by Chris Ryan
There was a silence. Zak broke it.
‘Black Wolf?’ he shouted.
‘A sideline of mine,’ replied Cruz. ‘It pays to diversify. I admit, it would have been inconvenient if you had sunk the Mercantile and its little cargo. I can replace men, of course, but diamonds are a little more precious.’
‘They told me I should fear you, Cruz,’ he shouted.
‘Si, Harry.’ Cruz appeared very calm. ‘They were right.’
Zak nodded in the direction of the two armed men. ‘Maybe it’s just the two guys with guns I should fear. Do you go everywhere with them? Or are you willing to talk man to man? Just the two of us.’
Cruz smiled. ‘Like gentlemen, Harry? How very British. But it wasn’t very gentleman-like, was it, how you deceived my father and me—’
‘Your father,’ Zak interrupted, feeling the anger flush to the surface of his skin, ‘killed my parents. And he killed a lot more people besides. You don’t have to be like him …’
Zak’s words were like a spark, igniting Cruz’s own fury. He stepped into the room. With a strength that Zak would never have expected of him – the last time he’d seen Cruz, he’d been anything but muscular – he grabbed Zak by the neck and pushed him against the back wall of the cabin. Zak hit the hard metal with a thud. He felt Cruz’s fingers tighten around his throat.
‘Don’t tell me what I should be,’ the Mexican hissed. ‘Because whatever I am – you made me.’
With a flick of his arm, he threw Zak down onto the ground. Zak scrambled to his feet again to see Cruz’s dark eyes flashing as he inhaled deeply several times to regain his composure. The young Mexican strode back to his bodyguards and nodded curtly at one of them. The bodyguard handed over a thin sheaf of papers, which Cruz delivered to Zak with a dead-eyed look. ‘Imagine how surprised I was when that animal Acosta sent me a photograph of the kid who was trying to blow up my ship, and I saw that it was you, Harry – the one person in the world I’ve been trying to find all these months. And imagine my delight when I realized I would be able to show you these. I’m sure you’ll find them interesting.’
It was only when Zak had them in his hands that he realized the papers were in fact A4-sized photographs. He examined the top one. It was in colour, but very grainy, as though it had been enlarged several times. That didn’t stop Zak from recognizing what it was, however. And it didn’t stop him from taking a sharp breath.
63 Acacia Drive was just as he remembered it. The front lawn was covered in a blanket of snow. Uncle Godfrey’s Mondeo was parked on the driveway. It looked very bland. Very ordinary.
The front door was open and walking out of the house was a girl. She was wearing a dark winter coat and snow boots, and had a rucksack slung over her back. Her face was blurred, but not so blurred that Zak couldn’t recognize it.
‘Ellie,’ he breathed.
He looked up at Cruz, who was staring at him with a satisfied expression.
Zak started thumbing through the rest of the photographs. Ellie featured in all of them. Walking down Camden Road. Outside the gates to the school Zak used to attend in what seemed like a different life. In some of the pictures he could make out her face; in others her features were indistinct but Zak could tell it was Ellie from the slope of her shoulders or the way she angled her head. He flipped through the images faster and faster. The more photos he viewed, the more panic rose in his chest.
The final picture, however, made his blood freeze.
It showed the inside of a fast-food joint. There were a couple of customers in the background, but Zak, of course, wasn’t looking at them. He was looking at Ellie, sitting at a table with a polystyrene drinks cup in front of her. It had to be Diet Coke, because that was what she always ordered. But there was someone else sitting opposite her.
And Zak recognized him too.
The patch over Calaca’s right eye did nothing to disguise him. Not from Zak, who had seen this monster close up; who had looked into his face as the one-eyed man prepared to kill him; who had only just escaped from him using a combination of training and good luck. He didn’t really know if good luck was something with which Ellie was blessed; but she hadn’t had Zak’s training. Which meant that if Calaca was in her vicinity, she was in danger. Very grave danger indeed.
The sides of the hull boomed and echoed. Zak looked up slowly from the picture, his face as hard as the metal of the ship. ‘What’s he done to her, Cruz?’ he asked flatly. He didn’t shout this time, but Cruz appeared to hear every word perfectly. He stepped forward so they were no more than three paces apart.
‘Done to her, Harry?’ He was smiling slightly. ‘So far, nothing. Not yet.’ A look of pretend confusion crossed his face. ‘Although I must say, I had expected news of her death even before I learned that you and I were to meet again. You see, Harry, I’ve been looking for you. And where better to start than with your family? Once Ellie had directed Calaca to your so-called grave, his instructions were to kill her. I told him it was so that she would not be able to identify him again, but I admit to feeling some satisfaction that you would probably hear of her death, wherever you were. But then you played straight into my hands. Such a happy coincidence! As you know, Calaca is extremely efficient. He knows how to contact me, and his instructions are to inform me the very moment he kills her. When that happens, it will be a moment we can share together, before I kill you too …’
Zak couldn’t stop himself. He threw the full weight of his body against Cruz’s. The two of them went flying, landing on the metal floor with a brutal thump. Before Cruz could even think about fighting back, Zak had one knee on his chest and his fist clenched above his face. ‘You’d better get one thing straight, Cruz. Your men might fear you, but I don’t. I know you. And if anything happens to Ellie, if she gets a single scratch on her knee because of you, I swear I’ll—’
He didn’t get to finish, because by then Cruz’s bodyguards were on him. One of them kicked him in the stomach, knocking the wind from his lungs, while the other grabbed a clump of his hair and pulled him away from their boss. Cruz jumped to his feet. His face was angry. More than angry. There was madness in his eyes.
‘You won’t be a position to do anything, Agent 21.’ He said these last two words almost as if they were poison in his mouth. ‘I’d kill you now, but I want to see the look on your face when you learn that your cousin is dead. I want to see you suffer, like I suffered, before you die.’ The mad look in his face grew even more insane. He turned to look at Bea. ‘In the meantime,’ he said, ‘while we are waiting for word that Calaca has done his work, maybe I’ll give you something else to think about.’
He didn’t even look at his bodyguards as he gave the order.
‘Kill her,’ he said. ‘Now!’
The bodyguards exchanged a glance.
‘NOW!’ Cruz roared.
‘Get behind me!’ Zak shouted at Bea. Cruz’s guards were both raising their weapons. ‘Get behind me!’
Bea ignored him. Instead, she ran over to where the canisters of petrol were stashed by the wall. She pulled one past the rope that was keeping it in place and held it up in front of her chest and head. Zak could tell they must be very heavy.
‘What are you doing?’ he shouted. And then he realized. He turned back to Cruz. ‘I hope you trust your guys not to miss her, Cruz. One bullet in the wrong place and that jerry can goes bang. Trust me, you really don’t want a fire on board ship. There’s nowhere to hide from it. We’ll all go down together.’
He sensed Bea edging towards the back wall. Cruz’s men hesitated; they were delaying. That was just what Zak wanted. His mind was turning over. Making connections. Why had Michael really sent him out to board the Mercantile? And why had he also sent Bea to sabotage his efforts? Suddenly the truth hit him. Cruz thought it was coincidence that Zak should turn up just when Ellie was in such danger, but it wasn’t a coincidence at all. Michael had orchestrated the whole thing …
Suddenly he glanced down at the photograph
in his hand. This time he didn’t concentrate on Ellie, or on Calaca, but on something his unconscious was telling him he’d missed. There were other customers sitting in the fast-food joint behind Ellie, and Zak instantly saw that he recognized one of them. Shoulder-length grey hair. A slightly shabby overcoat.
Michael. Positive ID.
Zak was positive about something else too. The whole point of this operation was to bring Cruz out of hiding. He was nothing more than bait to catch a fish. And if Zak was bait, and Cruz was the fish, it meant there had to be a fisherman somewhere nearby.
He positioned himself between Bea and the two gunmen. But they were backing themselves into a corner. Zak knew it, and Cruz knew it too. All he had to do was instruct his men to pull the jerry can out of Bea’s arms …
He didn’t even bother to do that.
‘Shoot her!’ he commanded. It was as if he didn’t even care if he died or not.
‘Cruz, think about what you’re doing!’
‘SHOOT HER!’
‘If that fuel explodes, the whole ship could go down.’ He turned to the gunmen. ‘I’ve seen the wreckage of a ship, guys,’ he said. ‘Trust me, it’s not a nice way to go …’
The two gunmen glanced anxiously at each other. There was fear in their faces. But they must have been even more scared of Cruz than of the dangers involved in firing at Bea, because they raised their guns again, clearly preparing to take a shot.
Zak backed up again so that he was standing just a metre in front of Bea. ‘You’ll have to kill me first, Cruz,’ he shouted.
Cruz gave him a thin smile. ‘That’s fine by me, Harry. That’s absolutely fine by me.’ He looked at the gunmen, who were now ready to fire, and nodded.
A deafening crack filled the air.
Zak tumbled to the ground. He sensed Bea doing the same, and heard the echo of the jerry can as it hit the metal floor. His first instinct was to check his body to see where he’d been shot. He knew that in the first moments, adrenalin could mask the pain of a bullet wound. He looked down his body. No blood. ‘Bea!’ he shouted. ‘Are you hit?’
‘I don’t think so … I don’t think they—’
Her words were hidden by the sound of a second massive explosion, and it was only then that he looked over at Cruz and the two gunmen. They were on the floor too. Cruz was trying to push himself up to his feet, but a second later a shock wave hit the vessel and he fell over again.
Zak grabbed Bea’s hand and pulled her up so they were both standing. ‘Run!’ he shouted. ‘RUN!’
Together they sprinted towards the door – between Cruz and the gunmen, who were still flat on the floor. Zak pulled the door shut behind him. ‘It won’t hold them for long,’ he shouted. ‘They’ve got weapons, they can shoot themselves out.’
‘What was that explosion?’ Bea asked as they ran along a long, narrow corridor away from the storage deck.
‘Ever heard of the double camera trick?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You know the second device you hid on the Mercantile? I reckon it’s just been detonated.’
Bea stopped and grabbed him by the arm. A frown had crossed her forehead but there was a look of hope in her eyes. ‘If the device has been detonated,’ she said, ‘someone must have been around to detonate it.’
Zak winked at her. He held up the photograph that he was still clutching and pointed at the blurry picture of Michael in the background. ‘Ring any bells?’ he asked. Bea’s eyes widened as she twigged what she was looking at. ‘He’s tracking us,’ Zak told us. ‘He has to be. Come on!’
Zak tried to run, but Bea held him back. ‘That thing I said, about not seeing any sign of you being good.’
‘You didn’t mean it?’
Bea grinned. It was the first time he’d seen her smile and it completely changed her face. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I meant it. But I take it back now. I’m actually quite impressed.’ Her eyes shone. ‘Thank you for protecting me back there, Agent 21. I thought I was a goner.’
He returned her smile. ‘You might as well call me Zak.’
‘And you might as well call me Agent 20.’
Zak nodded. ‘Agent 20,’ he repeated quietly. It all made sense. ‘You know that thing you said about my sticking my nose in where it’s not wanted?’
‘Did I say that?’ she asked innocently.
‘You bet. Well, I don’t know where you learned it, Agent 20, but you do a very good impression of an interfering busybody yourself.’
Bea’s grin became broader. ‘Why, thank you, Zak,’ she said, sounding flattered. As she spoke, however, they both heard the sound of bullets slamming into the door of the cabin they’d just left. No sign of any men yet, but it was just a matter of time.
‘Come on,’ Zak said. All hints of playfulness had left his face, and Bea’s too. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, we’re going to see a few friendly faces pretty soon. Let’s get up on deck. We don’t want anyone to miss us, do we?’
21
NOT BY STRENGTH, BY GUILE
ZAK AND BEA saw nobody as they headed up towards the deck, but it was still hard going. The ship was listing more than ever. They found it difficult to keep their footing in the narrow corridors. More than once, Zak found himself hurled against one side of a corridor or the other. His upper arms were bruised and sore by the time they emerged.
The first thing they saw was the rain. It was heavier than ever, like a grey curtain they couldn’t see through, thundering down onto the deck with the noise of a thousand bullets. The second thing they saw was sea. It was grey too, and tempestuous. The waves rose over the side of the ship and their spray merged with the rain to create waterfalls of foam.
It was the third thing they saw, however, that commanded all their attention, and that was the MV Mercantile, about a hundred metres away.
Zak never knew a ship could sink so fast. In his mind, they always slipped slowly below the water line. The Mercantile, however, was visibly disappearing. It was at a thirty-degree angle in the water and the stern end was already underwater. A thick plume of smoke was just visible rising up halfway between the centre of the boat and the sinking stern. Thirty seconds after Zak and Bea arrived on deck, however, the smoke disappeared as the sea extinguished the fire that was causing it. As the ship sank, it sent huge, powerful waves hurtling towards Cruz’s vessel. They broke dangerously over the deck and tossed the ship around like a toy boat in the bath.
They stared. Through the mist of rain and sea water, Zak thought he could see something: figures, jumping from the side of the sinking ship. There was no way anybody could survive for long in these waters. Karlovic and his crew would soon be joining Eduardo on the sea bed. Either that or they would be washed up, bloated and rotten, on some distant shore. It gave Zak no pleasure to see this happening; but somehow it seemed like a fitting end.
And it was an end Zak and Bea would share if they didn’t move quickly. They weren’t the only ones staring at this dreadful sight. Further down the deck towards the bow, about twenty metres away, Zak could see six crew members clinging to the railings as they watched the Mercantile go down. One of them turned round and saw them. He shouted something – Zak couldn’t hear what it was above the noise but he didn’t need to. As one, the men turned. And then they started advancing – carefully on account of the movement of the ship and the impact of the waves, but steadily.
‘Run!’ Zak shouted at Bea, but she was already moving.
‘If you’re sure someone’s going to rescue us,’ she screamed, ‘now would be a very good time for them to turn up.’
Zak couldn’t disagree with that. He looked over his shoulder just as a wave hit, showering over them and blocking his view. When it subsided, the crew members were much closer than he expected. The men were gaining on them. They were only ten metres away, and Zak could see Cruz and his two bodyguards approaching ten metres behind that.
Another wave. Another loss of vision. It subsided, and Bea screamed. Zak looked be
yond her.
More men up ahead, sandwiching them in.
They were trapped. Unable to move forward. Unable to move back.
Zak looked out to sea, desperately scanning the waves and the skies for something – anything – that would give him an inkling of hope that he was right about being rescued. All he saw was the fast-sinking Mercantile, and the stormy, inhospitable ocean all around.
And two sets of enemy on the deck, closing in fast.
Another wave crashed over them. Zak and Bea were knocked back against the body of the ship. Zak shouted in pain. His arm had hit the hard, sharp corner of something attached to the wall. He looked to see what it was. A red metal case, with the words IN CASE OF EMERGENCY written on it. It was fastened with a metal clasp on one side. Ignoring the pain in his arm, Zak grabbed the clasp and opened it. The front of the case came away, to reveal what looked like a long-barrelled gun.
Only it wasn’t a gun. It was an emergency flare. But Zak and Bea were in trouble. He was glad for any help he could get.
Zak pulled the flare from its housing. ‘What are you doing?’ Bea shouted at him.
‘Stay close to me,’ he replied. ‘When I run, you run. Got it?’
‘What are you doing?’
He examined the flare. It was intended as a distress call – a beacon to nearby vessels to come and help in the event of an emergency. If ever there was an emergency, this was it. But the flare consisted of only a single shot. Zak couldn’t waste it by firing it up into the air. He had to use it more wisely than that.
He had to use it as a weapon.
He just hoped he was right, and that someone – anyone – knew where they were.
Zak looked left and right. To his left were the original four crew members. They’d been knocked over by the wave too and were just getting to their feet, so they were still ten metres away. Beyond them, Cruz and his two bodyguards. To his right, another five men. They were already standing. Already advancing. Three of them had rifles and they were holding them ready to engage.
