Agent 21: Reloaded: Book 2 (29 page)

And the third face? It was just as familiar. The sight of Calaca’s one eye made dread seep into Zak’s sleeping bones.

He woke with a start. For a moment he didn’t know where he was. He didn’t even know
when
he was. Then he vaguely remembered stumbling from the chopper that had set him down on the windswept heath in front of St Peter’s House. Michael had been there, and Gabs and Raf; but Zak had been too
exhausted even to speak to them. He’d gone straight to his room and slept, and dreamed.

Now, though, for the first time since he’d left Angola, he felt refreshed. Refreshed and full of questions. He pulled on a pair of jeans and a hooded top and touched his fingers to the doorknob of his room. The door recognized his fingerprint and opened. Zak hurried downstairs. Less than a minute later he was rapping on the door of Michael’s impressive oak-panelled office. He didn’t wait for an answer before striding in.

Nobody looked surprised to see him. Michael was sitting behind his large, old-fashioned desk; Raf and Gabs were side by side next to the fire. Only Gabs looked wary, as though she was unsure how Zak was going to react.

A silence in the room.

‘Well?’ Zak asked. He had one eyebrow raised.

‘A necessary deception,’ Michael said mildly.

‘Necessary for who?’

‘Just necessary.’

‘Are there any more lies you want to tell me about? I mean, now would be a good time, wouldn’t it? To get things out in the open?’

Michael said nothing. He just stared.

Zak lowered his head. He had questions to ask, but he wasn’t sure he was ready for the answers.

‘Bea?’

‘Recovering nicely. I’m sure she’ll be delighted that you asked.’

Zak closed his eyes. He couldn’t allow himself to feel relieved just yet. ‘And Ellie?’ he whispered.

A pause.

‘A little shaken up, I believe. Señor Ramirez is, as you know, a ruthless opponent. Happily Raphael and Gabriella were on hand to give her a little … guidance.’

Zak looked up sharply. Both Raf and Gabs had mysterious smiles on their faces. He turned to Michael, whose green eyes twinkled. ‘You knew,’ he breathed. ‘You knew Calaca was targeting Ellie. That’s what this has all been about?’

‘I’ve been keeping my eye on Messrs Martinez and Ramirez, if that’s what you mean. The day I realized Ellie was in danger, I decided it was time to act. I mean, I wouldn’t be much of a guardian angel,’ Michael replied, ‘if I didn’t keep one eye on the things I know are important to you. I think you’ll find, Zak, that Calaca won’t be bothering your cousin any longer.’

‘Is he dead?’

Michael smiled. ‘Not dead, no. But imprisoned in the UK and awaiting trial. We’ll see to it that his sentence is … appropriate to his crimes. Tell me, Zak, are you familiar with the Greek myth of the hydra?’

Zak gave him a confused look. What did the hydra have to do with anything? ‘Yeah, it was a snake or something. Loads of heads. Cut one off and another grew, right?’

‘Quite right, Zak. Calaca was like one of the heads of the hydra. It was necessary to chop it off, but if Ellie was ever going to be truly safe, the hydra itself had to be dealt with.’

‘You mean Cruz?’

‘Very good, Zak. But Cruz Martinez was hard to get to. If we were to neutralize him, we needed to get
him
to come to
us
. That was why I needed you on the MV
Mercantile
.’

‘I was bait,’ Zak challenged.

‘Really, Zak, you do have a knack for choosing the most unpalatable words to describe these things.’

‘Why couldn’t you just tell me all this in the first place?’

‘Because I knew you would be captured and possibly tortured. If you told your captors your true identity, that would be one thing. But if you had told them you were really on board to draw Cruz out from hiding, he would never have ventured out of Mexico. So you see, it really was necessary, if we were to prevent another hydra’s head threatening Ellie’s life. I had to make a call, Zak. I had to decide whether, if you were in full possession of the facts, you would
have embarked upon such a dangerous mission in order to save the life of your cousin. I decided, on balance, that you would.’

‘So you did all that just for Ellie?’ he demanded.

‘Honestly?’

‘Honestly.’

‘No. I did it because I knew Ellie’s death would hit you hard. Maybe even make you think twice about what you are doing here. For my superiors, that would be … unacceptable.’

‘And that’s it?’

Michael inclined his head. ‘Cruz has been on our hit list ever since you saw him last,’ he said.

Zak was quiet for a moment. There was, after all, not much he could say to that. When he spoke, he could hear a dark tone to his voice. ‘He won’t be threatening anyone ever again. He’s dead. I saw him fall overboard. I think he committed suicide.’

‘I’d like to say I’m sorry about that,’ Michael observed, and suddenly the twinkle left his eyes and his face hardened. ‘But it would be a lie. The world is better off without murderers in it.’

Zak remembered one of the last things Cruz had said to him.
Whatever I am – you made me
. ‘He wasn’t always a murderer,’ he said quietly.

‘Nobody was
always
a murderer, Zak. Every man chooses his own path.’

He thought of the madness in the eyes of his former friend. ‘But some people have help,’ he murmured. ‘What about Black Wolf?’

Michael shrugged. ‘With Cruz no longer around to mastermind it, I expect it will fade away. The
Mercantile
did sink, along with the diamonds. That would have hit the organization hard.’ Michael sounded satisfied about that.

Zak looked towards Raf and Gabs. ‘Does Ellie know?’ he asked. ‘About me? That I’m still alive?’

‘She had her suspicions, sweetie,’ Gabs said. ‘She’s a bright girl. Brave too.’ She glanced meaningfully towards Michael. ‘She’d make a good agent.’ Michael didn’t look like he’d even heard her. ‘But it’s better that she thinks you’re dead. Safer. You understand, don’t you?’

Zak nodded. He walked across the room and looked out through the tall windows to the sea beyond. It was overcast and choppy, but compared to what he was used to, it was practically still.

‘Bea told me she was Agent 20.’

Raf and Gabs glanced towards Michael again. He stayed silent.

‘Will I see her again?’

Again, nothing.

‘I have something you might like to see, Zak,’ said Michael finally. He held up what looked like a
photograph. Zak stepped forward to take it. It was an aerial photograph of a town by the sea. He could make out a series of jetties on the beach, and a long road leading up from the water in the main town.

‘It’s Lobambo,’ he said.

‘One of our spy satellites took this image yesterday. And this one.’ He handed Zak a second photograph, more close-up than the first. It took a while to work out what it showed, but after a few seconds something clicked in Zak’s brain.

‘The school,’ he said. Already he could see that the walls had been half built. ‘Marcus and the others, they’ve made a start!’

‘I was rather disappointed, Zak, when I heard that you’d been interfering in local affairs. I thought we discussed that before you left. And I hear that your friend Malek was somewhat displeased too.’

Zak felt a twinge of embarrassment at the memory of his friend’s anger.

But Michael smiled. If he truly was disappointed, he didn’t show it. ‘Ntole and his men have left the village,’ he said. ‘It appears your little game rather embarrassed them. The building work is making good progress. I understand, for what it’s worth, that Malek has been trying to track you down to apologize. He won’t succeed, of course, but …’

‘Thank you, Michael,’ Zak said quietly. ‘It’s worth
a lot.’ He turned to Raf and Gabs. ‘And thanks for looking after Ellie,’ he said. ‘If anything had happened to her because of me, I’d …’

He didn’t finish his sentence. The truth was, he didn’t know
what
he’d do.

Gabs stepped towards him and put a reassuring arm on his shoulder. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Don’t mention it. We’re all family now, after all. And you did more than any of us to keep her safe. No more Cruz, no more danger.’

Zak smiled. ‘Oh yeah?’ he asked.

‘Well’ – Gabs grinned – ‘maybe for a while. But you know, I can’t help thinking life would get a bit boring if we didn’t have a bit of mortal peril, just to keep us on our toes. Don’t you think?’

Her grin grew even broader and she suddenly started to laugh. It was infectious. Zak couldn’t help but join in.

The spy satellite that had taken the imagery of Lobambo was capable of circling the Earth seven times a day. From high up in the atmosphere, it could covertly take pictures of minute detail. It could track cars. Ships. It could even, if the conditions were right, identify individuals.

If, at that moment, it had directed its attention to a small patch of sea two nautical miles from Ascension
Island in the Atlantic, at a bearing of thirteen degrees, it might have picked up several bodies. They were fat and bloated with death. The wild sea had knocked several limbs out of place, which were now pointing out at crooked, irregular angles. Flesh had already started to rot from the faces. It meant that Eduardo, if the spy satellite had focused in on him, would have been quite unrecognizable. The same went for Karlovic, and for
el capitán
, who looked more frightening in death than he ever had in life. Maybe these bodies would eventually be washed up on some distant shore. Maybe they would eaten by creatures of the deep. Maybe they were destined just to travel the oceans until they rotted down into nothingness.

But the spy satellite was not trained on these gruesome corpses. It was somewhere else entirely. There was no shortage of surveillance targets, after all. And so it did not see the shingle beach on the north-east coast of Ascension Island. It did not see a figure emerge from the water, stagger onto dry land and collapse when the young man’s knees could no longer carry him. It did not see his dark skin or dark hair, or his lean body, as he lay unconscious on the beach.

And of course it did not see his dreams. Dreams that were filled with just two things: the face of Agent 21, and Cruz’s own thoughts of revenge.

IS STILL ON DUTY
.

Look out for him in the thrilling book three, coming soon …

HAVE YOU TRIED CHRIS RYAN’S ACTION-PACKED FICTION
?

You wake up in a dark room
.

You are gagged and forced into a waiting truck
.

What would you do
?