Agent 21, page 7
They started strolling away from the cliff edge. ‘The first thing is shape,’ Gabs explained. ‘You knew that was a ship because you know what a ship looks like. I know what a human being looks like, so if I was observing you, I could easily recognize a full human shape. If you crouch down, though, or hide part of your body, my eyes would be less likely to pick you out.
‘After shape, there’s shadow. If you’re hiding, you need to be aware of where your shadow is falling, otherwise it’s a giveaway. Another giveaway is your silhouette. If you stand against a plain background, like the sky or a field, I’d be able to see you much more easily than if the background is uneven. Make sense?’
Zak smiled at her. ‘All I want to know,’ he said, ‘is why you’re trying to find me in the first place.’
‘Pay attention to this, sweetie. It’s important.’
‘Sorry. Shape, shadow, silhouette. Got that.’
‘Next thing is surface. If an object’s surface is different to its surroundings, it’ll stand out. Shiny things are the worst – if they catch the sunlight, they can be seen from miles. And spacing is really important.’
‘What do you mean.’
Gabs pointed up ahead. ‘See the boulders in that field?’
Zak looked. They were dotted all around. ‘Yeah, I see them.’
‘They’re all randomly spaced. Nature’s like that. Nothing is even. Remember that if you’re trying to melt into the background. Last thing: movement. You might be so well camouflaged that I could be staring straight at you and not know you’re there. But the second you move . . . it’s bye-bye.’
Gabs’s turn of phrase made him feel uneasy.
‘I wish I’d known all this when Michael was following me back in London,’ he said.
‘I’m not sure it would have done much good,’ Gabs replied. ‘Michael can find just about anybody, even if they don’t want to be seen.’
‘Is he that good?’ Zak asked.
‘He’s the best,’ said Gabs, and there was no doubt in her voice.
They walked for a bit in silence.
‘Gabs?’ Zak said after a bit. Something had been bothering him and he didn’t quite know how to say it.
‘Yeah?’
‘You know these operations I’m supposed to be training for? Nobody’s told me what they are. You know, what to expect.’
‘That’s because we don’t know yet. Me and Raf, anyway.’
‘What about Michael? Does he know?’
‘Maybe. He wouldn’t tell us if he did.’
They walked some more.
‘I’m scared,’ Zak admitted.
‘Good,’ said Gabs. She didn’t say it in a mean way; her voice was quite gentle.
‘What do you mean, good?’
‘Fear is an important emotion, Zak. You can’t stop it, but if you can admit you’re scared, that’s the first step to controlling it. And if you can’t control your fear, it can get in the way of you making the right decisions. A bit of fear is good. It keeps you alert. Trust me – in our line of work you don’t want to get blasé.’
‘I just wish I knew what our line of work was.’
‘You will, Zak. When you’re ready. There’s still a lot for you to learn.’
Zak frowned. ‘You know what scares me most of all?’
‘What’s that, sweetie?’
‘Michael calls me Agent 21. But he wouldn’t tell me what happened to Agents 1 to 20. I can’t help thinking they must be . . . you know . . . dead.’
Gabs looked at him seriously for a moment. ‘Would it help you to meet some of them?’ she asked.
Zak nodded mutely.
‘All right then.’ She held out her hand. ‘Agent 17, pleased to meet you.’
Zak blinked. ‘You mean . . . you’re . . .’
‘Of course. And Raf is my predecessor, Agent 16. But to be honest, we prefer “Gabs” and “Raf”. It’s so much more personal, don’t you think? Really, sweetie, you shouldn’t look so surprised. What do you think they do with us when we’ve outgrown our usefulness?’ She winked. ‘Find us a nice quiet little job in a garden centre somewhere? Come on, it’s getting cold. Let’s run back. Morse code this afternoon.’ And without waiting for an answer, she started jogging.
It rained for the rest of the day. Zak was glad they were inside, even if the piece of paper Gabs and Raf gave him looked very complicated. ‘Morse code is more than a hundred years old,’ Raf explained, ‘but you’d be surprised how useful it can be. You probably know how to send an SOS.’
‘Dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot?’
‘Right. But once you’re proficient, you can use it to transmit any message. Most pilots and air-traffic controllers are fluent, and so are special forces signallers. Morse code uses rhythm to transmit messages – sequences of short and long elements to represent different letters, using sound or light. That piece of paper shows you the Morse code alphabet.’
Zak studied it.
‘Each dash is three times the length of a dot,’ Raf explained. ‘With practice, you should be able to deliver Morse code messages very quickly.’
‘Let me guess,’ Zak said. ‘The practice starts now.’
Gabs smiled at Raf. ‘He’s getting the hang of it, isn’t he?’
Morse Code Alphabet
The international morse code characters
A .-
B -...
C -.-.
D -..
E .
F ..-.
G --.
H ...
I ..
J .---
K -.-
L .-..
M --
N -.
O ---
P .--.
Q --.-
R .-.
S ...
T -
U ..-
V ...-
W .--
X -..-
Y -.--
Z --..
0 -----
1 .----
2 ..---
3 ...--
4 ....-
5 .....
6 -...
7 --...
8 ---..
9 ----.
Fullstop .-.-.-
Comma --..--
Query ..-..
They spent the remainder of the afternoon learning and practising Morse code. After two hours, Zak had memorized it. After another two, he could send and decipher simple messages. More than once he saw Gabs and Raf glancing at each other, clearly impressed by the speed with which he picked it up. By the time the lesson was over, though, his brain was exhausted. He excused himself and went straight up to bed.
Zak lay in his room for a little while, thinking. In his first couple of weeks here, he’d been angry. Angry with Michael and, by extension, with Gabs and Raf. Things had changed. Somehow the knowledge that his guardian angels understood what he was going through made him feel better. They’d been working him hard, sure, but he found he didn’t mind that. He enjoyed it. The stuff he was learning on this craggy outpost of the British Isles was a load more interesting than being back at Camden High School, having to deal with idiots like Marcus Varley and Jason Ford. If it wasn’t for the fact that he missed Ellie, and that every time he thought about what might happen to him in the future he wanted to be sick, things would be absolutely fine . . .
A knock on the door roused him from his thoughts. At least, he thought it was a knock at first, but soon realized it was more than that. A pattern.
Zak smiled. ‘Goodnight, Agent 17,’ he called, and he switched out his light. He might be uncertain about the future, but one thing was sure: tomorrow would be just as busy as today, and he needed a good night’s sleep.
9
BREAK-IN
The funny thing about being busy, Zak began to realize, is that you don’t notice how quickly time passes. Christmas came and went without any special celebration; then his birthday raced past – a day filled, as any other, with training.
But some days have more meaning than others. He had been on the island for six months when one morning he woke up at 5.30 a.m. – half an hour earlier than normal. He felt unusual as he climbed out of bed and into his bathroom. The lights – which were stark and white – flicked on automatically as he entered and he looked at himself in the mirror. The reflection that stared back at him looked different somehow. Older. The muscles in his arms were stronger, his face was lean and fit. His hair was still unruly, but his skin was a little more weathered from all the time he’d spent outside; there was a tightness around his eyes. Zak realized that he looked a bit like his dad – it was the first time he had ever noticed that.
His dad. The thought made him feel empty and he realized why he felt weird. He went back into the bedroom and tapped the computer terminal hanging on the wall. It switched on immediately and at the top right-hand corner he saw the date.
22 April.
A year to the day since his parents had died.
The months of training had been so intense that Zak had barely thought about them. Not properly, though they were always there in the back of his mind. Now he sat on the edge of his bed and stared into the middle distance, feeling empty.
The door opened. Zak looked over his shoulder to see Gabs standing there. She was wearing her usual black clothes and her large blue eyes were wide. ‘I thought you might be up early today, sweetie.’
Zak looked away, embarrassed that he could feel tears in his eyes.
‘Raf and I were talking,’ she continued. ‘We thought maybe you could take the day off.’
Zak looked through the window of his room. The early morning light was dreary and he could tell it would be a cold, unwelcoming day. But he also knew that sitting here in his room wasn’t the best way to get his head in order. He stood up. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t want a day off. Let’s get to work.’
They spent the morning on emergency First Aid, practising cardiopulmonary resuscitation techniques, before moving on to modern languages and finishing up on the firing range in the basement. By evening he was exhausted. He ate a quick supper and went to bed early. The sooner this day was over, he decided, the better.
It was a noise that woke him. At least, he thought it was. Zak’s eyes pinged open, and even though he stayed lying on his back, his senses were keen. He held his breath, eliminating the sound of his breathing from his senses. The moon shone through his window, casting long shadows inside the room.
Zak strained his ears. There was nothing. Just a thick blanket of silence.
The silence didn’t last for long.
When they came, it was hard and fast. There was an icy shattering as the panes of the window burst inwards and a figure fast-roped in, followed by two others. For a moment, Zak was paralysed with terror; but then he moved quickly. He rolled from the opposite side of his bed and instantly made for the door – his only available exit point. They were too fast for him, though. All three men were dressed in black and had balaclavas over their heads. The frontrunner grabbed him and forced one arm behind his back.
Zak felt drained with panic. ‘Raf!’ he yelled. ‘Gabs! Help!’ All of a sudden the sound of roaring engines filled his ears; a bright spotlight shone in through the broken window. His attacker pulled out a gun – a matt-black Glock 17 – and pressed it to Zak’s head.
Zak barely dared breathe.
‘Say another word,’ the man said, his voice muffled by the balaclava, ‘and it’ll be your last.’
That was enough for Zak. He felt his legs go weak, and it was all he could do to stand up.
Another of the masked men approached him. He was carrying some sort of harness which he pulled over Zak’s head and secured around the back. The guy with the Glock pushed him towards the window and reached out, pulling in a long rope with a metal link at the end. He clipped this link to the harness and put the gun against Zak’s head again.
‘Jump,’ he said.
Zak felt his stomach go. He peered out of the window. The noise was deafening here, the light blinding, but he could sense what was out there – a helicopter, hovering about twenty metres above the height of his window.
‘I won’t tell you again.’ The man pushed Zak right up against the broken glass. He was rough, and he meant it.
Zak didn’t have a choice. He climbed up onto the edge of the window frame, took a deep breath and stepped out. He felt his stomach go as he fell three or four metres; but then there was a jolt that winded him and sent him spinning round in the air. Instinctively he grabbed the rope above him, but by this time he could feel himself being winched up. In less than twenty seconds somebody inside the chopper – masked and anonymous just like the others – was pulling him into the aircraft.
‘What’s happening?’ Zak screamed in terror. ‘Who are you?’
No answer. One of the black figures unclipped his harness and pushed him towards the other side of the chopper. ‘Put your hands behind your head and kneel down,’ he shouted. Zak did as he was told.
He turned his head to look through the side window. The chopper’s searchlight was spinning now, lighting up the ground below like a prison searchlight trying to find an escaped convict. ‘Raf!’ Zak shouted. ‘Gabs! Help me!’ It didn’t take more than a few seconds to illuminate two figures on the ground. Raf and Gabs were both on one knee, weapons in each hand pointed up to the chopper. But it was obvious they couldn’t fire on the aircraft – bring it down and Zak would go down with it . . .
He looked back to the other side of the helicopter. The three masked men who had abducted him had been winched back in. The aircraft made a sudden tilt, then veered off away from the house.
Zak’s limbs were weak with fear. He counted the men in the aircraft – six in all, not counting the pilot up ahead, who was the only one without a balaclava, but the night vision goggles he wore obscured his features just as effectively. Three of the others had assault rifles pointed in Zak’s direction. ‘Where are you taking me?’ Zak whispered.
No one spoke.
Zak tried to think clearly through the horror. What were his options? What were his escape routes? He remembered something Raf had told him. If somebody wants to kill you – and chances are that at some stage they will – they’ll just do it. There won’t be any of that James Bond stuff. He wasn’t dead, which was something. It meant that whoever these people were, they wanted him alive. The guns pointing in his direction were just a threat, but even so, he wasn’t going to risk anything stupid . . .
The side door of the chopper was still open. Through it, Zak could see moonlight on the sea. It meant they had left the island but his bearings were shot and he couldn’t tell in which direction they were travelling. He raised his hands. ‘You won’t shoot me,’ he shouted over the noise of the chopper, doing what he could to sound confident. ‘So you might as well tell me where we’re going.’
There was no hesitation. No warning. One of the armed men stepped towards him and for a sickening moment Zak thought the guy was going to shoot him. He raised his gun, though, and with a sudden, sharp crack brought it down on the back of Zak’s shoulder.
Zak felt himself go dizzy. By the time he hit the floor, he was already unconscious.
The first thing Zak noticed when he awoke was the pain – a throbbing at the top of his back where the masked man had hit him, and a splitting headache.
The second thing he noticed was that he couldn’t move.
The third thing was that he was cold.
Zak opened his eyes. He was tied to a chair with a thick rope, wearing nothing but his boxer shorts and T-shirt. He shuffled to see if he could move the chair, but he couldn’t: it was fixed to the ground. The room he was in was big – about twenty metres by twenty. The floor and walls were made of concrete and it was empty except for a big searchlight mounted on a tripod, with a long flex leading to a power point in the wall. It was set up about five metres from where Zak was sitting; beyond that there was a single door. Closed.
He shivered.
The back of his mouth was dry. After sitting there for fifteen nervous minutes he called out: ‘Hello?’ The word felt like it scraped his throat, and his hoarse voice echoed against the concrete walls.
Silence surrounded him once again.
Time passed. He didn’t know how long. He heard Gabs’s voice in his mind. If you can admit you’re scared, that’s the first step to controlling it. No worries there, then. He was terrified. He tried to work out why he was here; who had taken him. Michael had said there were plenty of people who wanted to get their hands on him, and that they didn’t play by the same rules as ‘ordinary folk’. But what could he tell these people? Gabs and Raf had spent the last six months training him, but he knew next to nothing about anything important . . .
The door opened. Zak jumped. Two men walked in – one tall, one short, but both dressed the same: black boots, black jeans, black tops, black gloves and black balaclavas. The taller man closed the door behind him just as Zak started to talk. ‘Who are you? Where am I?’
They ignored him. The short man walked up to the searchlight and flicked a switch at the back. It burst into light, forcing Zak to clamp his eyes shut, and was close enough to give him a little warmth. He tried to open his eyes slightly, but the light was directed right at him. It hurt to look at it, so he kept them shut.
He heard a voice behind him. Low, muffled and serious. ‘What’s your name?’
Zak didn’t know what made him say ‘Harry Gold’ instead of ‘Zak Darke’. Instinct, probably – combined with six months of training. When he spoke, his voice was shaky and he worried that it sounded like he was lying. His inquisitor, however, just carried on with the questions.
‘Where do you live?’
‘Why are you asking me this?’ He shivered again, despite the warmth of the lamp.
‘Where do you live?’
‘One-two-five Antrobus Drive, Muswell Hill, London.’
‘What were you doing at St Peter’s Crag?’
‘Visiting relatives.’
‘On a deserted island?’
