Dark Forces (10 page)

They went into a café where Shepherd took a corner table and sat facing the entrance, automatically checking to see if anyone was paying them any attention. Everything looked clear and he assumed that Shuttleworth had been professional enough to make sure he wasn’t being followed. But meeting at airports was never a good idea – everywhere was covered by CCTV and there was a constant stream of faces to be monitored. Shuttleworth collected a couple of coffees. He’d asked if Shepherd wanted anything to eat and Shepherd had declined but he put a couple of sandwiches and a chocolate muffin on his tray before making his way to the cashier. Shepherd saw him pocket the receipt so he guessed he’d be putting the meeting on expenses.

‘Good flight?’ asked Shuttleworth, as he placed the tray on the table and sat down.

‘It was okay,’ said Shepherd. ‘So, tell me your impressions of Yusuf.’

‘Bit shifty, to be honest,’ said Shuttleworth. He held out a sandwich packet but Shepherd shook his head. Shuttleworth peeled it open and smelt the contents before taking one out. ‘Very hard to tie down on specifics. Wouldn’t show me anything on paper. Seemed to be more interested in what we could do for him.’ He took a bite of his sandwich, smearing mayonnaise across his moustache.

‘And he wants what? Passports and safe passage?’

Shuttleworth nodded. ‘For him and his family. And money.’

‘How much?’

‘Millions. I said I couldn’t talk about money. He said to get him someone who could.’

‘What’s his background?’

‘Run-of-the-mill people-trafficker,’ said Shuttleworth. ‘Mainly helping high-worth individuals who have money but no connections. He can fast-track them into Europe without them having to paddle across the Mediterranean in a leaky dinghy.’

‘No al-Qaeda or Islamic State contacts?’

‘Depends on what you mean by contacts,’ said Shuttleworth. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. ‘He goes back and forth to Syria, no question of that. He flies to Damascus and goes into the country by road. He has to come across Islamic State when he does that.’

‘So he pays them off?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Or he works for them.’

‘Equally possible,’ said Shuttleworth.

Shepherd wasn’t happy about the man’s casual demeanour or that he hadn’t much grasp of what was going on. Yusuf’s loyalties could prove to be a matter of life or death and it wasn’t good enough to say ‘perhaps’ or ‘possible’. Shepherd needed facts and Shuttleworth didn’t seem to have many.

‘Could this be a set-up? Could he be giving us false intel to send us on a wild-goose chase?’

‘He’d hardly do that if he wanted us to take care of his family.’

‘You met the family?’

Shuttleworth shook his head. ‘No.’

Shepherd sighed. ‘Then for all we know he doesn’t have one. He could be an Islamic State plant, feeding us false intel to tie up our resources.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘Yeah, well, when anyone offers you a gift horse, you pull its mouth wide open and take a good look inside,’ said Shepherd.

‘You just have to check the intel, surely,’ said Shuttleworth. ‘If it’s kosher he gets what he wants.’

‘Maybe it’s a Six officer he wants,’ said Shepherd. ‘Maybe the plan is to get one of us wearing an orange jumpsuit begging for our life on a YouTube video.’

Shuttleworth’s eyes widened. ‘You think that’s possible?’

‘Anything’s possible,’ said Shepherd. ‘That’s why we need to consider our options.’

‘Right,’ said Shuttleworth. ‘Yes. Absolutely.’

‘So I’m on a supply flight to Suruç?’

‘Close to Suruç. Craig Parker will pick you up at the airport and drive you to meet Yusuf.’

‘What are the security arrangements?’

Shuttleworth frowned. ‘Security?’

‘My security?’

‘You should be fine. This isn’t a war zone.’

‘No, but it’s bloody close to one.’ He grimaced. ‘Willoughby-Brown said I’d be protected. Bodyguards or army.’

‘Craig Parker has a security team. I’m sure he’d make them available to you. But, really, this is Turkey. It’s a relatively safe country.’

‘Istanbul, perhaps. But Suruç is close to the border.’

Shuttleworth shrugged. ‘I felt perfectly safe there.’

Shepherd resisted the urge to snap at the man. He sipped his coffee. ‘So do you and Willoughby-Brown have a history?’

‘A history?’

‘Have you worked together before?’

‘Ah. Yes. Right. No.’

‘No?’

‘No, but we went to the same college at Oxford.’

Shepherd nodded. ‘That’s nice.’

‘It’s a small world, that’s for sure. Where did you get your degree?’

Shepherd smiled thinly. ‘I didn’t.’ He sipped his coffee again. ‘How many fire extinguishers are there, and where are they, Derek?’ he said quietly.

Shuttleworth tilted his head on one side. ‘Excuse me?’

Shepherd repeated the question.

Shuttleworth looked flustered, obviously realising he was being tested.

‘If you have to look, you obviously don’t know,’ said Shepherd.

‘Why’s it important?’

Shepherd finished his coffee. ‘It isn’t,’ he said. He grabbed his camera bag and stood up. ‘Okay, put me on the plane and I’ll get out of your hair.’

Omar Hassan brought his motorcycle to a halt and Faisal climbed off the back. He removed his helmet and blinked several times. ‘Why don’t you buy a car, brother?’ he asked.

Omar kicked the stand into position and dismounted. ‘Because I like bikes,’ he said.

‘They’re dangerous,’ said Faisal.

‘Were you scared? Don’t you trust me?’

‘You I trust,’ said Faisal. ‘It’s all the other idiots on the road who scare me. In Pakistan I rode a bike all the time, a small Honda, but never as fast as yours.’

‘That’s because mine is a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R superbike, 210 horsepower at 13,000 r.p.m. It’s supposed to be fast.’

They were outside a near-derelict factory in east Manchester. A chain-link fence ran around the perimeter and the gate was chained and padlocked. Faisal nodded at a sign warning of guard dogs. ‘I hate dogs,’ he said.

Omar looked around, then checked his watch. The message in the draft folder had said the meeting was at seven thirty and he was five minutes early. Faisal put his hands on his hips and surveyed the building. ‘It’s big enough,’ he said.

‘You can’t tell from the outside,’ said Omar. ‘But it’s not overlooked and it can’t be seen from the main road.’

A blue Honda headed to the gate. The window wound down as Omar walked up. He nodded at the driver, a bearded Asian in his fifties wearing a white skull cap. ‘Good evening, brother,’ he said.

The man smiled, showing a gold tooth at the front of his mouth. ‘Good evening to you, brother. Did you watch the game last night?’

Omar nodded. ‘I did. Chelsea were on form.’

‘Who would have thought it would go to four–one?’ said the man.

Omar stiffened. That wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. Apparently the man saw his confusion. ‘Sorry, brother. My mistake. I meant three–one.’

Omar studied the man’s face. The rules were clear: if the phrases weren’t spoken exactly as they should be, the meeting was off. But it appeared to have been an honest mistake. And the man had corrected himself quickly. ‘Okay, brother, show us around,’ he said.

The man climbed out of the car, unlocked the gate and drove through to the factory. Faisal followed him on foot and Omar got onto the bike, fired it up and rode slowly towards the building. It was brick-built with a flat roof, windowless, with a loading dock to the left and roll-up metal doors to the right. The man parked and climbed out. He was wearing a quilted jacket, baggy jeans and fingerless wool gloves. He had a set of keys and selected one to open a wooden door at the side of the loading bay.

‘What was it used for?’ asked Omar.

‘They made something,’ said the man. ‘Back in the days when this country made things. Some machine. Who cares?’ He opened the door and Omar and Faisal followed him inside. There was a sour, musty smell and piles of rat droppings by the walls. The floor was dusty, the concrete disfigured with countless stains, the walls dotted with cobwebs. ‘It’s been empty for years. The company that owned it went bust but the liquidators went bust too and now it’s in limbo.’

‘It’s for sale, though?’

‘Supposedly, but in reality, no. No one’s looked at it for months. I got them to give me a short-term lease on it for cash. I said I wanted somewhere for storage, short term. They practically bit my hand off.’

Omar looked at Faisal. ‘What do you think?’

Faisal nodded. ‘It’s big enough. And there’s plenty of room for spraying.’

‘The lease is for six months and I’ve done it through a shell company that will end up untraceable,’ said the man. He handed Omar the keys. ‘Okay, brother, I’ll leave you to it.’

‘
Jazak allahu khayran
,’ said Omar. May Allah reward you with all good things.

The man grinned. ‘He already has, brother. He already has.’

Even through the orange plastic earplugs the drone of the four turboprop engines of the Lockheed Martin C1130J Super Hercules was mind-numbing. Shepherd was no stranger to the plane, which had been around in various forms for more than sixty years. He’d flown in it hundreds of times during his time in the SAS and jumped out of one on more than a dozen occasions. Shepherd was sitting on a jumpseat attached to the fuselage, holding a plastic bottle of Evian water, the only refreshment he’d been offered by the predominantly French crew. The main hold was packed with pallets of food, medicine and water, while plastic trunks contained donated clothing and the equipment needed to keep a refugee camp running. No one had asked him for any identification, or said anything other than that he was to fasten his harness and that there were no toilet facilities on the plane.

Shepherd took a sip of the tepid water. Shuttleworth was inexperienced; of that there was no doubt. The question about the fire extinguishers had been a test, and the MI6 officer had failed. It was all about being aware of one’s surroundings. Whenever you went into a new place it was vital to check possible threats and escape routes. Fire extinguishers were important: if there was an explosion or a fire then an extinguisher could be a life-saver, but it could also be used as a weapon or distraction, and could batter down a door or smash a window. Shuttleworth didn’t know where they were, which suggested he hadn’t given the venue the once-over. Post Nine Eleven and Seven Seven, the UK’s security services had gone on a recruiting spree and standards had dropped. Shuttleworth had the confidence bordering on arrogance that suggested a public-school and Oxbridge education, but being successful at intelligence work wasn’t dependent on education. More often than not it required street smarts and cunning.The fact that Shuttleworth had failed the fire-extinguisher test meant that Shepherd had to regard everything else he did as suspect, but more importantly it begged the question as to why Willoughby-Brown had entrusted the assignment to him.

The closest airport to the Suruç refugee camp was Şanlıurfa GAP, some eight hundred miles from Istanbul, which took the Hercules just under two hours. The pilots were good and the landing was as smooth as silk. After five minutes of taxiing and a further ten minutes waiting, the back ramp slowly went down, allowing the hot desert air in. Shepherd took out his Ray-Bans and put them on, then unclipped his harness, and stood up and stretched. A fork lift truck was already at the bottom of the ramp, preparing to drive up and get the first pallet.

The French aid workers were getting on with their assigned tasks and no one paid any attention to Shepherd as he walked carefully into the blinding sunshine. To his left was a line of white trucks and a dozen or so Turkish men in overalls with the name of the aid company on the back. To the right three white SUVs were similarly marked. Half a dozen casually dressed Westerners were standing in a huddle, smoking cigarettes. They were all in sunglasses and baseball caps.

Some distance away armed security guards in cargo pants and waistcoats carried their weapons of choice: Glocks on the hip and American-made M4 carbines held to the chest.

A good-looking guy in khaki cargos and a faded denim shirt stood alone. He had wraparound sunglasses and jet black hair that he kept flicking away from his face. His shoulders and forearms suggested he worked out a lot.

He smiled. ‘John?’

Shepherd nodded.

‘Craig Parker.’ He had a firm handshake and offered to carry Shepherd’s camera bag. Shepherd shook his head and followed him to a black Jeep, parked behind the SUVs. Next to the Jeep a white Toyota Landcruiser contained four young Western men wearing khaki fatigues and wraparound Oakley sunglasses.

‘We’re about fifty kilometres from the camp,’ said Parker, as he climbed into the driving seat. ‘It’ll take us about an hour.’ He started the engine and headed for the airport exit. The Landcruiser followed.

Shepherd gestured at it. ‘Your security?’

Parker nodded. ‘They go everywhere I go. The camp is close to the border so there’s always the worry that IS will launch an attack.’

‘You might think about telling them they should go ahead of your vehicle if they’re serious about protecting you.’

Parker pulled a face. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘Also, they need to get out their vehicle before you exit yours. The airport is probably secure, but it’s good practice. Before you get out they should be securing the area for you.’

‘You’re right. I’ll talk to them.’

‘Your NGO pays for them?’

‘Yeah, there’s a security company that does protection worldwide. They’ve got a good reputation. The guys with me are South Africans.’

Shepherd sat back and folded his arms. They left the airport and drove down a decent highway. There was a line of rocky hills to his left and barren land to his right. The sky was cloudless and Parker had the Jeep’s air-con on full blast.

‘How much are you allowed to tell me?’ asked Parker.

‘Not much.’

‘But you’re not a journalist, obviously.’

Shepherd forced a smile.

‘Journalists aren’t interested in what’s happening here,’ said Parker. ‘All they care about is the ones going to the UK. They ignore the millions of refugees here who are just grateful to be out of the hellhole that Syria has become.’