[Spider Shepherd #13] - Dark Forces Read online

  Willoughby-Brown took it. ‘Can’t win ’em all.’

  ‘Be handy if you could ID the sniper. Get the technical boys on it.’

  ‘Syria’s full of snipers,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘It’s not really our problem. We’re more interested in the British jihadists and, so far as I’m aware, there are no Brit snipers out there.’

  Shepherd gestured at the thumb drive. ‘That guy’s special,’ he said. ‘He was looking at a shot of a mile or so. And there were two men on the roof with him. Two spotters is unusual. And I think he had even more jihadists watching out for him. That was how he managed to avoid the explosion. It looks to me like IS were going out of their way to protect him, which would make him a high-value target.’

  ‘But not for us.’

  ‘The Americans, then. I’m serious, Jeremy. There’s no way of knowing how many guys that sniper has killed. At least get your people to do facial recognition on the pictures, see if he’s known.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Willoughby-Brown, but Shepherd had heard the lack of conviction in his voice.

  ‘What now?’ he asked. ‘I’m getting a bit tired of sitting in that container watching video feeds.’

  Willoughby-Brown grinned. ‘I can remedy that,’ he said. ‘I need you out in Turkey.’

  ‘Since when has Five operated in Turkey?’

  ‘We’re liaising with Six.’

  ‘They don’t have their own people?’

  Willoughby-Brown grimaced. ‘Why are you giving me a hard time, Daniel? I thought you might jump at a bit of overseas travel. Get you out of your rut.’

  ‘What rut?’

  ‘I just meant a change is as good as a rest. Revitalise the old batteries while serving Queen and country. But the threat is a UK one. We have a source in a refugee camp, a chap by the name of Yusuf Yilmaz. He’s made contact and is offering us names and photographs of Islamic State fighters who have passed through the camp pretending to be Syrian refugees. He helped them get the paperwork. He says they’re on their way to Europe. The UK in particular.’

  ‘So fly him over and debrief him in Thames House.’

  ‘I wish it was that easy,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘He has a number of demands, including fast-track to British citizenship and rather a lot of money.’

  ‘If the intel’s good, what’s the problem?’

  ‘Because we don’t have the intel. All we’ve got is an initial contact, via an agent of ours who works for an NGO out there. We need someone to go and talk to him, to see if he’s offering us gold or shit.’

  ‘You can send anyone. A bloody intern could handle it. Check out the intel. If it’s good, put him and his family on a plane.’

  ‘Our local guy has met with Yusuf but I need someone more experienced to sit down with him.’

  ‘So he’s a people-trafficker, this Yusuf?’

  ‘It sounds like it. As I said, at the moment we have little in the way of hard information. But if he has what he says he has, we could have a major Islamic State cell, or cells, already in place in the UK.’

  Shepherd sighed. ‘Okay. When do I leave?’

  ‘I’m having your John Whitehill legend refreshed for you as we speak. The documents should be ready within the hour. The Hampstead flat still works as Whitehill’s address and we’ve been placing various bylined stories in magazines and on websites so it’s the perfect cover. Have you heard of Suruç?’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘The Turks have one of their largest refugee camps there. Forty thousand Syrians, last I heard.’

  ‘It’s a massive set-up,’ said Willoughby-Brown, ‘basically a huge tent city with two hospitals, seven clinics, and enough schools for ten thousand kids. It’s just over the border from Syria, close to where Kurdish forces have been battling it out with Islamic State.’

  ‘How many refugees are there in Turkey now?’

  ‘Around three million,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘Even if just one in a thousand of those are Islamic State bad guys then we’re looking at three thousand potential Islamic militants in Europe. Suruç itself is relatively safe though there was a bombing there in July 2015 that killed thirty-two people.’

  ‘At the camp?’

  Willoughby-Brown shook his head. ‘Outside a cultural centre.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Shepherd.

  Willoughby-Brown slid a photograph across the desk. ‘This is our agent, Craig Parker. He’s been on Six’s payroll for the past ten years but he’s gainfully employed by Refugee Rescue, an NGO that’s funded mainly out of the US and the EU. Parker was in the former Yugoslavia when Six first spotted him but latterly he’s been all over the Middle East, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, then Syria and Turkey as of last year. He’s reliable, a bit of a lefty, but he helps us if he thinks it’s the right thing to do.’

  ‘Be nice if we could all be as choosy as that.’

  Willoughby-Brown chuckled drily. ‘It’s just a question of phrasing our requests in the right way,’ he said. ‘But in this case he was on the phone to us as soon as Yusuf made the approach.’

  ‘So Yusuf knows Parker’s with Six?’

  ‘Oh, God, no. Yusuf was just mouthing off and Parker said he might know someone who could help. He put him in touch with one of our people from the embassy in Ankara. That guy did the preliminary interview but Yusuf is insisting on talking to someone from London. That plays into our hands because it means you can take a look at whatever he’s got.’

  ‘What do we know about him?’

  ‘Not much. He’s just a run-of-the-mill people-trafficker, so far as we know. No links to terrorism.’

  ‘Do the Americans know about him?’

  ‘We haven’t checked with them yet.’

  ‘Yet?’

  ‘We don’t go running to the Americans every time we get a piece of intel. This is exclusive to us and we’d like to keep it that way.’

  ‘Sure, but the Americans have way more intel on what’s going on in Turkey and Syria than we do. It would be handy to know if Yusuf is naughty or nice.’

  ‘Well, yes, but it’s the quality of the intel that matters at the end of the day, not the source.’

  ‘I’m more concerned about my safety, frankly,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Turkey isn’t a war zone.’

  ‘It’s right next to one,’ said Shepherd. ‘How do we know Yusuf isn’t part of some greater plan to put an MI5 officer in an orange jumpsuit and behead him on YouTube?’

  ‘Shuttleworth said he seemed kosher.’ He grinned. ‘Well, not kosher obviously. But there were no red flags.’

  ‘Shuttleworth?’

  ‘Our man in the embassy. Derek Shuttleworth. He interviewed him, covered the basics, and now it’s time for us to take over.’ He took a drag on his cigar and flicked more ash. ‘We can give you protection out there, I’m sure.’

  ‘Bodyguards?’

  ‘Army, if you prefer. Just let me know what you need.’

  ‘First sign of anything and I’m out,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Absolutely. Wouldn’t have it any other way,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘Your safety is paramount, as always.’

  Shepherd didn’t reply. He doubted that his personal safety was of the slightest interest to Willoughby-Brown.

  ‘So we’re good?’ asked Willoughby-Brown.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon as.’

  ‘There’s a boxing do tonight. Black tie. Marty will be there.’

  ‘What about Tommy?’

  ‘No one’s mentioned it, but they never do. He flies in and out, like the Scarlet Pimpernel. But he’s a big boxing fan so my guess is that he’ll be there.’

  ‘So, fly tomorrow. I’ll get you on the BA flight, direct. It’s less than four hours. Leave in the morning and you’ll be in Suruç before dark.’

  ‘Get me a stopover. Schiphol, Frankfurt or Paris.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because if I’m being tailed it’ll be that much harder to follow me.’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’
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br />   ‘Yes, it’s what I want, Jeremy,’ said Shepherd.

  He shrugged. ‘So mote it be.’

  Shepherd frowned. It was a strange expression for the man to use. ‘So mote it be’ was a phrase Freemasons used at the end of prayers instead of ‘amen’. Was Willoughby-Brown a Freemason? A lot of police officers were but he hadn’t come across it in the security services.

  ‘I’ll get the flights fixed. And what about tonight? Do you need any equipment?’

  Shepherd shook his head. ‘It’s social.’

  Omar Hassan arrived at the family garage just after lunch. As always, it was busy, with his three brothers hard at work. ‘Where’ve you been?’ asked Zack, the eldest, who was in charge when their father wasn’t there.

  ‘I told Dad I’d be late. He was cool with it,’ said Omar.

  ‘I didn’t ask whether you’d told him, I asked where you’d been.’

  Zack was almost ten years older than Omar and a good two inches taller. As the eldest he was supposed to be accorded respect, but Omar despised him. He was weak and flabby, too fond of Coke and fast food. He was a bad Muslim, too, often missing prayer time while working in the garage. Worse, much worse, he was dating an English girl. A kafir. For that alone he deserved to be treated with contempt. But Omar’s trainers had taught him well. He smiled and put up his hands to apologise. ‘I’m sorry, bruv. I was at the dentist’s. One of my back teeth was playing up.’

  ‘Okay now?’

  Omar pulled a face. ‘He gave me an injection, said it should quieten the nerve down. But if it doesn’t get better I might need the root working on.’

  ‘Unlucky, bruv,’ said Zack, ruffling his brother’s hair. He gestured at a white Transit van. ‘New brake linings. And the steering’s loose.’

  ‘I’m on it,’ said Omar. He hurried to the locker room.

  Another of his brothers, Toby, was bent over the engine of another Transit. ‘You okay, bruv?’ he asked, as Omar went by.

  ‘Yeah, all good,’ said Omar. Toby was a couple of years older than Omar, and had thought he might one day become a jihadist. But the imam who had groomed Omar was less convinced by the older brother. He had spoken to Toby at length over a six-month period not long before Omar had gone to Pakistan and pronounced him too weak and too corrupted by the West. Omar knew that the imam had a point. Toby prayed every day, but never more than once or twice. He liked pop music and had posters of Beyoncé and Rihanna on his bedroom wall. He abused himself every night. Omar knew that to be the case because his bedroom was next to Toby’s and he could hear him through the wall.

  ‘When you’re done with the Transit, I could do with a hand here. We’ve got a rush on.’

  ‘We’ve always got a rush on,’ said Omar. ‘Dad takes on too much work. He’s killing us.’

  ‘Make hay while the sun shines, bruv,’ said Toby, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. ‘We’d be moaning if we didn’t have any work. At least this way we’re earning.’

  Omar’s father had set up the garage a few years after arriving in the UK, funded with money he’d borrowed from family and friends. The early years had been a struggle but he was a good, honest mechanic and had a lot of return business, mainly from within the local Pakistani community. But it was the boom in online shopping that had taken the business to a whole new level. With more and more people ordering online, courier firms sprang up around the country, with fleets of vehicles that needed repairing and servicing. Omar’s father had landed half a dozen lucrative contracts and the garage had been working at full capacity for the past two years. Now he was searching for larger premises.

  All four of the Hassan brothers worked as mechanics and their sister Jasmine ran the office, a small windowless cubbyhole in the far corner of the garage. Omar’s father had also hired a bodywork specialist, a Pakistani who had been in the country for just two years and was claiming asylum as an Afghan refugee. His name was Faisal and he was in his thirties. He had left his wife and two children in Pakistan and planned to bring them over once he had been granted leave to remain, which his lawyer thought would take three more years at most.

  Faisal did most of his work at the far end of the garage in an area closed off with plastic sheeting. He was preparing to respray a door he’d recently repaired. When he saw Omar, he took off his mask and waved at him. Omar waved back. Faisal was a good Muslim, a true Muslim, and, like Omar, a committed jihadist. He trusted Faisal completely. He had told him about his al-Qaeda training and that one day he hoped to bring the jihadist fight to England. Faisal had nodded enthusiastically and promised to help.

  Just as Omar pulled open the door to the locker room, his third brother, Aidan, came out, zipping up his overalls. ‘Hi, bruv,’ said Aidan. ‘Where’ve you been?’ He was seventeen and getting ready to go to university, though he had applied to study in Manchester so that he could continue to work part-time in the garage. He had a black eye and a scrape across his nose from where a badly secured van bonnet had crashed down on him two days earlier.

  ‘Dentist,’ said Omar.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘He gave me an injection.’

  ‘Sorry, bruv.’

  ‘Aidan, get over here!’ shouted Toby. ‘How long does a dump take?’

  Aidan grinned at Omar. ‘He’s a charmer, isn’t he?’ He jogged over to Toby.

  Omar went into the locker room, which contained a dozen rusting metal lockers that his father had picked up cheaply at a government auction years earlier. There was a bench against one wall and a door leading to the bathroom. It was a menonly affair and rarely cleaned. Jasmine had her own facilities next to her office and guarded them jealously – she had the only key. Omar pulled his key-ring from the pocket of his jeans and opened his locker. He took out the envelope of cash and rifled through it: there were at least a hundred fifty-pound notes. He put it on the shelf, covered it with a copy of Motorcycle News, then changed into his overalls, which were blue, with the name of the garage on the back. His heart was pounding. He was finally doing it. He was finally on a mission. His life was about to change for ever.

  Shepherd squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and walked towards the hotel entrance. A dozen men in black tie, laughing and smoking cigarettes, were standing outside. Shepherd was wearing black tie, too, an Armani suit that had cost the best part of three thousand pounds. Willoughby-Brown had balked at that but Shepherd had explained there was no way he could turn up in a rented tux. The Rolex Daytona on his wrist was real and his shoes had cost close to five hundred pounds. Men like Tommy and Marty O’Neill could spot a fake from a hundred yards and that went for people as much as clothes and watches.

  To the left of reception a sprawling bar area was packed with another couple of hundred men in dinner jackets. There were lots of shaved heads and gold chains. They turned to check Shepherd as he walked by, nothing aggressive, just alpha males wanting to know who the competition was.

  Shepherd scanned the room and spotted Paul Evans almost immediately. Evans had been his introduction to the O’Neill family. He was an enforcer, one of the guys who were sent around to collect bad debts. Some debt-collectors used guns, others blunt instruments, but Evans was a big hard man whose intimidating presence and dead-fish stare were often enough to persuade people to pay up. When he wasn’t working, Evans was affable and good company, and had a plethora of funny stories about his childhood, usually ending with his Welsh miner father taking off his belt and giving him a good thrashing. Like a lot of villains, Evans could turn on the hard stare at will, switching from laughing bon viveur to menacing thug in a fraction of a second. Most of the men in the room had that quality, and while there was lots of laughter and good-natured back-slapping, there was an underlying tension, a sense that violence could kick off at any moment, leaving blood on the highly polished parquet floor.

  Evans spotted Shepherd and waved him over. A chunky gold bracelet glinted on his right wrist with two large sovereign rings on his fingers – they functioned as an efficie
nt knuckleduster when needed. Evans had close-cropped bullet-grey hair and a nose that had clearly been hit a few times. The slightly swollen left ear testified to his years as an amateur boxer, before he’d discovered that he could be paid handsomely for hitting people out of the ring.

  ‘Terry, good to see you, mate.’ Evans hugged Shepherd. ‘It’s going to be a fun night. What do you want?’

  ‘Gin and tonic,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Double?’

  ‘At least.’

  Evans headed for the bar. Shepherd knew the two men he was drinking with. The bigger of them was Jon Cooper, a second-hand-car dealer with a chunky diamond in his left ear. The other was a drug-trafficker, who split his time between a large detached house in Croydon and a villa with a pool outside Marbella. His name was Ricky Carter and Shepherd knew that the police had been after him for years, but as he never did any business when he was in the UK, he had never been caught. Cooper and Carter often hung out with Evans, and Shepherd always found them good company. He was pretty sure that would change if they ever found out he was an undercover MI5 officer.

  ‘You ever box, Terry?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Never in a ring,’ said Shepherd. ‘But I’ve had the odd moment.’

  Cooper laughed. ‘Yeah, I bet you have.’

  ‘I boxed a bit when I was a kid,’ said Carter, ‘but I didn’t want to mess with my good looks.’ He laughed and clapped Shepherd on the back. ‘Now if anyone needs punching I get someone else to do it.’

  ‘Always the best way,’ said Cooper. ‘You know, if you hit someone in the face, you’re more likely to break a bone in your hand than to hurt them. That’s why boxers wear gloves. I always thought it was so they wouldn’t hurt the guy too much but, nah, it’s to stop them breaking their hands.’

  ‘That’s why God invented knuckledusters, innit?’ said Carter, and all three men laughed.

  Evans returned with Shepherd’s drink. Shepherd took a sip and winced. ‘Double? More like a treble.’