Stephen Leather - False Friends

Kettering grinned at Shepherd. ‘Paul’s a big conspiracy theorist.’

‘Bloody right I am,’ said Thompson. ‘You have to be blind not to see the way the world’s going. Look, do you seriously think an old man sitting in a cave could have planned and carried out Nine-Eleven?’

‘It’s not something I’ve thought about,’ said Shepherd.

‘How can you not?’ said Thompson. ‘And how is it that, just as the Americans are pulling out of Iraq, they suddenly find out where he is? I mean, what are the odds?’

‘Minuscule,’ said Sharpe. He flashed Shepherd a smile, clearly enjoying winding Thompson up.

‘And then there’s the whole dumping the body at sea. They go to all that trouble of finding him and then they go and drop him in the ocean first chance they get. That makes no sense at all. Unless it wasn’t him they killed.’

‘What, you don’t think it was him they shot?’

‘Let me ask you this,’ said Thompson. ‘You know about Bin Laden, right? He had health problems. His kidneys. In fact he was in Dubai having treatment not long before the Nine-Eleven attacks. He had to have regular dialysis.’

‘Yeah, I heard that,’ said Sharpe.

‘Now, did you see any of the photographs the Yanks released of the house where Bin Laden was staying in Pakistan? The house that he never left in how many years?’

‘Yeah,’ said Sharpe. ‘They were all over the papers.’

‘What’s your point?’ asked Shepherd, who was rapidly tiring of the discussion.

‘The point, Garry my old mate, is that in none of the pictures is there anything that looks remotely like dialysis equipment. So how does someone with kidney failure survive for years without an oil change? I had an uncle who died of kidney failure a few years back and he had to go in for dialysis three times a week, regular as clockwork.’ He tapped the side of his nose with his finger. ‘Trust me, that wasn’t Bin Laden in that house.’

‘Are you done, mate?’ asked Kettering.

‘Check the internet,’ said Thompson. ‘Google it. It’s all part of the global conspiracy.’

‘Is that why you want the guns?’ asked Shepherd. ‘To fight back?’

‘Enough, Paul,’ said Kettering, and this time there was a hard edge to his voice. ‘Let’s get this done and we can get back in the warm.’

Thompson looked away, avoiding Kettering’s piercing stare. ‘Yeah, okay, it’s getting cold, isn’t it?’ He flicked the safety down.

Shepherd reached over and pushed the barrel down so that it was pointing at the ground. ‘Not until I say so,’ said Shepherd. He flicked the safety back into the on position. ‘Okay, now out here in the open the sound of one of these guns firing will carry for five miles, maybe ten if the wind is blowing the right way. So I’m going to fit suppressors to cut down on the noise.’

He unzipped a black holdall and took out a foot-long bulbous black metal tube and showed it to them. ‘This screws into the barrel and it reduces the noise by about half.’ He screwed the suppressor into the barrel of the gun that Kettering was holding.

‘So it’s a silencer?’ said Kettering.

‘We call them suppressors,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s only in the movies that they call them silencers. No gun can truly be silenced; you’re always going to hear something.’

He took a second suppressor from the holdall and attached it to Thompson’s weapon.

‘And they don’t affect the accuracy?’ asked Kettering.

‘Not so you’d notice,’ said Shepherd. He looked at Sharpe. ‘Do you want to set up the target, yeah?’

‘Okay, just make sure no one gets trigger happy while I’m doing it. How far?’

‘A hundred metres should do it,’ said Shepherd.

Sean was looking at the suppressors and frowning. ‘Where did you get them from?’ he asked.

‘That’s for me to know, mate,’ said Shepherd.

‘That’s pretty specialised kit.’

‘And we’re pretty specialised suppliers,’ said Shepherd.

‘You get them made here? Or overseas?’

‘Sean, mate, that’s need-to-know and you don’t need to know.’

Sharpe paced out a hundred steps and then stood the target up. He looked around, picked up a few large rocks and used them to weigh down the bottom of the target. He waved at Shepherd. ‘Okay!’

‘Why don’t you put an apple on your head and we’ll do that William Tell thing?’ shouted Shepherd.

‘Yeah, and why don’t I bend over and let you kiss my hairy Scottish arse?’ shouted Sharpe as he walked back. ‘And tell then to keep those things pointing at the ground until I’m out of the way.’

‘Jeez, I shoot him in the leg once and trust just goes out of the window,’ said Shepherd.

‘Are you serious?’ asked Thompson.

‘Of course he isn’t,’ said Kettering.

‘He has a point, though,’ said Shepherd. ‘Keep the safeties on, fingers out of the trigger guards and barrels down at the ground. We did have a prick down in London who let rip with a Mac-10 by mistake a few months back. Geordie guy. Could hardly understand a word he said but he looked like he knew about guns so we gave him a bit of leeway. Next thing we know he pulls the trigger on full automatic and twenty rounds go everywhere.’ He nodded at Sharpe. ‘Almost blew his nuts off.’

‘What about the Mac-10?’ asked Kettering as he looked at the AK-47.

‘Pray and spray,’ said Shepherd. ‘Very short barrel so the accuracy is shit. Gang bangers like them because they see them in the movies and because they’re easy to hide. They use them a lot in drive-bys — they shove them through an open window and pull the trigger until the magazine’s empty. But nine times out of ten you won’t hit the target.’ He pointed at the AK-47. ‘That’s a lot more accurate because you can put it to your shoulder and use the sights. If you need something a bit more compact you can get a folding stock. Of course, if you want Mac-10s I can get you Mac-10s. The customer’s always right.’ He looked at Sean. ‘What do you think?’

Sean nodded in agreement. ‘Yeah, wouldn’t touch a Mac-10 with a barge pole. The Yugo’s way better.’

Kettering laughed. ‘That’s good to hear,’ he said. He turned to face the target. ‘So, safety off, right?’

‘You got it,’ said Shepherd.

Kettering flicked the safety off, put the stock against his shoulder and looked through the sights.

‘It’s set for single fire,’ said Shepherd. ‘Don’t want you to blow the target apart the first go.’

Kettering aimed and pulled the trigger. There was a bang, muffled but loud, but the target seemed to be unscathed.

‘You went high,’ said Shepherd. ‘Grip tighter with your left hand.’

Kettering did as he was told and fired again. This time a small hole appeared dead centre of the chest.

‘Nice,’ said Shepherd.

‘Killed him stone dead,’ said Thompson.

‘Not bad,’ agreed Sean, standing with his hands on his hips.

Kettering fired off the rest of the clip and most of them hit the target. The grouping wasn’t impressive but Shepherd knew that the size of the AK-47’s bullet meant that any shot to the chest at that range was pretty much guaranteed to be fatal.

When he’d finished, Shepherd checked that the weapon was safe before allowing Thompson to fire at the target. Thompson was far less proficient with the weapon and his first six shots all went wide.

‘The bloody sights are off,’ said Thompson.

‘Try sighting with your other eye,’ said Shepherd. ‘Generally one eye’s better than the other. And just because you’re right-handed doesn’t mean you’ll aim better with your right eye.’

Thompson changed eyes and his next shot hit the target right between the eyes. Thompson whooped like an excited kid. ‘Now we’re talking,’ he said, and he fired off another half-dozen shots; all but one went high.