Agent 21: Codebreaker: Book 3 Read online

  He gingerly opened the door and looked through. The dining hall beyond was also deserted. Even without the torch he could make out long lines of tables and another red glow on the other side of the room. Twenty seconds later he was pulling his Taser from the rucksack as he inserted his keycard.

  Green light.

  He winced. The empty corridor beyond was brightly lit. After approximately six metres, it turned to the left. Zak crept along the left-hand wall – being on the inside curve would give him a fraction of a second’s advantage if anybody showed up. But nobody did. He passed four doors – two on the left, two on the right, all with keycard slots outside them. He knew from his examination of the schematics that these were patients’ rooms. No noise came from them now, in the dead of night. He passed another door on his left that had no slot. He opened it to check and found himself in a linen cupboard, wooden shelves piled high with fresh sheets, a bucket and mop on the floor. Just as his schematic had shown. Good. He was following the right route. The ceiling was constructed of a grid of square plasterboard panels. Removable. A question flashed through Zak’s mind: when had he become the kind of person who looked at a ceiling and saw an escape route, or a place to hide?

  He was holding his breath now as he moved back into the corridor, his heart beating fast. It beat even faster when he heard footsteps.

  He quickly backtracked and secreted himself in the linen cupboard where he pressed his ear against the door, and listened.

  Nothing. A minute passed. Still clutching the Taser in one sweaty palm, he gently opened the door and stepped into the corridor.

  ‘What the . . . Who are you?’

  Zak’s blood ran cold. He hadn’t heard any footsteps because the hospital warden in his blue and white uniform was standing right outside the broom cupboard. He had obviously just rolled a cigarette, because he was tucking one behind his ear and holding a pouch of tobacco in his other hand. Zak didn’t hesitate. He closed the couple of metres between him and the warden in less than a second, and pressed the Taser against his thigh. A shocking jolt passed through the man’s body and Zak caught him under the arms as he collapsed to the floor. He was heavy, and it took all Zak’s strength to drag him across the corridor and into the broom cupboard. He was sweating by the time he got the warden inside, but he didn’t allow himself to relax once the door was shut. Instead, he fished into his rucksack and pulled out three sets of plasticuffs. First he bound the man’s wrists, then his ankles. He added a gag made from a cleaning cloth, ensuring that the man would still be able to breathe, and finally he bound the man’s wrists to his ankles so he couldn’t stand up when he came round. That could be anything between one minute or twenty. Which meant Zak had to hurry.

  He swiftly returned to his route: to the end of the corridor, then right. The door he wanted was the third on the left. He moved quickly but silently, remembering how Raf had taught him to tread lightly with the tips of his shoes before committing his whole foot to the ground. His hot sweat had turned cold. Clammy. He even shivered as he drew up outside the door marked with a number seven. This was it.

  More footsteps at the end of the corridor. Then somebody cleared his throat. Zak slid his keycard into the slot.

  Green light.

  He opened the door and stepped inside.

  4

  ROOM 7

  IT WAS PITCH black in room seven. Zak stood with his back against the wall and heard deep, regular breathing. That figured. Most normal people were fast asleep at this time of night.

  Moving very slowly, so as not to make a noise that would wake Malcolm Mann up, Zak retrieved his torch. He covered the bulb with the palm of his hand, then slowly uncupped it to release the red light gradually into the room. He shone the beam to his left first. It hit the wall a couple of metres up. Zak blinked. Was it his imagination, or was the wall plastered with crossword puzzles? He followed the torch along the same wall. Nope. Not his imagination. There had to be a hundred crosswords, all pinned in a mish-mash pattern to the wall. He felt himself recording that little detail, like a camera was clicking in his mind.

  He lowered his torch as it hit the back wall. The beam illuminated the centre of the room. A chair. A table. A laptop. Piles of newspapers and magazines.

  He moved the beam to the right.

  Eyes, staring back at him.

  For the second time that night, his blood turned to ice. A figure was sitting in the darkness on the edge of a single bed. Motionless, like a corpse. But not a corpse. The eyes glowed red in the beam of the torch. They did not blink.

  Zak’s reactions were fast. He switched off the torch – it was like a beacon should the inhabitant of this room want to come at him – and took two paces to the left. He bent down and grabbed his snubnose from its ankle holster. Then he spoke in a whisper.

  ‘Malcolm?’

  ‘Are you here to kill me? Because if you’re going to kill me, please do it quickly. A shot to the head should do it. I won’t feel that.’

  A pause.

  ‘At least, I don’t think I will.’ The boy’s voice had no emotion in it. He spoke at an ordinary volume that sounded excruciatingly loud to Zak.

  ‘Why do you think I’m here to kill you?’ Zak breathed.

  The boy took a sharp intake of breath. ‘You’re not American?’

  ‘Should I be?’

  The shock of seeing the strange boy sitting there in the darkness, not to mention the strange conversation he was having, had confused Zak. He was half prepared to fight, but then some sixth sense told him that the boy hadn’t moved, and that he was still just sitting there, staring. Zak turned the torch on again to see that he was right.

  ‘You should go,’ said the boy. ‘They’ll be here any minute.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘They’ll kill you too if they find you here. One down, two down, they don’t care . . .’

  It crossed Zak’s mind that maybe this kid wasn’t locked up in the wrong place after all. He felt his eyes narrowing in the darkness. ‘Nobody’s killing anybody,’ he said, but he did feel himself grip the handle of his weapon just a little tighter.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Fifteen. Listen, Malcolm, I work for a—’

  ‘The Daily Post,’ Malcolm interrupted.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Saw you looking. At the crosswords. Very clever. All the others think it’s me being weird. Say I’m crazy. Don’t get it, do they?’

  Zak took a step towards him. Malcolm shrank back.

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ Zak breathed. ‘I don’t think you’re crazy. I’m here to help.’ He held up his keycard. ‘See this?’ he said. ‘It’ll get us out of here. You and me. But we have to go now.’

  Silence.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because otherwise they’ll find me. The hospital staff.’

  ‘I mean, why are you here to help? Nobody helps me.’

  Zak glanced towards the door. He didn’t have much time – the warden in the linen cupboard could start making a noise at any moment – but he sensed that this weird boy wasn’t going anywhere without an explanation. Zak had his ready.

  ‘Do you know why you’re here?’ he said.

  ‘Nobody knows why I’m here.’

  ‘I do. You broke into the Americans’ computer systems . . .’

  ‘It was easy, you know?’ For the first time, Zak heard some emotion in the other boy’s voice. It was almost like enthusiasm. ‘I can do it from in here, even. I just—’

  ‘And now various foreign powers are trying to abduct you,’ Zak interrupted. Now wasn’t the time for a lesson in computer hacking. ‘You’re being kept in here for your own protection. I work for a top-secret government agency. I’m supposed to tell you that they want to recruit you too. That isn’t totally true. They might want to offer you a job, but more likely as soon as they’ve got what they want from you, they’ll sling you straight back in here. I don’t agree with that. But tell us how you knew about the bomb and I can help
you later. If you want help, that is.’

  Another silence.

  ‘Yes,’ the boy breathed.

  Zak strode over to where the boy was sitting on the edge of his bed. He grabbed him by the upper arm, but he might as well have stuck his Taser against him since Malcolm shrank back at his touch. He clearly didn’t much like human contact. Fine.

  ‘Listen carefully,’ Zak hissed. ‘There are two guards. I’ve disabled one but he won’t stay quiet for long.’

  ‘What about the Americans? They are coming, you know. Tonight.’ He glanced over at his laptop.

  Zak chose his words carefully. ‘We’ll deal with the Americans when they turn up.’ He made a point of not using the word ‘if’. ‘Now listen, when we leave your room—’

  ‘Cell,’ Malcolm corrected him.

  ‘When we leave your cell, we need to hurry back to the kitchens. If we bump into anybody, let me deal with it.’

  ‘Are you going to kill them?’ Malcolm asked the question as if he was enquiring about the weather.

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘It would be safer to kill them.’ The boy felt in the darkness for his glasses and put them on.

  ‘I’ve already told you: nobody’s killing anybody. Just stick close, OK?’ Zak saw the boy shrug his agreement in the darkness, then crept with him towards the door. He pressed his ear up against it. No sound, so he slipped the keycard into the slot inside the cell.

  Green light.

  Very slowly, he opened the door.

  The corridor outside was deserted. Zak looked over his shoulder to nod at Malcolm. The boy looked thinner than he had on Michael’s picture. Paler. The unshaved upper lip seemed more pronounced, but his eyes were sharp and wary behind the thick lenses.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Zak breathed.

  They ran down the corridor, Zak taking the lead and Malcolm following a metre behind. As they passed the linen cupboard, there was the muffled sound of grunting and thumping. The warden had clearly regained consciousness and was trying to get out. They ran on past, a little faster now, and their footsteps echoed off the concrete floor and walls of the hospital. Seconds later, Zak was letting them into the dark dining room. They were ten metres from the kitchen when Zak suddenly grabbed hold of Malcolm’s arm again. Malcolm flinched, but clearly managed to control himself when he saw that Zak had one finger pressed up against his lips, and was now pointing in the direction of the kitchen door. There was a strip of bright light at the bottom. Zak had left it in darkness. It meant somebody was in there, and he was pretty sure they weren’t making themselves a cup of cocoa.

  Zak peered around in the darkness. To their left was a serving area – a series of hotplates with room behind them to hide. He jabbed one finger in that direction, and Malcolm appeared to get his meaning. He hurried over and hunkered down, out of sight. Zak himself returned to the door through which they’d just entered. He slipped his keycard into the slot, and as the light flickered green he opened the door wide, and left it open. As he headed back towards where Malcolm was hiding, he grabbed the end of one of the tables, lifted it up and then let it crash back down. The noise clattered around the room, excruciatingly loud in the silence. Seconds later he was behind the serving area, crouching down with Malcolm. Zak was short of breath, but he noticed that Malcolm seemed perfectly calm.

  It took twenty seconds for the kitchen door to open – Zak didn’t have line of sight, but the light flooded into the dining room and he heard footsteps emerging from the kitchens. Two pairs.

  Slowly – very, very slowly – he peered out from behind the hiding place.

  He only caught a fleeting glance before the kitchen door shut, but it was enough to notice two things. Firstly, these were clearly not hospital wardens. They wore black jeans and black polo necks, not the blue and white uniform of the man Zak had disabled. Secondly, one of them at least – he had slicked-back hair and a flat nose – was carrying a firearm. Light reflected off the dull grey metal of a pistol that this intruder held by his side.

  And then they were gone, having slipped through Zak’s decoy open door.

  He gave it ten seconds before nodding at Malcolm again. ‘Let’s go,’ he breathed.

  After crouching in the darkness, the brightly lit kitchen burned Zak’s eyes. He didn’t let that slow him down as he led Malcolm over to the door by which he had entered the building less than fifteen minutes ago. His mind was turning over as he slid the keycard into the slot. Who were the two armed men he had just seen? The Americans Malcolm had been expecting? If so, Michael had been right. Malcolm really did need protecting.

  The rain had arrived by the time they stepped outside. Heavy, driving rain that reduced their effective visibility to about five metres. That was fine by Zak – it gave them extra cover – and it didn’t seem to bother his strange companion either. He strode alongside Zak as calmly as if he was going for a country walk while they covered the twenty or so metres to the edge of the car park.

  ‘How did you know?’ Zak had to shout above the noise of the rain. ‘That people were coming for you?’

  Malcolm just gave him a sidelong glance.

  ‘I saw footage of the bomb on the underground,’ Zak persisted. He looked over his shoulder as he spoke, checking that nobody was following them. ‘You do realize that we need to find the person who did that?’

  Malcolm nodded matter-of-factly. ‘They’re cowards, aren’t they, people who plant bombs? I don’t like cowards.’

  ‘So, you going to tell me what you know?’ They were climbing through the perimeter fence now.

  Malcolm started looking around as they reached the pavement. ‘You said you’d help me hide,’ he shouted. His glasses had misted up, and his hair was bedraggled. He was stepping backwards away from Zak.

  Zak narrowed his eyes. ‘Maybe you should think about that, Malcolm. If people really are trying to—’

  He didn’t finish.

  So many things happened at once. Malcolm turned and ran. He had a lot of speed for such a slight frame, and managed to move a good five or six metres down the pavement before Zak could even make chase. As he ran after him, however, from the corner of his eye he saw something else – a figure on the opposite side of the road. He, or she, wore a black balaclava and leather jacket. But it wasn’t the clothes that grabbed Zak’s attention. It was the gun in the figure’s outstretched arm, following Malcolm as he ran.

  Zak increased his speed and dived at Malcolm, rugby-tackling him to the ground just as the sound of a gunshot rang through the noisy air. He knew from the sudden jolt of impact that Malcolm had been hit even before he saw the blood.

  They hit the hard concrete of the pavement at the same time and Zak felt something splash in his face. At first he thought he’d landed in a puddle, but then he realized the liquid was too warm for that. Too warm and too red. He looked over in the shooter’s direction, but the faceless figure had disappeared.

  Malcolm started to howl. His shirt was soaked red and Zak ripped the buttons open to reveal the boy’s bony, bare chest. The round had entered between his left shoulder and pectoral muscle. By the look of things, it had hit an artery because blood was spurting out of him. The rain washed it away to reveal the entry wound, one centimetre in diameter. Zak felt for an exit wound on Malcolm’s back. Nothing. The round must still be lodged in there.

  With that level of blood loss, the screaming didn’t last long. Ten seconds, max, before Malcolm’s eyes started to roll. By now, Zak had pulled his phone from his pocket and punched in his distress code – six-four-eight-two. The enhanced GPS capability of the phone would guide Raf and Gabs directly to his position, but in the meantime, Zak had to concentrate on keeping the other boy alive.

  The injury was catastrophic. Zak pressed hard on the wound, trying to stem it, but blood just flowed through his fingertips before being washed away by the torrential rain. He put two fingers to Malcolm’s jugular, feeling for a pulse.

  Nothing.

  Zak’s training kicked
in immediately. In less than a second he was squeezing Malcolm’s nose and administering rescue breaths. Two breaths in all, then Zak placed the heel of his right hand on Malcolm’s ribcage and covered it with his left hand. Thirty chest compressions, short and sharp. Malcolm took a deep breath, and for a moment he almost looked conscious.

  ‘Hold on!’ Zak roared. ‘Help’s on its way.’

  He heard sirens. As he bent down to perform two more rescue breaths, he was aware of activity in the hospital car park. Two police cars. More on the way, by the sound of it, and no prizes for guessing why. Zak cursed. He was supposed to be under the radar. Deniable. If anyone caught up with him, he’d have some explaining to do.

  A vehicle crashed through the orange barriers that blocked off The Avenue. Raf and Gabs jumped out of their CR-V the second it came to a halt just a couple of metres away, half on, half off the pavement.

  ‘What happened?’ Gabs yelled.

  ‘Gunshot . . . across the road . . .’ He peered through the rain. Two figures were running towards them from the hospital. Thirty metres and closing. Zak could just see their faces. It was the armed men he’d seen in the hospital. ‘Get him into the car!’ he shouted at his Guardian Angels, even as he outstretched his right arm and took aim at the approaching figures.

  Zak Darke had never killed a man before, and he didn’t intend to start tonight. Instead, he aimed for the space between the two men’s heads – they were running about a metre apart. The air displacement caused by a round passing so close to them would surely be enough to make them dive for cover. But Zak’s aim would have to be good.

  He squeezed the trigger. The stubby barrel of the snubnose sparked in the darkness, and the smell of cordite immediately entered his nostrils. Sure enough, the round missed both of the men, but was enough to send them to ground . . .

  ‘Zak! Get in!’

  Zak looked over his shoulder. He just had time to see Malcolm laid out on the back seat, Gabs tending to his wound, before Raf slammed the door shut and took his place behind the wheel. Zak sprinted round the front of the car to the passenger door just as a third gunshot rang out through the rain. The round hit Raf’s side window with a dull thud, but wasn’t enough to shatter the bulletproof glass. Even so, Zak had not yet even pulled the passenger door shut before the CR-V burned away, narrowly avoiding an oncoming police car, whose siren blared loudly before disappearing with a disorientating Doppler effect.