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

  ‘I will do. Good luck.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Shepherd. He ended the call and looked across at Pritchard. ‘Žagar is expecting the ransom at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Well he’s got a big surprise coming, hasn’t he?’ Pritchard’s phone beeped. He took it out and held it against the steering wheel, slowing the car as he read the message, then he passed the phone to Shepherd. ‘Europol have just got back to me about Žagar.’

  Shepherd studied the phone. There was a head and shoulders photograph of a hard-faced man with receding hair, a flat nose and a thick brow staring at the camera as if he wanted to tear the photographer limb from limb. There was a brief summary of the man’s criminal record – human trafficking, extortion, drugs, murder – though most of the allegations remained unproven in a court of law. He’d served two short prison sentences in the mid-eighties, both times for violent assaults. Since then he’d been charged with offences several times but the cases had never gone to court. Witnesses – including police officers – had a habit of disappearing. Zivco Žagar was clearly a nasty piece of work.

  Žagar’s house was modern, the sort of mansion that would be found in a gated community in Florida. There were two-storey columns either side of a double door, large windows and a triple-doored garage to the side. It stood on several acres of landscaped gardens. In Florida it would probably have been painted white or a subtle shade of beige but someone had decided that this one should be a vivid lilac colour. There was a black Bentley and a Mercedes SUV parked in front of the garage. The gardens were surrounded by an ugly concrete block wall topped by coils of military razor wire. There was a tall wrought iron gate through which they could see two heavy-set men in camouflage pattern jackets standing in the drive carrying shotguns.

  Pritchard drove by without slowing so all Shepherd got was a glimpse of the building.

  ‘Crime obviously pays in this part of the world,’ said Shepherd.

  Pritchard pulled over at the side of the road about a half a mile away from Žagar’s house. ‘The guards look serious,’ he said. ‘And carrying guns like that in the open means he has the cops on the payroll.’

  ‘The wall looks daunting, so I guess we have to go in through the gate,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘The wire looks vicious but we can cut it,’ said Pritchard. ‘And we can use the night vision goggles and come in through the back.’

  ‘We don’t know how many guards there are in the grounds,’ said Shepherd. ‘Maybe a diversion at the front and we go in at the back.’ He nodded to himself. ‘It might work. But with just the two of us it’s going to be tight.’ He twisted around in his seat to look at Mia. She was hugging her knees to her chest, clearly upset at being so close to Žagar’s house. ‘Did you go inside, Mia?’ She nodded fearfully and Shepherd flashed her an encouraging smile. ‘How do you get in? You just went to the gates?’

  She nodded. ‘He will see anyone who needs help.’

  ‘Especially pretty young girls, I bet,’ said Pritchard.

  ‘He is a sort of local godfather,’ said Shepherd. ‘Is your Serbo-Croat good enough to pass yourself off as a local?’

  ‘He speaks perfectly,’ said Mia. ‘But Žagar knows everybody. He will know he is a stranger.’

  ‘I could get around that,’ said Pritchard. ‘You’re right, I could talk my way in, but what then?’

  Shepherd turned around to look at Mia again. ‘They just let you in? You told them you wanted to talk to Žagar and they opened the gate?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And you walked up the drive yourself?’

  ‘One of the guards took me. He knocked on the door and there was another guard inside.’

  ‘With a shotgun?’

  She shook her head. ‘He had a gun in a thing under his arm.’

  ‘How many guards did you see inside the house?’

  Mia’s brow creased into a frown as she tried to remember. ‘Three,’ she said. ‘Or four.’ Her frown deepened and then she nodded again. ‘Four. The one who opened the door and then three more.’

  Pritchard’s phone beeped and he checked it. He studied his screen for almost a minute before looking up at Shepherd. ‘The phone isn’t there, it’s in a building about three miles away,’ he said. He twisted around in his seat and showed the phone to Mia. It was showing a Google Maps satellite image of a couple of blocks of the town. ‘Do you know where this is?’

  Her frown deepened as she stared at the screen. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t think so.’

  Pritchard took the phone back and switched to a street view. He showed her the screen again and she immediately recognised the building. ‘It’s a nightclub,’ she said. ‘The Hangar Club, Žagar owns it.’

  Pritchard turned back to look at Shepherd. ‘That’s probably where Katra and Liam are.’

  ‘Have you been inside, Mia?’ asked Shepherd. She shook her head.

  Pritchard put the BMW in gear and drove off. It took less than ten minutes to reach the Grand Hotel. Pritchard parked the car and they walked in together. They went up in the lift to Shepherd’s room and he unlocked the door. Mia went in first and sat down on the bed. ‘I’m so tired,’ she said.

  ‘You should shower and then sleep,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

  ‘We’re going to get Liam and Katra.’

  ‘I can help,’ she said and he smiled at her enthusiasm.

  ‘No, we’ll handle it,’ he said. He looked at Pritchard, who was helping himself to a bottle of water from the mini-bar. ‘Got any clubbing gear?’ he asked.

  Pritchard held up his Glock. ‘Just this,’ he said.

  Pritchard parked the BMW in a side street around the corner from The Hangar Club. He and Shepherd got out of the car and checked each other out. They were both carrying their guns tucked into the back of their jeans and were wearing their shirts loose under their jackets. Pritchard did a full three-sixty, holding his arms out. There were no signs that he was carrying a concealed weapon. Shepherd did the same.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ asked Shepherd as they walked towards the nightclub. It was a two-storey windowless flat-roofed building, the ground floor painted black, the top floor grey, with a huge logo of an aeroplane propeller in the middle. Stainless steel riveted plates spelled out the name of the club above a black awning under which there were two big men in dark coats with the hard faces and cold eyes favoured by bouncers around the world.

  ‘I don’t see that we’ve any choice other than to play it by ear,’ said Pritchard. ‘The phone is in there somewhere, and that means Žagar is there and with any luck that’s where he’s keeping Liam and Katra.’

  There was a line of four brass poles linked by a red rope but there was no queue of people waiting to go in and the bouncers just nodded as Pritchard and Shepherd walked by. Pritchard greeted them in Serbo-Croat and one of them grunted. It was still early for a nightclub so Shepherd figured they were letting anyone in.

  Inside there was a reception area with red carpets and black walls and lots of UV lights. To their right was a hatch to a cloakroom where a blonde girl wearing a black beret was tapping something into her smartphone. Next to the cloakroom was a flight of stairs leading to the upper floor, blocked off with a thick red rope from which hung a sign saying ‘STAFF ONLY’. To the left was another hatch and above it a notice saying there was a twenty-euro entrance charge. They could hear the thump of techno music coming through double doors. Pritchard paid a young bearded hipster type and they went through the double doors into the club proper.

  It was a huge room with a bar at one end and a DJ booth set against a wall where a blonde girl in a leather dress and large padded headphones was nodding to the track while a brunette with full sleeve tattoos flicked through a box of LPs. There were a few dozen clubbers dancing, all about half Shepherd’s age, but there were plenty of middle-aged men clustered around the bar or standing or sitting at high circular tables around the dance floor.

&n
bsp; Shepherd followed Pritchard over to the bar. Pritchard bought two beers and handed a bottle to Shepherd. ‘Na zdravje,’ he said and clinked his bottle against Shepherd’s.

  There was an area of sofas in a corner of the club, and they went over and chose one that gave them a full view of what was going on. Above the bar was a VIP area, reached by a wide flight of stairs that was guarded by two more bouncers, wearing tight-black T-shirts with the name of the club on the front.

  ‘I think the offices are reached by the stairs in the reception area,’ said Pritchard. ‘The VIP area doesn’t seem to lead anywhere.’

  Shepherd nodded. That had been his thought, too. He sipped his beer as he looked around. Two bouncers outside. Two guarding the VIP area. Another three wandering around looking to nip trouble in the bud. Big men who could clearly handle themselves if things got physical, but they weren’t carrying guns.

  Getting upstairs would be easy enough, but what then? The bouncers weren’t armed but there was every chance that any heavies upstairs were. On the plus side, nobody in the nightclub would hear any shots over the thumping music.

  Pritchard sipped his beer. ‘Ready when you are,’ he said.

  ‘You’re okay with this?’ Shepherd asked.

  ‘Daniel, I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.’

  Shepherd smiled thinly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘No need to thank me,’ said Pritchard.

  Shepherd put down his beer. ‘Let’s do it,’ he said.

  They walked towards the exit. Shepherd pushed through the double doors. Two men in leather jackets were on the other side and Shepherd and Pritchard held the doors open for them. The two men were followed by two young women with dyed blonde hair and too much make-up, wearing minidresses and knee-length boots. The girls followed the men into the nightclub and then Shepherd and Pritchard let the doors swing shut.

  Shepherd stepped over the rope blocking the stairway and headed up. Pritchard followed him.

  Shepherd reached behind him and pulled out the Glock he had taken from Cauliflower Ears.

  The stairs turned sharply to the right. Shepherd peered around. There were another twelve stairs up to a small landing. At the top of the stairs was a door with another ‘STAFF ONLY’ sign on it. There was no CCTV. Shepherd reckoned that Žagar didn’t want a record of the comings and goings.

  Shepherd kept the gun low as he walked up the stairs. Pritchard followed, his pistol at the ready.

  They reached the top of the stairs and stood either side of the door. During his years in the SAS, Shepherd had practised entering a hostile room thousands of times, but that didn’t make it any easier. Usually he would have an idea of what lay behind the door – he’d have seen a floor plan or had the layout described to him, and more often than not he’d have intel on the nature of the enemy that he would be facing. On this occasion all he knew was that Zivco Žagar was probably there with an unknown number of men carrying an unknown number of weapons.

  He could feel the dull throb of the nightclub’s sound system coming up through the floor as he reached out to hold the door handle. He looked at Pritchard and nodded. Pritchard nodded back. Shepherd was surprised at how calm Pritchard was under pressure. He had misjudged the man completely. Pritchard flashed him a tight smile as if he’d read his mind. Shepherd turned the handle. The door opened inwards.

  There was a single room with a huge oak desk at the far end, behind which Žagar was sitting in a high-backed chair. On the wall behind him was a painting in a gilt frame that appeared to show Žagar in a nobleman’s uniform riding a black horse and brandishing a sabre.

  Žagar was smoking a cigar and he took it out of his mouth as he stared at Shepherd and Pritchard, more out of surprise than fear, despite the guns they were holding.

  There were two sofas – one to the left, one to the right – with a large wooden coffee table, which appeared to have been carved from a single tree trunk, between them. Each sofa was occupied by a big man dressed in black, one totally bald, the other with grey hair tied back in a short ponytail. Both men had left their guns on the table and they reached for them until Pritchard barked at them to stay where they were. Both men raised their hands in the air. Pritchard spoke to them brusquely and they both put their hands behind their necks and interlinked their fingers. Pritchard stepped forward, picked up the two pistols, and stood back.

  There were no windows, the walls were painted a dark purple and even with three fluorescent lights the room still had a gloomy, claustrophobic feel to it.

  Žagar flicked ash from his cigar into a large brass ashtray that stood on his desk next to a bottle of brandy and a chunky tumbler and growled at Pritchard in Serbo-Croat.

  ‘English would be better,’ said Pritchard. ‘My friend here isn’t familiar with your language, and I’m a little rusty.’

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ snapped Žagar.

  ‘Where are you keeping them?’ asked Shepherd. ‘Liam and Katra?’

  Žagar narrowed his eyes. ‘You are the negotiator?’ His frown deepened. ‘No, you are the boy’s father.’ He grinned. ‘They are not here. Now fuck off and get me my money.’

  ‘Where are they?’ asked Shepherd. ‘Your house?’

  Žagar shrugged. ‘You pay me what I am owed and you will get your family back.’ He took a long slow drag on his cigar and then blew smoke towards them.

  ‘How much did Mia borrow from you?’

  Žagar shrugged again. ‘That doesn’t matter. You know the price for your family. You pay it or you’ll never see them again.’

  ‘You don’t think I’ll kill you?’

  ‘If you kill me, you’ll never see your family again.’ He took another pull on his cigar.

  Shepherd walked over to the sofa and pointed the gun at the heavy with the pony tail. The heavy flinched and turned his head away. Shepherd bent over, grabbed a cushion with his left hand and then pressed it against the barrel of his Glock as he aimed at the man’s knee and pulled the trigger. The cushion muffled a lot of the explosion. The man grunted in pain and grabbed his injured leg. Shepherd looked over at Žagar. ‘The next one goes into his head, the one after that will be in your stomach.’

  The bald heavy stood up but Pritchard shouted at him in Serbo-Croat and he sat down again.

  ‘Okay, okay, you’ve proved that you’re serious,’ said Žagar. ‘What do you want?’ He picked up his tumbler and took a long drink of brandy. His hand wasn’t shaking, Shepherd noticed. Žagar wasn’t a man who frightened easily.

  ‘I told you what I want. I want my family.’

  Žagar waved his glass around the room. ‘As you can see, they are not here.’

  ‘Where are they? In that shitty lilac castle of yours?’

  Žagar took another drink from his glass. He studied Shepherd as he swallowed, like a fox weighing up a chicken.

  ‘What do you think?’ Pritchard asked Shepherd.

  ‘The house is a fortress,’ said Shepherd. ‘High walls and razor wire and armed guards. We could go over the wall with night vision goggles but I’m thinking that going in through the front gates would be so much easier.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I was thinking,’ said Pritchard. He looked over at Žagar and spoke to him in Serbo-Croat.

  Žagar sneered at him. ‘You will die,’ he said. He spat on the floor. ‘Better you just kill yourselves now because if I get my hands on you you’ll spend a long time dying.’

  ‘Sticks and stones,’ said Shepherd, but it was clear from the way Žagar frowned that he didn’t understand the reference. Shepherd pointed the Glock at Žagar’s face. ‘Listen to me and listen well. The only way you are going to get out of this alive is if you get us into your house and we get out with Katra and Liam.’

  Žagar glared at him with undisguised hatred.

  Shepherd took off his jacket, then removed his underarm holster and tossed it behind Žagar’s desk. He draped his jacket over his Glock, making sure that Žagar could see that his finger was on the trigger.

>   ‘We’re going to walk out of here like we are the best of friends,’ he said. ‘We’re going to walk to our car and you’re going to sit in the front seat next to my friend here, and I’ll be sitting behind you. One mistake and I will shoot you and I will do it with a smile on my face.’

  Žagar stood up and wriggled his shoulders like a boxer preparing to fight. ‘You don’t scare me,’ he growled.

  ‘I don’t care if you’re scared or not,’ said Shepherd. ‘All I care about is that you do as you’re told.’

  Pritchard spoke to Žagar in Serbo-Croat. Žagar grunted. ‘I was telling him that I’ll be listening to what he says to the staff downstairs and that one wrong word means we’ll start shooting.’

  ‘Dead right,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘I will need my coat,’ said Žagar. He nodded at a cashmere overcoat on a hanger on the back of the door. ‘It is cold outside.’

  Shepherd grabbed the coat and checked that the pockets were empty before handing it to Žagar.

  The guy who Shepherd had shot was now white in the face, still clutching his injured leg. ‘You’ll be okay,’ said Shepherd. ‘Take off your belt and apply a tourniquet above the knee. Not too tight.’

  The man did as he was told. Žagar put on his overcoat and buttoned it up. Shepherd kept his gun trained on Žagar’s chest. ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘We’re not ready to go yet.’

  Žagar went back behind his desk and dropped down into his executive chair. Shepherd went over and checked the makeshift tourniquet on the injured man’s leg. Much of the bleeding had stopped. ‘You’ll live,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Fuck you,’ snarled the man.

  Shepherd pointed his Glock at the man’s face. ‘Now lie on the sofa, face down.’ He gestured at the other heavy. ‘You too.’

  Pritchard repeated the instructions in Serbo-Croat and they obeyed, but were clearly fearful that they were about to be killed.

  Shepherd grabbed the telephone on Žagar’s desk and ripped the wire out of the wall, then pulled the wire out of the phone. He went over to the bald heavy and used the wire to bind his wrists and ankles. The heavy was wearing a tie and Shepherd took it off and fashioned a gag.