Under Cover (Agent 21) (8 page)

Ricky stared at him, as if to say:
Is that the best advice you can give me?

Felix seemed not to notice. ‘Of course, sometimes you
can’t
get your hands on something heavy, which means you have to improvise. Want to see one of the best weapons you can carry around with you?’

‘Uzi nine millimetre?’ Ricky suggested. He meant it as a joke, and was a bit taken aback when Felix seemed to take him perfectly seriously.

‘Not my weapon of choice. Too much of a recoil kick, and too flashy by half. Try walking down the street with an Uzi and you’ll stick out like a—’

‘Like a kid with a sub-machine gun?’

‘Well, exactly. The time might come, Coco, when you and I have a serious conversation about firearms and other weapons. But even the organization I work for would think twice about putting firearms in the hands of kids.’

It was the first time Felix had ever mentioned such an organization. Ricky didn’t question him any further. He could tell when Felix was on a roll.

‘Glad to hear it,’ he said instead. ‘Guns aren’t really my style.’

‘It’s not a question of style, Coco,’ Felix said irritably. ‘It’s a question of what’s practical. You can’t easily carry a firearm or a knife around with you without attracting all sorts of unwanted attention. Much better to carry one of these.’ He started patting himself down. ‘Now, where did I put it? Ah, here it is!’ He put his hand in his back pocket and pulled out a pen.

‘Er, no, Felix, that’s a pen.’

‘Yep. Good one too,’ Felix said. ‘Cartier. A gift from a colleague of mine called Michael. I never leave home without it.’

– Is he joking?

Ricky peered at his mentor. He
looked
pretty serious.

‘What am I supposed to do with that?’ Ricky asked. ‘Squirt ink in someone’s eye?’

‘It’s a ballpoint, Coco,’ said Felix in a withering tone of voice. ‘Want to know how to use it, or are you going to be too busy making clever comments?’ Felix really
was
in a mood.

‘I want to know how to use it,’ Ricky said quietly.

Felix nodded. ‘Good.’ He sniffed. ‘A pen is a good example of an improvised weapon,’ he said. ‘An improvised weapon needs to be something you can carry around with you that
looks
absolutely harmless – something nobody would ever
think
of as a weapon, but which is strong and sturdy enough to be used in self-defence.’ He dug his free hand into his pocket and pulled out a handful of change. ‘Coins,’ he said. ‘A very good example. Everyone carries them and nobody thinks they’re dangerous. But if I throw a handful of coins hard enough at your face, believe me, you’re going to know about it.’

Ricky winced slightly at the thought. ‘Point taken,’ he said.

Felix returned the change to his pocket, then held up the pen again. ‘I suppose we’d better get this over with,’ he muttered. ‘Punch me, please.’

‘What?’

‘Punch me.’

‘Really?’

‘I’m afraid so. Hard as you can.’

Reluctantly, Ricky stepped up to where Felix was standing. Half a metre between them. He looked at the floor, then suddenly swung out his right arm with his fist clenched, aiming for Felix’s jaw.

Not for the first time, Felix’s agility surprised him. He lifted up his left arm in a quick, deft movement to block Ricky’s right hook. As he did this, he used his pen hand to stab at the soft flesh on the inside of Ricky’s elbow joint.

‘
Ow!
’ Ricky shouted. ‘
That hurt!
’

Felix’s brow was furrowed and there were beads of sweat on his bald head. He mopped them off with the palm of his free hand. ‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ he said mildly. ‘Would you like a sw—’

‘
NO! I WOULDN’T LIKE A SWEET!
’

‘It
was
kind of
meant
to hurt,’ Felix continued. ‘Soft flesh, you see. Always the most tender place to go for. If I’d struck a bit harder, I could have put you down for up to a minute. And then, of course, there’s the neck . . .’

Ricky found himself involuntarily shielding his neck with the palm of his hand. There was something about the mournful way Felix was explaining all this that freaked him out.

Felix dropped the pen onto the coffee table, then turned round and stomped over to where his rucksack and umbrella were leaning against the wall. He picked them up and carried them back to Ricky.

‘Brolly,’ he said. ‘Awesome weapon. Good solid spike at one end, and a bit of heft in the pole, if you get a good old-fashioned one that’s made of wood.’

‘I suppose you’d like to whack me over the head with it?’

Felix’s brow creased even more. ‘I
am
sorry about the pen, Coco. But I did need to demonstrate. I think you get the idea with the umbrella, though.’ He dropped the brolly onto the floor, then started rummaging in his rucksack. ‘Here we go,’ he said, before pulling out a chunky hardback book.

Ricky caught sight of the cover. It read:
War and Peace.
‘More homework?’ he asked.

‘Eh?’ Felix looked at the cover himself. ‘Oh God, no – very long, very boring.’ He held the book up with the spine facing outwards. ‘Have a close look.’

Ricky walked up to take the book. But as he approached, Felix jabbed the spine of the book so hard against his neck that Ricky felt his knees tremble and collapse beneath him.

‘
OW!
’ he shouted for the second time that morning, and clutched his pulsing neck.

‘Ah . . .’ Felix said. ‘Sorry . . . sorry . . . perhaps I hit you a bit harder than I meant to . . . but you get the point?’

Ricky tried to explain that he got the point very well, but all that came out was a kind of strangled gurgling.

‘I must say, though,’ Felix continued, examining the book a little more closely, ‘there
is
a good solid spine on this one.
War and Peace
. I’ll have to remember that. I used
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
the other week, and that was rubbish.’ He jabbed it against his free hand a few times, then looked at Ricky again, who was still gasping on his knees. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘let me help you up. You look a bit unwell.’

Ricky staggered to his feet. ‘Have you got any more surprises for me?’ he gasped.

‘Well, actually . . .’ Felix replied. He rummaged in his rucksack again and pulled out a newspaper. ‘This morning’s
Times
,’ he said.

Ricky was still rubbing his neck. He peered at Felix. ‘You’re joking, right?’

‘Not at all. Very effective weapon, a newspaper. Watch.’

Felix sat down at the coffee table and started folding the newspaper in half, then in half again. After several folds he had a thick, sturdy truncheon of paper. He swiped it gently through the air, as if weighing up its heft. Then, very suddenly, he slammed it against the table. Ricky started. He looked at the coffee table to check that the glass hadn’t cracked. It was still OK, but that didn’t put his mind at rest. ‘Tell me you’re not going to try that thing on me,’ he said.

‘Of course not,’ Felix said. He sounded slightly hurt. Then he whacked the truncheon against the coffee table again. And yet again, Ricky started. It was quite obvious that Felix’s makeshift truncheon could do someone a lot of damage. ‘Would you like a go?’ Felix asked him.

Ricky held out his hand and grabbed the truncheon as Felix got to his feet. It felt solid in his fist as he tapped it a few times against the palm of his free hand.

‘Try and hit me with it,’ Felix said, hitching the rucksack over one shoulder.

This morning was getting crazier by the moment. ‘Why?’ Ricky asked.

‘Just try it, Coco.’

‘I don’t want to hurt you.’ He was sarcastic.

‘I promise not to cry.’

Ricky sighed. He looked at the floor. Then, with a sudden movement, he stepped towards Felix and raised the truncheon. When he was half a metre away, he started to bring it down towards Felix’s head.

Once again, Felix took Ricky by surprise. The older man twisted his rucksack shoulder towards him, and with one hand raised the rucksack itself. As Ricky brought the truncheon down, it hit the rucksack harmlessly. In another quick movement, Felix removed the pack from his shoulder. He flipped it so that the flaps were facing outwards, then deftly slung them over Ricky’s head. With one strong arm he twisted Ricky’s body so that he was facing away from him, the strap of the rucksack crossing his Adam’s apple.

Then he pulled. Tightly.

For the second time that morning, Ricky found himself struggling for air. He dropped the truncheon and tried to grab the straps to pull them away from his neck, but Felix’s grip on the rucksack was too firm.

He started to feel dizzy.

His knees went weak.

He was going to faint . . .

Only when he was sinking to the floor did Felix release the rucksack. Ricky fell to his knees as he inhaled several noisy lungfuls of air. Felix stood above him, an embarrassed frown on his face. He stretched out one hand to help Ricky to his feet.

‘Are you OK?’

‘No!’ Ricky rasped. ‘I nearly passed out!’

Felix nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose that could happen.’ He looked around the room at the pen, the book, the newspaper and the rucksack in his arms. ‘Improvising,’ he said. ‘Very important. Forget knives and guns. Most of the time we just have to use the tools that are available to us. Here, you can have this.’ He handed Ricky the rucksack and limped towards the exit. ‘I think that’s about enough for today,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll start learning about surveillance. Very important technique for a soldier.’

‘What do you mean,
for a soldier
?’ Ricky gasped. ‘
You’re
the soldier, not me.’

Felix smiled. Then he pulled his ever-present bag of sweets from his pocket and popped one in his mouth. ‘If you say so,’ he said, before turning his back on the sore and battered Ricky, and leaving the room.

‘Meet Scruffy,’ Felix said the following day when he turned up at his usual time. He handed Ricky a small, creased photograph of a golden Labrador with big, sad eyes. When Ricky gave him a confused look, he added: ‘Scruffy’s your dog.’

‘What are you talking about? I don’t have a dog.’

Felix gave him one of his infuriatingly smug smiles. ‘I know you don’t have a dog,’ he said. ‘
You
know you don’t have a dog. But the man in the street doesn’t.’

Felix was being even more obscure than usual. ‘I suppose you are going to get around to telling me what you’re talking about?’ Ricky said.

‘It’s very simple,’ said Felix. ‘Stick that picture of Scruffy in your wallet. Sometimes, when you’re conducting surveillance on a person or location, you have to loiter in the same place for a long time. That attracts people’s attention. If someone challenges you, all you need to do is pull out your picture of Scruffy and show it to them. Say you were walking your dog in the area and it got away from you. Now you’re just hanging around for a bit on the off-chance that it comes back to the same place. If you can manage to look a bit tearful about the whole affair, so much the better. Oh, and we mustn’t forget to teach you how to fix your bike.’

‘Fix my bike?’

‘Yeah, of course. Best cover in the world. Nobody looks twice at a cyclist fiddling with his chain. It means you can stay in the same place, watching and waiting, for ages. But you need to be doing proper repairs, because if anybody’s watching you who knows anything about bikes and they see you’re faking it, they’ll know it’s just a pretence.’

‘And you think that’ll happen a lot, do you?’ Ricky said. ‘People watching me watching them.’ He was
seriously
beginning to wonder what he had let himself in for now.

Felix suddenly looked very sober. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘In our world, Coco, everybody’s watching everybody else. You need to become very,
very
good at it.’

‘Let me guess, you’re the guy to teach me?’

‘Well, as it happens . . .’ Felix said, and he gave a little mock bow.

Half an hour later, they had started with the basics.

‘You need to know how to follow someone in a crowd, without them
knowing
that you’re following.’

Ricky looked around. It was ten in the morning, a cold, slightly damp early December day. They were standing outside a shoe shop on Oxford Street. The area was busy with Christmas shoppers eager to make use of the final few shopping weeks before the big day. Ricky himself was glad to have something to keep his mind off all that. For an orphan living on his own, there’s nothing festive about Christmas.

‘Are you paying attention, Coco?’

‘Sure. Following someone in a crowd.’

‘That’s right. Now, you’ll learn the first thing you need to know about surveillance in here.’ He rapped on the window of the shoe shop.

‘Er, no, that’s a shoe shop, Felix.’

‘You bet it is. The feet are the key,’ Felix said. ‘An amateur will make a note of their target’s jumper or coat, or even worse they’ll keep their eyes fixed on the back of their target’s head.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

Felix gave him a look that seemed to say:
Do I
really
have to tell you?
‘If you’re looking at the back of someone’s head, as soon as they turn round they’ll see you looking straight at them. Easiest way to get noticed. Much better to look at their shoes. Look how many different styles of shoe there are just in this one shop window. A hundred, maybe more? People’s shoes are
always
very distinctive, so if you follow them it makes it easy to keep track of where they are. Plus, if they turn round, you look like you have your eyes on the pavement. It makes it much harder for them to spot you. Now, look at my shoes, and remember them.’

Felix was wearing a pair of scruffy but comfortable Nike Airs. If you didn’t know that he had a prosthetic leg, you certainly wouldn’t be able to tell if all you could see was his feet.

Ricky spent the next few hours following his mentor. The walking stick made it easier, of course, but after a while Ricky found himself getting into a rhythm. He kept a distance of about ten metres as Felix walked in and out of department stores, up escalators and down quiet side streets. Every now and then, Ricky made the mistake of raising his eyes and looking at Felix’s body rather than just his shoes. It was as if Felix himself knew when this was going to happen. Without exception, Ricky’s mentor would turn and stare directly into his eyes, before making a gesture that Ricky found very unnerving: a slicing sign with his forefinger across the front of his throat. Ricky didn’t know quite what it meant, but it always encouraged him to redouble his efforts.