‘I’ll take her,’ said Mishti. ‘You take care of our guest.’ She grinned at Shepherd. ‘My husband has little in the way of social skills.’
Shepherd grinned back. ‘We know,’ he said, ‘but we make allowances because he’s so good at his job.’
Mishti kissed her husband’s cheek as she headed upstairs. Singh took Shepherd along the hallway to the kitchen. ‘Lager?’ he said, opening the refrigerator.
‘Great,’ said Shepherd. Singh tossed him a can of Foster’s and Shepherd caught it. ‘Amar, I need your help. Big-time.’
‘I guessed it wasn’t a social visit.’
‘I need to pick your brains,’ said Shepherd. ‘Can we go outside?’
‘Walls have ears?’ laughed Singh. ‘I sweep my house every week, just for practice.’
‘Force of habit,’ said Shepherd. ‘Humour me.’
Singh opened the kitchen door and went out into the garden. Shepherd followed him. A crazy-paving path wound across the lawn to a small copse of apple trees in front of a greenhouse packed with tomato plants. ‘I didn’t know you had green fingers,’ said Shepherd.
‘You thought I spend all my time with my head in electronics manuals?’ said Singh.
‘You know your stuff. I just assumed it was a full-time thing.’
Singh popped the ring top of his can and sipped. ‘What about you, Dan? Are you a cop twenty-four hours a day?’
Shepherd shrugged. ‘Pretty much.’ He opened his lager and drank.
‘What do you do for fun?’
‘I run, I suppose.’
Singh chuckled. ‘Running isn’t for fun, it’s for getting away,’ he said. ‘Everyone needs a hobby, something to take your mind off the crap we have to deal with day in, day out. For me it’s my family and the garden.’
‘I didn’t even know you had a family.’
‘I doubt you know three things about me that aren’t work-related,’ said Singh.
‘True,’ said Shepherd. ‘We don’t normally have time for small-talk.’
‘You don’t make time, Dan. You’ve got walls around you, high, thick ones,’ he said. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to get all deep on you.’
‘Nah, you’re right,’ said Shepherd. ‘But don’t take it personally. The unit shrink’s been trying to get up close and personal for years and she’s had no joy. It’s what I do. I’m under cover so often that it’s second nature to keep the real me under wraps.’
‘Maybe.’ Singh didn’t sound convinced.
‘I’m sorry I never asked about your family,’ said Shepherd.
‘It’s not a problem,’ said Singh. ‘We work together, but no one ever said we had to be friends.’
They gazed up at the stars as they drank their lager. ‘Your daughter’s great,’ said Shepherd.
‘Yeah, they’re going to cost me a fortune. Have you any idea how much an Indian wedding sets you back? An arm and a leg doesn’t come close.’
‘Yeah, but at least daughters take care of their parents. Boys are off as soon as they can be.’
‘I still see my parents every week,’ said Singh.
‘Where are they?’ Shepherd had assumed that they were in India.
‘Ealing,’ said Singh.
‘You’re joking,’ said Shepherd. ‘I live in Ealing.’
Singh raised his eyebrows. ‘Small world,’ he said. They clinked cans and drank again. ‘You’ve got a boy, right?’
‘Liam,’ said Shepherd. ‘Just coming up to ten.’
‘Mine are five, three and eighteen months,’ said Amar. ‘Neeta, Gita and Sita.’ He nodded back at the house. ‘My wife’s idea. The names, I mean. Having kids was a joint decision. At least, I think it was.’
‘Cute names,’ said Shepherd.
‘Yeah, well, you don’t have to stand in the park shouting for them,’ said Singh. ‘What do you need, Dan?’
Shepherd wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘A friend of mine has been kidnapped in Iraq. He’s going to be killed in a few days unless we can find out where he is.’
‘We?’
‘Me and a group of his friends. We’ll do whatever we have to to get him back.’
‘What exactly?’
‘We’re not sure yet. Not a hundred per cent. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.’
‘Okay…’ said Singh, hesitantly.
‘How easy would it be to track someone in Iraq using the same sort of gear you put in the guns?’
Singh rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Iraq’s a war zone, near enough,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’
‘Just tell me about the technology,’ said Shepherd.
Singh nodded thoughtfully. ‘The tracking devices we use are battery-powered and good for several days. They can be monitored up to three miles on level ground.’
‘Not GPS, then?’
‘We needed to keep the size down to fit them into the weapons,’ said Singh.
‘How about if you wanted GPS capability?’
‘A bog-standard EPIRB will cost you less than a grand, and it can be tracked by satellites anywhere in the world,’ said Singh.
‘I’m technologically illiterate, Amar,’ said Shepherd. ‘Spell it out, will you?’
‘EPIRB. Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. They normally operate on two frequencies. A five-watt radio transmitter operating at four hundred and six megahertz and a less powerful quarter of a watt operating at a hundred and twenty-one point five megahertz. The gizmo broadcasts its unique serial number so not only can the unit be located you know who it belongs to.’
‘Located how?’ asked Shepherd.
Singh gestured at the sky with his can. ‘Satellites,’ he said. ‘The EPIRB has its own GPS, which ascertains its latitude and longitude and transmits that information along with its serial number. The rescue agencies know its position to within a hundred metres or so.’
‘And the satellites are, what, government-owned?’
‘Private,’ said Singh. ‘They’re operated under the Cospas-Sarsat programme, developed by Canada, France, the United States and the former Soviet Union republics. Their satellites orbit the earth about every hundred minutes, so in the worst possible scenario it’d take an hour to pick up an emergency signal. What are you planning, Dan?’
‘I’m just gathering intel at the moment,’ said Shepherd.
‘The Western end is the Sarsat bit. Search and Rescue Satellite-aided Tracking. The Cospas bit is the Russian side. Dunno what it stands for. Basically the satellites receive the signals and relay them to ground stations where the signal is processed to work out where the beacon is. The ground stations pass the information on to the local search-and-rescue authorities.’
‘And that would work anywhere in the world?’
Singh wrinkled his nose. ‘The satellites cover the world, for sure, and the nearest ground station would be able to locate the beacon to within a hundred metres or so. But it depends where the beacon is as to what happens next. If it’s in the English Channel they can send out a lifeboat or a helicopter. If someone’s lost in the Scottish Highlands they can call out the local mountain-rescue team. But if the beacon’s in a jungle in the Congo, who the hell do they call? And Iraq’s a war zone.’
‘What about this other frequency you mentioned?’
‘Yeah, the EPIRBs also put out a signal on a hundred and twenty-one point five megahertz, the aviation distress frequency. Planes all over the world monitor it and can take a bearing. You’ve heard of the Breitling Emergency watch?’
Shepherd shook his head.
‘It’s a watch with a hundred and twenty-one point five megahertz transmitter inside. You activate it by pulling out a wire aerial and every plane within a hundred nautical miles or so picks up the distress call. They radio in to
