Stephen Leather - False Friends

‘And the test, was it successful?’ asked Malik.

Khalid shrugged. ‘Mostly.’

‘Mostly?’ said Chaudhry. ‘What do you mean, mostly?’

‘One brother didn’t turn up,’ said Khalid.

‘What happened?’

‘We don’t know,’ said Khalid. ‘But we will find out.’

‘Do you think he’s a spy?’ asked Malik, and Chaudhry tensed.

Khalid turned to look at Malik. ‘Why would you ask that, brother?’ he said quietly. He stopped suddenly, catching the two men unawares.

Malik looked over at Chaudhry, a look of panic in his eyes.

‘We were talking about it earlier,’ said Chaudhry. ‘We thought that you didn’t trust us, that you suspected there might be a spy in the organisation.’ Khalid continued to stare balefully at Malik. ‘That’s what the police are doing, isn’t it?’ said Chaudhry. ‘They put spies in the mosques and they pay informers to betray our brothers.’

‘It is not the police,’ said Khalid, still looking at Malik. ‘It is MI5, the security service.’ He started walking again and the wind tugged at his dishdash. Chaudhry and Malik matched his pace. ‘The brother who let us down is not a spy, I am sure of that. But he has shown that he cannot be relied upon so we will have to deal with him.’ He laughed softly. ‘But a spy? No.’

‘So when do we do it for real?’ asked Chaudhry.

‘You are eager,’ said Khalid. ‘That’s good. But we have to wait until the moment is right.’

‘And the backpacks?’ said Malik. ‘Why did we have to have backpacks?’

‘That was to test the logistics,’ said Khalid. ‘Why do the backpacks concern you?’

‘You know why the backpacks worry us,’ said Chaudhry.

‘Brothers, the backpacks were a test of our logistics. To see if we could get a dozen pieces of equipment to a dozen brothers and get them to a specific location at a specific time.’ He smiled. ‘You thought you were carrying explosives, didn’t you?’ he said.

‘We didn’t know what to think,’ said Chaudhry.

Khalid nodded slowly. ‘You thought that there might be explosives in the packs, but still you went. That showed commitment, brothers. And don’t think that commitment wasn’t noticed and appreciated.’

‘You wanted to see if we were prepared to become shahid?’ said Chaudhry.

‘Was there any doubt about that, brother?’

Chaudhry sighed. ‘I had hoped that I had already proved my loyalty,’ he said. He nodded at Malik. ‘Harvey too.’

‘The two of you are too valuable to become shahid,’ Khalid said. ‘A lot of time, trouble and money has gone into training you and it would be a waste to make you martyrs. The operation we are planning will involve guns, not explosives. And provided you follow your instructions you will kill more kaffirs than died in the Twin Towers and you will live to fight another day.’

‘That’s what he said? You’re sure?’ asked Shepherd. ‘He said explosives weren’t going to be used?’

Chaudhry nodded. ‘Word for word, pretty much.’

‘Guns,’ said Malik. ‘He said we’d be using guns.’

They were sitting in a coffee shop in Camden, close to the market. Chaudhry and Malik had spent twenty minutes walking among the market stalls before Shepherd had called Chaudhry and assured him that they weren’t being followed. They sat in a corner away from the windows.

‘No explosives but lots of casualties?’ said Shepherd.

‘More than died in Nine-Eleven,’ said Chaudhry. ‘That’s what he said.’

Shepherd raised his eyebrows. ‘With guns? Did he say what type?’

Malik shook his head. ‘He said there would be lots of casualties and that we would get away.’

Shepherd sipped his coffee. It was important intelligence that he’d have to pass to Button as soon as possible. There had been about a dozen men at St Pancras, but how could a dozen men kill three thousand civilians with guns?

‘How far do we take this, John?’ asked Chaudhry.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We went to the station with backpacks. What if there had been bombs in those packs and they’d been detonated remotely?’

‘That was never going to happen, Raj. Like Khalid said, you’re too valuable to waste on a suicide attack.’

‘We don’t know that for sure,’ said Chaudhry. ‘Suppose they target the Prime Minister? Or the US President? You don’t think they’d worry about sacrificing me or Harvey if they had a target like that?’

‘They’ve never talked about using you for an assassination,’ said Shepherd. ‘And none of your training has been for that.’

‘We were taught sniping in Pakistan,’ said Malik.

‘You’re over-thinking it,’ said Shepherd. ‘Trust me, you’re worrying about nothing. Everything that happened at St Pancras points to a large-scale operation using a dozen or so men. And even a dozen men with suicide bombs wouldn’t kill more than a hundred or so people.’ He shrugged. ‘That sounds blase and I don’t mean it that way, but it’s a matter of effectiveness. The four bombers in London on 7th July 2005 killed fifty-two people and injured seven hundred, and while that’s horrific it’s still not the thousands that Khalid is talking about. Suicide bombs are terrible things but a bomb in a crowded station is effective only within twenty feet or so; there are simply too many bodies around absorbing the shrapnel. You get horrific injuries close to the source of the explosion but beyond fifty feet it’s survivable and at a hundred feet you’d be unlucky to get a scratch. What Khalid is talking about is something much, much bigger.’

‘So what’s the plan, John?’ asked Chaudhry. ‘What do we do?’

‘We wait and see what Khalid does next. I’ll talk to our technical people and we’ll see about increasing our electronic surveillance. Now we know he won’t let you take your phones with you we’ll have to come up with something else.’

‘Tracking devices in our shoes?’ said Malik. ‘Real secret-agent stuff?’

‘Something like that,’ said Shepherd. ‘The stuff they have these days is incredibly small. It’s not like it was in the old days when you used to have a metal box taped to your crotch and a microphone stuck to your chest.’

Malik looked at his watch. ‘Do you mind if I push off, John?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got a five-a-side match later.’

‘Sure,’ said Shepherd. ‘I think we’re done. Good job.’

Malik got up to leave. ‘I’ll stay and finish my coffee, brother,’ said Chaudhry. Malik nodded and left. Chaudhry stirred sugar into his coffee. ‘So how long have you been working with MI5?’

‘Fifteen years, give or take,’ lied Shepherd. He’d already agreed with Button not to reveal his police or SAS background to Chaudhry and Malik. She’d decided that they’d react best to him if they thought he was career MI5 and believed he was fairly senior in the organisation, rather than an SAS trooper turned undercover cop who had been with the Security Service for less than two years.

‘How did you deal with the stress? The constant lying?’

‘I compartmentalise the job,’ said Shepherd. ‘You can’t be on all day every day. So you make sure you have time on your own, or with your family, when you can be yourself.’

‘But I can’t do that, John, can I? I have to lie even when I’m with my parents. My dad, he’d probably be proud of me, but my mum would hit the roof. And even if they were cool with what I was doing I can’t tell them, can I? I can’t tell anyone that I helped kill The Sheik. Or that I’m working against terrorists who are planning to kill thousands of civilians. I have to lie to my family, to my friends, to my fellow students. There are only two people that I can be honest with: you and Harvey.’