Agent 21: Reloaded: Book 2 (24 page)

Bea ignored him. Instead, she ran over to where the canisters of petrol were stashed by the wall. She pulled one past the rope that was keeping it in place and held it up in front of her chest and head. Zak could tell they must be very heavy.

‘What are you doing?’ he shouted. And then he realized. He turned back to Cruz. ‘I hope you trust your guys not to miss her, Cruz. One bullet in the wrong place and that jerry can goes bang. Trust me, you really don’t want a fire on board ship. There’s nowhere to hide from it. We’ll all go down together.’

He sensed Bea edging towards the back wall. Cruz’s men hesitated; they were delaying. That was just what Zak wanted. His mind was turning over. Making connections. Why had Michael
really
sent him out to board the
Mercantile
? And why had he also sent Bea to
sabotage his efforts? Suddenly the truth hit him. Cruz thought it was
coincidence
that Zak should turn up just when Ellie was in such danger, but it wasn’t a coincidence at all. Michael had orchestrated the whole thing …

Suddenly he glanced down at the photograph in his hand. This time he didn’t concentrate on Ellie, or on Calaca, but on something his unconscious was telling him he’d missed. There were other customers sitting in the fast-food joint behind Ellie, and Zak instantly saw that he recognized one of them. Shoulder-length grey hair. A slightly shabby overcoat.

Michael. Positive ID.

Zak was positive about something else too. The whole point of this operation was to bring Cruz out of hiding. He was nothing more than bait to catch a fish. And if Zak was bait, and Cruz was the fish, it meant there had to be a fisherman somewhere nearby.

He positioned himself between Bea and the two gunmen. But they were backing themselves into a corner. Zak knew it, and Cruz knew it too. All he had to do was instruct his men to pull the jerry can out of Bea’s arms …

He didn’t even bother to do that.

‘Shoot her!’ he commanded. It was as if he didn’t even care if he died or not.

‘Cruz, think about what you’re doing!’

‘SHOOT HER!’

‘If that fuel explodes, the whole ship could go down.’ He turned to the gunmen. ‘I’ve seen the wreckage of a ship, guys,’ he said. ‘Trust me, it’s not a nice way to go …’

The two gunmen glanced anxiously at each other. There was fear in their faces. But they must have been even more scared of Cruz than of the dangers involved in firing at Bea, because they raised their guns again, clearly preparing to take a shot.

Zak backed up again so that he was standing just a metre in front of Bea. ‘You’ll have to kill me first, Cruz,’ he shouted.

Cruz gave him a thin smile. ‘That’s fine by me, Harry. That’s absolutely fine by me.’ He looked at the gunmen, who were now ready to fire, and nodded.

A deafening crack filled the air.

Zak tumbled to the ground. He sensed Bea doing the same, and heard the echo of the jerry can as it hit the metal floor. His first instinct was to check his body to see where he’d been shot. He knew that in the first moments, adrenalin could mask the pain of a bullet wound. He looked down his body. No blood. ‘Bea!’ he shouted. ‘Are you hit?’

‘I don’t think so … I don’t think they—’

Her words were hidden by the sound of a second
massive explosion, and it was only then that he looked over at Cruz and the two gunmen. They were on the floor too. Cruz was trying to push himself up to his feet, but a second later a shock wave hit the vessel and he fell over again.

Zak grabbed Bea’s hand and pulled her up so they were both standing. ‘Run!’ he shouted. ‘
RUN!
’

Together they sprinted towards the door – between Cruz and the gunmen, who were still flat on the floor. Zak pulled the door shut behind him. ‘It won’t hold them for long,’ he shouted. ‘They’ve got weapons, they can shoot themselves out.’

‘What was that explosion?’ Bea asked as they ran along a long, narrow corridor away from the storage deck.

‘Ever heard of the double camera trick?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You know the second device you hid on the
Mercantile
? I reckon it’s just been detonated.’

Bea stopped and grabbed him by the arm. A frown had crossed her forehead but there was a look of hope in her eyes. ‘If the device
has
been detonated,’ she said, ‘someone must have been around to detonate it.’

Zak winked at her. He held up the photograph that he was still clutching and pointed at the blurry picture of Michael in the background. ‘Ring any bells?’ he asked. Bea’s eyes widened as she twigged what she was
looking at. ‘He’s tracking us,’ Zak told us. ‘He has to be. Come on!’

Zak tried to run, but Bea held him back. ‘That thing I said, about not seeing any sign of you being good.’

‘You didn’t mean it?’

Bea grinned. It was the first time he’d seen her smile and it completely changed her face. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I meant it. But I take it back now. I’m actually quite impressed.’ Her eyes shone. ‘Thank you for protecting me back there, Agent 21. I thought I was a goner.’

He returned her smile. ‘You might as well call me Zak.’

‘And you might as well call me Agent 20.’

Zak nodded. ‘Agent 20,’ he repeated quietly. It all made sense. ‘You know that thing you said about
my
sticking my nose in where it’s not wanted?’

‘Did I say that?’ she asked innocently.

‘You bet. Well, I don’t know where you learned it, Agent 20, but you do a very good impression of an interfering busybody yourself.’

Bea’s grin became broader. ‘Why, thank you, Zak,’ she said, sounding flattered. As she spoke, however, they both heard the sound of bullets slamming into the door of the cabin they’d just left. No sign of any men yet, but it was just a matter of time.

‘Come on,’ Zak said. All hints of playfulness had left his face, and Bea’s too. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, we’re going to see a few friendly faces pretty soon. Let’s get up on deck. We don’t want anyone to miss us, do we?’

21

NOT BY STRENGTH, BY GUILE

ZAK AND BEA
saw nobody as they headed up towards the deck, but it was still hard going. The ship was listing more than ever. They found it difficult to keep their footing in the narrow corridors. More than once, Zak found himself hurled against one side of a corridor or the other. His upper arms were bruised and sore by the time they emerged.

The first thing they saw was the rain. It was heavier than ever, like a grey curtain they couldn’t see through, thundering down onto the deck with the noise of a thousand bullets. The second thing they saw was sea. It was grey too, and tempestuous. The waves rose over the side of the ship and their spray merged with the rain to create waterfalls of foam.

It was the third thing they saw, however, that commanded all their attention, and that was the MV
Mercantile
, about a hundred metres away.

Zak never knew a ship could sink so fast. In his
mind, they always slipped slowly below the water line. The
Mercantile
, however, was visibly disappearing. It was at a thirty-degree angle in the water and the stern end was already underwater. A thick plume of smoke was just visible rising up halfway between the centre of the boat and the sinking stern. Thirty seconds after Zak and Bea arrived on deck, however, the smoke disappeared as the sea extinguished the fire that was causing it. As the ship sank, it sent huge, powerful waves hurtling towards Cruz’s vessel. They broke dangerously over the deck and tossed the ship around like a toy boat in the bath.

They stared. Through the mist of rain and sea water, Zak thought he could see something: figures, jumping from the side of the sinking ship. There was no way anybody could survive for long in these waters. Karlovic and his crew would soon be joining Eduardo on the sea bed. Either that or they would be washed up, bloated and rotten, on some distant shore. It gave Zak no pleasure to see this happening; but somehow it seemed like a fitting end.

And it was an end Zak and Bea would share if they didn’t move quickly. They weren’t the only ones staring at this dreadful sight. Further down the deck towards the bow, about twenty metres away, Zak could see six crew members clinging to the railings as they watched the
Mercantile
go down. One of them
turned round and saw them. He shouted something – Zak couldn’t hear what it was above the noise but he didn’t need to. As one, the men turned. And then they started advancing – carefully on account of the movement of the ship and the impact of the waves, but steadily.

‘
Run!
’ Zak shouted at Bea, but she was already moving.

‘If you’re sure someone’s going to rescue us,’ she screamed, ‘now would be a very good time for them to turn up.’

Zak couldn’t disagree with that. He looked over his shoulder just as a wave hit, showering over them and blocking his view. When it subsided, the crew members were much closer than he expected. The men were gaining on them. They were only ten metres away, and Zak could see Cruz and his two bodyguards approaching ten metres behind that.

Another wave. Another loss of vision. It subsided, and Bea screamed. Zak looked beyond her.

More men up ahead, sandwiching them in.

They were trapped
. Unable to move forward. Unable to move back.

Zak looked out to sea, desperately scanning the waves and the skies for something – anything – that would give him an inkling of hope that he was right about being rescued. All he saw was the fast-sinking
Mercantile
, and the stormy, inhospitable ocean all around.

And two sets of enemy on the deck, closing in fast.

Another wave crashed over them. Zak and Bea were knocked back against the body of the ship. Zak shouted in pain. His arm had hit the hard, sharp corner of something attached to the wall. He looked to see what it was. A red metal case, with the words
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
written on it. It was fastened with a metal clasp on one side. Ignoring the pain in his arm, Zak grabbed the clasp and opened it. The front of the case came away, to reveal what looked like a long-barrelled gun.

Only it wasn’t a gun. It was an emergency flare. But Zak and Bea were in trouble. He was glad for any help he could get.

Zak pulled the flare from its housing. ‘What are you doing?’ Bea shouted at him.

‘Stay close to me,’ he replied. ‘When I run, you run. Got it?’

‘
What are you doing
?’

He examined the flare. It was intended as a distress call – a beacon to nearby vessels to come and help in the event of an emergency. If ever there was an emergency, this was it. But the flare consisted of only a single shot. Zak couldn’t waste it by firing it up into the air. He had to use it more wisely than that.

He had to use it as a weapon.

He just hoped he was right, and that someone –
anyone
– knew where they were.

Zak looked left and right. To his left were the original four crew members. They’d been knocked over by the wave too and were just getting to their feet, so they were still ten metres away. Beyond them, Cruz and his two bodyguards. To his right, another five men. They were already standing. Already advancing. Three of them had rifles and they were holding them ready to engage.

Ready to shoot. Which meant Zak had to shoot first.

He raised the flare, took aim, and fired.

Firing a flare was nothing like firing one of the weapons back on the range at St Peter’s Crag. It was unwieldy and inaccurate. Zak didn’t mean to hit any of the approaching crew members; all he wanted to do was scare them. But the flare was difficult to control. It made a rushing sound as Zak fired, and brushed so close to one of the advancing crew members that it scorched his right arm, even through the man’s wet clothes.

The crew member screamed, and the others were thrown into disarray, shocked because they’d come under fire when they didn’t expect it. Zak grabbed Bea’s hand. ‘
Run!
’ he shouted. ‘
Now!
’

The two of them sprinted towards the surprised crew members. Zak kept the flare gun in his hand – not because he could use it, but because in the confusion the men might think it was a loaded weapon. They burst through them just as Zak heard a gunshot from behind. Even with the wind blowing strongly, he felt a rush of air as the round whizzed past his head.

‘
They’re firing!
’ Bea yelled.

‘I noticed,’ Zak replied as they continued sprinting towards the stern of the ship, away from both sets of crew members. He didn’t bother looking over his shoulder to see if they were giving chase. He knew they would be.

Another gunshot. Another rush of air. They had to get to cover. The stern of the ship was just ahead. If they could turn the corner it would give them a few seconds to regroup. A few seconds to …

‘What’s that?’

Bea pointed out to sea as they ran. Zak looked up. He saw something out there. A flash of grey, just a few shades darker than the sea itself. Close. Fifty metres, no more. It disappeared as the waves swelled – too quickly for Zak to be sure of what he’d just seen. But he had a pretty good idea.

They kept running. Seconds later they turned the corner, round to the stern of the boat and out of range
of the shooters. Zak gave himself a moment to look out to sea again, and the next wave that crashed over him was one of relief.

Vessels approaching. Four that he could see, but unlike any vessels Zak had seen before. They were slender, long and pointed, like the nose of Concorde, and they seemed to pierce the rolling waves rather than float on the top of the sea. And they were fast. Bullet fast.

‘
Looks like the cavalry’s arrived!
’ he shouted at Bea. ‘
My money’s on the SBS
…’

But Bea wasn’t looking. She was too busy grabbing a flotation ring from the body of the boat. Zak looked round. The crew members were turning the corner. The armed men led the pack. Zak couldn’t see Cruz, but somehow he just knew his nemesis was in the mix.