Live Fire (43 page)

‘So it’s the exact opposite of what we want,’ said Mickey.

‘You got it in one,’ said Shepherd.

The waitress brought over the vodka with more ice shot glasses. Mickey twisted off the cap and poured slugs. ‘Cheers!’ he said.

‘Sergei, ideally what we want is a PG-7VR.’

Sergei nodded. ‘I think we can get some,’ he said.

‘Can we speak English here?’ said Mark, shouting to make himself heard over the music.

‘PG-7VR,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s a tandem warhead. It was designed to penetrate modern tanks and can blast through two feet of armour. Effectively it has two warheads, a smaller one followed by a larger one. The whole thing weighs about four and half kilos and can travel about two hundred metres. I reckon two will do the job, three to be on the safe side.’

‘We’ll go with four. Four warheads and four launchers. That way we won’t have to waste time reloading.’ Mickey looked at the Russian. ‘And you can get them?’

‘Does the pope shit in the woods, Mickey?’ said Sergei. ‘Does he?’

‘Okay, here’s the problem, Sergei,’ said Mickey. ‘We don’t want them in Moscow or Kiev, or anywhere else in the former Soviet bloc. We want them in Europe, the closer to England the better.’

Sergei pulled a face as if he had an unpleasant taste in his mouth. ‘That’s not so easy, my friend,’ he said.

‘They’re no good to me in Russia, mate,’ said Mickey. ‘We can get them in Cambodia if we need to, but they’ll send them by ship and it’ll take for ever. We need them going overland and we need them as soon as possible.’

Sergei leaned across to Mickey and put his mouth close to his ear. ‘I will try,’ he said, ‘but first I want you to suck my dick.’

Mickey punched the Russian’s arm. ‘Sergei, you sad bastard, if you can get us what we need, I might just do that.’

The Russian slapped Mickey’s thigh. ‘You are a good man, Mickey, for one who was named after a mouse.’

The two men laughed. ‘Seriously,’ said Mickey, ‘we need them in Europe. The further west the better.’

The Russian nodded thoughtfully. ‘It can be done, but the further from Russia, the higher the price.’

‘Money isn’t a problem,’ said Mickey. ‘I can pay you here in cash, any currency you want.’

‘I will talk to my friend,’ said Sergei.

‘Tell him Holland’s favourite,’ said Mickey. ‘If he can get the RPGs that far, I can get them into the UK.’

Sergei grabbed the vodka and filled fresh ice glasses. He raised his in the air. ‘To crime!’ he said.

‘To crime!’ they echoed, and drank. Mickey winked as Shepherd put his empty glass back on the table.

Shepherd winked back.

‘Nice one,’ said Mickey. ‘Looks like we’re on, Ricky.’

Shepherd’s stomach tightened. Mickey regarded Ricky Knight as a friend, someone he could trust, but Ricky Knight didn’t exist. Ricky Knight was really Dan Shepherd, and Dan Shepherd was working to put Mickey in a twelve-by-eight-foot concrete box for the next twenty years or so. He reached for the vodka. He needed to be doing something, even if it was just pouring drinks, because the more Mickey smiled at him, the guiltier he felt. It was one of the dangers of working under cover, Shepherd knew. To get close to the target he had to empathise, and through empathy came closeness and eventually friendship. But, like everything else in his undercover life, the friendship was false, based on lies. Every move Shepherd made worked to one aim: to betray Mickey and his team. It was what Shepherd did for a living and it was something he was good at, but the fact that he was working on the side of law and order and Mickey’s crew were villains who happily broke the law didn’t make him feel any better about what he was doing.

Shepherd paid a baht bus to drive him back to his villa. The driver wanted three hundred baht and Shepherd was too tired to argue. He let himself into the villa and phoned Charlotte Button. ‘We’ve got the RPGs sorted,’ said Shepherd.

‘So it’s on?’

‘It’s on, but I’m worried about the way it’s falling into place.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘My involvement,’ said Shepherd. ‘Their contact in Sarajevo couldn’t come up with the goods. But the Russian I met out in Cambodia, the guy based in Pattaya I told you about, has said he can supply us and that he can get the gear to the UK.’

‘So what’s the problem?’ asked Button.

‘I was the first point of contact with Sergei,’ said Shepherd. ‘I started talking to him and it was me who introduced him to the Moores. Without me, they might never have met him.’

‘You’re worried about entrapment? Didn’t you suggest that we use one of our own people to pose as an arms dealer?’

‘This is different. Sergei is the real thing. And I talked to him about weapons before the Moores did. Then I introduced him to the Moores.’

‘But they were the ones who asked Sergei to supply them with RPGs?’

Shepherd grimaced. ‘It’s a grey area,’ he said. ‘We were all there when it came up.’

‘But it was the Moores who asked the Russian to supply them with RPGs?’ insisted Button.

‘Yes, I guess so.’

‘You guess so?’

‘Mickey was the one who actually asked for the gear, but we were all there.’

‘So it’s not a problem,’ said Button. ‘That hardly counts as entrapment. But it’s not going to be an issue anyway. We’ll be catching them red-handed with the money, and you won’t be giving evidence against them so no one is going to try shifting the blame on to you.’

‘I just wanted you to know.’

‘It’s noted,’ said Button. ‘Do you know when you’ll be leaving?’

‘Everything’s on a need-to-know basis with me,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ve got my bag packed ready for the call.’

His intercom buzzed. ‘What’s that?’ asked Button.

‘I’ve got a visitor. As soon as I know when we’re leaving, I’ll call you.’

Shepherd disconnected and went to the intercom. ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s Olga.’

‘Olga?’

‘From the bar.’

‘Which bar?’

‘Did you forget me already?’

Shepherd frowned, then remembered the pretty brunette in Absolute-a-go-go. The one who had been stroking his thigh until he had left to go to the ice bar. ‘Olga, it’s late,’ he said.

‘Sergei told me to come,’ she said. ‘Please let me in. My taxi has gone already.’

Shepherd didn’t want her in the villa, but he didn’t want to leave her alone in the darkened street either. He pressed the button to open the gate and went to the front door.

Olga had changed into a blue denim miniskirt and a yellow top that showed off a perfect midriff. She was wearing long silver earrings, strappy high heels, and carrying a shiny gold handbag with a fringe on the bottom. She waved as she walked up the path to the front door. ‘Hi!’ she said.

Shepherd folded his arms. ‘Olga, how did you know where I lived?’

‘Sergei asked your friend. The one who smokes cigars all the time.’

‘Mickey,’ said Shepherd. ‘Terrific.’

She stopped and stood with her weight on one hip. ‘Don’t you like me?’ she said, pouting.

‘It’s not that,’ he said.

‘Good,’ she said. She smiled brightly and walked past him into the hallway. ‘Can I have a drink?’ she asked.

‘Kitchen’s that way,’ said Shepherd, gesturing to her left. He closed the front door and followed her. She dropped her handbag on the table.

‘I saw the way you watched me when I was dancing.’ She opened the fridge. ‘And how you reacted when I touched you.’

‘You’re pretty. And . . .’

She took out a bottle of white wine and showed it to him. ‘Can I have this?’ she said.

‘Sure,’ said Shepherd. He took it from her and fished a corkscrew out of one of the drawers.

‘And?’ she said. ‘You said I was pretty, and . . .’

‘And you reminded me of someone.’

‘Your wife?’

‘I don’t have a wife,’ he said.

‘Girlfriend?’

Shepherd opened the bottle and poured her some wine. ‘Not a girlfriend,’ he said. ‘Someone I worked with, but she’s older than you.’

She sipped her wine and then licked her upper lip. ‘You want to have sex with her, yes?’

Shepherd’s stomach lurched. ‘No,’ he said.

She stepped towards him and ran her finger down his chest. ‘I think you do,’ she said. ‘You can, you know. You can make love to me and pretend I’m her.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘You can do to me anything that you want to do to her.’

He could feel her warm breath on his skin and took a step back. ‘Olga, I can’t.’

She took another sip of wine and peeped at him over the top of her glass. She had a knowing glint in her eyes that reminded him of the way Charlotte Button looked at him sometimes.

‘How old are you?’ he asked.

‘Old enough,’ she said.

He poured himself some wine. ‘Seriously, how old are you?’

‘Twenty-two,’ she said.

Just about half Charlie’s age. Young enough to be her daughter. But she had the same soft dark chestnut hair, the same high cheekbones, the same brown eyes, so brown they were almost black, the same slim figure and shapely legs. Her voice was different, of course, but she had the same confidence as Charlie, the same way of walking, with her shoulders back and her head held high, as if nothing in the world scared her.

Shepherd took out his wallet and gave her five thousand baht.

‘You don’t have to pay me,’ she said. ‘Sergei said I was a present.’

‘That’s just to say thank you for coming,’ he said. ‘You have to go now. You can tell Sergei that I was an animal in bed, if you like.’

‘I want to stay with you,’ she said earnestly. ‘It’s not because of Sergei, it’s because I like you.’ She sounded like a schoolgirl talking to her first love.

‘I like you, too, but you can’t stay.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be fair to you, and it wouldn’t be fair to . . .’ He tailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

‘To the woman you want to screw?’ She laughed, and he knew she was teasing him. She put down her glass and tried to put her arms around his neck, but he took a step back.

‘I can’t,’ he said.

‘I’m clean,’ she said. ‘I saw the doctor for a check last week.’

‘It’s not that, Olga,’ he said. ‘Really. But you have to go. I’m sorry.’

‘Are you sure?’ she said. She started to undo her top but he held up his hand to stop her.

‘No,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’m not. But you have to go.’

‘You’re a nice man, Ricky,’ she said. She picked up her handbag and put away the money he’d given her.

‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘But thank you.’

She kissed his cheek. ‘Whoever she is, she’s a very lucky woman,’ she whispered. Then she turned and walked away.

The bidding went up to six thousand pounds quickly but within two minutes only one other bidder was interested in the ten-year-old removal van. He was an elderly man in a sheepskin jacket and a flat cap. Once the bidding went above four thousand his lips had formed a tight line and deep lines creased his forehead. Bradshaw had an easy smile on his face each time he raised a hand to increase his bid. He would pay whatever it took to win the auction and he and Kundi had twelve thousand pounds in cash between them, which was far more than the van was worth.

Under the rules of the auction they hadn’t been allowed to test-drive it but they had been able to run the engine and, according to Kundi, it was worn but serviceable. He had crawled under it to check the brakes and the suspension and pronounced it suitable for their needs. The name of the removals company that had previously owned it had been painted over but it was still just about visible, along with the company’s website address and telephone number. It was perfect, so Bradshaw continued to smile and bid.

The middle-aged man dropped out at six thousand eight hundred pounds and the auctioneer banged down his gavel. Half an hour later, having paid in cash, Kundi was driving down the M25 with Bradshaw in the passenger seat.

Shepherd woke to the sound of his mobile phone ringing. It was seven o’clock in the morning, which meant it was midnight in England.

‘Sorry about the time but I figured you’d want the Paul Bradshaw intel ASAP,’ said the Major. ‘It took me longer than I thought to get it – the guy I needed to speak to is out in Iraq.’

‘Not a problem, boss,’ said Shepherd, sitting up and running a hand through his hair. He reached for a bottle of Evian water on his bedside table and took a swig from it as the Major carried on talking.

‘Bradshaw joined the King’s Royal Hussars straight out of school and was a Challenger tank gunner. His career was satisfactory, rather than exemplary, tried hard but wasn’t especially good at anything. He did two tours in Iraq, handled himself well. During his last tour he was based in Al Amara in Maysan province. A lot of Brits died there. It was a testing ground for IEDs from Iran, but he was lucky, had a few near misses but returned without a scratch. He left a year ago and enrolled on an engineering degree course.’

‘Why did he leave?’

‘No reason given,’ said the Major. ‘Obviously he was interviewed and given a dozen reasons why he should stay but he wanted to go back to Civvy Street so that was that.’

‘No emotional problems, no post-traumatic stress disorder?’

‘He was fine,’ said the Major. ‘At least, as fine as someone who has done two tours in Iraq can ever be. There was one black mark on his record. An Iraqi interpreter he worked with was killed at an American roadblock and Bradshaw wanted the guys who shot up the man’s car to be charged, but of course it didn’t happen. Bradshaw seemed to take it personally. He wanted the Americans punished and the interpreter’s family compensated.’

‘How did it play out?’

‘Bradshaw was given the usual American run-around, told that the men had been cleared by an internal inquiry, all the usual bullshit. He wouldn’t take no for an answer and he confronted one of the American soldiers and threatened to blow his head off. His squad pulled him away and it was kept quiet, but from what I’ve been told he was only seconds away from pulling the trigger.’

‘You think that might have set him off?’

‘Who knows?’ said the Major. ‘By the time he was back in England he was hunky-dory and the Hussars were sorry to lose him. His mate Chris Thomas left at the same time. He’s back in Iraq now, running his own security company and making a small fortune. Quite a few former Regiment guys are working for him and he’s a straight arrow, by all accounts.’