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  The Major interrupted him. ‘Spider, it’s done. We’re all in this together. That’s the way it has to be. We all have to agree with what we’re doing, or we’re wasting our time.’

  ‘With due respect to everyone’s sensibilities, what the hell are we going to do about Geordie?’ asked Muller. ‘Do I have to remind you that the clock is ticking and we’ve blown the only chance we had of getting him out alive?’

  ‘John, please …’ said the Major.

  Muller got up and paced in front of the photographs on the wall. ‘The only plan we had has been blown out of the water – everything we’ve done over the past week has been a total waste of time. If we don’t do something – and fast – they’ll hack his fucking head off. The deadline runs out in four days.’

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘We all go home and forget this happened?’ snapped Muller.

  Shepherd lifted his head. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve got an idea that might work, but I’ll have to go back to London first.’

  Drugs had got Samuel Brown into Iraq, and drugs meant that his time in the hellhole of Baghdad was at least profitable, if not exactly enjoyable. Brown had been nineteen when he’d been caught by an undercover drugs cop in Philadelphia. He had been working his way up the food chain but he was still just a small-time foot-soldier for one of the city’s minor gangs and when he’d been busted he’d been down to his last few grams of crack cocaine, which meant that they hadn’t been able to charge him with dealing. He’d already had a fistful of juvenile convictions, however, mainly for vandalism and theft, so the possession charge would probably have earned him rather more than a stern word from the judge. It had been his older brother, Luke, who suggested he enlist. He persuaded Samuel that if he signed up the judge would probably let the matter drop. What the brothers hadn’t expected, though, was for the judge to stipulate that if Samuel failed to serve a full five years in the army, he might still face the drugs charge.

  Brown had hated basic training, hated the rules and regulations, hated the mindless boredom that was life in the infantry, even hated his M4 carbine. On the streets of Philadelphia, he had carried a handgun and used it whenever he had to. He’d liked the feel of a gun in his hand and the way it earned him respect. He’d shot three men, all rival drug dealers, and he’d enjoyed seeing them slump to the ground in agony. None had died, although one had been in intensive care for a week. Not that Brown had cared.

  Once in the army, he’d assumed that shooting would be the one thing he’d enjoy. He was wrong. The army took all the fun out of it. It had to be done by numbers, the army way. And all he ever got to shoot was range targets. At least in Philadelphia he’d been free to shoot rats and cats. In the army every round had to be accounted for and he spent far more time cleaning and oiling the carbine than he did firing it.

  When Brown had been told he’d be shipping out to Iraq, he’d assumed that at last he’d be able to fire his weapon at living, breathing targets, but once again he’d been wrong. He’d been in the country for five months, assigned to guard duty within the Green Zone for his entire tour of duty, and had yet to fire his gun in anger.

  Brown found Baghdad just as boring as life in the army Stateside. It was too hot during the day, too cold at night, and most of the time he stood outside the headquarters of the Iraqi Governing Council, a massive marble building that had once been the home of the Military Industry Ministry. Back in Philadelphia, Brown had been a user and a dealer. He preferred crack cocaine, but it was hard to find in downtown Baghdad. Heroin, however, was plentiful, and he soon found that chasing the dragon helped him get through the long shifts of guard duty.

  Brown’s supplier was an Iraqi called Jabba. The heroin came from Afghanistan and it was better than anything available on the streets of Philadelphia. It was cheaper, too, almost a third of the price it fetched in the States. Brown had met Jabba in the Green Zone when he’d stopped to use the men’s room attached to his unit’s canteen. Jabba had been cleaning the toilets, on his knees in yellow gloves, a bottle of bleach in one hand, a brush in the other.

  He’d looked up and Brown had known straight away that Jabba was more than just a cleaner. He’d nodded, Jabba had wished him a good day in perfect English and Brown had stood at the urinal, pissing. He had asked casually if Jabba knew of any way that a guy might be able to get high and Jabba had said that, funnily enough, he did. He had been working on Saddam Hussein’s chemical warfare programme, and he’d lost his job with thousands of others when the coalition forces took over the country. He’d managed to get work as a cleaner in the Green Zone but it didn’t pay enough for him to take care of his wife and five children so he was selling drugs on the side.

  At first Brown had bought just enough for himself, then one of the guys in his platoon had complained that he’d been unable to get high and Brown had sold him a few grams. Word spread, and soon he was supplying half a dozen of the guys he was bunking with. Within two months he had almost fifty regular customers. He’d become a major supplier and without even trying, unlike in Philadelphia, he hadn’t had to shoot anyone to win his market share.

  Jabba seemed to have no problems getting as much heroin as Brown wanted. He said that the heroin came from Afghanistan, and since the Americans had thrown out the Taliban, production had soared. Brown didn’t know how he got it into the Green Zone, and didn’t ask.

  He lay on his bunk and wondered if he had time to smoke a little before his shift started. He was lying on his back, flicking through an old copy of Mad magazine, a can of Coke in his hand.

  Brown and Jabba had talked about what would happen when Brown returned to the States. Jabba had a brother who worked for an import-export company in Singapore and he reckoned he could easily ship large quantities of heroin to the east coast. If Brown could connect with major distributors, they’d make a fortune.

  A lieutenant threw open the door to Brown’s dormitory, shattering his reverie. ‘Brown, grab your gear. We’re short a man in the Bradley. Outside, two minutes.’

  The lieutenant hurried away, and a few seconds later Brown heard him shouting at another soldier. He threw on his body armour and helmet, picked up his carbine and rushed outside. Three dust-covered Humvees were in the courtyard, revving their engines as the gunners standing in their turrets checked their .50 calibre machine-guns. In front of them stood the massive tank-like Bradley Fighting Vehicle. There was room for six men and three spaces were filled. Brown fastened his helmet strap, climbed in and sat down with the carbine between his legs. The camouflaged legs of the turret gunner were between the two lines of seats. Seconds later the lieutenant and another soldier ran to the vehicle, climbed in and the door slammed.

  The Bradley was the safest way of moving around in Iraq. Its hi-tech armour would stop virtually anything the insurgents could throw at it, and the driver was safe as he looked through the three forward periscopes and the one mounted to the left. The Bradley’s main weapon was a 25mm Bushmaster chain gun, which had been converted to fire at five hundred rounds a minute, while a 7.62mm machine-gun was mounted to its right. To the left of the turret there was a twin-tube Raytheon anti-tank missile system.

  Once the door was closed, the soldiers couldn’t see where they were. It was claustrophobic, unbearably hot, and the noise of the massive Cummins engine was deafening. ‘Where are we going, sir?’ shouted Brown.

  ‘Nahda, to the east of the zone,’ shouted the lieutenant. ‘Insurgents blew up a car and a patrol has them pinned down.’

  The engine roared and the Bradley shook, like an amusement-park ride. Brown said a silent prayer of thanks that he hadn’t chased the dragon. The adrenaline was coursing through his system and he had to stop himself yelling. His hands were shaking – from excitement, not fear. With any luck he’d get a chance to fire his weapon at a living, breathing target.

  He looked at the other men in the Bradley. They were tense but he could see they were excited, too, at the prospect of combat. Most
of the time the infantry were waiting for the next IED or a sniper’s bullet, but now they were cavalry riding to the rescue, armed to the teeth with all the firepower they needed.

  They drove hard for a good fifteen minutes, then the Bradley screeched to a halt. ‘Okay, rock and roll!’ shouted the lieutenant, as the doors opened.

  The men fanned out behind the vehicle. About fifty feet in front of the Bradley a burnt-out car lay on its side. The body of the driver was half out of the window, the flesh blackened and still steaming. Brown heard a burst of gunfire to his left and ducked instinctively. There was more gunfire to his right and bullets screeched off the Bradley’s armour.

  The three Humvees had pulled up behind and the gunners were aiming their roof-mounted machine-guns to the right. Brown peered around the Bradley. To his left four marines were crouching behind a Humvee, firing at a pick-up truck that had slammed into a telegraph pole. Brown’s eyes stung from the cordite in the air.

  There were three men behind the pick-up truck, and another lying down in its flatbed, all holding Kalashnikovs, their faces hidden behind red and white chequered scarves. The one in the back of the truck fired and more bullets ricocheted off the Bradley’s armoured steel. Brown shouldered his M4 and fired a quick burst at the man at the front of the truck. The top of his head blew off in a shower of red and Brown grinned, his heart pounding. ‘Did you see that?’ he shouted. ‘Did you fucking see that?’ He turned to the soldier next to him. ‘Blew his fucking head off!’

  The last thing Samuel Brown ever saw was the contempt on his colleague’s face. The bullet ripped through his throat at eight hundred metres a second and virtually severed his spinal cord. He was dead before he hit the ground, the M4 still in his hands.

  ‘Allahu Akbar,’ whispered the Sniper, as he chambered a second round.

  ‘Allahu Akbar,’ echoed the Spotter. The dead soldier in the street below was his two-hundred-and-fortieth kill. The attack on the vehicle had been fortuitous. The Sniper had been waiting for an American foot patrol, and he had watched from his vantage-point on top of the building as the insurgents had placed the IED at the side of the road and hidden it under a pile of garbage. Their target was a civilian, probably a government official, and the Sniper had watched dispassionately as the car, a Mercedes, had been blown on to its side and the occupants burned to death. He had watched without emotion as the Humvee had turned up and the marines had shot out the tyres of the pick-up truck that the insurgents were using, and he had waited as the gun battle raged below. More soldiers would arrive, he knew. The insurgents were pinned down and had nowhere to go. The Americans would call for reinforcements, and the insurgents would fight to the death.

  One of the soldiers knelt beside the dead man, checking for a pulse. He was wasting his time, the Sniper knew. It had been the perfect killing shot. The Americans were constantly improving their body armour and their new helmets would stop a rifle round, but there were always gaps. The face was the perfect target. And the back of the head. There was a gap at the bottom of the body armour, and at the sides. The more difficult the Americans made it, the more the Sniper enjoyed the challenge.

  The officer hurried to the dead man. The Americans had no way of knowing where the shot had come from. They would assume it had been the insurgents. It was the best sort of killing zone, one where confusion reigned, and the gunfire down below had covered the sound of his shots. He sighted on the officer’s neck and tightened his finger on the trigger. ‘Allahu Akbar,’ he said.

  The Emirates flight landed at Heathrow Terminal Three just after midday. The queue through Immigration snaked back almost a quarter of a mile. Shepherd could have short-circuited it by identifying himself as a police officer but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. He joined the line and forced himself to be patient. It was a full ten minutes before he got to the immigration hall. Shepherd smiled to himself as he realised that Sharpe would have had a field day if he had been there. Terminal Three dealt with flights from Asia and Africa, and few of the passengers ahead of him in the EU line could be classed as IC1s. Clearly a plane had recently arrived from India: he could see a group of two dozen overweight women in saris and headscarves, all clutching British passports. Four Arab businessmen, who had been in the first-class section on his plane, were ahead of him and appeared to have French passports. Several Nigerians with bulging hand luggage and ill-fitting suits had British ones and a Pakistani in a long coat was juggling three. Eventually he chose an Irish one and put the other two back into his pocket.

  Shepherd looked to the front of the queue. Three men and a woman were processing the EU queue, barely glancing at the passports handed to them. It had never made sense to Shepherd the ease with which the British allowed people to move in and out of the country. As an island, its borders could easily have been policed. But the checks were cursory and the immigration officials were more interested in the passports than they were in those carrying them. More often than not an official didn’t speak to the person, just checked the passport and handed it back. It was only after the bombs on the London Tube system that the authorities had begun to check who was leaving the country. The government had long since admitted that it had lost control of its borders and that it had no idea how many immigrants, legal or illegal, were in the country. And, as far as Shepherd could see, it was in no hurry to remedy the situation. At the very least, he thought, the British should be following the example of the Americans, photographing and fingerprinting every foreigner who entered the country, but there was no sign of that happening.

  The queue moved quickly, almost at walking pace, and soon Shepherd was in a black cab heading to Ealing.

  When he went into his house Liam was engrossed in his Sony PlayStation. The game seemed to involve mowing down pedestrians with a high-powered sports car. ‘Hi, Dad, where’ve you been?’ he asked, eyes fixed on the screen.

  ‘Working,’ said Shepherd. ‘I need a shower. Where’s Katra?’

  ‘Getting some herbs from the garden. Hey, she said I had to go and stay with Gran and Grandad.’

  ‘We might not be able to get the new house in Hereford so Gran said you can stay with them until I get everything sorted,’ said Shepherd. ‘That way you can still go to the school.’

  ‘You’ll be there, too?’

  Shepherd pulled a face. ‘I’ll have to stay here until we’ve sold it,’ he said.

  ‘With Katra?’ Liam grinned mischievously.

  ‘What are you grinning at?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Liam.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Nothing,’ repeated Liam.

  ‘She has to stay here to take care of the house,’ said Shepherd. ‘Once we have the new house in Hereford she can move there.’

  ‘You like her, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do. But not in the way you mean.’

  ‘What way is that?’ said Katra, behind him.

  Shepherd jumped. Katra was standing behind him in a baggy pullover and pale blue jeans that had worn through at the knees. She was holding a basket of the herbs she’d picked. ‘Liam was teasing me,’ said Shepherd, ‘for which he’ll pay next time he comes to me for pocket money.’

  ‘Are you in for dinner?’ she asked. ‘I’m making cevapcici.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Shepherd.

  Liam sighed theatrically. ‘Slovenian meatballs, shaped like sausages,’ he said. ‘Don’t you know anything?’

  ‘I know that your pocket money’s just been halved,’ said Shepherd, ruffling Liam’s hair. He smiled at Katra. ‘I’ll have to pass on the cevapcici,’ he said. ‘I’m just dropping in to pick up some clothes and then I’m heading off, probably for a few days this time.’

  ‘Anywhere interesting?’ she asked.

  ‘Just work,’ he said. ‘I’ll shower and change and then I’m off.’

  ‘Your solicitor called. She wants you to phone.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Shepherd. As he went upstairs, he called Linda
Howe on his mobile.

  ‘Thanks for calling back,’ she said. ‘I wanted you to know that the buyer of your house has agreed to pay the original price.’

  ‘That’s great news,’ said Shepherd. ‘What brought about his change of heart?’

  ‘I thought you might be able to tell me,’ said the solicitor.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Shepherd. He went into the bedroom and tossed his holdall on to the bed.

  ‘The buyer said he’d spoken to a friend of yours. A detective.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Apparently the detective explained that you were working on a stressful case and that the last thing you needed was to be worried about the sale of your house.’

  Shepherd put his hand on his forehead. Only one person would have done that. Jimmy bloody Sharpe.

  ‘And suggestions were made about a possible Financial Services Authority investigation into the buyer’s company, I gather.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me,’ said Shepherd. ‘I was out of the country. I’ve only just got back.’

  ‘Well, whoever it was and whatever he said, it did the trick. The buyer came in this morning and signed the contract. He’s not happy, but the sale has gone through and all we need to do now is hand over the keys.’

  ‘That’s great news,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ll get my au pair to arrange the move. The purchase of the Hereford house is still okay, right?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Howe. ‘We should have everything sorted within the next day or two.’

  ‘I’ll probably be out of the country again, but my mobile will still work,’ said Shepherd. He ended the call, unzipped his holdall and emptied the contents on to the quilt. He tossed his dirty clothes into the wicker basket in the bathroom, took clean underwear and socks from his chest of drawers, then put them with three polo shirts into his holdall.

  He heard footsteps on the stairs and turned to see Liam in the doorway. ‘You were joking about my pocket money, weren’t you?’ he said.

  Shepherd took out his wallet and gave his son a ten-pound note. ‘That’s for two weeks,’ he said.