In the end, his gaze flickered between Cruz and the helicopter. The young man had so much hate in his eyes that it chilled Smiler to watch him. Cruz stared at the other occupants of the room in turn. Nobody spoke. His dead eyes fell on Smiler, and for
a moment Smiler thought he was going to raise his weapon against him. He bowed his head and prepared to die.
But no shot came over the sound of the helicopter setting down outside. Smiler felt the breeze of its downdraught blowing against his skin and he looked up again to see Cruz striding across the room and out into the courtyard. The drug cartel leader’s shoulders were slumped. Defeated. Although he carried his pistol by his side, he showed no sign of raising it.
The helicopter touched down. The side door opened and Smiler saw a glimpse of two men dressed in black. One of them stretched out an arm to help Cruz into the aircraft but Cruz knocked it away impatiently, stepped in through the side door and disappeared.
The helicopter rose from the ground before the door was even shut. The downdraught increased. The engines roared and the aircraft continued to rise, like a great black insect, into the sky.
From the corner of his eye, Smiler saw the East Side Boys scrambling out of the room. They clearly did not want to be left alone with the president and his military chief now they no longer had the protection of Sudiq and Cruz.
Which left Smiler, alone, with only the politician and the soldier, whose hands were still tied behind their backs.
Could he ever explain to them that he was no longer on Cruz’s side? If he told them the truth, would they believe a word of it? Or would the scars on his face instantly condemn him?
He should get out of here. He knew that. But something stopped him – the sight of the damaged mobile phone lying on the marble floor ten metres away.
Smiler scurried towards the phone and looked at the cracked screen. It flickered on and off, but he could just make out – blurred and indistinct – Zak’s face.
‘Smiler!’ Zak’s voice was crackly. ‘Can you run?’
Smiler looked round the room. Then back at the screen. He nodded.
‘Then
run
!’ Zak hissed. ‘You know what to do.
Go!
’
The screen went dead and Smiler dropped the phone.
Seconds later, he found himself sprinting out of the presidential residence, out onto the streets of Banjul. Looking up, he could see Cruz’s helicopter vanishing into the distance. All around him, he could see East Side Boys, scattering and disappearing.
He put his hands into his pocket. There he felt the slip of paper that, just a couple of hours ago, the strange English boy had given him. He clutched it tightly.
Then he put his head down, and sprinted away from the scene of the crime.
‘Stay down!
Stay down!
’ Zak hissed again.
A round pinged through one of the control tower’s smashed windows. It ricocheted off the metal door frame with a flash of sparks, then hit the floor just a couple of metres from where he and Malcolm were still crouching.
The screen on Zak’s phone was blank. Grimy sweat dripped into his eyes. He glanced over at his companion. Malcolm was looking at Zak with a kind of awe.
‘That was clever,’ he said breathlessly.
‘Couldn’t have done it without you, mate,’ Zak panted back. He gave Malcolm a serious kind of look. ‘We make a good team.’
‘Not for much longer,’ said Malcolm. He frowned. ‘They’ll kill us as soon as we stand up, won’t they?’
‘I guess the solution,’ Zak said with a rueful grimace, ‘is not to stand up.’
Another round pinged over their heads. This time, it smashed into one of the far windows, which immediately shattered in a shower of tinkling glass. Malcolm clenched his eyes shut.
‘I’m sorry I betrayed you,’ he said.
Malcolm’s plaintive apology was enough for Zak. Cruz was in the business of ruining lives, and he’d just ruined Malcolm’s. He felt bad that he hadn’t forgiven Malcolm before. ‘Forget about it,’ he said. ‘You didn’t have any choice. Cruz had Matilda.’
An expression of unbearable sadness crossed Malcolm’s face. ‘If we get out of here, I’ll kill him for that,’ he said, quite matter-of-factly. ‘And I don’t care who catches me.’
Zak was about to speak. To tell Malcolm that the last thing his Matilda would want was for him to risk his life chasing after a lunatic like Cruz Martinez. That killing people wasn’t the answer.
Then he thought of Sudiq. Dead. Cold satisfaction seeped through him. Zak hadn’t killed him, precisely. He hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger. But he’d been the one to force Cruz’s hand. He was beginning to understand that he lived in a murky world. In a sudden flash of insight, he realized that for people like him, the usual rules didn’t apply.
Maybe the same was true, now, for Malcolm.
His thoughts were interrupted by a new sound: the scream of a car engine, the screeching of tyres.
He cursed under his breath. Did the East Side Boys have backup? How long would it take them to break into the tower? He heard two rounds being fired, and winced, ready to see the rounds ricocheting inside the control tower. But suddenly he realized that the bullets were not being fired towards them.
‘Keep your head down,’ he told Malcolm, even as he pushed himself up from his crouching position.
‘But—’
‘
Keep your head down!
’
Zak crawled over to the edge of the control tower. The car engine was getting louder now, and Zak heard three more gunshots. Gingerly, he pushed himself up to his feet and peered over the bank of computers and out of one of the shattered windows – ready to pull himself back down again if he saw anyone targeting him.
The two East Side Boys were there, but they were no longer facing the control tower. Instead, they had turned 180 degrees and were aiming their fire at a beat-up, beige VW Polo. It was swerving violently as it approached the tower, to make it more difficult for the East Side Boys to hit. And sure enough,
their bullets flew harmlessly through empty air.
Zak recognized the vehicle. It was the same one his Guardian Angels had commandeered to get to the hotel in. He pumped his fist in relief. ‘Get ready to go,’ he hissed at Malcolm.
At the same moment, he saw Gabs. She had leaned out of the open passenger window, clutching an assault rifle. Even from a distance, Zak could see the look of sharp determination in her face. She wasn’t going to miss. Not a chance. Zak almost averted his eyes, to avoid the sight of her bullets ripping into the East Side Boys.
She fired, but not directly at the boys. Her bullets sparked at their feet. They shouted out in alarm, and jumped a couple of metres backwards. They made a half-hearted attempt to fire back, but had barely raised their own weapons when another burst of fire landed in front of them.
That was enough. They turned and ran, scurrying like frightened animals towards the perimeter fence.
The VW screeched to a halt at the foot of the tower. Its engine continued to turn over as Gabs opened her door and crouched behind it as a shield, with her weapon through the open window covering the retreating East Side Boys. Raf emerged from the car, his face grim and purposeful.
‘We’re here!’ Zak yelled. ‘We’re coming down!’
Raf looked up and nodded once. His expression seemed to say:
hurry!
Zak turned to pull Malcolm to his feet, but he was already standing. They ran to the door and thundered down the stairs. Zak raised the locking bar on the door and yanked it open. They both clambered over shattered glass through the cab of the Range Rover and tumbled out the other side. Together, they sprinted round the front of the tower towards the VW. Gabs was still in position behind the passenger door. Raf was back behind the wheel, but leaning out of his window and looking back.
‘Get in!’ he bellowed.
Zak and Malcolm didn’t need telling twice. They jumped into the back of the VW, where they sat, breathless and sweating, while Gabs lowered her weapon, took her seat again and slammed the door shut. A millisecond later, Raf had slammed his foot on the accelerator and they were speeding towards the exit.
‘The hotel?’ Zak demanded. ‘The bomb?’
‘Evacuated a few seconds before detonation,’ Raf said. ‘No casualties. I take it that text message was your idea.’
Zak nodded.
‘You might have told us in advance, sweetie,’
Gabs chided as they flew past the wire perimeter fence.
‘I was sort of making it up as I went along,’ Zak admitted. He paused. ‘Sudiq’s dead,’ he said. ‘Cruz got away. But I think the president’s safe.’
At the words ‘Sudiq’s dead’, Raf and Gabs had glanced at each other. ‘Want to tell us how it happened, guys?’ Gabs asked.
Malcolm was just opening his mouth when Zak gave him a warning nudge. ‘It’s . . . it’s kind of complicated,’ he said.
Gabs looked over her shoulder and gave him a piercing look. ‘Why am I not surprised?’
‘If Sudiq’s dead,’ Raf interrupted, his eyes back on the road, ‘his East Side Boys will disperse. It’s time for us to get the hell out of Dodge. We’ve done everything we can, and Michael won’t thank us for being picked up by the Gambian authorities. We’ll get away from Banjul and try to make contact. I’m sure he’ll arrange a pick-up for us in the next day or so – if we’re lucky.’ He glanced at Malcolm in the rear-view mirror. ‘I think you’ll be coming with us too, young man. You’ve proved your worth in the last couple of days. Maybe we’ll find some more work for you in the future. If you want it, that is.’
Malcolm said nothing, but Zak couldn’t help
noticing that a flicker of a smile crossed his friend’s face.
‘Wait,’ Gabs said suddenly. Her voice was quiet. Scared. ‘I can’t believe we forgot . . .’
‘What?’ Raf asked sharply.
Gabs blinked. ‘Smiler,’ she said. ‘We promised him he’d be safe. We have to find him, Raf. We
have
to.’
Now it was Zak’s turn to smile. ‘Don’t worry, Gabs,’ he said. ‘Smiler got away. He’s fine.’
In fact
, he thought to himself,
he’s more than fine
.
‘How do you know?’ Gabs demanded. ‘Damn it, Zak, stop being so secretive.
How do you know?
’
Silence fell in the car once again. Zak looked out of his window. The hot afternoon sun beat down on the African soil. He heard a siren and a police car zoomed past in the opposite direction. By the side of the road he saw a military truck parked up outside some ramshackle houses. Soldiers spilled out of the vehicle and started reassuring a group of nervous locals.
There was not an East Side Boy in sight.
Zak continued to stare out of the window.
‘Call it a hunch,’ he said.
It had been easy for Smiler to steal a boat. Easy for him to navigate upriver. Easy for him to find the encampment again.
It had been a lot harder to persuade the children who had barricaded themselves inside that high-walled camp to let him in. He had the mark of the East Side Boys on his face. It would be with him for ever now, and these children had every reason to distrust anyone who wore those gruesome scars. But he had called for Latifah, who spoke to him through the gate and recognized his voice. She had emerged from the camp – carrying a rifle that was almost as big as her – and hugged him, like a mother would hug her child.
And then, together, they had looked at the piece of paper Smiler had in his pocket.
There were three lines, written hurriedly in capital letters:
GO TO THE COFFINS WITH LATIFAH.
FIND AGENT 21.
USE IT WELL.
‘We should go now,’ Smiler said. ‘Before anyone else . . .’
Latifah nodded. She turned to the other children who still did not dare set foot outside the camp. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ she said. ‘Don’t let anybody else in.’
Moments later, they were picking their way through the jungle towards the burial site.
‘If it hadn’t been for Zak and his friends,’ said Latifah as the huge hole in the ground came into view, ‘we would all be buried here now. But I still don’t really know who he was.’
‘Nor do I,’ said Smiler. ‘But it’s not just us that he has saved.’
They stood at the edge of the hole. There were several coffins here. Smiler knew that at least one of them contained a dead body, and even from up here, he could smell the stench of the rotting corpse. He put his arms up against his nose, however,
and let his eyes pick out the box he was looking for.
It was set slightly apart from the others. The plaque on the front was plainly visible. It said:
AGENT 21
.
Smiler and Latifah exchanged a nervous look.
‘Shall we open it?’ Latifah asked.
Smiler nodded. Together they climbed down into the pit.
The smell was even worse down here. Insects buzzed manically around, drawn to the stench, and Smiler felt them banging against his skin and his face, but he ignored them as he and Latifah edged towards the coffin.
They were standing above it now. Smiler’s hand shook. He looked at Latifah again, and could tell that she was nervous too.
They bent down and together put their hands on the coffin lid. It shifted slightly at their touch. It was not nailed down.
‘After three,’ said Smiler. ‘One, two . . .’
A bird called in the trees above them.
‘
Three
.’
They pushed the coffin lid away and it clattered to one side.
Latifah gasped. The coffin was full of bank notes. American dollars.
They stared for a moment, speechless.
‘How much . . .?’ Latifah breathed.
But Smiler interrupted her. ‘Two million, three hundred and forty-six thousand, six hundred and twenty-five,’ he said.
He thought of the children back at the camp. They had nothing. They were lucky to be alive.
Then he looked back at the piece of paper that he was still clutching. His eyes fell on the last line of writing.
Use it well
.
‘We will,’ Smiler whispered to himself. ‘We will.’