Dead Men (30 page)

Shepherd caught an early-morning flight from George Best Belfast City airport to Birmingham. The British Midland flight was packed and the woman in the seat in front of him reclined it as soon as the wheels left the runway. Shepherd closed his eyes and tried to think pleasant thoughts until the plane landed. He had only a Nike gym bag with him so he walked straight from the plane to the arrivals area where Martin O’Brien was waiting for him, his shaven head glistening under the overhead lights. He grinned and the two men hugged. ‘How’s Belfast?’ asked the Irishman.

‘It’s changed,’ said Shepherd. ‘You wouldn’t recognise it. No one’s shooting at you, for a start.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed O’Brien. ‘A few years ago whoever would have thought that Belfast would be the safe place to go?’

‘Crime rate’s on the up. Before, they used to search them on the way into the shops. Now they search them on the way out.’ They walked together to the car park. Shepherd peered at O’Brien’s stomach. ‘Are you losing weight?’

‘I’m in training,’ said O’Brien. ‘I’m doing the Marathon des Sables next year.’

‘Get the hell out of here,’ said Shepherd. The Marathon des Sables was the toughest footrace in the world, a hundred and fifty miles across the desert in North Africa, run over six days with all supplies carried in a rucksack. It was equivalent to five and a half regular marathons with temperatures up to a hundred and twenty degrees.

‘I needed the challenge,’ said O’Brien.

‘You’re mad,’ said Shepherd.

‘You should do it with me,’ said O’Brien. ‘You still run, don’t you?’

‘I run, sure, but the Marathon des Sables isn’t about running. It’s about punishing yourself.’

‘It’s fifty per cent mental,’ said O’Brien. ‘If you think you can do it, you can.’

‘Yes, Grasshopper. But that doesn’t mean that if you believe you can fly you can jump off a tall building without there being consequences.’ He slapped O’Brien’s back. ‘Seriously, though, I admire you. How old are you now?’

‘Screw you, Spider.’

Hereford was just under fifty miles from Birmingham airport and O’Brien’s Mercedes made good time. It was a little before six when they pulled up in front of the White Hart and he switched off the engine. ‘I’ve got two guys for you to meet,’ said O’Brien. ‘They left the Regiment a couple of years back and spend most of their time in Iraq now, working for Blackwater. Serious money. Jack was a demolitions expert, and Billy was a linguist, fluent in seven languages including Arabic and Farsi.’

‘I can’t afford Iraq wages, Martin.’

‘They both have places in Hereford and they’re killing time before they head out to Baghdad again. They’re happy to do it as a favour. Plus I told them you’re a cop and that you’ll take care of any parking tickets, speeding fines and the like.’

‘And get them off the odd murder charge?’

‘Can you do that?’ asked O’Brien.

‘No, I bloody well can’t,’ said Shepherd.

‘They’re good guys,’ said O’Brien, climbing out of the Mercedes. ‘Regiment wasn’t happy about them leaving but there’s not much they can do when security companies are paying five times what the army offers.’

He took Shepherd through a back door into the pub where three men in their sixties were sitting on stools at the bar. They glanced across as O’Brien and Shepherd walked in, then returned to their conversation. The barman had the look of a former sergeant major with bulging forearms and world-weary eyes. He nodded at O’Brien, who nodded back.

A man in his early thirties was sitting at a corner table, two half-finished pints of bitter in front of him. When he saw O’Brien he stood up. He was a couple of inches taller than Shepherd and a few pounds lighter, with broad shoulders and wavy brown hair that didn’t appear to have been combed in a few days. He was wearing a grey sports jacket over faded blue jeans.

‘Spider, this is Jack Bradford.’ Bradford was also wearing the Rolex Submariner with the black bezel favoured by SAS troopers.

‘Thanks for agreeing to this,’ said Shepherd.

‘Pleasure,’ said Bradford.

‘Where’s Billy?’ asked O’Brien.

Bradford gestured at the men’s room. ‘Taking a leak. Bladder like a marble, my brother.’

‘What are you drinking?’

Bradford asked for another pint of bitter and Shepherd for a Jameson’s with soda and ice. ‘Billy’ll have a pint, too,’ said Bradford.

O’Brien went to the bar and Shepherd sat down. Bradford took out a pack of Silk Cut and stuck one into his mouth. ‘Smoke?’ he asked.

‘No,’said Shepherd. ‘Yes,’he corrected himself. He grinned awkwardly. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘Giving up?’

‘Just starting,’ said Shepherd. He took one of Bradford’s cigarettes and Bradford lit it for him with a battered Zippo. ‘Martin says you’re working in Iraq.’

‘Yeah, bloody madhouse it is too. American contractors riding around like cowboys, armed to the teeth and acting like they’re in the movies. I tell you, you’ve more chance of being shot by a trigger-happy Yank than you have of being blown up by an insurgent.’

‘What are you doing out there?’

‘Security,’ said Bradford. ‘Escorting clients to and from the airport, making sure that their homes and workplaces are secure. Babysitting basically. But it pays well.’

‘Yeah, Martin was saying.’

‘He said you were out there a while back, when Geordie Mitchell got killed.’

‘Yeah. It was a mess. Did you know him?’

‘Knew of him, but never met him.’

‘He was a good guy,’ said Shepherd. ‘Sniper killed him. Wrong place, wrong time.’ He rubbed his shoulder. A sniper had shot him, too, while he was with the SAS in Afghanistan. Like Geordie, he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but unlike Geordie, the sniper’s bullet hadn’t killed him and he’d been helicoptered to an army hospital before he’d bled to death. Geordie had been hit in the head and had died instantly.

As O’Brien returned with a tray of drinks, the door to the men’s room opened and Billy Bradford walked out. Shepherd did a double-take. The brothers were twins. O’Brien laughed. ‘They’re something, aren’t they?’

Shepherd introduced himself and Billy sat down beside his brother. Other than their clothing, the two men were identical. Billy wore black jeans and a leather bomber jacket. ‘Martin neglected to tell me you were twins,’ said Shepherd.

‘We had a lot of fun with them in the Regiment,’ said O’Brien. He tapped Jack’s arm. ‘Remember those Yanks, the hard-as-nails Navy Seals?’

Jack laughed. ‘They never sussed us, did they?’

O’Brien grinned at Shepherd. ‘These Navy Seals came to Hereford for some joint training exercises. All muscle and not much up top, truth be told. They were so bloody gung-ho it was laughable. Every exercise was a competition and teamwork went out of the window. Anyway, they kept asking us what the hardest SAS endurance test was. So we told them.’

‘The Fan Dance?’

‘Exactly,’ said O’Brien. ‘The Fan Dance.’

Pen y Fan was the tallest peak in the Brecon Beacons, where the SAS put its recruits through selection training. It was a shade under three thousand feet up to its stony exposed plateau and the Fan Dance involved running up to the top fully loaded with kit and rifle, running down the other side, then back up and down again. It was a killer exercise that would test the fittest soldier.

‘Anyways, they nagged and nagged to go on the Fan Dance, and said they wanted to go up against our fittest guy.’ O’Brien’s grin widened. ‘We told them that was Jack. They reported at the bottom of Pen y Fan, nice and early. Jack was there with full endurance kit, an eighty-pound bergen, and his rifle, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. The eighty-pound kit got the Seals hot and bothered because it’s about twice the weight of theirs. Jack said no problem because he’d been eating his spinach. That pissed off the Seals so they started stuffing rocks into their bergens to make up the weight.’ O’Brien took a long pull on his pint. ‘So, we got them started and they went haring up the hill like the proverbial bats. Jack brought up the rear, taking it nice and slow. As soon as the Seals were out of sight, Jack came back down.’

‘Because Billy was already at the summit,’ said Shepherd.

O’Brien made a gun of his hand and pointed it at Shepherd. ‘Got it in one,’ he said. ‘Billy’d been jumping up and down to work up a sweat, so he was panting like crazy when the Seals came charging up. They couldn’t believe it. So they went hurtling down the far side, doing that strange grunting thing they do. Hoooh-hah!’

‘Hoooh-hah!’ echoed Jack and Billy.

‘By this time we’d put Jack on a motorbike and taken him by road to the far side of the hill. When they got there he waved and asked them what’d kept them.’ O’Brien slapped the table with the flat of his hand. ‘Now they were fighting mad. Sweating like pigs, aching all over, they turned around and went storming back up the hill. They got to the top in record time and, of course, Billy was there to meet them, sitting on a rock and having a brew.’

‘I offered them a cup but they said something very disrespectful about my mother and went hurtling down the hill,’ said Billy. ‘Hoooh-hah!’

‘They broke pretty much every record for the Fan Dance, but when they got to the bottom and found Jack stretched out on a lounger with a cocktail in his hand, they still didn’t get it. We never heard any more cracks about how superfit they were, and they went back to the States still scratching their heads.’

The four men laughed and drained their glasses. O’Brien went to the bar and returned with fresh drinks. ‘Okay, here’s the story,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ve been told that a Palestinian hitman’s got hold of my personal details. I don’t have a photograph or a description, just a name, Hassan Salih, which means nothing. He uses a whole raft of names.’

‘Raghead?’ said Billy.

‘Palestinian,’ said Shepherd, ‘but he has passports for all sorts of nationalities. Salih is a hitman, one of the best. He knows where I live and there’s an outside chance that he might come looking for me.’

‘There’s a contract out on you?’ asked Jack.

Shepherd shook his head. ‘There’s a contract out on the woman I work for, but while he’s been sniffing around her he’s come up with my details.’

‘I’ve got to be honest. I don’t see it’ll be hard to spot a raghead in Hereford,’ said Jack.

‘I sure hope not,’ said Shepherd, ‘but I’d feel a lot happier if you two guys would babysit my boy until it’s all sorted.’

‘Not a problem,’ said Jack.

‘Plus he’s got a very sexy au pair,’ said O’Brien.

Billy raised an eyebrow. ‘Has he now?’

‘Katra,’ said Shepherd. ‘She’s Slovenian.’

‘And as fit as a butcher’s dog,’ said O’Brien.

‘This gets better by the minute,’ said Jack. ‘Is she single?’

‘Please don’t take away my au pair,’ said Shepherd. ‘My home would fall apart without her. How are you guys fixed for guns?’

‘Not a problem,’ said Jack.

‘It’s an outside chance that anything will happen, but if it does the guy’s a pro and he’ll be tooled up.’

‘We’ll be carrying,’ said Billy.

‘Silencers would be a good idea,’ said Shepherd. ‘We’ve got neighbours.’

‘No hand grenades, then,’ said Jack, with a straight face.

The men had another round of drinks, then drove to Shepherd’s house. Shepherd went with O’Brien while the Bradford twins followed in their black Range Rover.

Liam was in the kitchen eating fish fingers and chips when Shepherd opened the front door. ‘Dad!’ he shouted, and hurtled down the hallway to hug his father. Shepherd picked him up and swung him around. Liam screwed up his face. ‘You smell of smoke.’

‘I’m sorry about that.’

‘Are you smoking?’

‘I have to, for a while. It’s part of my cover.’

‘Smoking gives you cancer.’

‘I know,’ said Shepherd. ‘Have you been behaving?’

‘Sure,’ said Liam.

‘That’s good, because I’ve a present for you in the car.’

‘What is it?’ asked Liam, excitedly.

Shepherd put him down. ‘Say hello to your uncle Martin first.’

‘Hi, Uncle Martin,’ said Liam. ‘Are you staying, Dad? Can we go fishing tomorrow?’

Shepherd ruffled his son’s hair. ‘Flying visit, Liam, I’m sorry.’

Liam’s face fell. ‘It’s always a flying visit. When are you coming home?’

‘Just a few more days.’

‘You always say that, and it never is,’ said Liam. A crafty smile lit his face. ‘Can I have a dog?’

‘What?’

‘A dog. Can we get a dog? That way when you’re not here I can play with it.’

‘Maybe,’ said Shepherd. ‘Hang on, what are you saying? If you get a dog, you won’t miss me so much.’

‘I’ll still miss you. But I’ll have something to play with. What sort can I have? A red setter?’

‘We’ll see,’ said Shepherd.

‘But I am definitely getting a dog?’

‘You’re starting to nag me now,’ said Shepherd.

‘I won’t nag if I know I’m getting a dog.’

‘Liam . . .’

‘Is that a yes? Yes, I’m getting a dog?’

O’Brien grinned. ‘At times like this I’m glad I don’t have kids,’ he said.

‘You can have this one if you want,’ said Shepherd.

‘Dad!’ Liam protested.

‘I’m joking,’ said Shepherd, and introduced the brothers. ‘This is Jack, and this Billy.’

Liam’s mouth fell open. ‘Wow, you’re twins!’

They faked astonishment. ‘We are?’ said Billy.

‘No way,’ said Jack. ‘I’m much better-looking.’

‘You’re the same,’ said Liam. ‘That’s so cool.’

‘Billy and Jack are going to be staying here for a few days,’ said Shepherd. ‘Just until I get back. Where’s Katra?’

They heard footsteps and looked up to see her coming down the stairs in baggy grey cargo pants and a Nike sweatshirt. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She frowned when she saw the four men, but then her face brightened. ‘Dan!’ she said. ‘We weren’t expecting you today.’