Shepherd held up the grenade. ‘These don’t grow on trees. You break it, you pay for it. And once you pull the pin it’ll be well and truly broken.’
‘You can add it to the bill, can’t you?’
‘Sure I can. But I really don’t see the point. You can’t check them all, can you?’
‘The one will do,’ said Kettering. He held out his hand.
‘You sure you want to do it?’ said Shepherd. ‘The world looks an awful lot different when you’re holding one of these things with the pin out.’
‘I’m a big boy,’ said Kettering. ‘What do I do?’
‘The first thing you do is get the fuck away from us,’ said Sharpe, returning with the target under his arm. He threw it into the back of the Range Rover.
‘He’s not lying,’ said Shepherd. ‘Head away from us, well away from the cars. See over there where the ground slopes? Do it there. Pull the pin, then throw it as far as you can. Then you’ve got two choices. There isn’t much cover out here so you can either run like fuck or hit the ground.’
‘Which is best?’ asked Kettering.
Shepherd shrugged. ‘Six of one,’ he said.
‘Are you serious?’ asked Kettering. ‘You don’t know the best way?’
‘Truth be told, we don’t get much call for grenades,’ said Shepherd. ‘You’re lucky I had a contact who had this.’
‘But you can get more?’ asked Kettering.
Shepherd exhaled through tight lips. ‘I’ll be honest, it won’t be easy. Grenades aren’t like guns. Guns you can mess around with and nothing bad is going to happen. Even ammunition is inert unless you treat it really badly. But grenades you’ve got to treat with respect. Plus, you’ve got to know that they’ve been looked after. You can’t mistreat them.’
‘Say I wanted a couple of dozen?’
‘Bloody hell, mate, two dozen grenades? What the hell would you want with that many?’
Kettering laughed. ‘Just want to have them around for a rainy day. Sell me twenty-four for four grand.’
Shepherd looked at Sharpe and Sharpe took the cue. ‘I guess we can do that,’ he said. ‘But transport’s the thing. We’ll have to talk to our guys.’
‘Looks like we’ve got a deal,’ said Shepherd. ‘I guess for four grand we can let you have this one for free.’
‘Is it made in Yugoslavia?’ asked Kettering.
Shepherd shook his head. ‘Nope, but that’s where we’ll be getting them from. We know a supplier there. They’re made by a Swiss company for the British but they sell them around the world. It’s an L109A1 and the British Army have been using them since 2001. It’s filled with RDX explosive and the steel shell does the damage. When it goes off it produces thousands of fragments that are designed to go through Kevlar body armour.’
Kettering took a deep breath. ‘Okay, let’s do it,’ he said.
Shepherd took Kettering’s hand and showed him how to hold the grenade so that the lever was held in place. He pointed at the ring at the top of the lever. ‘When you’re ready, pull out the pin. So long as you hold the lever in place, nothing has changed; you can stay like that for as long as you want. But as soon as you release that handle the grenade is live. A non-reversible chemical reaction starts that culminates in an explosion after three or four seconds. So here’s the thing: once the handle is off there’s nothing can stop it. There’s no changing your mind.’
‘Understood.’
‘And don’t freeze. It can be quite stressful and you might find your hand tightens up, so stay focused. Check the direction you’re going to throw it, pull the pin, and throw. That counting to three is strictly for the movies. Pull, throw, count to three while you run and drop on three.’
‘And it can kill anything within a hundred feet, is that what you said?’
‘I said the fragments will go that far, but they’re only deadly within about sixty feet. Further than that and they’re more like airgun pellets. They’ll hurt but won’t do much damage. The closer you are to the explosion, the more the damage. If it goes off while you’re holding it there won’t be much left of you, let’s put it that way.’
‘Got you,’ said Kettering. He took another deep breath and nodded. ‘Okay.’ He laughed nervously. Beads of sweat had appeared on his forehead and Shepherd hoped that his hands weren’t as sweaty because the last thing he wanted was a live grenade rolling on the ground.
‘And as soon as it’s gone off, we’re in the cars and away,’ said Sharpe. ‘No hanging around.’ He slammed the Range Rover’s tailgate shut.
‘You’ll call when you have a delivery date?’ asked Kettering.
‘Yeah, and we’ll be dealing with you direct from now on,’ said Shepherd. ‘There’s no need for Ian to be involved.’ Shepherd wanted Ray Fenby out of the loop so that there’d be less chance of Kettering and Thompson blaming him when the shit hit the fan. He pointed towards the slope. ‘Off you go, and whatever you do don’t try to see it go off. If you can see it the shrapnel can rip through your eyes. Remember that.’
‘Good luck,’ said Roger. ‘Rather you than me. And, if you don’t mind, I’ll wait behind the Jag.’ He headed off towards the car.
‘Piece of cake,’ said Kettering, and he walked away.
Shepherd looked over at Thompson. ‘If he blows himself up we can still sell the stuff to you?’ he said.
‘Sure, we don’t really need him,’ said Thompson. Roger and Sean laughed out loud.
‘I heard that!’ shouted Kettering. He carried on walking and stopped about fifty yards away from them. ‘How’s this?’ he called.
Shepherd gave him a thumbs up. ‘Go for it,’ he called. ‘Just remember to throw it down the slope.’
‘Do we need to cover our ears or something?’ asked Thompson.
‘Not out in the open,’ said Shepherd. ‘In a confined space, maybe.’
‘And we won’t get hurt?’
‘Would I be standing here if there was even a chance of that?’ said Shepherd.
‘You’ll be fine,’ agreed Sean. ‘Unless he fucks up and throws it the wrong way.’
‘Here we go!’ yelled Kettering. He pulled out the pin, threw the grenade in a high arc down the slope, then turned and ran up the hill. After three paces he dropped face down on to the grass and a second later there was a dull thud that Shepherd felt in his stomach and through the soles of his feet. There was a cloud of white smoke at the bottom of the slope and a brown patch about five feet wide that smouldered though there was no fire. In a fraction of a second the small metal globe had been transformed into thousands of small deadly fragments.
Grenades were nasty weapons. Shepherd had never had to throw one in anger during his army days, and he was grateful for that. He’d shot men, and women, and on a few occasions he’d used a knife. He regretted none of the killings, but there was something basically unfair about a grenade. If you shot a man then there was a chance that he might fire first. In hand-to-hand fighting the more skilled fighter won. But there was no defence against a grenade. If you had one and the enemy didn’t, and you threw it, then he was dead and you weren’t.
Kettering was already up, jumping up and down and punching the air enthusiastically. ‘Did you see that!’ he shouted.
Thompson stared at the rapidly dispersing cloud of smoke. ‘Fucking awesome!’ He turned to look at Shepherd. ‘Was that fucking awesome or what?’
Shepherd nodded. ‘Yeah, awesome.’
Kettering hurried up the slope. ‘That was amazing, Garry. My heart was pounding when I pulled the pin out, it really was.’ He shook his head. ‘I want to do it again.’
‘We need to go,’ said Shepherd. ‘The sound carries. No one’s going to mistake a grenade for someone out shooting crows.’