Dead Drop (A Spider Shepherd short story) (6 page)

There was a burst
of laughter from the Taliban fighters. One kicked him in the ribs and another
spat on him, showing his contempt, but Shepherd’s apparent terror had disarmed
any suspicions they might have harboured about him. Karim helped him up and
they moved on, unsearched and unchallenged, the mocking laughter of the Taliban
fighters pursuing them, but Shepherd was also smiling to himself.

When the last of
the villagers had been searched, another Taliban Toyota pick-up was driven into
the market square, carrying two men and one woman in a burqa. It stopped in the
middle of the square and the victims were pushed from the tailgate and allowed
to fall to the ground. The woman’s hands were tied behind her back and she fell
heavily. As she was dragged back to her feet, Shepherd could see a spreading
bloodstain on the cloth visor covering her face.

Shepherd had now
spotted Jabbaar and began trying to work his way through the crowd towards him,
but people were pressing forward, apparently eager for the spectacle to come
and, afraid of losing touch with the boy, he had to bide his time. The villager
who had been found with a cassette tape was the first to face Jabbaar’s wrath.
The man was dragged forward and Jabbaar confronted him, brandishing the
cassette tape and shouting in his face, so close to him that the man’s own face
was flecked with spittle.

Some of the
Taliban fighters were wearing lengths of electric cable wrapped around their
waists like belts. They now untied them, took a couple of turns around their
wrists and then began to use them as whips, lashing them down onto their
helpless victim. The last few inches of frayed copper wire of the cables had
been exposed, drawing blood as the lashes sliced angry weals across the man’s
back. Jabbaar himself used a thin, barbed branch torn from a thorn bush as a
whip, flogging the victim until he lay still in a spreading pool of his own
blood.

The second
victim, accused of theft, was then dragged forward. Two soldiers held him,
while another two gripped his right arm and he was forced to kneel in front of
Jabbaar. He clicked his fingers and a man wearing a surgeon’s mask, whether for
hygiene or to conceal his identity, stepped out of the crowd. He placed a
scuffed brown leather case on the ground, took out a hypodermic and injected
the man’s arm, then tied a tourniquet around his forearm with a strip of thin
leather. There was a murmur of anticipation from the crowd as the surgeon then
produced a scalpel from his bag. Playing to the crowd, he held it above his
head for a moment, so it gleamed in the sunlight.

The victim still
stared straight ahead, only the set of his jaw and a pulsing vein in his temple
betraying his emotion as the surgeon began to cut through the flesh around his
wrist. As blood spurted out, he cut the tendons and then broke the wrist with a
sound like the snap of a breaking stick that echoed around the hushed square.

As the surgeon
held the severed hand aloft, there were shouts of ‘Allahu akbar’ from the
Taliban fighters and some of the crowd. Shepherd suppressed a shudder; the
ritual seemed even more barbaric when carried out by a man using the trappings
of modern medicine, than it would have if done by some Taliban warlord, hacking
off the hand with a sword or an axe.

 
A third man was then dragged forward,
accused and convicted by Taliban decree of killing a farmer’s son in an
argument over a piece of disputed land. The father of the murdered boy was led
forward and Jabbaar said something to him.

‘He’s asking if
the man can find it in his heart to have mercy,’ Karim whispered.

The old man gave
an emphatic shake of his head. ‘My heart, my honour, demand revenge.’

 
His words were greeted with a roar from
the crowd. Jabbaar then handed the old man an AK47. As one of the fighters
moved to cover the victim’s eyes with a scarf, Jabbaar stopped him. He gestured
impatiently to the old man, who raised the rifle and fired, but his hand shook
and the shot struck the victim in the shoulder rather than the heart, the
impact sending him sprawling. There were screams from a woman in the crowd, who
had also collapsed, clutching at her thigh. The round had passed clean through
the victim and struck the woman as well, knocking her on her back. Her burqa
had ridden up, exposing her legs to the knee. One of the Taliban rushed to her,
pulled it down again and then turned his back, concerned only about the
indecency, not the wound she had suffered.

Jabbaar scowled
and dragged the old man forward until he was standing directly over the victim
and gestured to him to finish the job. The wounded man lay staring up at him,
making no sound, as the man held the barrel to his head and pressed the trigger
a second time. As a mess of blood and brains splashed into the dust of the
square, there was another roar from the crowd. The Taliban fighters dragged the
body away and threw it into the back of the pick-up.

Another pick-up
was then driven into the square, its back loaded with a heap of stones.
Realisation dawned on Shepherd as he saw the last victim, the woman, being
dragged towards a wooden post set in the ground. There was a buzz of excitement
from the crowd and men and young boys ran to the Toyota and began loading
themselves with as many stones as they could carry.

Jabbaar
pronounced sentence: the woman was guilty of adultery, the penalty death by
stoning. Shepherd felt sick at the thought, but as the crowd of men jostled for
position, waiting for the signal to start, he saw his chance. Jabbaar was now
standing slightly off to one side and his attention and that of his men and the
crowd was focussed solely on the woman. As Jabbaar raised his hand, ready to
signal the start of the stoning, Shepherd nudged Karim, who dragged his gaze
away from the horrific spectacle.

‘In three,’
Shepherd murmured ‘From... Now!’

 
As Jabbaar lowered his arm and the first
stones began to fly, striking the woman’s body with dull thuds like axe strokes
on wood, Shepherd sprinted out of the crowd, elbowing a woman aside and bowling
over a man who stood in his way. There was a loud whoosh as Karim launched the
flare. It tore upwards and burst in a green flash overhead. All eyes were drawn
to it, except Shepherd’s. He ripped open the velcro on his shirt with his left
hand and drew his pistol in one movement with his right.

A Taliban fighter
swung to face him, but Shepherd double-tapped him, dived to the ground, firing
another double-tap as he rolled over, to take down another fighter, and firing
again as he sprang upright. A third Taliban fighter dropped as the burst from
his own weapon passed harmlessly over Shepherd’s head.

Shepherd had
already dived and rolled once more and came up within five metres of Jabbaar.
The stoning had stopped and the crowd was in uproar, most of them unable to
comprehend what was happening, so fast was Shepherd’s fire and movement.
Jabbaar was scrabbling to pull his AK47 from his shoulder and bring it to bear,
but he was too slow. Shepherd double-tapped him, two shots to the chest, just
above the heart.
 
Jabbaar crashed
to the ground and his rifle skittered away across the square.

Shepherd was
already diving to the ground again, rolling sideways, firing another double-tap
as he went, still counting his shots: ten fired, two left before a magazine
change. He sprang up again and fired another double-tap towards the Taliban
fighters by the pick-up. They were too far away for a kill to be guaranteed but
he hoped the incoming fire would disturb their own aim. He now had just one
shot left and flung himself to the ground again, whipping out the magazine and
inserting a new one even as he rolled across the square, dust matting his
clothes and hair.

Many of the
villagers had now fled in panic, but one man, braver than the rest, tried to
lash out at Shepherd with his foot. He dodged the kick, sprang up to
pistol-whip the man to the ground, and then moved again as a burst of automatic
fire tore the air apart in the place where he had just been standing.

As he dived and
rolled again, he heard the clatter of rotors and the rattle of mini-guns as the
helis flashed overhead.

The Taliban
fighters swung to face this new threat, but they were now outgunned and
outnumbered. Two attack helis kept up a withering fire, the mini-guns’
incessant rattle punctuated by the whoosh of rockets flashing from their pods
and torching the Taliban pick-ups.

The other four
helis landed at the edge of the square in a whirlwind of dust and debris.
McIntyre, Mitchell and the others jumped off the helis and joined the fight,
pouring in a torrent of rounds that cut the Taliban apart.

The sound of
double-taps echoed through the square as the SAS killed the Taliban fighters
with ruthless efficiency, flattening any villager who stood in their way. They
kicked their legs from under them or punched them to the ground and while the
SAS assault teams kept up their withering fire, others secured the villagers’
wrists with plastic ties. When the battle was over, they would be searched and
identified and any Taliban who’d thrown away their weapons and tried to hide
among them would receive short shrift.

The sound of
gunshots and double-taps slowed and then stopped altogether as the last fighter
was cut down. Every local had fled and the square was now completely deserted,
but for the dead and wounded and the SAS troopers patrolling the perimeter,
still watchful and alert. Mitchell moved among the wounded, treating two SAS
men who had non-fatal gunshot wounds.

Mitchell had
spotted Shepherd and ran over to him as he dusted himself down and looked
around for Karim. ‘All right, Spider?’

‘I’m fine, not a
scratch on me,’ he said. ‘But see what you can do for her.’ He gestured to
where the burqa-clad woman slumped against the wooden post that held her.
Mitchell ran over to her and after checking her over gave Shepherd a thumbs up.
‘She’s badly bruised and has a couple of broken bones, but she’ll live,’ he
said.

Shepherd pointed
at the woman who had been shot. She was curled up in a ball, sobbing. ‘She took
a round in the thigh, can we patch her up before we go?’ asked Shepherd. ‘If
not we can take her with us.’

‘I’m on it,’ said
Mitchell.

Shepherd looked
around again and shouted for Karim again. The boy suddenly appeared from behind
one of the market stalls, grinning from ear to ear and holding a fistful of
dollar bills in one hand. ‘The stall-holder doesn’t seem to want these any
more,’ he said, as he ran over to Shepherd, ‘so I thought we might as well have
them.’

Shepherd smiled.
‘We? You nicked it, you keep it.’ He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘It’s
time to go,’ he said. ‘We’re finished here.’

‘I have one thing
to do,’ said Karim, reaching into his bag and pulling out a curved knife. ‘I
have to do to Jabbaar what he did to my father.’

‘He’s dead,
Karim. That’s enough.’

Karim’s eyes
blazed. ‘I will cut off his dick and put it in his mouth. And I will tell
everyone that I did it to avenge my father, Qaseem.’

Shepherd put a hand
on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Do that, and you’ll be no better than him,’ he said.
‘You need to remember your father as the good man he was. He wanted the best
for you, he wouldn’t want you to be ruled by revenge. Jabbaar is dead. It’s
over.’

Karim looked as
if he wanted to argue, but eventually he nodded and put away the knife. One of
the helicopters lifted off and flew away. ‘Thank you, Spider,’ said Karim.

‘It was a
pleasure,’ said Shepherd. ‘I liked your father. I hope I can be as good a dad
to my boy as he was to you.’
 
A
second helicopter lifted off and Shepherd clapped Karim on the shoulder. ‘Come
on or we’ll miss our lift home.’

* * *

Spider Shepherd
left the SAS at the end of 2002 and joined an elite police undercover unit. You
can read the first of his undercover adventures in Hard Landing, where he goes
undercover in a high security prison to unmask a drugs dealer who is killing
off witnesses to his crimes. The Spider Shepherd series continues with Soft
Target, Cold Kill, Hot Blood, Dead Men, Live Fire, Rough Justice, Fair Game, False
Friends and True Colours.

Hard
Landing is available in the UK for 49p at –
 
http://amzn.to/xxX2YU

And in
the US for less than a dollar at –
 
http://amzn.to/xWg1E7

You can read more about Stephen Leather’s work at
www.stephenleather.com

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