Live Fire by Stephen Leather Read Free Book Online

him after he’d returned to the UK and he’d decided that as she was working in Iraq there was no point in pursuing a relationship. All in all, Shepherd’s sex life had been unsatisfying to say the least, but it wasn’t a subject he was prepared to discuss with Sharpe.
    ‘I’m just saying, from what I hear, anyone can get laid in Thailand,’ Sharp continued, not perturbed in the slightest by Shepherd’s unease.
    ‘Razor, the last thing I want at the moment is another job that takes me away from Liam.’ He saw his eleven-year-old son infrequently at the best of times, but at least when he was in the country he could always drive back to Hereford if there was a problem. If he was under cover in Thailand, getting on a plane to the UK to see his son wouldn’t be an option. ‘Plus the team I’ll be infiltrating are hard bastards. It won’t be a holiday – not for me, anyway.’
    ‘And all I have to do is watch your back?’
    ‘That’s the plan.’
    ‘Excellent,’ said Sharpe. He tapped his steering-wheel impatiently as the traffic-lights remained stuck on red. ‘I might have to pull a flanker on the wife,’ he said. ‘Tell her I’m off to Spain or something. Not sure she’ll be happy about me going to Thailand.’ A cycle courier in a black Lycra jacket and tight black trousers rested his arm on the roof of their car. His blond hair was tied back in a ponytail. Sharpe glared at him and he moved away. ‘Bloody traffic,’ said Sharpe. ‘You know what it is? It’s those bloody bombs near Soho Square. Forensic teams are still there so the traffic’s being diverted. I don’t know what those Paki bastards are thinking. How do bombs outside nightclubs help their cause?’
    ‘Razor, please.’ Shepherd groaned.
    ‘What?’
    ‘You know what,’ said Shepherd. ‘The racial-awareness course – remember?’
    ‘What? You don’t think they’re mad Paki bastards?’
    ‘No one knows who they were, and the chances are they’ll be British-born, same as the Tube bombers.’
    ‘Two words, Spider. Dog. Stable.’
    ‘What the hell are you talking about now?’
    ‘What I’m saying is that just because a dog’s born in a stable it doesn’t make it a horse. Those guys who went down the Tube with bombs in their backpacks might have had British passports but they sure as hell weren’t the same as you and me. We haven’t been through al-Qaeda training camps on the Pakistani border for a start.’
    Shepherd was bewildered by Sharpe’s flawed logic. ‘Blaming the Asian community for what’s happening is like blaming all the Irish for what the IRA did,’ he said. ‘There’s three million Asians in the UK, and a few hundred at most are terrorists or potential terrorists.’
    ‘A few thousand, according to the spooks.’ Sharpe grinned. ‘And by spooks I mean MI5 before you accuse me of being racist again.’
    ‘It’s a small percentage of bad apples in a very large barrel,’ said Shepherd.
    ‘Let’s say it’s three thousand potential terrorists,’ said Sharpe. ‘You don’t think that’s something that should concern us? Three thousand Muslims planning mayhem and destruction?’
    ‘I’m not saying it shouldn’t concern us, I’m saying we can’t go around slagging off the whole Muslim community.’
    ‘Not all Muslims are terrorists, fair enough, but it’s a plain fact that, the way things are at the moment, all the terrorists operating in the UK are Muslims. And most of the really bad ones are Pakis.’
    ‘I give up,’ said Shepherd. ‘Sometimes there’s no arguing with you.’
    ‘Because you know I’m right.’
    ‘Just drive, Razor. Drive and let me get some rest.’
    ‘Sometimes you’re no fun,’ said Sharpe. He turned on the radio and tapped on the steering-wheel in time to the music.
    They parked the Lexus in a multi-storey car park close to New Scotland Yard but took a circuitous route to the building. They walked into the reception area under the watchful eye of two police