Live Fire by Stephen Leather Read Free Book Online Page A

officers in bullet-proof vests cradling MP5 carbines. They showed their ID cards to the bored sergeant on duty. ‘Home Office,’ said Sharpe. ‘Here to see Kenneth Mansfield. Intelligence.’
    The sergeant tapped on his computer keyboard, then handed over two visitor badges. While Sharpe and Shepherd clipped them to their jackets he made a phone call. ‘He’ll be right down,’ said the sergeant. ‘If you’re carrying firearms you’ll have to check them in here.’
    Sharpe patted his jacket. ‘Do we look like we’re armed?’
    ‘We get all sorts of Home Office types in here,’ said the sergeant. ‘We have to ask everybody. If you are, best to say now before the metal detector starts buzzing.’
    ‘It’s just a social call,’ said Sharpe. ‘We’re not planning to shoot anyone – we leave that up to you guys.’
    The lift doors opened and a man in his late twenties stepped out, tall and thin with a slight stoop and wrists that projected several inches beyond the sleeves of his cheap chain-store suit. ‘You the SOCA guys?’ he asked.
    ‘We’re supposed to say Home Office,’ said Sharpe. ‘Low profile.’
    ‘I’m Kenny,’ said the man. He smiled, showing uneven yellowed teeth, and shook hands with them. His fingernails were bitten to the quick. In his left hand he had a pack of Rothmans and a disposable lighter. ‘Don’t suppose you guys are smokers?’ he asked.
    Shepherd and Sharpe shook their heads.
    ‘I’m gasping,’ said Mansfield. ‘Do you mind if we start the briefing outside while I have a cigarette?’
    Shepherd could hardly believe what he’d heard. ‘Yeah, we do mind,’ he said. ‘It might have escaped your attention but we’re SOCA undercover agents. The only reason we’ve agreed to come here for a briefing is because your boss insists that the information you have is too classified to leave the building. What we’re not prepared to do is stand on the pavement in central London being briefed while God-knows-who walks by.’
    ‘Right,’ said Mansfield, his face reddening. ‘Sorry.’
    ‘Patches,’ said Sharpe.
    ‘What?’ said Mansfield.
    ‘Nicotine patches,’ said Sharpe. ‘Slap a couple on your arse. You’ll be fine.’
    ‘Right,’ said Mansfield, slipping his cigarettes and lighter into his pocket. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I’m a sixty-a-day man and they won’t let us smoke anywhere in the building. I work twelve hours a day, I get phoned at home in the middle of the night and my wife says if I don’t get a job with regular hours she’ll divorce me. I’m trying to sell my house because we’ve a kid on the way and I’ve been gazumped twice. I’m a bit stressed out and this briefing was dumped on me at short notice. I just wanted a cigarette, that’s all.’ He shrugged apologetically.
    ‘Bloody hell, Razor, I thought we had stressful lives.’ Shepherd patted Mansfield’s shoulder. ‘Okay, Razor and I can have a coffee in the canteen while you go and suck on a coffin nail.’
    ‘Are you sure?’ asked Mansfield.
    ‘They’re your lungs,’ said Shepherd. He gestured at Sharpe. ‘And if he doesn’t get his caffeine he won’t be able to concentrate. We’ll see you up there. The canteen’s still on the fourth floor, right?’
    ‘I’ll have to come with you,’ said Mansfield. ‘Visitors have to be escorted at all times.’
    Shepherd and Sharpe put their mobile phones, keys and coins into a grey plastic tray and Mansfield walked them through the metal detector. He took them to a lift and up to the fourth floor. It had been three years since Shepherd had last been in the Met canteen and it still had the same drab orange walls and chipped plates. He and Sharpe sat at a table by the blast-proof windows that looked over Victoria station. Mansfield got mugs of coffee for them, then hurried out for his smoke.
    ‘The new face of policing,’ said Sharpe.
    ‘He’s okay,’ said Shepherd, sipping his coffee and pulling a face. It hadn’t improved since his