Dead Drop (A Spider Shepherd short story) Read Online Free Page A

to stop
them from just attacking the convoy?’ Harper said.
    ‘Nothing, except
they know that if they do, they’ll be killing the goose that’s laying the
golden eggs,’ said Shepherd. ‘If they keep ambushing the convoys, either
they’ll stop altogether or they’ll be so heavily protected that it’ll be a
suicide mission for the Taliban. But if they wait for the Yanks to deliver the
cash to the villages and then demand a share of it from the headmen, they’ll
get a lot more money with next to no risk.’
    The following day
they rode out of Bagram in an armoured truck, sharing it with six US soldiers
and a pile of plastic-wrapped bundles of US dollar bills in different
denominations stacked in the middle. ‘You’d be tempted, wouldn’t you?’ Harper
said, eyeing up the mound of money. ‘I mean, I don’t expect the villagers give
receipts, since half of them can’t write anyway.’
    ‘Perhaps we can
persuade the Taliban to give us their share,’ McIntyre said with a grin.
    American Humvees
loaded with troops rode Point and Tail End Charlie ahead and behind the truck
as they drove towards the mountains, while a Blackhawk armed with Hellfire
missiles and 7.62mm machine guns flew top cover above them.
      A few miles from the village the convoy
passed through a dense stand of cedar and pine trees and it slowed to walking
pace for a few seconds so that the SAS team could jump down, forward roll to
absorb the impact of their fall and then disappear among the trees. They went
to ground as the convoy accelerated again, rumbling on towards the village. An
hour later, having distributed the cash, it returned the way it had come. By
then, Shepherd had already led the others in to set up the OP on a steep
hillside overlooking the village. The slopes were densely wooded but a
landslide the previous winter had swept away part of the tree cover, giving
them a clear sight of the whole village. They settled in and waited for the
Taliban to arrive.
    McIntyre lay back
with his head on his bergen and closed his eyes. ‘Unless anyone’s got any
objections, I’ll take the second watch,’ he said. ‘I’m knackered and it’ll be a
long night because unless the Taliban are fucking psychic, they won’t get word
that the cash has arrived in time to get here before morning.’ Within two
minutes, they could hear his soft snores.
    ‘Unbelievable,’
Shepherd said. ‘Is there anywhere that guy can’t fall asleep?’
    ‘Only when he’s
in your bed, shagging your wife,’ Mitchell said, ducking as Shepherd launched a
pine cone at his head.
      They remained on watch, two awake and
two resting, throughout the night, but as McIntyre had predicted there had been
no sign of the Taliban by the time the first rays of the rising sun began to
light the mountain peaks high above them. About ten that morning, however, a
Toyota pick-up trailing a column of dust swept along the dirt-track road that
ran down from the mountains guarding the Pakistan border. Through his
spotter-scope, Shepherd watched a group of heavily armed “soldier monks” jump
out in the middle of the village, their distinctive garb of black robes, red
sashes and kohl-rimmed eyes marking them out as Taliban, even without the
AK-47s and RPG launchers they carried.
    Shepherd was on
the net at once, calling up the Quick Reaction Force from Bagram, even before a
nervous looking group of village elders had appeared to welcome the Taliban
leader. ‘Pity,’ Shepherd said, studying the man through the scope, ‘That’s not
Jabbaar, it’s the Number Two, Hadir.’
    ‘Then he’ll have
to do,’ Mitchell said. Dozing a moment before, he was now on maximum alert.
Shepherd had already zeroed his scope and rifle, and he kept it trained on
Hadir, tracking his movements as he strutted across the village square. The
Taliban group were 1,200 yards away from the OP, but that was comfortably
within his range - kills with AI .50s had been recorded at distances of a mile
and three