Agent 21 (25 page)

There was no time for self-pity, though. He thought of Gonzalez. The man had double-crossed him, but that wasn’t his family’s fault. Zak was filled with a new sense of urgency. He had to bring Martinez to justice. He
had
to . . .

There was one guard outside. He stood against the far wall and was carrying an MP5. He looked at Zak with a sneer but didn’t say anything.

Terror surged through Zak’s veins. Panic. He heard Gabs’s voice in his head.
If you can admit you’re scared, that’s the first step to controlling it. And if you can’t control your fear, it can get in the way of you making the right decisions
.

Control his fear. That was what he had to do. As long as he was still alive, he had a chance . . .

He stepped up to the bars. The guard nudged his MP5 in Zak’s direction.

‘Help me,’ Zak whispered. ‘I’m rich. Get me out of here and you’ll never have to work again.’

The guard’s cheek twitched, but he didn’t say anything.

‘I mean it,’ said Zak. ‘I can give you more money than Martinez will pay you in a lifetime. You’d be a wealthy man, and I can stop Martinez or Calaca from
ever
finding you.’

The guard didn’t even look tempted. ‘Calaca can find
anyone
,’ he said.

‘Not you,’ said Zak. ‘I can see to it.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ whispered the guard. He looked around guiltily, as though just speaking to Zak was a criminal offence. ‘They’d kill me even for thinking about it. You can keep your money. It’s not worth risking my family’s life for.’

Zak could tell he was beaten. He gritted his teeth and looked down at the ground. ‘Will they really kill Gonzalez’s wife and children?’ It was important that he knew.

The guard almost seemed to find this question funny. ‘They don’t care
who
they kill,’ he replied. ‘The more the better.’ He looked around again. ‘A year ago,’ he said, ‘there was a rumour that an American journalist had evidence against Martinez. You know what he did?’

‘What?’

‘He got hold of the journalist’s schedule. Found out
that he was going to a conference in Nigeria. And then, in order to eliminate just that one man, he killed
all
the guests at the hotel. Just for
one man
. . .’

Zak felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach. The guard continued to talk, but Zak didn’t hear a word.

A hotel in Nigeria. All the guests killed
.

The faces of his parents rose in his mind, and he clenched the bars of the cell hard – so hard that his knuckles went white. His breath came in short, sharp bursts. In one part of his mind he realized the guard was looking at him strangely, but he didn’t care, because at that moment there was really only one thought in his head.

And that thought was very clear: Cesar Martinez Toledo had killed his parents. And now he was about to kill Zak too.

Time passes quickly when you’re waiting to die.

They came at midnight: Calaca and three others. The one-eyed man carried a long, thick rope with a noose neatly tied at one end. They found Zak curled up in a corner of the cell, clutching himself with his arms and staring out at them with hatred in his eyes.

Calaca turned to one of the guards – a short, stocky man with a shaven head and square shoulders. ‘Carlos, tie him.’

The guard Zak had tried to bribe opened the door and Carlos entered. He was carrying a small bag, from which he removed a set of Plasticuffs. ‘Put your hands behind your back,’ he instructed.

‘Or what?’ spat Zak.

Carlos didn’t hesitate. He just booted Zak hard in his belly so that he was immediately gasping for breath. The stocky man bent down, pulled Zak easily to his feet and threw him against the wall. He forced
his hands behind his back and tied them. Zak was still trying to get a lungful of air when Carlos pulled a hood from his bag. He covered Zak’s head.

The hood was made of a coarse, scratchy cloth. It would have been difficult to breathe through even if Zak hadn’t been winded. Nobody cared about that, though. Carlos grabbed him by his right arm and walked him out of the cell and up the stairs. When Zak stumbled, Carlos didn’t slow down. His knees scraped against the stairs as he tried to scramble back up to his feet.

And then they were outside, because it was slightly cooler. Zak heard Calaca issue a muffled instruction. About twenty seconds later he heard the sound of a vehicle drive up. Several vehicles, in fact, but he couldn’t tell exactly how many. Carlos made him move again. Zak felt a hand on the back of his head, which was forced downwards. It felt like he was being shoved into the boot of a vehicle; seconds later he felt the boot shut above him, and heard the clunking sound of the lock.

He wanted to shout out for help, but he knew how futile that would be, here in the centre of Martinez’s compound.
Keep calm
, he told himself.
Just keep calm
.

He thought through his options. Calaca had taken his phone, so there was no way he could dial the distress number; he just had to hope the GPS chip was
still transmitting. Zak awkwardly used his left foot to kick off his right shoe, then managed to worm his foot out of the sock. He shuffled around so that he could pick up the sock and remove the chip. It was impossible to be sure that the signal would penetrate the metal of the car, but it had a better chance now it was out of his shoe. All he could do was pray that the guardian angels were tracking him, and that he could somehow raise the alarm.

Keep calm
, he repeated to himself.
Keep calm
. . .

But it was almost impossible, stuck in the back of this vehicle which he now felt moving away.

Impossible, because he knew that when the boot was opened, he could be only seconds away from a horrible, painful death.

In the London control centre, Michael stared at a live satellite feed. A flashing green dot was moving along the road that led away from the Martinez compound. He turned to Sophie, the girl who was operating the equipment. ‘Can you get a closer look?’ he asked.

‘The signal’s weak,’ Sophie said, but she typed a few commands on the screen and the satellite image zoomed in. It was dark, and difficult to make much of this grainy image; but Michael thought he could just see three sets of headlamps.

‘He’s moving,’ Michael murmured. ‘Three vehicles in convoy. But we can’t tell why or who with.’

He looked up at a wall where a clock showed Mexico time. Five past midnight. He sucked his teeth. Why would Zak be moving out of the compound at this time of night?

Michael picked up the phone and dialled a number. The first ring hadn’t even finished when Gabs answered.

‘Are you watching this?’ Michael asked.

‘Of course.’

‘Make any sense to you?’

‘None. I don’t like it. We should go in, Michael. Pick him up. You’ve got your evidence. This has gone far enough.’

Michael thought about that for a moment.

‘No,’ he said.

‘He’s just a kid, Michael . . .’

‘
No
. The fact that we can track his signal means he has his phone with him. If he has his phone, he can dial in the distress call.’

‘What if it’s not him? What if somebody else has his phone?’

‘Then this is a trap, and we’re not going to fall for it. We’ll monitor his movements carefully, but for now do nothing.’

‘But—’

‘That’s an order, Gabriella.’

Michael hung up the phone and went back to watching the screen.

There was hardly any wriggle room in the boot – certainly not enough for Zak to get up onto his knees – and every time the vehicle went over a bump in the road, he felt like he got a new bruise. His body ached, but he had to forget about that. His captors might stop the car any minute, and when they did, he had to be ready.

His hands were tied behind his back but he was able to feel for his belt – the one Gabs had given him on St Peter’s Crag. He needed to get access to the buckle, and to do that he had to twist it round so the buckle was at the back. It was hard work. Every time the buckle hit a loop on his trousers it got caught, and he had to coax it through slowly.

Not easy, when he knew that time was running out.

But eventually his fingers could grasp the buckle. He gripped it at both sides and pulled it open to reveal the hidden blade. The vehicle bumped and shuddered along the road while Zak, in the darkness, attempted to slice the sturdy plastic of his handcuffs.

‘
Ow!
’ He let out a muffled cry as the blade dug into his wrist and he felt blood seeping over his skin. He had to ignore it and he kept on at the Plasticuffs,
sliding them gently against the blade, until finally they snapped open.

As quickly as possible, Zak replaced the blade and unhooded himself, before putting his sock and shoe back on and making sure the GPS chip was firmly in his hand. It was still pitch black, but at least he could breathe a bit better. He felt for the locking mechanism of the boot. Maybe if he could get it open . . .

But no. It wouldn’t budge. There was no way he was getting out of here until somebody opened it up from outside.

When that happened, he’d just have to be ready.

Zak positioned himself so that his back was facing the front of the vehicle and his legs were bent at the knee, pressed up against the rear of the boot. Quite how long he stayed like that, he couldn’t have said. Maybe ten minutes, maybe twenty.

Soon, however, he felt the vehicle slowing down.

His muscles ached from his uncomfortable position. His pulse raced and he was sweating with fear. But he knew he had to ignore all that if he was going to get through this.

The vehicle stopped.

Calaca’s voice from outside. ‘Tie up the rope.’

Zak tensed up, like a tightly coiled spring.

He put the GPS chip in his pocket and waited.

Footsteps outside the boot.

The sound of a key in the lock.

And then the boot opened up.

Light flooded in.

He had to time it well. Too early and he wouldn’t be effective; too late and he’d lose the element of surprise. The boot door was open just over halfway when he struck, jabbing his feet out sharply into the belly of the man standing there. There was a moment of solid contact and a low groan.

This was his chance. He had to move. Now.

Zak jumped out of the boot to see that he had hit Carlos. The stocky man was doubled over in pain. Zak didn’t hesitate. He raised his right knee with as much force as he could manage, whacking Carlos underneath the chin. The Mexican guard’s head flew back just as Zak clenched his fist and delivered a fierce punch to the side of his face. Carlos hit the ground.

Zak saw now that the guard was carrying an MP5, which he grabbed before giving himself a couple of seconds to take in his surroundings. There were two other trucks in front of him, each of which had a set of three bright headlamps fixed to its roof. The headlamps were shining directly at Zak, dazzling him slightly and stopping him from seeing anyone else in or behind the trucks. Although he couldn’t see them, he could hear their shouting.

He looked to left and right. They were on a thin,
straight road – more of a track, really. On one side was a sheer drop. How far down it went, Zak couldn’t tell, but it was too steep to use as an escape route. On the other side was a line of trees starting about twenty metres from the road and extending as far as he could see in both directions.

‘
Shoot him!
’

Zak recognized Calaca’s voice immediately, but he didn’t have time to be scared. A shot rang out, and he felt a rush of air as it whizzed past his head. A pinging sound as it ricocheted off the open boot door.

‘
SHOOT HIM!
’

There wasn’t even time to think. Zak flicked the safety catch on the MP5, raised it above the level of the trucks, and fired a burst of covering fire.

Then he ran.

He sprinted towards the line of trees just as the air was filled with the crack of gunfire. Rounds landed on either side of him in the dust, missing him by inches. He kept his attention firmly on the trees, and could see the noose hanging from a low branch.

Fifteen metres to go. More rounds.

Ten.

Five.

‘
KILL HIM!
’ Calaca screamed, but now Zak was a metre away from cover. A round ripped into a tree, throwing bark splinters into his eyes. Then he was
beyond the tree line. It was dark, and treacherous underfoot, but Zak didn’t slow down.

He
couldn’t
slow down.

His whole life depended on how fast he could run.

Calaca slammed his fist against the hard metal of the truck. He walked round to where Carlos was groggily pushing himself up from the ground.

‘
Idiot
,’ he hissed.

‘Señor Ramirez, I . . .’

But Calaca didn’t want to hear it. He pulled his handgun out from under his green football shirt, aimed it at the guard’s head and fired. Blood and brain matter spattered over Calaca’s football shirt as Carlos fell dead to the ground. By that time, though, Calaca had already turned away. He waved his gun around in the general direction of the other guards – four of them – that he had brought with him. ‘I’ll kill the rest of you
and
your families if you don’t find him.’