Stephen Leather - False Friends

‘Squeeze the trigger, don’t pull it,’ said Shepherd. ‘And you’re anticipating the recoil.’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Thompson, looking through the sights.

‘You know it’s going to kick so you pull against it but that just makes it worse. You need to be stable with a firm grip, and squeeze slowly.’

‘Okay, okay, I’ve got it,’ said Thompson and he fired off the rest of the clip. He got another shot into the head of the target, one to the chest and two to the groin. Shepherd realised it would take hours on the range to get the man anywhere near proficient with the weapon.

‘How about letting Sean have a go?’ asked Kettering.

‘No problem,’ said Shepherd. He slotted in a fresh magazine and handed the weapon to Sean.

Sean brought the weapon up smoothly, sighted on the target and in the space of three seconds put six shots into the heart. He nodded appreciatively at Shepherd. ‘Nice,’ he said. He sighted again, took a couple of seconds to steady himself and put another six shots into the head of the target.

‘Fucking show-off,’ said Roger. ‘Sign of a misspent youth, that is.’

‘Do you want a go?’ asked Sean.

‘I can’t shoot for shit,’ said Roger. ‘I’m a lover, not a fighter.’

They all laughed as Sean emptied the magazine into the target.

When he’d finished Shepherd took the weapon from him, pulled out the magazine, checked that the breech was clear and handed it to Sharpe, who put it back in the Range Rover.

‘See, if you were firing Mac-10s you wouldn’t get a single shot in the target from this range,’ Shepherd said to Kettering. ‘And they have a tendency to jam. It’s horses for courses. But, like I said, the customer is always right.’

‘These suppressor things, how much are they?’ asked Kettering.

‘Negotiable,’ said Shepherd. ‘There isn’t much call for them, frankly.’

‘What if we wanted one for each gun?’

‘You want forty suppressors?’ asked Sharpe.

‘If the price is right, yeah,’ said Kettering.

Shepherd rubbed his chin. ‘That might take time,’ he said. ‘There’s not a huge call for them so they’re made to order. Usually a hundred.’

‘A hundred quid?’ said Kettering.

‘There’s no production line and it’s not as if they can be subcontracted out to China or India,’ said Shepherd. ‘But if you order forty we can maybe do the lot for two grand. I’ll have to check.’

‘Two grand is more like it,’ said Kettering. He looked at Sean. ‘What do you think?’

‘It’s specialist kit, no question about that,’ he said. ‘And it does the business. Cuts the noise right down.’

‘If you don’t mind me asking, why do you need suppressors for all of them?’ said Shepherd. He held out his hands and Kettering passed him the weapon.

Kettering shrugged as Shepherd pulled the magazine out and made the gun safe. ‘Just thought they’d be a good idea. Easier to. .’ He shrugged again.

‘We just want them,’ said Thompson. ‘Not a problem, is it?’

Shepherd grinned and put the gun into the crate. ‘Nothing’s a problem so long as you’ve got the readies.’

‘Can you deliver the suppressors when you deliver the guns?’

Shepherd looked across at Sharpe. ‘What do you think?’

Sharpe wrinkled his nose. ‘We might have to kick them up the arse, but yeah, we should be able to manage that.’

Shepherd turned back to Kettering. ‘Seems like we’ve got a deal, right?’

‘We’re getting there,’ said Kettering. He looked around as if he was scared of being overheard, even though they were in the middle of nowhere. ‘What about the other things? The grenades?’

‘Thought you’d never ask,’ said Shepherd. He nodded at Sharpe. ‘Grab the target and shove it in the car, yeah?’

‘What did your last slave die of?’ joked Sharpe, as he headed towards the target.

‘Well, it wasn’t overwork, I can tell you that,’ said Shepherd. He winked at Kettering. ‘You just can’t get the staff these days.’ He took a grenade out of the ammunition box and showed it to Kettering. Kettering reached for it but Shepherd held up a warning hand. ‘No touching, mate,’ he said. ‘It’s not a toy.’

‘I want to see it work,’ said Kettering.

Shepherd laughed. ‘They don’t work,’ he said. ‘You pull the pin, you throw them and they go bang.’

‘Then I want to see this one go bang,’ said Kettering.

‘Why?’

‘Because I want to know that I’m buying the real thing.’

‘Oh, it’s real,’ said Shepherd. ‘You pull the pin and release the lever and you’ve got a maximum of four seconds, which means you really want to be throwing it on a count of three.’

‘So let’s do it,’ said Kettering.

‘First of all, these make one hell of a bang,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’ll be heard for miles. And second of all, it leaves shrapnel all over the place. It’s not like picking up a few shell cases.’

‘What, you think someone might start looking around for evidence?’

‘There’ll be a hole about six feet wide and bits of metal for up to a hundred feet or so. I’m not saying you can’t watch it go bang; what I’m saying is that as soon as it has, we’re going to be wanting to get the hell out of Dodge.’

‘Not a problem,’ said Kettering. ‘I think we’re pretty much done.’

‘Plus, you’ll need to pay me two hundred quid.’

‘Two hundred?’

Shepherd held up the grenade. ‘These don’t grow on trees. You break it, you pay for it. And once you pull the pin it’ll be well and truly broken.’

‘You can add it to the bill, can’t you?’

‘Sure I can. But I really don’t see the point. You can’t check them all, can you?’

‘The one will do,’ said Kettering. He held out his hand.

‘You sure you want to do it?’ said Shepherd. ‘The world looks an awful lot different when you’re holding one of these things with the pin out.’

‘I’m a big boy,’ said Kettering. ‘What do I do?’

‘The first thing you do is get the fuck away from us,’ said Sharpe, returning with the target under his arm. He threw it into the back of the Range Rover.

‘He’s not lying,’ said Shepherd. ‘Head away from us, well away from the cars. See over there where the ground slopes? Do it there. Pull the pin, then throw it as far as you can. Then you’ve got two choices. There isn’t much cover out here so you can either run like fuck or hit the ground.’

‘Which is best?’ asked Kettering.

Shepherd shrugged. ‘Six of one,’ he said.

‘Are you serious?’ asked Kettering. ‘You don’t know the best way?’

‘Truth be told, we don’t get much call for grenades,’ said Shepherd. ‘You’re lucky I had a contact who had this.’

‘But you can get more?’ asked Kettering.

Shepherd exhaled through tight lips. ‘I’ll be honest, it won’t be easy. Grenades aren’t like guns. Guns you can mess around with and nothing bad is going to happen. Even ammunition is inert unless you treat it really badly. But grenades you’ve got to treat with respect. Plus, you’ve got to know that they’ve been looked after. You can’t mistreat them.’

‘Say I wanted a couple of dozen?’

‘Bloody hell, mate, two dozen grenades? What the hell would you want with that many?’

Kettering laughed. ‘Just want to have them around for a rainy day. Sell me twenty-four for four grand.’

Shepherd looked at Sharpe and Sharpe took the cue. ‘I guess we can do that,’ he said. ‘But transport’s the thing. We’ll have to talk to our guys.’

‘Looks like we’ve got a deal,’ said Shepherd. ‘I guess for four grand we can let you have this one for free.’