Under Cover (Agent 21) (11 page)

But as soon as he opened the door to see his mentor standing there, his head and shoulders covered with a dusting of the snow that had not stopped falling since Christmas Eve, and with a storm cloud for a face, he could tell something was wrong.

Felix grunted an unfriendly greeting, then limped through the door and into the living room, leaving a trail of dirty snow behind him. He plonked himself down on the sofa. Ricky noticed that, unusually, he was carrying a small leather briefcase.

‘Er, cup of tea?’ Ricky offered. He wondered if Felix knew about his little excursion on Christmas Eve. Maybe he’d followed him, and Ricky hadn’t noticed.

Felix shook his head curtly. He pulled a bag of sweets out of his pocket and was about to put one in his mouth. Before it touched his lips, he threw the sweet away at the coffee table. It pinged on the glass and ricocheted off like a bullet.

‘Everything all right?’ Ricky asked nervously.

‘It’s too early,’ Felix said. ‘You’re not ready.’

Ricky frowned. ‘Too early for what?’

‘I
told
them. He’s
good
, I said.
Very
good. A natural, even. But he’s only covered basic observation, surveillance and improvised weaponry. He can’t drive a vehicle or handle a gun. His navigation skills are elementary at best. He’s never even jumped out of any aircraft, for pity’s sake. He’s just not ready to go out into the field. But would they listen? Would they . . .?’

‘What field?’ Ricky interrupted him. At the mention of jumping out of an aircraft, he’d felt slightly sick. ‘What are you
talking
about?’

Felix closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. Then he looked Ricky straight in the eye. ‘Sit down, Coco,’ he said.

‘No. I want to know what’s going on.’

‘Then sit down, and I’ll tell you.’ Felix placed his briefcase on the coffee table and opened it up. ‘For God’s sake, Coco, just do as I say for once.’

Ricky sat.

Felix removed an iPad from inside his briefcase. He tapped the screen a couple of times and handed it to Ricky. ‘Do you recognize this man?’

Ricky looked at the screen. A face looked back at him. It belonged to a man in a suit. He looked about fifty years old, with a tanned, handsome face and an insincere smile. Ricky didn’t like the look of him, but he
did
recognize the face.

‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘Where from?’

‘I dunno. Telly, maybe.’

‘He’s the Right Honourable Jacob Cole. He used to be a businessman in the aerospace industry, now he’s a Member of Parliament. Very influential man. Highly respected. Has the Prime Minister’s ear and some people think he might be PM himself one day.’

‘Good for him.’ Ricky tried to hand the iPad back, but Felix indicated that he should keep it.

‘He has a daughter. Her name’s Izzy. Fifteen years old. She’s gone missing. Swipe the screen and you’ll see a picture of her.’

Ricky swiped. As he looked at the screen, he felt his blood chill by several degrees. His muscles froze. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Madeleine
.

He blinked, and stared. It took ten seconds for him to realize his mind was playing tricks on him. It wasn’t Madeleine, of course, but the girl looked so like his sister that he couldn’t stop staring at her. She was pretty, with the same blonde hair and the same piercing grey-green eyes, and she was smiling as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

Ricky swallowed. This Izzy Cole was the spitting image of Madeleine. He looked up at Felix. Was this coincidence, or was his mentor playing some sort of mind game? Ricky wouldn’t put it past him. ‘Poor her,’ he said carefully. ‘But lots of kids go missing, right?’

If Felix was feeling sorry for the girl, he didn’t look it. ‘Jacob Cole wants his daughter back, naturally. He’s been pulling strings.’

‘Well, I’m guessing he’s been pulling the wrong ones, if
we’re
sitting here talking about it. Shouldn’t the police be dealing with this?’

Felix narrowed his eyes and stared momentarily at Ricky. ‘Swipe again,’ he said.

Ricky swiped. He saw another picture. It was grainy and indistinct. Ricky could instantly tell that it was a still from a security camera, and he felt his body temperature lower a couple more degrees. He recognized the location as the busy road in King’s Cross where he had been on Christmas Eve. He recognized Izzy Cole, looking a lot less pretty this time, her face bruised and her expression frightened. She was wearing a woollen hat, and his memory kicked in. Christmas Eve. She’d been by the main road . . . In the background, behind some drunks, he could just see another figure, his back to the camera, his head covered with a hood.

He looked up at Felix. Did his mentor know that it was Ricky himself there in the picture?

‘That security camera spotted her over Christmas around King’s Cross,’ Felix said. ‘We can’t be sure if she’s still there, but there’s a high population of young homeless people in that area. It we’re going to find her, that’s the best place to start.’

‘We?’ Ricky said.

Felix looked uncomfortable. ‘What I mean is: you. There’s very little chance that these homeless youngsters will speak to the police, or even to another adult. We’ve tried to engage with them before. They just close up. We need
you
to make contact. Find out if any of these homeless kids have seen Izzy. If so, where and when.’

Ricky put the iPad down on the table. ‘What if I say I won’t do it?’

Felix blinked. ‘I told them you might say that. I told them you weren’t ready. I told them they should call in Agent 21.’

Ricky felt the anger rising in him again. ‘Why have you always got to talk in riddles? Who’s Agent 21? Who are
they
?’

A pause.

‘Agent 21,’ Felix said finally, ‘is like you. About the same age, a little older perhaps. Highly skilled, one of our best-kept secrets. “They” are a government agency. I work for them. Agent 21 works for them. So do you, now.’

‘I don’t work for
anyone
.’

‘If you say so, Coco.’ Suddenly Felix was maddeningly calm. He looked all around him. ‘Pretty neat pad, this, for someone without a job.’

‘What’s it called, this agency?’

‘I’m not going to tell you. It isn’t important, anyway. Names are just . . . well, never mind. What’s important is that we –
you
– find Izzy Cole.’

‘Why can’t you just send in your precious Agent 21 if he’s so great?’

‘Because he doesn’t know the streets like you. You’re the better asset for the job. At least, that’s what my superiors think. But they’ve been wrong before,’ he added darkly.

Ricky stood up. He paced the room, fully aware that Felix was staring at him.

– Maybe now is the time to go? To take the money and run.

– But it’s just one girl. We could try to find her. If we manage it, great. If not . . .

– But it’s not our problem . . .

– She’s probably rich. If we find her and bring her back to her family, there might be a reward in it for us.

Ricky turned to Felix. ‘It’s an impossible task,’ he said. ‘The girl could be anywhere. That picture was taken more than twenty-four hours ago.’

Felix gave him a sharp look. ‘How do you know when it was taken?’

‘You must have said.’

But they both knew he hadn’t. Ricky felt himself blushing. He started talking to hide it. ‘She could have travelled to, I don’t know, Scotland in that time.’

‘Unlikely,’ Felix stated. ‘Work like this is all about patterns. When people disappear, they normally don’t move too far from their first destination. I’d bet money that she’s still in London.’

‘London’s a big place.’

‘Then you’d better get started, Coco.’

Ricky paused. His mind was working overtime. How would he do this? Where would he start? He remembered Tommy, the aggressive Thrownaway with the protruding Adam’s apple he’d met on Christmas Eve. Maybe if Ricky could find him again, it would give him a lead on Izzy Cole. But he didn’t like the idea.

‘Those street kids. They don’t talk to just anyone, you know. They have gangs. Some of them are violent.’

‘Then you’d better be persuasive.’

‘And if I can’t be persuasive?’

Felix stared at him. ‘Look at her face, Coco. She’s in a bad way. You know yourself how dangerous it is for a kid to be living on the street. What would have happened to you in Bloomsbury Square if I hadn’t shown up to help you out?’ He got to his feet and limped over to where Ricky was standing. ‘Not everybody has a guardian angel, kid. Are you going to let the streets destroy that girl, just because you’re feeling too selfish to use everything I’ve taught you to help someone who needs it?’

Ricky clenched his jaw and stared fiercely into the middle distance.

– He’s talking you into it. Ignore him. Don’t let him get to you
, Ziggy said in his head.

– But he’s right. You saw what she looked like. She was a mess. Maybe I can help . . . And she’s been beaten up. Like Madeleine was. What if she . . . wants to kill herself too? I couldn’t save Madeleine, but maybe I can save this girl?

Ricky felt his mouth turn dry. He knew Felix was using him. But he also felt a twinge of excitement and realized he was up for the challenge. For some reason he didn’t want Felix to see that.

‘What do I do if I find her?’ he asked.

‘
When
you find her,’ Felix replied, ‘you bring her here and you call me.’ From his pocket he removed a mobile phone. ‘Speed dial one,’ he said. ‘There are no other numbers programmed on it. But you call immediately. Is that understood?’

‘Yeah,’ Ricky said. ‘That’s understood.’ He took the phone, delighted to see it was an up-to-date model. If this all went belly-up, at least he could sell it . . .

Felix had gone. Ricky stood in his bedroom, a bad feeling about what he’d just agreed to do hanging over him like a cloud.

The wardrobe doors were open. He needed to choose his clothes carefully. He found that his mentor’s words were echoing in his head.
When you’re following someone, you need to make sure you pay attention to what
you’re
wearing. Make sure it’s appropriate to where you are. If you’re in a rough, poor area, wearing all the latest designer gear will make you stick out like a sore thumb
.

He pulled out a pair of jeans. He’d worn them several times, but they still looked far too new. So he went to the kitchen and found a good, sharp knife, which he used to rip some holes in them. He then spent a good half an hour fraying the rips with his fingertips. He selected the same, slightly smelly, T-shirt he’d worn for the past few days, and a thin jumper into the elbows of which he tore more holes. Then he checked out the whole ensemble in the mirror. Not bad. He tousled his hair a little, and decided that at the very least he looked unremarkable.

Felix had left him a printout of the photo of Izzy Cole, because brandishing an iPad on the dingier streets of London would be a sure way to get mugged. He folded it carefully and put it into his back pocket. He also pocketed the phone Felix had given him. With the press of a few buttons he brought up his own number, and found himself able to memorize it at a glance. Then he stuffed it into a front pocket of his jeans where no nimble fingers would be able to snatch it without his knowing. Then he left the flat.

Outside, the visibility was poor on account of the blizzard. There was more than thirty centimetres of snow piled up on one of the benches, but the ground was carpeted in unpleasant grey-brown slush. Ricky was cold through before he’d even walked twenty metres.

He had also noticed the figure tailing him. For some reason it made him angry that Felix, after all the surveillance training they’d done, should have someone following him in such an unskilled way. As he walked across the plaza, Ricky pretended not to notice. But all the while, his eyes scanned ahead and his brain worked overtime as he searched for a way to lose the tail. In the end, he decided to wait until he had ducked down into Canary Wharf underground station.

He sensed his tail following him down the escalators into the ticket office. They were ten metres behind as he swiped his Oyster card. And as he waited for his train, he could sense the figure standing on the platform, still about ten metres to his left. Ricky didn’t look at him directly, but could tell that the tail was a man wearing jeans and a black raincoat, probably in his twenties.

A train arrived. Ricky stepped in. So did his pursuer. Ricky stood right by the doors.

An announcement came over the tube’s loudspeaker. ‘Stand clear of the doors please.’

A hissing sound from the doors themselves. They started to close. Quick and agile, Ricky slipped back through them and onto the platform. He considered winking at his tail to let him know he had noticed him. But he decided not to rub it in. He just turned his back on the train as it moved away, taking his pursuer with it. Then he headed along the brightly lit corridors of the underground station to find the platform he
really
wanted.

Ricky took the tube to King’s Cross. He realized that finding a lone girl in London was like looking for a needle in a haystack, but that was definitely the best place to start looking. And if he couldn’t find the girl, well, maybe the boy Tommy would be able to help . . .

Despite the Christmas sales, the snow seemed to have lessened the crowds, so the main road outside the station was not as busy as it had been on Christmas Eve. There were no police officers directing the traffic and Ricky’s visibility through the snow was little more than five or six metres. He crossed the road and headed towards the side street where he’d had his encounter with the Thrownaways.

It looked empty. Snow had drifted heavily to one side. Several cars looked like they would have to wait for a thaw before they could move. With his shoulders hunched and his hands dug deep into his pockets, Ricky tramped up the pavement. He realized that his every sense was on high alert – in a way that it never had been before he met Felix. He heard a crow cawing from a rooftop on the opposite side of the street. The wind whistled as it gusted between the high buildings on either side. Ricky wiped his numb nose with the back of his sleeve, then noticed a passer-by walking in the opposite direction. Ricky didn’t slow down, or even raise his head. But his eyes were fixed on the pedestrian. A woman. Heavy fur coat. A furry scarf that looked like she had an animal draped over her neck. Expensive clothing. Ricky caught a whiff of perfume, and looked over his shoulder to watch her disappear . . .