Free Fair Game by Stephen Leather

that doesn’t mean to say that I trust her bosses.’
    ‘Is that what’s happening, you’re losing confidence in the people you work for?’
    Shepherd sighed. ‘It’s a worry, but it doesn’t prevent me from doing my job,’ he said. ‘Now it’d be a different matter if I was working for the PSNI and they dropped me in it the way they dropped their guy in it.’
    Stockmann smiled. ‘You know that they were going to be called the Northern Ireland Police Service until they realised that people would be grabbed by the Nips?’
    ‘Are you serious?’
    ‘It was well down the legislation route before it was pointed out how ridiculous it would sound.’ She took another sip of her beer, watching Shepherd carefully over the top of her glass.
    ‘I’m not bitching about the job,’ said Shepherd. ‘The job’s fine and I’m perfectly capable of doing it.’
    ‘I understand that, but you’re clearly unhappy.’
    ‘You kill two people, Caroline, and tell me that you’re happy about it.’
    ‘Is there anything you could have done differently?’
    ‘Me? No, nothing. They were going to shoot the cop and I only had seconds to react. And once I’d shot the first guy, the second guy was getting ready to shoot me. It was me or him.’
    ‘It was combat?’
    Shepherd nodded. ‘Exactly.’
    ‘And is that why there’s no guilt? Because it was kill or be killed?’
    ‘Guilt isn’t the right word,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’m very conscious of why I did what I did and I would have preferred not to have done it, but if I hadn’t shot the first guy then the cop would have died and if I hadn’t shot the second guy he would have killed me.’
    ‘So it’s the fact that you reacted instinctively that takes away the guilt?’
    Shepherd smiled. ‘You sound like you’re planning to do a paper on the subject.’
    Stockmann’s eyes sparkled with amusement. ‘Funnily enough, I was thinking of doing something on post-traumatic stress disorder. But my question was more about finding out what makes you tick.’
    ‘The training removes the guilt, pretty much,’ said Shepherd. ‘The Regiment trains you over and over until you react instinctively.’
    ‘But that just makes you carry out the task effectively,’ said Stockmann. ‘It’s like training conscripts to use a bayonet. Teach them well enough and on the battlefield they’ll do it instinctively but the training doesn’t help them cope with the guilt they feel years later.’
    ‘Different sort of training, different sort of combat,’ said Shepherd. ‘Wars with conscripts pit ordinary men against ordinary men. That’s why they could climb out of the trenches on Christmas Day and play football. Professional soldiers are a different thing altogether.’
    ‘What if it wasn’t combat?’ said Stockmann quietly, as if she feared being overheard.
    ‘You’re talking hypothetically?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Then I think outside of a combat situation, the taking of human life is probably harder to deal with. I don’t think I could ever be a sniper, for instance.’
    ‘Because?’
    ‘Because a sniper is killing when his own life isn’t on the line. A sniper lies in wait and then shoots when his victim isn’t expecting it.’
    ‘You were shot by a sniper, in Afghanistan, weren’t you?’
    Shepherd rubbed his shoulder. ‘It was more of an ambush than a sniping,’ he said. ‘The guy had a regular assault weapon rather than a sniper’s rifle but yeah, we weren’t in a firefight and he only took the one shot and then vanished.’ He grinned ruefully. ‘Though I doubt that he is losing any sleep over what he did, me being an infidel and all.’
    ‘I guess that’s the answer to my question, isn’t it?’ said Stockmann. ‘If you feel morally justified in killing, there shouldn’t be any guilt.’
    Shepherd nodded slowly. ‘I guess so.’
    ‘So have you killed outside a combat situation?’
    Shepherd didn’t reply. He took a long, slow drink of shandy.
    ‘Is