Agent 21: Reloaded: Book 2 (15 page)

The door opened. The voices were speaking English.

‘If you ask me,’ a gruff, male voice said, ‘Karlovic is getting too big for his boots.’

A spitting sound, and then a second voice, slightly shrill. ‘You’re worrying about the wrong man, Barker. Karlovic is nothing. It’s
el capitán
who calls the shots round here. Karlovic wouldn’t go to the toilet without the boss’s say-so.’

Both men were obviously English. They had
London accents. The first of them – Barker – laughed. They were halfway across the room, heading for the stairwell. Zak gripped his P11 a little more firmly.

‘I still don’t see why we’re not allowed ashore. I haven’t had a drink for weeks.’

Zak could see their feet on the first step. He could smell the tobacco on their clothes.

‘Get used to it. We set sail tonight. Moan about it too loudly to Karlovic and you’ll be drinking sea water. Straight from the sea, if you know what I mean. He might be
el capitán
’s stooge, but he’s got a nasty streak in him. Thinks he’s Blackbeard the pirate or something …’

They were halfway up the steps. Zak held his breath.

They reached the top.

‘It’s all wet here,’ said Barker. ‘It looks like … footprints.’

A pause.

‘The steps are wet too,’ he continued. ‘What the hell …’

‘Ah, forget it,’ said his mate. ‘It’s probably nothing. Tell Karlovic and he’ll have us searching the ship from top to bottom.’

‘Yeah, you’re probably right …’

Five seconds later they were gone.

Zak stayed where he was for at least a minute. Only
when he was sure all was silent did he venture out from his hiding place. He crept across the laundry room and gingerly opened the door through which the two men had come.

Another corridor, running the length of the ship. There were five doors on either side, spaced about four metres apart. Crew quarters, Zak knew from the plan. At the far end of this corridor was yet another staircase heading down. He hurried towards it, half expecting one of the doors to open at any time. None did. He sensed that Michael’s intelligence had been correct: the
Mercantile
had only a skeleton crew.

He found the engine room at the bottom of the second staircase. It stank of diesel and oil. It was nothing like as large as the engine room on HMS
Vanguard
, but it was still the biggest space Zak had seen on the
Mercantile
so far and, according to the schematics on his iPhone, it was one of the largest on the whole ship. But this room was deserted too. There was a metal cylinder lying on its side, about five metres long. Attached to it were six pistons and a perplexing network of pipes and valves. The floor was vibrating and the noise in here was loud enough for Zak to realize he wouldn’t hear anybody approaching.

Another reason to move quickly.

He headed round to the far-side cylinder and crouched down. There was a space between it and the
floor of about fifteen centimetres. He laid the P11 on the floor next to him, undid the clasps on the metal flight case and opened it up.

Even though Zak knew what he’d been carrying, it was still a shock to see it. The explosive device was very simple. There were eight square cakes of a material that looked like wet clay. Zak recognized it as C4 plastic explosive. The cakes were bound together with thick black tape. On top of the C4 were two very ordinary AAA batteries – the sort of thing you could find in almost any kid’s toy. A wire probe led from the battery housing into one of the cakes of C4. There was also a small receiver, the size of a fifty-pence piece. Zak didn’t know how or from where Michael intended to activate the remote detonation, but that receiver would detect the signal and send the electric charge into the explosives.

And then …
bang
.

Zak gingerly lifted the device out of its flight case. On its underside there was a magnet. He turned the device upside down and attached it to the bottom of the metal cylinder. The magnet stuck to the metal no problem.

Job done …

Except suddenly there was a massive noise. Zak started and looked around. There was nobody there, but he realized the cylinder was giving off a churning,
grinding sound. The pistons were hissing and the floor was vibrating even more. With horror, he realized the engines had started up. It meant that the ship was preparing to leave …

Zak closed the flight case and desperately looked around for somewhere to hide it. He found a detachable panel on the wall just next to him. It was stuffed full of wires – these were vibrating too – but there was enough room to stow the case. Once it was hidden away, he picked up the P11 again and, without wasting another second, headed for the exit.

Zak urgently had to get off the ship. An Atlantic cruise might be some people’s cup of tea, but Karlovic and
el capitán
weren’t exactly his idea of good shipmates and he didn’t much fancy the idea of releasing his dive gear and taking to the water while the ship was moving. He ran up the stairs, past the crew quarters and into the laundry room. Stopping at the bottom of the first flight of stairs, he listened for a few seconds. Nothing, so he ascended and turned left, through the heavy door and out onto deck.

The whole ship was vibrating now, but he couldn’t tell if they were moving. He looked towards shore to get a frame of reference. It looked still. They hadn’t started off yet, but it was just a matter of time …

He turned and ran towards the ladder. It was ten metres away. But suddenly there was a problem.

Shouting!

‘
I SAW HIM! HE’S ON BOARD!
’

Zak stopped. A shrill voice was ringing in the air. Female. Young.

‘
HE’S UP TO SOMETHING! I SAW HIM! HE’S ON BOARD NOW!
’

Zak couldn’t tell which direction the shouting was coming from, but he could certainly recognize the voice.

Bea.

He swore under his breath – what was she
doing
? – and sprinted towards the ladder, trying to block out the sound of Bea’s screaming. But the deck wasn’t deserted now. He could see figures up ahead.
Two men, running towards him
.

They were going to get to the ladder first
…

Zak stopped and raised his P11. The two men – they both wore jeans and T-shirts – halted immediately. They eyed the weapon.

‘Get back!’ Zak shouted. ‘
Get back now or I’ll shoot!
’

The two men stepped backwards. ‘OK, kid,’ said one of them. ‘Take it easy.’ How were they to know Zak would never have shot them? Zak edged towards the ladder. If he could just get down to his dive gear before too many others discovered his location …

Too late
.

Zak felt his hair being clutched tight before he saw
the blade. Someone was behind him. They crooked their right arm around his neck and pressed a sharp blade against his skin.

And then they spoke. A man’s voice with a foreign accent.

‘Have you ever cut butter with a hot knife?’ The voice was no more than a breath.

‘I’m not much of a chef,’ Zak whispered back. His voice wavered as he spoke, and he immediately regretted sounding cocky.

‘What a shame. If you had, you would know how easily this blade will cut through your jugular. I think it’s time for you to drop your show-off’s weapon, don’t you?’

Maybe it was Zak’s imagination, or maybe the artery in his neck really was pumping against the wickedly sharp blade of that knife. Either way, he knew he didn’t have a choice. He let the P11 fall and it landed with a clatter on the metal floor of the
Mercantile
’s deck.

13

DO NOT ESCAPE

‘YOU’RE GOING TO
turn round very slowly. I’ll probably be killing you at
some
point tonight. I don’t care if it’s now or later. Make any sudden movements, do anything I don’t like – it’ll be now …’

The two men at whom Zak had pointed the P11 were sauntering towards him. Now that they weren’t in fear for their lives, they looked arrogant. One of them picked the weapon up off the floor and examined its oversized barrel. He’d clearly never seen such a firearm before and he took great pleasure in turning the tables on Zak. He pointed the P11 at his forehead. ‘You heard him, sunshine,’ he said in a London accent. Zak realized this was Barker, one of the men who’d almost rumbled him in the laundry room. ‘Turn round.’

Zak did as he was told and was confronted by the man wielding the knife. He immediately clocked the piercings along his swollen left eyebrow. Karlovic.
He didn’t look much prettier in the flesh than he had through the night sight or in the photograph in Zak’s briefing pack. He had a good couple of days’ stubble, a nasty curl to his lip and breath like a dog that had gorged on garlic. As well as his knife, he had an MP5 sub-machine gun slung across his front. Easy to use in close-quarters battle and in places where space was restricted. Like ships.

Karlovic gave him a flat-eyed stare and stepped aside.

‘Walk,’ he said.

A P11 at the back of his head and a knife just inches from his body. It didn’t look like Zak had a choice.

He walked slowly to give himself time to think. His dive gear was still stuck to the hull of the boat. If he was fast enough he could jump over the railings of the
Mercantile
and swim towards it. But the rounds from Karlovic’s MP5 would penetrate the surface of the water to a depth of three metres, and in any case he’d have to come up for air before he reached his gear. He’d be fish food before he knew it.

And then there was Bea. Was she just a busybody who’d got herself into serious trouble? Or was there more to her than that? It sounded like she was on the ship somewhere. Zak had boarded the
Mercantile
with his eyes open, but if Bea was just an innocent volunteer she couldn’t have any idea what she’d just let
herself into. She might be totally annoying, but Zak wasn’t prepared to leave her to Black Wolf …

No. For now, his only option was to go with the flow. See what happened. And when an opportunity presented itself, grab it.

Karlovic, Barker and the third man forced him through the same door he had used to get to the engine room. Instead of heading down the metal steps to the laundry, however, they continued straight along the narrow corridor towards the second door at the end. Zak hadn’t even opened it before he heard a voice on the other side.

‘Get your hands off me! I said,
Get your hands off me!
What do you think you’re doing, you horrible man? What’s going on …? You know I only came on board to try and find our idiotic volunteer …’

‘Stupid girl,’ said Barker behind Zak.

‘Quiet!’ Karlovic instructed. He nudged Zak in the small of his back. ‘In you go. Now.’

Zak opened the door and stepped into the next room.

It was immediately clear to him that he was on the bridge of the
Mercantile
. It was a lot less plush than that of
Galileo
, the last ship’s bridge he’d been on. It measured about ten metres by five and everything – the walls, the floor, the navigation panel – was a dull battleship grey. Zak could tell from its position that
the window of the bridge looked out towards Lobambo, but because it was dark outside he saw nothing but blackness. The interior was lit by a flickering strip light on the low ceiling. And in that flickering light Zak saw three people.

The first was Bea. She was on her knees with her hands behind her back. Her pale face, normally so sour, was terrified. Hardly surprising because the second man – whom Zak did not recognize – had the barrel of an assault rifle pressed against the back of her head. The gunman had a wispy beard. It looked like he had grown it to make himself look older than he actually was – probably still a teenager, Zak reckoned. He wore a black and white bandanna on his head. There was a rank stench of body odour in the air, and Zak was pretty sure it came from this guy.

The third man, however, Zak recognized. Antonio Acosta. The man from the Rio favelas who had, according to Michael, murdered his own brother. Zak clocked the dark eyebrows that met in the middle and took note of the enormous strength of his topless upper body.

Acosta waited for the door to shut behind Karlovic and his men before he spoke. His voice was very soft and his English, though heavily accented, seemed good. He inclined his head slightly at Zak.

‘You’re going to tell me who you are,’ he said in a
slightly bored tone of voice. ‘And you’re going to tell me what you’re doing. If you do that, there is a possibility – a
small
possibility – that I will not instruct my men to kill you.’

Silence. Zak desperately tried to work out his next move.

‘I’m waiting,’ Acosta said. ‘But I’m not a very patient man.’

Zak knew he had to sound scared. Not difficult. He
was
scared. ‘I … I’m sorry,’ he stuttered. ‘My name’s Jason. Jason Cole. I just wanted to look at the ship. I only just got on deck. I’ve never been on—’

He wasn’t expecting the punch. It came out of nowhere. One second Acosta was standing with the same bored look on his face; the next he had swiped the back of his hand against Zak’s face. Zak gasped in pain. At first he couldn’t work out why it hurt so much. Only when he touched his fingertips to his left cheek and felt that it was bleeding did he look at
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’s hands. Acosta had a ring on his fourth finger with a sharp, jagged edge. It clearly wasn’t there for decoration. It was a weapon.

And talking of weapons …

Barker stepped forward and handed the P11 to Acosta.

‘What is this?’

‘He had it on him,
El Capitán
. And I reckon he’s
been on the ship longer than he says. We saw wet footprints on the steps down to the laundry room. That was fifteen minutes ago.’

The
Mercantile
’s skipper hardly acknowledged what Barker had said. He was too busy looking at the P11. ‘This is quite a toy, Jason Cole,’ he said. ‘When I was a young man, I did my killing with far less interesting weapons.’ He looked at Zak again. ‘Do you really expect me to believe that a curious kid would board my ship armed with one of these?’