‘As tough as British thrillers get . . . gripping’
‘Unputdownable’
‘Stephen Leather should be nestling in your bookshelves alongside Frederick Forsyth and Jack Higgins’
‘Stephen Leather’s novel manages to put a contemporary spin on a timeless tale of revenge and retribution . . . Leather’s experience as a journalist brings a sturdy, gritty element to a tale of horror . . . which makes
‘As high-tech and as world-class as the thriller genre gets’
‘A whirlwind of action, suspense and vivid excitement’
‘A gripping story sped along by admirable, uncluttered prose’
‘Exciting stuff with plenty of heart-palpitating action gingered up by mystery and intrigue . . . Leather is an intelligent thriller writer’
‘Excitement is guaranteed’
Pay Off
The Fireman
Hungry Ghost
The Chinaman
The Vets
The Long Shot
The Birthday Girl
The Double Tap
The Solitary Man
The Tunnel Rats
The Bombmaker
The Stretch
Tango One
The Eyewitness
Hard Landing
Cold Kill
Hot Blood
Dead Men
Live Fire
Rough Justice
Fair Game (July 2011)
Nightfall
Midnight
To find out about these and future titles, visit www.stephenleather.com.
Stephen Leather was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as
SOFT TARGET
Stephen Leather
For Charlotte
I am indebted to Terry O’Connor for his help and advice on the workings of the Metropolitan Police’s SO19 Firearms Unit. Mick Joyce, Peter Mardle and Alistair Cumming of the British Transport Police were generous with their time and expertise while explaining how the London Underground would deal with a terrorist incident. Any errors of fact are mine and not theirs.
Denis O’Donoghue, Barbara Schmeling and Matt Richards helped me get the manuscript into shape, and I was fortunate once again to have the benefits of Hazel Orme’s editing skills.
Producing a novel can be a long, arduous process, and having an editor of the calibre of Carolyn Mays makes the journey a more pleasant one. I’ll always be grateful for her input and support.
The heroin had come a long way. It had started its journey as opium in Afghanistan, carried on the backs of donkeys to Jalalabad where it sold for a hundred US dollars a kilo. Sealed in polythene and wrapped in burlap sacking, it was carried over the border into Pakistan, under the eye of former Taliban fighters, and from there to Uzbekistan, where Chinese technicians converted it into heroin.
Bribes were paid to Customs officers, and it was dispatched by rail in a consignment of flour to Poland. There, it was transferred to hidden compartments in a containerload of tinned plums and driven to Germany. Customs officials in the European Union were harder to bribe than those in the former Soviet Union, but the truck crossed without hindrance. A German truck driver took the container to France, where a Turk drove it on to a cross-Channel ferry. He had a British passport and was a regular on the ferry. Customs at Dover didn’t give him a second glance.
Three hours later the heroin was being driven on the M2 towards London and had increased in wholesale value to ?30,000 a kilo. There were two hundred kilos in the container, six million pounds’ worth. Once it had been cut, the street value would be around fifteen million.
Twice when the truck drove under footbridges across the motorway it was monitored by spotters, men with mobile phones who checked that it wasn’t being followed. Both were satisfied that it was not and phoned ahead to say that everything was as it should be.
As the Turk drove into Central London he was shadowed by two high-powered motorcycles. Once they were certain that the truck still wasn’t being followed he was told where to make his delivery. He went to a warehouse in North London where the plums were unloaded, to be sold on to a legitimate supermarket chain. Four Turkish
