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

  The bike fell to the side and Shepherd went with it.

  More onlookers ran over, all of them screaming and shouting. Hands clawed at Shepherd’s face and the knife was pulled from his grasp.

  He hit the ground and he was kicked in the side. He rolled over and was kicked again. He struggled to his feet. All he could see were angry faces.

  Geraghty was on the ground, next to his bike. Two teenagers were kicking him and he curled up into a foetal ball. Shepherd tried to get to him but two men blocked his way, thumping him in the chest.

  ‘I’m trying to help!’ Shepherd shouted but the mob weren’t listening. A punch connected with Shepherd’s chin but there was no weight behind it and all it did was push his head back. He put up his hands to defend himself but he was hit from behind, a blow to his shoulder. There was an outbreak of slaps from the men in front of him. Shepherd could easily have fought back but he knew that would only make things worse.

  He staggered back under the onslaught of slaps and then someone kicked his shin and he fell to the ground. He tried to get up but he was kicked in the side. All around him were shouts and screams and all he could see were legs and feet, a flurry of blows that blended into one onslaught.

  He rolled onto his front and pushed himself up. Around him were more than a dozen angry worshippers, most of them bearded and all of them wide-eyed, screaming at him with hatred.

  ‘I’m not the fucking enemy!’ he shouted but his words were lost in the clamour. A hand clawed at his face and he knocked it away.

  Something hit him in the back and he staggered forward. He turned just as a teenager threw a punch that glanced off his shoulder. The teenager was crazy with rage, his upper lip curled back in a snarl. He went to punch Shepherd again and Shepherd pushed him away, knocking him back into the crowd.

  He was surrounded now, he couldn’t see the bike and he’d lost sight of Geraghty. ‘Neil!’ shouted Shepherd but his voice was lost in the baying of the crowd.

  ‘Fucking kafir!’ shouted an old man, who spat in Shepherd’s face. As Shepherd wiped himself with his sleeve, hands grasped him around the back of his neck. He reacted instinctively, twisting around and ducking down, then firing off two quick punches. The man who had been choking him staggered back, gasping for breath. Shepherd drew back his fist but before he could throw a punch his arm was grabbed by an old man with a grey beard. Shepherd tried to shake him off but more hands grabbed his arms and he felt himself being pulled backwards. He struggled to stay upright, knowing that if he fell to the ground again he’d probably never get up.

  A hand grabbed his shoulder and Shepherd tried to pull away.

  ‘Spider!’

  It was Jafari.

  ‘We’ve got to get to Neil, they’re killing him!’ shouted Shepherd.

  Jafari nodded and then started shouting in Urdu at the top of his voice. He pulled away the hands that were gripping Shepherd’s arms. The mob ignored him and continued to punch and push Shepherd as they screamed abuse at him. Farooqi shouted louder, raising both hands above his head. This time a few of the worshippers stopped trying to attack Shepherd and looked at him quizzically.

  Farooqi pushed his way through the crowd, shouting in Urdu. One of the teenagers started shouting at him and pointed at Shepherd, but Farooqi shook his head emphatically and shouted back.

  Gradually the anger subsided. There was still a commotion off to their left and Shepherd pushed his way through to where four young men were kicking Geraghty. Shepherd pulled one of them away. The man turned and sneered when he saw Shepherd, then tried to kick him. Shepherd easily avoided the kick and pushed the man hard in the chest, sending him sprawling over Geraghty’s bike. Farooqi and Jafari rushed over to help and together they stopped the worshippers from attacking Geraghty. Shepherd knelt down and gently took off his colleague’s helmet. His eyes were closed and blood was trickling from between his lips.

  ‘Is he okay?’ asked Farooqi.

  Geraghty’s eyes opened. ‘I’m okay,’ he groaned. ‘What the fuck happened?’

  ‘They thought we were attacking them,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘To be fair, you are the only non-Asians here,’ said Farooqi. ‘And you were on a bike.’

  Geraghty tried to sit up but then groaned and lay back. ‘I think I bust something,’ he moaned.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ said Shepherd. ‘The ambulances will be on their way.’

  He looked at Farooqi who nodded. ‘Matty’s called it in.’ In the distance they heard sirens. ‘Speak of the devil,’ said Farooqi.

  ‘You and Jaffa help with the wounded,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ll stay with Neil.’

  A woman began wailing hysterically, close to the mosque. There were more sirens now, getting closer. Geraghty had closed his eyes and had gone still. Shepherd took his hand and squeezed it. ‘Hang on in there, Neil,’ said Shepherd. ‘Help’s coming.’

  Geraghty squeezed back but his eyes stayed closed.

  The first ambulance arrived within five minutes. By the time a second ambulance pulled up outside the mosque, two police cars had turned up. There were more than a dozen worshippers who had been badly injured in the two blasts and another fifty or so walking wounded. Miraculously, no one had been killed.

  It wasn’t until the third ambulance arrived that a medic came over to attend to Geraghty. Shepherd explained what had happened. Geraghty was still in pain and bleeding from his mouth, and he was having trouble breathing. ‘I think his lung has collapsed,’ said the medic. A colleague hurried over with a gurney and together they loaded Geraghty onto it and took him over to the ambulance.

  The third police vehicle to arrive was an ARV, an armed response vehicle. The three firearms officers on board pulled out their carbines but with no one to shoot at they just stood close to their vehicle, eyes scanning the crowds.

  Police tape had been strung across the road and uniformed officers were taking names and addresses of worshippers. The highest-ranking officer was a young inspector with a uniform that looked a size too large for him, clearly out of his depth and spending most of the time on his radio.

  Shepherd went over to Farooqi. ‘We should move out and leave the cops to it,’ he said. ‘Where’s Jaffa?’

  Farooqi pointed over to the entrance to the mosque where Jafari was consoling a woman in a burkha who was sobbing into her hands. ‘We’re going to have to give statements, right?’ asked Farooqi.

  ‘You can’t tell the police about our operation, we don’t want our surveillance compromised. Have you seen Khalid?’

  Farooqi shook his head.

  Shepherd waved Jafari over. ‘Did you see Khalid?’ he asked.

  ‘No, it went crazy after the bombs went off. What’s going on? Were they after Khalid?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Shepherd. ‘It might just be bad luck. What about the guy I pulled off the bike?’

  ‘The cops have got him,’ said Farooqi. He nodded over at an ambulance where a paramedic was attending to the man’s injured leg. Two constables stood either side of him. His helmet had been removed. He was in his teens with a skinhead haircut and a tattoo of a swastika across his neck.

  ‘I’m gonna head off with the van. You guys stay here, okay? And keep a look out for Khalid just in case he’s still here.’

  ‘The cops will be asking everyone for ID,’ said Farooqi.

  ‘You’re just a couple of worshippers who got caught up in the fracas,’ said Shepherd.

  As Farooqi and Jafari walked away, Shepherd jogged over to the Openreach van and climbed into the back.

  ‘We’ve been told to get out of Dodge,’ said Clayton.

  ‘I figured that’s what they’d want,’ said Shepherd. The powers that be wouldn’t want an MI5 surveillance operation caught up in the investigation of a terrorist attack. He sat down. ‘Any sign of Khalid?’

  ‘It was chaos out there,’ said Clayton. ‘We didn’t see him leave but that doesn’t mean anything. Plus there’s a back entrance. I think we’ve lost him.’


  ‘I’ve told Jaffa and Tahoor to stick around, just in case. What about the first bike? Did Bravo Two catch them?’

  ‘They lost them about half a mile away,’ said Clayton. ‘We got the registration numbers of both bikes but they seem to be fake.’

  Shepherd pressed the intercom to talk to the driver. ‘Back to base, Paul,’ he said.

  ‘Roger that,’ said Drinkwater, and the van pulled away from the curb.

  ‘What were they?’ asked Clayton. ‘Grenades?’

  ‘Some sort of pipe bomb, I think,’ said Shepherd. ‘Luckily no one seems to have been killed but there are a lot of injured.’

  ‘How’s Neil?’

  Shepherd scowled. ‘He took a hell of a kicking,’ he said. ‘The paramedic thinks a lung has collapsed.’

  ‘Bastards,’ said Rayner.

  ‘There was a lot of confusion,’ said Shepherd. ‘They just saw he was on a bike and went for him.’

  Shepherd’s mobile rang and he took the call. It was his boss, Giles Pritchard. ‘Are you pulling out?’ asked Pritchard, as usual getting straight to the point. The director wasn’t one for small talk.

  ‘We’re on our way,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘This is a bloody disaster, obviously.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Do you have any sense that this attack was linked to Khalid’s visit?’ asked Pritchard.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Shepherd. ‘It seemed to be more of an attack on the congregation than an attempted hit. Khalid went inside the mosque with two men just before the explosions. We’ve got pictures of the men so we should be able to ID them asap. There was a lot of confusion after the attack and there’s a back way out, so I’m guessing he just cut and ran. I’ve left two of our people there and they’ll keep looking, and we’ll get all local CCTV footage checked, but other than that I don’t see there’s anything else we can do.’

  ‘I hear you,’ said Pritchard.

  ‘What do want us to do with our video footage?’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘We have the attack on camera,’ said Shepherd. ‘We had the mosque under surveillance when the attack took place and one of our bikes was filming, plus we had the van’s camera on it.’

  ‘Let’s have a look at the footage before we make a decision on that,’ said the director. ‘I’m loath to let the police know that we had a surveillance operation running because they have a tendency to leak like a sieve and I don’t want the papers getting hold of it. Khalid is going to be spooked anyway, if he hears that MI5 were there we’ll never see him again. So mum’s the word.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ said Shepherd, and Pritchard ended the call.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asked Clayton.

  ‘I’ve been better,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘You took a bit of a kicking yourself.’

  Shepherd shrugged. ‘I’ve had worse.’

  Drinkwater dropped Shepherd, Rayner and Clayton close to MI5’s Millbank headquarters, overlooking the Thames, and drove the Openreach van back to the pool garage. After they had passed through Thames House security, Rayner and Clayton headed up to the mobile surveillance office on the third floor while Shepherd took the lift up to the sixth and walked along to the main incident room. Half a dozen officers were sitting at terminals and the walls were dotted with screens. Sarah Hardy was in charge, a tall no-nonsense brunette who spoke five languages and was a scratch golfer. She was wearing a dark suit and white Nikes – she kept a pair of Prada heels in her desk which she put on for meetings but generally she preferred trainers while she was working.

  ‘We’ve just been watching your performance,’ she said with an amused smile on her face. ‘Is it standard SAS practice to charge towards grenades before they’ve gone off?’

  ‘Strictly speaking they were pipe bombs and I was winging it,’ said Shepherd. ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Hardy. She turned and nodded at one of the officers. ‘Show us the footage from the van please, Tim.’

  One of the big screens went black and a second or so later was filled with the view from the camera at the top of the van. The first bike had stopped outside the mosque and the pillion passenger threw his bomb at the building. The bike sped away. Shepherd counted off the seconds without thinking and reached three before the bomb exploded. Half a dozen worshippers, all men, fell to the ground. There was no sound to the footage but he could imagine the screams of horror.

  Shepherd appeared on the left of the screen. The second bike had stopped and the passenger had pulled out his pipe bomb. Shepherd started to run towards the bike as the bomb spun through the air. Shepherd reached the bike and hit the passenger, knocking the bike over. The bomb exploded as Shepherd hit the ground and more worshippers fell.

  Hardy was shaking her head at what she saw as his stupidity, but Shepherd knew that if he hadn’t made the run the bike would have disappeared and they wouldn’t have the bomb-thrower in custody.

  On the screen, Shepherd got to his feet as the passenger pulled out his knife.

  ‘Nice bit of self-defence here,’ said Hardy and Shepherd grinned as his on-screen self took the knife off the passenger and kicked out at his leg. The passenger went down. The biker pushed his bike up and drove off. Shepherd waved over at Geraghty and as he climbed onto the back of the bike the worshippers swarmed around them. He and Geraghty were kicked and beaten. Hardy nodded at the officer who froze the image. ‘Neil’s going to be okay, but he has a pneumothorax so he’ll be out of action for a week or so,’ she said.

  ‘What about the guy in custody?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘Name’s Tony Hooper, comes from a family of nasty racists,’ said Hardy. ‘His dad’s been in and out of prison half a dozen times for assaulting Asians and vandalising Asian businesses, and Tony has a couple of brothers who are the same. He’s been pouring out bile on social media and has had numerous Facebook and Twitter accounts blocked. But this is the first time he’s been involved in major violence.’

  ‘Is he talking?’

  Hardy shook her head. ‘He’s in Paddington Green as we speak and refusing to say a word. But it’s early days.’

  ‘And the other three on the bikes?’

  ‘Both bikes were dumped and set on fire. The registration plates are fake. We’ve applied for a look at Hooper’s phone records and internet usage, hopefully that’ll lead us to them.’

  ‘Has anyone claimed responsibility for the attack?’

  ‘There’s a lot of nasty stuff on social media, “serves them right”, “time to fight back”, and all that sort of nonsense. But no organisation has come forward to say that they did it.’

  ‘So lone wolves maybe?’

  ‘We’ll know better once we’ve seen his internet footprint,’ said Hardy. ‘But the type of device they used suggests they were amateurs. They threw two of them into a crowd and didn’t kill anyone.’

  ‘It’ll be interesting to see what the tech boys have to say,’ said Shepherd. ‘I didn’t see a burning fuse and they didn’t seem to light anything, so that suggests either an electrical or chemical fuse, which means a degree of sophistication.’

  ‘Mr Pritchard says we’re to hang onto the footage. He was here ten minutes ago to see what we had and he wasn’t happy to discover you’d been filmed.’

  Shepherd grimaced. ‘Yeah, I thought that might be an issue.’

  ‘His first thought was that we didn’t want the police knowing there was a surveillance operation going on, but I think now he’s more concerned about your actions being made public. He’s not happy. He said he wanted to see you as soon as you got back.’

  ‘I’ll head on up.’

  Hardy smiled sympathetically. ‘Rather you than me,’ she said.

  Giles Pritchard kept Shepherd waiting for twenty minutes before seeing him. Shepherd wasn’t sure if it was because the director was busy or if he was just trying to put him in his place. Shepherd had worked for Pritchard for nearly a year but knew almost nothing about him othe
r than that he was career MI5, joining straight from university, initially working in data analysis. So far as Shepherd knew, Pritchard had never run agents or worked in the field; he had spent pretty much his whole career in Millbank. Shepherd wasn’t one for gossip, but on the few occasions he’d spoken about Pritchard with colleagues no one could remember him being involved in any major successes – but then no one could tie him into any memorable failures either.

  He was sitting behind an uncluttered desk with two computer screens and he had a bottle of Evian water and a glass close at hand. He didn’t offer Shepherd a drink, just waved him to one of the two wooden chairs facing him. Shepherd was fairly sure that the choice of uncomfortable chairs was deliberate and that Pritchard wanted to discourage visitors from staying too long. Pritchard was about ten years older than Shepherd and only a few pounds heavier, his hair slicked back and a pair of metal-framed spectacles perched on his hawk-like nose. He was wearing a dark pinstripe suit and a club tie. Pritchard was said to be a member of White’s, the exclusive members-only club that still refused to admit women. It was the oldest gentlemen’s club in London and counted Prince Charles and Prince William as members.

  As always there was no small talk and the director got straight to the point. ‘I didn’t realise you had played such a starring role in the surveillance footage,’ said Pritchard, peering over the top of his glasses.

  ‘I was trying to stop them,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘You were on a surveillance operation. The key to that is staying unnoticed.’

  ‘Things changed once the mosque was attacked.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Pritchard. ‘You made a judgement call. I’m just saying that your actions have put the agency in a difficult position. We can hardly show that video to the police, not with your face clearly on display.’

  ‘I couldn’t stand by and do nothing,’ Shepherd said. ‘And while I failed to stop the bombs being thrown, I did manage to apprehend one of the attackers.’