Zelda. Billy Whisper climbed out of the front passenger seat and Harper took his place. O’Brien and Walsh flashed Zelda inquisitive glances but Harper didn’t introduce her. Then O’Brien noticed the shady-looking, badly dressed men wearing cheap sunglasses who were staking out the area.

‘Who the feck are they?’ growled O’Brien.

‘Ex-Stasi,’ said Harper. ‘Security.’

‘This better not be a set-up,’ said O’Brien.

‘Why would I be setting you up, Declan? I make my money by selling you the gear, not by stealing fifty grand off you. Speaking of which …’ He held out his hand. Walsh opened the briefcase and handed the money to Harper. He flicked the notes with his thumb, then nodded. ‘Let’s rock and roll,’ he said, slipping the money into his jacket.

Billy Whisper and Zelda got into her Audi and they followed the SUV down a rough track and through a metal gate that stood open, its padlock having been severed by the bolt cutters that one of Zelda’s men was holding.

Harper turned to face the two men in the back. ‘You’re getting the executive treatment today, normally we would have to walk.’

Zelda drove on across the weed-strewn wasteland of crumbling concrete, past the massive nuclear bunker and along the track to one of the hardened aircraft shelters. Four more of her ex-Stasi cronies were standing around the HAS, once more in near-identical dark suits and dark glasses.

The steel doors of the HAS were shut, but as Zelda pulled up in front of it, they were slid open a couple of feet with a deafening squeal of protesting metal that set the birds perched in the trees to flight. While Harper made for the HAS, studiously ignoring the Stasi goons, O’Brien and Walsh climbed out of the back seat and looked around.

Walsh left the briefcase on the back seat. He suppressed a shiver as he stared at the thick, damp-stained concrete walls. ‘And what the heck is this place?’