Last Chance

Book 22: The Spider Shepherd Thrillers

by Stephen Leather

Genres: Spy Thrillers; High-tech & Sci-fi Thrillers; Terrorism & Assassination Thrillers

Synopsis

Professional killers are carrying out hits for the Iranian government across the European continent, hitting targets amongst the wealthiest and most privileged.

After a slew of killings in London, the UK government hits code red.

In a feat of desperation, they send for the one man who might be able to prevent further bloodshed... Dan 'Spider' Shepherd

Release date: July 31, 2025

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 320

Sample

As graves go, it wasn’t much of one. Two feet wide and a little over six feet long, it was barely big enough to contain the body. It wasn’t deep, either, four feet at most, just deep enough so that the body wouldn’t be disturbed by one of the hundreds of foxes that roamed the New Forest. The soil from the grave was in a neat pile beside it with a spade stuck in to it.

There were three men standing at the side of the grave, looking down at the body.

‘Looks like he’s sleeping,’ said one of the men. His name was Paul Dutch, a professional killer with more than a dozen contracts to his credit. He was a Geordie, though his accent had been smoothed over by a quarter of a century living in London. In the trade he was known as The Dutchman, though none of his clients ever dealt with him directly. Before he became a professional killer, he had made his living from robbing banks and post offices, and had the quiet authority that came from years of waving a sawn-off shotgun in people’s faces. He was in his late forties and his hair was greying, but he was heavyset and well-muscled from daily workouts in the gym and an hour a day in his own pool.

‘Looks dead enough to me,’ said the man standing on Dutch’s left. Jimmy ‘Razor’ Sharpe had a strong Glaswegian accent though, like Dutch, he had spent decades away from the city of his birth. He was an inch or two shorter than Dutch but weighed about the same, though the weight he carried was mainly fat, and most of it was distributed around his gut. His black hair was swept back tied into a small ponytail and he had his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his overcoat.

‘Jimmy’s right,’ said the third man. ‘You can see the three bullet holes clear enough.’ His brown hair was greying at the temples but other than that he looked a good ten years younger than his true age, with a runner’s build and an alertness to his eyes that suggested he was used to nipping problems in the bud. He was wearing a black leather jacket over a grey polo neck sweater and was holding a smartphone, busy taking a couple of pictures. ‘Everyone keep schtum while I take a video. We wouldn’t want a confession caught on tape, would we?’ He was using the name Darren Griffiths, but that was an alias. His real name was Dan Shepherd, and his friends called him Spider.

‘I’m ready for my close up, Mr DeMille,’ said Sharpe.

Shepherd pressed the button to stop recording. ‘For fuck’s sake, Jimmy, what part of “keep schtum” didn’t you understand?’

Sharpe mimed a silent apology and Shepherd took another video, just three seconds showing the grave, the body, and the pile of earth. He stopped recording and nodded at Dutch. ‘Are we good?’

Dutch took a long look around before nodding. ‘Yeah, we’re good to go.’

Shepherd put the phone into his jacket pocket and leaned over the grave. ‘All right, Ricky, you can get out now.’

The man lying in the grave opened his eyes. ‘About fucking time,’ he said. ‘It’s fucking freezing down here and something has crawled into my ear.’

Ricky Lewis got unsteadily to his feet and Sharpe helped him out of the grave.

‘This is fucking ridiculous,’ said Lewis, using his hands to brush soil off his trousers.

‘Ridiculous or not, it’s keeping you alive, Ricky,’ said Shepherd.

‘My suit’s ruined. Are you gonna pay for a new one?’

‘Me personally, no. But I suppose the NCA might run to picking up the dry-cleaning bill.’ He looked over at Jimmy Sharpe. Sharpe had been with the National Crime Agency for more than ten years, and prior to that had worked for the Serious Organised Crime Agency’s undercover unit.

Sharpe grinned. ‘About as much chance as hell freezing over,’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s get you back to the safe house.’

‘Yeah, about that. The safe house sucks. Can’t I just check into a decent hotel? I’ll pay.’

‘You need to be in a safe house, Ricky,’ said Sharpe. ‘The clue is in the name: safe. We can protect you in a safe house. Any man and his dog can walk into a hotel.’

‘There’s bed bugs in the bed.’

‘Well sleep on the bloody sofa then,’ said Sharpe. ‘Ricky, mate, if it wasn’t for us, you’d be lying in that grave for real.’

Ricky wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘And yet you still won’t tell me who took the contract out on me.’

‘We don’t know who it was,’ said Sharpe.

‘I’ve got a lot of enemies,’ said Ricky.

‘Yeah, well in your line of business, that’s to be expected,’ replied Sharpe.

Ricky Lewis was a major player in the UK cocaine trade, shipping it in from Colombia and dispersing it to several criminal gangs across the south of England. There were always disputes about supplies, pricing and competition, and someone had felt aggrieved enough to put out a hundred grand contract on his life. The contract had been taken up by The Dutchman, who hadn’t realised that the NCA had bugged his phones, car and house. The NCA had pulled him in immediately and given him a choice: cooperate or face a lengthy prison sentence. Dutch had agreed, albeit reluctantly.

Sharpe put a hand on Ricky’s shoulder. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

‘I want a steak.’

‘Through the heart?’

‘Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a very funny Scotch prick?’

‘All the time,’ said Sharpe. He ushered Lewis away from the grave. He had parked his Jaguar a hundred yards away on a track that led through the trees.

‘There goes a hundred grand,’ muttered Dutch. ‘What a waste.’

‘You’d rather spend the rest of your life behind bars?’ asked Shepherd. Shepherd was an officer with MI5, the United Kingdom’s domestic counter-intelligence and security agency. MI5 and the NCA were running a joint operation to find out who was handing out assassination contracts across the UK. The Dutchman was their way in.

‘I’m not sure that a lifetime in witness protection is going to be any better,’ said Dutch.

‘I’ve been in prison, and I can tell you that it’s no fun,’ said Shepherd. ‘You’re better off on the out.’ Shepherd pulled the spade out of the pile of soil and handed it to Dutch. Dutch held up his hands.

‘Fuck the fuck off.’

‘We can’t leave it like this. If somebody finds out and the papers print it then The Office will know that Ricky isn’t dead.’

‘I dug the bloody hole, didn’t I?’

‘You did. And now you need to fill it in.’

Dutch took the spade from Shepherd and hefted it in both hands as if trying to decide whether to bring it crashing down on Shepherd’s head.

‘You wouldn’t get far,’ said Shepherd.

Dutch chuckled. ‘I’d get further than you.’

Shepherd stood with his arms at his sides. If Dutch did decide to have a go, Shepherd was reasonably sure he’d be able to take the spade off him. But the last thing he wanted was to fight the man. He wanted – and needed – his cooperation. He grinned. ‘Just fill in the hole and I’ll take you for a pint,’ he said. ‘On me.’

Dutch stared at Shepherd for a couple of seconds, then he shrugged and began shovelling soil into the grave.



The safe house was on the outskirts of Reading, a nondescript new build detached home that was one of almost fifty identical boxes. Ricky Lewis had no connection with the town, and neither did Jimmy Sharpe, so it was the perfect place to stay below the radar. Lewis hadn’t been impressed with the lodgings, claiming that it was a tenth the size of his house in Beckenham, south London. He had taken the main bedroom, which had an en-suite shower room, while Sharpe slept on the sofa in the living room. There were two other perfectly acceptable – albeit small – bedrooms upstairs, but Sharpe knew that if they did ever get visitors, it would be unlikely they’d be coming in through an upstairs window.

‘Fancy a fry-up?’ asked Sharpe, placing a mug of coffee in front of Lewis. Lewis was sitting at a small circular table overlooking a garden the size of a badminton court. Beyond it was a six-foot-high wooden fence, and beyond the fence was another house, a mirror image of the one they were in.

‘Yeah, I guess.’ He sighed. ‘Jimmy, mate, seriously, this is going to do my head in.’

‘I hear your pain, Ricky. But if anyone finds out you’re alive and kicking, the shit will well and truly hit the fan.’

‘All you’ve got to do is tell me who placed the hit on me and I’ll take care of it.’

‘We need to take out the organisation that’s carrying out the hits, not the person who’s got a hard-on for you,’ said Sharpe. ‘Once we’ve shut down the organisation, we’ll arrest anyone who’s used them and you’ll be home free.’

‘I’ll kill him, whoever it is. And it won’t be quick.’

‘Yeah, you don’t want to be telling me that, Ricky.’ He opened the fridge and took out eggs, bacon, sausages and black pudding slices.

‘What, you’d grass me up?’

‘My job here is to keep you safe, not help you take out your competition.’ He closed the fridge door and took the food over to the counter by the cooker.

‘So, it is one of my competitors? I fucking knew it.’

‘I’m not saying that, Ricky. I don’t know who placed the contract, hand on heart, that’s the truth. What I do know is that so long as everyone thinks you’re dead, you’re safe.’

‘Except no one knows I’m dead, do they? My kids will think I’ve just fucked off, my crew won’t have a clue where I am. The only people who’ll think I’m dead are the ones you sent the video to.’

Sharpe set two of the burners going and pulled two frying pans out of a cupboard. ‘Fair point.’

‘I mean my ex-wife would probably be happy enough if I was dead, but my kids will be devastated. Can’t I even get word to them?’

‘Sorry, Ricky, no.’

‘And this is costing me money, too. A lot of money. I’ve got a consignment coming in from Colombia next week, and if I’m not there to arrange the money transfer and the handover it could all turn to shit. Can’t I at least use a phone? A burner will do.’

Sharpe sighed. ‘Ricky, if you don’t stop complaining I’ll put a bullet in your head myself.’ Sharpe had a Glock 19 in an underarm holster, though he had no intention of using it on the man he was protecting. He dropped bacon into one of the frying pans, the sausages and black pudding into the other.

Lewis laughed. ‘You’ve never killed anyone, Jimmy, don’t kid a kidder.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘It’s in the eyes, Jimmy, it’s in the eyes. You’re a tough guy all right, I’ll give you that, but you’ve never taken a life.’

‘What about you, Ricky?’

‘You asking if I’ve killed a man? I’d hardly be likely to tell you if I had. But no. I haven’t. I’ve shot a few guys over the years but only in the leg or the arse to teach them a lesson. Taking a life is a big thing, Jimmy. The biggest. It’s not something you just do and forget about. It changes you.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘Those guys this morning, that Darren and the other one, now they’re killers.’

‘I suppose the grave was a clue, was it?’

Lewis shook his head. ‘Like I said, it’s in the eyes. They’ve both taken lives. It’s not that they’re trying to be hard the way that the guys on the doors pretend to be tough, all cold stares and gritted teeth. Those guys were smiling and cracking the odd joke, but when you look them in the eyes there’s something there.’ He grimaced. ‘Nah, I take that back. It’s not that there’s something there, there’s something missing. A lack of something. A coldness.’

Sharpe looked over his shoulder and grinned. ‘I didn’t realise you were such a philosopher.’

‘In my line of work, you have to be able to read people,’ said Lewis. ‘You have to know who you can trust, who’ll rip you off first chance they get, who’ll have your back when the shit hits the fan. If you can’t read people, you might as well pack it in and go and stack shelves in Tesco.’

‘And what do you get when you read me?’ Sharpe turned back to the stove and began turning the sausages.

‘You’re NCA, but even if you hadn’t told me that I’d have pegged you as a copper right away. You’re straight as an arrow, I don’t see you ever bending the rules or taking a bribe. I know I’d have a problem if you were on my case because I’d know I couldn’t pay you off.’

‘You paying off a lot of cops?’

Lewis laughed. ‘Jimmy, you don’t know the half of it.’



Shepherd put a pint of lager on the table in front of Paul Dutch. ‘They only had Foster’s,’ he said. They were in a pub ten miles away from the gravesite. They had ended up taking it in turns to fill the hole and the spade was in the back of the Range Rover that Shepherd was using. It had been thirsty work.

‘I’m not prejudiced,’ said Dutch, taking the glass from him.

Shepherd sat down at a right angle to Dutch so that they both had their backs to the wall with a view of the bar and the entrance. Shepherd was drinking Jameson with ice and soda, heavy on the soda. ‘What normally happens now, after the video’s been sent?’ he asked.

‘The rest of the money gets transferred into my Caymans account,’ said Dutch. He frowned. ‘I get to keep the cash, right?’

‘No one’s told me otherwise,’ said Shepherd. ‘Treat it as a perk of the job.’

Dutch sipped his lager. ‘I’m still not sure I can trust you, Darren.’

‘How can you say that? You’ve seen what we have on tape, more than enough to put you away here and now. We might not know all your bank accounts but we know most of them, and with the Proceeds of Crime legislation we could have scooped up any assets you have. This way, you get to keep your ill-gotten gains and you keep your freedom. That sounds like a good deal to me.’

‘Yes, but what about when this is over, when you’ve pulled The Office apart. How do I know you won’t renege on our deal? It’s not as if we’ve got anything in writing, is it?’

‘My bosses aren’t interested in you, Paul. But then, we haven’t looked that closely at you, have we?’ He smiled at the look of disgust that flashed across Dutch’s face. ‘And we won’t, not if you carry on helping us.’

‘Helping who, exactly?’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Shepherd.

‘Well Jimmy is NCA, I know that much. But you, you’re not a cop. And you said you’d been in prison.’

‘I was a warder.’

Dutch chuckled. ‘Like fuck you were. And you told me to tell The Office that you’d done a three-stretch for GBH. Was that true?’

Shepherd grimaced. ‘Not really.’

Dutch shook his head. ‘Look, it doesn’t matter who you are or who you work for, just as long as you keep your word.’

‘I will. I’d be a fool not to.’

Dutch took another long pull from his lager. ‘Why are you so hot for The Office? Most of the contracts they issue are for villains. It’s very rare for civilians to be involved.’

‘Yeah, well that might be changing,’ said Shepherd. ‘I asked you before how many other contractors you’ve met, and you said none. Are you sticking with that?’

‘It’s the truth. Scout’s honour.’

‘Were you ever a scout?’

‘I was a cub. Yabba-Dabba-Doo.’

Shepherd grinned. ‘That was Fred Flintstone. The cubs say “dyb, dyb, dyb”.’

‘Dyb, dyb, dyb?’

‘Do Your Best, D-Y-B.’

‘So, you were a cub?’

Shepherd smiled. No, he’d never been a cub, but his son Liam had. But there was no way he was going to share personal information with a contract killer like Dutch. He wasn’t even prepared to give the man his real name. ‘A lifetime ago,’ he said. ‘I’m especially proud of my knot-tying and fire lighting badges.’

‘But not gravedigging, right?’ Dutch laughed and had more of his drink.

‘And when do I get to meet Kingsley?’ Neville Kingsley was Dutch’s contact at The Office, the man that he had sent the video to. Unfortunately, all that MI5 knew about the man was his name and a description that Dutch had given them. Balding, sixty-something, with a Black Country accent. Dutch had met him just once, otherwise all communication was through email drop boxes or Telegram Messenger, the cloud-based, cross-platform, encrypted instant messaging service that guaranteed anonymity.

‘That’s up to him.’

‘You’ve introduced people to him before. Twice, you said.’

‘Yeah, they’re always looking for freelancers and it’s not as if they can advertise in the Guardian, is it? It has to be word of mouth.’

‘And the previous guys, how long before they were called in for a meeting?’

‘Couple of days after I took them on a job. They want proof that the applicants can do the work.’

‘They won’t take your word for it?’

Dutch shook his head. ‘Actions speak louder than words,’ he said.

‘And you went along with the applicants?’

‘No. You’ll be on your own.’ He gulped down more lager. ‘And then I’m home free, right?’

‘We won’t need you any more. But you have to realise that when we bust them, they’ll almost certainly know that I was involved, and that you introduced me to them. You’ll be a marked man, Paul.’

Dutch shrugged. ‘I’ve got more than enough put by to disappear forever,’ he said. ‘New name, new passport, new everything. I’m told that Costa Rica is nice.’

Shepherd raised his glass. ‘I wish you luck.’

‘You think I’ll need it?’

‘I think you know what you need to do, Paul.’

‘You know they’ll be checking you out, big time?’

‘I’ve got that covered.’

‘So, you really were in the Paras?’

Shepherd smiled. ‘A lifetime ago.’ As Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd, he had indeed served with the Paras, and the SAS, but it was his Darren Griffiths legend that The Office would be checking out. Griffiths had served with 2 Para, with distinction. During a fifteen-year Army career he had served in Macedonia and done three tours in Iraq and four in Afghanistan. He had left the Paras in 2012 after which he had worked for a number of security companies. The Darren Griffiths military record would stand up to any scrutiny, and the security companies were all in some way connected to MI5 or MI6. It was a perfect legend.

‘Kingsley thinks you did three years for GBH. What if he checks?’

‘He can check all he wants.’

‘So did you really do a three stretch?’

‘Best you don’t worry about that, Paul.’

‘You’re the one who’ll need to worry, mate. If there’s anything wrong with your CV, anything at all, The Office will find it. And it won’t be a rejection letter they’ll send you, it’ll be a bullet to the back of your head.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ said Shepherd. The backroom boys – and girls – at MI5 were experts at creating legends, backstories that would stand up to any scrutiny. He had a passport and a driving licence in the name of Darren Griffiths, he lived in a two-bedroom flat in Wapping, and he drove a black Range Rover registered in Griffiths’ name. Utility bills, rent and car payments were all taken care of by MI5 footies, whose job was to maintain the digital footprints of legends used by MI5 officers working undercover. Money went in and out of the Darren Griffiths bank accounts, his credit cards were used to pay for tickets and meals, and Amazon made regular deliveries to his flat. The Police National Computer had a record of offences that he had been charged with, and intelligence reports suggesting that he had been involved in several murders but nothing that could be proved.

‘You’re a strange one,’ said Dutch. He took another chug.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I’ve met my fair share of villains over the years, and I’ve crossed paths with a lot of cops. But I’ve never met anyone like you.’

‘They broke the mould.’

‘Yeah, maybe they did. You’re obviously some form of cop. Or a spook, maybe. The spooks are all over organised crime these days. But you don’t look like a cop or talk like a cop. Military, yes, I’m fairly sure you’re not lying about your military background. That’s where you’ve killed people, right? In the army?’

‘That’s not something I talk about.’

‘Got any medals?’

Shepherd grinned. ‘No. No medals. Just cub badges.’ He sipped his Jameson. ‘What about you, Paul? How many contracts have you carried out for The Office?’

‘A few.’

‘A dozen?’

‘Probably more.’

‘Probably? You don’t keep count?’

Dutch’s eyes hardened. ‘I keep count, but like you, it’s not something I talk about.’

‘And how did you get into it?’

‘Friend of a friend heard that I was looking for work. I’d run about a few debts and the people I owed money to weren’t the sort to take me to the small claims court. The friend of a friend took me with him on one of his jobs and had me do the dirty, they checked me out and I had an interview with Kingsley and I was put on the payroll.’

‘And you never had any reservations?’

‘About killing people?’ He shrugged. ‘Not really.’

‘Not really?’

Dutch flashed him a tight smile. ‘You’re starting to sound like a therapist, trying to get me in touch with my inner feelings.’

‘Just curious.’

‘Yeah, well you know what curiosity did to the cat.’

‘Forget I asked.’

Both men sipped their drinks. Dutch was watching Shepherd carefully over the top of his glass. It was a look that Shepherd had seen many times over the years, he was being weighed up. Evaluated.

Dutch put down his glass. ‘Why do you want to know? Just curiosity?’

‘You’re right, Paul. It’s none of my business. Forget I asked.’

‘You killed people when you were a Para?’

‘That’s what soldiers do.’

‘And do you feel guilty? About the lives you took?’

‘That’s not the same,’ said Shepherd. ‘When you’re a soldier, you’re told who to fight. And more often than not, it’s kill or be killed. And if it’s kill or be killed, guilt doesn’t really come into it.’

Dutch nodded. ‘Yeah, I can see that. Okay, well to answer your question, yes. A bit. Sometimes. I mean, usually the contract is for an out and out crim. A guy like Ricky Lewis. He’s had people killed. Maybe not pulled the trigger himself, but he’s made the decision and people have died. If I’d killed him today for real, I wouldn’t feel in the least bit sorry.’

‘What about if it’s not a villain?’

‘I wouldn’t know. All you get is a name and a photograph and a location. Sometimes it’s a face I’d know, but if it’s not, I don’t ask questions.’

‘So you don’t need a reason?’

Dutch chuckled. ‘It doesn’t work like that. You don’t get to pick and choose with The Office. You get an envelope and that’s it.’

‘What if it was a woman? Or a child?’

‘Hasn’t happened so far,’ said Dutch.

‘But if it did?’

Dutch frowned. ‘I don’t know.’ His frown deepened. ‘I really don’t know. Have you ever killed a woman?’

Shepherd took a long slow breath. He had, yes, but that wasn’t information he was prepared to share with The Dutchman. ‘It’d be a tough call, wouldn’t it? Because I’m sure there’d be problems if you didn’t carry out the contract.’

Dutch chuckled again. ‘That’s for sure.’

Shepherd drained his glass and looked at his watch. ‘Do you want another before we head back to London?’

‘Are you buying?’

‘Sure.’

‘Yeah, go on then,’ said Dutch.



There were two men on the high-powered Yamaha motorcycle, both wearing white full-face helmets with tinted visors. The driver wore black racing leathers reinforced at the knees and elbows and boots with toecaps. His gloves were black leather with steel armoured knuckles. The passenger was wearing a brown leather bomber jacket, zipped up at the front, blue jeans and Timberland boots. Like the driver, the passenger was wearing black leather gloves, but his were thin lamb’s leather that moulded to his hands like a second skin.

They had parked on a side road that overlooked the target’s home, a small white-painted terraced house a short walk from Plaistow Underground Station. The house had probably once had a small patch of grass in front of it, but the grass had long since been paved over and it was now home to wheelie bins and litter blown in from the street. The house had been converted into two flats but they shared the front door.

The target arrived home at the same time each day, give or take ten minutes, except for Fridays when he usually went for an after-work drink with his colleagues. Today was Wednesday.

‘Here he comes,’ said the driver.

The passenger looked to his right. The target was a small portly man, Asian, with glistening black hair and a neatly-trimmed beard. He was wearing a dark blue raincoat over a tweed jacket and brown corduroy trousers. ‘You sure?’ said the passenger. ‘They all look the same to me.’

‘That’s racist.’

The passenger chuckled. ‘Why would you say that? Black, brown, yellow, white, makes no difference to me. I’m all for diversity. I’ll slot anyone if the price is right.’

‘It’s him.’

The target had a bulging brown leather briefcase in his left hand and he had a slight lean to the right as he walked, as if compensating for the weight. The target’s name was Ali Khatib, but the men on the bike knew nothing else about him other than his name and address. They had studied several photographs of the man but had no idea what he did for a living or why they were being paid £60,000 to kill him. If he had been a heart surgeon or the father of five or the world’s greatest humanitarian, it would have made no difference to them. A job was a job, and they were never going to turn down £60,000 for a few hours work.

The passenger climbed off the back of the bike. The target was forty yards from them, walking at a brisk pace. The passenger turned to face the driver, as if they were having a conversation. The driver watched the target. ‘Thirty. Twenty-five. Twenty.’ The driver was counting off the distance between the target and his house. Timing was everything. The best place to shoot the target was in front of the door. At that point he wouldn’t be seen from the street and the passenger could shoot him in the back of the head. The passenger had shot plenty of people face-to-face, and he wasn’t in the least bit worried about looking into a man’s eyes as he died, but a back of the head shot was easier and quieter.

‘Ten,’ said the driver and he nodded. ‘Now.’

The passenger turned and walked across the road. He looked left and right. The road was clear. There was a woman pushing a stroller about sixty yards to his left, and an old couple walking arm in arm to his right. Witnesses were never a problem. All they ever remembered was the crash helmet and the gun. Sometimes the clothes, but the clothes would be burning in an old oil drum within the hour.

Quickening his pace, he unzipped his jacket, slipping his gloved hand around the butt of the Smith & Wesson J-Frame that nestled in its nylon underarm holster. It was a 340 PD model, chambered for five .357 Magnum cartridges. It weighed less than twelve ounces and was just over six inches long, making it the perfect concealed weapon. The gun retailed for about eleven hundred dollars in the United States, but the passenger had paid his regular Brixton supplier three times that figure.

A Glock would hold more than twice as many cartridges, and revolvers couldn’t be suppressed, but in the passenger’s line of work two shots were all that was needed and silence wasn’t a prerequisite. Two loud bangs and he was gone. And unlike a semi-automatic, the 340 PD didn’t spew cartridges all over the place, they stayed in the cylinder. The J-Frame wasn’t a gun for amateurs. It had a heavy double-action-only trigger with a long pull and it needed firm handling. But it was always the passenger’s gun of choice for close-up hits.

The target reached his front door and fumbled in his pocket for his keys. He heard the rapid footfall of the Timberland boots but before he could turn, the first round smacked into the back of his head and blood and brain matter splattered across the door. The target’s legs buckled and as he fell, a second round hit him in the base of the neck.

The passenger turned and walked away from the house. The bike pulled up at the side of the road and the passenger climbed on the back. The driver twisted the throttle and the bike roared away.



Giles Pritchard was on a conference call and Shepherd had to spend the best part of half an hour sitting in the outer office with the man’s secretary making small talk. Amy Miller was in her sixties, a former MI6 officer who had been active in Berlin before and after the wall came down. Pritchard had brought her out of retirement in Surrey where she had been a keen beekeeper, selling her honey at farmers’ markets across the county; her hives produced some of the best honey that Shepherd had ever tasted. Shepherd would have loved to have heard her war stories, but all she would talk about was the weather and her bees. Eventually, Pritchard came off his call and Amy ushered him in.

The MI5 director was sitting behind his desk, his shirt sleeves rolled up and his club tie loose around his neck. He looked flustered and waved Shepherd to one of the two wooden chairs facing his desk as he picked up a bottle of Fiji water.

‘Is everything okay?’ asked Shepherd, sitting down.

‘I just hate dealing with Americans sometimes,’ said Pritchar