apartment?’
‘A few minutes.’
‘Walking?’
Ervin shook his head. ‘We have a car. I said.’
‘No one told me I’d be getting into a car with people I don’t know,’ said Shepherd. ‘Salik didn’t say anything about it. All I had to do was come to Paris so that you could meet me. I’ve done that.’
Artur gripped Shepherd’s left arm above the elbow. Shepherd shook him off. ‘Don’t you touch me!’ he hissed. ‘Don’t you fucking touch me!’
Ervin stepped closer to Shepherd and drew back his leather jacket to reveal the butt of a gun.
‘What? I don’t come with you so you shoot me in front of a hundred witnesses?’ said Shepherd. ‘How stupid are you?’
Ervin put his hand on the butt of the pistol. ‘You think anyone will stop me?’ he said.
‘Probably not, but those guys over there might just come after you.’ Shepherd nodded at four armed men in black overalls and gleaming black boots standing at the entrance to the station. They were Compagnie Republicaine de Securite, the hard men of French law enforcement. They had MAS PA 9mm pistols on their hips and were cradling FAMAS G2 assault rifles. The G2, nicknamed ‘the bugle’ because of its shape, was a fair to middling weapon, but not a patch on the SAS’s MP 5. The French could easily have equipped their own men with the MP 5, but took a chauvinistic pride in building their own, albeit inferior, weapon. But while the weaponry was nothing to write home about, the men of the CRS were as hard as they came.
Ervin took his hand off his gun.
Shepherd knew he had no choice other than to go with the two Albanians. If he refused, the deal would be off. And if they pulled out of the deal, everything he’d done so far would have been a waste of time. There wasn’t enough evidence to put the Uddin brothers behind bars. And it was the Albanians who had forced Rudi Pernaska to carry the cans containing the counterfeit cash. If Shepherd walked away now, the Albanians would remain free. The only way to make them pay was to go with them. Besides, he was Tony Corke, and Tony Corke had nothing to fear from the Albanians. ‘Okay, let’s calm down,’ said Shepherd. ‘There’s no need for artillery.’
‘We were told to take you to our boss.’
‘Yeah, I got that. Okay – but I’m on the afternoon train back to London.’
‘We understand that.’
‘So I’ll be back here in time for the train?’
‘Of course,’ said Ervin. He looked at the armed policemen, but they appeared to be more interested in a group of schoolgirls than a potential shoot-out on the station concourse.
‘Okay. Let’s go.’ Shepherd pointed a finger at Artur. ‘But don’t touch me.’
Artur stared at Shepherd, eyes cold and hard. Shepherd stared back.
‘Come on,’ said Ervin. ‘We are wasting time here.’ He said something in Albanian to Artur, who grunted, then headed for the exit. Shepherd and Ervin followed.
‘No hard feelings,’ said Ervin.
‘Not so far,’ said Shepherd. He glanced around but didn’t see Hargrove or Sharpe, or anyone who looked as if they were paying them any attention. Either the French surveillance was top notch or it wasn’t there. ‘What about Salik? Did you put him through this before you did business with him?’
‘We have known him for a long time,’ said Ervin. ‘We have done business many times.’
‘But with me you’ll be able to do much bigger runs, and make a hell of a lot more money,’ said Shepherd.
‘That is why you are here,’ said Ervin.
They walked out of the station and into the main street where passengers queued for taxis. They went past the taxi rank. Shepherd saw Jimmy Sharpe buying a copy of Le Monde from a newsagent and felt more at ease. At least one friendly face was close by. Sharpe flicked the paper under his arm and ran across the road towards a pavement cafe. There was no sign of Hargrove.
‘This way,’ said Ervin. ‘We have a car.’
Shepherd fell into step next to him. Artur stood aside to let them go by, glaring at Shepherd with undisguised hatred, then followed. Shepherd knew he’d made a mistake in insulting Artur, but the alternative would have been to let the Albanian manhandle him and he hadn’t been prepared to allow that. Tony Corke wasn’t an SAS trooper turned undercover cop, but he was a former merchant seaman with a criminal record for violence and it would have been out of character for him to let Artur push him around.
They hurried across the road and away from the cafe where Sharpe had seated himself at a table, then turned down a side-street where a large Mercedes was waiting, engine running.
As they walked up to the rear of the car, the driver got out. He was a stocky man with a scarred left cheek and, like the other two, was wearing a leather jacket and jeans, but with a blue New York Yankees baseball cap.
Ervin called to him in Albanian. The driver leaned into the car and popped open the boot.
Shepherd stopped. ‘Now what?’ he asked.
Ervin grinned – and Shepherd realised he’d made a big mistake in turning his back on Artur. He heard a swishing sound, then something hard thumped behind his left ear and everything went black.
When Shepherd came to he was lying in the foetal position in pitch darkness. He could hear muffled street sounds and the floor was vibrating. He was still in the boot of the car and his head ached. He reached up with his right hand as a sharp pain lanced his skull. He cursed and groped around with his hands for something he could use to force his way out, but there was nothing. He was lying on thick carpet that smelt of chemicals. As it was a Mercedes, he was pretty sure there was a spare wheel and a tool-kit under the floor, but he didn’t know how he could get at it in the confined space. Mentally he went through the contents of his pockets. His wallet. The mobile phone. His keys. Loose change. His Peter Devereux passport. Hardly an arsenal, and certainly no match for three men with guns.
He cursed himself for his stupidity. He should have agreed to go with them in the first place: then at least he’d have been travelling in comfort, not locked in the boot. The big question, Shepherd knew, was what they would do next. If it had been a set-up from the start he would be dead as soon as they opened the boot. If they had any sense they’d pump half a dozen bullets into him first chance they got, because if they didn’t he’d come out fighting and a man with nothing to lose could do a hell of a lot of damage. Was he in the boot because he’d been argumentative, or had that been the plan from the start? Shepherd squinted at the luminous dial of his Rolex Submariner. He had only been out for a few minutes, which was another good sign because Artur could probably have hit him a lot harder if he’d wanted to. They hadn’t tied him up either. So, all in all, everything was looking rosy.
The car turned sharply to the left, slowed, then took another sharp left turn. It dipped down and the traffic noises died away. They were in an underground car park. Another good sign. If they’d been going to kill him they’d probably have driven out into the countryside.
The Mercedes slowed to a crawl, turned, and the engine died. Shepherd tensed. He was ninety-five per cent sure that this was going to work out all right, but the adrenaline kicked in, his heart pounded and he started to breathe faster.
The boot clicked. Shepherd grunted, kicked it open with his feet and sprang out, hands up, ready to lash out. Ervin was standing a dozen feet away, his gun aimed at Shepherd’s chest. Artur stood off to the side, even further away, clasping a Glock with both hands, one finger tensed on the trigger. Shepherd stood where he was, breathing heavily. Ervin smiled. ‘Relax, Tony,’ he said.
‘ Relax? You fucking poleaxe me and you tell me to relax?’
‘What are you going to do? Kung fu? Karate? Even Bruce Lee couldn’t block a bullet.’
Shepherd glanced over his shoulder. The driver was standing by the open door of the Mercedes, holding a sawn-off shotgun. He looked back at Ervin. ‘Now what?’ he asked.
Ervin gestured with his gun. ‘We’re here,’ he said. ‘The boss is upstairs.’
Shepherd put a hand to his head, and felt his hair wet with blood. ‘So let’s go.’ He wiped his fingers on his jeans.
Ervin nodded, then spoke to the others in Albanian. Artur put away his gun and the driver slid the sawn-off under the front passenger seat. Ervin stuck his weapon into his trouser belt. ‘First, we must search you,’ said
