Authors: Chris Ryan
The guards looked nervously at each other.
‘
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
’ Calaca roared. ‘
FIND HIM! NOW!
’
Zak sprinted through the trees, trying to keep to a straight line so that he at least knew where he was. Twice he stumbled and fell to the ground, grazing his knees and his forearms; twice he pushed himself back up and forced himself to keep running as fast as he could, even though his muscles and lungs were burning. After all, a bit of pain now was a lot better than the alternative.
Two minutes passed.
Three.
The trees stopped suddenly. Zak found himself looking out over a vast open area. By the bright light of the moon, he could see that it was dotted with wild, thorny-looking bushes about the height of his chest, and boulders, some of which were bigger than him. The line of trees ran left to right. For how far, he couldn’t tell.
He was gasping for breath, and as he gave himself
twenty seconds to rest against the trunk of a tree, he attempted to think clearly. To carry on running blindly would be suicide. Eventually they’d find him, and when that happened . . .
No. He needed to get out of the range of these guards and their guns. And to do that, he needed a strategy. Some way of getting them off the scent. A plan formed in his mind. It was risky, but he couldn’t think of anything better. For it to work, he needed some idea of where he was. Of direction and location. Not easy, here in the middle of nowhere.
He remembered one night, six months ago on St Peter’s Crag. His first night. He looked up into the sky and the stars looked back at him. His eyes searched for the familiar patterns: the saucepan shape of Ursa Major, and the W of Cassiopeia. And between the two of them, twinkling brightly, Polaris – the North Star. It was directly ahead of him as he had his back to the forest, which meant the line of trees was running from west to east.
‘Nice one, Raf,’ he murmured as he turned to the west and started to sprint along the tree line. He counted his strides as he went. Once he’d covered two hundred westward paces he stopped.
He waited ten seconds, then started to shout.
‘Help!’ he bellowed at the top of his voice. ‘
Help me!
’
He paused and allowed his shouts to echo away, before shouting again – injecting a note of panic into his voice. ‘
HELP ME!
’
He listened carefully. There was no sound of Calaca’s guards, but he knew not to be fooled by that. They would be moving towards the sound of his voice, quickly and quietly.
He headed north, away from the tree line and into the area of wide open bushes and boulders, occasionally checking Polaris to make sure his bearing was straight. He estimated he had covered about fifty metres before he stopped and looked back. The trees were barely visible from here – all he could see was a silhouette of their tops against the bright, starry sky. He felt confident nobody along the tree line would be able to see him either, especially as he was mostly hidden by the height of the thorny bushes and the boulders.
He checked Polaris and turned again, east this time, and continued to run, counting his strides and stopping every twenty paces to double-check his bearing. He was dripping with sweat by the time he’d done two hundred, at which point he turned south and headed back towards the trees. This, according to his calculations, was exactly where he’d started off from. All he needed to do was run in a straight line back through the woods and he’d come out where the
vehicles had stopped. Calaca’s guards would still be looking for him where he’d been shouting for help. At least, that was the plan.
Zak clutched his MP5 firmly, took a deep breath and plunged into the forest once again.
‘
Michael, what’s going on?
’ Gabriella sounded panicked.
The truth was, Michael didn’t know. From the control centre overlooking the Thames in London, he had watched the green dot trace its way across the screen, moving in perfect sync with the three sets of vehicle headlamps. When the convoy had stopped, the green dot had moved away from the road. As Michael had watched it move, he thought at first that Zak was performing some kind of defensive manoeuvre and was on the point of sending in Raphael, Gabriella and the unit. But at the last minute, Zak had started moving quickly back towards the convoy. It didn’t make any kind of sense.
‘Are you on standby?’
‘I’ve been on standby for the last forty-eight hours, Michael. When are you going to send us in?’
Michael watched the green dot. It was by the road again.
‘Not yet,’ he said quietly, as a bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face. ‘Not just yet . . .’
* * *
As Zak ran through the trees, he strained his ears to listen for any sounds that weren’t of his own making. There were none, and in a couple of minutes he saw lights up ahead.
The vehicles.
He stopped, breathless, about half a metre behind the tree line. In a corner of his mind, he heard Gabs’s voice.
There’ll be times when you need to hide. To camouflage yourself, either because someone’s hunting you down or because you’re observing them. You can’t do that effectively unless you know why things are seen
.
Shape, shadow, surface, spacing, movement . . . His training came back to him with perfect recall. He moved himself so that he was half hidden by a tree to break up the shape of his body. He was casting no shadow because there wasn’t any light on him; his spacing was uneven; he kept perfectly still. Zak could look out towards the vehicles without fear of being seen.
He saw Calaca. The one-eyed man was standing by the three vehicles, all alone. He was pointing his handgun out towards the trees and panning round, searching for trouble. But it was perfectly clear that he couldn’t see Zak.
Zak raised his gun. Only when he had Calaca firmly in his sights did he speak.
‘Drop the weapon, Ramirez,’ he called. ‘Otherwise I put you down.’
Calaca froze, but he didn’t let go of his gun. He looked in the direction of Zak’s voice, but plainly couldn’t see him.
‘I mean it,’ said Zak. ‘Drop the weapon.
Now
.’
Calaca had no choice but to obey. He laid the gun on the ground then stood up straight, took several steps back and held his arms in the air.
Zak moved forward quickly, keeping the MP5 trained on his enemy. When Calaca saw him, he sneered, but he kept his hands above his head. Zak pointed at the truck furthest up the road to his right. ‘Where are the keys?’ he demanded.
‘In my pocket,’ hissed Calaca.
‘Walk there. Any sudden moves and I’ll shoot.’
‘You would not dare.’
Zak raised an eyebrow. ‘You want to bet?’
Calaca’s sneer grew more pronounced, but he didn’t reply. Instead, he turned and walked towards the truck. Zak followed.
‘Open the door, keep it open and start the engine.’
Calaca lowered his right hand and pulled a set of keys from his pocket. He leaned into the body of the car; seconds later, the engine was turning over.
‘Step back,’ Zak told him, ‘and move towards the trees.’
The one-eyed man turned. Zak was standing five metres from him. ‘Get behind the tree line and you’ll live.’
Calaca’s face was brimming with hate. ‘You should kill me now,’ he whispered, ‘while you have the chance.’
‘Maybe I should,’ Zak replied. ‘It’s not like you haven’t had it coming. But that would make me just the same as you, and I’m better than that.’
The older man looked like he was thinking of a response, but in the end he said nothing and just spat on the dusty ground.
‘The trees,’ Zak repeated. ‘Keep walking.’
It was thirty seconds before Calaca reached the tree line. ‘Keep your back facing me,’ Zak called as he stepped towards the vehicle. Calaca kept on walking, disappearing beyond the tree line. Zak was about to step inside the truck when he heard his flat, emotionless voice drifting over the night air.
‘I
will
kill you, Harry Gold.’
Zak narrowed his eyes. ‘Yeah?’ he muttered. ‘Well, you’ll have to catch me first.’
He jumped into the vehicle, shut the door and knocked the gearstick into reverse. The wheels screeched as he performed a half turn, before thrusting the gearstick into the forward gears and accelerating back along the road, the way they had come.
As he glanced in the rear-view mirror, he just caught sight of Calaca, running towards the remaining vehicles with his phone pressed to his ear.
The one-eyed man was out of the woods. And that meant Zak wasn’t. Not yet.
Zak zoomed up through the gears until the speedometer was hitting 120 kph. The MP5 was on the passenger seat next to him, safety on. His brow was furrowed as he concentrated on keeping the vehicle on the road, which was lit up brightly by the headlamps on the top of the vehicle. This was nothing like the driving lessons Raf had given him on St Peter’s Crag. His brain shrieked at him to put as much distance as possible between himself and Calaca and his men. They’d be chasing him soon. He knew, though, that he needed help. So he gave himself five minutes before he hit the brakes.
The vehicle screeched and performed a small skid before it finally stopped. Zak moved like lightning. He opened the driver’s door, stood on the edge of the vehicle and hauled himself up onto the roof. The three headlamps were attached to a rack, and they were hot to the touch. Zak pulled his sleeves over his hands
then started to grapple with them, twisting each one so that now they pointed upwards.
He swung back down into the driver’s seat, shut the door and started to drive again. Slower this time, because he had to concentrate on something else. He switched off the vehicle’s lights and the road ahead was plunged into darkness.
Zak glanced in the rear-view mirror. Nothing, but he knew it was only a matter of time before he saw the lights of Calaca and his men behind him. When that happened, they’d open fire, so Zak just had to pray that his strategy was going to work . . .
Michael looked like he had aged ten years in the last hour. His skin was grey, his eyes bloodshot. He kept his phone pressed to his ear – an open line between himself and the unit in Mexico; but he kept his eyes on the screen; the green dot moving back along the road, superimposed on the real-time satellite image that showed nothing but the faint glowing headlamps of a single vehicle.
And then, to his horror, the headlamps disappeared.
Michael stared at the screen.
Thirty seconds passed. It felt like an hour. Michael found he was holding his breath. He only let it out when the lights appeared again – more clearly, like
they were pointing upwards from the top of the vehicle.
Pointing towards the satellite that was tracking Agent 21.
And they were flashing.
A pattern.
Morse code.
. . . — — — . . .
. . . — — — . . .
. . . — — — . . .
‘SOS,’ he muttered under his breath. He shouted into the phone: ‘Distress call! Distress call! Move in to get him. Now, Gabriella.
Now!
’
Zak checked the rear-view mirror. Lights behind him. That was it. He had to stop the SOS signal. It was slowing him down too much. Either his guardian angels had picked up on his distress call, or they hadn’t. Right now, he couldn’t hang around.
He put the lights onto full beam and his foot to the floor.
The vehicle juddered over the stony road.
80 kph.
100 kph.
120 kph.
The road continued straight for about a mile, but as Zak kept glancing in the mirror, the other vehicles looked like they were getting closer. He wished he knew some way of making the truck go faster, but this was its limit. This was all it could do.
The road swerved round to the left and Zak had a moment of horror.
Headlamps up ahead, coming towards him
.
The road was too narrow for them both to pass, but to slow down would be suicide. The other driver needed to get out of the way.
Zak gripped the steering wheel hard, kept his foot on the gas and continued to zoom along the road. The headlamps grew closer alarmingly quickly. Straight towards him. They were only fifty metres away and they didn’t look like they were going to move . . .
Forty metres.
Thirty.
Twenty.
The angry sound of a car horn filled the air. Zak kept his nerve.
Ten metres.
The other car swerved to the edge of the road and spun around in the dust. Zak checked his mirror. Calaca’s men were closer. They were gaining on him.
They were
too close
.
A sudden cracking noise inside the car: the sound of
glass splintering. ‘
What was that?
’ Zak hissed, but a quick look over his shoulder told him. The rear window looked like a spider’s web, with a point of impact in the centre.
They were firing at him
. A bullet had just hit the window.