Under Cover (Agent 21) (21 page)

Cole might have been a thin man, but he wasn’t a fit one. He had a burning sensation in his chest by the time he reached the end of the road. He stood there panting, looking out onto the busier road. Dmitri and Gregoriev were arguing in Russian. They had hidden their weapons, thank God, now that there were more people about, and they were looking left and right, trying to spot those damn kids who were going to ruin everything.

‘There!’ Cole announced sharply.

He had seen the second boy, who had appeared outside the shattered window. He was on the opposite side of the street, about fifteen metres to their right, sprinting towards a branch of Boots on the corner of the road.

‘What about the other one?’ Dmitri asked.

He looked very alarming with his bloodied face and Cole could tell that he had violent intentions towards the kid in the Nike baseball cap. But they couldn’t get sidetracked: the briefcase was the important thing. If anyone found out what he’d been selling, it wouldn’t just be his career that would be at an end. It would be his freedom.

‘They were obviously together, you idiot,’ Cole snarled. ‘Find one and you’ll find the other.
Get after him!
’

The Russians burst across the road, forcing a black cab to swerve sharply to avoid hitting them. Cole followed more carefully, but by the time he had reached the opposite pavement, the boy had disappeared. Still gasping for breath, he followed the Russians to the end of the street, where another road ran at right angles. Cole just managed to catch a glimpse of the kid on the other side. He was smiling at them. Then a bus trundled past, blocking him from view.

By the time it had passed, the kid had disappeared.

Cole felt his temperature rising. He wanted to hit someone. He found himself turning a full circle as he searched for the kids, but there was no sign of either of them. It was as if they had vanished into thin air. ‘You’ve lost them!’ he shouted accusingly at the Russians. A passer-by gave him a funny look, but he barely noticed. ‘
FIND THEM!
’

But the two Russians didn’t move. They exchanged a grim, purposeful look, then nodded at each other.

‘
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
’ Cole screamed, ignoring the way that even more passers-by were staring at him and keeping their distance. ‘
I TOLD YOU TO—
’

A brutal punch in the pit of his stomach silenced him – Dmitri was a strong man with a big fist, and it knocked the wind straight out of his lungs. Cole doubled over in pain, gasping desperately for breath but unable to find it. He felt Dmitri grabbing his arm fiercely. The Russian dragged him along the road while Cole coughed and spluttered. He was aware of Gregoriev walking just behind him to his right.

‘If you don’t want to end up like the guy in the café, keep walking,’ Dmitri said under his breath.

Suddenly Cole heard police sirens. He glanced up ahead to see flashing blue lights coming their way. There was no need to wonder where they were going, and for the briefest moment, Cole considered shouting out. Perhaps he could try to get the attention of the oncoming police. But then he remembered the sight of the dead waiter, bleeding on the floor of the café. He needed to get away from there, before the police decided he was involved with the killing.

And so he staggered along the pavement, Dmitri still gripping his arm, Gregoriev pacing menacingly behind. After thirty metres they took a left turn, then stopped outside a black people-carrier. Cole saw his reflection in the blacked-out windows. He looked gaunt and frightened. There was a beeping sound as Gregoriev pressed a key fob to unlock the vehicle, the side door slid open and Cole felt himself being pushed roughly inside.

Seconds later the door had slammed shut and a clicking sound told Cole it was locked. Dmitri was sitting beside him. He had removed his handgun and was pressing it hard into Cole’s ribs. Gregoriev was up front behind the wheel.

‘You understand that I’ll kill you if you try to escape?’ Dmitri said.

Too frightened to reply, Cole nodded vigorously. He thought he might be sick.

Dmitri looked towards Gregoriev. ‘You know where to go?’

Gregoriev nodded. From the glove compartment of the car he pulled out what looked like a small sat-nav unit, which he clipped to a bracket on the dashboard and switched on. It took thirty seconds to start up. Cole caught sight of a map with two dots on it. One red, one blue. The blue dot was moving, the red one stationary.

‘Go!’ Dmitri barked.

Gregoriev turned the ignition key and the engine turned over. The tyres of the people-carrier screeched loudly as the vehicle jolted forward. The barrel of Dmitri’s gun jabbed harder into Cole’s ribs as it moved.

And the MP realized he had made a horrible mistake . . .

Ricky was running blindly. Questions ricocheted around his head. Who was that strange boy who had just rescued him? He must work for Felix, surely. What was the extra information Cole had given the Russians? Where were they now?

What should he do?

He couldn’t answer any of these questions. His only plan was to run. He tried to clear his mind, but the image of the dead body in the Happy Valley Café kept jumping gruesomely into his mind. Each time he saw that horrible picture in his head he felt nauseous.
It had been his fault.
If he hadn’t been recognized, the waiter would not have got involved. He would still be
alive
. The only way he could make good now was to ensure that the man’s death had been worthwhile – that the information he carried now got to the right people. To Felix.

But his phone was bust. He had no way of contacting his mentor. So right now, the only thing he could do was run faster and harder as he clutched the heavy briefcase in his increasingly sweaty fist.

Shops, buildings and road junctions passed him by. Ricky didn’t know where he was. He ran alongside a children’s playground where mums were building a snowman with their kids. Then past a supermarket car park. He stopped to catch his breath in a dank, smelly subway whose walls were covered with graffiti. But he had only taken a few deep breaths when he almost heard Felix’s voice cracking like a whip, admonishing him. It would only take his pursuers to come at him from either end of the subway and he’d be trapped. Or if anyone saw him with the briefcase, they’d probably assume he’d nicked it – and it might be worth their while nicking it from
him
 . . .

So he kept running.

Many times he almost slipped on the snowy, slushy ground. His shoes and the bottom of his trousers were soaked, but still he kept on going. He could think of nothing but putting as much distance between himself and those terrifying, murderous Russians as possible. And Cole too. Creepy, cowardly, treacherous Cole: Ricky completely got why Izzy never wanted to go home again . . .

Izzy
. He pictured her sitting on the tube, waiting for midday. He pictured the police catching up with her and forcing her to go back to her abusive father. And the image of his dead sister Madeleine swam again into his head.

You can’t bring your sister back by saving Izzy Cole, you know.

That thought just made Ricky redouble his efforts. Cole and the Russians
couldn’t
regain the contents of this suitcase. They
couldn’t
catch Ricky and stop him from bringing them to justice . . .

He had been running for twenty-five minutes and his energy was spent. He stopped suddenly, his body doubled over as he gasped for breath. Only after thirty seconds of inhaling deeply did he look around.

He was outside an old church whose stones were black from pollution. The church sat alongside a busy road, but there were very few pedestrians here. Even so, Ricky felt conspicuous. A panel on the railing surrounding the entrance said: ‘The Church of All Souls, Harlesden’.

– Don’t just stand in the middle of the pavement where anybody can see you. Conceal yourself!

The voice in his head was giving him good advice. Ricky’s eyes fell on the heavy wooden door of the church. He approached it and tried the iron handle. To his surprise, it twisted open. He stepped into the church. His foster parents had put him off churches, but this one looked like the normal everyday sort, not the kind they had dragged him along to.

It was several degrees colder inside. Ricky stood at the entrance looking around to see if there was anybody in here. It appeared to be deserted. A bright winter sun was shining through the stained glass behind the altar up ahead and the light dazzled him slightly so he moved to the shade at the side of the church.

– You need an exit strategy.

He looked at the far end of the church. There was a door behind the altar and Ricky could see that it was ajar. If a threat entered through the main door, he could leave by the rear.

He sat down next to a bookcase full of prayer books. Here, he placed the briefcase on his lap. He had not seen Dmitri lock the case, so he wasn’t surprised when it clicked open.

Ricky found that his hands were trembling as he removed the manila folder from inside.

He winced. From somewhere in the church there was a very quiet, high-pitched whine. Like electrical interference, but very faint. He looked around quickly, double-checking that there was nobody here. But no, the place
seemed
deserted. Where was the noise coming from? The altar, perhaps?

Or maybe he was imagining it. The noise was extremely faint, and when he concentrated on it, it seemed to fade away.

He turned his attention back to the folder. His hands still shaking slightly, he opened it.

There were only four sheets of paper inside. The first was headed:

Security Clearance 1
Trident Nuclear Deterrent
Location Codes

The rest of the page was filled with sequences of numbers that meant nothing to Ricky. But he knew that in the wrong hands, this single piece of paper could spell disaster.

Felix’s voice rang in his head.
Have you ever heard the phrase ‘nuclear winter’?
Ricky shuddered. It was frightening to think that such an innocent-looking piece of paper had the potential to cause so much horror. He found himself automatically memorizing the codes.

He put it to one side, and looked at the next document in the folder. This was completely different. Stapled to the top of the sheet was a passport photograph of a man with a friendly, open face and dark, scruffy hair. His name, according to the attached document, was Alistair Bishop. But the document explained that he had other names too: James Marshall, Raymond Carrick, Thomas Parker . . .

Ricky’s mind flashed back to his first meeting with Felix. What was it Felix had said?
Names. Some are more suitable than others for different occasions.
Back then, Ricky had assumed that someone with lots of different names would be a criminal. Now it seemed more likely that they were part of the secret world. Like Felix. Like Zak, the boy who had just saved him.

Like Ricky himself.

Ricky read on. The first main paragraph of the document told him exactly who Alistair Bishop was:

Bishop is currently Moscow correspondent for
The Times.
This is deep cover. He is an MI6 operative with excellent access to several high-level Russian ministers. In the past twelve months he has forwarded large quantities of classified intelligence which MI6 consider to be of especially high quality.

Ricky blinked. He knew very little about the secret world, but he knew this: if the likes of Dmitri found out that this guy was a British spy, it would end
very
badly for him.

He looked through the remaining documents. They contained the details of three more British agents. There was a Russian national high up in the Russian navy. There was a female aid worker in the Ukraine. And finally an English teacher at a school in St Petersburg where wealthy and influential Russians sent their children . . .

– You understand what this is, right? Cole is selling the details of British agents working undercover abroad. If Dmitri and his friend get their hands on this information, these people are as good as dead.

– And Cole said there was plenty more where these came from . . .

Ricky felt his lip curling with distaste.

Suddenly he winced again. That high-pitched whining had returned. Or maybe it had been there all along, and Ricky had zoned it out. He looked around again. There was definitely nobody else in the church. So where was it coming from?

– Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing. You need to think what you’re going to do next.

Ricky looked at the documents in his hands. Perhaps he should destroy them now. That way the Russians could never get their hands on them. But something stopped him. If he destroyed the documents, he would destroy the hard evidence he had against Cole. He thought of Izzy, so terrified of her abusive father that she could never go home.

His lip curled again. He wasn’t going to let Cole get away with this. No way.

He placed the documents back in the metal briefcase. Then he clicked it shut.

His eyes narrowed. The whining sound had stopped.

A new tendril of fear unravelled itself in Ricky’s gut. He slowly opened the briefcase again. The whining sound returned.

It felt as though Ricky was moving in slow motion. He took the folder out of the briefcase and laid it on the pew next to him. Then he examined the briefcase a little more closely.

It took about ten seconds for him to realize that the briefcase had a false base. He managed to worm his fingers round the edges and detach it.

The sight of what lay below made his breath catch in his throat. There was a mess of loose wires: brown, blue and yellow. They were connected to a circuit board and to a small battery cell with two AA batteries. For a horrible moment, Ricky thought he was looking at an explosive device. But then his eyes picked out a small chip soldered to the circuit board. In narrow white lettering it contained the letters: GPS.

Ricky touched the mess of wires. The whining sound stopped. There was clearly a loose connection somewhere. If there hadn’t been, he would never have known that the suitcase contained what was, quite obviously, a tracking device.