Fair Game (17 page)

Shepherd walked past the Pizza Express restaurant where he was supposed to meet Button, then stopped and doubled back, a last-minute check to see if he was being followed. She was sitting at a corner table and had already ordered a bottle of Pinot Grigio and two glasses.

‘How’s office life?’ she asked.

‘It’s hardly life-threatening,’ he said.

‘Anyone else fit the bill other than Malone and Symes?’

Shepherd grimaced. ‘They all bitch and moan about money so if he’s throwing big bucks around I think there’s a few possibilities.’ He sipped his wine. A waitress with badly dyed blonde hair came over and in an East European accent asked them if they wanted to order.

‘Are you hungry?’ Button asked Shepherd.

‘I can always eat,’ said Shepherd. She ordered a Margherita pizza and Shepherd asked for an American Hot. He waited until the waitress was out of earshot before continuing. ‘I can’t help wondering if this is a sensible use of my time,’ he said.

‘Crazy Boy is a legitimate target,’ said Button. ‘He’s taking millions in ransoms and his uncle has terrorist connections. How is putting together a case against him not a productive use of your time?’

Shepherd sighed. ‘I’m not good in offices,’ he said. ‘It’s not what I’m best at. Hanging around the water cooler talking about
EastEnders
and
Coronation Street
, chipping in for birthday cakes, it’s all a bit . . . normal.’

‘And you can’t do normal?’

‘Of course I can. But they’re nice people, Charlie. They’re not villains.’

‘One of them almost certainly is.’

‘But not in a . . .’ He shrugged. ‘I hear what you’re saying, but I feel bad lying to a group of people who are basically nice. I know that sounds soppy, but it’s the way it is. They try to include me in their conversations, they ask me to go to the pub at lunchtime. They’re civilians, Charlie, regular people trying to earn a living. And I’m in there, lying through my teeth.’

‘And you’re feeling guilty?’

‘Usually when I’m undercover I’m lying to career criminals or terrorists, people who deserve whatever they get,’ said Shepherd. ‘I don’t give it a second thought. But with these people, yeah, I feel guilty. I really do.’

‘It’s a necessary evil,’ said Button.

‘The ends justify the means?’ He shook his head. ‘That doesn’t make me feel any better about what I’m doing, Charlie.’

‘Well, if it makes you feel any better, things are starting to move. Crazy Boy is just back from Somalia. And he’s started to move money in anticipation of something.’

‘Who did he go to see?’

Button grimaced. ‘We’re not sure.’

‘You’re not sure? I thought he was under surveillance?’

‘It caught us all by surprise,’ said Button. ‘We had no idea that he was planning to go. He didn’t make any calls to Somalia that we’re aware of, he just got into the car with a small bag and the next thing we knew he was at Heathrow getting on a plane. It’s getting harder to monitor his phone calls as well. We’ve just found out that he’s opened a Skype account and we think he’s using that to talk to his uncle out in Somalia.’

‘But you had him followed, right?’

‘He went straight to the General Aviation terminal in Nairobi,’ said Button. ‘That much we know.’

‘You lost him?’

‘Our people in Kenya lost him,’ said Button. ‘The point is, he’s obviously getting ready for something because almost as soon as he got back he paid a visit to this man.’ She took a surveillance photograph out of an envelope and slid it towards Shepherd. An Arab man was sitting at a café table sucking on a hookah pipe as he listened to a bearded man wearing dark glasses. Button pointed at the man with the pipe. ‘This is Muhammad al-Faiz. He’s a Saudi national but is also now a British citizen. How much do you know about Halawa?’ asked Button.

‘It’s the Arabic word for sweet,’ said Shepherd. He grinned when he saw the frown flash across her face. ‘I know, it’s the underground system of transferring money, it’s been around for a thousand years or more. It’s used for trading but various terrorist networks are known to use it.’

Button nodded. ‘The 9/11 conspirators were funded through Halawa, as were the London Tube bombers.’ She tapped the photograph. ‘We’ve no reason to think that al-Faiz is involved with terrorists, but Crazy Boy is a regular visitor to his house, and he usually arrives with a suitcase.’ She showed Shepherd another surveillance photograph, this one of two black men entering a terraced house, one of them carrying a large suitcase. The waitress returned with their pizzas and Shepherd passed the photographs back to Button, face down. She slid them back into the envelope.

The waitress offered them black pepper and chilli oil before heading back to the kitchen.

‘Al-Faiz has been handling Halawa transactions for Crazy Boy for at least five years. Crazy Boy sends money out to Somalia to fund his gang and he brings some of his profits back the same way. He then runs the cash through his legitimate businesses and the money ends up in his accounts here.’

‘So why hasn’t SOCA done something about it? Their brief is to recover the proceeds of criminal enterprises, right? And I can’t think of an enterprise more criminal than holding ships to ransom, can you?’

‘Knowing and proving are two different things, Spider. The Halawa system is almost impossible to break, which is why it’s the banking system of choice of al-Qaeda and pretty much every terrorist group there is.’

Shepherd nodded at the envelope. ‘Presumably the suitcase in that photograph is full of money. Why didn’t the cops just go in and take it? Get him to prove that it wasn’t the proceeds of crime?’

‘Because at best we’d only get the one suitcase. A million pounds, two maybe. Crazy Boy would probably deny it was his and walk away. Al-Faiz won’t have any records, the Halawa players never do. There are no receipts, no electronic trails, it’s all in their heads. Maybe a few scribbled figures that will mean nothing to outsiders.’

‘But you must be able to follow the money, right? If he’s paying off pirates in Somalia, that’s a crime, right?’

‘The problem with Halawa is that more often than not money doesn’t move between countries. Crazy Boy gives the money to al-Faiz. Al-Faiz makes a call or more likely sends an email, probably not even to Somalia. To a middleman in Dubai, maybe. The middleman in Dubai sends an email to his contact in Somalia. The contact in Somalia pays the money to Crazy Boy’s uncle. But Crazy Boy’s cash never leaves London. It stays with al-Faiz. But everybody in the chain remembers their debt. At some point money will come back from the pirates to Crazy Boy. It all works on trust. Crazy Boy probably doesn’t know the middleman in Dubai. He doesn’t have to. He trusts al-Faiz and that’s all that matters. The player in Mogadishu doesn’t know Crazy Boy, but he trusts his contact in Dubai. Each step in the chain works on trust, and the end result is a system that is cheaper, faster and more secure than the banking system.’

‘Cheaper?’

‘Al-Faiz takes five per cent of any money that he transfers, but he offers an exchange rate that is at least five per cent better than the banks. And a Halawa transfer is almost always same-day, often virtually instantaneous. The banks take three working days or longer. It’s an almost perfect system, Spider. And it’s not one that we can crack by seizing one suitcase.’

Shepherd nodded reluctantly and sipped his wine.

‘So here’s the thing, Spider. Crazy Boy went to see al-Faiz yesterday, along with what we assume is a suitcase full of money. At least one million pounds by the look of it. That money will now be in the hands of his uncle in Somalia, which means that he’s preparing another operation. If someone is feeding him information then it’s either happened or it’s about to. If you can nail down who it is and we can tie the informant into the next ship seizure then we can bring Crazy Boy down.’ She cut into her pizza. ‘Did I say how good you look in a suit, by the way?’

Katie put the binoculars to her eyes and scanned the waves, but she couldn’t see anything but water. She took the binoculars away and squinted out to sea. The two dots were larger, and definitely heading their way. ‘There’s something out there, Hoop,’ she said.

Hoop narrowed his eyes and looked where she was pointing, then looked at his radar. ‘Nothing on the screen.’

‘Could be whales,’ she said. She handed the binoculars to him. ‘Have a look yourself.’

Hoop put the binoculars to his eyes and stared out to sea for several seconds. ‘No, not whales. They’re moving way too fast.’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘Fishermen, maybe. Andrew, what do you think?’

Andrew walked over with his own high-powered binoculars. It took him a while to spot what they were looking at. ‘Boats,’ he said. ‘Skiffs with outboards. Doing forty knots, maybe. They’re definitely not out fishing.’

‘Terrific,’ said Hoop.

‘And they’re heading this way,’ said Andrew, lowering his binoculars. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘What is it, what’s happening?’ asked Katie.

‘Pirates,’ said Hoop.

‘What?’ said Katie. She laughed nervously. ‘You’re joking, right?’

‘They could be fishermen but it’s doubtful in boats like that,’ said Andrew. ‘We won’t know until they get closer.’

Katie took her binoculars back from Hoop and put them to her eyes. The dots had become bigger and were clearly boats with men on board.

‘Andrew, get the guns, will you?’ said Hoop calmly.

‘Guns?’ said Katie. ‘We’ve got guns on board?’

‘For self-defence,’ said Hoop. ‘These waters can be problematic at times.’

Andrew left the bridge. Katie put the binoculars to her eyes and scanned the waves again. She found the boats easily this time, and they were a lot closer. There were five black men in the first boat, all young with red scarves tied around their necks.

‘Where’ve they come from?’ she asked Hoop. ‘They can’t have a range of more than a hundred miles or so; they’ve only got outboards.’

‘There’ll be a mother ship somewhere, on the horizon, maybe.’

Katie saw one of the men talking into a transceiver. She moved the binoculars to the right and focused on the second boat. There were four men in it, wearing similar red scarves. One of them had something strapped to his back. It was a gun, she realised.

‘We can’t outrun them, can we?’ she said, her voice shaking.

Hoop shook his head. ‘They can do thirty, maybe forty knots,’ he said. ‘We can’t do much more than ten. Less with this wind.’

Andrew reappeared with two shotguns and a box of cartridges.

‘We’re not going to shoot them, are we?’ asked Katie.

Hoop smiled and took one of the guns from Andrew. ‘They’re just for show,’ he said. ‘To demonstrate that we’re not a pushover. They’re not after vessels like us. Generally they go for oil tankers or big freighters, vessels where they can get a big ransom.’

‘This is a twenty-million-dollar yacht,’ said Katie.

‘They’ll just see us as a sailboat,’ said Hoop. ‘Don’t worry.’ He smiled reassuringly.

‘You’ve dealt with pirates before?’ asked Katie.

Hoop shook his head. ‘First time for everything,’ he said. ‘Look, we’ll just show that we’re no pushover and they’ll move on to easier pickings,’ he said. ‘Katie, take the wheel. Andrew and I will go up on deck. They might be on their way somewhere else and go right past us, we could be worrying about nothing.’

Katie held the wheel. ‘And what if there is something to worry about?’ she said.

‘No point in counting chickens,’ said Hoop. He patted her on the shoulder. ‘It’ll be OK.’

Katie forced a smile but she could see from the look in his eyes that Hoop was worried.

Hoop pointed at the compass. ‘Stay on that course,’ he said. ‘Come on, Andrew.’

Hoop and Andrew left the bridge and went to stand by the middle mast. The two skiffs were definitely heading towards them. Hoop swore under his breath and Andrew looked over at him. ‘What’s the game plan, Hoop?’

‘One step at a time,’ said Hoop.

Andrew put his binoculars to his eyes and focused on the closest skiff. ‘They’ve got guns, Hoop.’

‘So have we. There’s a dozen reasons they could be coming this way. They might need water, medicine, they might want to borrow a radio. Just stay calm.’ He gestured towards the bow. ‘Move forward so that we’re not too close. OK?’

Andrew nodded. ‘OK.’ He moved to stand by the forward mast. The skiffs got closer. One of the men in the leading boat was cradling his weapon. It was a Kalashnikov, Andrew realised. He didn’t know much about firearms but he knew that a Kalashnikov was a much more effective weapon than the shotgun he was holding. The skiff was about a hundred yards away and had cut its engines to idle. The second skiff was farther away, to the right of the first one.

Hoop held the shotgun with his right hand and waved with his left. ‘Smile,’ he said to Andrew. ‘Smile but make sure they can see your gun.’

Andrew did as he was told. ‘Shouldn’t we fire a warning shot?’ he said, waving at the two skiffs.

‘We’re outgunned,’ said Hoop. Three of the men in the nearest skiff were now holding Kalashnikovs.

The yacht veered to starboard and Hoop had to hold on to the railing to steady himself.

‘Katie! Hold your course!’ he shouted.

The skiff to the right had slowed and was heading towards the bow of the yacht. Andrew was holding the shotgun with one hand and grasping the forward mast with the other.

Hoop waved at the men in the closest skiff. ‘What do you want?’ he shouted.

The men didn’t reply. The engines blipped and the skiff moved closer.

‘What do you want?’ shouted Hoop again.

The three Kalashnikovs were all pointing at the yacht. A fourth man was bending down, doing something at the bottom of the skiff, while a fifth was holding the tiller.

‘What do you want to do, Hoop?’ shouted Andrew. ‘They’re getting closer and the shotguns don’t seem to be worrying them. Do you want me to fire a warning shot?’

Before Hoop could reply, the man in the skiff straightened up, holding something in both hands. ‘Oh shit,’ said Hoop when he saw what it was.

‘That’s an RPG,’ said Andrew. ‘We are so fucked.’

‘They won’t fire it,’ said Hoop. ‘Why would they fire it?’