Agent 21: Codebreaker: Book 3 (26 page)

They weren’t.

Hendricks looked at his watch. Ten seconds to go. His skin tingled. It wasn’t because he was cold or wet. It was more elemental than that. In ten seconds, the moment for which he had been waiting for years would come to fruition, and he was here to watch it happen.

Five seconds.

A single chopper rose up from the gardens of Buckingham Palace. Hendricks watched it with a frown. Was it carrying a precious cargo? He imagined so, and the thought made him bitter. But he did not allow himself to become disheartened. The building was the thing. The crumbling of the palace would be an image as potent as 9/11.

Two seconds to go.

One second.

Zero.

There was a rumble. Hendricks heard it quite clearly. Like a distant earthquake, or maybe that was just what he wanted to believe. He narrowed his eyes, waiting for the building to collapse in on itself. He had planned it carefully, each crate of explosives precisely positioned to cause maximum impact.

Nothing happened.

Give it time
, he told himself.
It will take a while, once the foundations are destroyed, to see the effects
.

He
gave
it time.

Still nothing happened.

A hot surge of anger rose in his gut. It was impossible.
Impossible
. The fools in the underground chamber were in no position to compromise the device, and he knew he had made no mistake in its construction. And yet,
nothing had happened
.

A red mist descended. He found himself striding towards the palace. Unbidden, a face had arisen in his mind. A young teenager. Tall for his age. Unruly hair. He had said his name was Harry Gold, but Hendricks was beginning to have his doubts about that. He knew better than anyone how easily a name could be changed.

And he knew how easily a person could be killed. He had seen it happen enough times, after all.

* * *

Gabs had made it into the chamber but had been thrown to the floor just like Zak. She jumped up again, cat-like, and looked back just in time to see the tunnel from which they had emerged collapsing. ‘
Raf!
’ she screamed, as both she and Zak threw themselves in the direction of the rubble collapsing above him. ‘
RAF!
’

Bricks showered down from the ceiling, a solid version of the rain that had soaked Zak outside. It continued for about five seconds, after which there was a sudden, terrible silence. The entrance to the tunnel was entirely blocked. There was no sign of their friend.

Neither Zak nor Gabs needed to say a word. They grabbed chunks of brick and rock from the mouth of the tunnel. The debris was immensely heavy, and Zak felt the muscles in his arms and across his chest harden as he strained to move the larger pieces.

A minute of heavy labour passed when, ten metres into the chamber, there was another shower of rubble. They continued to work as if they hadn’t heard the sound, but when it happened again thirty seconds later, it couldn’t go unremarked upon. ‘Ceiling’s collapsing,’ Gabs rasped, her voice like sandpaper. ‘If you want to go, go.’ She didn’t look at Zak as she said it, nor did she sound at all hopeful that he would take her up on the suggestion. Zak didn’t reply. He just carried on working, relentlessly dragging and pulling the fallen rubble away from the mouth of the tunnel.

They saw Raf’s hand first. It was poking out from a gap between two boulders, and it was deadly still.

‘Raf . . .’ Gabs whispered.

There was no reply.

They redoubled their efforts. Zak tore away a boulder which, if adrenalin hadn’t been surging through his veins, he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to budge. It revealed Raf’s forearm, his sleeve ripped and the skin scratched and bloodied. And still not moving. Gabs went into a frenzy, scrabbling at the rubble, pulling it away from the area around Raf’s arm, throwing it behind her as if it was made of polystyrene. Her lips were moving but no sound came from them. It was almost as if she was muttering a silent prayer.

And suddenly, her prayer was answered.

Raf’s arm moved. The fingers clenched then spread out again. The forearm bent at the elbow. Moments later, Zak pulled away a rock that revealed his torso, and another that revealed his head. He had fallen on his side and his face was streaked with blood. He looked dazed, almost as though he was wondering where he was and how he had got there.

The sound of more rubble falling from the ceiling of the chamber brought him to his senses, however. ‘We need to get out of here,’ Zak told him. He grabbed Raf’s arm and helped his friend as he clambered through the gap they had made. Shining his torch into the chamber, Zak’s stomach turned as he saw a curtain of debris showering down just metres from them.

‘
RUN!
’ Gabs shouted.

And so they did, covering their heads with their hands as they sprinted through the solid rain, to the other side of the chamber and into the tunnel again.

It felt smaller. More claustrophobic. The ceiling lower, the walls narrower. Or maybe that was just Zak. He couldn’t run fast enough. When they arrived back at the T-junction, he yelled at the others to take a left-hand turn, and he had seldom felt so relieved as when he saw the open cover of the manhole, and the heavy rain sluicing into it. He scrambled up the ladder into the open air, then leaned over to help Raf and Gabs up.

But as he did so, he heard a click and felt something hard and cold against the back of his head.

‘Stand up very slowly,’ said a voice. ‘I want your hands where I can see them. Any sharp moves, my young friend, and I promise I will not hesitate to kill you.’

Zak swallowed hard. He stood up slowly, his hands in the air, his palms outstretched.

‘Turn around,’ said the voice.

Zak did as he was told, to find himself face to face with Rodney Hendricks. He had a handgun pointed at Zak’s forehead, and he had murder in his eyes.

21

MURDER IN HIS EYES

‘HARRY GOLD.’ HENDRICKS
spoke in little more than a whisper.

‘Lee Herder,’ Zak replied.

Hendricks’s eyes narrowed. ‘How did you find out?’

Zak didn’t answer immediately. He forced himself not to look towards the manhole. He wanted to give Hendricks no clue that Raf and Gabs were down there. If Hendricks thought they were dead – which he no doubt did – he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot them if they turned up alive. He just prayed they heard what was happening.

‘Ludgrove was investigating your brother’s death,’ Zak told him. ‘He was a good reporter.’

Hendricks sneered. ‘He was too close to working out who I really was. That’s why he had to go. He won’t be meddling in anybody else’s affairs.’ His little round glasses were covered in raindrops. His beard was wet and dripping.

Keep him talking
, Zak thought to himself.
As long as he’s talking, he’s not shooting
. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I noticed that. I can’t help wondering how you lured him to Westminster Bridge.’

‘I guess you’ll have to carry on wondering,’ said Hendricks. ‘How did you know where the bombs were?’

‘The long-tailed shrike,’ Zak breathed. ‘Your codes were easy to crack if you knew where to look for them. What I don’t understand is why you put them out there in the first place.’

Hendricks gave a mirthless snort of laughter. Zak noticed that his gun hand was shaking slightly.

There was no movement from the manhole. Raf and Gabs clearly knew not to emerge. The hole itself was immediately to his nine o’clock. Hendricks was two metres away to his twelve o’clock. He had lowered his gun slightly so that it was pointing at Zak’s chest.

‘You don’t need to know that, Harry Gold,’ Hendricks breathed. ‘It hardly matters to you any more, in any case.’

Zak stepped backwards, away from Hendricks. One pace. Two paces. Hendricks’s hand was still shaking.
He’s a coward
, Zak told himself.
He prefers to massacre people with a bomb than to get his hands dirty
 . . .

Hendricks didn’t lower the gun, but he stepped forward. He was next to the manhole cover now. When a clap of thunder cracked overhead, his hand jolted along with his frightened body.

There was movement behind Hendricks. A vehicle turned into Chalker Mews. Its headlamps were on full beam. They lit up the heavy rain and cast long shadows along the cobbled street. At first, Zak thought the vehicle had stopped, but after a couple of seconds he realized it was moving slowly towards them. Hendricks surely knew it was there. He had to be able to see how the headlamps cast both his shadow and Zak’s against the back wall of the mews. Its arrival, however, didn’t seem to surprise or concern him. Zak could only assume he was expecting it. And that couldn’t be good news.

Zak stepped backwards again, another two paces. ‘Please don’t kill me,’ he whispered.

Hendricks advanced once more, just as Zak had hoped he would. That was his mistake.

The manhole was behind him now. Out of sight. Zak grabbed his chance. ‘
Now!
’ he shouted.

A look of confusion crossed Hendricks’s face. What did the boy mean? It was only at the very last second that he realized the instruction wasn’t meant for him. By then it was too late. Gabs had emerged from the manhole in absolute silence, like a snake from a jar. Only the upper half of her body was above ground level, but that was enough. She leaned towards Hendricks and hooked an arm around one of his ankles. Then she tugged.

A shot rang out from Hendricks’s weapon, but he was already falling as he fired. The round sped harmlessly past Zak’s right thigh and embedded itself in the brick wall behind him. Hendricks hit the ground. He tried to regroup, to aim in Zak’s direction once more, but Zak was too quick for him. He lurched forward and kicked the weapon from his assailant’s hand. It clattered across the cobblestones as Gabs emerged fully from the manhole, followed immediately by Raf.

Hendricks started crawling away, desperately trying to get his hands back on the weapon, but Raf was on him in an instant. He grabbed him by his thinning hair and pulled him to his feet. Hendricks cried out in pain as Gabs shot past him and retrieved the handgun. Zak’s attention, however, was elsewhere.

The vehicle in Chalker Mews was now about twenty metres away from their position. Its lights were still blindingly bright – Zak had to squint to look at it – but the car itself had come to a halt. A door opened on either side and four figures stepped out into the rain.

To Zak, blinded by the glare of the headlamps, they were little more than shadows. He could, however, make out the silhouettes of their weapons. They were not carrying handguns like Hendricks, but sub-machine guns, and they were raising them in the direction of the quartet at the end of the mews.

Zak felt a moment of relief. Armed response. They were safe. But then he saw Hendricks’s face. There was a cruel gleam of elation, and in that instant Zak realized that these gunmen were not here to help him, Raf and Gabs. They were the enemy.

‘
GET DOWN!
’ he roared, flinging himself to the ground as he did so. His Guardian Angels reacted immediately, slamming their bodies down against the cobbles. They hit the dirt just in time. Three individual shots rang out, and Zak felt the displacement of air as a round flew a metre directly above where he was hugging the ground.

Two more shots, but from Gabs this time. Her aim was accurate and each round shattered one of the vehicle’s headlamps, plunging Chalker Mews back into sudden darkness.

More gunfire from beside the vehicle, but because the lights were out their aim was now awry. Zak and his Guardian Angels moved with one thought. Forget Hendricks: get to safety. He rolled along the wet cobbles towards the manhole. Once he reached it, he didn’t bother with the ladder, but just jumped back down into the relative safety of the tunnel before hurling himself out of the way to give Raf and Gabs the chance to follow suit. Raf came first, landing heavily on the ground. Gabs followed immediately afterwards. She was altogether more fleet of foot – as she hit the ground, she was already twisting her body around and aiming the handgun back up through the manhole. She fired a warning shot out onto the street, then fell to one knee, her gun arm stretched out, ready to fire on anyone who appeared in her field of view.

Silence. Just the rain.

And then the squealing of tyres up above, growing louder. In his mind, Zak saw the vehicle speeding up to the manhole before it screeched to a halt. A clatter of footsteps, and then a voice with a heavy European accent reached their hiding place. ‘All right, Hendricks, in the car.
Vamos
.’ The man spoke Spanish.

‘Where . . . where are we going?’ Hendricks’s voice was flustered.

‘He wants to speak to you.’

‘Who?’

‘Who do you think, idiot? Señor Martinez, of course.’

A scuffling sound. Shadows fell across the open manhole. Gabs kept her arm straight and her aim true, but nobody entered her line of fire.

Zak heard the noise of doors slamming shut, and the vehicle reversing at great speed. And then there was silence once more.

Simply the rain on the cobbles, and the frenzied beating of his heart.

The interior of the car that ushered Rodney Hendricks away from Chalker Mews was very warm. So warm that his wet clothes started to steam, and his skin to itch. But he wasn’t paying attention to the steam or the soreness. He was paying attention to the armed men, one on either side, two in the front. They didn’t speak to him. They didn’t even look at him.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

No answer.

‘I
demand
that you tell me where we are going.’

The gunman to his right finally honoured him with a stare. His lip curled.
You are in no position to demand anything
, he seemed to say, though in reality he said nothing.

The vehicle with no headlamps attracted warning horns from other cars. After about three minutes, the driver pulled into a side street and stopped. All four armed men climbed out. One of them pulled Hendricks’s arm to indicate that he should do the same.