‘How did you get my number, Lex? And how did you know I worked for Five? Because that sort of info wouldn’t be accessible by your average cop.’
Lex smiled as he blew a plume of smoke at the floor and watched it disperse. ‘You think because your phone’s unlisted that it’s not listed somewhere? Come on, you’re in the business. If a phone’s got a contract then there’s a trail. The only safe phone is a public landline and the powers that be are doing all they can to cut down on those. They want everyone on mobiles because they can track them.’
Shepherd nodded but didn’t say anything. Harper was right, of course. Mobile phones had made the job of surveillance much easier. If you had a target’s phone number you could follow the phone around the world, listen to every phone call made and see every text. And with the latest technology, all that could be achieved even if the phone was switched off.
‘I tell you, mate, Big Brother is already here.’
Shepherd turned to look at him. ‘You still haven’t answered my question, Lex.’
‘How did I get your number? And your address in Hereford? I paid for it. Cold hard cash and a lot of it. There’s a whole industry out there geared up to providing information. And a lot of the guys doing it are former cops and former spooks. They still have access. But don’t worry, all they could find out was that you worked for MI5, their database is as secure as it gets. I don’t ask how they get their intel, and they don’t say. The money does the talking.’
‘OK, so here’s the big question. If you’ve got access to all that information, how come you needed me to check up on Khan? You found me, why couldn’t you find him?’
Harper nodded as he drew on his cigarette and held the smoke deep in his lungs before exhaling. ‘Because you’re in the system. You’ve got a passport and credit cards and a driving licence and you pay your council tax like a good citizen. And like I said, I already had your basic details. Easy peasy. But Khan was a whole different kettle of fish.’
‘You tried under his real name?’
‘Real name doesn’t really apply, does it? We knew him as Ahmad Khan in Afghanistan but who’s to say that’s his real name? A guy can use any name he wants out there, most births aren’t even registered. That’s why when they do come over here they get to stay. You can have fingerprints, DNA, iris scans, the works, but they’re no bloody use if you’ve nothing to compare them with.’ He dropped what was left of his cigarette on the floor, stamped on it, then picked up the flattened butt and put it into his pocket. He leaned across the table. ‘So, time to shit or get off the pot, Spider. Did you find him?’
Shepherd nodded. ‘Yeah, I found him.’
Harper grinned. ‘I knew you would. Hammersmith? Near the court?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Family?’
‘Not that I know of. He’s not known as Ahmad Khan any more. Now he’s got a British passport under the name Farzad Sajadi.’
‘That’s interesting.’
‘What’s your plan, Lex? What do you want to do?’
‘What do you want to do?’ Lex’s eyes bored into Shepherd’s. The two men stared at each other for several seconds. It was Spider who looked away first. There was something different about Lex’s eyes, a coldness that hadn’t been there when he’d been Shepherd’s spotter in Afghanistan. The relationship between a sniper and a spotter was as tight as any relationship could be. It was all about trust. A sniper had to concentrate on his target with every fibre of his being, and that meant the spotter had to be watching his back. A sniper had to be able to trust his spotter completely, and in Afghanistan Spider had trusted Harper, literally, with his life. But the Lex Harper sitting next to him on the bench in Hyde Park wasn’t the same man who’d partnered him in Afghanistan. But then Shepherd had changed, too. Everyone changed. Time and events made sure of that.
Shepherd rubbed his right shoulder as he thought back to the day that Khan had shot him. He had nearly died that day in 2002. And the officer he was with, Captain Harry Todd, had died as he lay in Shepherd’s arms, shot in the head and throat. He shuddered as the memories flooded back. Khan had shot Todd twice but either of the wounds would have been fatal. And if the round that had slammed into Shepherd’s shoulder had been an inch to the left, Shepherd would have died too.
‘Spider?’ Harper was looking at him with concern in his eyes.
‘Yeah, sorry,’ said Shepherd. He shook his head to clear his thoughts.
‘You thinking about Captain Todd?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That bastard Khan ambushed him. And you. You weren’t even shooting when you came out of that building, you were no threat to him.’
‘What do you want to do, Lex?’
Harper leaned towards Shepherd. ‘Remember what the captain wanted? That French phrase?’
‘Droit de seigneur?’
That’s the one. The right to be in at the kill. That’s what I want, Spider. I want to see the bastard die.’
‘You’re talking about murder.’
Harper shook his head fiercely. ‘I’m talking about justice, and you more than anyone should know how important that is. He killed the captain. He shot three of my mates in the back. And he damn near killed you.’
Shepherd nodded. Everything Harper said was true. But that didn’t make what he was suggesting the right thing to do.
‘Well?’ said Harper.
‘You’re up for this?’
‘Damn right,’ said Harper. ‘Are you?’
Shepherd closed his eyes. His brain kicked into overdrive, pulling out images from his almost perfect memory. The blood trickling down Todd’s face. More blood frothing from the wound in his throat. The way the life had faded from the captain’s eyes and his body had shaken and then gone still. Then the nightmare journey back to the helicopter, Shepherd lying on a makeshift stretcher being dragged behind a moped, bouncing and banging across the rough terrain, every movement sending bolts of pain through his shoulder as the blood seeped into the trauma bandage covering the gaping wound, the wound that he saw every morning in the bathroom mirror. He opened his eyes and smiled thinly at Harper. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m up for it. But first we have to make sure.’
‘Make sure?’
‘We need to know it’s definitely him.’
‘You said you’d ID’d him.’
‘I said I’ve identified the guy in the picture. But we need to be one hundred per cent sure that it’s Khan.’
‘An Afghan with a milky eye and a straggly beard? How many of them do you think there are in the world?’
‘To be honest Lex, I don’t know. And neither do you. We need to get a close look at him. And I’ll get Jock along. Jock got up close and personal with Khan so I want to know what he thinks.’
‘How the hell is Jock?’
‘Haven’t seen him since Afghanistan. The Regiment’ll know where he is. Soon as I’ve got Jock on board, we’ll go take a look at Khan.’
Shepherd drove back to Hampstead and found a parking space fairly close to his flat in a side road off Hampstead High Street. The cramped one-bedroom flat was on the second floor of a block built during the sixties to fill the gap left when two mews houses were demolished by a stray German bomb during the Second World War. Shepherd let himself in, tapped in the burglar alarm code and made himself a cup of coffee before phoning Major Gannon. The call went through to voicemail but Shepherd didn’t leave a message. He was taking his first sip of coffee when the phone rang. ‘Sorry, Spider, I was in the range – how’s things?’
‘All good, boss,’ said Shepherd. ‘You?’
‘Helping train a group of SFOs,’ said the Major. ‘Slow going.’
Specialist Firearms Officers had originally been confined to specialist units that were used only in emergency situations, but recently they had become a familiar sight on the streets of British cities. While public opinion would have preferred to have kept the traditional bobby armed only with a stick and a whistle, times were changing, and the armed units were the only defence against criminals armed with guns and knives. Most of the country’s police forces now sent their SFOs to the SAS for training.