Time seemed to stop for Shepherd as the words sank in. There hadn’t been a day when he hadn’t thought of Ahmad Khan. The wound in his shoulder had long healed, but the scar was still there, an ever-present reminder of the night in October 2002 when the bullet from Khan’s AK-74 had come within inches of ending his life. As he sat on the bench, his left hand absent-mindedly rubbed his shoulder. There were some mornings when he’d stand in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at his reflection and wondering whether there had been anything he could have done differently that day, anything that would have stopped Khan from killing Captain Harry Todd and almost ending his own life. He looked at the top of the cutting. The name of the paper was there. The Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle. And Harper was right about the date. So within the last couple of weeks, Ahmad Khan had been walking the streets of West London.
‘You OK, mate?’ asked Harper.
Shepherd stopped rubbing his shoulder. ‘You definitely think it’s him?’
‘I wouldn’t have come all the way from Thailand if I didn’t,’ said Harper.
‘How the hell does a muj fighter end up in the UK?’ asked Shepherd.
‘I figured you’d be the one to answer that,’ said Harper. ‘You’ve got access that I haven’t.’
‘How did you get this?’ asked Shepherd, holding up the cutting.
‘Just one of those things,’ said Harper. ‘I was in an English bar for my morning fry-up and the guy next to me is reading the paper. Turns out he’s lived in Pattaya for fifteen years but every week he has the local paper flown out to him. When he’d finished he left the paper and I grabbed it for a read. That piece was on page seven or so. Recognised him straight away. That milky eye.’
Shepherd stared at the picture. His memory was close to photographic but ten years was a long time and people changed.
‘It’s him, Spider. I’d stake my life on it.’
Shepherd nodded. It definitely looked like Ahmad Khan. ‘What do you want to do, Lex?’
‘At the moment, just check that it’s true, that he’s in the UK. Maybe it is just someone who looks the spitting image of him. They say everyone’s got a double, right? A doppelgänger.’ He gestured at the newspaper. ‘Maybe there’s another guy with a milky eye and a straggly beard.’
‘Fair enough, I can do that,’ said Shepherd.
‘To be honest, mate, I hope it’s not him,’ said Harper. ‘I hope he died back in Afghanistan. I’d hate to think of him living the life of Riley all these years in the UK. There’d be something very wrong with that.’
‘That’s for sure,’ said Shepherd, scanning the article again, even though his photographic memory had kicked in the first moment he’d set eyes on it. ‘And what if it is him, Lex? What then?’
‘Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.’ Harper took a small Samsung phone from his pocket and gave it to Shepherd. ‘Soon as you know one way or another, send me a text on that. I’ve put the number in. I’ll call you back.’
Shepherd weighed the phone in the palm of his hand. ‘You really are into this cloak and dagger stuff, aren’t you?’
‘I know that phone’s clean and it’s a throwaway SIM card,’ said Harper.
‘Charger?’
Harper put his hand into his coat pocket and pulled out a black charger with its lead rolled up. Shepherd laughed. ‘I was joking, I’ve got all the chargers I need.’ He put the phone away. ‘Seriously, you’re sure this secrecy is necessary? I’d never heard of you being involved in anything shady.’
‘That’s because I keep below the radar whenever I can,’ said Harper. ‘The guys who drive the Rollers and the Ferraris and who swan around the nightclubs and restaurants, they’re the ones who get on the most-wanted lists. I’m a nobody, Spider, and I plan to stay that way. For as long as possible.’ He stubbed the cigarette out on the sole of his shoe and then slipped the butt into the pocket of his parka. He realised Shepherd was watching. ‘DNA,’ Harper said.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Dead right I’m serious,’ said Harper. ‘At the moment, I’m not in the system. But once they have your DNA, they have you for ever. And then it’s game over.’
‘Who’s “they” exactly?’
‘Your mob, for a start. And the cops. And the government. I’ll make you a bet, Spider. Within our lifetimes they’ll make DNA sampling compulsory. They want everyone in the world to be in a mass database so that they can track and identify us all. And they’ll have us chipped, too.’
‘Chipped?’
‘A GPS-enabled microchip, under the skin. Then they’ll know who you are and what you are. Trust me, Spider. It’s coming. All I’m doing is delaying the inevitable.’
‘And why would they do that?’
‘Control. So that we all became good little consumers.’
Shepherd laughed. ‘You’re starting to sound paranoid.’
‘Really? Most criminals get caught in the act, or they get grassed up, right?’
‘Sure.’
‘But how else do you catch people?’ Shepherd opened his mouth to speak but Harper beat him to it. ‘I’ll tell you. DNA. And mobile phones. The cops use phones to show where you were at such and such a time. Which is why they want the chip out of the phones and under your skin. I tell you, mate, that’s where we’re heading. Everyone’s DNA on record, a chip under your skin, and then they can see everything you do. They’ll do away with money, too. All your assets will be recorded on the chip and if you don’t toe the line your chip will be wiped and you’ll be a non-person.’
‘I’m starting to wish I hadn’t asked.’
Harper leaned closer to him. ‘Listen, Spider, do you think we could get away with slotting Khan if the cops were able to pinpoint his location and then identify everyone who came near him? That information plus the time of death makes it an open and shut case. That’s what they want, and eventually that’s what they’ll get.’ He sat back again. ‘But until then, I stay off the grid and squirrel away my assets as best I can. At least in Thailand the authorities pretty much leave you alone. Do you know what Thailand means?’
‘Land of the free,’ said Shepherd.
‘Yeah. Land of the free. And they are free, pretty much. Much more free than people are here. I don’t understand how we let things get as bad as they are.’ He clapped his hands together. ‘Anyway, enough of my bellyaching. Let’s find this Khan and give him what he deserves.’
‘Where are you staying?’ asked Shepherd.
Harper nodded over at the north side of the park. ‘I’m in a B&B in Bayswater,’ he said. ‘One of the few places left that doesn’t ask for a credit card.’ He stood up and flipped the hood of the parka up over his head. ‘It’s good to see you, Spider. The circumstances are shit but I wish I’d kept in touch.’
‘Me too,’ said Shepherd. He stood up and the two men shook hands, then Shepherd grinned, pulled the man towards him and hugged him, patting him on the back between the shoulder blades. ‘You be careful,’ he said.
‘You too, mate.’
Shepherd called Jimmy Sharpe’s number as he walked across the park. It had been almost six months since he had seen his former colleague but he needed someone he could trust and Razor Sharpe had never let him down. ‘Please tell me you’re in London,’ said Shepherd as soon as Sharpe answered.
‘I’m in New Scotland Yard as we speak,’ said Sharpe in his gruff Glaswegian accent. ‘Being briefed on a group of Romanian ATM fiddlers.’
‘Now how the hell are you going to blend in with a group of Romanian gypsies?’
‘You can’t call them gypsies,’ said Sharpe. ‘That’s racist.’