Agent 21 (16 page)

Zak couldn’t keep his mind off Raf. He’d recognized his guardian angel even though he couldn’t see his face; but the explosion of blood from his chest was so realistic that Zak couldn’t help worrying that he’d actually shot him. The thought made him feel sick,
and he did everything he could to put it from his mind.

From the car window he could see Mexico City in all its variety. It was an enormous, sprawling place. There were shabby brownstone tenement blocks, and concrete buildings plastered with graffiti; but there were also green, open spaces and, dominating the skyline, shining skyscrapers glittering in the sun. You only had to take one look to see that rich and poor lived side by side in Mexico City.

The northern district where they took Zak was not a rich one. They stopped outside a bland, functional concrete building. A sign outside read ‘
Comisaria
’ – police station – and the officers hustled him through the door. A woman at the reception desk gave Zak a bored glance as he was frogmarched into the building and down a long corridor that smelled of antiseptic. Minutes later his police escort released him into the custody of a surly prison guard who stank of sweat. This man removed his Plasticuffs with a big pair of sharp scissors. The guard led him to a processing area – little more than a small room with strip lighting, a big metal cabinet and a wooden table – and spoke four words to Zak: ‘Belt, watch, wallet, phone.’

‘Aren’t they going to ask me any questions?’ Zak had assumed that because he had fired in self-defence, the
Mexican police would be sympathetic. Looked like he’d assumed wrong.

‘What do you think you are? Important? We’ve got fifty more like you downstairs. Belt, watch, wallet, phone.’

Zak handed each item over with reluctance – especially the phone, but he wasn’t in a position to argue. He noticed his hand shaking as he did so. The guard locked them away in the metal cabinet, then patted him down to check he wasn’t carrying any concealed weapons. ‘Come with me,’ he said, and took Zak down into the basement of the facility to lock him up.

The cell was ten metres by ten, and was home to twenty-three people including him. They were all men – many of them with intricate tattoos inked onto their skin – and Zak was comfortably the youngest. In the far corner there was a toilet without a seat which gave off a foul stench. The others had already crowded in those parts of the cell that were furthest from the toilet, and the only place Zak could find to crouch was against the far wall, three metres from it. From here he could look out of the iron bars that fronted the cell. There was a second unit opposite and this housed the women prisoners. If anything, they looked even more threatening than the men.

The smell that leached from the toilet mingled with
the heat and the sweat to create an odour which made him want to retch. His wrists still hurt from where the police had cuffed him. His knees stung too, because when the prison guards had hurled him inside he had stumbled and scraped himself against the concrete floor. A swarm of flies buzzed not only over the toilet but also around all the prisoners. For the first ten minutes, Zak tried to swat them away with his hand, but he soon realized how pointless that was. He’d just have to put up with them crawling over his skin.

The other men in the cell looked as if they were used to places like this. When Zak entered they all gave him unfriendly stares, but their interest in him almost immediately petered out when they realized he wasn’t a threat to any of them, that he simply intended to sit quietly against the wall like they all did. It was too hot for anything else. Not that this made Zak feel any better. This was never part of the plan. Cruz could hardly thank him for saving his life when he was banged up in a stinking cell like this, alone and terrified.

To stave off the fear, he told himself that Frank would be along any minute to get him out. In the meantime, he put his head down and tried to merge into the background. All he could do now was wait . . .

* * *

London.

In a block of flats on the south side of the River Thames near Battersea, three men and a woman watched a large bank of computer screens. One of the men was Michael, but the other two didn’t know him by that name. To them he was Mr Bartholomew. Or ‘sir’ for short.

One of the computer screens showed a map of Mexico City with a moving green light flashing on it.

‘Agent 21 on the move sir,’ said the younger man.

‘Thank you, Alexander, I can see that. Tell me when he stops again, please.’

Michael turned and looked out of the window across the river. It was 1.30 p.m. here, but it had already been a long day and he was nervous. Their plan was finely tuned, and he hoped he hadn’t put too much faith in young Zak Darke.

An hour passed. All was silent in the flat until . . .

‘He’s stopped again, sir,’ said Alex.

‘Where?’

The girl – her name was Sophie – spoke. Sophie zoomed one of the computer screens in on a satellite image. ‘A police station, sir.’

‘Good. Sophie, get in contact with Frank Gold. Tell him where Agent 21 is. He needs to get him out on bail immediately.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Sophie said, and Michael went back to staring out of the window.

Zak had been in the cell for half an hour when the door opened and a sour-faced prison guard threw three plastic bottles of water inside, before locking the door again. There was a scramble as seven or eight of the prisoners tried to grab the bottles. The lucky three cradled their treasure like they were holding their own babies. It was immediately clear that they had no intention of sharing the water with anyone else in the cell. Most of the unlucky prisoners returned to their places with dark looks, but one of them – he was wearing open-toed sandals, black jeans and a lumberjack shirt, and had a lean, desperate face, several days’ stubble and a tattoo on his neck – remained on his feet. He took a step towards the smaller of the three bottle-holders, who had scraggly black hair around his shoulders. ‘Give me some,’ he said.

The guy with the bottle took a step back towards the bars. He shook his head.

The thin man moved as quickly as a cat. Zak didn’t see where he pulled his knife from, but it must have been somewhere well hidden to have escaped the prison guard’s notice. It had a short, stubby blade, but it was shiny and sharp and the thin man held it threateningly at head height, ready to stab.

The long-haired man immediately dropped the bottle. ‘Take it,’ he said, and his eyes darted around nervously.

That should have been an end to it, but the thin man was after more than water. He wanted a fight. He didn’t drop his knife. He just kept advancing.

Zak sensed all the other prisoners shifting away from the area of conflict. They knew what was about to happen, and they didn’t want to get involved.

A little voice in Zak’s head told him to do nothing, to avoid drawing attention to himself. But he couldn’t stand by and watch a man being stabbed. He pushed himself up to his feet and in three big strides crossed the cell, coming up behind the knifeman just as he was about to bring his blade down on his adversary. ‘
No!
’ Zak shouted. He barged into the knifeman with his shoulder, forcing him away from his victim so that he fell against the railings. The knife clattered into the corridor outside.

There was a horrible silence in the cell. The knifeman turned slowly to look at Zak. His eyes flashed and there was a nasty sneer on his face.

‘A hero, are you?’ he whispered. He started flexing his fingers and took a step in Zak’s direction.

‘I don’t want any trouble,’ Zak said. But he felt himself tensing his body at the same time, preparing for a fight.

‘It’s a bit late for that,
niño
.’

Zak looked around the cell. Nobody was about to help him.

‘
Enough!
’

The voice came from outside the cell and Zak saw the prison guard. The knifeman’s eyes narrowed. ‘Just you wait,
niño
,’ he hissed, and he turned slowly to look at the guard.

The warden, however, wasn’t interested in him, or the fight, or the knife on the floor. He pointed at Zak. ‘You,’ he said. ‘Come with me. Looks like it’s your lucky day.’

Relief crashed over Zak.
Frank must be here
, he thought,
ready to bail me out of this hellhole
. The warden unlocked the cell door. Zak stepped around the knifeman, whose face grew even darker now he realized he wouldn’t be allowed the pleasure of laying in to Zak, and hurried out of the cell. The warden locked the door again and led Zak away.

‘Friends in high places, have you?’ he asked in a gruff voice as they climbed the stairs again.

Zak shook his head. ‘No,’ he replied, wondering what the guy meant.

It was only when they were back in the processing area that he understood.

The person waiting for them was most definitely
not
Frank. He was incredibly thin, but sweated like a
fat man in the sun. He had a couple of days’ stubble, and was wearing a pair of jeans and a green Mexico football shirt with a number nine on the back. The shirt covered an angular bulge at his hip: it was clear this man was carrying a firearm. But it wasn’t his physique or his clothes that made Zak’s blood run cold. It wasn’t even the barely concealed gun. It was his face. His eyes.

Or rather, his eye.

There was only one. His right eye was missing, and the skin had grown over it so smoothly that it looked as if the eye had never been there in the first place. Zak recognized him, of course. He had seen his picture on Michael’s whiteboard back on St Peter’s Crag. Adan Ramirez.
Calaca
. Zak remembered what Michael had said about him.
It’s impossible to say how many men Calaca has killed. Chances are that he doesn’t even know himself
.

He looked around, half hoping to see Frank walk into the room. But it didn’t happen, and Zak felt fear rising like acid in his stomach.

‘The boy, Señor Ramirez,’ said the warden.

Zak shook his head. ‘My uncle . . .’ he stuttered.

‘Shut up,’ said Calaca. ‘You have his things?’

The warden nodded. He unlocked the cabinet and pulled out a wooden tray containing the items he had confiscated from Zak. Calaca examined them. He
rifled through Zak’s wallet, checking the name on his credit card and noting the wodge of cash that was stashed inside; he put the watch to his ear and turned the phone over in his hands. Zak held his breath, hoping Calaca would not want to study the phone
too
closely. Finally, however, satisfied that the items were of no concern to him, Calaca turned to Zak and nodded. ‘Take them,’ he said.

Zak did as he was told.

Calaca handed a handful of brand-new Mexican pesos to the warden. ‘From Cesar Martinez Toledo,’ he said, his voice flat and quiet. ‘He is pleased to know he can always rely on your loyalty.’

Zak was looking at the warden carefully so he saw his expression when Calaca mentioned the word ‘loyalty’. His eyes widened and his lazy arrogance fell from him. He was, quite obviously, scared – although that didn’t stop him from taking the money.

Calaca turned to Zak. ‘You,’ he said, ‘come with me. Señor Martinez has business with you.’

Zak exchanged a glance with the prison warder. ‘Where am I going?’ he asked. And then, when the warden didn’t answer, ‘I need to call my uncle.
Please
.’

‘You will call nobody,’ Calaca said in a dangerously low voice. ‘Get moving, now.’

It was clear Zak didn’t have a choice.

* * *

A vehicle was waiting for them in the street outside. It was a Range Rover with blacked-out windows, just like the ones that escorted Cruz Martinez to school. Calaca opened the back door. ‘Get in,’ he said.

Zak turned to him. ‘Where are we going?’

Calaca’s one good eye bored into him. ‘Get in,’ he said again.

There were two other men in the car: a driver and one other sitting in the passenger seat. They both wore suits and dark glasses. Neither of them even looked at Zak as he climbed into the back seat. After the rank heat of the cell, the air conditioning was blissful. The car moved away immediately.

They were back on the elevated freeway, heading north to south, when Zak finally spoke.

‘Thank you for coming to get me,’ he said.

Calaca gave him a cool look. ‘Do not thank me,’ he said. ‘You may find that a conversation with my employer will make you wish you were back in that prison cell.’

Zak thought of the picture of the dead bodies Michael had shown him, and swallowed hard. But he didn’t let his fear show in his face. Instead, he pretended to be ignorant. ‘Who
is
your employer?’ he asked.

Calaca gave him a dismissive look. ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ he said.

They drove on in silence, through the centre of the city and out to the south. The elevated freeway became an ordinary main road; that in turn became a smaller road. The vehicles grew less numerous, and about ten minutes later, they turned onto a dusty track that didn’t feel like it was doing much for the Range Rover’s suspension. They were no more than half an hour from the southernmost district of Mexico City now, but it looked like a different world. Looking out of the tinted window, Zak saw that the surrounding area, for as far as he could see in either direction, was covered with tree stumps.