Spider Shepherd 11 - White Lies Read online

  He pulled open the passenger door and climbed in. He looked over his shoulder at the empty van. ‘So when did you become a white van man, bruv?’

  ‘They’re invisible,’ said Harper. ‘There’s so many of them on the road that nobody gives them a second look. How are you doing anyway, mate? Long time no fucking see.’ He reached over and hugged Jony, slapping him on the back, hard.

  ‘All good, bruv,’ said Jony, pulling away. He flipped down the sunshade and used the mirror there to check his hair. ‘Dicking and diving, you know how it is?’

  ‘You mean ducking?’ said Harper.

  ‘I know what I mean, bruv,’ said Jony, punching Harper on the shoulder. ‘I’m getting more white pussy than I know what to do with.’

  ‘Thanks for sharing that, mate,’ said Harper. ‘You still having problems with the Yardies?’

  Jony rubbed the back of his nose. ‘Nothing I can’t handle. Providing they stay in their areas, there’s no problem. Each to his own, right?’

  Harper flicked the remains of his cigarette out of the window and wound it up.

  ‘The big problem we’ve got is Romanians,’ said Jony. ‘They’re everywhere. Now we’ve got muggings, cash machine fiddles, shoplifting, the works.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  Jony nodded. ‘It got so bad my uncle put up a note in the window of his shop. “No Romanians, No Gypsies”. Council made him take it down, said it was racist.’

  Harper grinned. ‘Yeah, well, strictly speaking it is,’ he said.

  ‘They were robbing him blind, what was he supposed to do? It’s the government’s fault for letting them in.’

  ‘They’ll assimilate. Immigrants always do eventually.’

  ‘Not this lot. And who told you immigrants assimilate?’

  ‘Look at you, mate.’ Harper laughed. ‘You even talk with a Brummie accent.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I was born here, bruv.’

  ‘But your parents assimilated, right?’

  Jony laughed. ‘Assimilated my brown arse,’ he said. ‘My mum still can’t speak more than fifty words of English and my dad still dresses like he’s just walked in off the desert.’

  ‘But they gave you an English name.’

  ‘Jony? That’s Bangladeshi, bruv. It means lovely.’

  Harper grinned. ‘Lovely?’

  ‘Don’t go there, bruv. And my sisters are Jaiyasha and Laboni. My folks live here and they’re proud enough to be British but they’re Bangladeshis at heart. Whenever the Bangladesh cricket team is here my old man’s straight down to Lord’s, doesn’t matter what else is happening.’ Jony scratched his chin. ‘Anyway, enough chit-chat. What do you want from me?’

  ‘What makes you think I want something?’

  Jony laughed and slapped Harper’s leg. ‘Because you ring me up out of the blue and ask me to meet you in a van parked in the middle of nowhere. I figured if it was social you’d see me in the pub.’

  ‘I tend not to go into pubs too much these days, mate.’

  ‘Why’s that? Given up the booze?’ He laughed. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve gone all Muslim on me. Should I start calling you Mohammed?’

  ‘CCTV, mate,’ said Harper. ‘They’ve got them everywhere. And the government has access to them. It’s all about facial recognition.’

  ‘Yeah, well, your ugly mug is hard to miss, innit?’

  ‘I’m serious, Jony. They’ve got everyone sewn up, pretty much. Between facial recognition and GPS phones they know where everyone is and what they’re doing.’

  ‘And keeping a hoodie up and your head down keeps you below the radar, does it?’

  ‘That and not using credit cards in my name. And using different IDs. And paying in cash whenever I can. Yeah, at the moment that does it. Until the day we all get chipped.’

  ‘Chipped? What the hell are you talking about, bruv?’

  Harper lit a cigarette and then offered the pack to Jony. Jony took one and Harper lit it for him. The two men blew smoke before Harper spoke. ‘Long-term they want us all chipped. A small chip, probably in your forearm, that’ll contain everything there is to know about you. Your name, your date of birth, your DNA code, your picture, your fingerprints, your bank balance. Initially they’ll sell it to us as a more efficient credit card and ID card, they’ll tell us it means no more immigration queues, no more lost children, no more crime. But eventually they’ll make it compulsory. We’ll all have them.’ He blew smoke again. ‘Then all our freedom will be gone. They’ll know where you are and what you’re doing. And the moment you stop being a well-behaved little citizen they’ll remotely deactivate your chip and then you’ll be a total non-person. You won’t be able to travel, you won’t be able to buy anything, you won’t be able to do anything.’

  ‘That’s sci-fi, bruv,’ said Jony scornfully.

  ‘Everything’s sci-fi until it happens,’ said Harper. ‘Space flights were sci-fi. Satellites were sci-fi. Flatscreen TVs were sci-fi. Now we’ve got them all.’ He shrugged. ‘It’ll happen, mate. Sure as eggs are eggs.’

  ‘Nah, people won’t stand for it,’ said Jony.

  ‘People? Sheeple, mate. They do as they’re told. Can’t you see what’s happening with all this terrorism stuff? They want people scared because scared people will do as they’re told.’ He grinned. ‘I ever tell you I was a blagger? An armed robber?’

  Jony shook his head.

  ‘Yeah, me and a group of former squaddies did it for a while, before I got into commodity trading. It was all about shock and awe. You go in hard and you go in noisy, slap people around and they’d piss themselves. When people are scared, they follow orders. They stand meekly in queues for an hour and then allow some sweaty security guard on minimum wage to run their hands over them. Don’t worry, mate, when the sheeple are told they need chipping they’ll do it. They’re programmed to obey instructions.’

  Jony laughed. ‘You always were a glass-is-half-empty bastard.’

  ‘Mate, why do you think mobile phones are so cheap?’

  ‘Competition,’ said Jony. ‘It keeps prices down.’

  ‘Doesn’t seem to work with electricity, does it? Or food? Lots of competition there but prices keep going up. But look at phones. Dirt cheap to buy and dirt cheap to use. Do you know why that is?’

  ‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me, bruv.’

  Harper ignored the sarcasm. ‘Because the cops now solve half their crimes with phone records. The GPS shows them where people are. They can see who people are talking to. And they can read the texts that they send. Mate, they would pay people to carry phones if they had to. They want everyone in the country to use a mobile. That’s why they’re getting rid of all the phone boxes.’

  Jony laughed. ‘Bloody hell, I’m starting to regret coming to see you now. We start a conversation about CCTV and now you’re on a rant about Big Brother.’

  ‘Mate, if you got any sense you’ll be hiding your money now because when it happens it’ll be too late. Once the chip’s in they’ll know everything you have and everything you earn.’ He held up his hands and chuckled. ‘Rant over. I need a gun. Something untraceable. Revolver, ideally a .22.’

  ‘Price range?’

  ‘Fuck me, Jony, when have I ever haggled about price? I want something clean and something that won’t let me down. A Smith 17 or 18 would do just fine.’

  Jony nodded. ‘Rounds?’

  ‘Ten, twenty, maybe. I’m not planning to fight a war.’

  ‘When?’

  Harper grinned. ‘I’ve got the cash on me, mate.’

  ‘So you want it now?’

  ‘You read my mind. And I want a stun gun. Not a taser, I don’t need to use it at a distance, something handheld but with a lot of power. I want to totally immobilise someone with one stab.’

  ‘Bruv, a baseball bat does the job and it doesn’t need batteries.’

  ‘Can you get me one?’

  ‘A baseball bat? Sure.’

  ‘Twat. A stun gun.’

  ‘Of
course, bruv. I’m only messing with you.’ Jony chuckled and let himself out of the van. He took his mobile phone out of his pocket and he talked into it as he paced up and down. After a couple of minutes he climbed back into the van. He saw Harper looking at the phone. ‘It’s a throwaway,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘The phone or the Sim card?’

  Jony frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘These days they can pull info off the phone no matter what Sim card is in it,’ said Harper. ‘The days of just being able to put a new Sim card in are long gone. You have to ditch the whole phone.’

  ‘Good job they’re so cheap,’ said Jony. ‘But I hear what you’re saying, bruv.’

  They sat and smoked and chatted for twenty minutes, until a black VW Golf with alloy wheels turned into the car park. It stopped near the entrance. Its headlights were on main beam so Harper couldn’t see who was in the car. Jony patted him on the leg. ‘Don’t worry, bruv. They’re with me.’ He climbed out of the van, slammed the door and jogged over to the Golf. He pulled open the rear door and climbed in.

  Harper took a long pull on his cigarette and looked at his watch. He needed a bed for the night and figured that Manchester was as good a place to crash as any. He had just taken a final drag on the cigarette as Jony reappeared. Harper wound down the window and flicked the butt out across the car park. It hit the tarmac, sparked, and went out. Jony handed a large Tupperware container through the window. Harper put it in his lap and opened it. Inside was a Smith and Wesson and a Ziploc bag containing two dozen rounds. ‘Looks good, mate, thanks.’ He took the gun out of the container and sniffed it. It didn’t seem to have been fired, not recently anyway.

  ‘I’ve had it for six months, a Yank managed to get a dozen over from the States.’

  ‘It’s not new.’

  ‘Not new, but he used them for target shooting.’

  ‘Bloody hell, mate, if you’re that simple there’s a bridge over the Thames I can sell you for a good price.’

  Jony reached for the gun. ‘If you don’t want it …’ he said.

  Harper moved it out of his reach. ‘Don’t get shitty, I’ll take it. I’m just saying that you don’t want to believe everything you hear, that’s all. The main thing is, they’ve not been fired in this country, right?’

  ‘Cross my heart, bruv.’

  Harper nodded. He was happy enough with the gun and Jony had always been as good as his word in the past.

  ‘I’m thinking three hundred,’ said Harper. He put the gun back in the Tupperware container.

  ‘Yeah? I was thinking six,’ said Jony.

  ‘So we’ll settle for four?’

  Jony handed over a stun gun in a Ziploc bag. Harper took it out of the bag, examined it, then pressed the switch on the side. Blue sparks crackled between the two prongs. ‘Two million volts, bruv,’ said Jony. ‘It’ll do the job.’

  ‘You know as well as I do that the voltage means nothing,’ said Harper. ‘It’s the amperage that does the damage.’

  ‘Four milliamps,’ said Jony. ‘It’ll go right through pretty much all clothing and you’re out like a light.’

  ‘You ever used one?’

  Jony grinned and nodded. ‘It’s brilliant, bruv, a real tasty piece of kit.’

  Harper put the stun gun back in the bag then slid it and the Tupperware container under his seat. ‘So a monkey for everything? Five hundred?’

  ‘We’ll settle for six, bruv, because it’s after hours and you wanted it here and now.’

  Harper laughed, reached inside his jacket and took out an envelope. It was filled with twenty-pound notes. He flicked through the notes, pulled out a handful, and gave the envelope to Jony. He slipped the rest of the money into his jacket pocket.

  ‘You were gonna pay me more?’ said Jony. ‘Shit.’

  ‘You got a fair price, Jony,’ he said. ‘Be lucky.’

  ‘You take care, bruv,’ said Jony. He hugged Harper and headed back to his own car. The Golf was already driving out of the car park.

  Croft was unpacking his gear when his mobile phone rang. He grabbed it. It was Guy Henderson. ‘So the top team is back together, huh?’ said Henderson.

  ‘You’re on board?’

  ‘My LC’s happy, I’m packing my bag as we speak.’

  ‘What have they told you?’

  ‘Just it’s a secret squirrel mission and that I’m teaming up with you. To be honest I don’t think my LC knows what’s going on.’

  ‘Remember that Brit you babysat on Neptune Spear?’

  ‘Never likely to forget,’ said Henderson. ‘Dan Shepherd.’

  ‘Well, Mr Shepherd is being held by al-Qaeda ragheads in the tribal lands of Pakistan. And guess who’s been tasked with rescuing his sorry ass?’

  ‘That would be us?’

  ‘That would indeed be us. How ironic is that?’

  ‘What, they want us to fly into Pakistan for a shoot-out with al-Qaeda to rescue a Brit who hates the US of A?’ He grinned. ‘Hell, yeah, that’s the dictionary definition of ironic. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when the cavalry arrives.’

  Charlotte Button tapped on the door to Amar Singh’s office and pushed it open. Singh was sitting in his shirtsleeves, his Armani jacket draped over the back of his chair. He was facing three monitors all showing overhead views of desert areas. She was carrying a cup of Starbucks coffee and she put it down in front of him. He thanked her but she shook her head. ‘I’m the one who should be thanking you,’ she said. ‘Coming in on a Saturday like this. I hope Mishti’s not too upset.’

  ‘She’s not happy; it was my turn to take Neeta and Gita to ballet class today but I promised her I’d take her out to dinner on her birthday next week.’

  ‘I’ll pick up the tab for that,’ said Button. ‘Make it somewhere nice.’ She pulled up a chair and sat behind Singh. ‘So these are the feeds that came through from the States?’ she asked.

  Singh nodded. ‘That guy Eric is a genius,’ he said. ‘We’re getting feeds direct from the CIA in Langley but I can mix and match in real time. It’s as if my terminal is in Langley. I had no idea they could do this.’

  The monitor on the left showed what looked like a satellite picture of a square fort, built around a courtyard. There were three vehicles parked in the courtyard but Button couldn’t see any people. There was a time code running along the bottom that showed the picture had been taken three days earlier.

  The monitor on the right was showing a similar satellite view of the area but it was in real time and the time code at the bottom of the screen was counting off the seconds. Singh pointed at it. ‘Your man was able to move a satellite on position to get me a live feed of the area now,’ he said. ‘Have you any idea how much that costs?’

  ‘The CIA and the NSA have got budgets that dwarf ours,’ said Button. ‘The CIA spends almost seventy billion dollars a year and there’s another ten billion dollars for the NSA.’ She smiled. ‘You could buy a lot of designer suits with that.’

  Singh grinned. He pointed at the live satellite feed. ‘Nothing’s happening there now; other than a goat herder going in with his animals now and again, it seems to be deserted.’

  ‘They’ll be long gone,’ said Button. She pointed at the right-hand monitor. ‘Do any of the pictures show anything of interest?’

  Singh clicked his mouse and the screen divided up into twenty segments, each an individual picture. He clicked on one and it showed the fort, apparently empty. ‘This was Sunday, three days before the Pakistanis went in. No vehicles, as you can see. Then on Tuesday, the three pick-up trucks, and presumably the fighters, are in place.’

  ‘Any sign of people?’

  Singh shook his head. ‘The satellite had a huge area to cover. There are long gaps between photographs and of course for a third of the time the place was in darkness.’

  ‘Infrared?’

  ‘No, their sensors aren’t that sensitive, not yet anyway.’

  ‘So to the best of your k
nowledge, when did the trucks arrive at the fort?’

  ‘Four or five days ago. Monday or Tuesday.’

  ‘Which is about the time that Spider was heading out to Pakistan.’

  Singh looked at her sideways. ‘You think that’s significant?’

  ‘Clearly something happened. First there were no pick-up trucks. Then there were three. They sent in men with weapons, so they knew something was going to happen.’

  ‘The Pakistani military is full of al-Qaeda sympathisers, isn’t it? That’s why they have so many training camps on their soil. And when they found Bin Laden he’d spent five years living down the road from the country’s main military academy.’

  ‘It’s possible. It’s also possible that the leak came from within their intelligence services, which also leak like a sieve. But this all seems very last minute, doesn’t it? Just as the SSG are about to go in, Raj is pulled out and RPGs move in.’

  ‘I do have some pictures of the pick-up trucks arriving,’ said Singh. He nodded at the centre monitor and a video filled the screen, again with a time code across the bottom. ‘This is from a surveillance drone that was passing overhead at about twenty thousand feet. It was taking video non-stop.’ He clicked his mouse and the video fast-forwarded. A white pick-up truck appeared. Singh clicked the mouse again and the picture slowed to real time. Then he paused it. ‘This was the day before the Pakistanis went in,’ he said. ‘Monday afternoon.’ There were five figures squatting in the back of the truck, cradling rifles, their heads swathed in keffiyeh headscarves.

  ‘What are they, Taliban?’

  ‘Taliban or al-Qaeda,’ said Singh. ‘Or both.’

  ‘And the truck, is it one of those in the courtyard of the fort?’

  ‘I can’t tell, unfortunately. The satellite is an overhead shot so there’s not enough to go on. But there isn’t much else out in that part of the world.’

  He clicked on the mouse, then clicked again, and fast-forwarded. According to the time code on the bottom of the screen, five hours had passed. Another pick-up truck appeared on the road. Singh clicked the mouse again. Button peered at the truck. This one was red and there were seven armed fighters in the back.