by Chris Ryan
It was 2 a.m. on the morning of 3 January. Zak Darke stood outside a prison that was a secret to almost everyone. Including Zak, up until the moment fourteen hours previously when he had been summoned, alone, to Incarceration Unit 3B.
From the outside, this building on the Caledonian Road in North London looked like a warehouse. Only a trained eye would pick out the security cameras fitted to its walls. They covered every square inch of the building and its grounds. And only a suspicious mind would wonder why the high wire fence was topped with bundles of razor wire that would be more in keeping at a military base.
Zak had a trained eye and a suspicious mind. He’d picked out the camera and the razor wire immediately.
It felt odd being in this part of town. He had once lived just half a mile from here, after he had been orphaned and sent to stay with his aunt and uncle. That part of his life seemed like a distant memory. He’d been plucked from it by a strange old man who sometimes called himself Mr Bartholomew and sometimes plain old ‘Michael’. Michael had offered him the chance to join a top-secret government department – Zak thought of it simply as The Agency – and since then, his life had become . . . unusual.
Which was why, while most teenagers were tucked up in bed, making the most of their last chance of a lie-in before school or college began again any day now, Zak was here, outside this top-secret, high-security prison. And although he was used to peculiar circumstances, he couldn’t help a twinge of anxiety in his gut. It’s always nerve-racking, visiting a prisoner you’ve helped put behind bars, and Zak had more reason than most to be wary of one of the inmates of this institution.
But Michael had thought it would be a good idea. He’s made a request to see you, Zak’s handler had said. Alone. Maybe he’s decided he wants to talk, to give us information. It could be useful. And it could be good for you too. Sometimes the best way to deal with your demons is to confront them . . .
Zak had a whole load of demons. He guessed it wouldn’t hurt to cross one off the list.
There was a brick reception building set into the perimeter fence. Zak pressed a buzzer. A moment later the door clicked open. He stepped inside to see a uniformed guard standing behind a desk. On the far side of the room there was an iron door. Zak knew it would be heavily locked. On its right-hand side was an iPad-sized screen, but it was blank. Behind him, he heard a click as the first door locked.
As Zak approached the desk, the guard walked round from the other side. He looked suspicious. Zak scanned him up and down. He immediately noticed the slight bulge on the left-hand side of his torso that told him the guy was carrying a firearm. Probably a pistol, though Zak assumed the guard could call on heavier reinforcements if he needed them.
Zak stopped two metres from where the guard was standing. He knew better than to invade the personal space of a man with a gun.
‘Harry Gold,’ he said, using one of the many false names for which he had full paperwork, and about whose life he knew every tiny detail. ‘I’m expected.’
The guard looked even more suspicious. ‘Shouldn’t you still be playing with your Christmas presents?’ he said. And then, when Zak raised an eyebrow: ‘I wasn’t expecting a kid.’
‘I can’t help what you were expecting,’ said Zak. But realizing his nerves had made him sound surly, which wasn’t the way to get what he wanted, he smiled. ‘I’ve got a baby face,’ he said. ‘Always have done. Didn’t start shaving till my eighteenth birthday.’
Zak’s eighteenth birthday was a long way off.
‘ID?’ the guard said.
Zak handed over a passport in the name of Harry Gold. The guard flicked through it, then walked back round to the other side of the desk and scanned the passport while watching a screen. He nodded a few seconds later and handed the passport back. Zak stuck it in his back pocket. ‘You’re good to go,’ the man said. ‘I’ll call someone to take you in.’ He picked up a radio handset. ‘All right, Ern,’ he said. ‘That fella’s here for the Cyclops.’ He gave Zak another meaningful look. ‘Well, I say fella . . . more like a pipsqueak . . .’
The guard put the radio back on the desk. ‘You’ll have to empty out your pockets. No phones, coins, nothing sharp or metal.’
Zak had come prepared. Aside from an iPhone, which he laid on the desk, he only had notes in his pocket. Six fifties – because in Zak’s line of work, you never knew when you’d need some ready cash. The guard’s eyes widened at the sight of all that money, but he didn’t insist that Zak hand it in. Zak returned the notes to his back pocket.
‘Dunno why the Cyclops finds you so damn interesting,’ said the guard. ‘Hasn’t spoken a bleedin’ word to any of us all the time he’s been here. Hasn’t had a visitor. Hasn’t even received or sent a letter. Just stays in that cell of his, working out sometimes or just staring at the wall. Gives me the creeps.’ He peered at Zak a bit more closely. ‘What are you?’ he asked. ‘Family or something like that?’
‘Something like that,’ Zak agreed with a smile.
The guard didn’t get a chance to ask another question. There was a hissing sound, and the door on the far side swung open. A black guy in uniform walked in. Zak supposed this was Ern. He was about the same height as Zak, but twice as broad. Zak had the impression it would be as hard to get past him as to get past the metal door itself – which was already swinging shut.
Ern looked Zak up and down, much like the guard had done. ‘This our midnight visitor, is it? This the one keeping us from our beauty sleep?’ He smiled, to reveal several missing teeth. Zak reckoned they hadn’t been removed by the dentist. ‘Arms above your head, please, son.’
Zak did as he was told, and let Ern frisk him down. It only took a few seconds. Zak wasn’t hiding anything.
‘Come on then, son, let’s get this over with.’ Ern turned and placed his right palm against the screen to the right of the door. The hissing sound came again as the door swung open. Ern walked back through it.
Zak followed. The door automatically locked behind him.
They were in a tarmac’d open space. ‘Exercise yard,’ said Ern. ‘Not that any of our lot are allowed to use it.’ They crossed the yard towards the large, warehouse-type building. ‘Want to know what makes this place different to other prisons, son?’
‘More secure building?’
Ern smiled. ‘Ain’t no such thing as a totally secure building. Not if you know what you’re doing. And what’s to stop a prisoner trying to escape, if they know they ain’t got no chance of seeing the light of day again any other way?’ As they walked he opened up his jacket. Zak immediately recognized the MP5 sub-machine gun holstered to his body. ‘Much better deterrent,’ Ern said. ‘Ain’t a single prison guard not armed to the teeth. And the prisoners know we won’t hesitate to shoot if we see anything resembling an escape attempt.’ He paused for a moment, before adding: ‘I always mention that to the visitors, just in case they get any funny ideas, you know.’
He gave Zak a sidelong look full of meaning.
Zak almost replied. He almost told Ern that he was barking up the wrong tree if he thought Zak was here to help anyone escape. He was here to see the prisoner that the jailers called the Cyclops. Zak knew him as Calaca. He had been the right-hand man of Zak’s arch-enemy, Cruz Martinez. Calaca had tried to kill Zak, and he’d tried to kill someone very dear to him. But then he’d made the mistake of trying to cross Zak’s Guardian Angels, Raf and Gabs. As mistakes went, that was a pretty big one. It had ended up with Calaca detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure – although Zak wasn’t entirely sure that Her Majesty knew of the existence of such places as Incarceration Unit 3B.
But Zak’s training had taught him never to release more information than was strictly necessary. ‘I’m glad he’s not going anywhere,’ was all he said.
Ern led Zak into the building, through another door that required his palm print to open. Zak noted that he used his left palm this time. Clearly the system was programmed to recognize both of Ern’s hands. The inside of t
he building was as warehouse-like as the outside – just a huge open space. In the middle, however, was a small metal structure, about the size of a Transit van, with yet another palm-print door. Ern opened it up. It contained nothing but a flight of steps leading into the ground.
Zak followed his guide down the steps. They entered a sterile, brightly lit, hexagonal room. On each of the six sides was a door, and at each door were two armed men – these guys didn’t bother to conceal their MP5s. They all looked suspiciously at Zak, who had the impression that visitors were rare. ‘These doors guard the six most dangerous men in the country,’ Ern said. ‘One way into their cells, one way out. Two armed men per prisoner, guarding every entrance and exit. Everything that goes in and out of these corridors is rigorously searched. It’s impossible to deliver an illicit item to any of the six.’
As Ern spoke, Zak happened to be watching one of the guards. He had a brown beard and bushy eyebrows. He glanced down at the floor and then looked quickly up again.
Zak had been trained to recognize the facial expressions of a dishonest man. Had he just seen one? His muscles tensed up as Ern led him to one of the doors – it had a burnished steel number one just above it – and raised his hand to open it. But before he pressed his palm to the pad, he spoke.
‘I don’t know who you are, son. I don’t know why a guy like the Cyclops should ask to see a kid like you, or why the authorities would allow it. But you’ve got five minutes with him, and not a second longer. I don’t trust this guy. Nobody trusts him. I’ll be with you at all times. Don’t get too close to the glass, and for God’s sake don’t accept anything from him. Understood?’
Zak nodded. ‘Understood,’ he said.
Ern put his palm to the pad. The door slid open. Together they walked over the threshold. The door slid closed behind them.
They were in a bunker-like corridor, about twenty metres long and three metres wide. The walls were solid concrete, and there was strip lighting along the ceiling. On the left-hand side, halfway along the corridor, was a floor-to-ceiling clear panel. As Zak stepped forward he saw that this panel was the front wall of a large cell. Here and there were little ventilation holes in the glass, and in the middle, at about head height, was a grille for speaking through.
The cell behind the glass was sparse. A single bed. A desk, piled high with books. A toilet with no seat in the corner. A TV fixed to the wall. And a chair, which was positioned a couple of metres back from the speaker grille.
And on the chair sat Calaca. The Cyclops.
They called him the Cyclops because he only had one eye. The other eye socket was covered with pale skin.
He looked half the man he had been when Zak had last seen him. He had a blanket wrapped around his body and over his head, like a little old man trying to keep warm. His skin, once tanned, was pasty. His good eye was bloodshot and his lips were pale. The name ‘Calaca’ meant ‘skeleton’ in Spanish. Today, he more than lived up to it.
He watched Zak walk towards him with his single eye, and made no attempt to hide the dislike on his face. Zak did his best to look cool, but the truth was that the sight of Calaca made him feel slightly sick, and slightly weak. He knew that the one-eyed man would happily kill him if he got his hands on him. Although the glass looked tough, Zak couldn’t help wondering if it was tough enough.
Ern had remained by the door, leaving Zak to approach the grille by himself. His footsteps echoed against the concrete as he walked, then fell silent.
‘You wanted to see me?’
Calaca remained seated, and said nothing.
‘Here’s the deal,’ Zak said. ‘I don’t know why I’m here, and frankly I don’t care. I’ve got five minutes, and if I think you’re wasting my time, I’ll just walk away now. It’ll be the last you ever see of me.’
A pause. Zak noticed that Calaca seemed to be clenching something in his right fist. He remembered what Ern had said about it being impossible to smuggle anything illicit into one of these cells. His eyes flickered to the left, where the prison warder was standing by the palm-print door.
But then his focus shifted. Calaca was standing up.
Zak felt his pulse thumping.
The one-eyed man moved to the grille. He put his lips very close to it and whispered something. His voice was quiet. Zak couldn’t make it out.
He drew closer to the glass. Calaca spoke again. Zak still couldn’t hear.
He looked at Calaca, whose lip curled into a nasty grin. He held up the forefinger of his left hand and used it to beckon Zak even closer to the glass.
Zak swallowed hard. He was doing his best to hide how on edge he was. But he moved closer, so that his ear was just an inch from the glass.
Calaca spoke for a third time. His voice was louder now, and Zak fully understood every word he said.
‘If you want to live, hit the floor!’
Zak’s instincts kicked in. He fell immediately to the floor, winding himself as his body slammed against the concrete. He was aware of Calaca doing the same.
And it wasn’t a second too soon.
The explosion was deafening: a sudden, ear-splitting, destructive blast that came, Zak sensed, from inside the cell. The moments that followed passed in sickening slow motion. There was an enormous shattering of glass, and the ominous sound of cracking concrete. The shock waves from the blast battered Zak’s whole body, as though he was being pummelled by someone’s fist. Hot, acrid smoke filled his lungs as splintered glass rained down over his body.
Then he passed out.
3
PALM PRINT
The next sixty seconds were like a dream. Zak teetered on the edge of consciousness. The noise of falling debris sounded deep and low, like a slowed-down recording. He forced his eyes open. All the lights in this underground bunker had shattered. Grit scraped his eyeballs. He closed his eyes again to clear them. When he opened them for a second time, he was aware of someone leaning over him. It was too dark to see clearly, but he knew it had to be Calaca.
Zak felt a burning mass of fear in his chest. How would Calaca kill him? Did he have a gun or a knife? Or would he grab a shard of the broken glass and slit his throat?
Zak knew he should fight. Jolt his body into action. But he found he couldn’t move.
Calaca leaned in closer. His face was only inches from Zak’s. He spoke, but Zak couldn’t understand him; his words sounded slow and distorted. He felt sick. The room started to spin. Calaca grabbed his right hand and put something into it. Then Zak passed out again.
He didn’t know how long he was out. Perhaps another minute. In the depths of his mind he felt as though he was screaming. Agonized, panicked screams. His eyes suddenly pinged open and he realized that the screams were real. They were coming from back along the corridor.
It took a titanic effort for Zak to get to his feet. His knees buckled as he straightened up, and he nearly collapsed again. Almost unconsciously, he stuffed into his pocket the object Calaca had put in his hand. He saw that there was more light in the corridor again now. It came from the direction of the central hexagonal room – and it was from this direction that the screaming was coming. A bloodcurdling sound. Zak turned to look towards it. Smoke and dust obscured his view. He could see that the sliding metal door was half open. It cast a long shadow along the corridor.
Zak groped his way through the dust. The floor was littered with shadowy debris. He picked his way carefully along it, towards the screaming sound. After he had moved five metres, he saw where it was coming from. There was a figure lying across the threshold of the corridor, stopping the sliding metal door from closing. Now that Zak was closer to the light, he could see that it was Ern.
And as he moved another five metres, he could see why Ern was screaming.
The prison warder was clutching his right arm. But the arm was not complete. His right hand had been severed. A catastrophic amount of blood was seeping from the wound and soaking into the sleeve of his uniform.
Zak’s eyes flicke
red to the palm-print panel by the side of the door. It was smeared with blood. In an instant, he knew what had happened.
Calaca had needed a palm print to escape. So he had helped himself to a palm.
Zak shot forward. All his sluggishness had fallen away. As he moved, he pulled his belt from around his trousers. He knelt down over Ern, whose screaming had now changed to a desperate panting. ‘Can you hear me?’ he asked the prison warder urgently.
‘Y-y-yes . . .’
‘You need to raise your bad arm. I’m going to try to stop the bleeding.’
‘You . . . you helped him escape . . .’ Despite the pain he was obviously in, Ern still managed to sound furious.
Zak didn’t have time to argue with the guy. He needed to stem the bleeding, otherwise Ern had served his last shift. He wrapped his belt just above Ern’s elbow, then pulled it tight. Ern gasped, but was clearly too weak to struggle. As Zak went about his work, he noticed that Ern’s MP5 was missing. Not a good sign. He tightened the belt as hard as he could. With all his strength, he punctured an extra hole through the leather using the buckle. It was a very rudimentary tourniquet, but it was the best he could do until proper medical attention arrived.
Only then did he stand up again and take in the devastation of the hexagonal room.
The remaining doors were all shut, but that didn’t mean anything. Calaca could have freed the other prisoners. In fact, Zak bet that was what had happened – it would cause more chaos, and chaos would make it easier to escape. There were bodies strewn everywhere. Surely Calaca couldn’t have overpowered them all. He couldn’t tell if the guards were dead or alive. But there was no blood, so he figured he couldn’t do anything for them either way. They’d either wake up, or they wouldn’t. His eyes tried to pick out the guard with the brown beard and bushy eyebrows, and he wasn’t surprised to find him missing.
Several of the guards had obviously tried to grab their weapons before they were put down. Their jackets were open and their hands were resting on their MP5s. Zak strode over to the nearest guard and grabbed his firearm.
