Short Range

Book 16: The Spider Shepherd Thrillers

by Stephen Leather

Genres: Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

The explosive new thriller in the Spider Shepherd series

Dan 'Spider' Shepherd's career path – soldier, policeman, MI5 officer – has always put a strain on his family. So he is far from happy to learn that MI5 is using teenagers as informants. Parents are being kept in the dark and Shepherd fears that the children are being exploited.

As an undercover specialist, Shepherd is tasked with protecting a 15-year-old schoolboy who is being used to gather evidence against violent drug dealers and a right-wing terrorist group. But when the boy's life is threatened, Shepherd has no choice but to step in and take the heat.

And while Shepherd's problems mount up at work, he has even greater problems closer to home. His son Liam has fallen foul of the Serbian Mafia and if Shepherd doesn't intervene, Liam will die.

(P)2019 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Release date: July 25, 2019

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd stared at the bottle of water longingly but he already felt the urge to go to the bathroom and adding to his liquid intake would only be asking for trouble. The way things were going there wasn’t going to be an opportunity to get to a bathroom in the near future and he didn’t want to urinate in the back of the Openreach van, not when he was rubbing shoulders with two other surveillance experts. Openreach was a division of BT, responsible for maintaining the cable and phone network across the UK and, from the outside, the van looked like any of the hundreds of others criss-crossing the capital. It was never given a second glance.

To Shepherd’s right was Janet Rayner, a pretty thirty-something brunette, her hair hidden under a wool hat with a bobble on top. Rayner had recently joined MI5 after a decade with the Metropolitan Police’s surveillance team. She was handling the video feeds that were displayed on the half-dozen monitors in front of her.

To Shepherd’s left was Matty Clayton. Clayton had more than twenty years surveillance experience with MI5 and he was handling comms for the operation. Long hours sitting in vans eating fast food had played havoc with his waistline. ‘Victor One has eyeball,’ he said.

Victor One was one of two Toyota Prius cars that were tailing the target, along with two motorcycle couriers. Each Prius had an Asian driver and a passenger sitting in the back, mimicking the profile of the numerous Uber vehicles running passengers to and from the airport.

The Openreach van was on the inside lane of the M4, heading from Heathrow Airport towards London. Their quarry – Tango One – was a forty-six-year-old Pakistani who had flown into the country on an Emirates flight from Dubai. There had been two MI5 officers in Border Force uniforms waiting at Terminal 3 and they had watched Mohammed Khalid as he used the facial recognition ePassport gates to enter the country. The passport he used was Swedish, and the picture in it was his, but Khalid had never been to Sweden and the name in the passport was not his own.

There was a line of photographs of Khalid taped to the side of the van above the monitors. Four were surveillance photographs taken in Islamabad, the fifth was a head-and-shoulder shot presumably from some official paperwork. Khalid was overweight with several chins, and cheeks pockmarked with old acne scars. In all the pictures he was wearing gold-framed spectacles.

A car had been waiting for Khalid, a blue Vauxhall Corsa hatchback, driven by a bearded Asian man. Khalid had climbed in the back and it had driven out of the airport, closely followed by Victor Two.

Victor Two had taken the lead for the first mile and then had driven ahead, its place taken by Victor One. The two courier bikes were hanging back until needed.

Khalid was a financier for Islamic State, channelling the terror group’s money to jihadist cells around the world. Most of the time he was based in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, though he made frequent trips to Dubai for meetings with Islamic State officials. On one of his trips a meeting in a five-star hotel had been bugged by the CIA and they had heard Khalid refer to an upcoming visit to the United Kingdom. The CIA had passed the intel on to MI6 who had begun taking a closer interest in Khalid and once they had confirmed that he had booked a flight via Dubai they had put their MI5 counterparts on alert.

An MI6 officer had boarded the flight from Islamabad to Dubai where he had handed over to an Emirates-based officer who had sat behind Khalid in the business class section of the A380 plane on the final leg of the trip. When he had boarded the plane in Islamabad, Khalid had been dressed in a traditional long dishdasha and a skull cap, but while in the Dubai business class lounge he had changed into a dark blue suit. He was travelling light with just an aluminium carry-on case with wheels.

Shepherd studied a digital map that was showing the Vauxhall’s progress along the M4. It was vital that they didn’t lose sight of the vehicle because they had no way of knowing where Khalid was going or who he planned to meet.

‘We’ve got an ID on the Vauxhall,’ said Rayner. ‘The owner is one Manzoor Hassan. I’ve an address in Slough.’

‘So they’re not heading to his house,’ said Shepherd, watching the red dot that marked the position of the Vauxhall. ‘Anything known?’

‘A couple of convictions for indecent exposure but he’s not on any watch lists,’ said Rayner.

‘Well he is now,’ said Shepherd.

The Vauxhall continued east, leaving the M4 and driving along the A4 through Chiswick and towards Hammersmith. Victor One and Victor Two took it in turns to stay close.

As they reached Hammersmith, Clayton announced that the target was preparing to turn off the A4, the Great West Road. A few seconds later the red dot on the digital map showed that the vehicle was heading north

‘Let’s get the bikes in closer,’ Shepherd said to Clayton.

Clayton relayed instructions to the surveillance team.

The bikes moved in, one three cars behind the Vauxhall, the other a hundred yards or so ahead. Once the bikes were in position, the two Priuses dropped back. The Openreach van with Shepherd and his team brought up the rear. Progress had slowed now that the Vauxhall had left the main road.

‘Spider, there’s a mosque up that way,’ said Rayner. ‘That could be where they’re going.’

Shepherd rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. He had been hoping that Khalid had been heading to a hotel. Surveillance at a hotel was hard enough; getting a team into a mosque was a whole different ball game.

‘That’s going to be awkward,’ said Clayton, as if he’d read Shepherd’s mind. Shepherd nodded. The only way they’d be able to follow Khalid into the mosque would be to use Asians, anyone else would stand out.

Shepherd stared at the dot. ‘Matty, if they do stop at the mosque, get Rusul and Tahoor out of the cars and after Tango One. The passengers can take over the driving. Just make sure that no one sees the switch.’

Clayton nodded and started passing on the instructions to the two Prius teams.

Shepherd tapped on his laptop keyboard and pulled up intel on the Acton mosque. He sat back as he read what was on the screen. The Security Service had identified five men who had worshipped at the mosque as having gone to Syria to fight with ISIS. Two had been killed, two were still there and one had returned to the UK but wasn’t considered a threat and so wasn’t under investigation. There were several imams at the mosque but none had been red-flagged by the Security Service. The worshippers who had gone to Syria appeared to have been radicalised over the internet and not at the mosque.

Clayton twisted around in his seat. ‘They’ll park up and switch once we confirm that he’s going to the mosque,’ he said.

Shepherd nodded.

‘The Vauxhall is approaching the mosque and slowing,’ said Rayner. ‘I’ve got visual from Bravo One.’

Shepherd looked over at the screen that was showing the video feed from Bravo One, one of the two motorbike couriers. The driver had a small camera mounted on his helmet and he had turned his head to send them a view of the Vauxhall, which had come to a halt outside the main gates to the mosque. The mosque had once been a pub but ten years earlier it had been purchased by a local Muslim group and converted into a place of worship. It was surrounded by wrought iron railings and a brick minaret had been built on one side. The whole building had been painted white except for the top of the minaret which was gold.

Two men wearing ankle-length thawbs and knitted skull caps walked out of the mosque and over to the target car.

‘Get Rusul and Tahoor out now,’ said Shepherd. ‘And we need photographs of the men meeting Khalid.’

‘I’m on it,’ said Clayton.

Victor One was driving away from the mosque so they lost its visual feed.

Shepherd pressed an intercom to talk to the driver of the Openreach van. ‘Paul, get us up as close to the mosque as you can.’

‘Will do,’ said the driver. Paul Drinkwater was a former black cab driver whose encyclopedic knowledge of the city’s streets gave him an edge over the most expensive GPS navigation systems. The van accelerated, then made a left turn and a right turn.

‘Tango One is exiting the vehicle,’ said one of the courier bikers over the radio.

‘We’ve got a visual,’ said Rayner. She fed the output from one of the cameras hidden in the roof of the van to the screen directly in front of Shepherd. Shepherd watched the screen. Khalid got out of the Vauxhall with his carry-on. The two men embraced him in turn as the Vauxhall drove off.

‘Let the Vauxhall go,’ said Shepherd. ‘We’ve got the PNC details.’ They would need all their resources to keep tabs on Khalid when he left the mosque.

Clayton relayed the instructions to the surveillance team.

The two men who had greeted Khalid patted him on the back and gestured at the mosque. They were clearly about to take him inside. One of the men tried to take the carry-on case from Khalid but he shook his head and kept a grip on the handle.

‘Are Rusul and Tahoor on foot?’ Shepherd asked.

Clayton flashed him a thumbs-up.

Shepherd scanned the screens. On one he saw Tahoor Farooqi walking along the pavement. Farooqi had joined MI5 straight from university. He was a second-generation British Pakistani whose parents were both teachers at a Bradford comprehensive. Farooqi graduated with a First in English Literature and Philosophy from Reading University and was now in his third year at MI5. He was dressed casually in a puffer jacket and jeans, and had pulled on a skull cap as he walked at a measured pace with his hands in his pockets.

Khalid and his two companions stepped inside the mosque as Farooqi reached the gates.

Shepherd heard Farooqi’s voice over his headset. ‘I have eyeball on Tango One,’ he said.

Shepherd grinned at Clayton. So far so good. He leaned forward to stare at the screen in front of him. The pavements were now filled with worshippers making their way to the mosque – mainly men but there were also several women including a number wearing full burkhas. Shepherd frowned as he saw two motorbikes heading down the road towards the mosque. ‘Do you see the bikes, Janet?’ he asked.

There were two men on each bike and all had full-face helmets with dark visors. They were all wearing bomber jackets, gloves and boots. They were driving slowly down the middle of the road. Both passengers were looking over at the mosque.

‘They’re up to something,’ said Rayner.

Shepherd nodded as he stared at the screen showing the feed from the roof of the van. Rusul Jafari came into view, threading his way through the worshippers as he tried to catch up with their target. He was wearing a leather jacket and brown cargo pants dotted with pockets.

‘Jaffa, take a look at the two bikes in the middle of the road,’ said Shepherd.

On the screen, Jafari looked to his right. ‘The passengers have got their hands inside their jackets,’ he said. He stopped. ‘Shit.’

The passenger on the front bike was holding something in both hands.

‘Have they got guns?’ asked Shepherd.

Before Jafari could answer the passenger threw a cylindrical grey object high into the air. Shepherd knew immediately it was some type of home-made pipe bomb. ‘Bomb!’ he shouted. ‘It’s a bomb!’

The pipe bomb went high into the air, over the railings and hit the ground to the left of the entrance.

Shepherd’s mind raced. He wasn’t armed and neither were any of the surveillance teams. They hadn’t even arranged for an ARV on standby; it was supposed to have been a straightforward surveillance job. He opened his mouth to speak but before he could say anything they felt as much as heard the dull thud of the pipe bomb exploding in front of the mosque. A dozen worshippers crumpled to the ground and others began screaming in terror.

The bike roared off down the road.

‘Get our bikes after them, Matty!’ shouted Shepherd.

Shepherd reached for the door handle. As he pulled open the door he heard more screams and the slap of feet on the tarmac as people ran away from the carnage. He jumped down onto the road and saw that the second bike had moved forward and was closer to the mosque. No one was paying it any attention – those worshippers that weren’t running away in terror were staring at the bloody bodies sprawled on the ground like broken dolls. Several women had rushed to help but most people stood transfixed, in shock from the blast.

As the biker was revving the engine, his passenger pulled a cylindrical pipe bomb from inside his jacket. Shepherd ran towards the bike. ‘Bomb!’ he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Get out of the way, now!’

A few heads turned towards him but nobody moved.

The pillion passenger threw the pipe bomb towards the mosque.

‘Get down!’ shouted Shepherd.

The bomb arced through the air. Shepherd knew that the sensible thing to do was to drop to the ground until after the explosion, but he didn’t want the bike to get away. He continued to run.

The biker twisted the throttle and the bike lurched forward. Shepherd threw himself, twisting in the air so that he hit the pillion passenger with his shoulder. The bike toppled and the engine roared. Shepherd fell to the ground, narrowly missing the spinning rear wheel. The bike fell onto the two men, trapping them.

The pipe bomb hit the mosque and clattered onto the paving stones.

‘Bomb!’ screamed Shepherd again, then he rolled onto his front and placed his hands over his ears. The pipe bomb exploded and there were more screams.

Shepherd got to his feet. Another half-dozen or so bloody victims lay on the ground and more were staggering around.

The two men who had been on the bike were pushing it up. Shepherd took a step towards them. The passenger saw him coming and reached inside his jacket. The driver was concentrating on getting the bike back into neutral and had his head bent over the handlebars.

Shepherd drew back his fist but the passenger pulled out a combat knife and slashed at him. The man’s visor was down and Shepherd saw his own reflection as he jumped back to avoid the knife. The man lashed out again and this time Shepherd grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm savagely, at the same time bringing his knee up into the man’s groin.

The bike engine roared and there was a loud click as the driver got it into gear.

Shepherd kneed the passenger in the groin again and then pulled the knife from his gloved hand. The helmet meant Shepherd couldn’t punch the man in the face or throat and the man’s jacket would absorb any blows to the chest. He kicked out at the man’s left knee and heard a satisfying crack. The man screamed and fell to the ground.

The bike roared off. Shepherd looked around. Bravo Two had gone in pursuit of the first bike. Bravo One was parked across the road. Bravo One was Neil Geraghty, a relative newcomer to the surveillance team. He had actually worked as a motorcycle courier for two years before joining the Security Service and in his spare time he rebuilt classic motorbikes. He was clearly in shock, staring in horror at the carnage outside the mosque.

‘Neil!’ shouted Shepherd.

Geraghty looked over. There was a camera fixed to the top of his full-face helmet that was transmitting live video back to the van. Shepherd waved for him to come over. Geraghty twisted the throttle and the bike shot across the road. ‘After him!’ shouted Shepherd, climbing onto the pillion and pointing with the knife down the road after the departing bike.

Geraghty twisted the throttle but before the bike could speed forward, a large bearded Asian man kicked him in the hip. Geraghty yelped and his hand slipped off the throttle. A teenager ran over, screaming, and he grabbed Geraghty’s helmet and pulled him off the bike.

The bike fell to the side and Shepherd went with it.

More onlookers ran over, all of them screaming and shouting. Hands clawed at Shepherd’s face and the knife was pulled from his grasp.

He hit the ground and he was kicked in the side. He rolled over and was kicked again. He struggled to his feet. All he could see were angry faces.

Geraghty was on the ground, next to his bike. Two teenagers were kicking him and he curled up into a foetal ball. Shepherd tried to get to him but two men blocked his way, thumping him in the chest.

‘I’m trying to help!’ Shepherd shouted but the mob weren’t listening. A punch connected with Shepherd’s chin but there was no weight behind it and all it did was push his head back. He put up his hands to defend himself but he was hit from behind, a blow to his shoulder. There was an outbreak of slaps from the men in front of him. Shepherd could easily have fought back but he knew that would only make things worse.

He staggered back under the onslaught of slaps and then someone kicked his shin and he fell to the ground. He tried to get up but he was kicked in the side. All around him were shouts and screams and all he could see were legs and feet, a flurry of blows that blended into one onslaught.

He rolled onto his front and pushed himself up. Around him were more than a dozen angry worshippers, most of them bearded and all of them wide-eyed, screaming at him with hatred.

‘I’m not the fucking enemy!’ he shouted but his words were lost in the clamour. A hand clawed at his face and he knocked it away.

Something hit him in the back and he staggered forward. He turned just as a teenager threw a punch that glanced off his shoulder. The teenager was crazy with rage, his upper lip curled back in a snarl. He went to punch Shepherd again and Shepherd pushed him away, knocking him back into the crowd.

He was surrounded now, he couldn’t see the bike and he’d lost sight of Geraghty. ‘Neil!’ shouted Shepherd but his voice was lost in the baying of the crowd.

‘Fucking kafir!’ shouted an old man, who spat in Shepherd’s face. As Shepherd wiped himself with his sleeve, hands grasped him around the back of his neck. He reacted instinctively, twisting around and ducking down, then firing off two quick punches. The man who had been choking him staggered back, gasping for breath. Shepherd drew back his fist but before he could throw a punch his arm was grabbed by an old man with a grey beard. Shepherd tried to shake him off but more hands grabbed his arms and he felt himself being pulled backwards. He struggled to stay upright, knowing that if he fell to the ground again he’d probably never get up.

A hand grabbed his shoulder and Shepherd tried to pull away.

‘Spider!’

It was Jafari.

‘We’ve got to get to Neil, they’re killing him!’ shouted Shepherd.

Jafari nodded and then started shouting in Urdu at the top of his voice. He pulled away the hands that were gripping Shepherd’s arms. The mob ignored him and continued to punch and push Shepherd as they screamed abuse at him. Farooqi shouted louder, raising both hands above his head. This time a few of the worshippers stopped trying to attack Shepherd and looked at him quizzically.

Farooqi pushed his way through the crowd, shouting in Urdu. One of the teenagers started shouting at him and pointed at Shepherd, but Farooqi shook his head emphatically and shouted back.

Gradually the anger subsided. There was still a commotion off to their left and Shepherd pushed his way through to where four young men were kicking Geraghty. Shepherd pulled one of them away. The man turned and sneered when he saw Shepherd, then tried to kick him. Shepherd easily avoided the kick and pushed the man hard in the chest, sending him sprawling over Geraghty’s bike. Farooqi and Jafari rushed over to help and together they stopped the worshippers from attacking Geraghty. Shepherd knelt down and gently took off his colleague’s helmet. His eyes were closed and blood was trickling from between his lips.

‘Is he okay?’ asked Farooqi.

Geraghty’s eyes opened. ‘I’m okay,’ he groaned. ‘What the fuck happened?’

‘They thought we were attacking them,’ said Shepherd.

‘To be fair, you are the only non-Asians here,’ said Farooqi. ‘And you were on a bike.’

Geraghty tried to sit up but then groaned and lay back. ‘I think I bust something,’ he moaned.

‘Stay where you are,’ said Shepherd. ‘The ambulances will be on their way.’

He looked at Farooqi who nodded. ‘Matty’s called it in.’ In the distance they heard sirens. ‘Speak of the devil,’ said Farooqi.

‘You and Jaffa help with the wounded,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ll stay with Neil.’

A woman began wailing hysterically, close to the mosque. There were more sirens now, getting closer. Geraghty had closed his eyes and had gone still. Shepherd took his hand and squeezed it. ‘Hang on in there, Neil,’ said Shepherd. ‘Help’s coming.’

Geraghty squeezed back but his eyes stayed closed.

The first ambulance arrived within five minutes. By the time a second ambulance pulled up outside the mosque, two police cars had turned up. There were more than a dozen worshippers who had been badly injured in the two blasts and another fifty or so walking wounded. Miraculously, no one had been killed.

It wasn’t until the third ambulance arrived that a medic came over to attend to Geraghty. Shepherd explained what had happened. Geraghty was still in pain and bleeding from his mouth, and he was having trouble breathing. ‘I think his lung has collapsed,’ said the medic. A colleague hurried over with a gurney and together they loaded Geraghty onto it and took him over to the ambulance.

The third police vehicle to arrive was an ARV, an armed response vehicle. The three firearms officers on board pulled out their carbines but with no one to shoot at they just stood close to their vehicle, eyes scanning the crowds.

Police tape had been strung across the road and uniformed officers were taking names and addresses of worshippers. The highest-ranking officer was a young inspector with a uniform that looked a size too large for him, clearly out of his depth and spending most of the time on his radio.

Shepherd went over to Farooqi. ‘We should move out and leave the cops to it,’ he said. ‘Where’s Jaffa?’

Farooqi pointed over to the entrance to the mosque where Jafari was consoling a woman in a burkha who was sobbing into her hands. ‘We’re going to have to give statements, right?’ asked Farooqi.

‘You can’t tell the police about our operation, we don’t want our surveillance compromised. Have you seen Khalid?’

Farooqi shook his head.

Shepherd waved Jafari over. ‘Did you see Khalid?’ he asked.

‘No, it went crazy after the bombs went off. What’s going on? Were they after Khalid?’

‘No idea,’ said Shepherd. ‘It might just be bad luck. What about the guy I pulled off the bike?’

‘The cops have got him,’ said Farooqi. He nodded over at an ambulance where a paramedic was attending to the man’s injured leg. Two constables stood either side of him. His helmet had been removed. He was in his teens with a skinhead haircut and a tattoo of a swastika across his neck.

‘I’m gonna head off with the van. You guys stay here, okay? And keep a look out for Khalid just in case he’s still here.’

‘The cops will be asking everyone for ID,’ said Farooqi.

‘You’re just a couple of worshippers who got caught up in the fracas,’ said Shepherd.

As Farooqi and Jafari walked away, Shepherd jogged over to the Openreach van and climbed into the back.

‘We’ve been told to get out of Dodge,’ said Clayton.

‘I figured that’s what they’d want,’ said Shepherd. The powers that be wouldn’t want an MI5 surveillance operation caught up in the investigation of a terrorist attack. He sat down. ‘Any sign of Khalid?’

‘It was chaos out there,’ said Clayton. ‘We didn’t see him leave but that doesn’t mean anything. Plus there’s a back entrance. I think we’ve lost him.’

‘I’ve told Jaffa and Tahoor to stick around, just in case. What about the first bike? Did Bravo Two catch them?’

‘They lost them about half a mile away,’ said Clayton. ‘We got the registration numbers of both bikes but they seem to be fake.’

Shepherd pressed the intercom to talk to the driver. ‘Back to base, Paul,’ he said.

‘Roger that,’ said Drinkwater, and the van pulled away from the curb.

‘What were they?’ asked Clayton. ‘Grenades?’

‘Some sort of pipe bomb, I think,’ said Shepherd. ‘Luckily no one seems to have been killed but there are a lot of injured.’

‘How’s Neil?’

Shepherd scowled. ‘He took a hell of a kicking,’ he said. ‘The paramedic thinks a lung has collapsed.’

‘Bastards,’ said Rayner.

‘There was a lot of confusion,’ said Shepherd. ‘They just saw he was on a bike and went for him.’

Shepherd’s mobile rang and he took the call. It was his boss, Giles Pritchard. ‘Are you pulling out?’ asked Pritchard, as usual getting straight to the point. The director wasn’t one for small talk.

‘We’re on our way,’ said Shepherd.

‘This is a bloody disaster, obviously.’

‘Obviously.’

‘Do you have any sense that this attack was linked to Khalid’s visit?’ asked Pritchard.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Shepherd. ‘It seemed to be more of an attack on the congregation than an attempted hit. Khalid went inside the mosque with two men just before the explosions. We’ve got pictures of the men so we should be able to ID them asap. There was a lot of confusion after the attack and there’s a back way out, so I’m guessing he just cut and ran. I’ve left two of our people there and they’ll keep looking, and we’ll get all local CCTV footage checked, but other than that I don’t see there’s anything else we can do.’

‘I hear you,’ said Pritchard.

‘What do want us to do with our video footage?’

‘In what way?’

‘We have the attack on camera,’ said Shepherd. ‘We had the mosque under surveillance when the attack took place and one of our bikes was filming, plus we had the van’s camera on it.’

‘Let’s have a look at the footage before we make a decision on that,’ said the director. ‘I’m loath to let the police know that we had a surveillance operation running because they have a tendency to leak like a sieve and I don’t want the papers getting hold of it. Khalid is going to be spooked anyway, if he hears that MI5 were there we’ll never see him again. So mum’s the word.’

‘Not a problem,’ said Shepherd, and Pritchard ended the call.

‘Are you okay?’ asked Clayton.

‘I’ve been better,’ said Shepherd.

‘You took a bit of a kicking yourself.’

Shepherd shrugged. ‘I’ve had worse.’

Drinkwater dropped Shepherd, Rayner and Clayton close to MI5’s Millbank headquarters, overlooking the Thames, and drove the Openreach van back to the pool garage. After they had passed through Thames House security, Rayner and Clayton headed up to the mobile surveillance office on the third floor while Shepherd took the lift up to the sixth and walked along to the main incident room. Half a dozen officers were sitting at terminals and the walls were dotted with screens. Sarah Hardy was in charge, a tall no-nonsense brunette who spoke five languages and was a scratch golfer. She was wearing a dark suit and white Nikes – she kept a pair of Prada heels in her desk which she put on for meetings but generally she preferred trainers while she was working.

‘We’ve just been watching your performance,’ she said with an amused smile on her face. ‘Is it standard SAS practice to charge towards grenades before they’ve gone off?’

‘Strictly speaking they were pipe bombs and I was winging it,’ said Shepherd. ‘Can I see it?’

‘Of course,’ said Hardy. She turned and nodded at one of the officers. ‘Show us the footage from the van please, Tim.’

One of the big screens went black and a second or so later was filled with the view from the camera at the top of the van. The first bike had stopped outside the mosque and the pillion passenger threw his bomb at the building. The bike sped away. Shepherd counted off the seconds without thinking and reached three before the bomb exploded. Half a dozen worshippers, all men, fell to the ground. There was no sound to the footage but he could imagine the screams of horror.

Shepherd appeared on the left of the screen. The second bike had stopped and the passenger had pulled out his pipe bomb. Shepherd started to run towards the bike as the bomb spun through the air. Shepherd reached the bike and hit the passenger, knocking the bike over. The bomb exploded as Shepherd hit the ground and more worshippers fell.

Hardy was shaking her head at what she saw as his stupidity, but Shepherd knew that if he hadn’t made the run the bike would have disappeared and they wouldn’t have the bomb-thrower in custody.

On the screen, Shepherd got to his feet as the passenger pulled out his knife.

‘Nice bit of self-defence here,’ said Hardy and Shepherd grinned as his on-screen self took the knife off the passenger and kicked out at his leg. The passenger went down. The biker pushed his bike up and drove off. Shepherd waved over at Geraghty and as he climbed onto the back of the bike the worshippers swarmed around them. He and Geraghty were kicked and beaten. Hardy nodded at the officer who froze the image. ‘Neil’s going to be okay, but he has a pneumothorax so he’ll be out of action for a