‘You’re sure it was a Stinger? Because if it was a Stinger, it wasn’t Kleintank that supplied it.’
‘It was a Stinger, of that there’s no doubt. And my sources tell me it came from the Dutchman.’
‘Then I’d check your sources,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ve just bought a training Grail from him and that was the best he had. Stingers didn’t even enter the equation. He said he had a contact in Nice with Stingers. Maybe someone’s got their lines crossed.’
‘He could have sold it weeks ago,’ said Yokely. ‘Just because he didn’t have one for you doesn’t mean he didn’t have them last week. Or last month.’
‘And you’d kill him without checking, would you? Because if it wasn’t him, it must have been somebody else. And you’re going to let them get off scot-free.’
Yokely didn’t say anything but his jaw tightened a fraction.
‘Richard, you need to check your source on this.’ He nodded at Kleintank. ‘You wouldn’t want collateral damage, would you?’
Yokely smiled sardonically. ‘We’re not in a position to check the source,’ he said.
‘Aggressive information retrieval?’ asked Shepherd.
‘We’re operating under considerable time pressure,’ said Yokely.
‘And your source is dead?’
Yokely sighed and lowered his gun. ‘You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you? To save his skin?’
‘First of all, I’m not stupid. I know that if I lie you’ll find out down the line and you’re one man I wouldn’t want mad at me. Second of all, you’re right, of course, I do owe you a favour.’
Yokely slid his gun into a nylon shoulder holster and adjusted his shirtsleeves. ‘Don’t you just hate it when people lie to you, Spider?’
‘Everybody lies,’ said Shepherd, ‘one way or another. Can we go somewhere and talk? I’m getting nervous hanging around here.’
Yokely glanced at Broken Nose, who was pulling off Kleintank’s underwear now. ‘Keep him on ice,’ he said.
‘Like he was in a fridge,’ Broken Nose said.
Yokely flashed Shepherd an apologetic look. ‘He watches a lot of Tarantino movies,’ he said.
‘Don’t we all?’ said Shepherd.
The young man with a well-tended goatee beard placed the two cups of coffee on the table in front of Shepherd and Yokely. They sat in silence until he was out of earshot. Yokely stirred in two spoonfuls of brown sugar.
‘What’s going on, Richard? What the hell are you doing in Sarajevo?’
‘Retribution,’ said Yokely. ‘Pure and simple. The people I work for want everyone involved in the bringing down of that jet taken care of in a timely fashion.’ He sipped his coffee and smacked his lips appreciatively.
Three pretty girls in short dresses and high heels sat down at a neighbouring table, all lip-gloss and painted nails, designer sunglasses perched on their heads, expensive mobile phones in front of them. That was one of the big differences between modern Sarajevo and the city Shepherd had visited previously – back then there had been no pretty girls. Pretty girls were always the first to leave a war zone.
‘I thought revenge was a dish best served cold.’
‘Not in this case,’ Yokely said.
‘We’re talking about government-sanctioned murder?’
‘You might be, Spider, I’m just having a coffee with an old friend while we chew the fat.’ He took another sip. ‘This is good,’ he said. He looked around the market square they were sitting in. ‘Won’t be long before Starbucks sets up here.’
‘Is that a good thing or a bad thing, Richard? I would have thought you’d be in favour of American expansionism in all its forms.’
‘I don’t like their coffee,’ said Yokely. ‘Best coffee in the world is in Italy. Followed by France.’ He raised his cup. ‘I’d put this a close third.’
‘What about London?’
Yokely chuckled. ‘Let’s just say that I can see why you’re a nation of tea-drinkers.’ He put down his cup. ‘So, why are you buying a Grail missile?’
Shepherd looked pained. ‘I’d rather not say.’
‘You said it was a training model so that means no guidance system.’
‘Which is why your guys couldn’t have used it to shoot down the plane at JFK. One thing Kleintank did tell me was that three Brits were looking to buy a Stinger a few weeks ago. A white guy and two Asians. Don’t suppose your guys in New York were Brits?’
Yokely shook his head. ‘Saudis.’
‘Why am I not surprised?’ said Shepherd. ‘You know, considering that most of the guys behind the nine-eleven attacks were Saudis, I never quite understood why George W decided to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to go into Saudi Arabia?’
‘Only one of the pilots was a Saudi,’ said Yokely. ‘There was an Egyptian, a guy from the United Arab Emirates and a Lebanese. But I know what you mean. No one involved was from Iraq or Afghanistan. But that wasn’t the point.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe one day you could explain it to me, but I don’t think this is the time or the place. This job you’re on, it’s revenge, pure and simple, you said.’
‘The analogy I was given is that no one fucks with Jews since what they did after Munich. They hit everyone involved, and by making it personal they made sure that the whole world got the message.’
‘I think that was an Israeli thing rather than a Jewish thing,’ said Shepherd.
‘Semantics,’ said Yokely. ‘But as a strategy there’s no question that it worked.’
‘So you’re flying around the world like some sort of government-backed vigilante killing everyone involved?’
‘I’m subject to total deniability,’ said Yokely, ‘but I’d say that pretty much sums it up.’
‘Sometimes I just don’t understand the world you live in,’ Shepherd said sadly.
‘It’s called the real world,’ said Yokely. ‘They murdered three hundred and twelve people. Men, women and children. Christians, Jews, Muslims and probably atheists too. Blew them out of the sky. A totally random attack, lashing out at innocents to cause death and destruction with no thought as to who they were killing. What I’m doing is the total opposite. I’m taking out specific targets, every one of whom deserves exactly what they get. I can justify what I’m doing, Spider, to myself and to others. Do you think the terrorists can do the same?’
Shepherd didn’t reply. He decided that Yokely’s question was rhetorical but even if it wasn’t, he didn’t have an answer. He had been a soldier for almost ten years, and had killed in the line of duty, but he had always known the nature of the enemy he was up against and, more often than not, that the enemy was trying to kill him. The terrorists killing in the name of Islam chose their targets at random and, more often than not, their victims included women and children. Shepherd had no respect for men who targeted innocents, but that didn’t mean he could condone killing them without trial. There was a world of a difference between despising an enemy and summarily executing them.
‘For whatever reason our worlds have collided on this one and we should be sharing what we know instead of guarding our turf,’ said the American. ‘I’ve been a lot more open with you than I should have been and I think I deserve a
quid pro quo
.’
‘I would have thought a dollar
pro quo
would be more appropriate,’ said Shepherd.
‘Wow, the Brit makes Latin jokes,’ said Yokely. ‘And he tries to change the subject again. Spill the beans, Spider.’
Shepherd stared at Yokely, then nodded slowly. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ve infiltrated a group of armed robbers who need a missile for the job they’ve got planned. The guy who put the job together gave us Kleintank’s name for the ordnance.’
‘And the plan is to point a Grail at the tellers and demand they hand over their takings? Sounds a bit like overkill.’
‘There’s a wall involved,’ said Shepherd. ‘We were in the market for a few RPGs but all Kleintank had was the training Grail. I told Kleintank we weren’t interested so we’re going to have a rethink about where to get the RPGs from. But while I was chatting with Kleintank he let slip about the Brits who wanted a Stinger and I came back here for a chat.’
‘A chat?’ said Yokely. He grinned malevolently. ‘We’re not too different, you and I, are we?’
‘Chalk and cheese,’ said Shepherd. ‘I was just going to talk to him.’
‘About what?’
‘About the Brits he sold the Grail to. They’ve now got a Grail and a Stinger and that can only mean one thing.’
‘You think they’re home-grown fundamentalists who want to bring down a plane? Nasty.’
‘I was going to pass on any info to our anti-terrorism people,’ said Shepherd. ‘But that’s a non-starter after what you’ve done to Kleintank.’
‘Don’t expect me to apologise for doing my job,’ said Yokely. ‘First I knew you were involved was when you came barging in with a bad attitude.’ He sipped some coffee. ‘Okay, here’s the scoop. You might be right that Kleintank didn’t sell the Saudis the Stinger directly, but we’ve traced it to him. His fingerprints are on the smoking gun, metaphorically speaking. He operates in a small world so he sure as hell will know something. I’ll put him through the wringer and share any intel with you.’
‘You could blow my case, Richard. If Kleintank talks to my guys, alarm bells might start ringing.’
‘Give me some credit, Spider. We’ll take him well away from here.’
‘Rendition?’
Yokely grinned. ‘Haven’t you heard? We don’t do that any more. We’ll find a place here, somewhere secluded. You let me know when you’re in the clear. Deal?’
‘Okay.’
‘You’ve got that look again,’ said the American.
‘What look’s that?’
‘The look that says you’re not sure if you can trust me.’
‘That’d be right,’ said Shepherd.
‘We’re on the same side, Spider,’ said Yokely. ‘Our methods might be different, but we’re the good guys in this fight.’
‘I hope so,’ said Shepherd.
‘What do you mean, you hope so?’
‘I just feel that sometimes what we do in the fight against terrorism turns us into the sort of people we shouldn’t be, that maybe the way we react sort of justifies what the terrorists are doing.’
Yokely frowned. ‘I don’t get your drift.’
Shepherd shrugged. ‘Not sure if I can even explain it to myself. But I don’t like the way the world’s changing, especially my country. We regard everyone, no matter who they are, with suspicion.’
‘You’re starting to sound like a regular liberal, Spider. You’re not having second thoughts about your career, are you?’
‘I do what I do because I enjoy it, and because I feel I’m doing something worthwhile. I make a difference, I really do. I put bad guys behind bars where they can’t hurt people. This case I’m working on now, they’re armed robbers. They point loaded guns at people and scare the shit out of them. I’ve put drug-dealers away, I’ve investigated murders and arms dealers, and I’ve stopped terrorists, and I know that the world is a better place because of the work I’ve done. Not much better, maybe, but better nonetheless.’
‘But the times they are a-changing?’
‘I’m part of the system, and I’m not sure that the system is acting in the best interests of its people. Now the system treats us all as if we’re guilty until we prove otherwise. We’ve made even thinking about terrorism a crime now. We’re putting people in prison because they’re visiting the wrong websites or having the wrong files on their computers, and that can’t be right. They say it’s a War Against Terror but it feels to me like we’re becoming the sort of totalitarian society that—’ Shepherd stopped and put up his hands. ‘Don’t get me started on politics.’ He laughed. ‘I’m just a humble civil servant.’
‘Yours not to reason why,’ said Yokely.
‘When I was a soldier, I followed orders, but I was never given an order I disagreed with. If I was told to put my life on the line, I always knew the reason why. And as a cop I knew that I was risking my life to put the bad guys behind bars. But what’s happening now . . .’ He was unable to finish the line of thought.
‘You know you have a standing offer to come and work with me,’ said Yokely.
‘With you, or for you?’
‘In this line of work, Spider, you’re your own boss most of the time.’
‘You were going to kill Kleintank, weren’t you? If I hadn’t been there, you’d have killed him in cold blood.’
‘That’s what I do,’ said Yokely.
‘It’s what you do, but I don’t think I could be as callous about the taking of human life.’
Yokely chuckled. ‘Callous? Is that how I appear to you?’ He lowered his voice. ‘Don’t think for one moment I don’t care about what I do. Don’t think that I don’t have second thoughts. But, like you, I do what I do for the greater good. And I know for a fact that the world is a safer place – and, yes, a better place – because of my actions.’ He sat back and finished his coffee, then put the cup back on its saucer. ‘You’re always a great one for fairness, aren’t you? It’s a word I’ve heard you use a lot over the years. You think life should be fair even though you know it rarely is.’
Shepherd grinned. ‘I can’t argue with that.’
‘Then consider this. What I do is fair, spider. The people I . . . I don’t like to use the K-word,’ he said. ‘It sounds like I’m doing something immoral. I prefer a word like “remove” or “eliminate” because all I’m doing is taking them out of a society they want to destroy. The people I remove are dangerous. They’re the true stone-cold killers. They’re the ones who will kill women and children without a thought, who plan and scheme to cause death and destruction without once considering the grief and pain they cause. Putting them on trial and then behind bars serves no purpose, but removing them does. Removing them makes the world a better place so I’m happy to be part of a system that does just that. Do I worry about what I do? Damn right I do, and that’s what makes me better than them. I don’t enjoy doing what I do, don’t ever think that. I do it because somebody has to, and I’m qualified. And, frankly, Spider, so are you. Well qualified.’
‘I wish I had your confidence,’ said Shepherd.
‘Confidence?’
‘Self-belief. You know what you’re doing is right. There’s not one iota of self-doubt in you.’
‘Is that your problem? You’re doubting yourself?’
Shepherd shook his head. ‘I’m fine about myself,’ he said. ‘It’s the system I work for that I’m having second thoughts about. I’m a small cog in a large machine but it’s a machine that wants to incarcerate its citizens for three months without trial and send them to prison for just thinking about being a terrorist. It’s a machine that wants to take fingerprints and DNA samples from all its citizens on the off-chance that one day in the future they might break the law.’