Deadfall: Agent 21 (19 page)

Latifah froze. She knew she was supposed to run. She had practised this moment in her head. But when it came to it, she froze. The only thing she could think about was what it would feel like to be shot in the back as she ran.

It meant she saw it happen.

The East Side Boys never knew what hit them. The two knotted patches of vegetation suddenly
sprang to life. The man and the woman – Raf and Gabs – emerged from their hiding places and hurled themselves at the East Side Boys. At the same time, the boy called Zak jumped up out of a low patch of greenery lying just a couple of metres to her left. He wrestled her to the ground. ‘Keep low,’ he hissed. ‘Don’t move.’

They stayed there, pressed against the earth, for what seemed like a minute but was in fact no more than a few seconds. Then they heard a whisper from the direction of the gates. ‘
Clear!
’

Zak released his grip and they looked towards the camp gates. Raf and Gabs had completely overwhelmed the two East Side Boys. The guards were on the ground, belly down. Each one had a booted foot on their back and Gabs had their gun. Their earpieces and boom mikes had been ripped from their heads.

Latifah quickly covered her eyes. She had seen enough violence in her short life, and could not bear to see any more. She steeled herself as she waited for the shots.

But no shots came.

When Latifah looked again, peering through a gap between her fingers, the scene had changed. Each boy had a length of rope over his mouth and tied at the back of his head. Their hands were
behind their backs. Raf and Gabs were tying their wrists tightly. The two East Side Boys, who had seemed so threatening to Latifah with their guns and their cruel faces, now looked like what they were: scared kids.

Zak grabbed Latifah’s wrist and pulled her to her feet. Together, they ran towards Raf and Gabs, who were forcing the trussed-up East Side Boys into a sitting position against the outside wall, just to the left of the gate. Once the boys were on the ground, Gabs turned her gun round so the butt was in front of her. She gave the two boys an appraising look, then yanked the butt sharply against each of their heads. Their eyes misted over and they slumped to the ground.

‘They’ll be fine,’ Gabs said to nobody in particular. Latifah was a bit scared of this blonde-haired woman whose expression changed between kindness and grim ferocity. ‘You did very well, sweetie,’ she said, with an expression that was now somewhere between the two. Then she turned to Raf and Zak. ‘I think it’s time for us to head inside, don’t you?’ she said very quietly.

The man and the boy nodded.

‘You don’t have to come, Latifah,’ said Gabs. ‘You’ve done more than enough to help already.’

But Latifah felt like she was on auto-pilot now.
She shook her head. ‘I’m coming,’ she said, praying there would be no argument.

There was none. Zak was peering round the edge of the camp gate. He turned back to look at them.

‘They’ve rounded up the kids,’ he hissed. ‘I think they’re about to kill them. We have to move!’

All four of them slipped inside the camp and Zak immediately heard the sound of wailing.

There was a crowd of young people 100 metres to his twelve o’clock. They formed two distinct groups. The worker-children – there were about thirty of them – were on their knees. They were lined up with their backs against the wall of one of the huts. They were the ones wailing, of course. It was a horrible, low moan, like the hum of insects somewhere on the edge of Zak’s hearing. The sound of terror.

The second group was made up of East Side Boys. Zak instinctively counted them out: it was crucial to know your enemy. There were six of them. He wondered for a moment if there were any others hidden elsewhere in the camp, but somehow he
didn’t think so. Latifah confirmed his suspicion. ‘They said there would be eight in all,’ she whispered. ‘That is all of them.’

None of them had noticed the newcomers. They were not well organized and there seemed to be an argument going on. The East Side Boys, with their mismatched clothes and cruelly scarred faces, all seemed to be crowding round one of their number and a few were shouting instructions. None of them, to Zak’s surprise, seemed to be armed.

‘Stand back, you two,’ Gabs breathed. She and Raf stepped in front of Zak and Latifah. Gabs held the weapon she had confiscated from the guards. The butt of the assault rifle was pressed into her shoulder. She didn’t hold it with the arrogant swagger with which Zak had seen the East Side Boys brandish their guns. She held it like a pro.

The wailing of the children continued. Zak saw one youngster – he couldn’t tell from this distance if it was a boy or a girl – with their head in their hands, crying.

Movement among the East Side Boys. They thinned out, to reveal one kid at their centre. Zak immediately recognized him – he had been in the room when Cruz and Sudiq had stuffed him into his wooden coffin. Cruz had called him Smiler.

‘I know that one,’ Latifah whispered. ‘He . . . he let me escape . . .’

Smiler was the youngest of them by far. He looked miserable. Unlike the other East Side Boys he carried a weapon. And unlike Gabs, he
didn’t
hold it like a pro. More like a live snake. But his finger was on the trigger and now he was pointing the weapon at the line of children up against the wall.

Gabs said nothing, but Zak could hear her movements fluently. She seemed quite relaxed, but had suddenly altered the direction of her gun. She was preparing to take Smiler out.

‘
Wait
,’ Zak hissed.

‘Stay back, Zak,’ Gabs breathed.

‘
No!
’ He stepped out in front of them. ‘I’ve met this guy before. He won’t do it. Trust me.’

‘He doesn’t have a choice, sweetie. I’m sorry, but neither do I . . .’

As she spoke, one of the East Side Boys barked out a warning. The others all spun round to look at them.

They were in a diamond formation now: Zak at one tip, looking back towards Raf and Gabs who kept their weapons trained on the East Side Boys. Latifah behind them.

‘I can talk him out of this,’ Zak said. He
remembered the sickened expression little Smiler had on his face when Sudiq was forcing him to deal with Matilda’s corpse. ‘I know I can. You don’t have to shoot him.’

Both Raf and Gabs had flinty expressions.
Unconvinced
expressions.

‘He’s just a kid,’ Zak breathed. ‘You have to let me try.’

A pause. Then Gabs nodded.

Zak spun round, then started walking forward. He was aware of Raf and Gabs flanking him.

‘Smiler!’ he shouted. ‘Put the gun down. We won’t hurt you, but you have to put the gun down first.’

Distance between them: seventy-five metres. Zak could tell, even from here, that the boy was trembling.

‘I know you don’t want to do this, Smiler,’ Zak called, still moving towards the younger boy. ‘And you don’t have to. You’re not like the others. I can tell. You’re not a killer. Put the gun down. Put it down and we can make all this OK again. I promise.’

Fifty metres.

Smiler’s glance alternated between the group of East Side Boys who were surrounding him, and Zak. Zak saw him waver. The gun wobbled in his hands. His shoulders slumped . . .

Suddenly, another of the East Side Boys moved, very fast. From somewhere among his clothes he had pulled a handgun. He pressed the butt up against Smiler’s head. An arrogant expression spread across his face.

Zak and his companions stopped. ‘What’s this dude’s name?’ Zak whispered to Latifah.

‘I don’t know,’ Latifah replied. ‘I call him Kicker, but that’s just my nickname for him.’

Kicker’s face threw out a challenge.
Put your guns down
, it seemed to say,
or the kid dies
 . . .

Zak started walking forward again. He knew he was gambling, and he didn’t like it. Surely Kicker understood that the moment he pulled that trigger, Raf and Gabs would open fire. He’d be dead before Smiler hit the ground.

Or was he not bright enough – or too arrogant – to realize that his life hung by a thread?

Gunfire
.

It came from Gabs’s weapon.

Several of the captive children screamed. Zak nearly jumped out of his skin. For an awful moment, he expected to see a shower of blood. But he didn’t. Just a cloud of dust billowing up from the ground at Kicker’s feet, where a round had landed.

All of a sudden, Kicker didn’t seem so brave. He jumped back and his handgun fell to his side.

Thirty metres.

Smiler was still clutching the weapon. The other East Side Boys were edging back. Some of them looked like they would disperse at any moment. Others looked aggressive. The situation was still not defused.

Twenty metres.

The East Side Boys were looking desperate now. Their eyes flitted from left to right and many of them were flexing their fingers, ready for a fight they couldn’t have, because they were held at gunpoint.

Smiler slowly turned. The gun turned with him. It was pointing in Zak’s direction.

Zak’s heart stopped.

But Smiler didn’t stop moving. The gun didn’t stop swinging round. Now it was pointing directly at the remaining East Side Boys. The closest of them was only five metres from Smiler’s position.

The captive children had fallen completely silent. Now the only sound came from the East Side Boys themselves. It was a low murmur, with an undertone of fear and indecision – they didn’t know what to do.

Ten metres.

Zak, Raf, Gabs and Latifah stopped. The eyes of everybody else in the camp were on them.

A moment of tense silence. A bird called
somewhere overhead. It sounded louder than it should.

‘Are you going to kill them?’ Latifah breathed, quietly enough that only her new friends could hear.

Another pause.

‘That’s not really the way we operate, sweetie,’ said Gabs. ‘They might be messed up, but they’re still just kids.’ She glanced at Raf. ‘But we do need to think what to do with these guys. If we set them free, they’ll only regroup and come at us again.’

Raf had steel in his eyes and Zak couldn’t help thinking that he had a more terminal solution in mind.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ Zak said.

‘I’m all ears, sweetie,’ Gabs replied. Her mouth barely moved as she spoke.

Zak stepped over to Smiler. Now all eyes were on him alone. One of the captive kids was still sobbing, but they had mostly fallen silent. ‘Give me the gun, mate,’ he said. ‘Then go over there and stand behind my friends. They’ll make sure you stay safe.’

Smiler swallowed. He looked reluctant to let go of his gun.

‘Trust me, Smiler. Look at these boys. They’ll kill you if they get their hands on that weapon.’

The barrel of the rifle dropped a couple of
centimetres. Zak stretched out one hand and grabbed it.

Sudden movement from the East Side Boys. One of them – it was Kicker – was darting towards Zak and Smiler.

A massive bang as Gabs immediately let loose a round from her weapon.

Kicker hit the ground.

A groan from the East Side Boys. For a shocked instant, Zak thought Gabs had killed him. But there was no blood. Kicker was still alive. The bullet had hit the ground perfectly in front of him. He’d dropped to the dirt in surprise and terror.

Smiler let go of his rifle, leaving it in Zak’s grasp. Then he scurried the ten metres back to where Latifah was standing. Like everyone else in the camp, he stared at Zak.

Holding the weapon as professionally as Gabs held hers, Zak turned to the group of East Side Boys.

‘Take your clothes off,’ he shouted.

Nobody moved.

Zak gave Gabs and Raf a sideways glance. Gabs had a sly smile. ‘You heard him,’ she called. ‘Strip.’

All of a sudden, these aggressive East Side Boys looked like surly, scolded children. Half-heartedly, they each removed a single item of clothing – a bandanna, maybe, or at best a khaki jacket. They
dropped the clothes on the floor in front of them, casting sidelong glances at each other. Then, chins jutted out, they looked back at Zak.

‘
All
your clothes,’ Zak said. He raised the rifle slightly to emphasize his point.

If the situation wasn’t so serious, it would have been funny. And that’s what Zak wanted; he wanted to embarrass them. The East Side Boys slowly stripped, casting mortified glances all around them as they did so. Within a minute they were standing among piles of clothes, all six of them wearing nothing but their underwear. It was amazing how, now that they were semi-naked, they looked a lot less scary. Zak even heard a giggle from one of the captive children behind him.

‘What do you think, sweetie?’ Gabs called. ‘Do we let them keep their pants?’

Zak shook his head. He wanted them naked, because a naked kid in the jungle has more to think about than causing trouble for other people.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said with a frown. ‘Without their clothes, they’re totally harmless. If you can think of a better way that doesn’t involve bullets, I’m all ears.’ Gabs shrugged, so he turned back to the boys. ‘Lose them,’ he instructed.

Steaming with embarrassment, the East Side Boys removed their underwear.

Zak looked at Kicker. ‘Pick up all the clothes and put them in a pile, then step away,’ he said. ‘
Now!
’

His eyes burning with shame, Kicker did as he was told. Moments later there was a pile of clothes on the ground. The East Side Boys, huddled in a group about ten metres away and covering themselves with their hands, couldn’t take their eyes off their clothes.

Zak still had the little flask of fuel in his rucksack that they’d taken from Cruz’s aircraft. He un-stoppered it and sprinkled the remainder over the clothes. Then he set his lighter to the pile. It immediately whooshed up in flame. While it was burning, he looked through the shimmering haze above it, to the awkward, naked East Side Boys beyond. For a moment he felt sorry for them, but then he remembered what they’d been trying to make Smiler do.

‘Get out,’ he called across the fire. ‘Stay away from the camp and stay away from the river. If we see any of you ever again, we won’t be so lenient.’