Spider Shepherd 11 - White Lies (23 page)

‘I need to see any intel they have on Al-Farouq.’

‘I assume there will be mountains of it,’ said Willoughby-Brown.

‘The latest intel, obviously. How they located him, how they knew he was interrogating Raj, where they think he might be now.’

‘I think if they knew where he was now they’d probably be going in with guns blazing.’

Button flashed him a tight smile. ‘I’d like that intel today,’ she said.

‘They’re five hours ahead of us.’

‘Then the sooner you get on to Taz, the better,’ said Button. ‘I also want to know why they didn’t know what they were going to be up against. If they had surveillance, they should have known about the RPGs.’

Willoughby-Brown stood up. ‘I’ll get back to you as soon as I have it,’ he said.

Button waved for him to sit down. ‘There’s something else,’ she said. ‘I need intel on anyone else who was being trained with Raj.’

‘I’m not sure I can share that with you,’ said Willoughby-Brown.

Button raised an eyebrow. ‘I’d be very careful about playing secret squirrel with me, Jeremy. I’m really not in the mood.’

‘I’ll have to clear it first.’

‘Then clear it. Or if you’d prefer I could go through the Joint Intelligence Committee?’

Willoughby-Brown swallowed nervously. ‘There’s no need for that, Charlotte.’

‘It might speed things up,’ said Button. ‘Of course, it would raise questions about the way this has been handled thus far. In particular why Five wasn’t informed of the ongoing investigation. Home-grown terrorists would seem to fall more within Five’s remit than yours.’ She smiled sweetly but her eyes were as hard as ice.

‘I already explained, we were looking at overseas terrorist funding.’

‘Yes, you did. But once your investigation focused on British soil, you really should have started sharing your intel with us.’

‘That’s a grey area, Charlotte.’

She shook her head. ‘No, it’s not in the least bit grey. You were running a British agent on British soil, and you can talk about overseas terrorist funding until the cows come home but what you did was outside your remit and you know it was.’ He opened his mouth to speak but she raised a hand to silence him. ‘Look, Jeremy, I’m not overkeen on involving the JIC, I just want to get Shepherd and Raj home. I need your help to do that and I’m asking for that help. If you won’t help me, then this will move to a whole new level.’

Willoughby-Brown nodded enthusiastically. ‘Charlotte, I will do whatever it takes. Believe me. I’ll chase up Taz and I’ll send over all the intel we have.’

‘Specifically I want to know who was out there with him.’

‘The one guy we know for sure is called Naseem Naeem,’ he said. ‘He flew out with Raj. They met in the mosque and were recruited together.’

‘What about the rest?’

‘We were monitoring flights and we have a list of possibilities but we were waiting for Raj to get back.’

‘What about the location of the training camp? What intel do you have on that?’

‘None, I’m afraid.’

‘That’s not good.’

‘Again, we were depending on Raj for that information. But to be honest, the training can be done pretty much anywhere. I doubt they use one place for long. But the training camp was probably not too far away from the fort.’

Button nodded. He was probably right. ‘Then I’m going to need the location of yesterday’s attack.’

‘Taz can get that, no problem. What’s your game plan?’

‘I don’t have one, yet,’ said Button. ‘But I’m working on it.’

She waited until Willoughby-Brown had left before she picked up her Filofax and flicked through the address book. The number she wanted was written under the ‘Z’ section. She had reversed the number and started it with two random digits. A simple code but pretty much unbreakable. She tapped out the number on her mobile. It was an American number but her call went straight through to voicemail with no introductory message. She left her name and number and ended the call. She leant back in her chair and stared at the framed map of the world on the wall opposite her. All she could do now was wait, and hope that the man she needed still checked his messages.

Shepherd stood up and stretched. He had lost all track of time and didn’t even know whether it was day or night outside. It was cold, cold enough for him to be shivering, so he assumed it was night. The strip of light still outlined the door but that could have been from a lamp. From time to time he had pressed his ear against the door but heard nothing.

They hadn’t fed him or given him water. If they continued to deprive him of water, he’d be dead within three or four days. He doubted that would happen, though. This wasn’t about killing him. If they wanted to kill him they’d have slit his throat or put a bullet in his head. This was about breaking him. That was why they had taken his clothes before locking him up; it was the psychological phase of interrogation. They wanted him scared. Then they would move on to the physical phase. They would hurt him. Again, they wouldn’t hurt him badly enough to kill him. But they would hurt him a lot. There was nothing Shepherd could do to change what was going to happen. All he could do was prepare for it and get through it as best he could.

His legs and shoulders were still aching from the explosion but he didn’t seem to have any broken bones or open wounds. Considering he’d been only twenty metres or so from an exploding RPG warhead, he seemed to have got off lightly. He wanted to exercise but he knew that more than anything he needed to conserve energy. Exercising would burn calories and make him sweat much-needed water out of his system. He rolled his shoulders and flicked his hands back and forth, then touched his toes a dozen times, breathing slowly and evenly. He had to stay focused if he was to get through what lay ahead. All he could do was to take it hour by hour, day by day. He sat down again and drew his knees up to his chest. He closed his eyes. He pictured himself back in Hereford, pulling on his army boots and heading out for a ten-kilometre run in the countryside, one of his favourite routes, out over the fields and through a wooded copse. He knew every inch of the route and he ran it in his mind in real time, step by step.

Willoughby-Brown cradled his Heckler & Koch G36 as he surveyed the ruined building to his left. He saw movement in one of the windows and brought his telescope sight up in a smooth motion, waited until the head was dead centre and fired a short burst. The head exploded in a shower of red and the body went down. ‘Nice shooting, Warlock,’ said the voice in his headset. Before Willoughby-Brown had the chance to reply a second figure appeared at the window. He let go another short burst and the man’s face exploded.

‘Got you, you bastard,’ Willoughby-Brown murmured under his breath. He turned and ran along the path, pulling the pin from a grenade and tossing it to his right where he was sure a gunman was hiding behind a burnt-out car. He ran faster and the car exploded behind him. Ahead of him the path branched left and right. ‘Left, left, left,’ he said.

‘Roger that,’ said the voice in his headset. It belonged to the soldier just behind him, a Russian banker who was based in Paris. He used the name Putin, which Willoughby-Brown figured was supposed to be funny. The two others in his team were a student at Edinburgh University and a guy who claimed to be in Texas but who sounded like a Geordie.

A jeep screeched around the corner, full of gun-toting terrorists. Willoughby-Brown raked the vehicle with gunfire. The terrorists screamed and died, the jeep overturned and burst into flames. Putin raced forward, firing his M249 from the hip. ‘Die, you motherfuckers!’ he shouted in Willoughby-Brown’s headset.

‘They’re dead, Putin,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘And you’re wasting ammo. We’ve a way to go yet.’

‘Aye, someone needs to put a bullet in the Ruskie,’ growled the Texan. He was off to Willoughby-Brown’s left, carrying a Barrett .50-cal sniping rifle. He was the unit’s sniper and using the call sign ‘Cowboy’. From the way his accent was thickening, Willoughby-Brown figured he was drinking, and drinking heavily.

He heard a ringing sound and frowned, wondering where it was coming from. ‘What was that?’ he said, into his microphone.

‘What’s what?’ growled Cowboy in his ear.

The ringing sound was repeated and Willoughby-Brown realised it was his doorbell. He looked at his wristwatch. It was ten o’clock at night. He took off his headset, muted the sound of his television and pushed himself up out of his chair. He walked over to the window and pulled back the curtain a fraction. Whoever had rung the bell was standing at the far side of the door, out of view.

He walked into the hall and tiptoed to the front door, his heart still racing from the Xbox game. He bent down and looked through the security peephole. There didn’t seem to be anyone there. He put the security chain on and opened the door. Charlotte Button was standing to the side wearing a black overcoat with the collar turned up.

‘Charlotte?’ he said, unable to conceal his surprise. ‘How did you know …’ He left the sentence unfinished. She worked for MI5, she knew where everyone lived. He closed the door, fumbled with the security chain, and opened it again.

‘I’ve not called at a bad time, I hope,’ she said.

‘I was just watching television,’ he said. He looked down the path behind her, then up and down the road.

‘Don’t worry, Jeremy. I came alone.’

‘So who’s that in the black Lexus?’

‘My driver.’

Willoughby-Brown looked back at her, frowning. She was holding something in her pocket, something quite large. ‘Please don’t tell me that’s a gun,’ he said.

She took her hand out, holding a bottle of Pinot Grigio. ‘We need to talk,’ she said. ‘I figure we can handle this in one of two ways. Either we sit down, open the bottle and talk like civilised adults.’ She hefted the bottle in her hand. ‘Or I beat you to a pulp with it.’

Willoughby-Brown chuckled and held the door open for her. ‘I’ll get some glasses.’

Shepherd was lying on his side, trying to sleep. It was warm in the cell, but not stiflingly hot, so he figured it was either late morning or early evening. His internal body clock was no help as it had been disrupted by the flight from London to Islamabad. His mouth was bone dry and his breath rasped in his throat. The stone floor was unyielding and he was using his left arm as a pillow. Sleep wouldn’t come, though he did drift in and out of consciousness. How long had he been in the cell? One day? Two? Three? He had no way of knowing. Two maybe. He hadn’t needed to go to the toilet. His body was shutting down, conserving water in every way it could.

He tried to focus on home. On Liam. On Katra. He pictured Katra standing at the kitchen sink, but then she was cooking, frying him steak and onions, and then the hunger pangs kicked in, so painful that they made him grunt out loud. He forced himself to ignore the hunger. They’d feed him eventually, he was sure of that. And they’d give him water. It was just a matter of time. There was a structure to what was happening. Isolation. Darkness. Hunger. Thirst. Soon there would be sleep deprivation. Then beatings. And torture. Shepherd closed his eyes and tried to think happier thoughts; it was best not to dwell on what lay ahead.

Willoughby-Brown gave the corkscrew a twist and a tug and the cork slid out with a whisper. He poured wine into two glasses, handed one to Button and sat down. He had pushed his Xbox, controller and headset under the coffee table and switched off the television. She commandeered his favourite chair, the winged leather one that he sat on while he played video games, so he sat down on the black leather sofa that faced the fireplace. ‘What is it you want, Charlotte?’ he asked. ‘I gave you the intel.’

‘I want my man back from Pakistan, alive and in one piece.’

‘Anything I can do, I will do, you have my word on that.’

‘Good. I’m going to hold you to that. The information you sent through to me today, it’s been redacted.’

‘Of course. It’s an ongoing investigation, we have agents at risk.’

‘I’m not a
Guardian
reporter, Jeremy. Anything you give me will stay in-house.’

‘I was following instructions, Charlotte.’

‘Not good enough,’ she said. ‘And you know it’s not good enough. Listen, Jeremy, and listen well. I am not going to let my man suffer a second longer than is necessary. I will do whatever it takes to get him out. Do you hear what I’m saying? Whatever it takes.’

Willoughby-Brown nodded. ‘I do understand.’

‘I want all the data you have. All of it. I’ll decide what’s relevant or not.’

‘I can’t do that, Charlotte.’

‘Yes you can. You just have to do it unofficially. You download the data to a thumb drive and you give that thumb drive to me.’

‘Have you any idea how much trouble I would be in if I was found out?’

‘One, you won’t be found out. You have my word on that. And two, do you have any idea how much trouble you will be in if you don’t help me?’

Willoughby-Brown’s eyes narrowed. ‘That sounds like a threat, Charlotte,’ he said quietly.

‘Sounds like a threat?’ She laughed harshly. ‘Jeremy, if I don’t get Spider back in one piece I am going to lash out in ways that I’ve never lashed out in before. If I was looking for anyone to blame for this present situation I’d be looking at you. That’s not a threat, that’s a promise.’

Willoughby-Brown swallowed and almost gagged. He took a quick drink of wine.

‘I want the data, and I want it first thing tomorrow. I want everything you have on the mosque in Bradford and the Brits who you know have been over to Pakistan for training.’

Willoughby-Brown nodded slowly. ‘OK,’ he said.

‘And I need you to get Tazam Gill back to London so that I can talk to him.’

Willoughby-Brown frowned. ‘He’s of more use in Pakistan. He speaks the language, he can keep track of what’s happening.’

‘Let’s face it, Jeremy, he hasn’t done a great job so far, has he? Raj’s cover was blown on his watch and now they’ve got Shepherd, too.’

‘You can’t blame him for that,’ said Willoughby-Brown.

‘I need to talk to him.’

‘I don’t want a witch-hunt, Charlotte.’

‘I left my pitchfork and torch at home,’ she said. ‘I want to sit down and talk to him. Considering what’s happened, I don’t think that’s an unreasonable request. And that’s what it is, Jeremy. A request. From me to you.’