Hot Blood by Stephen Leather Page B

chatter. What about satellite imagery?’
    ‘I’ll see what the NSA has. We might get lucky.’
    ‘And we could do with any intel your contacts have on the Holy Martyrs of Islam. All we’ve got so far is what’s been in the media, which is pretty much zero. Plus we need any info on other militant groups known to be operating in the area where Geordie was taken. According to the TV, he was taken in a place called Dora.’
    ‘I know it,’ said Yokely. ‘It’s a Sunni stronghold on the southern tip of Baghdad. Dangerous place.’ He sipped his drink. ‘You’ve seen The Godfather ? The first one? Was Marlon Brando great in that movie or what?’
    ‘Yeah. I saw it. And I get it.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘I know how the world works, Richard. You do this for me and at some point you’ll be asking me for a favour.’
    ‘And when that time comes?’
    ‘I repay my debts. In full.’
    A triumphant smile spread across Yokely’s face. ‘It’s always a pleasure dealing with a professional.’
    Shepherd raised his glass in salute. He felt as if he’d just done a deal with the devil. He knew that Yokely would call in the marker, sooner rather than later, and that he would have no choice other than to do whatever the American wanted. Shepherd wasn’t happy to be in Yokely’s debt, but the only thing that mattered was rescuing Geordie and the American was the one man who might be able to help.
    ‘You know, I’ve got a lot of respect for you, Spider,’ said Yokely. ‘I admire the way you handled yourself down the Tube, and on the Eurostar. Both times you did what you had to do.’
    Shepherd said nothing.
    ‘I know we’re not exactly best buddies, but I want to talk to you as a friend.’
    ‘Go ahead,’ said Shepherd.
    Yokely took a gulp of his drink. ‘He’s almost certainly going to die. You know that?’
    ‘Not necessarily. There have been almost two hundred and fifty foreign hostages taken over the past three years. Eighty-six have been killed. That suggests odds of three to one, survival wise.’
    ‘Except that your friend is in the hands of militants. The survival rate at that level is virtually non-existent. And you know as well as I do that so far this year only two Westerners have been released. And how many have been butchered? Twenty-five? They’re getting more vicious, not less.’
    ‘Are you telling me we’re wasting our time?’
    ‘It’s a mess out there, Spider. I’ll do what I can to help, but Iraq’s not my battlefield, and there isn’t a day goes by when I don’t thank the Lord for it. My war is against the terrorist threat, and that’s hard enough. But in Iraq there’s no way of knowing who’s friend and who’s foe. The enemy doesn’t wear a uniform, doesn’t follow any of the rules of war. When we first moved into Iraq, the CIA reckoned we’d be facing five thousand insurgents. By the summer of 2004 they’d raised that estimate to twenty thousand. By the winter it had grown to a hundred thousand. Now you can pretty much take any number and double it. And we’re not facing a unified enemy. There are Sunni insurgents who want Iraq to go back to the way it was before Saddam was kicked out. There are Baathists from the Return Party, the Fedayeen militia units that kept Saddam in power, Shia guerrillas and, on top of that, all the foreign mercenaries who’ve flooded into the country. Any one of those groups could be behind the Holy Martyrs of Islam. Or it might not be insurgents. It might be a maverick fundamentalist group, Saudis or Algerians, out to cause as much trouble as they can. If they’re fundamentalists, then there’ll be no negotiating with them. They’ll want to kill your friend to cause a backlash that’ll unite Muslims against the West.’
    ‘We’re going to do what we can,’ said Shepherd. ‘Whatever it takes.’
    ‘I empathise, Spider, I really do. If it was one of my friends out there in an orange jumpsuit, I’d be doing the same. But you have to be