Fair Game (2 page)

The man chuckled. ‘You think we’re fucking cops? If we were fucking cops we’d be in here with Hecklers and bullet-proof vests and a helicopter overhead.’ He gestured with his gun. ‘Down on your knees. All of you.’

The men did as they were told.

The two men in ski masks went through the pockets of the men and placed their wallets and mobile phones on the ground in front of them.

Leather Coat placed his phone jammer on the ground, and then straightened up.

‘Here’s the thing,’ he said. ‘One of you is a fucking traitor. One of you is a rat. The bloody SAS have got the police station staked out and I’m pretty sure that as we speak the cops are on the way to Willie’s farm to liberate the bomb.’ He grinned. ‘At which point they’re in for a hell of a surprise because we’ve swapped the mobile phone trigger for a timer.’ He looked at his watch, a chunky Casio. ‘So in about twelve minutes they’ll all be blown to pieces.’

‘What’s this about?’ said Maguire. ‘We were on a mission.’

‘Your mission was blown,’ said Leather Coat. ‘And one of you four blew it.’

Maguire shook his head. ‘That’s not possible,’ he said.

Leather Coat pulled a Samsung mobile phone from his back pocket and held it up. ‘We took this from a Special Branch officer in Belfast this morning. He was receiving text messages about a large Anfo bomb being prepared by a Real IRA cell.’

‘But no one knows what we are doing,’ said Maguire. ‘Just the four of us and the Operations Director. The OD is the only member of the Army Council who has details of the operation.’

‘I’m here on the OD’s authority,’ said Leather Coat. ‘He wants the rat dealt with.’

‘I know these men, I’ve known them for years.’

‘Yeah? Well, maybe you don’t know them well enough.’

‘We’re not rats,’ said Ryan. ‘And fuck you for saying we are. I was just about to drive a one-ton bomb into Belfast, so I don’t need anyone telling me that I’m a rat.’

‘We’ll soon find out,’ said Leather Coat. He bent down and switched off the jammer. He waved his gun at his two companions. ‘Switch on their phones,’ he said. ‘Be quick about it.’

The two men checked the mobile phones, then moved to stand behind Leather Coat.

‘Don’t worry, the phones won’t be on long enough for the cops to get a trace,’ said Leather Coat, taking a phone from his pocket. He looked at the screen. ‘Just have to wait until we get a signal.’ He nodded. ‘There we are, four bars. Good old Orange.’ He looked over at the four men. ‘Anyone want to confess, before I call the number that we got from the Special Branch cop?’ The four men said nothing. Leather Coat grinned. ‘Let’s go for it, then,’ he said. He pressed the green button and watched as the pre-programmed number flashed across the screen.

There was a silence lasting several seconds and then the phone in front of O’Leary burst into life. The James Bond theme echoed around the warehouse.

‘There you go,’ said Leather Coat. ‘How easy was that?’

‘O’Leary, you bastard!’ screamed Maguire.

‘He’s working for the cops?’ shouted Ryan. ‘How the hell did that happen?’

Leather Coat walked over to the ringing phone and stamped on it. It shattered into a dozen pieces. Then he walked behind O’Leary and kicked him in the middle of the back. O’Leary fell forward with a grunt and lay face down, gasping for breath. ‘If it was up to me we’d have a long chat with you, you rat bastard, but the OD wants you dead,’ said Leather Coat.

Two shots rang out in quick succession and Leather Coat staggered back as blood spurted from two chest wounds. His gun fell to the ground and he stared at the man who’d shot him, his forehead creased into a surprised frown.

It was the man in the bomber jacket who’d fired the shots. The man standing next to him started to scream as he swung his Glock around but the shooter fired again, two shots that caught him high in the chest, just above the heart. The man fell back, his mouth working soundlessly, and he slammed into the ground.

The shooter slid his gun back into its holster and stood looking down at O’Leary. ‘See what you’ve done?’ he shouted. ‘See what your stupidity has gone and done?’ He walked over to the second man that he’d shot and pulled out a set of keys from his pocket.

O’Leary twisted around, trying to look up at the shooter. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘I’m the man who just saved your life.’

‘Are you a cop?’

‘Are you?’

O’Leary nodded. ‘Special Branch. Long-term penetration. I’ve been undercover for more than two years.’

‘Yeah, and in all that time did no one tell you about sending text messages to your handler?’

‘That’s the way he wanted it.’

‘Then he’s an idiot. You make calls and you use payphones or throwaway mobiles. You don’t send texts because text messages can come back to bite you in the arse.’

‘OK, I get it,’ said O’Leary. ‘Now will you untie me?’

The shooter bent down and picked up Ryan’s mobile phone. ‘Help’s on the way.’

‘You can’t leave me here like this,’ said O’Leary.

‘It’s your bed, you lie in it,’ said the shooter.

‘Who the hell are you?’

The man walked away without answering. He ripped off his ski mask as he left the warehouse and tossed it to the side. He tapped out a number on the mobile he’d taken from Ryan, putting it to his ear as it rang out.

‘Yeah, it’s me. Spider,’ he said. ‘It’s all gone tits up. You need to get a team to this location now. You can track the GPS.’

‘What went wrong?’ asked Charlotte Button, Spider Shepherd’s MI5 handler.

‘Special Branch had an undercover guy on the team. He’s here. They were going to kill him. Why the hell does the right hand not know what the left’s doing?’

‘I’ll find out,’ said Button. ‘Are you OK?’

‘No, I’m not OK,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ve just killed two men. And you’d better tell the cops on the way to the farm that the van’s on a timer, set to go off in about six minutes.’

‘I’m on it,’ said Button. ‘We’ve got your location, we’re on our way.’

‘I won’t be here,’ said Shepherd. He tossed the phone away and jogged over to the van.

There were seven men and a woman sitting at two tables at the back of the café, all Somali by birth but all with British citizenship. The café was in a run-down area of Ealing in West London and it was owned by one of the men, Simeon Khalid, whose hands were clasped together around a tall glass of iced water. He was a short, stocky man with skin the colour and texture of old leather, his fingernails were bitten to the quick, and he looked a good ten years older than his true age of twenty-four. Simeon Khalid was the name that he used on official papers, but even that was not his true name. The British demanded a family name and a first name so that was what he had given them, but in Somalia men and women were not named that way. Somalis did not have surnames. They identified themselves with a given name followed by the father’s given name and the grandfather’s. They effectively had three first names, but the British didn’t understand that so when they insisted on a family name he had given them Khalid, the name of his father. They had accepted that and Simeon Khalid was the name on his driving licence and his tax file, and it was the name on the British passport that he was eventually given. Simeon Khalid had nothing but contempt for the British but he was happy to take advantage of their stupidity.

There were four Somalis sitting at the second table, two teenagers in cheap suits and ill-fitting shirts, and an older couple, worried parents. The woman was holding back tears, occasionally dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. Her husband was a big man but stooped with age, and he sat with his arms folded and stared straight ahead, a battered trilby on the table in front of him. The two teenagers were the accused, and they were the reason that the
gar
had assembled.

A Somali man in his twenties was standing at the door to the café, looking out. ‘He is coming, Wiil Waal,’ he hissed.

Crazy Boy nodded. At the
gar
he was referred to as Simeon Khalid but among his friends and within the Somali community he was Wiil Waal, Crazy Boy. The
gar
was where the Somali community resolved conflicts and where justice was handed out. Two of the men sitting opposite Crazy Boy were in their seventies, elders of the Somali community, men whose wisdom was revered and whose judgement was accepted by all. In between them sat a man in his fifties, bald and overweight and wearing a crumpled linen jacket, his lips blackened from chewing khat leaves. He was the aggrieved party and he wanted justice from the
gar
.

The man who ran the café was in his sixties, and had been one of the first refugees to leave Somalia after the civil war began in 1991. He had worked hard, but a gambling habit meant that he had little to show for a lifetime of toil and he now worked for Crazy Boy. Crazy Boy nodded at him and the man began busying himself at the tea urn. A middle-aged man in a raincoat pushed open the café door. His name was Sadiiq and he nodded at Crazy Boy. Crazy Boy nodded back. Sadiiq had also sought refuge in England at the start of the civil war and had been one of the first Somalis to move into Ealing. He sat on the local council and was often sought out by journalists to comment on news stories involving the Somali community. Sadiiq held the door open so that his companion, an old man in a heavy wool coat, could enter. He was in his seventies with a full head of curly hair that had gone grey many years earlier and his knuckles were swollen with arthritis. ‘
Ma nabad baa?
’ he said as he took the empty seat next to Crazy Boy. The question wasn’t addressed to anyone in particular, it was the standard Somali greeting. ‘Is it peace?’

The men at the table nodded and mumbled, ‘
Waa nabad
.’ It is peace.

Sadiiq pulled up a chair and squeezed in between two of the elders, muttering an apology.

‘I am sorry for my lateness,’ said the old man in Somali. ‘My wife is ill and I had to change her dressing.’ The man’s name was Mohamed Dhamac Taban, and all the men at the table knew that his wife was dying from cancer. No one knew for sure how old Taban was, not even the man himself. His birth had never been registered in Somalia and he had made up a date when he’d arrived in England in 1985.

‘The
gar
is not in session until you are at the table,’ said Crazy Boy. ‘We all hope and believe that God will smile at your wife and help her in your time of need.’

Taban nodded without smiling, accepting the kind words but knowing in his heart that there was nothing that could be done to help his wife.

The waiter appeared with a tray of glasses containing milky black tea flavoured with ginger, cinnamon and green cardamom pods. He carefully placed a glass in front of each of the men and a bowl of sugar cubes on each table.

Crazy Boy waited patiently for Taban to sip his tea. As the oldest member of the Somali community, Taban was the head of the
gar
and was entitled to deference and respect but Crazy Boy knew that the old man wouldn’t live much longer than his ailing wife. Once he had joined his Maker, it would be Crazy Boy who ran the
gar
and who administered justice within the Somali community. Crazy Boy gestured at the teenagers at the adjacent table as Taban put down his glass and smacked his lips. ‘We are here today to pass judgement on two boys who attacked and injured another. That boy, Nadif, is now in hospital. He was stabbed in the stomach and his throat was slashed.’

‘He will live?’ asked Taban.

‘Yes, he will live, but he will be scarred for life,’ said Crazy Boy.

Taban looked at the man sitting between the two elders opposite him. ‘You are Nadif’s father?’

The man nodded.

‘I trust God will care for your child and hasten his recovery,’ said Taban.

‘Thank you.’

‘Your wife is not here?’

‘My wife passed away, five years ago.’

‘I am sorry for your loss, may God watch over her soul,’ said Taban. He looked over at the next table. ‘Those are the boys who hurt him?’ he asked Crazy Boy.

Crazy Boy nodded as he stared at the two teenagers. One of them, the younger, was listening to an MP3 player, his head bobbing back and forth in time to the music. The other was toying with a bottle of sauce. Taban tapped his knuckles on the table to get their attention. ‘Take out the earphones,’ he said, pointing at the teenager with the MP3 player. ‘Show some respect.’ The teenager did as he was told and stared sullenly at the tabletop.

The father of the boys continued to stare straight ahead but the mother smiled at Taban. ‘We are so sorry for what happened,’ she said. ‘My boys are good boys, they have never been in trouble before.’

That was a lie, Crazy Boy knew. The two teenagers were well known in the area as bullies and thieves. But he held his tongue.

‘They have apologised to the boy?’ asked Taban.

‘Not yet,’ said the mother. ‘But they will. They will go to the hospital and tell Nadif that they are sorry for what they did. They will beg his forgiveness.’

Taban sipped his tea.

‘We need to agree on compensation,’ said Nadif’s father. ‘We need to agree an amount. His injuries are bad, he will not be able to work for many months.’

‘Does he have a job?’ asked Taban, placing his glass of tea back on the table.

‘He is a mechanic.’

‘And what does a mechanic earn?’

The father shook his head. ‘I do not know. He gave me money every week but I do not know how much he earned.’

‘Five hundred pounds a week,’ said Crazy Boy. ‘More, perhaps. That’s what a mechanic would earn. More with overtime.’

‘Does four thousand pounds sound reasonable?’ asked Taban.

Nadif’s father looked across at Crazy Boy. ‘That is a pittance,’ he said. ‘My son almost died. They attacked him like dogs. For what? For his wallet and his mobile phone?’

‘Is that true?’ Taban asked the mother of the two boys.

She opened her mouth to speak but her husband held up his hand to silence her. ‘The boy spoke ill of my daughter, their sister,’ the man said. ‘He called her a whore, he said that he had seen her with a white boy.’