Agent 21: Reloaded: Book 2 (20 page)

Zak stopped. He turned slowly. ‘How do
you
know Mr Barth—?’

‘Come on, Agent 21,’ Bea chided. ‘Do you
really
think you’re the only person Michael has dealings with?’

Zak blinked. ‘You mean you’re—’

‘Think about it. Who put your diving gear under the pier? And your P11? How did I know you were on board the
Mercantile
? None of the volunteers saw you, nobody in the village – Raf and Gabs taught you stealth if nothing else.’

‘You mean, you know—’

‘Look, if you’re going to stand there staring at me like the class dunce, this could be a very long evening for both of us. Where did you get that net from?’

‘A chest on the starboard deck.’ Zak was almost in a daze. What was going on? What had happened to the terrified, annoying girl he knew?
What had Michael not told him
?

‘You get one side, I’ll get the other. Those two guards will complete their circuit any minute. If they see us, they’ll do more than tie us to the railings.’

It was much easier to move the net now there were two of them. Zak and Bea were still stuffing it into the chest, however, when Bea hissed like an angry cat. She pointed towards the bow of the ship and Zak saw the outline of two figures approaching.

‘Hide in the lifeboat,’ Zak breathed. ‘Quick.’

‘The net!’ Bea replied. ‘It’s not hidden …’ But there was no time. They scrambled towards the hiding place. Seconds later they were huddled under the canvas cover, barely daring to breathe. There was a moment of silence. Zak used it to get his head together. Bea clearly knew who he was and she clearly knew his Guardian Angels. But was she bluffing? Was she pretending to be on his side? Suddenly nothing was as it seemed. Zak couldn’t take anything for granted.

Footsteps by the lifeboat. A foul, greasy stink of BO in the air. Then voices. ‘
El capitán
’s worse than normal.’ Zak recognized Eduardo’s voice. He certainly recognized his smell.

‘I don’t know why he doesn’t just kill the kids and be done with it. I don’t like having them on board. If customs catch up with us, how’s it going to look? Smuggling diamonds is one thing. Smuggling kids – that’s another.’

‘If you ask me,’ said Eduardo, ‘he’s been told to keep them alive.’

A spitting sound. ‘Told?’ said the second voice, full of contempt. ‘Nobody tells him anything.’

‘Don’t be so sure. Everybody has a boss. Even
el capitán
. You’ll see … What’s that?’

‘What’s what?’

‘That. Peeking out from the storage chest.’

Zak cursed inwardly.

‘It’s nothing.’

‘It wasn’t like that when we passed before.’

‘You’re paranoid, Eduardo. Who else do you think’s been on deck tonight? Mermaids?’

‘Very funny,’ Eduardo muttered.

‘Come on, let’s keep walking. I’m getting cold.’

‘No way,’ said Eduardo. ‘I saw what
el capitán
did to Barker for not reporting something suspicious. I’m going to tell him about this. You can come with me,
or you can ignore it and carry on patrolling. Up to you. If you think a dart in the skull will improve your looks, stay out here.’

A pause.

‘Wait!’ called the other man. ‘
Wait! I’m coming with you!
’ His footsteps receded.

Zak and Bea lay dead still for twenty seconds. And then …

‘
Move!
’ whispered Bea.

Zak didn’t need any more encouragement. It didn’t much matter whose side Bea was on. If he didn’t get back to his cell now, all hell would be let loose.

Together, they scrambled back out of the lifeboat and replaced the canvas cover. Zak led the way towards the deck door he’d been using, with Bea following close behind. They entered the ship just in time to see the entrance door to the bridge slamming shut. The two of them hurtled down the stairs, through the laundry room and back into the corridor where their cells were.

‘Get inside,’ Bea instructed once they were both outside their cells. ‘And whatever you do, don’t break out again.’ She opened the latch of her own door.

‘Wait,’ Zak said.

‘We haven’t got time. They’ll be here any minute …’

Now, though, it was Zak’s turn to grab her by the
arm. ‘I’m not going anywhere until you answer some questions.’

Bea glanced towards the end of the corridor. She looked very nervous. ‘We haven’t got—’

‘Who are you?’ Zak demanded. ‘You’d better tell me, Bea. I’m not going anywhere until you do.’

Bea’s eyes blazed.

‘They told me you were good, Agent 21. I haven’t seen much sign of it yet.’

‘
Who
told you I was good?’

‘Michael, among others. He might change his mind when he finds out about your little games with Ntole and the AKs.’

Zak ignored her barbed comment. ‘So if you’re such good friends with Raf and Gabs, you can tell me what Gabs would call me if she was here.’

‘I haven’t got time for this …’

‘Well you’d better
make
time.’

Bea narrowed her eyes at him, and shook her head – like she was a teacher and Zak had been unable to do his homework. ‘Haven’t you worked it out yet? Haven’t you worked out why we can’t get caught? Michael
wants
you on this ship. I was sent out here to make sure it happened.’

‘
What
?’ He felt a crunch of betrayal in the pit of his stomach. ‘
Why
?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine.’ Bea glanced along
the corridor again. ‘All I know is there’s an RV about to happen. I don’t know who it’s with, but Michael has gone to a
lot
of trouble to arrange it.’

Zak’s head was spinning. He didn’t understand. ‘What about the device? You told them about it – are you saying that after all the trouble I went to, Michael
doesn’t
want this ship destroyed?’

The look Bea gave him was sly. ‘Don’t you worry about that. When the time comes, the MV
Mercantile
is going the way of the
Titanic
.’

‘But they threw my device overboard.’

‘Of course they did.’

‘You’re not making any sense, Bea.’

Bea sighed. ‘Haven’t you ever heard of the double camera trick?’ she asked.

‘The what?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s simple. You fix a security camera somewhere obvious, then hide a second one somewhere covert. The person you’re spying on will disable the obvious camera and feel very pleased with themselves. They won’t twig it was just a decoy.’

‘A decoy?’ Zak could hardly believe what he was hearing. ‘Are you telling me there’s
another
device on board?’

‘Of course there is,’ Bea replied. She sounded just a little bit smug. ‘I planted it myself.’

‘
Where
?’

But she shook her head. ‘They’ll be here any second. We
have
to get inside.’ She pulled her arm away from Zak. ‘You look terrible, Agent 21,’ she said. ‘You’d better gather your strength. If I’m not mistaken, things are about to get interesting.’

She opened her door and, without looking back at Zak, locked herself in her room once again.

Zak almost went after her. But at that exact moment, he heard something at the other end of the corridor. Voices, maybe? They were drowned out by the hum of the engine room. He quickly opened the door to his own cell and quietly shut it behind him. He switched off the light and groped in the darkness towards his bed.

Zak had only just lain down when the door opened again. He saw two figures standing in the doorway, one of them carrying a torch. The torch-bearer entered the room and strode towards Zak’s bunk. He shone the torch directly into Zak’s face. Zak winced and squinted, as though his eyes weren’t used to the light. Then he groaned. It seemed to satisfy the crew member, whoever it was, because he moved the torch away from Zak’s face and walked back towards the door.

‘Looks good and messed up,’ he said to his mate. ‘He’s not going anywhere.’

‘Good,’ said the second man. ‘Maybe
el capitán
will give us the rest of the night off.’

‘You’ll be lucky. Come on, let’s get back on patrol before Karlovic finds something else for us to do. He and the skipper seem edgy …’

The door closed behind them, leaving Zak in the darkness again.

His body lay very still, but his mind was doing somersaults. So many questions. Why were Acosta and Karlovic on edge? What was the rendezvous the crew was expecting? Was Eduardo right? Had Acosta really been told to keep him alive? If so, why? Why did Michael want him on the
Mercantile
in the first place? Why hadn’t he just been straight with him from the beginning?

And what about Bea? Was she on the level? Could he trust her? It hadn’t escaped his notice that she’d avoided answering his question about Gabs. Did that mean she was bluffing? Did it mean she’d never met his Guardian Angels, despite what she’d said?

Time passed. Zak lay still.

And then, in the darkness, he heard a noise. A tapping sound, coming from the direction of Bea’s room. A rhythmic series of long and short knocks.

Zak listened carefully to the Morse code message coming from the adjoining cell, automatically translating it into letters in his head, almost without knowing he was doing it.

She … would … call … you … sweetie
…

Zak swallowed hard. It meant Bea was telling the truth.

It meant that, for the second time, Michael hadn’t told him everything.

And it meant something big was just round the corner.

18

RV

Saturday, 16.00 hrs West Africa time; approximately 750 miles east of the South American coastline

‘THE SEA’S GETTING
rougher.’

‘Tell me about it. We should turn back. It’s madness to carry on.’

‘Do you want to tell
him
that?’

A pause.

‘No way. I’m not stupid.’

Two men stood on the deck of a vessel that was half the size of the MV
Mercantile
. It had no name – just a number: 3182126. They were heading on a bearing of ninety-three degrees, east into the heart of the Atlantic. They spoke in Spanish, and they could see that the clouds up ahead were rolling and black. All day they’d been listening to the shipping forecast. All day the radio had been alive with warnings to avoid the very area to which they were directly headed.
But they had their orders, and their orders were to carry on.

A sudden gust of wind kicked a shower of spray up onto the deck. It would have soaked the two men if they hadn’t been wearing their wet-weather gear. As it was, it just knocked them backwards. One man lost his footing. When he scrambled upright again, he looked sourly at his shipmate. ‘We should get back inside!’ he shouted.

His mate nodded, just as another burst of spray hit them. They struggled back inside, where their gear dripped heavily onto the floor, and made their way to the bridge. Here there were three more men, all grim-faced, all looking like they’d prefer to be anywhere on earth other than here. In the middle of the bridge, a flight of steps led down to the lower deck, at the bottom of which there was a closed door. It had been closed ever since they set sail.

The occupant of the lower deck quarters had the habit of issuing his instructions to the crew over the radio. It was insanity, they all thought, given that he was just metres away from the rest of them. But then, their boss wasn’t the type to show his face if he didn’t have to. On land he remained incognito, and the same was true at sea.

If it had been anyone else, the crew would have been mutinous. They’d have taken control of the ship
and steered it into safer waters. And they’d probably have thrown their skipper to the sharks for good measure. But while the person holed up down below generously rewarded loyalty, he punished betrayal very seriously. They’d seen what happened to people who crossed him. They’d seen the scars on the bodies of the newly dead that told of the terrible agony they had suffered before they were killed. They’d heard of garrotted bodies swinging low from the trees on the outskirts of villages, and of corpses left out in the desert to be consumed by wild animals. They’d heard the stories of how whole families were wiped out because one of their number had offended him. Some of these crew members had sons and daughters, but even those who didn’t have children had mothers and fathers, and they all knew how severe the reprisals would be if they so much as entertained a mutinous thought. Their boss did not respect youth, or age. He’d kill anybody if he had to.

No, there would be no arguments on board this vessel. When the instruction came through that they were to maintain their course, even though they were heading into the eye of a storm, they obeyed. Perhaps they were travelling to their deaths. But if they disobeyed their boss, they’d be dead anyway. At least this way they had a chance.

The wind howled around the ship.

The sea grew rougher.

The crew were silent as the vessel continued towards its RV.

In the bowels of the MV
Mercantile
, Zak could also tell that the sea was getting rougher once more. In the gloom of his cell, he kept having flashbacks to the night out on deck. Every time he remembered being strapped to the railings, his skin prickled and he found himself involuntarily gasping for breath. If Acosta decided to repeat the torture, Zak didn’t know
what
he’d end up admitting. Not the truth, certainly, because he didn’t even know what the truth was. He couldn’t trust his abductors, but could he even trust his friends any more?

He had slept after returning to the cabin. A fitful sleep, on and off throughout the long hours of isolation. The cuts on his face were raw with blood and salt; his dreams had been filled with water and the sickening sound of the P11 dart splintering Barker’s skull. He saw Michael’s face back on St Peter’s Crag.
That’s the thing about terrorists
, he was saying.
The good ones, at least. They’re very clever. Which means we have to be a little bit cleverer
…