Soft Target

‘Because you don’t want them to worry?’

Shepherd nodded.

‘But your wife was still worried. Was that why she wanted you to leave the SAS?’

‘It wasn’t so much the danger, more that I was away for long periods. She had a point.’

‘So you agreed to leave?’

‘We talked about it and decided it was for the best.’

‘And you went straight into undercover work?’

‘That’s right.’ It would all be in Shepherd’s file. He’d applied to join the Met, but his potential had been spotted almost immediately. Instead of being sent to the Police Training College at Hendon he’d been interviewed by Superintendent Hargrove and offered a place on his unit.

‘Out of the frying pan into the fire?’

It was a phrase Sue had used. An armed criminal could be every bit as dangerous as an Afghan tribesman or an Iraqi soldier. ‘I got to spend more time at home,’ he said.

‘And what about you? Was the job as challenging?’

Another good question. Kathy Gift had the knack of getting to the heart of the matter. ‘It’s different,’ he said, choosing his words carefully. ‘In the Regiment you’re part of a team. There’s the Regiment,then your troop, then your four-man brick. You always have mates to rely on who’ll pull your balls out of the fire if necessary. Working undercover, most of the time you’re on your own. You might be under surveillance, but they’re always on the outside, looking in.’

‘It must be stressful.’

Of course it was stressful. She was a psychologist who worked with a specialist undercover unit: she knew exactly how much stress there was in the job. What did she expect him to say? Ask for some Valium? ‘You deal with it,’ he said eventually.

‘How?’

‘I run.’

‘Running clears the mind, doesn’t it?’

‘It can.’

‘It must be difficult, being undercover for long periods.’

‘Sure. But that’s the job.’

‘Not everyone can deal with the stress for ever.’

‘I know.’ It wasn’t unusual for undercover agents to turn to alcohol, or even drugs, to relieve the pressure. Shepherd wasn’t averse to a drink, but he never drank to excess.

‘Do you find it getting easier or harder?’

‘The more time I spend undercover, the better I get at it.’

Gift brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. ‘I meant the stress,’ she said. ‘Is it easier to deal with it?’

Shepherd exhaled slowly. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s not something I think about.’

‘But do you sleep okay, for instance?’

‘Like a baby.’

‘Panic attacks, shortness of breath, dizziness?’

‘Never,’ said Shepherd, emphatically.

‘Do you lose your temper easily?’

‘No.’

‘Loss of appetite?’

‘I eat like a horse.’

‘So, you’re fine?’

‘That’s what I’ve been telling you.’

‘No problems?’

‘None.’

‘And the new job?’

‘I’m not supposed to divulge operational details, you know that.’

‘Of course I do. I was just asking how it was going. Is it straightforward? Is it stressful? How are you coping with it? That was all I meant.’

‘It’s as straightforward as undercover assignments ever can be, no more stressful than previous jobs and I’m coping just fine.’

‘Okay,’ she said. She stood up and bent down to pick up the briefcase. Shepherd found himself looking at her legs again. He could believe she was a runner.

‘That’s it, then?’ he asked.

‘For the moment.’ She slipped the clipboard and pen into the briefcase, then snapped the twin locks shut. ‘I’d like to see you again in a few days. I’ll phone.’

‘I’m really busy on this case,’ he said, as she left the room. He hurried after her. ‘I have to work shifts, two till ten this week, and I’m on nights next week.’

‘I’m flexible time-wise,’ she said. ‘I’ll try not to catch you in the shower next time.’

Shepherd got to the front door before her and opened it. She flashed him a smile and walked towards her black Mazda, high heels clicking on the paving-stones. Shepherd closed the door and leaned his forehead against it. He took a deep breath. He’d been on his guard throughout the interview, wanting to appear co-operative but without giving away too much of himself. The psychologist was there to help, but she also had the power to remove him from operational work if she felt he was a danger to himself or others. The interview had gone well, he thought. He had answered most of her questions truthfully. But the one thing he’d been expecting her to talk about she hadn’t mentioned: Sue’s death and how he was dealing with it. Shepherd knew she was too smart to have forgotten to bring it up. That meant she’d deliberately avoided it – for the time being at least. But Shepherd had no doubt that Kathy Gift would be back and that she’d want him to open up about it. It wasn’t something to which he was looking forward.

Rashid Malik was British. He had been born in Britain and he had a British passport. He spoke English with a Birmingham accent and supported Birmingham City Football Club. He even had a season ticket to the St Andrews stadium. The British state had educated him, looked after his health, even paid him when he didn’t feel like working. But now Malik was prepared to die to strike at the heart of the British establishment. And to kill as many people as he could.

He lay down in the bathtub and allowed the warm water to rise over his face. He held his breath and pretended he was already dead. It felt good. He was at peace, relaxed.

Malik had only been in London for two days and he hadn’t left the studio flat. There was food in the cupboard, fruit juice and bottled water in the fridge, a prayer mat and a copy of the Qur’a?n in the corner of the room. That was all he needed while he prepared himself.

Malik had been starting primary school in a lower middle-class suburb of Birmingham when the Palestinians announced their first intifada and began sending suicide bombers against the Israelis who had stolen their land. When he was ten he watched the news as the American and British forces invaded Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm and listened to his father curse the Saudis for allowing the infidels to use their soil as a base from which to attack a Muslim nation. Malik moved to his secondary school during the civil war in Bosnia, and watched television in horror as the Serbs butchered Muslims in their thousands while the world did nothing. He left school when he was seventeen. His teachers said he was clever enough to go to university, but there was nothing he wanted to study. He loathed the thought of working in an office or programming computers. It all seemed so pointless when fellow Muslims were being murdered around the world. He tried raising it with the imam at his local mosque but he had said only that Malik should be grateful to live in a country where everyone had a place and a voice.

Malik had spent three years either filling supermarket shelves or on the dole. He had been at home watching television when two planes slammed into the World Trade Center in New York and a third hit the Pentagon. When it was revealed that Muslims had carried out the attacks, he had cheered, then rushed to his mosque where other young men were equally excited that someone had stood up to the Americans. The older members of the mosque had tried to calm them, tried to tell them that Islam was a peaceful religion, that any form of killing was wrong and