Spider's Web: A Collection of All-Action Short Stories (8 page)

Eventually the area was in darkness, the cloud cover masked the starlight. They waited another full hour before assembling the ladder. Shepherd and Todd crept silently towards the building while the others set up a cordon and covered them. Even if any of the Taliban managed to escape before the charges were detonated, they would not avoid the deadly crossfire from the waiting soldiers.

Shepherd and the captain placed the ladder against the wall and, after listening for any sound from within the building, Shepherd climbed up and began to place shaped charges against the wall on each floor. He allowed the cables of the initiators to trail over his shoulder as he moved up. When he’d finished, he slid back down the ladder without using the rungs, slowing his descent by using his hands and feet on the outside of the uprights as brakes. He glanced at Todd and mimed protecting his ears.

Todd slipped round the corner and Shepherd followed him, pressing his fingers into his ears to protect them from the shock wave as he triggered the charges. The blasts of the three shaped charges came so close together that they could have been a single explosion.

Within seconds of the detonation, Shepherd was on the move, rushing up the ladder with Todd hard on his heels. The two men stormed through the gaping hole that had been blown in the top-floor wall. A thick fog of dust and debris still hung in the air as they swung their Kalashnikovs around. Four Taliban lay on the floor, killed as they lay sleeping, their internal organs pulverised by the devastating concussive force of the blast wave. They moved slowly through the building, clearing the rooms one at a time.

The top two floors were sleeping areas, littered with Taliban dead, but the ground floor was where the cash was stored and disbursed. As they blew in the walls, the shaped charges had created a blizzard of hundred-dollar bills. The cash was all in US dollars, traded for drugs in Pakistan, extorted from businesses in the areas they controlled, or plundered from the avalanches of cash that the Americans had been pouring into the country in their attempts to buy the loyalty of warlords and tribal elders. Stacked on the floor were crates of ammunition, a few rocket-propelled grenades and a rack of AK-47s. Cck s a

Shepherd looked over at the captain. ‘No point in leaving what’s left of the cash and weapons and ammo for any Taliban who turn up later,’ he said. ‘Flip your goggles up or turn your back while I get a nice fire going for them. The flare in your goggles will blind you for ten minutes if you don’t.’

He dragged a few bits of bedding, rags and broken chairs and tables together into the centre of the room, kicked the embers of the fire across the floor and then stacked boxes of the Taliban’s ammunition next to the pile. He surveyed his handiwork for a moment, then scooped up a stray $100 bill and set fire to it. He dropped it on to the pile of debris and waited until it was well alight before murmuring into his throat mic, ‘Coming out.’

Todd climbed out through the hole in the wall first. As Shepherd moved to follow him, he heard the whiplash crack of an assault rifle and saw Todd fall backwards. There was a second crack as the captain dropped to the ground, gouts of blood pumping from his throat. Shepherd had seen no muzzle flash but heard answering fire from the SAS cordon and swung up his own weapon, loosing off a burst, firing blind just to keep the muj heads down before he slid down the ladder and ran over to Todd and crouched next to him.

Todd lay sprawled in the dirt, blood still spouting from his throat. The first round had struck his head, close to the left ear, gouging out a chunk of skull. The second had torn out Todd’s larynx. Either wound might have been fatal, the two together guaranteed it. Shepherd cursed under his breath, took a syrette of morphine and injected him, squeezing the body of the syrette to push out the drug like toothpaste from a tube. He began fixing a trauma dressing over the wounds, even though he knew he was merely going through the motions, because nothing could save the captain now. Death was seconds away, a minute or so at the most.

Once the dressings were in place he cradled Todd’s head against his chest, listening to the wet, sucking sound of the air bubbling through his shattered larynx as blood soaked his shirt.

The captain grabbed at his arm as his body began to shudder. There were more bursts of fire off to Shepherd’s left. Todd was staring at Shepherd, his eyes fearful. ‘You did good, Captain,’ Shepherd said. ‘You did good.’

A fresh spasm shook Todd, his eyes rolled up into his head and he slumped sideways to the ground.

As Shepherd looked up, he saw a movement in the shadows by a pile of rubble at the edge of the compound. A dark shape resolved itself into a crouching figure and Shepherd saw a milky-white eye staring at him, though, seen through his goggles, it glowed an eerie yellow. Shepherd grabbed his weapon and swung it up, but in the same instant he saw a double muzzle flash. The first round tugged at his sleeve, but the next smashed into his shoulder, a sledgehammer blow knocking him flat on his back, leaving the burst of fire from his own weapon arcing harmlessly into the sky.

A further burst of fire chewed the ground around him, and his face was needled by cuts from rock splinters, though they were no more than gnat bites compared with the searing pain in his shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, Shepherd saw McIntyre swivelling to face the danger and loosing off a controlled burst of double taps, but Ahmad Khan had already ducked into cover behind the rubble.

Shepherd looked down at his shoulder. There was a spreading pool of blood on his jacket, glistening like wet tar in the flickering light of the muzzle flashes as his team kept up a barrage of suppressing fire.

Shortt ran over, pulling a fiel Culllikd dressing from his jacket. ‘Stay down,’ he shouted, and slapped the dressing over the bullet wound. Shepherd took slow, deep breaths and fought to stay calm. ‘Geordie, get over here!’ shouted Shortt. ‘Spider’s hit!’

Geordie sprinted over, bent double. He looked at Todd but could see without checking that the captain was already dead. He hurried over to Shepherd. ‘You OK?’ he asked.

Shepherd shook his head. He was far from OK. He opened his mouth to speak but the words were lost as he coughed. Helpless, he saw the dark shape of the Taliban killer move away, inching around the rubble heap and then disappearing into the darkness beyond. He tried to point but all the strength had drained from his arms.

‘I’m on it,’ said Shortt, standing up and firing a burst in the direction of the escaping gunman.

Spider tried to sit up but Mitchell’s big, powerful hand pressed him flat again. ‘Keep still and let me work on you,’ he growled. Mitchell clamped the trauma pad over the wound, compressed it and bound it as tight as he could. ‘Oboe! Oboe! All stations minimise,’ said Mitchell into his mic, SAS-speak ordering all unnecessary traffic off the radios. Mitchell looked down at Shepherd and slapped him gently across the face. ‘Stay with me, Spider. Just stay with me.’

STEPHEN LEATHER

The ninth SPIDER SHEPHERD all-action thriller

FALSE FRIENDS

The most wanted man in the world is dead.

Now those loyal to him seek revenge.

When Navy Seals track down and kill Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, it’s obvious there was a traitor on the inside. After the false friends are revealed to be two British students, Malik and Chaudhry – former Islamic fundamentalists recruited by MI5 – they become targets themselves.

Dan ’Spider’ Shepherd must teach the pair how to survive undercover with al-Qaeda closing in. But Spider is not used to playing the handler. And with the line between mentor and friend beginning to blur, and a terrorist plot putting thousands of lives at stake, can he protect everyone before it’s too late?

Out now in paperback and ebook

www.hodder.co.uk

If you like the Spider Shepherd series, we think you’ll enjoy Stephen Leather’s Jack Nightingale supernatural thriller series.

STEPHEN LEATHER

The first Jack Nightingale supernatural thriller

NIGHTFALL

‘You’re going to hell, Jack Nightingale’: They are words that ended his career as a police negotiator. Now Jack’s a struggling private detective – and the chilling words come back to haunt him.

Nightingale’s life is turned upside down the day that he inherits a mansion with a priceless library; it comes from a man who claims to be his father, and it comes with a warning. That Nightingale’s soul was sold at birth and a devil will come to claim it on his thirty-third birthday – just three weeks away.

Jack doesn’t believe in Hell, probably doesn’t believe in Heaven either. But when people close to him start to die horribly, he is led to the inescapable conclusion that real evil may be at work. And that if he doesn’t find a way out he’ll be damned in hell for eternity.

Out now in paperback and ebook

www.hodder.co.uk

STEPHEN LEATHER

The second Jack Nightingale supernatural thriller

MIDNIGHT

Jack Nightingale found it hard enough to save lives when he was a cop. Now he needs to save a soul – his sister’s. But to save her he has to find her and they’ve been separated since birth.

When everyone Jack talks to about his sister dies horribly, he realises that someone, or something, is determined to keep them apart.

If he’s going to save his sister, he’s going to have to do what he does best - negotiate. But any negotiation with the forces of darkness comes at a terrible price. And first Jack must ask himself the question: is every soul worth saving?

Out now in paperback and ebook

www.hodder.co.uk

STEPHEN LEATHER

The third Jack Nightingale supernatural thriller

NIGHTMARE

What goes around, comes around. Jack Nightingale learned that as a cop and discovered that it was just as true in the world of the supernatural. His life changed forever on the day he failed to stop a young girl throwing herself to her death. Ever since, he’s been haunted by thoughts that he could have done more to save her.

Now her cries for help are louder than ever. Is she trapped in eternal torment? Can Nightingale put things right? Or are the forces of darkness torturing and deceiving him in order to gain the ultimate prize – his soul? Nightingale will have to face down the powers of the police, south London gangs and Hell itself to find out. And evil is closer than he thinks …

Out now in paperback and ebook