Endgame (Agent 21) (19 page)

It took them just a couple of minutes to get behind the tree line. Once there, Zak stopped them. ‘Don’t follow the perimeter of the forest,’ he told Tasha. ‘Go into the centre, then back out again. We want our trail to be as complicated as possible. It’ll make it harder for them to trace it back to your house.’

‘You really think this is going to work?’ Tasha asked.

‘Hope so,’ Zak said.

‘I hope so too. Pop won’t admit it, but money’s gettin’ to be a problem.’

They continued silently through the trees. Ricky realized they were able to move much faster now Malcolm wasn’t with them. He tried not to think of the previous night’s bear attack, but he found himself listening hard for any sound of growling or roaring. So far, there was none.

They walked in what Ricky took to be a northwesterly direction for forty-five minutes. Then Tasha switched trajectory, and they headed north-east. It took another half-hour to get back to the edge of the forest. ‘We’s a couple of miles north of our house,’ Tasha said as they peered out into the blizzard. ‘Farmstead’s a mile in that direction.’ She pointed east.

‘How can you tell where we are?’ Ricky asked, staring out into the blinding blizzard.

‘Same way you can find your way around a city,’ she said. ‘All those busy streets look the same to me. Also, I’ve got Snow. He can smell his way better than we can see our way.’ She looked at Zak. ‘What now?’

‘We get back behind the tree line and move north for half a mile. Then we execute the plan.’

They continued to follow Tasha as she picked her way expertly through the snow and the trees. Ricky tried to engage her in conversation. ‘Why do you live out here like this?’ he asked. ‘In that old shack, with everyone under one roof? It’s a hard life. Why not move back to the city?’

Tasha shrugged. ‘My pop says it’s because we prefer the wild life. Truth is, though, we ain’t got no money.’

‘Wouldn’t you prefer to live in the city?’

‘Sure I would. We all would. But Pop’s a proud man. He wouldn’t take us back to the city to live like paupers. Out here, we can manage on not very much.’

Ricky didn’t answer, but he saw Zak watching them with a strange expression. He wondered what that meant.

After another half-hour they stopped. Ricky realized his heart was pumping hard. He was very nervous.

‘Are you ready?’ Zak asked him.

He nodded.

‘Tasha?’ Zak said. ‘Which direction is the farmstead?’

She pointed to the south-east.

‘How far?’

She shrugged. ‘Bit more’n a mile, thereabouts.’

Zak turned to Ricky. ‘I’m going to give you thirty minutes,’ he said. ‘That should give you time to get to the farmstead. Then I’ll fire several shots. With a bit of luck, that’ll get the drug dealers moving this way to defend their territory. Then I’ll move a hundred metres north and fire again. The different direction should confuse them and make them split up. It’s an old military technique.’

‘Ever done it before?’ Ricky asked.

‘There’s a first time for everything,’ Zak said. ‘Do you think that’ll give you enough time to search the farmstead and steal any money you find?’

‘Guess it’ll have to.’ He gave Zak a rueful look.

‘What is it?’ Zak said.

‘Nothing . . . It’s just, Felix was always telling me I should think of myself as more than a petty thief. Dunno what he’d think about this.’

Zak clasped one hand on his shoulder. ‘He’d tell you that making life difficult for a bunch of drug dealers is a sure way of making the world a better place. They cause a lot of misery. No second thoughts?’

Ricky shook his head.

‘Good. Tasha, you stay here. Climb a tree if you have to. Only come down when Ricky or I give you the word.’

A cloud crossed Tasha’s face. She obviously didn’t like being told what to do. ‘Snow won’t let nothing happen to me,’ she said.

‘Snow’s not a match for a bad guy with a gun,’ Zak told her. ‘Time check,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘It’s 2200 hours. I’ll start the diversion at exactly 2245, OK? We meet back here. If there’s anybody about, we skirt the perimeter of the forest north for five hundred metres. Now go.’

Ricky hesitated. There was something in Zak’s demeanour that worried him. It was as if he was so desperate that he was being careless with his own personal safety. This all felt too rushed.

‘
Go!
’ Zak hissed.

– He can take care of himself. And Tasha can hide if she needs to. Get moving.

Ricky hurried off into the snow. He could hear his pulse thumping. Remembering how hard it had been to keep their bearings the previous night, he concentrated hard on moving in a straight line. There was very little wind tonight, which meant there was a strange and eerie silence all around. His heavy breathing sounded like thunder, and the snowfall stung his face.

The minutes passed quickly. At 22:32 exactly, he saw a shape emerging through the snow in the distance. The grey outline of a bulky, rectangular building. He hunched his shoulders and kept moving forward. A tiny glow appeared, maybe fifty metres away.

– A fire. People are there.

– Good. I’d hate us to be wasting my time.

The farmstead became clearer. There was one main building. It was about thirty metres wide but only a single storey high. It was surrounded by several outbuildings, all of which had snow drifting high up against their entrances. The orange glow came from one of the windows of the main building. Even from a distance, Ricky could tell that this was the only part of the farmstead that was occupied.

Ricky paused for a moment. His eyes picked out a particularly ramshackle outbuilding. It was the furthest from the main building and to the side. He figured it would be a good place to hide; as and when anybody exited the main building, they wouldn’t see his tracks coming in from this direction.

Time check. 22:35. Ten minutes till Zak’s diversion. When it came, Ricky could expect people to start spilling out of the main building, and slightly to its side. The roof was heavy with snow. He needed to be well camouflaged by then. He frowned. On the streets of London he knew how to blend into the background so completely that nobody would ever see him. But how could he do the same thing here, amid this thick blanket of endless snow?

– Dig yourself in. It’s the only way.

Ricky hurried over to the outbuilding, positioned himself to one side of it, and started scooping out a hole in the snow. It took him three minutes to make it deep enough that he could climb in and hide. He jumped into the hole and scrunched himself up into a ball, ensuring that his head was beneath the snow line. He caught a whiff of petrol and could just hear the low grind of an engine. Probably an electricity generator, he thought.

He waited. Now that he was immobile, he started to shiver. Snow settled on his clothes. Anxiety coursed through his veins.

He checked his watch. 22:44. One minute to go.

It happened precisely on time. As Ricky’s watch clicked on to 22:45, he heard three shots firing in quick succession. They were very clear, and sounded like they came from far closer than they actually did.

Ricky screwed up his eyes and listened hard. As the third shot died away, there was a moment’s deathly silence. Then, from the direction of the main building, Ricky heard the sudden banging of a door. Several voices started shouting in the night. He opened his eyes. Looking up from the protection of his snow hole, he could see the beams of several torches cutting through the night air.

– Stay put. It’s too early to move.

Three more shots rang out in the distance. They came from the same direction as the first three, but they seemed to Ricky to be perhaps a little closer. More shouting. He couldn’t make out individual words, but he could tell from the general hubbub that the people living in the farmstead were organizing themselves to head in the direction of the shots. And although he couldn’t see them, he was certain they would be armed. ‘Be careful, Zak,’ he found himself muttering. ‘Be very careful . . .’

The shouts were dying away somewhat, as the occupants of the building hurried further towards the sound of the gunshots. Very slowly and carefully, Ricky eased his head up above the snow line to see what was going on. From his position by the ramshackle outbuilding, he could just see a line of grey figures disappearing into the snow. He looked at the main farmstead building. They had left the door open and there was no movement in that direction, nor any noise.

– It doesn’t mean the building is empty. Sit it out for a little while longer. See if anybody else emerges.

Even as the voice in Ricky’s head made that suggestion, there was a third burst of gunfire. This time it came from a very different direction – further north. Zak had changed position. Ricky allowed himself a grim smile. There was no denying it. Agent 21 was sneaky. He heard more confused shouting. As he listened hard, his senses told him that the occupants of the farmstead had split up – some of them heading in the direction of the original bursts of fire, some of them in the new direction.

They were out of the way and confused by Zak’s diversion.

That meant it was time for Ricky to move.

Silently, stealthily, Ricky climbed out of his snow hole. Hugging the wall of the outbuilding, he moved in a straight line toward the main farmstead building. His hot breath steamed in the cold air, and his skin tingled with cold and nerves. He blinked frequently to keep the snow from settling in his eyes. The smell of petrol fumes grew stronger.

Distance to the main entrance: twenty metres. Ricky covered it in as many seconds. Breathlessly, he drew himself up alongside the open door. He pressed his back against the wall of the building, inhaled deeply, then carefully looked through the threshold.

Although the building itself seemed sound, the inside was a mess. The door opened straight into a large room. It clearly made up the whole building, and doubled up as sleeping quarters and a living area. There were old, stained wooden floorboards, and a large table in the middle with a gaudy yellow laminated tablecloth. It was covered with empty beer cans and cigarette packets. Against the far wall was a large fireplace – here, the fire Ricky had seen from a distance was burning. There was a sink against the left-hand wall, which was overflowing with dirty crockery. Ricky could smell its stench even from the doorway. Behind the sink was a window, its pane thick with snow. There was a second window on the back wall. Several mattresses lay on the floor, and there was a general air of neglect and decay.

– Get searching. Where would they be hiding their money?

All of a sudden, in his mind, Ricky was back in London, being tutored in the art of surveillance by Felix.
Divide the room into mental boxes
, Felix was telling him.
Search each box individually . . .

Ricky got to work immediately. He started in the far left corner of the room, where there was an old kitchen unit. He opened the drawers and cupboards, and carefully checked through what was left of the crockery within. No money. He pulled out the drawers and examined their underside. Nothing. He moved left. There was another unit here, next to the sink. It was empty. The sink unit itself contained empty bottles of cleaning fluid, but no cash.

– What if Zak’s wrong? What if they’re
not
hiding a stash of money here?

–
Then we change our plan. Until then, we keep looking.

Five minutes passed. Ricky diligently continued his search of the room.

No luck.

There was a sudden crackling sound. He started, and spun round. He exhaled slowly as he realized it was only the log fire spitting. He was about to get back to his search, however, when he heard another noise.

Voices. Outside.

– Someone’s coming back.

– How many?

– Sounds like at least two. Get out of here. Now!

Ricky looked desperately at the remaining sections of the room that he had not yet searched. He badly wanted to continue the process. He
knew
there was money here. He could almost smell it.

But the voices were getting closer. They couldn’t be more than twenty metres from the house.

There was an old metal bread bin on the side board. Ricky lifted the lid and looked inside. Nothing but a mouldy old loaf.

– Get out of here!

– What about the money?

– Forget the money! GET OUT OF HERE!

His eyes fell across the open door. He saw moving lights out there – torch beams, undoubtedly. And louder voices . . .

He hurried towards the window behind the sink. But as he reached it, a loose floorboard creaked under his foot. He paused.

– You haven’t got time! Get through the window! They’ll be here in seconds!

Ricky glanced at the door. The torch beams were brighter. They were falling inside the room itself.

He bent down and wormed his fingers in along the side of the loose floorboard. It lifted easily. A putrid smell of damp wafted up from underneath. But Ricky immediately saw that there was something there: a red plastic bag containing something bulky and wrapped round itself. He quickly lifted it out from under the floor and peeked inside. He caught his breath slightly as he saw several thick bundles of used notes.

He’d found what he was looking for.

Ricky quickly replaced the floorboard and got to his feet, clutching the bag of money. He stretched over the sink, brimful of dirty crockery, and unfastened the window. It took several good shoves to open it, because of the weight of the snow on the panes . . .

A voice. Very clear. Right outside the main door. ‘
Something ain’t right. I reckon the others, they’re off on a wild-goose chase . . .
’

‘
That’s their problem. I say we take the cash. Get ourselves the hell out of here . . .
’

Ricky’s heart was in his throat. There was no time to clamber out of the window. He had to hide. He quickly dived towards the large table in the middle of the room and clambered under the laminated tablecloth. Not a moment too soon. There was only a couple of inches’ space between the bottom of the tablecloth and the floor. So he could only hear – and not see – the feet that entered the room. He prayed that the new arrivals wouldn’t notice the tablecloth flapping.