Endgame (Agent 21) (2 page)

But so did Gabs. With the syringe still sticking out of her shoulder, she collapsed unconscious, just as Raf had done.

Silence.

Stan rubbed his neck as he got to his feet. He shuffled on the spot for a moment, then suddenly kicked Gabs as hard as he could. Her prone body didn’t move.

Muttering to himself, Stan stumbled back along the corridor, down the stairs and into the hallway, where his oilskin and briefcase were still lying on the floor by the door. He pulled the wet coat on again, then retrieved the torch from the case and opened the door.

Make sure they’re both unconscious before you make the sign. That’s very important, Stan. Can you remember that?

The howling of the wind hit his ears again as he stepped outside. It had grown stronger, and the clouds up above were scudding quickly across the sky. Standing on the threshold of the house, he raised the torch. Using the pulse button, he shot three short beams towards the heavens. There was no visible light – this was an infra-red torch – and although Stan wasn’t expecting any, he still found himself examining it carefully before repeating the sign. He hoped the torch was working, because if Raf and Gabs woke up before reinforcements came, he’d
really
be in trouble . . . Stan had seen them training, and he knew how fit and strong they were.

A silent sheet of lightning filled the sky. A few seconds later there was a boom of thunder from many miles off. Then a helicopter emerged suddenly from the boiling clouds.

It was clearly having difficulty in the high winds. Stan had seen many helicopters land on St Peter’s Crag. In general, they avoided weather like this, and with good reason. Stan had never seen a helicopter shake and spin so violently as it struggled to land on the open ground in front of the house. He felt his mouth go dry.

You’ll come with us in the helicopter when we leave
, the man had said.
We’ll give you your money then, and help you disappear . . .

Stan didn’t want to get into the chopper in these high winds, but he knew that staying on the island was no longer an option. He wrapped his oilskin more tightly around him as he watched the chopper touch down and two men emerge. He squinted to see what they looked like. They were wearing black clothes and balaclavas. Ugly-looking guns hung across their chests from slings. With their heads bowed against the downdraught of the helicopter, they sprinted towards the house.

It only took them a few seconds to reach Stan. They said nothing, but one of the masked men put his head to one side, as though asking a question.

‘F-first floor,’ Stan said nervously. ‘’S all done, just like he said.’ He pointed toward the helicopter. ‘Should I . . .?’

‘Stay there, old man,’ said one of the figures. He seemed a lot less friendly than the guy Stan had made the deal with. He had a foreign accent. Spanish, maybe. Or Mexican.

Stan nodded. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Right you are.’

But the men had already slipped into the house, leaving Stan out in the wind, still clutching the infra-red torch. He shuffled on the spot again for a couple of minutes. The men returned. Each of them had a body over his shoulder – Raf and Gabs. They looked very limp. If Stan hadn’t known they were unconscious, he might have thought they were . . .

‘Wait there,’ said one of the masked men.

‘Right,’ Stan muttered. ‘Righto . . .’

The figures hurried with their cargo towards the helicopter. Through the darkness, Stan could just make out some more figures dragging Raf and Gabs into the chopper. He found he was holding his breath. He looked over his shoulder, then back to the chopper. A horrible thought crossed his mind – maybe they weren’t intending to come back for him. Maybe they were just going to fly off and leave him here . . .

But no. With relief, he saw the two figures running back up towards him from the chopper. When they were about ten metres away, they slowed down.

‘Shall I come, then?’ Stan asked. ‘Shall I come along to the heli— W-what – what are you doing?’

Stan’s stomach had turned to ice. One of the two men had lifted his gun and was pointing it directly at him. The other pulled off his balaclava. He was a thin young man – too young, Stan thought, to be carrying a gun – with cold, cruel eyes. He was standing five metres from Stan’s position.

‘Who . . . who are you?’ Stan stammered.

The young man inclined his head. ‘My name is Cruz Martinez.’ His tone of voice indicated that he thought Stan should recognize the name. But Stan didn’t, and it obviously showed in his face. ‘I’m a little disappointed that your precious Agent 21 hasn’t mentioned me.’

Stan blinked heavily. ‘Put them guns down,’ he said.

They didn’t.

Stan staggered backwards. His limbs were heavy with fear.

‘’S only me,’ he said. ‘’S only Stan.’ He was terrified by the fierce, keen look in the young man’s eyes.

‘You,’ Cruz Martinez said, lowering his gun so that it was pointing at Stan’s knees, and speaking as insultingly as possible, ‘are a
stupid
. . .’

He fired as he said the word. A single shot that echoed through the air and slammed straight into Stan’s right knee. A shriek of pain shot through him as he collapsed. Blood oozed down his shin.

‘
Old
. . .’ Cruz said, and he fired a second round into Stan’s left knee.

The pain was beyond imagining. Stan tried to shout out, but the sudden violence had robbed him of his voice.

Cruz Martinez stood above him. Now he was pointing the gun at Stan’s head, the wind blowing his hair wildly, and his cold eyes were brighter than ever.

‘
Man
,’ he said.

If anyone had been watching from a distance of more than fifty metres, they wouldn’t have heard the bark of Cruz Martinez’s firearm above the howling of the wind. They would simply have seen a muzzle flash as the third round slammed into Stan’s head. And Cruz heartlessly kicking the old man’s body.

They would not have heard him turn to his companion and say, in Spanish: ‘Phase one complete.’ Nor would they have heard the response: ‘Phase two is underway, Señor Martinez.’

They would have seen the two figures turning their back on Stan’s lifeless corpse and running back to the helicopter. And the aircraft lifting shakily into the sky before disappearing quickly behind the thick bank of clouds.

And if they had waited for a few hours, until the wind dropped and the sun rose, they would have seen a single black bird landing on the corpse, and pecking at its wounded flesh, since there was nobody around to shoo it away.

Wormwood Scrubs. Strangeways. Parkhurst. They give weird names to ordinary prisons. But special prisons – the prisons nobody really knows about – have very ordinary names.

It was 2 a.m. on the morning of 3 January. Zak Darke stood outside a prison that was a secret to almost everyone. Including Zak, up until the moment fourteen hours previously when he had been summoned, alone, to Incarceration Unit 3B.

From the outside, this building on the Caledonian Road in North London looked like a warehouse. Only a trained eye would pick out the security cameras fitted to its walls. They covered every square inch of the building and its grounds. And only a suspicious mind would wonder why the high wire fence was topped with bundles of razor wire that would be more in keeping at a military base.

Zak had a trained eye
and
a suspicious mind. He’d picked out the camera and the razor wire immediately.

It felt odd being in this part of town. He had once lived just half a mile from here, after he had been orphaned and sent to stay with his aunt and uncle. That part of his life seemed like a distant memory. He’d been plucked from it by a strange old man who sometimes called himself Mr Bartholomew and sometimes plain old ‘Michael’. Michael had offered him the chance to join a top-secret government department – Zak thought of it simply as The Agency – and since then, his life had become . . . unusual.

Which was why, while most teenagers were tucked up in bed, making the most of their last chance of a lie-in before school or college began again any day now, Zak was here, outside this top-secret, high-security prison. And although he was used to peculiar circumstances, he couldn’t help a twinge of anxiety in his gut. It’s always nerve-racking, visiting a prisoner you’ve helped put behind bars, and Zak had more reason than most to be wary of one of the inmates of this institution.

But Michael had thought it would be a good idea.
He’s made a request to see you
, Zak’s handler had said.
Alone. Maybe he’s decided he wants to talk, to give us information. It could be useful. And it could be good for you too. Sometimes the best way to deal with your demons is to confront them . . .

Zak had a whole load of demons. He guessed it wouldn’t hurt to cross one off the list.

There was a brick reception building set into the perimeter fence. Zak pressed a buzzer. A moment later the door clicked open. He stepped inside to see a uniformed guard standing behind a desk. On the far side of the room there was an iron door. Zak knew it would be heavily locked. On its right-hand side was an iPad-sized screen, but it was blank. Behind him, he heard a click as the first door locked.

As Zak approached the desk, the guard walked round from the other side. He looked suspicious. Zak scanned him up and down. He immediately noticed the slight bulge on the left-hand side of his torso that told him the guy was carrying a firearm. Probably a pistol, though Zak assumed the guard could call on heavier reinforcements if he needed them.

Zak stopped two metres from where the guard was standing. He knew better than to invade the personal space of a man with a gun.

‘Harry Gold,’ he said, using one of the many false names for which he had full paperwork, and about whose life he knew every tiny detail. ‘I’m expected.’

The guard looked even more suspicious. ‘Shouldn’t you still be playing with your Christmas presents?’ he said. And then, when Zak raised an eyebrow: ‘I wasn’t expecting a kid.’

‘I can’t help what you were expecting,’ said Zak. But realizing his nerves had made him sound surly, which wasn’t the way to get what he wanted, he smiled. ‘I’ve got a baby face,’ he said. ‘Always have done. Didn’t start shaving till my eighteenth birthday.’

Zak’s eighteenth birthday was a long way off.

‘ID?’ the guard said.

Zak handed over a passport in the name of Harry Gold. The guard flicked through it, then walked back round to the other side of the desk and scanned the passport while watching a screen. He nodded a few seconds later and handed the passport back. Zak stuck it in his back pocket. ‘You’re good to go,’ the man said. ‘I’ll call someone to take you in.’ He picked up a radio handset. ‘All right, Ern,’ he said. ‘That fella’s here for the Cyclops.’ He gave Zak another meaningful look. ‘Well, I say
fella
. . . more like a pipsqueak . . .’

The guard put the radio back on the desk. ‘You’ll have to empty out your pockets. No phones, coins, nothing sharp or metal.’

Zak had come prepared. Aside from an iPhone, which he laid on the desk, he only had notes in his pocket. Six fifties – because in Zak’s line of work, you never knew when you’d need some ready cash. The guard’s eyes widened at the sight of all that money, but he didn’t insist that Zak hand it in. Zak returned the notes to his back pocket.

‘Dunno why the Cyclops finds you so damn interesting,’ said the guard. ‘Hasn’t spoken a bleedin’ word to any of us all the time he’s been here. Hasn’t had a visitor. Hasn’t even received or sent a letter. Just stays in that cell of his, working out sometimes or just staring at the wall. Gives me the creeps.’ He peered at Zak a bit more closely. ‘What are you?’ he asked. ‘Family or something like that?’

‘Something like that,’ Zak agreed with a smile.

The guard didn’t get a chance to ask another question. There was a hissing sound, and the door on the far side swung open. A black guy in uniform walked in. Zak supposed this was Ern. He was about the same height as Zak, but twice as broad. Zak had the impression it would be as hard to get past him as to get past the metal door itself – which was already swinging shut.

Ern looked Zak up and down, much like the guard had done. ‘This our midnight visitor, is it? This the one keeping us from our beauty sleep?’ He smiled, to reveal several missing teeth. Zak reckoned they hadn’t been removed by the dentist. ‘Arms above your head, please, son.’

Zak did as he was told, and let Ern frisk him down. It only took a few seconds. Zak wasn’t hiding anything.

‘Come on then, son, let’s get this over with.’ Ern turned and placed his right palm against the screen to the right of the door. The hissing sound came again as the door swung open. Ern walked back through it.

Zak followed. The door automatically locked behind him.

They were in a tarmac’d open space. ‘Exercise yard,’ said Ern. ‘Not that any of our lot are allowed to use it.’ They crossed the yard towards the large, warehouse-type building. ‘Want to know what makes this place different to other prisons, son?’

‘More secure building?’

Ern smiled. ‘Ain’t no such thing as a totally secure building. Not if you know what you’re doing. And what’s to stop a prisoner trying to escape, if they know they ain’t got no chance of seeing the light of day again any other way?’ As they walked he opened up his jacket. Zak immediately recognized the MP5 sub-machine gun holstered to his body. ‘Much better deterrent,’ Ern said. ‘Ain’t a single prison guard not armed to the teeth. And the prisoners know we won’t hesitate to shoot if we see anything resembling an escape attempt.’ He paused for a moment, before adding: ‘I always mention that to the visitors, just in case they get any funny ideas, you know.’

He gave Zak a sidelong look full of meaning.

Zak almost replied. He almost told Ern that he was barking up the wrong tree if he thought Zak was here to help anyone escape. He was here to see the prisoner that the jailers called the Cyclops. Zak knew him as Calaca. He had been the right-hand man of Zak’s arch-enemy, Cruz Martinez. Calaca had tried to kill Zak, and he’d tried to kill someone very dear to him. But then he’d made the mistake of trying to cross Zak’s Guardian Angels, Raf and Gabs. As mistakes went, that was a pretty big one. It had ended up with Calaca detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure – although Zak wasn’t entirely sure that Her Majesty knew of the existence of such places as Incarceration Unit 3B.