Endgame (Agent 21) (24 page)

Zak glanced over at their friend. Malcolm was shaking badly and his face was bleeding – they hadn’t noticed that before. He was clutching his broken arm, and clearly needed medical care.

‘We should never have brought him,’ Ricky breathed.

‘We’d never have got here
without
him,’ Zak said. He sounded slightly aggressive, but then bowed his head. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. He narrowed his eyes, and walked over to sit next to Malcolm. ‘Buddy,’ he said kindly. ‘Me and Ricky are going to take it from here.’

Ricky saw the change in Malcolm’s face immediately. It turned even whiter than it already had been. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘I’m coming. I
have
to . . .’

‘I’m sorry, buddy. You’re in no state. We’ll be back for you. I promise you that.’

Malcolm gave Zak a startlingly clear look. ‘What if you’re dead?’ he said. ‘What if Cruz kills you?’

‘I said, we’ll be back for you.’ Zak strode over to the other hay bale and started pulling clumps of it apart. ‘Cover yourself in this. It’ll help keep you warm. And stay in here out of the wind. It’s a killer. I know it hurts, buddy, but you’ll have to just put up with it for a few more hours until we can get you help.’

Malcolm was in no state to answer. He collapsed, shaking, to the ground and allowed Ricky and Zak to cover him in clumps of hay. Two minutes later, they were kneeling down by his side. ‘Seriously, Malcolm,’ Zak said, ‘don’t move. Your arm injury’s not life-threatening, and you
are
going to be OK. We’ll be back very soon.’

Malcolm nodded weakly.

Ricky and Zak stood up.

‘Ready?’ Zak asked.

‘Ready,’ Ricky told him.

‘Then let’s go and finish this.’

Stepping outside the dilapidated building, they could still see, in the distance, the burning glow of what remained of Moriarty’s Cessna. They could no longer hear the voices of the local Inuit. ‘If they’ve found Moriarty, there’s no reason for them still to be outside,’ Zak said. Looking around, Ricky agreed. He allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. It meant Moriarty was safe. But the wind was howling. The blizzard was swirling. The cold was cutting through them like a knife. Why would anyone be out in this, if they didn’t have to be?

‘We need to head west, right?’ Ricky said.

Zak nodded.

‘How do we know when we’ve got to the right place?’

‘Cruz will be waiting for us. Trust me.’

‘And what then?’ Ricky asked. ‘We know we’re walking into a trap. How do we know he isn’t just going to pull a gun on us, shoot us there and then?’

Zak looked down at his feet, then up again. ‘You’ve said it yourself. He could have had me killed three days ago, when one of his people murdered Michael and Felix. But he didn’t. He’s got something else in mind. So when we get there, I’m going to need you to do what you do best.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Be sneaky.’

‘Thank you very much.’

Zak looked out into the darkness. ‘Cruz wants me for a reason. I don’t know what it is yet, but when we meet, I expect him to take me somewhere. You need to stay hidden, for two reasons. One: he might have a plan for me, but he could well see you as dispensable. Two: our only chance of outwitting Cruz is for you to follow us, find out where he’s taking me, and then help me escape.’

Ricky looked around too. ‘Mate, I don’t want to put a dampener on things, but we’re going to be in the middle of the sea ice. Open ground. There won’t
be
anywhere for me to hide.’

Zak shook his head. ‘You’ll have the darkness. And the snow, if it’s still falling. That’s as good a cover as any. But you’ll need to remember that Big Diomede is a Russian military base and we’re crossing an international border. It’ll be guarded. When you follow me, you’ll need to find a way to sneak onto the island.’

‘Right,’ Ricky said. He chewed his lower lip nervously and wondered, for a moment, how he had gone from picking pockets in the back streets of London only a month or so ago, to this. ‘I guess we’d better move then, while it’s still dark.’ He gave Zak a forced smile. ‘Ready?’ he asked.

Zak smiled gratefully back. ‘As I’ll ever be,’ he muttered.

He pulled the cab driver’s torch from his pack and switched it on. Then he examined the screen of the portable GPS unit to get their bearings and showed it to Ricky. The blue dot was blinking by the tiny coastline of Little Diomede. ‘Make sure you walk behind me,’ he said. ‘You’ll be less visible behind the torchlight.’ They hunched their shoulders and forced themselves on through the blizzard. They passed the snow-covered helicopter sitting on its landing pad on their right, and the burning remains of the plane on their left. As they struggled on, their faces raw and their limbs numb, the dwellings dotted on the hillside of Little Diomede slipped past, like ghostly beings in the snow. There was no sight or sound of the islanders. They were clearly avoiding the wreckage of the plane till morning.

The Bering Straits opened out in front of them, bleak and uninviting. They could see no more than ten metres at a time – the torch beam was a swirl of snow that barely seemed to penetrate the thick, icy blackness.

Time seemed to stand still.
Everything
seemed to stand still. It was as though they were walking, but not moving. Their surroundings didn’t change. They just grew colder and, if Ricky was honest with himself, more frightening.

It was as if they were walking relentlessly into their own tombs.

Cruz Martinez stared at a screen, with his trusted lieutenant Calaca at his side. The screen showed the outlines of Little Diomede and Big Diomede. And between them, not one but two glowing dots.

Calaca spoke to his boss in Spanish. ‘He crash-landed on the ice forty-five minutes ago. He has a single companion. We have an airborne drone with a thermal imaging camera following them. They won’t be able to see or hear it in this weather. They’re walking in single file. At the rate they’re travelling, they’ll arrive at the meeting point at five minutes to midnight.’ Calaca seemed rather disappointed.

‘Very good, Agent 21,’ Cruz whispered softly. You could almost hear the relief in his voice. ‘Punctual as ever. Do the Russians know?’

‘They have a welcoming committee set up for when we escort him off the ice onto the island.’ Calaca cleared his throat. ‘What if he tries to fight?’

‘He will not try to fight, because he understands that if anything happens to us, there is no chance of his friends surviving.’

‘There’s no chance of them surviving anyway.’

‘But
he
doesn’t know that,’ Cruz snapped. ‘The weakness of trustworthy people is that they trust others in return.’ He turned to his lieutenant. ‘Are the dogs ready?’

‘Of course,’ Calaca told him. ‘We can leave whenever you want.’

‘I want to leave immediately,’ Cruz said. ‘It wouldn’t do to keep our guests waiting, now would it?’

The further they walked, the more anxious Ricky became. He couldn’t get it out of his head that they were walking on sea ice. How deep was it? Would it continue to take their weight? All around, he heard ominous creaking and groaning. It was as if the icy ground beneath them wanted to move, but couldn’t. Every part of him was numb, and his limbs were heavy. It was an effort just to make a single step forward.

Suddenly, Zak killed the torchlight. They were plunged into utter darkness.

They stood very still.

‘What is it?’ Ricky breathed. His voice quavered as he spoke.

‘Listen.’

Ricky closed his eyes and listened hard. At first he could hear nothing but the angry screech of the wind howling high above him, and the terrifying, echoing creak of the ice.

But then, suddenly, something else. A kind of high-pitched yelp. Impossible to be sure which direction it came from, but Ricky thought it was straight ahead. Was it a dog barking?

‘Don’t tell me it’s another wolf,’ he said weakly.

Zak shook his head. ‘Not here,’ he said. ‘We’re in the middle of the ocean, remember.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Ricky said dryly. ‘How could I forget . . .’

Another yelp, closer this time. Ricky shivered, and peered into the darkness. ‘So what is it?’

Zak didn’t answer. They could both suddenly see, in the distance, a light burning through the blackness.

It was approaching them.

‘Get back,’ Zak said tensely, thrusting the GPS unit into Ricky’s hands. ‘Keep low. Hug the ground if you have to. Whatever happens, don’t interfere.’

Ricky staggered back. Then he turned and ran. His feet slipped badly, but he managed to cover a good twenty metres before hitting the ground. He pressed his body hard down onto the ice, facing Zak. He winced as the wind blew frosty ice particles into his face. But he kept his eyes on Zak, a solitary figure standing in the bleak terrain. Shoulders hunched against the elements. Waiting.

The barking grew louder. After a minute, Ricky saw that it was a sledge, pulled by a pack of eight huskies. Mounted on the sledge was a large spotlight that brightly lit up the ice before it. But he could see the silhouettes of two people sitting either side of it. The sight of them chilled him more than any ice or wind. He felt a moment of panic. The light was going to illuminate
him
. When the huskies and the sledge were twenty metres beyond Zak, however, they suddenly curled round to draw up alongside him. With the spotlight pointing at ninety degrees, Ricky remained hidden. The blades of the sledge hissed on the ice, then the sound faded away as it eased to a halt. The huskies’ breath steamed in the cold air.

Silence.

One of the figures stepped off the sledge. The first thing Ricky noticed was that he had a weapon strapped around his body – from Felix’s firearms lessons, he recognized it as an MP5 sub-machine gun. The second thing he noticed was his face. The man only had one eye. The empty eye socket was covered with a patch of smooth skin.

‘A long way from Incarceration Unit Three-B, Calaca,’ Zak called. The wind carried his voice very clearly to where Ricky was lying. ‘You’ll have to tell me how you did it, one of these days.’

‘It’s amazing how well greed and explosives go together,’ Calaca sneered. ‘But you’re probably too weak to experiment with such ideas.’

The second figure stepped off the sledge. Ricky peered at him. He was well protected in snow gear, but Ricky could make out a young man not much older than him, with very dark eyes and a hard, haunted expression.

‘Eleven fifty-eight p.m.,’ the figure called. His voice had a slight accent. ‘There were some people who thought you wouldn’t make it. But I never doubted you, Harry. Not for one minute.’

‘I find your faith in me absolutely heart-warming, Cruz,’ Zak said.

Cruz walked slowly towards them, stopping only when he was a metre in front of Zak, and slightly to the side so Ricky still had a clear view of him. ‘Happy
Día de Reyes
,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ve brought me a gift.’

‘Sure have, Cruz.’

Ricky suddenly hissed under his breath.
What was Zak doing?

Zak’s movement had been as slick and skilful as a cat’s. He had raised his right hand. There was something in it: the handgun Tyler had given him. The barrel had come to rest against Cruz’s forehead.

This wasn’t part of their plan! What was he doing?

‘It’s not quite midnight yet,’ Zak said clearly. ‘And right now, right here, we’re still “between yesterday and tomorrow”. Unless you do exactly as I tell you,
you
won’t be around to see the end of your precious festival . . .’

Zak was out of control. He hadn’t planned this. It was as if he was being governed by his anger and not by his mind. His hand was shaking and his whole body was burning up. He hoped Ricky had the sense not to interfere.

For a few seconds, Cruz’s cold face was expressionless. He stared deep into Zak’s eyes.

Then, slowly and nastily, his lip curled into something very close to a smile. ‘Is that the best you can do, Agent 21? Threaten to kill me?’

‘Why shouldn’t I?’ Zak breathed. ‘You’ve no intention of letting Raf and Gabs go.’ He felt nothing but hatred, and his finger twitched on the trigger.

Cruz’s smile became more pronounced. ‘But I
know
you, Harry. A tiny portion of your brain is thinking, if you keep me alive, I might lead you to them. There’s no way you’re going to kill me, not when there’s a chance I might be of use to you in one of your desperate displays of heroics.’

Nobody moved.

‘Go ahead, Harry,’ Cruz breathed. ‘Pull the trigger. Lay me out cold on the ice, if that’s what you want. But I’m the only one who can take you to them. Remember that.’

Zak felt his eyes narrowing. There was a bitter taste in his mouth as Cruz’s words echoed in his head. And they joined other thoughts, which were just as potent. He was looking into the face of a murderer. But what would he, Zak, be if he pulled that trigger? No better than Cruz himself. He heard Moriarty’s voice in his head.
Every night, when you put your head on the pillow, you hear them. The screams of the ones you killed. And you can never escape them, even when you run to the ends of the earth . . .

And then he heard another voice. It was Michael’s, crisp and angry from beyond the grave.
What are you playing at, Agent 21? You need him alive, if you’re going to find out where Raphael and Gabriella are.

Shamed by those invisible voices, Zak lowered his gun and bowed his head, a crushing sense of failure weighing down on him.

‘Smart choice, Harry,’ Cruz said. He looked over his shoulder. ‘Now then, why don’t you and your little friend join me on the sledge?’ He clearly saw the flicker that crossed Zak’s brow. ‘Oh,
please
,’ he said. ‘Did you really think that I didn’t know you had company?’ He looked up into the dark sky. ‘My Russian friends have a small drone above us with a thermal imaging camera. We’ve been tracking your progress since just after your spectacular landing. I must say, I expected your flying skills to be a little more on the money than that.’ Cruz peered into the darkness around them. ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are!’ he called in a sing-song voice.

‘Your equipment’s faulty,’ Zak said. ‘There’s nobody else here. Only me.’