Agent 21: Reloaded: Book 2 (14 page)

Positive ID.

He panned back to the Angolans. The gunman stood by the two four-by-fours. The remaining three, however, were heading up the jetty. The man with the mobile took the lead; he was followed by the two carrying suitcases. They stopped halfway along the jetty. Zak examined the hull of the boat. There appeared to be a door there, but it was closed.

Voices.

For a moment Zak thought they were nearby. He looked left down the pier, expecting to see someone approach. But no figures emerged from the darkness and he realized the sound was wafting towards him on the breeze from the deck of the
Mercantile
. He directed his night sight in that direction.

Karlovic was still there, but now he was surrounded by three others. Zak didn’t recognize them. The three men were fitting something to the railings of the deck while Karlovic looked on, and Zak could tell from the body language that Karlovic was in charge. He sensed that the three others didn’t much like taking their instructions from him.

Another man appeared on deck. Zak focused on him.

He was bare-chested. His torso rippled with muscles. His neck was very thick and his eyebrows, which looked like black smudges in the haze of the night vision, met in the middle of his forehead. Again Zak recalled his briefing pack, and Michael’s words.
Name, Antonio Acosta. Born and raised in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. There’s a rumour that he murdered his own brother when he was thirteen. We now believe he’s a Black Wolf general
…

Positive ID.

We can’t be sure who else will be on board the
Mercantile,
but a positive ID of these two men will be enough. Put it this way, if Antonio Acosta and Karlovic are on board, the rest of the crew aren’t very likely to be sweet old pensioners
…

Zak looked at the three crew members by the railings. They had attached some sort of pulley system to the vessel and were now lowering a thick rope with a hook at the end down to the jetty. He didn’t need to see any more. It was obvious what was going on. The uncut diamonds had arrived. The crew was bringing them on board. It meant that the
Mercantile
’s business here was nearly done.

So Zak couldn’t hang around.

He’d identified the Black Wolf personnel. And that meant only one thing.

It was time for him to advance to contact.

12

ADVANCE TO CONTACT

HE MOVED QUICKLY
and quietly.

Within thirty seconds he had packed away his fishing rod and secreted the night-vision device back in the tackle bag. He left these on the side of the pier while he located the loose board that hid his equipment cache. He lifted it up and placed it to one side, then looked down the length of the pier to check that nobody was coming. All clear. Zak lifted the polythene-wrapped package from its hiding place. He could see that someone had constructed a wooden frame beneath the pier. It was this that was holding Zak’s equipment.

The package was heavy. As Zak unwrapped it, he briefly wondered who had stashed this stuff here in the first place. He’d never find out, of course. That wasn’t the sort of intel Michael liked to share. It consisted of four items. The first resembled a large float, the sort of thing he’d used as a kid when his dad used
to take him for swimming lessons at the local pool. There were differences, though, between those polystyrene aids and this swim board. It was larger, for a start. Fixed to the top was a circular compass about twenty centimetres in diameter. To one side of the compass was a switch but Zak didn’t touch it yet. He knew it would illuminate the compass but if he switched it on here he’d alert the men on the deck of the
Mercantile
to his presence.

The second item was his rebreather. It looked like a heavy black life jacket, with the addition of air tubes, a mouthpiece and a face mask. It had been specially adapted to house two small canisters of compressed air and two waterproof storage pouches. One of these contained a string bag with a magnet at the clasp. A set of military-grade fins were tied to the rebreather, which Zak undid before turning his attention to the third item.

The Heckler & Koch P11 was identical to the one he had fired back at the basement range on St Peter’s Crag. Chunky. Heavy. Zak hated to admit it, but he felt a lot better with it stowed, along with his iPhone, in the second waterproof pouch of the rebreather. Especially given the nature of the fourth item he had pulled from the cache.

It was a small metal case, about thirty centimetres by twenty by ten. Zak knew enough about
demolitions, however, to realize that a tiny package like this could cause a lot of damage. It weighed about five kilograms and had a rubber seal and heavy metal clasps. On one side of the case were four steel carbine hooks, welded to the metal. As Zak slipped the rebreather over his head, he saw that these hooks clipped easily to a harness across his front. He attached the device, then put his fishing gear and the polythene wrapping back in the hiding place under the pier.

Footsteps.

Zak looked down the pier. Someone was approaching. He couldn’t tell who it was in the darkness, but he knew he couldn’t be caught like this. He quickly slipped his feet into the fins, grabbed the swim board and the P11, shuffled to the edge of the pier and pushed himself into the water. There was a drop of three metres. And then a splash.

The water was cold and black. Zak had a flashback to the awful minute or so he had spent dragging Raf along the dark corridor of HMS
Vanguard
. He kicked himself back in the direction of what he hoped was the pier, before coming up for breath as quietly as possible.

He found himself just by one of the wooden legs of the pier and he grabbed hold of it. The footsteps were directly above him. They stopped, and the light of a torch shone down through the boards of the pier into
the water just a couple of metres from his position. Whoever had the torch was searching for something. Him? It was impossible to say for sure. He clutched the pier leg a bit harder.

As his eyes grew used to the darkness underneath here, he made out the wooden frame beneath the loose board above. And he’d only been looking at it for five seconds when, to his horror, someone lifted the loose board.

He couldn’t see the figure who had opened it up. Just the dazzling sight of the torch as they shone the beam through the narrow opening and onto the water. Very slowly he let go of the pier with his arms, clutching onto it with his ankles. He held onto the swim board with his left hand and aimed his P11 towards the opening with his right.

Five seconds passed.

Ten seconds.

He shivered. It wasn’t just the cold water. It was a creeping sense of dread and panic. He’d made himself too obvious earlier in the day.
Someone was on to him
…

The beam of light disappeared. The loose board was replaced and Zak heard footsteps moving over his position and back towards the shore. And then just the lapping of the sea against the legs of the pier.

He pulled the dive mask over his face. Little
droplets of water covered the inside. He inserted the mouthpiece of the rebreather and took a few breaths. Air flowed into his lungs. Looking in the direction of the
Mercantile
, he switched on the compass light of his swim board. A faint, pale green glow spread out from the board as Zak checked the direction in which he needed to travel. The vessel was south of his position at a bearing of about 179 degrees. He fixed that figure firmly in his mind. Then he let go of the pier leg with his ankles.

The metal flight case acted as a weight to take him below the surface. He estimated that he was a couple of metres down. Hopefully the rebreather was doing its job and stopping any bubbles rising to the top of the water as he breathed out. The sound of the sea disappeared. All he could see was the illuminated compass on the swim board. He adjusted his trajectory so that he was heading at a bearing of 179 degrees, flipped his fins and darted through the water.

Time slowed down. Zak felt himself being buffeted by the underwater currents and he had to use all the strength in his body to keep his bearing correct. There were shadows on the edge of his vision. Sea creatures, he assumed, or maybe just the play of the moon on the waves.
Anything down here will keep its distance
, he told himself. He did his best to forget about the moray eel that had attacked Raf. The last thing he
needed right now was memories like that. He concentrated hard on what he was doing. That way, perhaps he could forget that this was just his second mission, and that it didn’t matter how much training he’d had; the real thing was a hundred times harder and more dangerous.

The cold water slid past. He suppressed a sense of panic. Surely he’d been swimming too long …
Surely
he should have reached the
Mercantile
by now …

The hull appeared suddenly, just two metres in front of him, vast and dark. Zak kicked upwards and seconds later emerged into the open air. He looked around. He was underneath the jetty against which the
Mercantile
was moored. Immediately up above, he heard voices. It was the three Angolans, he reckoned. It sounded like they were talking in Portuguese.

Zak moved away, swimming above water now as he was camouflaged by the jetty. The Angolans’ voices faded. The water was washing against his dive mask so his vision was divided by sea and air. As he reached the end of the jetty, however, he submerged himself again and followed the line of the
Mercantile
’s hull until he reached the end of the vessel. Here he turned back on himself and started swimming along the far side of the ship.

He was about halfway back down the length of the
Mercantile
when he arrived at the ladder. The bottom
rung was about three metres below the water line. Zak came up to the top again and grabbed hold of it.

He needed to ditch his gear. That was where the string bag came in. He removed it from the rebreather pouch and used the magnet to attach it to the metal hull of the ship, then he stowed his swim board and fins in the bag before removing his P11 from its pouch and tucking it into his shorts. He pulled the rebreather over his head. Before stashing the kit away, he removed his iPhone, shoved it into a damp pocket and unclipped the metal flight case. Holding it firmly, and now free of his dive gear, Zak started climbing the ladder.

It was difficult to climb and hold the flight case at the same time, especially with the gentle but unnerving yaw of the ship. Zak’s ascent was slow – a good two minutes before he arrived just below the level of the deck.

He stopped and listened.

Nothing.

Zak was just preparing to climb the final rungs when something stopped him. It was a smell: a waft of cigarette smoke. He froze. Somebody was up there, smoking. Zak might not be able to hear him, but he could sure smell him. He remained where he was, the muscles in his arms burning from holding on so tight.

A minute passed, and so did the smell of cigarette smoke.

Two minutes.

He heard footsteps. They walked directly past his position. Whoever it was up there, all he had to do was look over the railings and he’d see him, pinned against the hull, just a metre or so from deck level. Zak was suddenly very aware of the P11 tucked in his shorts. It wouldn’t come to that. Would it?

Nobody did look. The footsteps faded away and Zak knew he had to take his chance.

He pulled himself up the ladder. The deck was in view now. Its floor was made of steel and at the level of his eyes, against the body of the ship, he saw a ring-shaped flotation aid. He checked left and right. Nobody there. Ignoring the fearsome pain in his muscles, he climbed up the final few rungs and pulled himself over the railings onto the deck.

Sea water dripped from his sodden shorts and T-shirt. Zak held the flight case in his left hand. With his right he removed the P11. Now he needed to get the explosive device into the engine room. It meant getting inside the ship.

He headed along the deck in the direction of the shore. He saw nobody. After fifteen metres, he came to a door on his left. He pushed it open. It was heavy. Once he was inside the ship he had to use
all his strength to stop it banging shut.

He shivered. The water had leached all the warmth from him – he needed to keep moving. He was in a corridor. On the wall to his left was a laminated poster giving details of the safety regulations of the ship. Up ahead, the corridor stretched for ten metres before ending in another door. To his right was a flight of metal steps.

Zak stashed his weapon back in his shorts, activated his iPhone and swiped to the fourth page of apps. On the bottom row was a red icon with the image of a bicycle and a spanner. If anyone looked at it, they’d just assume it was a bike maintenance app, but when Zak touched the screen it morphed into a green 3D line drawing of the exterior of the
Mercantile
. Using just his forefinger he spun the image round until he was looking at the starboard side. Once he had identified the door he’d just walked through, he zoomed in. The schematics changed with his touch. He knew the engine room was in the bowels of the ship, and thirty seconds later he had identified his route and committed it to memory.

It was difficult to move quietly. His shoes were soaked and he had to take care not to let them slap noisily on the metal steps. Once he reached the bottom, he found himself in a large empty cabin. It was some sort of laundry room – big baskets of
dirty linen were stashed in the gap underneath the metal staircase and two enormous, ancient washing machines. They were so covered in dust they looked as if they hadn’t been used in years. Clean clothes, he surmised, weren’t that high on Black Wolf’s list of priorities.

Voices.

They came from beyond a door at the other side of the cabin. Zak’s heart jumped and he looked around for a hiding spot. His only option was the linen baskets. He crept behind them and hunkered down, keeping hold of the little flight case and gripping his P11 firmly in his right hand. It wasn’t a great hiding place since he was right underneath the stairwell and there was a gap of about thirty centimetres between each step. If anyone climbing the steps was paying attention, they’d see him. No question.