Stephen Leather - Hot Blood

‘What is it about?’ asked Shepherd.

‘They want us all dead,’ said Yokely, flatly. ‘They want us all dead or they want us on our hands and knees praying to Allah five times a day. To them that seems a reasonable request. Hell, they figure they’re saving our souls.’

‘You believe that?’

Yokely took two gulps of his drink. ‘I’m not sure what I believe any more, other than that we’re right and they’re wrong. A world run by Islamic fundamentalists is not a world I’d want any part of. If the roles were reversed and it was the mad mullahs in charge, I’d probably be setting off bombs myself. I’d kill to protect my way of life, no question.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Hell, I already have done. You too.’

The American was watching Shepherd over the top of his glass. Shepherd didn’t react to the barb. Yes, Shepherd had killed, but not to protect an ideology. He’d killed when he was in the SAS, as a soldier on military operations. He’d killed as a policeman, to save others. But that was his job: it was what he was paid to do. It had nothing to do with ideologies. Shepherd had only met Yokely once, but he knew the American regarded the war against terrorism as a holy crusade, which he was prepared to win at any price.

‘So, what do you want from me, Spider? The US government isn’t going to go in to bat for a Brit. Not that it would do any good if they did. Your best bet would be to find him an Irish grandmother.’

‘He isn’t Irish,’ said Shepherd. ‘If anyone’s going to help Geordie, it’ll be us.’

‘Us?’

‘His friends,’ said Shepherd, quietly.

Yokely’s eyes narrowed. ‘A dangerous road to go down.’

‘That’s for us to worry about,’ said Shepherd. ‘We need intel, and we can’t get it here.’

‘But I’m the oracle so you’ve come to me?’

‘We just need information.’

‘What sort of information?’

Shepherd drained his glass. ‘Another?’ he asked.

‘You trying to keep me in suspense?’ said the American. He lifted his glass. ‘Vodka and tonic with all the trimmings. I keep asking for lime but they give me lemon.’

Shepherd went to the bar for fresh drinks. When he returned he sat down and gave Yokely his glass. ‘What do you know about the Holy Martyrs of Islam?’ he asked.

‘As little as you do, I’d guess,’ said Yokely. ‘The names these people use mean nothing.’

‘When the Lake boy was taken, your people must have looked into it.’

‘Johnny Lake was a journalist who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Plus the stories he was filing weren’t going down well in the Oval Office.’

‘So the government didn’t care?’

‘They cared, of course they did. The boy’s father was a heavy hitter, with friends on Capitol Hill, but there’s a limit to the resources they can put into one missing kid. Don’t get me wrong. They looked. And they looked hard. But, so far as I know, no one had ever heard of the Holy Martyrs of Islam.’

‘We need to know where Geordie is and who’s got him. We’re analysing the video, and we’ll be talking to his employer so we can gather basic intel on what’s happening on the ground. But we need higher-level intel. Electronic traffic and satellite imagery.’

‘Sounds like you’re planning a war,’ said the American.

‘We’re just mapping out our options,’ said Shepherd.

‘You find him, then what?’

‘We’ll cross chickens and count bridges when the time comes,’ he said. ‘Can you help?’

‘Sure,’ said Yokely. ‘I’ve got a direct line to the NSA. But why do you need me? You can get the electronic traffic through GCHQ. They’re part of Echelon so they have access to all telecommunications and the Internet.’

‘It’ll take too long to go through official channels,’ said Shepherd. ‘Paperwork in triplicate, and they’d want to know why we’re involved.’

‘But presumably your government’s on the case. They must be looking for your man.’

‘You’d think so, but he’s not military, remember?’

‘What about your old regiment?’

‘They can’t help officially,’ said Shepherd. ‘Unofficially they’ll do what has to be done. But first we need to know where he is.’

‘Any idea what’s being done officially?’

‘Downing Street will probably appeal to the kidnappers, but reject any demands they make. The US military will be looking for him, but again Geordie’s just a contractor, out there for the money.’

‘Guarding a pipeline, they said on CNN.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Wrong place, wrong time.’

‘Yeah. There’s no suggestion that it was personal. At this stage we’re not sure how well planned the kidnapping was but we’re hoping there was phone chatter. What about satellite imagery?’

‘I’ll see what the NSA has. We might get lucky.’

‘And we could do with any intel your contacts have on the Holy Martyrs of Islam. All we’ve got so far is what’s been in the media, which is pretty much zero. Plus we need any info on other militant groups known to be operating in the area where Geordie was taken. According to the TV, he was taken in a place called Dora.’

‘I know it,’ said Yokely. ‘It’s a Sunni stronghold on the southern tip of Baghdad. Dangerous place.’ He sipped his drink. ‘You’ve seen The Godfather? The first one? Was Marlon Brando great in that movie or what?’

‘Yeah. I saw it. And I get it.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I know how the world works, Richard. You do this for me and at some point you’ll be asking me for a favour.’

‘And when that time comes?’

‘I repay my debts. In full.’

A triumphant smile spread across Yokely’s face. ‘It’s always a pleasure dealing with a professional.’

Shepherd raised his glass in salute. He felt as if he’d just done a deal with the devil. He knew that Yokely would call in the marker, sooner rather than later, and that he would have no choice other than to do whatever the American wanted. Shepherd wasn’t happy to be in Yokely’s debt, but the only thing that mattered was rescuing Geordie and the American was the one man who might be able to help.

‘You know, I’ve got a lot of respect for you, Spider,’ said Yokely. ‘I admire the way you handled yourself down the Tube, and on the Eurostar. Both times you did what you had to do.’

Shepherd said nothing.

‘I know we’re not exactly best buddies, but I want to talk to you as a friend.’

‘Go ahead,’ said Shepherd.

Yokely took a gulp of his drink. ‘He’s almost certainly going to die. You know that?’

‘Not necessarily. There have been almost two hundred and fifty foreign hostages taken over the past three years. Eighty-six have been killed. That suggests odds of three to one, survival wise.’

‘Except that your friend is in the hands of militants. The survival rate at that level is virtually non-existent. And you know as well as I do that so far this year only two Westerners have been released. And how many have been butchered? Twenty-five? They’re getting more vicious, not less.’

‘Are you telling me we’re wasting our time?’

‘It’s a mess out there, Spider. I’ll do what I can to help, but Iraq’s not my battlefield, and there isn’t a day goes by when I don’t thank the Lord for it. My war is against the terrorist threat, and that’s hard enough. But in Iraq there’s no way of knowing who’s friend and who’s foe. The enemy doesn’t wear a uniform, doesn’t follow any of the rules of war. When we first moved into Iraq, the CIA reckoned we’d be facing five thousand insurgents. By the summer of 2004 they’d raised that estimate to twenty thousand. By the winter it had grown to a hundred thousand. Now you can pretty much take any number and double it. And we’re not facing a unified enemy. There are Sunni insurgents who want Iraq to go back to the way it was before Saddam was kicked out. There are Baathists from the Return Party, the Fedayeen militia units that kept Saddam in power, Shia guerrillas and, on top of that, all the foreign mercenaries who’ve flooded into the country. Any one of those groups could be behind the Holy Martyrs of Islam. Or it might not be insurgents. It might be a maverick fundamentalist group, Saudis or Algerians, out to cause as much trouble as they can. If they’re fundamentalists, then there’ll be no negotiating with them. They’ll want to kill your friend to cause a backlash that’ll unite Muslims against the West.’