‘How are we doing for fuel, Phil?’ asked Yokely.
Howell looked at the gauge and did a calculation in his head. ‘Seventeen hours, give or take,’ he said. The Predator’s fuel tank held a hundred gallons, enough to keep it in the air for twenty-hours if it was circling or give it a range of 450 miles at its top speed of eighty miles an hour.
It had taken off from Balad airbase, a fifteen-square-mile mini-city just forty miles north-west of Baghdad; since the coalition forces had moved into Iraq it had become the second busiest airport in the world, beaten only by London’s Heathrow. It had two parallel eleven-thousand-foot runways and was surrounded by dusty, parched desert dotted with stumpy eucalyptus trees. The nearby town was a hotbed of Iraqi insurgency and every night mortars rained from the sky – the soldiers stationed there had christened the base ‘Mortaritaville’. Yokely and his three companions were in one of the Predator ground-control stations, a container-sized steel capsule. After they had been launched the Predators weren’t flown by Iraq-based operators but by people seven thousand miles away at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. The data transmitted by the drones could also be beamed to US commanders in Saudi Arabia, Qatar or even in the Pentagon. Yokely, however, had insisted on local control. He wanted to be at Howell’s shoulder as the craft prowled over the city, keeping a watchful eye on Spider Shepherd. And the data was for their eyes only. Yokely had no intention that anyone in Washington DC should know what they were doing.
Two air-conditioning units the size of washing-machines hummed at the far end of the capsule. On the opposite wall a line of clocks displayed east-coast time, west-coast time, Iraq, Tokyo and Zulu time.
‘Whose brilliant idea was this?’ asked Slater.
Yokely gestured at the screen. The Land Cruiser was driving slowly down the main road, manoeuvring around two burned-out cars. ‘He came up with it himself.’
Next to the screen showing the real-time video feed a smaller screen presented a computer map of the area with a blinking cursor that positioned the transmitter in Shepherd’s boot. The Predator’s onboard receiver was picking up a burst of GPS data every ten minutes from the transmitter, which was then downloaded to the computer in the ground-control station.
‘He’s mad, you know that?’ said Slater.
‘I expressed my reservations, but he wouldn’t be dissuaded. And let’s not forget it gives us a fighting chance of locating Wafeeq bin Said al-Hadi. He’s high on our most-wanted list.’
‘Spider’s a Judas Goat,’ said Nichols. ‘It’s how you catch a man-eating tiger – tether a goat and wait for the tiger to come a-calling. But the snag is…’
‘The goat usually dies,’ Slater finished.
‘Let’s lose the gloom and doom, guys,’ said Yokely. ‘That’s why we’re here, to stop that happening.’
‘Are we looking to capture or kill Wafeeq?’ asked Howell, using the joystick to put the Predator into a gentle roll to the right so that he kept Shepherd’s Land Cruiser in the centre of the camera’s vision.
‘We’ll take it as it comes,’ said Yokely. ‘I’m easy either way.’
‘And your man there? Does he stand more than a snowball’s chance in hell of getting close to this Wafeeq?’
‘If anyone can pull it off, Spider can,’ Yokely told him.
Shepherd braked to allow four young children to cross in front of him, all boys in tattered shirts and threadbare shorts. Only one was wearing sandals. They waved at him and he waved back. One ran to the passenger window. ‘Chewing-gum?’ he shouted. Shepherd shook his head. The three other boys joined him and chorused, ‘Chewing-gum, chewing-gum.’ The oldest couldn’t have been more than twelve.
Shepherd was sorry he didn’t have anything to give them. He thought of Liam, with his PlayStation, his football, his music lessons, the expensive trainers and his iPod. He wanted a laptop computer for Christmas and he’d probably get one. ‘Sorry, guys,’ said Shepherd, holding up his hands. ‘I haven’t got anything.’ They carried on chanting for chewing-gum. Shepherd leaned forward and popped the button to open the glovebox. He fumbled inside and found a roll of mints, wound down the window and gave them to the biggest. They ran off, laughing and shouting. Shepherd couldn’t imagine Liam getting so worked up about a packet of sweets.
He wound up the window and put the vehicle in gear, checking the rear-view mirror as he pulled away. There was a taxi about fifty feet behind him, with three men inside.
He picked up the transceiver. ‘There’s a taxi behind me, I’m pretty sure it was hanging around earlier,’ he said.
‘Roger that,’ said the Major.
Shepherd drove slowly down the road. Few other cars were around. A rusting Vespa scooter loaded with three large Calor-gas bottles overtook him – an elderly man in a faded blue dishdasha was bent over the handlebars, twisting the accelerator as if he was trying to squeeze more power out of the ancient machine. Shepherd checked his mirror again. The taxi was still there, matching his speed. He pumped the accelerator, making the Land Cruiser judder, then put the gearstick into neutral and hit the accelerator again, making the engine roar. He looked in the mirror. The taxi was still there, matching his speed, which was now little more than a crawl. Shepherd took a deep breath. His heart was racing and he could hear the blood pounding in his ears. This was like no other undercover operation he’d ever been on because, for the first time, he was deliberately putting himself in harm’s way.
He braked, took another swig from his water bottle, looking in the mirror as he drank. The taxi had stopped, too. Three women in headscarves and long dresses walked by the Land Cruiser carrying cloth bags filled with bread. They were gossiping and didn’t look at Shepherd as he popped the bonnet and climbed out of the vehicle.
Across the road a concreted area, surrounded by a wire mesh fence, was filled with rusting car bodies, most of which had been raked by gunfire. Two young boys watched him through the fence with wide eyes.
Shepherd peered under the bonnet of the Land Cruiser. Sweat poured down his back under his shirt and body armour and he wiped his forehead with his sleeve. It was in the high forties and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. He stared at the engine. The full realisation of what he was doing hit him. He was in the most dangerous city in the world, offering himself like a lamb to the slaughter. He heard a car door open, then another and another. Three doors. Three men. A few seconds later there were three slams. Shepherd’s heart went into overdrive and he took a few deep breaths, forcing himself to stay calm. His instinct was to reach for his gun but he gripped his right hand into a fist and banged it down on the radiator cap. He was unarmed so there was no reason for them to get violent. He had to play the part right. Scared, confused and not a threat. A victim. He flinched as he heard gunshots, then realised they had been distant. A Kalashnikov. It was followed by the rat-tat-tat of M16s. Then silence.
Shepherd stared at the engine with unseeing eyes. He was listening to the footsteps of the men who had left the taxi. They’d be armed, he had no doubt of that. They’d have seen the logo of Muller’s security company on the Land Cruiser so they’d know he was carrying a weapon – they’d only approach him if they knew they had him outgunned. He heard the scrape of a sandal on the pavement, then a slap, which Shepherd guessed was its owner stepping into the road. That made sense. They’d come at him from both sides, catching him in a pincer movement. Probably distract him from one side, then overpower him from behind. In a perfect world they’d pull a bag over his head and drag him to the taxi, but Shepherd knew that the world was far from perfect and the odds were that they would hurt him. The adrenaline was kicking into his system, giving him the near-irresistible urge for flight or fight. But he couldn’t run or fight: he had to stand his ground, play his role and hope that what they had in mind was hostage-taking, not murder.