Endgame (Agent 21) (4 page)

He sprinted towards the exit and slammed his hand against the palm-print panel. The door slid open. Zak looked out onto the exercise yard and winced. It was brightly lit by floodlights on the roof of the warehouse building. The scream of sirens was even louder here, and Zak could see the flashing blue neon of several emergency vehicles pulling up outside the perimeter of the prison.

He glanced down at the MP5 in his hand. If anybody saw him carrying a weapon, they could get the wrong idea. He decided he had to lose it. He made the weapon safe, removed the magazine again and laid the gun on the floor. Then he took a deep breath and sprinted across the exercise yard.

The floodlights cast multiple shadows all around him. His footsteps were silent. Dazzled by the bright lights, he reached the reception building in less than ten seconds. Once more he slammed his palm onto the panel. The door slid open. He stepped inside, then stopped dead in his tracks.

The guard who had let him in was sitting behind his desk. He was sprawled out in his seat and his head was lolling to one side. His throat had been cut. Rivulets of fresh blood were dripping down his neck. Zak reckoned he had only been killed in the last couple of minutes.

He tried to ignore the sickening chill that was creeping down his spine. Taking a deep breath, he drew back his shoulders and strode for the main entrance. For a third time he slammed his hand against the palm panel, and the main entrance to the prison clicked open.

He stepped outside.

Three police cars had pulled up onto the kerb. Their doors were open, their sirens flashing. Zak found himself face to face with five uniformed officers. Twenty metres along the road was an unmarked black van. Its rear doors were open, and a unit of armed response officers were spilling out. They wore flak jackets and carried MP5s, just like the prison officers.

Zak raised his chin. ‘You need to get in there,’ he shouted, before anyone could start asking him awkward questions. ‘There’s a load of badly wounded men inside.’

One of the five uniformed officers started talking into the radio clipped to his chest. The armed response officers ran at Zak. Two of them got down in the firing position covering the entrance, while the others stormed past him and made their way into the prison. A second uniformed officer grabbed Zak by the arm and pulled him away. ‘What’s your name, kid?’ he demanded. ‘What the hell were you doing in there?’

Zak looked him straight in the eye, because he knew that was the most convincing way of lying to someone. And the bigger the lie, the more confident you have to sound when delivering it. ‘My dad works here,’ he said. ‘His name’s Ern. Sometimes I have to sleep over.’

The policeman narrowed his eyes, but seemed to accept Zak’s story. ‘Stand over there, kid,’ he said, indicating the section of pavement alongside the armed response unit van. ‘And try not to get in the way, OK?’

‘Right,’ Zak said quietly. He sidled over to the van, his heart thumping inside his chest. When he got there, he saw that one of the other policemen was watching him carefully.

Proceed to Meeting Point Three. Do not allow the emergency services to question you.

Zak bowed his head, but kept his gaze on the third policeman. He could tell, just by the expression on his face, that he had overheard Zak’s story and didn’t believe it. The policeman started walking in his direction. Zak’s body tensed up.

Gunshots in the distance. A single burst of fire coming from the opposite end of the street. All five policemen turned, as did the two armed response unit guys covering the entrance.

Zak knew he wouldn’t get another chance. While everyone else was looking the other way, he turned and ran.

Ten seconds later he heard a shout from behind. ‘
That kid’s running away! Stop him!
’

In the early days back on St Peter’s Crag, there had been times when Zak Darke had truly hated his Guardian Angels. Those times lasted for approximately ninety minutes a day – the time set aside for his fitness regime.

On many occasions, with his lungs burning and his muscles on fire, and with Raf barking at him to push his body through feats of endurance that felt impossible at the time, he’d felt like throwing in the towel. And on those occasions, his Guardian Angels had been strict with him. ‘Look, sweetie,’ Gabs had told him more than once. ‘All the other stuff doesn’t matter. So what if you know your way around an assault rifle? So what if you can fly a plane? So what if you can speak four languages? If your fitness isn’t up to scratch, you’re out of the game.’

It was only when Zak was out in the field that he fully understood what she meant. And right now he was grateful for every gut-busting training session they’d put him through.

He pounded the street, running fast, breathing slow, just like he’d been taught. His trainers barely made a sound as they hit the pavement. After fifteen seconds, he looked over his shoulder to see if the police officers were following. Two were sprinting after him on foot, but he could tell at a glance that they would never catch him. The police car pulling out with its siren flashing might be more of a problem. Zak could outrun most people, but he couldn’t outrun a car.

He looked ahead. Twenty metres from his position, a main street cut across at right angles. During the day it would be very busy. Zak could have easily got lost in the commotion. But at this time of night there was just the occasional flash of headlamps passing. Not easy. He’d have to think of something better.

The police siren grew louder. Zak felt like it was right on his shoulder, and he had to suppress his panic. When he hit the main road, he turned left. Past Boots – closed. Past KFC – closed. He caught glimpses of tired Christmas trees and tinsel in shop windows. And as he continued to run, he scanned the pavement ahead. It was deserted. He’d be very obvious, sprinting down it. He needed to blend in – and quickly.

Then he saw him – an old homeless guy with a long, messy beard, sitting on the pavement ten metres ahead, just outside Costa Coffee, whose window showed a jolly Santa holding a steaming mug. The homeless guy wore a heavy but shabby coat, a threadbare woollen hat and gloves with the fingertips cut off. A thin, hungry-looking bull terrier was lying at his feet.

Zak sprinted towards him, pulling the sheaf of fifty-pound notes from his back pocket as he ran. The homeless guy looked up. For a moment, he seemed terrified. But his face changed when he saw the money.

‘Here’s a hundred quid,’ Zak said urgently, pressing two notes into his hand. ‘I need to borrow your coat for two minutes.’

The homeless guy couldn’t move fast enough. He wriggled out of his overcoat and handed it to Zak, who quickly pulled it over his shoulders, then sat next to him, his shoulders hunched and his head down. The bull terrier sniffed curiously at his feet, but didn’t move.

Zak had hit the pavement just in time. A police car screamed up to the corner, closely followed by a second one. They’d obviously seen Zak turn left, because they swung round in that direction, their tyres screeching as they did so.

‘Robbed somewhere?’ the homeless guy asked.

Zak kept his head down. The two police cars had slowed down. They were thirty metres away and suddenly moving at a crawl as their occupants scanned the street, left and right.

‘Don’t worry, lad,’ the homeless guy muttered. ‘We sometimes do bad things when we’re hungry. Lie down. The cops don’t normally move us on when we’re asleep.’

Zak gave him a grateful look, then quickly lay down, covering his body and half his head with the coat, facing the shop window with his back to the road. He felt the dog nuzzling up to him.

The seconds ticked by, agonizingly slowly. The sirens were silent now, but he could see the flashing neon reflected in the shop window.

Suddenly, a voice from the road. ‘You seen a kid running this way, pal? About five eight, blue jeans, brown jacket?’

‘That way, officer,’ the homeless guy said. To Zak’s surprise, his voice was slurring – he was doing a very good impression of being drunk. He belched loudly. Zak saw the neon reflection of the policeman moving on. ‘Don’t get up yet, lad,’ the man said quietly. ‘They’re still watching.’

Zak waited.

Thirty seconds passed.

A minute.

‘All right, lad. They’ve gone.’

Zak sat up quickly. He uncovered himself and handed the coat back to the homeless guy. The grizzled old man was looking at him with sharp, clear eyes. ‘I’ve seen a lot of bad ’uns in my time,’ he said. ‘You’re not one of them. I can tell.’

Zak didn’t reply. He shoved his hand into his back pocket and pulled out the remaining four fifty-pound notes. He knew it was bad tradecraft – that he might
need
that money at some point. But the old homeless guy looked like he needed it more. He thrust the money into the man’s dirty hand. The man looked shocked, but also thankful. Zak nodded gratefully at him.

Then he turned, and ran in the opposite direction.

Meeting Point 1 was a kiosk in Waterloo Station that sold pasties and sausage rolls. If the contact was holding a bottle of water, it was safe to meet. If they were holding a cup of coffee, it was a sign to abort the RV.

Meeting Point 2 was the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral. If the contact was holding a newspaper, all clear. If they were reading something on their phone, abort.

Meeting Point 3 was a bench by the Serpentine in Hyde Park. If the contact was wearing a hat, it was safe to go ahead with the RV. If not, get the hell out of there.

Distance to Meeting Point 3: approximately three kilometres. Once Zak was sure he was no longer being followed, he dropped down to a steady jog – as much to keep warm as to get there quickly – and covered the distance in about twenty minutes.

The park was empty. Hardly surprising, in the middle of this cold night. As he approached the Serpentine, he checked the time. Quarter past three. The air was piercingly chill, and the visibility was poor. He stood, hidden, in the shelter of a copse of trees, observing the bench from a distance of 100 metres. There was nobody there.

Zak didn’t miss a beat. The first rule of an RV was this: if your contact hasn’t shown, don’t hang around. Nothing looks more obvious than someone milling about, keeping surveillance on an otherwise unsuspicious location, even when you think you are hidden and unobserved. Zak immediately turned and walked in the opposite direction from the bench. There was a standard operating procedure for moments like this. He would return at 4 a.m. If his handler was still not there he would return at 5 a.m. – and then every hour, on the hour, until he made contact.

Head down, shoulders hunched, his senses acutely sharpened, Zak strode through the park. The cold was really getting to him now. It seemed to creep into his bones. Or maybe it was the memory of the horrific events at Incarceration Unit 3B. He couldn’t help thinking about the awful bleeding stump of Ern’s arm, or the look of pained horror on his face. He thought of Calaca, and the way he had warned him.

Then he remembered: Calaca had put something in his hand.

He dug around in his pocket until he found the object. It was a tiny USB flash drive. Zak stopped and stared at it. Then, aware that he’d look strange if anyone was watching, he continued to walk.

And he continued to think.

Why had Calaca wanted Zak there on the night he intended to escape prison? And why hadn’t he killed him? The answer had to be on this flash drive.

Zak thought about heading into the centre of town, finding a PC at an internet café and plugging in the flash drive to see what information it held. But he quickly discarded that idea. It would be too insecure. He needed to wait until he’d made contact with Michael. He’d know what to do with it.

Four o’clock came and went with no sign of anyone at Meeting Point 3. By 5 a.m. Zak was shivering with cold. He wished he hadn’t given the homeless guy all his money, because now he couldn’t even find a coffee shop in which to kill time. So he kept walking, trying to put the cold from his mind by analysing the events of the night, and by keeping his mind on high alert.

And hoping that the RV would occur at 6 a.m.

At five minutes to six, he found himself hiding in the copse of trees again. The sky was beginning to lighten, although it was, if anything, even colder now. In the murky half-light, from the distance of 100 metres, Zak could just make out the shape of not one, but two figures sitting on the bench. He squinted. He thought both of them were wearing woolly hats, though it was hard to tell from this distance. But he hesitated anyway. If the first rule of an RV was not to hang around if your contact hadn’t shown, the second rule was this: if things don’t look like you expect them to, assume that your secrecy has been compromised and abort the mission.

Zak was expecting only one person: his handler, Michael. Why, then, were there two people waiting?

Maybe they were just random people sitting by the water. It was, after all, a public bench. But as Zak watched, one of the figures stood up. Zak thought he’d recognize the stoop of Michael’s shoulders. He decided to move a little closer.

Distance, fifty metres. The guy standing up was definitely Michael, and he was definitely wearing a woolly hat. He was looking at his watch, and his breath was condensing in the cold morning air. Zak decided to make contact.

He strode towards the bench, his eyes flickering left and right to check he wasn’t being observed. Two joggers – one male, one female – cut across him at a distance of about fifteen metres, but there were no other people in sight. Zak realized that the dawn chorus had just started. Pretty enough, but extremely loud and a distraction once he’d noticed it.

By the time Zak reached the bench, Michael had sat down again. Approaching from behind, Zak saw that he and his companion had moved to opposite ends of the bench. They’d clearly spotted Zak, and had cleared a space for him to sit down.

Zak walked round to the front of the bench. He could smell the aroma of cherry tobacco that always lingered around Michael. He nodded at his handler. The older man looked very tired. Older than usual. Something was obviously wrong. He looked at the second man and immediately recognized him. His name was Felix and he ran another agent – code name Agent 22, real name Ricky – whom Zak had met once. Felix was balding on top, with wild hair above his ears. He wore a blue cagoule, and was clutching a walking stick. His face was as grim as Michael’s.