Agent 21: Codebreaker: Book 3 (5 page)

‘Ready, sweetie?’ she asked.

‘Ready,’ said Zak.

2357hrs

They had ditched the black cab. Now they sat in a black Honda CR-V in the darkness of the Cowper Lane Retail Park in South London. Zak had counted three other identical vehicles on the way here. True, they probably didn’t have reinforced polycarbonate windows, enough to withstand all but the highest-impact rounds, but it was such a common make of vehicle that nobody would look at them twice. Perfect cover.

The retail park was deserted. PC World, Mothercare and Marks & Spencer were all closed at this time of night, and theirs was the only vehicle in the vast car park. The car park faced onto Cowper Road itself – a busy thoroughfare, but without any pedestrians as they were at least half a mile from the nearest residential area, pubs or restaurants.

Raf sat in the driving seat, his eyes switching between the side- and rear-view mirrors. Gabs sat in the back with Zak. ‘Remember,’ she breathed. ‘Michael thinks the hospital could be being watched. We can’t take the vehicle too close at this time of night – it’ll attract attention. Don’t lose your guard once you’ve extracted the target.’

Zak nodded. He had lost the shades and the beanie, and wore a black T-shirt and a pair of combats baggy enough to disguise the snubnose at his ankle.

‘And, Zak,’ Raf said. The blond man was looking at him in the rear-view mirror.

‘Yeah?’

‘I was watching you back on St Peter’s Crag. You don’t approve of Michael keeping this kid under lock and key. Fine. That’s your choice. Just don’t let it get in the way of your job. Don’t do anything stupid.’

Zak sniffed, but didn’t answer.

‘He’s right, sweetie,’ Gabs said quietly.

Zak avoided her eye. Instead, he peered out of his window using a small, handheld scope to take in the surroundings and match them up to the maps of the area he’d already memorized on the chopper flight. The hospital was on the other side of Cowper Road, with another road called The Avenue running at ninety degrees to Cowper and along the eastern edge of the hospital. The hospital itself was surrounded first by its own car park, about the size of four or five tennis courts, and then by a wire fence about two metres high. He counted only seven vehicles parked on the hospital premises, but the barrier by the entrance was still manned – Zak focused in on a sturdy-looking man reading a newspaper in his little booth who would no doubt not even notice him if he walked along Cowper Road and turned right into The Avenue and along the eastern side of Harrington. Zak observed that the section of The Avenue that ran alongside the hospital was closed to road traffic – two wide orange barriers and a sign indicating that roadworks were about to start. He wondered if Michael had been pulling strings.

He double-checked that his keycard and phone were in his back pocket. Then he nodded at Gabs. ‘I’m going in,’ he said, and he stepped out of the vehicle.

It was a warm night, but very humid. A storm was coming. You could smell it in the air and almost immediately he left the vehicle, Zak heard a low rumble of thunder in distance. As he walked out of the retail park and left along Cowper Road, he came to a bus stop. A boy and a girl, both about sixteen, were snogging ferociously and clearly didn’t even notice him as he passed. There was, so far as he could see, nobody else around – just cars and buses passing through. He kept his head down, and at the end of Cowper Road he crossed over and turned right, passing the orange barriers in the road itself.

He was on the eastern edge of Harrington Secure Hospital’s car park now, walking alongside the high wire fence. On the opposite side of The Avenue was a children’s playground – deserted, obviously – with common ground beyond it that disappeared into the night. The blackness unnerved Zak. It was like a cloak, hiding who knows what. He walked along the narrow pavement, keeping his head down. Only when he was adjacent to the hospital building itself did he stop.

The building was approximately twenty metres beyond the metal fence. From his rucksack, Zak took a pair of sturdy wire cutters and started cutting a small hole in the bottom of the fence. It took about thirty seconds to breach the perimeter. It crossed his mind that it had been rather easy and that anyone could easily do it, but then he reminded himself of something: the security here was to stop people getting
out
, not
in
.

He checked all around. No sign that anyone had seen him. And so he approached the building.

It was a bleak-looking place. Zak remembered the time his mum had taken him to hospital when he broke his arm falling from a tree. The memory gave him a pang – it seemed like a lifetime ago. But as he approached the grey walls of the building, for a second he was back at that hospital, crying as his mum tenderly squeezed his good hand.

Zak yanked himself back to the present. He was by a side door, sturdy and grey. There were bins outside it, which suggested to Zak that these were the kitchens. A good place to gain access at this time of night. Supper over, breakfast not for several hours. If anywhere was going to be deserted, it was here. To the side of the door was a keycard slot. It had a tiny red light above it, which flashed green as Zak inserted his card. The door clicked open and he was in.

The kitchens were dark. From his rucksack, Zak took a pencil-thin torch and switched it on. A beam of light – red, because that would preserve his night vision – cut through the darkness like a laser. As he moved it around the room it illuminated steel worktops and chiller cabinets. There was a strange smell – half disinfectant, half boiled vegetables. On the other side of the kitchen, ten metres away, was a second door, with the red glow of another key-card slot just to its right.

Zak strode across the kitchen, stowed his torch and slid the keycard into the slot.

Green light.

He gingerly opened the door and looked through. The dining hall beyond was also deserted. Even without the torch he could make out long lines of tables and another red glow on the other side of the room. Twenty seconds later he was pulling his Taser from the rucksack as he inserted his keycard.

Green light.

He winced. The empty corridor beyond was brightly lit. After approximately six metres, it turned to the left. Zak crept along the left-hand wall – being on the inside curve would give him a fraction of a second’s advantage if anybody showed up. But nobody did. He passed four doors – two on the left, two on the right, all with keycard slots outside them. He knew from his examination of the schematics that these were patients’ rooms. No noise came from them now, in the dead of night. He passed another door on his left that had no slot. He opened it to check and found himself in a linen cupboard, wooden shelves piled high with fresh sheets, a bucket and mop on the floor. Just as his schematic had shown. Good. He was following the right route. The ceiling was constructed of a grid of square plasterboard panels. Removable. A question flashed through Zak’s mind: when had he become the kind of person who looked at a ceiling and saw an escape route, or a place to hide?

He was holding his breath now as he moved back into the corridor, his heart beating fast. It beat even faster when he heard footsteps.

He quickly backtracked and secreted himself in the linen cupboard where he pressed his ear against the door, and listened.

Nothing. A minute passed. Still clutching the Taser in one sweaty palm, he gently opened the door and stepped into the corridor.

‘What the . . .
Who are you?
’

Zak’s blood ran cold. He hadn’t heard any footsteps because the hospital warden in his blue and white uniform was standing right outside the broom cupboard. He had obviously just rolled a cigarette, because he was tucking one behind his ear and holding a pouch of tobacco in his other hand. Zak didn’t hesitate. He closed the couple of metres between him and the warden in less than a second, and pressed the Taser against his thigh. A shocking jolt passed through the man’s body and Zak caught him under the arms as he collapsed to the floor. He was heavy, and it took all Zak’s strength to drag him across the corridor and into the broom cupboard. He was sweating by the time he got the warden inside, but he didn’t allow himself to relax once the door was shut. Instead, he fished into his rucksack and pulled out three sets of plasticuffs. First he bound the man’s wrists, then his ankles. He added a gag made from a cleaning cloth, ensuring that the man would still be able to breathe, and finally he bound the man’s wrists to his ankles so he couldn’t stand up when he came round. That could be anything between one minute or twenty. Which meant Zak had to hurry.

He swiftly returned to his route: to the end of the corridor, then right. The door he wanted was the third on the left. He moved quickly but silently, remembering how Raf had taught him to tread lightly with the tips of his shoes before committing his whole foot to the ground. His hot sweat had turned cold. Clammy. He even shivered as he drew up outside the door marked with a number seven. This was it.

More footsteps at the end of the corridor. Then somebody cleared his throat. Zak slid his keycard into the slot.

Green light.

He opened the door and stepped inside.

4

ROOM 7

IT WAS PITCH
black in room seven. Zak stood with his back against the wall and heard deep, regular breathing. That figured. Most normal people were fast asleep at this time of night.

Moving very slowly, so as not to make a noise that would wake Malcolm Mann up, Zak retrieved his torch. He covered the bulb with the palm of his hand, then slowly uncupped it to release the red light gradually into the room. He shone the beam to his left first. It hit the wall a couple of metres up. Zak blinked. Was it his imagination, or was the wall plastered with crossword puzzles? He followed the torch along the same wall. Nope. Not his imagination. There had to be a hundred crosswords, all pinned in a mish-mash pattern to the wall. He felt himself recording that little detail, like a camera was clicking in his mind.

He lowered his torch as it hit the back wall. The beam illuminated the centre of the room. A chair. A table. A laptop. Piles of newspapers and magazines.

He moved the beam to the right.

Eyes, staring back at him.

For the second time that night, his blood turned to ice. A figure was sitting in the darkness on the edge of a single bed. Motionless, like a corpse. But
not
a corpse. The eyes glowed red in the beam of the torch. They did not blink.

Zak’s reactions were fast. He switched off the torch – it was like a beacon should the inhabitant of this room want to come at him – and took two paces to the left. He bent down and grabbed his snubnose from its ankle holster. Then he spoke in a whisper.

‘Malcolm?’

‘Are you here to kill me? Because if you’re going to kill me, please do it quickly. A shot to the head should do it. I won’t feel that.’

A pause.

‘At least, I don’t
think
I will.’ The boy’s voice had no emotion in it. He spoke at an ordinary volume that sounded excruciatingly loud to Zak.

‘Why do you think I’m here to kill you?’ Zak breathed.

The boy took a sharp intake of breath. ‘You’re not American?’

‘Should I be?’

The shock of seeing the strange boy sitting there in the darkness, not to mention the strange conversation he was having, had confused Zak. He was half prepared to fight, but then some sixth sense told him that the boy hadn’t moved, and that he was still just sitting there, staring. Zak turned the torch on again to see that he was right.

‘You should go,’ said the boy. ‘They’ll be here any minute.’

‘Who?’

‘They’ll kill you too if they find you here. One down, two down, they don’t care . . .’

It crossed Zak’s mind that maybe this kid
wasn’t
locked up in the wrong place after all. He felt his eyes narrowing in the darkness. ‘Nobody’s killing anybody,’ he said, but he did feel himself grip the handle of his weapon just a little tighter.

‘How old are you?’

‘Fifteen. Listen, Malcolm, I work for a—’

‘The
Daily Post
,’ Malcolm interrupted.

‘What?’

‘Saw you looking. At the crosswords. Very clever. All the others think it’s me being weird. Say I’m crazy. Don’t get it, do they?’

Zak took a step towards him. Malcolm shrank back.

‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ Zak breathed. ‘I don’t think you’re crazy. I’m here to help.’ He held up his keycard. ‘See this?’ he said. ‘It’ll get us out of here. You and me. But we have to go now.’

Silence.

‘Why?’

‘Because otherwise they’ll find me. The hospital staff.’

‘I mean, why are you here to help? Nobody helps me.’

Zak glanced towards the door. He didn’t have much time – the warden in the linen cupboard could start making a noise at any moment – but he sensed that this weird boy wasn’t going anywhere without an explanation. Zak had his ready.

‘Do you know why you’re here?’ he said.

‘Nobody knows why I’m here.’

‘I do. You broke into the Americans’ computer systems . . .’

‘It was easy, you know?’ For the first time, Zak heard some emotion in the other boy’s voice. It was almost like enthusiasm. ‘I can do it from in here, even. I just—’

‘And now various foreign powers are trying to abduct you,’ Zak interrupted. Now wasn’t the time for a lesson in computer hacking. ‘You’re being kept in here for your own protection. I work for a top-secret government agency. I’m supposed to tell you that they want to recruit you too. That isn’t totally true. They might want to offer you a job, but more likely as soon as they’ve got what they want from you, they’ll sling you straight back in here. I don’t agree with that. But tell us how you knew about the bomb and I can help you later. If you
want
help, that is.’

Another silence.

‘Yes,’ the boy breathed.

Zak strode over to where the boy was sitting on the edge of his bed. He grabbed him by the upper arm, but he might as well have stuck his Taser against him since Malcolm shrank back at his touch. He clearly didn’t much like human contact. Fine.