‘Nahda, to the east of the zone,’ shouted the lieutenant. ‘Insurgents blew up a car and a patrol has them pinned down.’
The engine roared and the Bradley shook, like an amusement-park ride. Brown said a silent prayer of thanks that he hadn’t chased the dragon. The adrenaline was coursing through his system and he had to stop himself yelling. His hands were shaking – from excitement, not fear. With any luck he’d get a chance to fire his weapon at a living, breathing target.
He looked at the other men in the Bradley. They were tense but he could see they were excited, too, at the prospect of combat. Most of the time the infantry were waiting for the next IED or a sniper’s bullet, but now they were cavalry riding to the rescue, armed to the teeth with all the firepower they needed.
They drove hard for a good fifteen minutes, then the Bradley screeched to a halt. ‘Okay, rock and roll!’ shouted the lieutenant, as the doors opened.
The men fanned out behind the vehicle. About fifty feet in front of the Bradley a burnt-out car lay on its side. The body of the driver was half out of the window, the flesh blackened and still steaming. Brown heard a burst of gunfire to his left and ducked instinctively. There was more gunfire to his right and bullets screeched off the Bradley’s armour.
The three Humvees had pulled up behind and the gunners were aiming their roof-mounted machine-guns to the right. Brown peered around the Bradley. To his left four marines were crouching behind a Humvee, firing at a pick-up truck that had slammed into a telegraph pole. Brown’s eyes stung from the cordite in the air.
There were three men behind the pick-up truck, and another lying down in its flatbed, all holding Kalashnikovs, their faces hidden behind red and white chequered scarves. The one in the back of the truck fired and more bullets ricocheted off the Bradley’s armoured steel. Brown shouldered his M4 and fired a quick burst at the man at the front of the truck. The top of his head blew off in a shower of red and Brown grinned, his heart pounding. ‘Did you see that?’ he shouted. ‘Did you fucking see that?’ He turned to the soldier next to him. ‘Blew his fucking head off!’
The last thing Samuel Brown ever saw was the contempt on his colleague’s face. The bullet ripped through his throat at eight hundred metres a second and virtually severed his spinal cord. He was dead before he hit the ground, the M4 still in his hands.
‘ Allahu Akbar,’ whispered the Sniper, as he chambered a second round.
‘ Allahu Akbar,’ echoed the Spotter. The dead soldier in the street below was his two-hundred-and-fortieth kill. The attack on the vehicle had been fortuitous. The Sniper had been waiting for an American foot patrol, and he had watched from his vantage-point on top of the building as the insurgents had placed the IED at the side of the road and hidden it under a pile of garbage. Their target was a civilian, probably a government official, and the Sniper had watched dispassionately as the car, a Mercedes, had been blown on to its side and the occupants burned to death. He had watched without emotion as the Humvee had turned up and the marines had shot out the tyres of the pick-up truck that the insurgents were using, and he had waited as the gun battle raged below. More soldiers would arrive, he knew. The insurgents were pinned down and had nowhere to go. The Americans would call for reinforcements, and the insurgents would fight to the death.
One of the soldiers knelt beside the dead man, checking for a pulse. He was wasting his time, the Sniper knew. It had been the perfect killing shot. The Americans were constantly improving their body armour and their new helmets would stop a rifle round, but there were always gaps. The face was the perfect target. And the back of the head. There was a gap at the bottom of the body armour, and at the sides. The more difficult the Americans made it, the more the Sniper enjoyed the challenge.
The officer hurried to the dead man. The Americans had no way of knowing where the shot had come from. They would assume it had been the insurgents. It was the best sort of killing zone, one where confusion reigned, and the gunfire down below had covered the sound of his shots. He sighted on the officer’s neck and tightened his finger on the trigger. ‘ Allahu Akbar,’ he said.
The Emirates flight landed at Heathrow Terminal Three just after midday. The queue through Immigration snaked back almost a quarter of a mile. Shepherd could have short-circuited it by identifying himself as a police officer but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. He joined the line and forced himself to be patient. It was a full ten minutes before he got to the immigration hall. Shepherd smiled to himself as he realised that Sharpe would have had a field day if he had been there. Terminal Three dealt with flights from Asia and Africa, and few of the passengers ahead of him in the EU line could be classed as IC1s. Clearly a plane had recently arrived from India: he could see a group of two dozen overweight women in saris and headscarves, all clutching British passports. Four Arab businessmen, who had been in the first-class section on his plane, were ahead of him and appeared to have French passports. Several Nigerians with bulging hand luggage and ill-fitting suits had British ones and a Pakistani in a long coat was juggling three. Eventually he chose an Irish one and put the other two back into his pocket.
Shepherd looked to the front of the queue. Three men and a woman were processing the EU queue, barely glancing at the passports handed to them. It had never made sense to Shepherd the ease with which the British allowed people to move in and out of the country. As an island, its borders could easily have been policed. But the checks were cursory and the immigration officials were more interested in the passports than they were in those carrying them. More often than not an official didn’t speak to the person, just checked the passport and handed it back. It was only after the bombs on the London Tube system that the authorities had begun to check who was leaving the country. The government had long since admitted that it had lost control of its borders and that it had no idea how many immigrants, legal or illegal, were in the country. And, as far as Shepherd could see, it was in no hurry to remedy the situation. At the very least, he thought, the British should be following the example of the Americans, photographing and fingerprinting every foreigner who entered the country, but there was no sign of that happening.
The queue moved quickly, almost at walking pace, and soon Shepherd was in a black cab heading to Ealing.
When he went into his house Liam was engrossed in his Sony PlayStation. The game seemed to involve mowing down pedestrians with a high-powered sports car. ‘Hi, Dad, where’ve you been?’ he asked, eyes fixed on the screen.
‘Working,’ said Shepherd. ‘I need a shower. Where’s Katra?’
‘Getting some herbs from the garden. Hey, she said I had to go and stay with Gran and Grandad.’
‘We might not be able to get the new house in Hereford so Gran said you can stay with them until I get everything sorted,’ said Shepherd. ‘That way you can still go to the school.’
‘You’ll be there, too?’
Shepherd pulled a face. ‘I’ll have to stay here until we’ve sold it,’ he said.
‘With Katra?’ Liam grinned mischievously.
‘What are you grinning at?’ asked Shepherd.
‘Nothing,’ said Liam.
‘Tell me.’
‘Nothing,’ repeated Liam.
‘She has to stay here to take care of the house,’ said Shepherd. ‘Once we have the new house in Hereford she can move there.’
‘You like her, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do. But not in the way you mean.’
‘What way is that?’ said Katra, behind him.
Shepherd jumped. Katra was standing behind him in a baggy pullover and pale blue jeans that had worn through at the knees. She was holding a basket of the herbs she’d picked. ‘Liam was teasing me,’ said Shepherd, ‘for which he’ll pay next time he comes to me for pocket money.’
‘Are you in for dinner?’ she asked. ‘I’m making cevapcici.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Shepherd.
Liam sighed theatrically. ‘Slovenian meatballs, shaped like sausages,’ he said. ‘Don’t you know anything?’
‘I know that your pocket money’s just been halved,’ said Shepherd, ruffling Liam’s hair. He smiled at Katra. ‘I’ll have to pass on the cevapcici,’ he said. ‘I’m just dropping in to pick up some clothes and then I’m heading off, probably for a few days this time.’
‘Anywhere interesting?’ she asked.
