Shepherd walked through Harrods, taking a circuitous route through the perfumes department as he checked for a tail, then headed for the street behind the shop. The Special Forces Club was in a red-brick mansion block, typical of the upper-class residences in Knightsbridge. There was no plaque on the wall to identify it: it had been taken down in the wake of the terrorist attacks in America. The front door was never locked – the club was open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
There was a small reception desk in the hallway, manned by a short, stocky former SAS staff sergeant who had once killed three men with his bare hands. Shepherd nodded at him as he signed in. ‘How are they hanging, Sandy?’
‘Fine, sir,’ he said, with just a touch of irony. There were no ranks in the club.
Shepherd jogged upstairs to the first-floor bar. He saw Major Gannon sitting in a winged leather armchair by the window. Shepherd ordered a Jameson’s and ice from the white-jacketed waiter and went over to shake hands. As he sat down in an armchair, he saw the Major’s metal briefcase by the wall. It contained the secure satellite phone that those in the know called the Almighty.
‘Working hard, Spider?’ said Gannon.
‘No rest for the wicked. Immigration scams. People-smuggling.’
‘The new frontier,’ said the Major. ‘Last I heard there was more money to be made out of people-trafficking than there was from drugs.’
Shepherd grinned. ‘I think that, pound for pound, cocaine still has the edge, but overall you’re right. It’s a bigger business.’
‘With less of a downside,’ said the Major.
‘Yeah. Get caught with a few hundred kilos of a class-A drug and they’ll throw away the key. Get caught with a containerload of Chinese workers and you’d be unlucky to get three years. Plus the traffickers get paid in advance, cash on the nail. The going rate into the UK is six thousand dollars. The drugs guys don’t get their money until the drugs are delivered.’
‘We’re in the wrong business,’ laughed the Major. ‘Here we are, defending the free world for a pittance and the chance of a pension, while the bad guys live like princes.’
‘We get the medals,’ said Shepherd.
‘Ah, yes, the medals,’ said the Major.
‘And we know we’ve got right on our side.’ Shepherd raised his glass to the Major. ‘So that’s all right, then.’
The two men clinked their glasses.
‘What about you?’ asked Shepherd. ‘Much on?’
‘Still looking after the Increment,’ said the Major. ‘I’m doing such a good job, apparently, that they don’t want me to do anything else.’ The Increment was the government’s best-kept secret: a group of highly trained special forces soldiers who were used on operations considered too dangerous for Britain’s security services, MI5 and MI6. The Major headed the unit from the Duke of York Barracks in London, close to Sloane Square. Calls from MI5 and MI6, and the prime minister’s office, came through on the satellite phone, which was never far from his side. The Major was able to draw on all the resources of the Special Air Service and the Special Boat Service, plus any other experts he required. ‘I keep telling them I’m too long in the tooth for all this action stuff, but they just pat me on the back and say I’m the best man for the job.’
‘It’s good to be wanted,’ said Shepherd.
‘Which is why I asked you here,’ said the Major. ‘Somebody wants you. Or, at least, a chat with you.’
‘About?’
‘That’s need-to-know, and apparently I don’t need to know.’
‘Terrific,’ said Shepherd.
The Major sipped his drink. ‘He’s here now.’
Shepherd smiled tightly. ‘The guy at the bar behind me? American, late forties, grey hair cut short, thin lips, class ring on his right hand, Rolex Submariner watch, the anniversary model with the green bezel, grey suit, pink shirt, blue tie with black stripes, black loafers with tassels, drinking gin and tonic?’
The Major grinned. ‘You and your photographic memory,’ he said. ‘But it’s vodka he’s drinking, not gin. How did you know he was a Yank?’
‘The class ring’s very American. And he’s reading the International Herald Tribune,’ said Shepherd. ‘Elementary, my dear Watson.’
The Major smiled. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘He’s very American.’
‘FBI, CIA, DEA?’
‘None of the above. He used to be CIA but now he’s something in Homeland Security. A special unit ans werable to someone at the White House.’ The Major picked up his metal briefcase and stood up. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said. ‘It’s for your ears only, he says.’
‘Secret Squirrel?’
The Major clapped Shepherd’s shoulder and headed for the door. On the way out he nodded to the man at the bar, who slid off his stool and carried his drink to Shepherd’s table. ‘Thanks for this, Dan,’ he said. He held out his hand. ‘Richard Yokely.’ He had a slight Southern drawl.
Shepherd shook his hand.
‘Can I get you another drink?’ asked Yokely.
‘I’m fine,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’m surprised to see an American drinking alcohol. I thought, these days, you weren’t allowed any vices.’
‘I’m sure my secret’s safe with you,’ he said. ‘Besides, I’m old school. I reckon it’s more about the results a man gets than his appearance.’ He leaned across the table. ‘Don’t tell anyone, but I still enjoy the odd cigar.’ He chuckled, sat back in his chair and stretched out his legs. ‘So, thanks for coming. I’ve heard a lot about you, Dan. All good.’
‘That’s a worry,’ said Shepherd, ‘since I’m supposed to be undercover.’
‘We’re on the same side,’ said Yokely. ‘I get to see some very secret files. And your name was mentioned in glowing terms.’
‘And who is it you work for?’
The American shrugged carelessly. ‘I don’t have a business card, as such,’ he said. ‘Or an office. Truth be told, I’m more of a facilitator.’
‘For whom?’
Another shrug. And a slight smile. ‘For the government. In the same way that your Superintendent Hargrove is answerable to the Home Office, I answer directly to the head of Homeland Security. It’s a very tight chain of command. I talk to my boss, he talks to the President. Sometimes I talk to the President direct. And in the same way that your unit doesn’t have a name or any of those cute initials they like to give everything now, I don’t have a designated department.’ He grinned. ‘I’m just little old me. The be-all and end-all.’
‘And your brief?’
‘To save the free world, Dan. To make the world a safer place.’ He took a sip of his vodka and tonic, then swirled the ice round his glass with his index finger. ‘What you did, down in the Tube, that was one hell of a thing.’
Shepherd said nothing.
‘You saved a lot of lives,’ said Yokely.
‘I killed a man,’ said Shepherd.
‘Yes, you did,’ said the American. ‘You shot him in the back of the head. And some. Would you care to run it by me?’
Shepherd looked at Yokely for several seconds, then nodded slowly. That Gannon had arranged the meeting meant that Yokely could be trusted. Shepherd just wished he knew what the meeting was about. ‘I was working undercover, infiltrating an armed-response unit,’ he said. ‘As part of that operation I was on the Underground. Armed. There were four suicide-bombers primed to detonate at the same time. One was killed above ground – by muggers, as it happened. One went off above ground. One detonated on a platform at Liverpool Street station. I killed the fourth.’
Yokely grinned.
‘What’s funny?’ asked Shepherd, quickly. Too quickly. He’d sounded defensive.
‘Your terminology is much more forthright than I’m used to,’ said the American. ‘The guys I work with would never be so up-front. They’d refer to it as “terminating the objective” or “managing the situation” or something equally banal.’
‘I killed him,’ said Shepherd flatly. ‘Shot him seven times.’
‘You didn’t think that was overkill?’
‘The two bombs that went off killed forty-seven people and injured more than a hundred others,’ said Shepherd. ‘You can’t take any chances with suicide-bombers. Even mortally wounded, they can still press the trigger. You have to keep firing until you’re sure, absolutely sure, they’re dead. Or in a non-living situation, as your guys would probably say.’