by Chris Ryan
It was steaming and busy inside. Rihanna was playing on the radio in the background. There was only one table left, next to the window. Ricky took a seat and, two minutes later, had ordered himself tea and breakfast.
Ricky had always been observant. But since he’d met Felix, his observation skills had improved tenfold. So much so that he found himself recording minute details of everything around him without even knowing it. He noticed how the old man by the window had his knife and fork in the wrong hand, but his watch still on his left wrist. He noticed how the girl at the table opposite, with a sleeping child in a pushchair, had two ear studs in her left ear and only one in her right. She looked exhausted, and her purse was lying on the table, teetering on the very edge. He noticed how three guys in their early twenties, sitting together with mugs of tea, had newspapers open on the table, but weren’t reading them. They were all looking in different directions: one towards the kitchen, one towards the door and one directly at the young mum’s teetering purse . . .
– They’re casing her. They’re going to try to steal her purse.
– Very observant. It’s her own fault for leaving it on display like that.
– She looks knackered. I bet the last thing she needs is for her purse to go missing.
– Not your problem, Ricky. Isn’t Felix always saying you shouldn’t use your skills to get involved with things that aren’t your concern?
This was true. Felix was like a stuck record about stuff like that. The Rihanna song finished on the radio, and a news bulletin started. Ricky felt his ears tuning in.
‘Reports are coming in of a shooting in Hyde Park. Two men are suspected dead, and police are actively searching a teenage boy to help them with their enquiries . . .’
Ricky frowned. Right then, his food and tea arrived. As the guy serving him walked away, he saw the three young men nod imperceptibly at each other. They stood up. And as Ricky cut into his sausage, they walked over to where the mum and her child were sitting. One of them started making a real fuss of the kid. The little boy cooed delightedly at him. Another loitered a metre or so away, while the third engaged the mum in conversation.
‘He’s very cute,’ the guy said in a pronounced London accent. ‘What’s his name?’
Ricky ate, but his eyes were firmly on the woman’s purse.
‘Andrew,’ said the woman.
‘Hey, that’s my name!’ said the young man. He turned to the baby. ‘All the best people are called Andrew,’ he said.
Ricky had to admit grudgingly that it was a good take. Just as the woman looked proudly at her cooing baby, the guy deftly took the purse. He immediately passed it on to the guy loitering by the door, who slipped it into the right-hand pocket of his coat. Then he straightened, making ready to leave.
Ricky stood up.
– Mate, stay out of it. It’s nothing to do with you.
– Trust me. I can deal with these jokers.
– Ricky, what is it with you and cafés? You’re on holiday, remember?
But Ricky was already stepping towards the door. ‘Excuse me, mate,’ he said to the guy who had the purse.
The pickpocket’s expression changed. His eyes looked wary, and as Ricky stood right in front of him, he could feel the guy’s muscles tensing up. Flight or fight.
‘What?’ The guy raised his arms, palms outwards, as if to say: I didn’t do anything.
‘You left your newspaper at your table. Mind if I take it?’ As Ricky spoke, he looked over the pickpocket’s left shoulder, knowing full well that the guy would follow his gaze. It gave him the fraction of a second he needed. Ricky slipped one hand into the guy’s pocket and retrieved the woman’s purse.
‘Whatever.’ The guy shrugged.
Ricky smiled at him. ‘Thanks very much, mate,’ he said brightly. He pushed past the others and retrieved one of the newspapers. By the time he was walking back past the woman’s table, the three guys were outside, striding hurriedly away. Ricky bent down and pretended to pick up the purse. ‘I think this fell off your table,’ he said, and he handed it to the woman. She looked a bit flustered, but grateful.
– Very flash.
– Thanks. I thought so.
– Any chance you could stop looking quite so smug? It’ll put the other diners off their food.
Ricky took his seat again and started wolfing down his breakfast. As he ate, he saw the three guys on the other side of the street. Two of them had turned on the third – the one they expected to have the purse – and were shoving him in the chest. Looked like he was in for a bad morning.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, Ricky thought.
When he’d finished, he folded up his newspaper, shoved it under his arm and wandered up to the counter to pay. Then he made to leave the café. Just as he was stepping outside, however, he froze. The three guys were no longer on the other side of the street. They had crossed over, were standing just a few metres from the entrance to the café, and they seemed to have made up their differences.
They also seemed to have worked out what had just happened.
Not good news for Ricky. He’d just broken the first law of the street: don’t mess with someone else’s job.
Ricky gave them his most winning smile. ‘All right, lads?’ he said, holding their gaze so that they didn’t notice how he was tightly rolling up his newspaper.
‘What’s your game?’ the guy on the left said.
All three of them stepped a little closer to Ricky.
Ricky thought about Felix. His handler was always telling him to be careful how he used his recently acquired skills. That if he found himself getting into street fights, he was turning back into the boy he once was.
But Felix wasn’t here now, surrounded by three pickpocketing thugs who wanted to teach him a lesson.
‘Think you can stick your nose in where it’s not wanted?’ said the guy in the middle. And as he spoke, he pulled a flick knife from his pocket. A click, and the blade shot out.
Ricky eyed the weapon carefully. The guy was holding it low, like he knew how to use it.
Ricky raised his rolled-up newspaper. The guys sniggered. He didn’t blame them. A flick knife against a copy of the Daily Mirror? That was no contest, was it?
But these three lads hadn’t been trained by Felix. They hadn’t learned that sometimes the best weapon is the one that doesn’t look like a weapon at all.
Ricky didn’t wait for the others to attack. With a sudden sharp swipe, he whacked the stiff end of the rolled-up newspaper against his assailant’s wrist. The force was stronger than the guy expected, and it caused him to drop the flick knife, which clattered onto the pavement. Now Ricky raised his arm and slammed the stiff end of the newspaper directly into the knife guy’s face. Blood spurted from his nose as he cried out and staggered back. Ricky took his chance. Shoving one of the other surprised lads out of the way, he sprinted off down the street.
– That was a great start to the New Year.
– If you could spare me the wise-guy comments, I’m trying to run away here.
But Ricky knew that the chances of anyone catching him up were non-existent. He was fast, he was lean, he was clever. And he’d been taught well by his Guardian Angel . . .
He was damp with sweat when he arrived back at the plaza outside his apartment block, but scarcely out of breath. There were fewer people here now that the morning rush hour had passed. Instinctively, however, his eyes picked out the guy he’d noticed sitting on the bench reading The Times.
– He hasn’t moved.
– Maybe he’s reading an interesting article.
– Sure. Or maybe he’s not reading at all.
Ricky strode past the guy. As he walked, he looked up at the apartment block. His eyes narrowed. The window-cleaning cradle had moved to the very top.
Halfway across the plaza, he suddenly looked back over his shoulder. The guy reading The Times was watching him, but immediately looked down again.
– Ever get the feeling
you’re being watched?
– I have now.
He took the elevator to the penthouse and let himself back into his flat. For some reason, it felt very good to lock the door behind him. As he stepped over the threshold he heard his phone buzzing again. Striding over to the coffee table, he saw that the phone had shifted to the very edge of the glass. That was weird. It must have been buzzing a lot.
The phone fell silent just as he picked it up. A banner on the home screen read: ‘17 missed calls’.
Ricky frowned. He’d barely been gone an hour. Who needed to get hold of him so badly?
– Something’s going on. A weird call from Felix. The cradle. The guy with The Times. Seventeen missed calls . . .
And as Ricky was holding the phone, it buzzed again.
This time he answered it.
7
DECOY
‘Who’s this?’ Ricky demanded.
‘Your friend from the café.’
A puzzled look crossed Ricky’s face. How could the guys from the café possibly know his number? He opened his mouth to ask exactly that question.
Then he stopped. He realized that he recognized this voice, and not from just now. The caller was referring to a previous incident in a café. An incident exactly a week ago.
It was Agent 21 – Zak Darke.
‘You need to meet me,’ said the caller.
‘I don’t take my orders from you,’ Ricky said uncertainly. He felt out of control, and it wasn’t a feeling he liked.
‘Where Regent Street meets Oxford Street, zero nine hundred hours.’
Ricky looked at his watch. It was 8:15 exactly. ‘That doesn’t give me much time,’ he said.
But the caller had already hung up.
Ricky had been warm from running. Now, for some reason, he was ice cold. There had been a strange, strained tone to the caller’s voice. It did nothing for Ricky’s nerves.
– Do we meet him?
– I don’t see that we have a choice. Not if we want to know what’s going on.
He decided to grab a coat before he left. ‘This is insane,’ he muttered as he turned towards his bedroom.
‘Tell me about it,’ said a cracked voice from behind him.
Ricky’s muscles tensed up. Someone was in his flat. Who? How? The answers to both questions came quickly. ‘You got in using the window-cleaning cradle, right?’ he breathed.
‘The other entrances are being watched.’
Ricky turned slowly. There, standing in the middle of the room, which had been empty just seconds before, was a figure he recognized.
Zak Darke looked terrible. His hair was scruffy. There were black rings under his eyes. Ricky wasn’t sure, but he thought he could see tear tracks down the dirty skin of his face. He was very sure that Zak was as tense as a tightly coiled spring. He was ready to defend himself if Ricky went for him – which, for a brief, irrational moment, he felt like doing.
– If he’d wanted to hurt you, he’d have done it when your back was turned.
‘What do you want?’ Ricky said. Zak didn’t answer. ‘Look, mate, I’ve had a pretty trying morning.’
‘You know what?’ Zak said. His voice was hoarse. ‘So have I.’
‘What was all that business with the phone call?’ Ricky asked warily.
Zak nodded at the window. ‘Check out our friend reading The Times on the other side of the plaza.’ Ricky hesitated, and Zak said, with a grim kind of smile: ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t see him.’
Ricky edged over towards the window. He looked out over the plaza. His sharp eyes picked out the guy on the bench. He had folded up his newspaper and was now standing, holding his phone to his ear. Ten seconds later, he turned and hurried out of sight.
Zak joined him at the window. ‘He’s just received a call telling him to get to the corner of Regent Street and Oxford Street. And right now I reckon there’s an armed response unit on its way. Maybe two.’
Ricky blinked at him. ‘What for? Why are they sending an armed response unit to apprehend me, when they know I’m in my flat?’ Then he silently cursed his own stupidity. ‘It’s not me they’re after, is it? It’s you.’
Zak nodded. ‘They’re monitoring your phone,’ he said. ‘They figured I might make contact and I needed a way to throw them off the scent. It was a decoy, not a message. Which reminds me . . .’ Zak took his phone from his pocket, opened up the back and removed the battery. Ricky understood why – without the battery, the phone couldn’t be tracked.
‘Is this something to do with Felix? He called this morning, before it got light. Said he was going off the grid for a while . . .’ Ricky’s voice petered out. He didn’t like the way Zak was looking at him. He had the stony expression of someone about to deliver bad news. ‘What is it?’ Ricky demanded. ‘What’s happened?’
‘There’s no good way to say this,’ Zak replied. ‘Felix is dead. He was shot this morning. I was there. I saw it happen. It was very quick. I doubt he even knew about it.’
His words were like hammer blows. A cold wave of numbness crept over Ricky’s body. He stared uncomprehendingly at Zak, then suddenly staggered to his bathroom. Once inside, he stared in the mirror. He was shocked to see that his own face had taken on the same, haunted expression that Zak’s had displayed. He closed his eyes. Felix? Dead? It didn’t make sense. He had only spoken to him a few hours ago . . .
He felt tears coming. He wiped them away just as there was a knocking on the door. Zak’s voice: ‘We don’t have much time.’
Ricky took a deep breath and suppressed a surge of anger. How could this guy be so calm, when such terrible things had happened? He spun on his heel and marched back out of the door, his chin jutting out, ready for an argument.
Back in the main room, Zak had one hand up, palm outwards. A mollifying gesture. He seemed to be expecting Ricky’s anger. ‘I know how you feel,’ he said. ‘Whoever shot Felix shot my handler, Michael, at the same time.’
Ricky felt as though the wind had been taken out of his sails. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You need to listen carefully. Things are moving fast, and we have to move faster. They’ll soon realize I’ve sent them on a wild-goose chase, and when they do, they’ll be straight back here.’
‘Who’s “they”?’ Ricky whispered.
‘The Agency,’ Zak said. ‘The people we work for. I had a two a.m. RV with a guy called Calaca. He was once the henchman of someone called Cruz Martinez, a young Mexican drug lord who likes to think of himself as my enemy. Calaca is in prison – at least he was, until I turned up. He escaped when I was there. At the same time, my Guardian Angels, Raf and Gabs, were abducted from the place where we live. The Agency thinks I helped Calaca escape, and that I was involved in the disappearance of Raf and Gabs. They think I’ve gone bad. They probably even think I’m in league with Cruz. And I don’t want to sound cocky or anything, but if they think that, they’ll take the whole world apart trying to find me. I guess they’d do the same to you, if you went missing – don’t worry, I’m not asking you to do that. But Felix was about to help me go off the grid until Michael got it sorted out.’ A frown creased his forehead. He looked like he was remembering something terrible. ‘They didn’t get a chance,’ he said.
– How do we know he’s telling the truth? How do we know he hasn’t gone bad?
Zak smiled. Something in Ricky’s expression had obviously told him what he was thinking. ‘If I was going to hurt you, Ricky, you’d already be hurt,’ he said quietly.
There was a silence.
‘Why don’t you just let the Agency capture you, and explain to them what you just explained to me?’
Zak shook his head. ‘If Michael thought this was serious enough to take both me and Felix out of action, the Agency must be very certain that I’m working for the other side. My guess is they’re not in the mood to be persuaded otherwise.’ He looked down. ‘It probably didn’t help that some passers-by saw me rummaging through our handlers’ clothes.’ H
e looked slightly apologetic. ‘I needed to find Felix’s phone to get in touch with you.’
Another silence.
‘So who did kill Felix and Michael?’ Ricky asked finally. ‘If it was this Cruz guy, why didn’t he kill you too?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Zak. ‘I guess that’s one of the things we need to find out. Cruz is . . . crazy. He’s also rich. And he really, really hates me.’ He sighed. ‘Well, he hates someone he knows as Harry Gold.’
‘Why?’
‘Long story.’ Zak glanced nervously towards the window, then towards the front door. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it won’t be long before the Agency distributes my picture to law enforcement, and as soon as that happens, every policeman in London will be looking for my face.’
‘So you thought you’d come and hang out at my place? Thanks a million.’
Zak gave him a serious look. ‘If I hadn’t come, you’d never have known what happened to Felix.’
Ricky stared at him for a moment. ‘What about your Guardian Angels? Do you think they’re still alive?’
‘I don’t know,’ Zak said, and for the first time his voice sounded slightly weak.
Ricky nodded. ‘How can I help?’ he asked.
‘Thank you,’ Zak said quietly. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a small USB data stick. ‘I think there might be some answers on here. Calaca put it in my hand when he escaped. I need to use your computer. Then I’m out of your life.’
‘In the bedroom.’
‘Show me.’
Ricky was still numb as he led Zak to his laptop. In the absence of his own parents, Felix had been like a father to him. A strict, sarcastic, demanding father, but a father nonetheless. If what Zak had just told him was true, there was suddenly a massive hole in Ricky’s strange life.
The laptop was set up at a table in the bedroom. Zak sat in front of it, but didn’t yet plug in the USB stick. Instead, he disconnected the laptop from the wireless network.
‘What are you doing?’ Ricky asked.
