Live Fire (34 page)

‘Sure,’ said Shepherd. He took the M60 from Mickey, and slipped the sling over his shoulder. He put his feet shoulder-width apart, left foot slightly forward, and gently pulled the trigger. The first couple of rounds went to the right but he edged the front sight to the left and the rounds began to thud into the middle of the three oil barrels. Water spurted from the holes punched in the metal and Shepherd let a dozen rounds hit home.

He could feel his heart pounding and the adrenaline kicking in as it always did when he fired heavy weaponry, even when he was only shooting at targets. Guns for Shepherd had always been tools of the trade, a means to an end, but that didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy letting rip with a big chunk of artillery. He let loose another burst, gripping the handle tightly to absorb the recoil. The acrid cordite made his eyes water and tickled his throat, but he grinned when the middle barrel sprouted another half-dozen streams of water.

Mickey slapped him on the back. ‘Great shooting,’ he shouted. Shepherd put the M60 back on the ground and took off the ear-protectors.

‘You handle the gun well,’ said a voice behind him. Shepherd turned. One of the Russians had been watching them. He was a big man, well over six feet, his head shaved to disguise a rapidly retreating hairline. He had a square jaw, a large diamond in his right earlobe and a geometric tattoo running around his left forearm, just above the elbow.

Shepherd shrugged. ‘Fires itself, pretty much,’ he said.

The Russian nodded. ‘It is a nice gun. But we have a better one in Russia.’

‘The PKS?’ said Shepherd.

A look of surprise flashed across the Russian’s face. ‘You know of the PKS?’ he said.

‘Pulemet Kalashnikova Stankovy. Sure. One of the Kalashnikov family. Same calibre as the M60.’

‘You have fired one?’

‘No,’ lied Shepherd. ‘Only read about it.’ In fact, as part of his SAS training, he had been taught to strip and fire every type of NATO and Soviet-bloc hand-held weapon there was.

‘May I?’ asked the Russian.

Shepherd indicated Mickey. ‘You’d better ask him, he’s paying for the rounds.’

Mickey lit a cigar. ‘Help yourself.’

Shepherd put on his ear-protectors again and the Russian picked up the heavy M60 as if it was made of balsawood. Shepherd tapped his ear-protectors but the other man shook his head. He turned the gun towards the barrels and let off a short burst. The oil barrel to the left bucked and wobbled as the shells tore into it. The Russian fired a second burst into the middle barrel. The gun barely moved in his shovel-like hands. A third burst hit the final barrel, smack in the middle. Shepherd was impressed. ‘You’ve fired one before,’ he said.

The Russian laughed. ‘I’ve fired more than one,’ he said. He gave the weapon to Wilbur one-handed. Wilbur grunted as he took the weight. ‘You are English?’ said the Russian.

‘Yeah,’ said Shepherd. ‘You’re Russian?’

The man extended a vast hand. ‘Sergei,’ he said.

‘Ricky.’

‘You’ve come all the way from England to shoot guns?’

‘We live in Pattaya now,’ said Shepherd.

‘Me too,’ said the Russian. ‘You go to Walking Street?’

‘It has been known.’

‘My partner and I have a bar there,’ said Sergei. ‘Absolute A-go-go. Have you been in?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You should come by. We have the prettiest girls in Pattaya. Where are you staying in Phnom Penh?’

‘I don’t know – we haven’t checked in yet,’ said Shepherd.

Mickey took his cigar out of his mouth. ‘The Raffles.’

Sergei slapped his chest. ‘That’s where we’re staying,’ he said. ‘It’s the best hotel in the whole town.’

‘That’s what they say,’ said Mickey.

‘Let me buy you Englishmen a beer, and you can explain why you are so keen to sell your football teams to my countrymen.’

They walked over to the main building. Under the camouflage awning a battered and rusting fridge was connected to a frayed wire that ran from an open window. A young soldier was standing by it and the Russian waved at him. ‘Beers for all my friends.’ The soldier opened the fridge, took out cans of Heineken and handed them around. Yates and Black opened theirs and went to look at an old military motorcycle that was leaning against a coconut palm. Wilson was talking to Wilbur, who was holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Shepherd popped the tab on his can and sipped.

‘So, you were in the army, yes?’ asked the Russian.

‘How did you know?’ asked Shepherd.

‘A soldier can always tell another soldier,’ said Sergei. ‘It’s in the eyes, it’s in the walk.’ He punched Shepherd on the shoulder. ‘And you, my friend, were in the army, I’d stake my life on it.’ He gesticulated at Mickey and Mark, who were looking at a poster of a cutaway diagram of a Kalashnikov assault rifle that had been pinned on the wall by the window. ‘Those two, they’re hard and they can handle guns, but they’ve never been in a battle, never ducked as bullets flew over their heads so close you can feel the heat.’

‘You might be surprised,’ said Shepherd.

Sergei sat down in one of the planter’s chairs. ‘There’s a difference between being fired at and being in battle,’ he said. ‘It changes your outlook on life.’

‘That’s for sure,’ agreed Shepherd.

‘You were in Afghanistan?’

‘Yeah, I was in Afghanistan a few times.’

‘Special Forces? Were you SAS, Ricky?’

‘Bloody hell, no,’ said Shepherd. ‘I was a paratrooper. I never wanted to be one of the boys in black. Too much like hard work.’

Sergei raised his can in salute. ‘Bloody right,’ he said. ‘Special Forces are psychos, all the ones I’ve met. Give me a regular soldier every time. You know where you are with a soldier. What is it the Americans call them?’

‘Grunts,’ said Shepherd. Wilson called to Black and Yates and the three men went into the indoor firing range with Wilbur.

‘Yes, grunts. I like that,’ said Sergei. ‘Grunt. It’s real. Down to earth. I was a grunt and proud of it. I did three tours of Afghanistan,’ he said. ‘I was there in ’eighty-five and again in ’eighty-seven, and I was there when we pulled out in ’eighty-nine. You know, you will never win in Afghanistan, my friend. If the Russian army couldn’t beat the bastards, you and the Americans won’t stand a chance.’

‘I won’t argue with you on that score,’ said Shepherd. ‘When did you leave the army?’

‘Three years ago,’ said Sergei. ‘We’d had enough, all the men in my unit. We’d done four bloody tours in Chechnya. Four. And they were going to send us back. And you’d laugh if I told you what they paid us. We were sick of it. While the Mafia were bleeding the country dry and the oligarchs were buying mansions in London, and football teams and private jets, we were being bombed and shot at for less than you pay the men who take away your garbage. So when I told my men I was off, they came with me.’

‘To Thailand?’

‘There are big opportunities in Asia, my friend. Big money to be made. The police are easy to handle, the local Mafia are bone idle and they back down if you show you mean business, so everyone leaves us alone.’

‘And what is it you do, Sergei?’

Sergei looked at him suspiciously. ‘You are not a policeman, are you, Ricky?’

Shepherd laughed. ‘If you knew anything about me, that’s the last question you’d ask,’ he said. ‘I’m just interested. I’m looking for business opportunities myself, that’s all.’

Sergei studied him for a few seconds, then nodded. ‘You are a good guy, Ricky,’ he said. ‘I like you.’ He punched Shepherd’s arm, just hard enough to hurt. ‘The business I do, I will not lie to you, my friend, it’s illegal.’

‘All the best businesses are,’ said Shepherd.

‘Maybe I will tell you some time,’ said the Russian. ‘When we are drunk. But now I want to shoot some chickens.’ He drained his can, crushed it with his hand, and tossed it into a waste bin. He pointed a finger at Shepherd. ‘Tonight we can do some serious drinking,’ he said.

Mickey was sitting at a corner table in the Elephant Bar when Shepherd walked in. He already had a cigar going, and took a long pull as Shepherd sat down. A waiter asked what he wanted and he ordered a Jameson’s and soda with ice. He was pleasantly surprised when the waiter said, ‘Certainly, sir.’

‘You off the beer, mate?’ asked Mickey.

‘Just felt like a whisky.’ Shepherd sat back in his chair and sighed.

‘What’s wrong?’ said Mickey.

‘If I tell you, you’ll just tap your nose and tell me it’s need-to-know and that I don’t need to know.’

Mickey blew a tight plume of smoke at a wooden-bladed ceiling fan above their heads. ‘Try me,’ he said.

Shepherd interlinked his fingers. ‘Okay, here’s the thing,’ he said. ‘This guy who plans your jobs, the Professor. He wants to use RPGs to blow through a reinforced-concrete wall.’

‘Right.’

‘But you’ve got to understand that an RPG isn’t a wall-buster, not in the way you want. It’s designed to shoot through heavy armour, say a foot-thick sheet of steel. It might make a small hole in a wall, but that’s all.’

‘So we use more than one,’ said Mickey.

‘Then timing becomes a problem. Even a skilled operator takes about fifteen seconds to reload. Then time to aim. So if it takes four warheads to blow a big enough hole, that’s going to take you a full minute and a half, at least.’

‘So we go in with four RPGs. Each ready to fire. You pick one up, you fire, you put it down, you pick up the next one. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.’

The waiter returned with Shepherd’s drink on a stainless-steel tray. He put the glass, a napkin and a bowl of salted peanuts on the table and backed away. Shepherd was just about to ask Mickey about the RPGs he intended to buy when Sergei appeared at the doorway. ‘The Russians are coming,’ he said.

Three other men appeared, all big guys, well muscled and, like Sergei, with diamond earrings and geometric tattoos on their forearms. They walked over to where Shepherd and Mickey were sitting. ‘We’re going out to a bar we know,’ said Sergei. ‘You should come.’

‘What’s it called?’ asked Mickey.

‘The Red Rose.’

‘The one with the upstairs rooms and the circular beds?’

The Russian grinned. ‘That’s the one.’

‘We’ll see you there,’ said Mickey.

Sergei clapped Shepherd on the shoulder with his huge hand. ‘You come, Ricky. We’ll get drunk and talk, okay?’ The Russians headed off.

When they’d gone Shepherd said, ‘Okay, I accept that three or four or maybe five RPGs might well blast a big enough hole in a wall for us to get out the money, but then what? You start using ordnance like that and every armed cop in the country will be after you. Plus the SAS, plus the spooks, plus anyone else with a gun.’

‘We’ll be long gone by the time anyone gets near the place.’ He blew another tight plume of smoke at the fan. ‘We’ll be driving over farmland in four-by-fours. The armed cops will be in ARVs, which look great and go fast but they’re bugger-all use over ditches.’

‘And what about helicopters? What about the eye in the sky?’

Mickey grinned. ‘The nearest police helicopter is a ten-minute flight away and that’s assuming it’s in the air, which it almost certainly won’t be. There’ve been cutbacks and they’re refusing to pay the pilots overtime so by the end of the month they’re pretty much grounded unless it’s a missing kid or something.’

‘The Professor told you that?’

‘He’s thorough,’ said Mickey. ‘He covers all the bases.’

‘And what about inside the building? What sort of manpower will we be facing?’

‘We’ll go in at dawn and there’ll be no one in the money-handling area,’ said Mickey. ‘Any personnel on site will be in the admin block. It’ll take them two minutes at least to get through to where we are, and once they see our firepower they’ll sit tight and wait for the cavalry.’ He winked at Shepherd. ‘You worry too much, mate,’ he said. ‘All this has been planned down to the last detail. All you’ve got to do is handle the firepower. It’ll be like taking candy from a baby.’

‘Not sure you’d want to point an RPG at a baby, but I get your drift,’ said Shepherd. ‘So is that the plan? Get an RPG from your army mates here and blow our way into the depot?’

‘Not Cambodia,’ said Mickey. ‘We could get one here, no trouble, but then we’d have to get it from Cambodia to the UK and that would be a problem and a half. No, we’re going to pick one up in Europe.’

‘Pop into Arms R Us you mean? Mickey, you can’t just drop into a store and buy an RPG.’

‘If you know the right people you can. And our Professor knows the right people.’ Mark and Yates walked in, followed by Black and Wilson, and came over to them. ‘Fancy the Red Rose?’

Yates grinned. ‘Didn’t Mark hit someone there last time?’

‘He hits someone wherever we go,’ said Wilson.

‘I’m sorted,’ said Black. ‘I might catch up with you guys later.’ He headed out of the hotel. ‘Where’s he going?’ asked Shepherd.

‘He’s got a boyfriend who works for one of the NGOs here,’ said Mickey. He stood up. ‘Come on, we’ll show you the delights of the Red Rose.’

They went out to Reception. The two Landcruisers were parked in front of the hotel. Wilbur was sitting in the front passenger seat of one vehicle and climbed out to shake hands with Mickey. ‘Wilbur takes care of us on our evenings out,’ Mickey explained to Shepherd. ‘Phnom Penh’s not the same as Bangkok – it can get a bit dicey after dark. It helps to have a few guys with guns around.’ There was a large revolver in a leather holster high on Wilbur’s hip.

Mickey and Shepherd got into the Landcruiser with Wilbur and the rest of the men climbed into the second vehicle. They drove along the Mekong river, past dozens of outdoor cafés and bars, then turned away from it, the four-wheel drives lurching over potholes and cracks in the road. There were few street-lights and most weren’t working.

The Red Rose bar was down a small road filled with parked motorcycles. A group of men sharing bottles of brandy watched them walk in. One muttered something and Wilbur turned to give them a hard look before he followed Mickey inside.

Sergei was sitting at the bar, a bottle of Black Label whisky in front of him. When he saw Shepherd, he held up his bottle and beckoned him over. A dozen Cambodian girls, all wearing pink evening gowns with sequins at the neck, rushed over and swarmed around the new arrivals, grabbing for their hands and trying to pull them to the booths that ran around the bar. Shepherd held his up, dropped the right to make sure his wallet stayed in his pocket.