Moving Targets: An Action-Packed Spider Shepherd SAS Novel (Spider Shepherd: SAS Book 2) Read online

  MOVING TARGETS

  SPIDER SHEPHERD: SAS

  STEPHEN LEATHER

  Copyright © Stephen Leather 2018

  The right of Stephen Leather to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  TALL ORDER

  ALSO BY STEPHEN LEATHER

  CHAPTER 1

  Sabit Kusen trudged wearily along the dusty street, heading home from the market where he had spent all day squatting in the dirt, trying to sell the cooking pots and water jars that his father pounded into shape in the tiny forge alongside their house. There had been only one customer all day and he had beaten Sabit down in price, twice walking off in apparent disgust before returning to grudgingly buy a pot for a price that would barely pay for the family’s bread.

  Once a welcome refuge from the desert, a bustling, prosperous oasis and resting place, the modern town of Turguan now had little to offer travellers. Most of the buildings were one or two storey mud-brick houses, separated by crumbling alleyways. There were a few drab concrete apartment and office blocks close to the town centre, but they were shoddily designed and even more shoddily built, corrupt government officials and contractors having siphoned off much of the money to construct them. There were a few cars and diesel-belching lorries on the streets but also carts pulled by donkeys and buffaloes, while strings of scrawny camels plodded along, laden with bales of the traditional fabrics that had long been the pride of Sabit’s people and their principal export.

  High on its windswept plateau, it was a place of extremes, burning hot by day with summer temperatures of over 40°C, though even then it was bitterly cold at night. In winter, it could be 20°C below freezing, and the biting north winds howling over the desert brought flurries of ice and gritty sand that stung the skin like hornets.

  The isolated town was surrounded by mountains and deserts. To the west and north-west the jagged, snow-laden peaks seemed to pierce the sky. To the north and east the dunes began, a desert so vast that even the nomads roamed only the fringes of it. The sun-bleached bones of animals – and men – in the million square miles of burning sands showed that none could survive in that wasteland. A modern highway crossed the fringes of the desert, a straight line ruled across the landscape like a Roman road. Outside the town, the only man-made structures were the steel skeletons of ‘nodding donkey’ pumps extracting the oil that was both the blessing and the curse of this remote region, bringing a few much-needed jobs, but also ensuring that the government would fight to the death to defeat any campaign for independence.

  Even in his short lifetime, Sabit could remember farmers coaxing crops from the dry, stony fields that surrounded the town, the dust from their ploughs drifting like smoke through the streets. Now the dunes had advanced right up to the edge of the town and drifts of shifting sand were spilling into the streets, threatening to engulf it altogether. An ancient road bisected the town from east to west, a trade route that had been used beyond the memories of men. For five days that road had been blocked by protesters, among them Sabit’s father, uncle and brothers. It was an all-male household, for Sabit’s mother had died giving birth to him.

  Sabit’s father, Rebiya Kusen, was one of the town elders. They gathered every Friday to drink green tea and discuss the town’s affairs, though their discussions and conclusions were merely symbolic, for all power was concentrated in the capital, Beijing, a thousand miles away. Only rarely in their history had Sabit’s people governed themselves. Down the centuries a succession of warlords and tyrants had conquered the region and ruled it with blood and iron.

  Already cowed by decades of repression, the people had reacted with sullen, resentful acquiescence to the ever-growing number of petty restrictions upon them. However, a small spark – the arrest of an imam for ‘anti-state activities’ – had ignited a blaze of protest. The town’s young men took to the streets, shouting anti-government slogans, throwing rocks and bottles. The police responded with clubs, tear gas and water cannons, and 150 youths were arrested. Stripped of their coats and jackets, beaten and tortured, they were held for a week in freezing conditions, made worse by being doused daily with cold water. By the end of the week, fifty of them had died and many of the survivors were suffering from frostbite.

  As news of the atrocity spread, popular outrage outweighed the fear of reprisals and protests flared again, growing into open rebellion. The protesters marched on the central police station, demanding the release of the remaining captives, and when that was refused they stormed the building, smashing the windows, battering down the doors, freeing the prisoners and attacking their tormentors – the state police. They wrecked the building and made a bonfire of all the files and documents they found there, including the intelligence files held on every citizen. Having ransacked the building, the protesters overturned police and government vehicles and erected barricades on the main road, then banners began appearing, demanding self-rule and independence from the hated regime. Most of the protesters were relatively peaceful, but a handful, more passionate or more reckless than the rest, began beating ethnic Chinese immigrants and looting and burning their houses. Before long, the smell of oily smoke hung heavily in the air.

  Sabit’s father and the other elders grew increasingly concerned at the escalation of events. ‘It will not succeed,’ Rebiya said to his son. ‘It will bring repression and terrible suffering upon us.’ But because he was a proud member of his race, he continued to speak for the community, even when he disagreed with them.

  After several days of rioting, an uneasy silence had settled over the town. The banners with their defiant messages still fluttered above the barricades and the young hotheads still patrolled the streets, attacking any immigrants foolish enough to show their faces. The older, wiser heads, led by Rebiya, talked quietly together, their gazes flickering constantly to the east, beyond the town’s outskirts, where the concrete ribbon of the highway, grey against the red-gold dunes that flanked it, lost itself in the desert haze.

  As darkness fell that night, Rebiya, his face e
tched with worry, began to dig in the dry, stony soil of the walled yard behind their house. He carefully scraped off the top layer with his shovel and piled it to one side, then dug down into the darker earth beneath. When Sabit asked him what he was doing, his father merely put a finger to his lips.

  ‘But is it a grave?’ Sabit said, looking down into the deep, narrow trench his father was excavating.

  A brief flicker of a smile crossed his father’s face. ‘Let us hope not, my son.’

  When he had finished digging, he took a length of rusting iron water pipe and drove it into the side of the trench near the top, at an angle that meant it broke ground a few feet from the trench. He buried it under a heap of stones and rubble, so it was invisible to anyone searching the yard. He disposed of the earth he had excavated by scattering it the length of the winding back lane behind the house. He broke up the old wooden store chest that had stood in their house since his grandfather’s time and used the wood and a piece of battered corrugated iron to roof over the trench he had made, leaving a narrow gap at one end that would be filled by the last piece of wood. He lowered an earthenware water jar, a metal container with a hinged lid and a bucket into the trench, then scattered the topsoil he had removed over the corrugated iron. He sprinkled water on it and trod it down until it was indistinguishable from the trampled earth in the rest of the yard.

  He turned to face his young son. ‘Now do you understand?’ he said.

  The boy shook his head.

  ‘These are dangerous times, my son. Bad men are coming. I will be put in prison and if they find you, they will take you too. When I tell you it is time, you must not hesitate for a second. You must climb down into the trench and stay there while I cover the top. Do not be frightened, there will be air to breathe from the pipe, and there is water and a little food. It will be dark but by day there will be a little light through the pipe. Whatever sounds you hear, even if footsteps come very close, you must remain absolutely still and silent. When it is safe, I will come and get you. If I do not, you must count the days and nights – the brightening and fading of the light from the pipe will help you count them – and wait at least four days before you come out. You will have to push hard on the wooden plank, and eventually the soil will give way. Do it at night, come out very carefully and tiptoe to the lane. Do not go back into the house because bad people may be waiting there. Keep to the back ways, do not speak to anyone, and make your way to the edge of town, then take the road west. Hide by day and walk only at night, until you reach my cousin Rahman’s village – you remember him?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘Tell him what has happened here, and say that I am entrusting you to him. He is a good man and he will be like a father until I come for you.’

  The boy started to protest but his father held up his hand to silence him. ‘You must obey me. It is my command. You must get away from here, far enough to be safe. The state’s spies are everywhere, so be careful always to whom you speak and what you say. But in your heart, never forget who you are and where you are from, and never forget the people who have taken our land, our country from us, and forced us to live and die on our knees.’ He paused. ‘And my son? If I do not return, then promise me that when you become a man, you will swear revenge against the killers of your father.’

  That night passed without alarm but the following night, Sabit was woken by his father shaking him. ‘It is time,’ he said. He led him out of the darkened house and as they crossed the yard, Sabit could hear the low rumble of truck engines and a metallic clanking and grinding noise that he did not recognise but which filled him with fear. Rebiya crushed him in his arms as tears wetted his hair, and then helped him down into the trench. Sabit saw his father’s face for the last time, dimly lit by the waning moon, and then the last plank was put in place. He heard the noise of Rebiya scattering a layer of soil onto it and tramping it down, and then his whispered ‘Goodbye, my son, may Allah protect you.’ There was the soft scuffing sound of his footsteps as he walked back across the yard and then Sabit was alone in the darkness and silence.

  He stayed there throughout the night, occasionally sipping a little water and nibbling at a piece of naan bread. From the street beyond the house, muffled by the soil above him, he could hear the sound of explosions and the bursts of gunfire. About the middle of the next day he heard footsteps crossing the yard and voices speaking in an accent he did not recognise. The footsteps paused almost overhead. Numb with fear, he waited with his ear pressed to the mouth of the pipe and his heart pounding. There was a brief silence, then he heard the faint scratch and flare of a match and, a few moments later, smelled a faint whiff of cigarette smoke through the pipe. Five minutes later there was a gritty sound as the unseen searcher threw down his cigarette end and ground it out with the heel of his boot before turning and walking away. There was a shouted command and then a terrifying rumble close at hand that made the walls of his refuge shake and sent fine sand drifting down onto him.

  As his father had ordered, Sabit remained in his hiding place until the fourth night. His father had still not returned and Sabit tried to still the dread in his heart at what might have happened to him. Well after dark that evening, straining his ears for any sound, Sabit eased up the wood and iron roof of his refuge and crept out. His family’s house, like every other house in the street, had been demolished by a bulldozer or a tank, and the yard now lay open to the deserted town square. Hearing the sound of an approaching vehicle, Sabit hid among the rubble of his home and was forced to stay there, his hair, skin and clothes so dust-laden they were indistinguishable from the ground on which he lay as Chinese soldiers disembarked from a lorry and began to patrol the square.

  At first light the next morning, Sabit saw rank upon rank of captive men, perhaps a hundred in all, marched into the town square, hands and feet bound, shuffling and stumbling along, jabbed onwards by Chinese soldiers with bayonets. He recognised many of them. Almost the last to be brought out was his father with his hands tied behind his back. He was barely recognisable, his face battered and bloodied, a purple swelling almost closing one eye, and the marks of cuts and burns on his exposed arms and chest. Like all the others, he was forced to his knees.

  A silent crowd of women and older men lined the square, dragged from their houses at gunpoint and forced to watch the unfolding spectacle. They were told that anyone who tried to avoid it or look away would meet the same fate as the prisoners. Soldiers with rifles took up position behind each man.

  There was to be no real trial. The charges were read out by the chief of police, a small man with a neatly clipped moustache and a uniform that appeared to be several sizes too big for him. ‘These men are guilty of criminal acts, anti-state activities conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism and attempting to split the motherland.’ He turned to face the sullen crowd. ‘Let this be a warning to you all. Any who conspire against the state will face the same pitiless fate.’ He raised his arm, held it aloft for a dramatic pause and then let it fall.

  A succession of shots rang out. The soldiers standing behind the prisoners shot each of them through the back of the head with their rifles. The town elders were the last to die. Rebiya was forced to watch as his three eldest sons – - Sabit’s grown-up brothers – were shot in front of him. Then he too was killed by a bullet to the back of the head. Gnawing on his fist to stop himself crying out, Sabit watched as his father pitched forward and sprawled in the dirt, his face blown away, the last of his lifeblood spilling into the sand. Sabit’s father, his three brothers, his uncle and his grandfather had all been killed. He was the only male in his family to survive.

  The gunshots ceased soon afterwards, but the ululating cries of grief from the wives and mothers of the dead continued throughout the day and far into the night. Sabit remained in hiding among the rubble all day and escaped in the dead hours of the following night, taking with him only a goatskin water bottle and his last piece of stale naan. He dodged the patrols of soldiers enforcing the c
urfew and slipped away, past the last of the mud-brick houses on the outskirts of the town, and began the long, exhausting walk to the west, making for the village where his father’s cousin lived. He plodded through the edge of the desert, keeping to the rock outcrops and stony terrain that would hide his footprints from anyone following, but always with the highway in sight. Without it, he would soon have been lost in the vastness of the dunes. As he walked, he swore a vow that he would never rest until the killers of his father, his brothers and so many others had been brought to justice – not only the men who had pulled the triggers, but those who had given the orders for the executions.

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘You know, if it weren’t for the dust, the flies and the fact that people keep trying to kill us, this wouldn’t be a bad place for a holiday.’ Jock McIntyre’s voice, cured by decades of cigarette smoke and whisky, could have made him a fortune in voice-over work had his thick Glasgow accent not made him virtually unintelligible to anyone born south of Hadrian’s Wall. He was several years older than the other members of his SAS patrol, his hair tinged with grey. His round face and broad features gave him a simple, uncomplicated look, but people who underestimated him were making a serious mistake. He had a keen intellect – the SAS rumour mill claimed he could read The Iliad in the original Greek, though his patrol mates suspected the rumour might have been started by Jock himself – but it was his prowess as a fighter that had earned him their unconditional respect. Whether in a firefight in the Afghan mountains or a knife fight in one of the rugged bars of his Scottish home city, there was no man they would rather have had alongside them.

  His patrol leader, Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd, propped himself up on one elbow and glanced around. Even in late summer, the towering peaks of the Hindu Kush – ‘Hindu Killer’ was the literal translation, though those forbidding mountains had also claimed their share of Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians, Jews, Muslims and followers of almost every other religion – were still capped with snow, gleaming white against the deep blue of the eastern sky. The surrounding terrain was mostly bare rock, desert sand and scrub burned brown by the long Afghan summer, but closer to the fast-flowing river running through the valley there were stands of larches, pines and cedars. The riverbanks were lined with poplars, their golden leaves shimmering in the bright sunlight. In the fields alongside the river the crops were ripe and ready to be harvested, including the number-one cash crop, here as elsewhere in the country – the opium poppy.