Spider Shepherd 11 - White Lies (22 page)

A door opened on the far side of the courtyard and a figure in a brown salwar kameez appeared holding something in his right hand. Shepherd shot him twice and a grenade tumbled from the man’s fingers as he fell to the ground. ‘Grenade!’ shouted Shepherd and he ducked down. The colonel dropped behind one of the pick-up trucks and Kassar threw himself to the floor just as the grenade exploded. Most of the blast was absorbed by the vehicles, but several pieces of shrapnel whistled dangerously close to Shepherd. He heard the pop-pop-pop of an AK-47 and straightened up to see rounds thwacking into the door panel of the truck that the colonel was hiding behind. He looked up and saw the shooter, a giant of a man who was so big that he made the AK-47 he was holding look like a toy. Shepherd fired a double tap and caught the man just below the throat with both shots. Blood spurted over his barrel-like chest and he slumped over the balcony.

There was firing above his head and Shepherd knew that if they were going to take them out they would have to cross the courtyard to shoot back at them. He turned and waved at Naveed and Sunny to move ahead. Naveed nodded and ran forward, bent at the waist, but Sunny hesitated. ‘Move!’ shouted Shepherd, but the man had frozen.

The colonel was up now, running towards the far end of the courtyard. He turned and began firing up at the balcony. Shepherd heard screams and almost immediately a body tumbled to the ground. Shepherd ran to join him as the colonel provided covering fire with single well-placed shots.

Kassar had found a spot behind one of the trucks that gave him a clear view of the balcony at the rear of the fort. He fired a short burst and there was a scream from overhead.

Shepherd looked around. To his left there were stone steps leading to the upper level. He waved at the colonel, then pointed at himself, then at the stairs. The colonel nodded. Shepherd ducked behind one of the pick-up trucks, using it as cover as he headed for the steps. The colonel fired a long burst, raking the balcony. Kassar crouched behind another pick-up, laying down more covering fire.

There was a gap of about twenty feet between the last pick-up truck and the steps. Shepherd looked up at the balcony before making his run, but stiffened as he saw the warhead of an RPG poking over the railing. He caught a glimpse of the man behind the RPG peering through the sights. He fired twice but the rounds ricocheted off the metal railing. ‘RPG!’ he shouted, just as the warhead kicked into life.

Time seemed to freeze again. Shepherd could see the warhead, a plume of smoke behind it. He turned to look at the colonel. The colonel was holding his G3 in front of his chest as he stared up at the RPG. He turned and glanced at Shepherd. The sunglasses hid his eyes but there seemed to be the faintest hint of a smile on his face. He began to move, but slowly, as if he knew it was futile. The warhead was heading straight for him. He was as good as dead, and he knew it.

As Shepherd’s body reacted instinctively, his mind was racing. What happened next depended on the type of warhead that had been fired. If it was a TBG-7V or an OG-7C then there was going to be one hell of an explosion as both were anti-personnel warheads. The OG-7C was a fragmentation grenade with a kill radius of seven metres. The TBG-7V was a thermobaric warhead using heat to do the damage, and it would kill anything within ten metres. The best-case scenario would be that it was a PG-7VR dual warhead, designed to destroy armoured vehicles and fortified targets, as the second warhead might well not explode.

Shepherd leapt up on to the bonnet of the nearest pick-up truck. He saw Sunny staring at him, open mouthed. ‘Sunny, get down!’ yelled Shepherd. He jumped off the bonnet, his MP5 held out in front of him. The explosion was deafening and hit him just before his feet touched the ground, thumping him in the back like a blow from a sandbag. He roared in pain and hit the ground hard, falling on top of his weapon and then rolling over twice.

He was facing the doorway, and as he faded into unconsciousness he saw Captain Kassar, Sunny and Naveed running back towards the hill. A burst of fire from the upper level cut Naveed and the captain down. The last thing Shepherd saw was Sunny being brought down by a hail of AK-47 fire, then everything went black.

The ringing mobile woke Charlotte Button from a dreamless sleep. She blinked her eyes and focused on the bedside clock. It was three o’clock in the morning, which meant it could only be bad news. She groped for her iPhone and squinted at the screen. The caller had withheld their number. She took the call. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry to call so late, but we have a problem.’ It was Jeremy Willoughby-Brown.

‘In what way?’ asked Button, sitting up, already wide awake.

‘The Pakistanis seem to have fucked up big-time,’ said Willoughby-Brown.

‘Specifically?’

‘It went bad, that’s all I know so far,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘It looks as if the bad guys knew what was going to happen.’

‘It was a trap?’

‘Maybe not a trap, but they were prepared. There’s a lot of dead bodies out there.’

Button felt her stomach turn over. ‘Is Spider OK?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I wish I did, but the Pakistanis have gone all tight lipped. They’re a bit embarrassed, obviously.’

‘That’s not good enough. Spider was in their care, if something has happened to him they have a duty to inform us.’

‘Taz is pressing them for information as we speak.’

‘I don’t understand why you’ve let a junior be the liaison on this operation,’ said Button.

‘He speaks the language, and not to put too fine a point on it, he’s the right colour,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘He’s doing a terrific job, under the circumstances.’

‘You’re obviously working under some strange new definition of “terrific” that I’ve never heard of,’ said Button. ‘He managed to lose Raj and now Spider is missing in action.’

‘That’s hardly Taz’s fault, though.’

‘Then whose fault is it?’ said Button. ‘You should have been out there.’

‘I’ve already explained why that wasn’t a good idea.’

‘It seems to me that you not being there was more of an arse-covering exercise,’ said Button. ‘If you’re not in the field, you can avoid any shit that goes flying if and when it hits the fan.’

‘Oh, come now, Charlotte, that’s not fair.’

‘Fair? Do you think it’s fair what’s happened to Spider? Damn you. Damn you to hell.’ She cut the connection, threw the phone and paced up and down, fuming. She caught sight of herself in the dressing-table mirror. Her face was red and there was a near-manic gleam in her eyes. She stared at her reflection and took several deep breaths. ‘Getting angry won’t solve anything, Charlie,’ she whispered. She picked up her phone and called Willoughby-Brown back.

‘Charlotte?’ he said, clearly bracing himself for another verbal assault.

‘I’d like to see you in my office at nine o’clock sharp for a full briefing,’ she said.

‘No problem,’ said Willoughby-Brown.

‘Thank you so much,’ said Button, before ending the call.

Shepherd groaned and opened his eyes. Everything was black. He opened and closed his eyes, wondering whether he had gone blind. He waved his hand in front of his face but saw nothing. He was lying on his side, on a stone floor. He was naked, he realised. Totally naked. He rolled on to his front and pushed himself to his knees. He was sore all over, but there were no sharp pains to suggest that he had broken anything. He moved his head, left and right, opening his eyes as wide as they would go. There was a thin line of light to his left, about three feet long, running along the floor. He crawled towards it. There was a fainter line running up at an angle to the horizontal line. It was a door. He stood up and ran his hands over it. It was rough wood. There was no keyhole and he couldn’t feel any hinges.

He walked to the left, keeping his fingertips on the wall. The surface didn’t feel like stone, it had a more man-made texture, like concrete or brick. There was less than three feet of wall before there was a corner. The second wall was just ten feet long. The wall opposite the door was nine feet long. Then another ten-foot wall. Then three feet to the door. His cell was nine feet wide and ten feet long. Ninety square feet. Slightly smaller than the average United Kingdom prison cell. But this was no cushy British prison cell with television, in-cell plumbing and a choice of nutritious meals. This was Pakistan and his captors were in all likelihood the Taliban or al-Qaeda. He reached up but couldn’t touch the ceiling. He jumped but it was still out of reach. So the cell was at least ten feet high.

He knew there was no point in calling out. His captors knew where he was, they’d get to him when they were ready. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. And when they did get to him, it was pretty much guaranteed not to be a pleasant experience. He sat down with his back to the wall facing the door and drew his knees up to his chest. All he could do now was wait.

Charlotte Button didn’t get up when Jeremy Willoughby-Brown was shown into her office. She was determined not to lose her temper with the MI6 man again, but that didn’t mean she was going to show him anything other than polite contempt. She waved him to a chair and he sat down before carefully adjusting the creases of his made-to-measure trousers, avoiding eye contact with her. ‘I really can’t tell you how sorry I am about all this, Charlotte,’ he said.

Button bit back the sarcastic comment she wanted to make and waited for him to continue. When she didn’t say anything, he looked up and she saw the confusion in his eyes. He’d obviously expected her to bite his head off. ‘Taz has had a more in-depth briefing from the Pakistani military and I’m afraid it’s not good news,’ he said. He paused, expecting her to say something, but she just nodded for him to continue. He took a deep breath, like a police officer on the doorstep about to break the worst possible news. ‘Sixteen SSG men were killed including three of the officers on the operation, a colonel and two captains. Four were injured. Two of the injured were taken prisoner.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Shepherd was captured.’

‘Was he injured?’

‘Stunned by an explosion. An RPG, I gather. One of the snipers saw it happen. The warhead went off and …’ He shrugged.

‘An RPG?’ said Button, her hand flying up to her mouth involuntarily. ‘He was hit by an RPG?’

‘The sniper said it was behind him, and that he was some distance away. He had on an armoured vest and a Kevlar helmet, he’s probably OK.’

‘Probably? I want more than probably.’

Willoughby-Brown put up his hands. ‘According to the sniper, Shepherd went down but a group of the bad guys pounced on him and dragged him away. He didn’t seem to be bleeding. Then the sniper left the area. He and the survivors made it back to the helicopters. They’re back in Cherat now.’

Button rubbed the bridge of her nose. She could feel a headache coming on. ‘What the hell happened?’ she asked quietly.

‘They were getting ready to go in as planned, through the doors, front and back. The bad guys seemed to have been ready and they tossed out grenades. There were armed men on the upper floor who started shooting. There were a lot of casualties but Shepherd and the colonel went ahead and blew a set of doors and went charging in. It was all very Butch and Sundance, apparently.’ He averted his eyes as Button glared at him.

‘So they knew they were coming.’

‘Possibly. Or they could have just been well prepared.’

‘That wasn’t a question, Jeremy. They had to have known. Grenades. RPGs. They were ready for a war.’

‘It’s the Taliban, Charlotte. They have weapons on tap.’

‘The Pakistanis must have done a recce, surely.’

‘One would assume so, yes.’

‘So they would presumably have known if the RPGs were on site.’

Willoughby-Brown sighed. ‘I wasn’t there, Charlotte. I’m getting my details second-hand.’

‘As am I,’ said Button. ‘You know when the Americans took out Bin Laden, they didn’t have a single casualty? And that’s despite crashing one of their helicopters. They stormed the compound in Abbottabad and didn’t take a single shot.’

‘That was the middle of the night.’

‘So the Pakistanis go in a few hours later than that and they find themselves in a full-on firefight. This wasn’t a few goat herders with guns, Jeremy. This was a battle and a highly trained Pakistani special forces assault group came off worst. How could have that happened?’

Willoughby-Brown shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘I’m not sure what you want me to say, Charlotte,’ he said. ‘It was a Pakistani operation. I’m not privy to the ins and outs.’

She looked at him coldly. ‘Were you privy to Akram Al-Farouq, by any chance?’ she said quietly.

Willoughby-Brown frowned. ‘What?’

‘You know who Akram Al-Farouq is?’

‘I wasn’t born yesterday. Of course I do.’

‘And you didn’t know he was there, with Raj?’

Willoughby-Brown’s frown deepened. ‘I did not. And if you don’t mind me asking, how do you know?’

‘I got it from the horse’s mouth.’

‘The ISI is sharing intel with Five?’

‘Shepherd called me. He had been briefed that Akram Al-Farouq was there. The impression Shepherd had was that Al-Farouq had become the focus of the mission and that Raj was secondary.’

Willoughby-Brown frowned. ‘This is the first I’ve heard of this, Charlotte. Trust me.’

Button was tempted to tell Willoughby-Brown that she trusted him about as far as she could throw him but she just smiled. ‘I’m assuming the Pakistanis have been playing their cards close to their chest,’ she said.

‘It would explain how they were so quick to locate Raj once he had been moved from the training camp,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘If they had Al-Farouq under surveillance, and if he went to interrogate Raj …’ He left the thought unfinished.

‘How good are Taz’s contacts within ISI?’ asked Button.

‘Quite good,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘Officially and unofficially. He’s had several high-level briefings and I think he has at least one unofficial contact.’

‘You think?’

‘He talked about meeting a contact socially. He plays squash at quite a high level and he plays with an ISI guy. Why are you asking?’