Agent 21: Codebreaker: Book 3

by Chris Ryan

  Two things happened in quick succession. The building shook, as though some giant had grabbed hold of it and was trying to rip it from its foundations. And the chopper disappeared below their line of sight.

  ‘NO!’ Zak roared. Still carrying Ruby, he sprinted to the building’s edge, struggling to stay on his feet as the structure wobbled beneath him. He was five metres from the edge, however, when the chopper suddenly appeared again. It rose ten metres above the roof line, then manoeuvred itself into the centre of the building, where Gabs and Ruby’s mother were waiting. One of the side doors of the chopper was open, and as Zak carried Ruby back to the others, he saw a rope being winched down, with three harnesses attached to it.

  By the time he reached Gabs, she was already strapping Ruby’s mum into one of the harnesses – with difficulty on account of the massive downdraught. Zak wasted no time in doing the same for the little girl in the protective suit.

  Which left only one harness.

  ‘Take it!’ Zak shouted at Gabs, roaring over the noise of the chopper. But his Guardian Angel stepped away.

  ‘Make sure they’re safe, Zak,’ she shouted. Her dirty face was intense, her brow furrowed. Zak knew her well enough to see that she wasn’t going to discuss this. His own eyes grew flinty as he strapped himself into the remaining harness. He looked up and gave a thumbs up to the loadie in the chopper above, then put his arms around Ruby and her mother. The slack rope went taut. He felt himself being winched upwards.

  And not a moment too soon.

  It was almost as if the building was moaning in pain. They were barely two metres off the roof when the entire structure seemed to sink, and Gabs with it. A great crack appeared across the centre, and a huge cloud of dust ballooned up over Zak’s Guardian Angel.

  ‘Gabs!’ Zak screamed. ‘Gabs!’

  But there was neither sight nor sound of her.

  Gabriella had disappeared.

  It was as if the world had gone silent. Zak couldn’t hear the thunder of the helicopter, the wailing of the little girl or the screaming of her mother. He barely saw the River Thames snaking below him, or the scenes of bedlam that were unfolding on the ground as the emergency services raced to get the hospital patients away from the collapsing building.

  Time stood still.

  Gabriella had disappeared!

  Only as the loadie was hustling them into the body of the chopper did Zak’s senses return. Two crew members were unstrapping Ruby and her mother, but Zak grabbed the loadie’s arm. ‘Send me back down with another harness!’ he yelled. ‘Quickly!’

  ‘Forget it, son,’ the loadie barked back. ‘She’s gone . . .’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Zak roared. And when the loadie looked uncertain, he continued to press him: ‘She put her life on the line. She’d do the same for anyone. Get me back down!’

  The loadie hesitated for a moment, but then he nodded. He disappeared into the body of the chopper for a moment, before returning and handing Zak a handheld beacon. ‘Firefly,’ he shouted as he clipped it onto Zak’s harness. ‘Activate it when you need to come up.’

  Zak didn’t even wait for the rope to slacken. He simply threw himself from the chopper’s door, the two spare harnesses swirling in the downdraught around him.

  The roof of the building was lost in a cloud of dust and smoke. As Zak fell forward, arms and legs splayed, he could just see flashes of orange through the cloud – the building wasn’t just collapsing, it was burning. The cloud itself was hot and choking, and it seemed to cling to him and burn through his lungs as he descended into it.

  His visibility was no more than half a metre. He didn’t see Gabs until he was almost on top of her. She was lying on her front, choking in the smoke and trying to crawl away from a metre-wide crack that had appeared in the roof. ‘Gabs!’ he shouted, reaching for her, but his voice was drowned out by another terrible groan from the building. The crack in the roof creaked open, doubling in width and taking Gabs that bit further from Zak’s reach. ‘GABS!’ he shouted again. This time she heard him. She rolled over onto her back, an astonished expression on her terrified face.

  Zak looked up. The helicopter was just a shadow above the cloud. Zak had no way of relaying to the loadie that he needed to close a gap of two metres if he was going to rescue Gabs. She scrambled un certainly to her feet and stood on the edge of the crack in the roof.

  She clearly understood that she was going to have to jump, and that Zak had to catch her.

  Their eyes met. Zak held out his arms towards her. He had to force himself to stop them shaking.

  What if he dropped her?

  His eyes flickered to the crack in the roof. The interior of the hospital was filled with smoke. If Gabs fell in there, she was dead. No two ways about it.

  His anxiety must have shown in his face, because at that moment, Gabs gave him a reassuring grin, and winked. ‘I trust you, sweetie,’ she mouthed over the deafening noise all around them.

  And then she jumped.

  It was as if her jump was a signal. There was an enormous rumbling from the heart of the building as the structure finally gave way entirely. Zak felt Gabs’s right hand grab his wrist, and he locked his own hand around hers. He felt the extra weight strain against the rope. As Gabs dangled over the collapsing building, he used his left hand to activate the firefly. It flashed brightly in the dust cloud, which had suddenly grown twice as thick. Instantly they started to ascend.

  As they emerged from the smoke, Zak concentrated on keeping hold of his mentor. But as the helicopter carried them away from the blast site and over the sparkling blue waters of the Thames, he couldn’t help but stare at the remnants of the hospital. Thirty minutes ago it had been a gleaming, shining block of glass and mirrors, as solid as any other building around it. Now it was a mass of rubble surrounded by billowing plumes of smoke.

  The latest scene of devastation wreaked by a bomber whose motives were as unknown as his, or her, identity.

  A bomber who they were no closer to locating, and who doubtless had more pyrotechnics up his or her sleeve.

  11

  DISHONOURABLE DISCHARGE

  IN A SMALL flat on the top floor of a tower block somewhere in West London, a man watched the breaking television news.

  Apart from the wooden chair he was sitting in, there was no furniture in this flat. Just boxes. Boxes and boxes and boxes, collected and stored here over the years. In these boxes, there was enough explosive to bring down not only this tower block, but the three others nearby. He wouldn’t be destroying blocks of flats with his arsenal, however. He was chasing bigger game than that.

  There was no hint of emotion on his face as he watched the live TV reports from the south bank of the Thames. But that didn’t mean he felt none. Quite the contrary. He felt angry. More angry than he had done for years, his anger fuelled from a simmering resentment since he had found that he finally had a chance to do what he had wished to do for so long. But the destruction of the building was not enough. He needed lives for maximum impact. That was why he had watched the news of his little present at Pimlico tube station with something like satisfaction. He didn’t mourn the dead. They would be forgotten soon enough. They always were. It was his campaign of terror that would linger in people’s memories.

  It seemed astonishing to him that anybody other than the one person already in on his game could have noticed his code. But having staked out the house of the Puzzle Master – what a ridiculous name – he realized they had. And watching the television now, one thing was obvious: the device in the hospital had been discovered.

  He glanced down at his lap. A tablet computer showed a map of the South Bank area. A small red dot flashed just where the hospital used to be. It meant the vehicle he was tracking – the one onto which he had slipped the tracking device – was on site.

  Did that mean his code, so carefully constructed, had been cracked? He had to assume that it did. He had planned for London to have one day to breathe, one more day to live
in fear in terror. That way, the impact of his third device would be all the greater. And he knew that the third crossword was primed and ready to send to the newspaper from his laptop computer. Giving him this crossword had, in fact, been one of the last acts of the Puzzle Master’s life and he smiled as he recalled the man’s horror as he had produced the rope that would be the ending of it. But now he couldn’t risk sending it in. He would have to use his backup plan to get his message out. A shame, but there was nothing for it.

  There was something else he had to do too. Something important. He had seen the three figures entering the Puzzle Master’s house that morning, and he knew they were the flies in his ointment.

  There was only one thing you could do to flies, he thought to himself as he stood up and turned off the television set.

  Swat them.

  The chopper set Zak and Gabs with Ruby and her mother down on the helipad at the top of an office block half a mile down river. Once Gabs and Zak had their feet on the ground, the flight crew – who clearly didn’t quite know what to make of this strange duo that had just risked their lives in such a spectacular way – wanted to transport them to RAF Northolt. Gabs flatly refused to get back on the helicopter. She made one call on her mobile. Minutes later, the flight crew received instruction to take Ruby and her mother to another hospital, and to leave their other passengers where they were. They left Gabs and Zak and flew away.

  It felt strange emerging, filthy and sweat-soaked, onto street level as though nothing had happened to them. Even though they looked a mess, nobody gave them a second glance. Word of the bomb was on all the news channels, and the dust cloud was clearly visible in the June skies. The roads were solid with traffic, the windscreens of the cars grimy with the smoke that had spread through the air. Pedestrians were either talking excitedly in little groups, coughing or walking fast with their heads down. Zak noticed several shopkeepers pulling closed the security grilles in front of their shop windows, clearly deciding not to open in the wake of what had happened.

  They stood for a moment, watching the chaotic scenes in the street. And then Gabs took Zak by the shoulders and hugged him. ‘Thank you, sweetie,’ she whispered.

  ‘You’d have done the same for me,’ he replied, slightly embarrassed by her sudden show of affection. And it was true. She would have done.

  Back to the Knightsbridge flat, where Michael and Raf met them, and listened silently as Gabs explained what had happened. They cleaned themselves up – Zak found scrapes and bruises all over his body that he didn’t know he had, but was otherwise mercifully unharmed – and then he tried to grab some sleep.

  He managed only a couple of hours’ shut-eye. It was haunted by images of hanged men and buzzing flies; of shadowy faces with snubnose rounds whizzing past, and sometimes into, their heads; of little girls in white protective suits and buildings collapsing into mushroom clouds of smoke. He woke up feeling worse, not better.

  And then his surreal day got even stranger.

  Sitting in the main room with Michael, Raf and Gabs on the sofa opposite him, Zak found one corner of his mind wondering if Michael had slept at all. Wondering if he ever slept.

  Then wondering what on earth he was talking about.

  ‘Congratulations, Zak,’ Michael began. ‘So far as we can tell, there were no casualties. I think it’s reasonable for you to take the credit for that.’

  ‘There was one casualty,’ Zak replied quietly, remembering the doctor. ‘The doctor with the little girl, up on the top floor. He wouldn’t leave his patient. I saw him die. It wasn’t nice.’

  ‘A brave man,’ Michael replied. ‘And I’ll make sure his actions are noted, that his family are informed of the circumstances of his death.’ He paused and there was a moment of respectful silence before he continued, ‘But we won’t achieve anything by mourning him. So I’ve landed you an office job.’

  Zak blinked. ‘Job?’ he asked weakly.

  ‘Well, I say “job”. They won’t be paying you, of course. Think of it as work experience. I’m told there’s a very long list of people waiting for a similar position, but we’ve managed to queue barge—’

  Zak held up one hand. ‘Hang on,’ he interrupted. He took a moment to gather his thoughts. ‘Work experience where?’

  Michael looked slightly surprised at the question. ‘The Daily Post, of course. Something’s clearly going on there, and we need to find out what. Nobody’s going to notice the new work experience boy, so long as you just keep your head down and your ears open.’

  Zak closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose, trying to keep his mind straight. ‘I still don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Just because the Puzzle Master worked for the Post, and that’s where the puzzles appeared, it doesn’t mean that somebody at the newspaper is involved in all this.’

  ‘True,’ Michael conceded. ‘Not on its own. But we examined Mr Hinton’s phone records. The Post’s switchboard routed calls to his number at the times stated in those notes he left. And don’t forget, he did give us a lead to follow.’

  Zak thought back to what he had read in the dead man’s notebook. I wish I knew who he was. Someone at the newspaper, I suspect. Ludgrove? I’ve met him a few times. He’s a rotten apple . . .

  ‘Ludgrove?’ he asked.

  ‘Precisely. Gabs, you have something on this Ludgrove, I believe?’

  Gabs nodded, then started to read from a file. She did not have the demeanour of someone who had just narrowly escaped death. ‘Joshua Ludgrove,’ she said in a clear voice. ‘Defence correspondent. Lives at number six Galsheils Avenue, Tottenham. Formerly a private in the British Army. Dishonourable discharge, though he’d rather keep that quiet.’

  ‘Do we know why the army booted him out?’ Raf asked quietly.

  ‘Cowardice,’ Gabs stated. ‘His unit was posted to Northern Ireland in the early 1970s. Ludgrove refused to go. His journalism is very critical of the British government and its defence policies, and by all accounts he’s a rather nasty piece of work.’

  ‘Ludgrove is on MI5’s watch list,’ Michael continued. ‘There have been suggestions in the past that he has been on the payroll of a number of foreign intelligence services, but nobody’s ever been able to make it stick. Keep a close eye on him, Zak. I don’t want Private Ludgrove to so much as sneeze without you knowing it, OK?’

  Zak nodded. He looked at Gabs and then Raf. ‘What about you two?’ he asked. ‘What are you going to do?’

  Michael answered before they could speak. ‘Gabriella and Raphael have other work to do,’ he said. ‘Don’t underestimate this Ludgrove character, Zak. Cowards make the worst kind of bullies, and if he’s mixed up in all this, he’s an extremely dangerous man.’ He stood up and gazed out of the window that looked over the London skyline. There was still a faint pall of smoke on the south side of the river, the memory of that morning’s explosion. ‘You’re not in Mexico or Africa now,’ he continued. ‘This is a different sort of operation. Just familiar old London. But don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security. Our bomber has no scruples. He’ll kill innocent men and women on the underground, and sick children in a hospital. That means familiar old London is one of the riskiest places in the world right now. It’s our job to make it safe again.’

  He turned and looked back at them. ‘From now on, all three of you check in with me every two hours by holding down number one on the keypads of your phones for five seconds. Check-in times are between five to and five past the hour. If you miss one for any reason, wait until the next check-in time. Do not check in outside these times. If I receive an unexpected check-in, I’ll know something untoward has happened and that somebody is impersonating or coercing you. Understood?’

  ‘Understood,’ the three of them replied.

  ‘We regroup here every evening at 1900 hours. And I want information, Zak. Evidence. I want to be absolutely certain Ludgrove’s our man before we bring him in. OK?’

  Zak nodded. ‘OK,’ he said.

 
; ‘Good.’ Michael pressed the tips of his fingers together and surveyed Zak from over them. ‘Tell me, Zak,’ he said, and suddenly, after the solemn seriousness of the conversation, the old twinkle had returned to his green eyes. ‘Have you ever taken a keen interest in ornithology?’

  ‘In what?’

  ‘Ornithology. Bird-watching. Have you ever experienced the pleasures of lying for hours in long, wet grass waiting for the lesser-spotted something-or-other to rise?’

  ‘Er, can’t say I have.’

  ‘Shame.’ Michael continued to stare at him from above his fingertips.

  ‘Have you?’ Zak ventured.

  ‘Not since my days in the Scouts,’ the man answered. ‘Never had the time, somehow.’

  ‘Right. So, er, why do you ask?’

  ‘Did I mention the work experience?’ Michael asked, sounding innocent.

  ‘Yeah . . .’ Zak replied slowly. ‘With Ludgrove, right?’

  ‘Wrong. It would look a little obvious if we shoehorned you into working alongside him, wouldn’t you say. Happily, however, the Daily Post is one of the few newspapers left who print a daily nature notes column. You’ll be working on that. And you’ll need to come across as a keen bird-watcher – a twitcher – so here’s a bit of reading for you.’ He tossed Zak a small battered guide to British birds.

  Was Zak imagining it, or was Michael – serious, stern Michael – biting the inside of his cheeks in an attempt not to laugh? Gabs showed no such restraint. She was openly grinning. ‘You know, Raf?’ she said, ‘I’ve always thought there was something of the Bill Oddie about our Zak.’

  ‘It’s the hair,’ Raf said gravely. ‘Scruffy.’