Spider Shepherd 11 - White Lies Read online

  ‘You have to have that drilled into your head, Spider,’ said the Major. ‘If there’s a guy pointing a gun at you and a guy pointing a gun at the man next to you, you have to take out the direct threat. No hesitation. Now, do you want to go again?’

  Shepherd looked at his watch. It was just before five o’clock and the helicopter was due back at six to take him to London. He nodded. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Raj lay curled up into a ball, his eyes closed. Every breath hurt, he was sure that at least two of his ribs were broken. They had given him an earthenware pot to use as a toilet and when he had used it there had been blood in his urine. They had damaged his kidneys, and probably his spleen. They were trying to break him, he knew that. They would beat him until he could take no more, and then Mahmud would return, smiling and offering him food and comfort. The carrot and the stick. The psychology was simple but effective and knowing what was happening didn’t make it any less effective. All Raj had to do was to tell Mahmud what he wanted to hear and the beatings would stop. But once Raj had told him everything there would be no need to keep him alive. The British didn’t get involved in prisoner swaps, not like in the days of the Cold War when captured agents were exchanged on the Glienicke Bridge, connecting the cities of Potsdam and Berlin. The Bridge of Spies, they used to call it. But that was then and the War against Terror had little in common with the Cold War. The West refused to negotiate with terrorists, and Hell would freeze over before the British government would approve the release of captured al-Qaeda terrorists. Raj had no value, other than the information in his head. Once he gave it up, he was as good as dead. He moaned softly. Moaning seemed to make the pain lessen, just a fraction.

  His mind kept going around in circles, trying to find a way out of his predicament. Escape was impossible. There was only one way in and out of his cell and the door was always locked. There were always two men there when the door was opened, and he was too weak to even think about fighting them. Even if by some miracle he could overpower them, then what? He could barely walk and had no idea where he was. Rescue? Rescue was impossible, even if his handler at MI6 knew where he was. And who would rescue him? Would they send in the SAS? The army? To rescue a medical student in the badlands of Pakistan? The idea was too ridiculous to consider. He was on his own and he knew he had to accept that. He moaned again. He wanted to use the earthenware pot again but he didn’t have the energy to move.

  He was going to die, he was sure of that. Whether or not he told them anything, they would kill him. They’d either beat him to death or put him in an orange suit and hack off his head in front of a video camera. The only way he could beat them would be to kill himself. At least then he would have some control over his destiny. He closed his eyes again and moaned. Suicide at least would put an end to the pain, but on his own terms. It was his only way out.

  Shepherd climbed out of the black cab and paid the driver before heading towards the terminal. He was carrying a black holdall containing his washbag and two changes of clothes. Willoughby-Brown was standing by the entrance, smoking one of his small cigars. ‘How did it go in Hereford?’ he asked. He was wearing a long black coat that looked as if it was probably cashmere.

  ‘Got in plenty of practice,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘The killing house?’

  ‘Some of the time.’ Shepherd was reluctant to go into details. He didn’t like Willoughby-Brown and he didn’t trust him.

  Willoughby-Brown kept his cigar in his mouth as he reached into his coat and pulled out a folder containing a plane ticket. ‘PIA, only business class, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘First was full.’

  Shepherd took the folder. ‘What do I do visa-wise?’

  ‘You’ll be met off the plane by a member of the military. They’ll walk you through immigration and arrange your flight to Cherat. That’s where the SSG is headquartered. Your contact is a Captain Kassar.’

  Shepherd slid the folder into his jacket pocket. ‘Do they know where he is yet?’

  ‘Captain Kassar will give you a full briefing. My understanding is that they’re close.’

  ‘Why aren’t you going?’ asked Shepherd.

  Willoughby-Brown raised his eyebrows. ‘Me?’

  ‘Assuming we get Raj out of there, who’s going to get him back to the UK?’

  ‘He’ll be taken care of, I’m sure.’

  ‘By the Pakistanis?’

  ‘By our embassy out there. Don’t worry, it’s all in hand.’

  Shepherd nodded. He figured Willoughby-Brown didn’t want to be in Pakistan in case the rescue attempt went wrong but he knew there would be no point in saying anything so he just turned and walked into the terminal.

  ‘Good luck,’ Willoughby-Brown shouted after him.

  ‘Bastard,’ muttered Shepherd under his breath.

  It took just over half an hour to pass through the security check. Charlotte Button was waiting for him airside, in the duty free area. ‘How did it go?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m as sharp as I ever was on close-quarter battle target acquisition,’ he said.

  ‘Good to hear. What’s Willoughby-Brown fixed up for you in Islamabad?’

  ‘He’s handing me over to the army, a captain from the SSG will take me to Cherat.’

  ‘No meeting with his man Taz?’

  Shepherd shook his head. ‘To be honest, I think he’s minimising my involvement with Six. Covering his arse in case the shit hits the fan.’

  Button took a small satellite phone from her pocket. It was black with a stubby aerial and not much bigger than a regular phone. She handed it to him. ‘Call me when you can,’ she said. ‘It’s got a GPS so I’ll be tracking you.’

  Shepherd slid it inside his jacket and then looked at his watch. ‘I’d better be going,’ he said.

  Button reached out and put a hand on his arm. She gave him a gentle squeeze. ‘Be careful,’ she said.

  He smiled. ‘Always,’ he said.

  The PIA flight landed at Islamabad International Airport at just before ten o’clock in the morning. Shepherd had eaten a surprisingly tasty meal shortly after take-off and had then slept the whole way. As breakfast was being served, the chief purser whispered that he should prepare himself to disembark first, and as the plane taxied towards the terminal, Shepherd was ushered to the front exit door. Several of the passengers in first class frowned as he passed, clearly wondering why a business-class passenger was getting such preferential treatment. Shepherd noticed that several of the seats in first class were unoccupied and he wondered whether Willoughby-Brown had lied about the cabin being full.

  When the plane door was opened, a young army captain in dark green camouflage fatigues was waiting on the jetway, flanked by two men in grey suits.

  ‘Daniel Shepherd?’ asked the captain. He was in his late twenties, short and stocky with skin the colour of milky coffee. He was wearing wraparound Oakley sunglasses and a Rolex Submariner watch, clear signs that he was Special Forces. He was wearing a maroon beret with a badge of a dagger and lightning bolts and a wing badge on the right side of his chest.

  ‘Call me Spider,’ said Shepherd, holding out his hand.

  The captain shook hands. He had a firm grip, his nails were neatly clipped and there was a jagged scar across the base of his thumb. ‘Addy Kassar,’ said the captain. ‘Can I have your passport?’

  Shepherd gave the captain his passport and he passed it to the man on his left, who flicked through the pages, compared the photograph to Shepherd’s face and then handed it back.

  ‘Do you have any bags?’ asked Kassar.

  Shepherd held up his holdall. ‘I’m travelling light,’ he said.

  ‘Perfect,’ said Kassar. ‘Our plane is waiting.’ He spoke to the men in suits in Urdu, then took Shepherd down a corridor. One of the suits followed. At the end of the corridor was a sign pointing towards Immigration but Kassar headed the other way. They reached a locked door and the suit tapped a code into a keypad and pushed the door open.

  Kassar
and Shepherd went through but the suit stayed behind. They walked down another corridor and another and then reached what appeared to be an emergency exit. Kassar pressed the metal bar to open it and indicated for Shepherd to go through. A metal staircase led down to the airport tarmac and as he stepped on to it Shepherd was hit by a wave of heat that took his breath away.

  A grey Chinese-made Harbin Y-11 with military markings was standing on a taxiway, its two Pratt and Whitney turboprops idling.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Shepherd. He figured it wouldn’t be far as the Short Take Off and Landing transport plane had a top speed of less than 190 mph.

  ‘Cherat,’ said Kassar. ‘It is the SSG base. Do you know much of the geography of Pakistan?’

  ‘I’ve looked at maps,’ said Shepherd. He thought it best not to mention that his photographic memory meant that after only a few seconds he was able to recall pretty much every place and feature he’d seen. Cherat was in the Nowshera district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. It was a hill station; the closest city was Peshawar.

  ‘It was used by the British as a sanatorium for your troops.’

  ‘My troops?’

  Kassar held up a hand by way of apology. ‘Your country’s troops, of course,’ he said. ‘The British built a fort there with a hospital and a church. If soldiers suffered the effects of the heat or fell sick, they were sent there. Now it is the SSG base and an army training camp.’

  They walked across the tarmac to the plane. Unlike on the PIA airliner, there were no uniformed flight attendants and no in-flight entertainment or refreshments. They were the only two passengers. As soon as they had climbed in and fastened their seat belts, a pilot in green fatigues entered the cockpit and closed the door without acknowledging them. Ten minutes later they were in the air and heading west.

  ‘You are in the SAS?’ asked the captain.

  ‘I used to be,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘The best special forces in the world,’ said Kassar.

  ‘That’s what they say.’

  ‘But the Navy SEALs might disagree.’

  Shepherd smiled. ‘They might.’

  ‘I trained with the SEALs three years ago,’ said Kassar. ‘They are good.’

  ‘So I’ve heard. How do you get into the SSG?’ Kassar was still wearing his shades and Shepherd found it a little disconcerting to constantly see his own reflection staring back at him.

  ‘You can apply after you have been in the military for five years,’ said Kassar. ‘You volunteer and go to Cherat for nine months. Initially the training is all physical. You have to do a thirty-six-mile march in twelve hours and run five miles in forty minutes, both with full gear.’

  Shepherd raised his eyebrows. Long-distance marching was the backbone of SAS training, but five miles in forty minutes with full gear took some doing.

  ‘There’s a high drop-out rate,’ said Kassar. ‘Those that pass are trained in parachute jumping and hand-to-hand combat. More volunteers fail those stages and eventually only about one in twenty get through.’

  Shepherd nodded. The SAS selection course had a similar failure rate. ‘Seen much action?’

  Kassar grinned. ‘Quite a bit,’ he said. ‘Did you hear about Operation Janbaz?’

  Shepherd shook his head.

  ‘Islamic terrorists attacked the Army General Headquarters in Punjab. Ten of them. This was in October 2009. They killed six soldiers including a brigadier and a lieutenant colonel and then took forty-two hostages. The SSG were sent in to resolve the situation. We stormed the building and took it room by room.’

  ‘Sounds heavy.’

  ‘It was. But we rescued all but three of the hostages with only three casualties on our side.’

  ‘Impressive,’ said Shepherd. ‘It could have been a lot worse, I guess.’ He looked out of the window at the inhospitable terrain thousands of feet below.

  ‘What about you?’ asked Kassar. ‘You’ve seen action?’

  ‘Some,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Afghanistan? Iraq?’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘Afghanistan.’

  ‘How was it?’

  ‘Hot. And dusty.’

  The captain smiled. ‘You will feel at home in Pakistan, then.’ He reached over and pulled two bottles of water from a side pocket. He handed one to Shepherd. ‘They say SAS selection is the toughest in the world?’

  ‘It’s tough,’ agreed Shepherd.

  ‘I heard about something called Escape and Evasion. The SEALs were talking about it when I was at Virginia Beach.’

  Shepherd grinned. ‘Yeah. Escape and Evasion has its moments.’

  ‘They chase you, is that right?’

  ‘They give you a head start and then they go after you. It’s a bit like hide and seek.’

  ‘Hide and seek?’

  ‘It’s a game children play. Kids go and hide and someone goes looking for them. The last one to be found, wins. But on Escape and Evasion, no one wins.’

  Kassar frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They call it Escape and Evasion, but everyone gets captured in the end. It doesn’t matter how long you hold out, it ends with a capture and a beasting.’

  ‘Beasting?’

  ‘You get beaten up. They have regular soldiers out looking for you, and when they get you they knock you around.’

  ‘But not for real?’

  Shepherd grinned. ‘Oh, it’s for real all right. They won’t break any bones but you’re battered and bruised afterwards.’

  ‘Why do they do that?’

  ‘To make it seem real. And I can tell you, when it’s happening, it feels real.’

  ‘Then what happens?’

  ‘When they’ve finished beasting you? They throw you in the back of a truck and take you to an abandoned building somewhere. They tie you up and they try to break you. They knock you around and put you in stress positions. Up against a wall with most of your weight on your arms. Or just standing up. You wouldn’t believe how just standing for hours can hurt like hell. Or they can be really creative. They use waterboarding or play loud music for hours. And all the time they keep firing questions at you. But you can’t answer. All you can give them is your name, rank and serial number. If you tell them anything else, you get RTU’d.’

  ‘RTU’d?’

  ‘Returned to unit. It means you’ve failed. You just have to take whatever they throw at you, until it’s over. But the bastards try to trick you. They’ll come in with a hot drink or some food and they’ll tell you it’s all over but it’s a trap. If you say anything other than name, rank and number, you’ve failed.’

  ‘So how do you know when it’s really over?’ asked Kassar. ‘How do you know it’s not a trick?’

  ‘Right before the exercise starts, an officer, usually high-ranking like a major, stands in front of you. He says that the exercise isn’t over until he stands in front of you and says, “The exercise is over. Well done.” That’s the only way the exercise can be ended, no matter what else they say.’

  ‘And how does it feel, when they’re torturing you?’

  ‘It’s not real torture,’ said Shepherd. ‘They don’t cut off your toes or use branding irons. It’s more psychological pressure and making you uncomfortable. It’s bad, but it’s bearable. You just go into shut-down mode.’

  ‘Shut-down mode?’

  ‘You become the grey man. You don’t fight them, you don’t argue, you’re polite and you call them “sir”. You don’t make eye contact, you just make yourself appear as weak and as inconsequential as possible. And you wait for it to end.’

  Kassar sipped his water. ‘And you got through it?’

  ‘Sure. Most people do. The ones that fail tend to fail because they’re not fit enough, or the jungle gets to them.’

  ‘They train you in the jungle?’

  ‘Sure, they always have done. It’s probably the toughest part of selection. You can train for the hill walking and navigation and stuff, but nothing prepares you for the jungle.’

 
‘You know that the word jungle comes from Sanskrit? Jangala.’

  ‘I did not know that.’

  ‘A lot of English words have come out of this part of the world, mostly from the days of the British Raj,’ said Kassar. ‘But don’t worry, we won’t be fighting in the jungle. The north-west of the country is desert.’

  ‘That’s good to know,’ said Shepherd. ‘I was never a fan of jungles.’

  The door crashed open. Raj lay with his back against the far wall of his cell. He didn’t open his eyes but drew his knees up to his chest and put his hands either side of his head. He’d lost track of time again. It could have been days or hours since the last beating. He remembered getting up to urinate in the bucket at some point and his urine had been red.

  He heard footsteps across the rough concrete floor and he braced himself, even though he knew that it made no difference. He flinched as a hand grabbed his shoulder, then his arms were seized and he was yanked to his feet. He opened his eyes. It was the two big men. The one with the mole by his eye and the one with the pockmarked skin. Mole and Acne, he’d named them. Mole was the one who liked to kick him in the kidneys. Acne’s favourite technique was to stamp on Raj’s ankles.

  ‘Just kill me,’ said Raj, through swollen lips. ‘I don’t care any more.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said Mole.

  They dragged him across the floor and down the corridor. This time they didn’t go to the room where he’d previously been questioned by Mahmud. Instead they turned left. Raj tried to walk but his legs had turned to jelly and he couldn’t support his weight. Mole and Acne didn’t seem to care whether he walked or not and simply dragged him along between them. Raj felt the skin scraping off his toes but there was no noticeable increase in pain as his feet already felt as if they were on fire.