Kill Zone (A Spider Shepherd Short Story)

By Stephen Leather

SAS trooper Dan "Spider" Shepherd in action in Afghanistan, on the trail of a murderous Taliban assassin.

Shepherd went on to become an undercover cop in London in the series written by bestselling author Stephen Leather.

Kill Zone is just under 14,000 words long, about thirty pages, perfect if you have half an hour to spare.

Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers. He was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Before that, he was employed as a biochemist for ICI, shovelled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, a petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the Inland Revenue. He began writing full time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series. Two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were made into movies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Leather
• Release date: Feb 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301389575

Stephen Leather

Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers, an eBook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan "Spider' Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. Before becoming a novelist he was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mirror, the Glasgow Herald, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. He is one of the country's most successful eBook authors and his eBooks have topped the Amazon Kindle charts in the UK and the US. He has sold more than a million eBooks and was voted by The Bookseller magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the UK publishing world. His bestsellers have been translated into fifteen languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series and two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were filmed for TV. You can find out more from his website www.stephenleather.com

Book preview

KILL ZONE

By Stephen Leather

****

Published by:

Stephen Leather at Smashwords

Copyright (c) 2013 by Stephen Leather

****

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

****

October 2002.

Afghanistan.

Spider Shepherd squatted on his heels outside his tent, drinking his first brew of the day from a battered mug as he watched the wind stirring dust devils from the dirt floor of the compound. The dust covered every surface, leaving everything as brown and drab as the wintry Afghan hills that surrounded him. Unshaven and wearing a tee-shirt and fatigues worn and sun-faded from long use, Shepherd drank the last of his brew and tossed the dregs into the dirt. ‘Why does a brew never taste right out here?’ he asked.

Sitting next to him with his legs outstretched was Geordie Mitchell, an SAS medic who was a couple of years older than Shepherd. ‘That’d be one of those rhetorical questions, would it?’ said Geordie. He had a floppy hat pulled low over his head. His hair was thinning and his scalp was always the first area to burn under the hot Afghan sun.

Shepherd stood up and stretched. ‘It just never tastes right, that’s all.’

‘It’s because we use bottled water, plus the altitude we’re at affects the boiling point of the water, plus the milk is crap. Plus the sand gets everywhere.’ Geordie stood up and looked at his watch, a rugged Rolex Submariner. ‘Soon be time for morning prayers,’ he said.

The two men strolled across the compound, their AK47s hanging on slings on their backs. They heard raised voices at the entrance to the compound and headed in that direction.

They found a young SAS officer, Captain Todd, in the middle of a furious altercation with the guard at the gates. Like all the Regiment’s officers, Harry Todd had been seconded to the SAS from his own regiment for a three-year tour of duty, and was on his first trip with them. He’d only been in Afghanistan for two months and he was finding it tough going. As if his Oxford, Sandhurst and The Guards background was not already enough to raise hackles among the men he nominally led, Todd’s blond hair flopped over his eyes like a poor man’s Hugh Grant and, despite his youth, his nervous habit of clearing his throat made him sound like some ancient brigadier harrumphing over the Daily Telegraph in the Army & Navy Club.

Shepherd had managed to avoid the Captain so far, which suited him just fine. The Major had realised that Todd was going to be an awkward fit and soon after he’d arrived he had detached him from the Squadron to the Intelligence Clearing Centre, largely with the aim of keeping him from getting under everybody’s feet. The Clearing Centre was where all the intelligence received was collated and evaluated. It came from a variety of sources; satellite and drone surveillance imagery, communication intercepts from GCHQ, and humint – human intelligence – in all its varied forms, from eyes on information from SAS observation posts right down to tip-offs of often dubious value from