Short Range (The Spider Shepherd Thrillers Book 16) Read online

  Contents

  Also by Stephen Leather

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd …

  Also by Stephen Leather

  Pay Off

  The Fireman Hungry Ghost The Chinaman The Vets

  The Long Shot The Birthday Girl The Double Tap The Solitary Man The Tunnel Rats The Bombmaker The Stretch Tango One

  The Eyewitness First Response Takedown

  The Shout

  Last Man Standing

  Spider Shepherd thrillers Hard Landing Soft Target Cold Kill

  Hot Blood

  Dead Men

  Live Fire

  Rough Justice Fair Game

  False Friends True Colours White Lies

  Black Ops

  Dark Forces Light Touch Tall Order

  Jack Nightingale supernatural thrillers Nightfall

  Midnight

  Nightmare

  Nightshade

  Lastnight

  If you’d like to find out more about these and future titles, visit www.stephenleather.com.

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Hodder & Stoughton An Hachette UK company Copyright © Stephen Leather 2019

  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.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  eBook ISBN 9781473671935

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For Scarlett

  Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd stared at the bottle of water longingly but he already felt the urge to go to the bathroom and adding to his liquid intake would only be asking for trouble. The way things were going there wasn’t going to be an opportunity to get to a bathroom in the near future and he didn’t want to urinate in the back of the Openreach van, not when he was rubbing shoulders with two other surveillance experts. Openreach was a division of BT, responsible for maintaining the cable and phone network across the UK and, from the outside, the van looked like any of the hundreds of others criss-crossing the capital. It was never given a second glance.

  To Shepherd’s right was Janet Rayner, a pretty thirty-something brunette, her hair hidden under a wool hat with a bobble on top. Rayner had recently joined MI5 after a decade with the Metropolitan Police’s surveillance team. She was handling the video feeds that were displayed on the half-dozen monitors in front of her.

  To Shepherd’s left was Matty Clayton. Clayton had more than twenty years surveillance experience with MI5 and he was handling comms for the operation. Long hours sitting in vans eating fast food had played havoc with his waistline. ‘Victor One has eyeball,’ he said.

  Victor One was one of two Toyota Prius cars that were tailing the target, along with two motorcycle couriers. Each Prius had an Asian driver and a passenger sitting in the back, mimicking the profile of the numerous Uber vehicles running passengers to and from the airport.

  The Openreach van was on the inside lane of the M4, heading from Heathrow Airport towards London. Their quarry – Tango One – was a forty-six-year-old Pakistani who had flown into the country on an Emirates flight from Dubai. There had been two MI5 officers in Border Force uniforms waiting at Terminal 3 and they had watched Mohammed Khalid as he used the facial recognition ePassport gates to enter the country. The passport he used was Swedish, and the picture in it was his, but Khalid had never been to Sweden and the name in the passport was not his own.

  There was a line of photographs of Khalid taped to the side of the van above the monitors. Four were surveillance photographs taken in Islamabad, the fifth was a head-and-shoulder shot presumably from some official paperwork. Khalid was overweight with several chins, and cheeks pockmarked with old acne scars. In all the pictures he was wearing gold-framed spectacles.

  A car had been waiting for Khalid, a blue Vauxhall Corsa hatchback, driven by a bearded Asian man. Khalid had climbed in the back and it had driven out of the airport, closely followed by Victor Two.

  Victor Two had taken the lead for the first mile and then had driven ahead, its place taken by Victor One. The two courier bikes were hanging back until needed.

  Khalid was a financier for Islamic State, channelling the terror group’s money to jihadist cells around the world. Most of the time he was based in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, though he made frequent trips to Dubai for meetings with Islamic State officials. On one of his trips a meeting in a five-star hotel had been bugged by the CIA and they had heard Khalid refer to an upcoming visit to the United Kingdom. The CIA had passed the intel on to MI6 who had begun taking a closer interest in Khalid and once they had confirmed that he had booked a flight via Dubai they had put their MI5 counterparts on alert.

  An MI6 officer had boarded the flight from Islamabad to Dubai where he had handed over to an Emirates-based officer who had sat behind Khalid in the business class section of the A380 plane on the final leg of the trip. When he had boarded the plane in Islamabad, Khalid had been dressed in a traditional long dishdasha and a skull cap, but while in the Dubai business class lounge he had changed into a dark blue suit. He was travelling light with just an aluminium carry-on case with wheels.

  Shepherd studied a digital map that was showing the Vauxhall’s progress along the M4. It was vital that they didn’t lose sight of the vehicle because they had no way of knowing where Khalid was going or who he planned to meet.

  ‘We’ve got an ID on the Vauxhall,’ said Rayner. ‘The owner is one Manzoor Hassan. I’ve an address in Slough.’

  ‘So they’re not heading to his house,’ said Shepherd, watching the red dot that marked the position of the Vauxhall. ‘Anything known?’

  ‘A couple of convictions for indecent exposure but he’s not on any watch lists,’ said Rayner.

  ‘Well he is now,’ said Shepherd.

  The Vauxhall continued east, leaving the M4 and driving along the A4 through Chiswick and towards Hammersmith. Victor One and Victor Two took it in turns to stay close.

  As they reached Hammersmith, Clayton announced that the target was preparing to turn off the A4, the Great West Road. A few seconds later the red dot on the digital map showed that the vehicle was heading north

  ‘Let’s get the bikes in closer,’ Shepherd said to Clayton.

  Clayton relayed instructions to the surveillance team.

  The bikes moved in, one three cars behind the Vauxhall, the other a hundred yards or so ahead. Once the bikes were in position, the two Priuses dropped back. The Openreach van with Shepherd and his team brought up the rear. Progress had slowed now that the Vauxhall had left the main road.

  ‘Spider, there’s a mosque up that way,’ said Rayner. ‘That could be where they’re going.’

  Shepherd rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. He had been hoping that Khalid had been heading to a hotel. Surveillance at a hotel was hard enough; getting a team into a mosque was a whole different ball game.<
br />
  ‘That’s going to be awkward,’ said Clayton, as if he’d read Shepherd’s mind. Shepherd nodded. The only way they’d be able to follow Khalid into the mosque would be to use Asians, anyone else would stand out.

  Shepherd stared at the dot. ‘Matty, if they do stop at the mosque, get Rusul and Tahoor out of the cars and after Tango One. The passengers can take over the driving. Just make sure that no one sees the switch.’

  Clayton nodded and started passing on the instructions to the two Prius teams.

  Shepherd tapped on his laptop keyboard and pulled up intel on the Acton mosque. He sat back as he read what was on the screen. The Security Service had identified five men who had worshipped at the mosque as having gone to Syria to fight with ISIS. Two had been killed, two were still there and one had returned to the UK but wasn’t considered a threat and so wasn’t under investigation. There were several imams at the mosque but none had been red-flagged by the Security Service. The worshippers who had gone to Syria appeared to have been radicalised over the internet and not at the mosque.

  Clayton twisted around in his seat. ‘They’ll park up and switch once we confirm that he’s going to the mosque,’ he said.

  Shepherd nodded.

  ‘The Vauxhall is approaching the mosque and slowing,’ said Rayner. ‘I’ve got visual from Bravo One.’

  Shepherd looked over at the screen that was showing the video feed from Bravo One, one of the two motorbike couriers. The driver had a small camera mounted on his helmet and he had turned his head to send them a view of the Vauxhall, which had come to a halt outside the main gates to the mosque. The mosque had once been a pub but ten years earlier it had been purchased by a local Muslim group and converted into a place of worship. It was surrounded by wrought iron railings and a brick minaret had been built on one side. The whole building had been painted white except for the top of the minaret which was gold.

  Two men wearing ankle-length thawbs and knitted skull caps walked out of the mosque and over to the target car.

  ‘Get Rusul and Tahoor out now,’ said Shepherd. ‘And we need photographs of the men meeting Khalid.’

  ‘I’m on it,’ said Clayton.

  Victor One was driving away from the mosque so they lost its visual feed.

  Shepherd pressed an intercom to talk to the driver of the Openreach van. ‘Paul, get us up as close to the mosque as you can.’

  ‘Will do,’ said the driver. Paul Drinkwater was a former black cab driver whose encyclopedic knowledge of the city’s streets gave him an edge over the most expensive GPS navigation systems. The van accelerated, then made a left turn and a right turn.

  ‘Tango One is exiting the vehicle,’ said one of the courier bikers over the radio.

  ‘We’ve got a visual,’ said Rayner. She fed the output from one of the cameras hidden in the roof of the van to the screen directly in front of Shepherd. Shepherd watched the screen. Khalid got out of the Vauxhall with his carry-on. The two men embraced him in turn as the Vauxhall drove off.

  ‘Let the Vauxhall go,’ said Shepherd. ‘We’ve got the PNC details.’ They would need all their resources to keep tabs on Khalid when he left the mosque.

  Clayton relayed the instructions to the surveillance team.

  The two men who had greeted Khalid patted him on the back and gestured at the mosque. They were clearly about to take him inside. One of the men tried to take the carry-on case from Khalid but he shook his head and kept a grip on the handle.

  ‘Are Rusul and Tahoor on foot?’ Shepherd asked.

  Clayton flashed him a thumbs-up.

  Shepherd scanned the screens. On one he saw Tahoor Farooqi walking along the pavement. Farooqi had joined MI5 straight from university. He was a second-generation British Pakistani whose parents were both teachers at a Bradford comprehensive. Farooqi graduated with a First in English Literature and Philosophy from Reading University and was now in his third year at MI5. He was dressed casually in a puffer jacket and jeans, and had pulled on a skull cap as he walked at a measured pace with his hands in his pockets.

  Khalid and his two companions stepped inside the mosque as Farooqi reached the gates.

  Shepherd heard Farooqi’s voice over his headset. ‘I have eyeball on Tango One,’ he said.

  Shepherd grinned at Clayton. So far so good. He leaned forward to stare at the screen in front of him. The pavements were now filled with worshippers making their way to the mosque – mainly men but there were also several women including a number wearing full burkhas. Shepherd frowned as he saw two motorbikes heading down the road towards the mosque. ‘Do you see the bikes, Janet?’ he asked.

  There were two men on each bike and all had full-face helmets with dark visors. They were all wearing bomber jackets, gloves and boots. They were driving slowly down the middle of the road. Both passengers were looking over at the mosque.

  ‘They’re up to something,’ said Rayner.

  Shepherd nodded as he stared at the screen showing the feed from the roof of the van. Rusul Jafari came into view, threading his way through the worshippers as he tried to catch up with their target. He was wearing a leather jacket and brown cargo pants dotted with pockets.

  ‘Jaffa, take a look at the two bikes in the middle of the road,’ said Shepherd.

  On the screen, Jafari looked to his right. ‘The passengers have got their hands inside their jackets,’ he said. He stopped. ‘Shit.’

  The passenger on the front bike was holding something in both hands.

  ‘Have they got guns?’ asked Shepherd.

  Before Jafari could answer the passenger threw a cylindrical grey object high into the air. Shepherd knew immediately it was some type of home-made pipe bomb. ‘Bomb!’ he shouted. ‘It’s a bomb!’

  The pipe bomb went high into the air, over the railings and hit the ground to the left of the entrance.

  Shepherd’s mind raced. He wasn’t armed and neither were any of the surveillance teams. They hadn’t even arranged for an ARV on standby; it was supposed to have been a straightforward surveillance job. He opened his mouth to speak but before he could say anything they felt as much as heard the dull thud of the pipe bomb exploding in front of the mosque. A dozen worshippers crumpled to the ground and others began screaming in terror.

  The bike roared off down the road.

  ‘Get our bikes after them, Matty!’ shouted Shepherd.

  Shepherd reached for the door handle. As he pulled open the door he heard more screams and the slap of feet on the tarmac as people ran away from the carnage. He jumped down onto the road and saw that the second bike had moved forward and was closer to the mosque. No one was paying it any attention – those worshippers that weren’t running away in terror were staring at the bloody bodies sprawled on the ground like broken dolls. Several women had rushed to help but most people stood transfixed, in shock from the blast.

  As the biker was revving the engine, his passenger pulled a cylindrical pipe bomb from inside his jacket. Shepherd ran towards the bike. ‘Bomb!’ he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Get out of the way, now!’

  A few heads turned towards him but nobody moved.

  The pillion passenger threw the pipe bomb towards the mosque.

  ‘Get down!’ shouted Shepherd.

  The bomb arced through the air. Shepherd knew that the sensible thing to do was to drop to the ground until after the explosion, but he didn’t want the bike to get away. He continued to run.

  The biker twisted the throttle and the bike lurched forward. Shepherd threw himself, twisting in the air so that he hit the pillion passenger with his shoulder. The bike toppled and the engine roared. Shepherd fell to the ground, narrowly missing the spinning rear wheel. The bike fell onto the two men, trapping them.

  The pipe bomb hit the mosque and clattered onto the paving stones.

  ‘Bomb!’ screamed Shepherd again, then he rolled onto his front and placed his hands over his ears. The pipe bomb exploded and there were more screams.

  Shepherd go
t to his feet. Another half-dozen or so bloody victims lay on the ground and more were staggering around.

  The two men who had been on the bike were pushing it up. Shepherd took a step towards them. The passenger saw him coming and reached inside his jacket. The driver was concentrating on getting the bike back into neutral and had his head bent over the handlebars.

  Shepherd drew back his fist but the passenger pulled out a combat knife and slashed at him. The man’s visor was down and Shepherd saw his own reflection as he jumped back to avoid the knife. The man lashed out again and this time Shepherd grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm savagely, at the same time bringing his knee up into the man’s groin.

  The bike engine roared and there was a loud click as the driver got it into gear.

  Shepherd kneed the passenger in the groin again and then pulled the knife from his gloved hand. The helmet meant Shepherd couldn’t punch the man in the face or throat and the man’s jacket would absorb any blows to the chest. He kicked out at the man’s left knee and heard a satisfying crack. The man screamed and fell to the ground.

  The bike roared off. Shepherd looked around. Bravo Two had gone in pursuit of the first bike. Bravo One was parked across the road. Bravo One was Neil Geraghty, a relative newcomer to the surveillance team. He had actually worked as a motorcycle courier for two years before joining the Security Service and in his spare time he rebuilt classic motorbikes. He was clearly in shock, staring in horror at the carnage outside the mosque.

  ‘Neil!’ shouted Shepherd.

  Geraghty looked over. There was a camera fixed to the top of his full-face helmet that was transmitting live video back to the van. Shepherd waved for him to come over. Geraghty twisted the throttle and the bike shot across the road. ‘After him!’ shouted Shepherd, climbing onto the pillion and pointing with the knife down the road after the departing bike.

  Geraghty twisted the throttle but before the bike could speed forward, a large bearded Asian man kicked him in the hip. Geraghty yelped and his hand slipped off the throttle. A teenager ran over, screaming, and he grabbed Geraghty’s helmet and pulled him off the bike.