Black Ops: The 12th Spider Shepherd Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

sitting with their heads together, sharing a pair of earphones.
    Shepherd reached the end of the carriage. He looked through the windows of the connecting doors into the next carriage. His breath caught in his throat as he saw the target, standing by the door halfway down.
    He turned away and held the microphone close to his lips. ‘I have eyeball on Tango One, over,’ he said. There was no answer. ‘Jamie, can you hear me?’ There was nothing in his earpiece, not even static. Shepherd turned back to look through the window again. Khalaf was looking at his watch and shifting his weight from foot to foot. He was gearing up for something, Shepherd could tell.
    Moving from one carriage to the other involved opening the two heavy connecting doors and stepping across the gap between the two carriages. It would be noisy and attract a lot of attention. It would be better to wait until they reached the next station and then change carriages.
    Khalaf had turned his back to the door and was now looking down his carriage, towards the front of the train. Shepherd realised he was looking at another Asian man. He could have been Khalaf’s brother. Tall and thin, wearing baggy jeans and a grey hoodie with the hood up, his eyes hidden behind impenetrable sunglasses. On his back was a North Face backpack, the same style as Khalaf’s but his was red. Like Khalaf he was agitated, swaying from side to side. The two men looked at each other and Khalaf nodded. The other man flashed Khalaf a tight smile and Shepherd’s stomach lurched as he realised there wouldn’t be time to switch carriages. His mind raced. There had been no intel that Khalaf’s cell had access to bombmaking equipment but the backpacks were a worry. If there were bombs in the backpacks then a double explosion in a confined space would be deadly. He ran through his options, but truth be told there weren’t many. He could pull the emergency switch and stop the train, but he didn’t see how that would help. He could shout a warning but that would only serve to start a panic. If he’d been armed then he could pull out his gun and try to take them out before they commenced their attack but that was pure wishful thinking because he didn’t have a weapon. He could wait until the train reached the next station but from the way the two men were behaving it was clear they were getting ready to act. Or were they? Nothing they had seen during their surveillance had suggested that they were going to attack a Tube train. And the choice of target made little sense. If they were suicide bombers then a carriage was the perfect target as the confined space meant guaranteed casualties. But if it was a knife attack then a carriage would serve to limit casualties, and block off any means of escape. Was he reading it wrong? Were they getting ready to attack now or were they just tense?
    He looked up at the Tube map on the side of the carriage. The next stop was King’s Cross St Pancras. The mainline station and London home to the Eurostar. That had been one of the places Khalaf had visited on Google Earth.
    The train began to slow as it approached King’s Cross. Shepherd glanced through the window. The two men were now ignoring each other and seemed more relaxed. Shepherd had come around to the view that there was no risk of an explosion on the Tube. It wouldn’t make sense to have two suicide bombers in the same carriage. That meant they were en route to the target, or it was a knife or gun attack. Guns were unlikely because there had been no chatter about firearms, but then the bicycle had caught them all by surprise.
    The platform flashed by and the train stopped. Shepherd started moving towards the door but took a quick look over his shoulder and saw that Khalaf wasn’t moving. Passengers poured off but Khalaf stayed where he was. So did the other guy with the backpack who was now studiously avoiding Khalaf’s gaze.
    ‘Jamie, can you hear me?’ whispered Shepherd, covering his