Planning Pack (A Spider Shepherd Short Story): Spider Shepherd Short Stories, #9
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About this ebook
An action-packed short story featuring Dan "Spider" Shepherd during his days in the SAS. In Planning Pack he is in the Arabian desert taking on a group of dangerous terrorists. The short story also appears in the collection Spider Shepherd: SAS Volume 2.
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.
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
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Planning Pack (A Spider Shepherd Short Story) - Stephen Leather
PLANNING PACK
By Stephen Leather
***
Published by:
Stephen Leather at Smashwords
Copyright (c) 2015 by Stephen Leather
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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 recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
****
ARABIAN GULF.
November 1998.
Dan Spider
Shepherd was standing on the flight deck of an RAF Hercules C-130, leaning on the back of the pilot’s seat and anxiously scanning the horizon ahead of them in the first faint light of dawn. The plane’s two pilots and the flight engineer were also scanning forwards, but it was the navigator, head down over his instruments, his face lit an eerie green by the light of his radar screen, who was the first to break the silence. ‘The target should be on the nose now, range two and a half miles,’ he said. He had a soft West Country accent that made Shepherd think of sheep and rolling hills.
Shepherd strained his eyes even more, squinting into the growing glow of dawn light, and at last spotted it: the long sleek shape of a modern warship, its grey hull at first barely distinguishable from the water around it and marked out mainly by the curl of white water at the knife-like prow slicing through the waves. The ship had slowed as the Hercules approached and was now barely making headway through the waves. ‘I see it,’ he said. ‘Eleven o’clock.’
Shepherd watched the outline of the sleek, streamlined grey superstructure and the huge stars and stripes flag fluttering from the stern grow sharper as they closed rapidly on it. His thoughts were interrupted by the captain of the Hercules who was pointing at another C-130 that was already circling the almost stationary destroyer. ‘They’ve already started the drop,’ he said, ‘you’d better get to the rear and prepare to jump. Wouldn’t want you being late.’
The op had landed in their laps out of a clear blue sky just the previous day. Shepherd and his patrol mates - Jock McIntyre, Geordie Mitchell and Jimbo Shortt - had been making a leisurely return to Cyprus from Nepal, a journey that had begun on a sombre note with the funeral of their Gurkha mate, Gul, killed in an ambush by Maoist terrorists in Nepal’s Wild West
. A few days earlier,