Under Cover (Agent 21)

by Chris Ryan

  ‘I understand more than you think,’ said Zak. He picked up the documents from the table and stowed them in his jacket. ‘I thought you were OK. Maybe I was wrong.’ He walked towards the vestry door, but before he left he stopped and turned back to Ricky. ‘I wonder what your parents would say,’ he said.

  ‘My parents are dead,’ Ricky spat.

  Zak smiled sadly. ‘Mine too. I decided to grow up after it happened. What did you decide?’ Without waiting for an answer, he quietly walked through the damaged vestry door and disappeared into the church.

  Ricky listened to his footsteps fade and disappear. He grabbed the necklace and shoved it in his pocket. And then, because he had decided he didn’t want to come face to face with Agent 21 again, he climbed back out through the broken window.

  Alone again.

  23

  SOMETHING GOOD AND CLEVER

  Midday.

  Izzy Cole stepped out onto the concourse at Piccadilly Circus. She looked towards the newspaper kiosk opposite the exit to Regent Street. Her sharp eyes tried to pick out Ricky. There was no sign of him at first. Everyone she saw milling around the kiosk was an adult.

  But wait. Who was that? There was someone with their back to him, and it looked like a boy. He was handing over some money for a newspaper. Izzy walked fast towards him. He turned and she stopped. It wasn’t Ricky. The boy disappeared into the crowd. And although it was very busy, Izzy suddenly felt quite alone again.

  Five minutes passed. Ten. No sign of him. Izzy reminded herself of what Ricky had said. If I miss our meeting, then we’ll turn up at the same place, same time the following day.

  She felt foolish believing him. Ricky had let her down. She supposed she had better get used to it. Because she had learned one thing: in the end, everybody lets you down.

  She wouldn’t be returning tomorrow. No way. She’d had enough of relying on other people. She was on her own now.

  Izzy turned away from the kiosk and started walking, though she didn’t quite know where to. All she knew was that she wasn’t going home. She would have to spend the night on the street again. She had barely any money, and the only other option she could think of was Hunter’s. And if she went there, she’d lose everything.

  At the last minute, she looked back over her shoulder, a tiny part of her expecting to see Ricky – late and flustered, but there at last.

  He wasn’t, so she left.

  It was mid-afternoon.

  Ricky’s hand throbbed. He had bought disinfectant and bandages from a chemist. In a filthy alleyway he had poured the disinfectant over the cut on his hand, wincing as it stung his damaged flesh. He had bound it tightly, but already the clean bandage looked grubby. He would have to buy more medical supplies, but his money was running low – he only had ten pounds left in the world. And there was no way he could pickpocket anybody with his hand like this. Too clumsy. He’d be caught in an instant.

  He walked up Kingsway, away from Holborn station. It had started snowing again, and all the other pedestrians had their heads down and their hands deep in their pockets. Not Ricky. He walked against the tide, snow settling on his hair and shoulders. And although his good hand was in his pocket, it wasn’t to keep it warm. It was to reassure himself that the necklace he had stolen from Mrs Cole – the only thing of any financial value that he owned – was still there.

  After 300 metres, he turned right into Chancery Lane. There were far fewer people here, but out of habit Ricky stopped and looked carefully around. There was no sign of a tail. No Zak. No Felix. No nobody. He was almost sure he was alone and unobserved. But then, he told himself, he’d thought that before.

  He continued for 200 metres along Chancery Lane, before crossing a road and taking a side street on the left. Moments later he was standing outside a doorway. A painted wooden plaque read: ‘F. S. Randolph, Jeweller’. Randolph was definitely the name of the guy Tommy had said was willing to buy stolen jewellery.

  – So you’ve found your fence?

  – No point keeping the necklace. It’s not my style.

  He opened the door and stepped inside. There was a dusty, damp staircase straight ahead. It creaked as Ricky climbed it. On the dingy first-floor landing there was a half-open door. Ricky stepped into the room to find a wooden counter, about three metres long, with a brass bell sitting on the top. Behind the counter, four old men sat at desks on very low stools, so that their heads were only a few centimetres above the table tops. They all had eyeglasses attached to one eye, and were examining gemstones and other precious objects. None of them even flinched when Ricky rang the bell, let alone turned round to look at him.

  Instead, from a room to the left of the counter, a small, sour-faced old man emerged. He reminded Ricky of Hunter, only older. The old man looked Ricky up and down, as though he were something very unpleasant.

  ‘What do you want, kid?’

  ‘Are you Randolph?’

  ‘I said, what do you want?’

  Ricky took the necklace out of his pocket and placed on the table. If he hadn’t been looking carefully at the old man’s face, he would have missed the slight widening of his eyes. It told Ricky that the necklace truly was valuable.

  The old man made to take it, but Ricky was faster. He grabbed the necklace back up from the counter.

  ‘Are you Randolph?’ he repeated.

  The old man nodded.

  ‘I want to sell the necklace,’ Ricky said.

  Randolph shrugged. ‘It’s just costume jewellery, son. I’ll give you fifty quid.’

  Ricky didn’t reply. He dropped the necklace back into his pocket and turned towards the door.

  ‘All right, son,’ Randolph said quickly. ‘A thousand quid, take it or leave it.’

  Ricky continued walking towards the door.

  ‘Ten grand, final offer.’

  Ricky stopped, turned and walked back to the counter. ‘Cash?’ he said.

  ‘Cash.’

  He waited as Randolph removed a thick wad of notes from under the counter. Licking his finger, the old man peeled off ten thousand pounds’ worth of crumpled, dirty twenty-pound notes. Ricky counted them carefully as they piled up on the desk, surprised by what a small pile such a large amount of money made. Randolph put the money in a paper envelope and Ricky tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket, then handed over the necklace.

  They didn’t exchange any more words. Just a brief nod, then Ricky hurried back down the stairs and out into the snowy streets.

  He felt on edge carrying such a lot of money around. This was all he had. To lose it would be a disaster.

  Izzy Cole spent the rest of the day huddled in the same seat on a Circle Line train. She lost count of the number of times it orbited London. She was too busy staying warm, and keeping her mind off the night that was to come.

  At 11:30 p.m., the train terminated at Edgware Road and Izzy shuffled out of the station into the dark, unwelcoming street above. It was as cold as she could ever remember it being. So cold that a tiny part of her mind even considered going back home. But she quickly rejected that idea. Home was where the monsters were.

  She tramped up Edgware Road, moving quickly to keep warm. She soon reached Marble Arch, where she turned left to walk down Oxford Street. The Christmas lights were still shining brightly, and the road was crammed with night buses. She chose one at random, paid her fare to the end of the line and found a seat at the very back. Her seat was next to a middle-aged, balding man who smelled faintly of alcohol. He was reading an early edition of the following day’s newspaper. Izzy found her eyes wandering towards it.

  She froze.

  The front page of the paper was taken up by a picture of her father.

  Her blood seemed to pump a little harder as she read the article underneath the photograph.

  Prominent Tory MP Jacob Cole was today arrested on six counts of terrorism. It is not known if the shooting of a man at the Happy Valley Café is connected to the arrest, but several eye-witnesses report
having seen Cole in the vicinity yesterday morning . . .

  Izzy snapped her eyes away. She couldn’t read any more. A wave of nausea coursed through her, and her head felt as though it had split in two. One half spun horribly with the news of her father. Six counts of terrorism? She knew he was a bad man, but what had he really been involved in? The other half of her head grappled with the news that someone had been shot at the café.

  Had that someone been Ricky? Was he dead? Was that why he hadn’t turned up that day?

  She knew then that she had to turn up tomorrow at twelve. Just to see.

  She turned her head and looked out of the bus window. Everything was blurry because her eyes were filling with tears.

  By the time morning came, Izzy had travelled the night bus route three times. Now she had arrived back at Trafalgar Square. She was very hungry and totally exhausted. Red-eyed and footsore, her limbs aching and her muscles crying out for sleep, she walked up towards Piccadilly again.

  She had no more money for another tube ticket. She would just have to shelter in the station concourse, and wait.

  The morning dragged on slowly. She kept walking round the circular concourse in a kind of daze, hardly knowing what time it was. Each time she passed the newspaper kiosk, she saw her father’s face on the front page of all the papers. Soon, her head was a jumble of that image and Ricky’s face. Lurking somewhere in the background were her mother’s features the last time Izzy had seen her.

  You stupid girl, Izzy heard her saying. You stupid, stupid girl . . .

  Midday. The morning had passed in a blur. Weak with hunger and exhaustion, Izzy stopped ten metres from the newspaper kiosk. A re-run of the previous day. Except today, everyone’s faces were a blur. She squinted at passers-by, trying to work out if any of them were Ricky. They gave her very funny looks in return. But none of them were him.

  Five minutes past twelve. A dread sickness lurked in the pit of her stomach.

  He was dead.

  She was truly alone.

  She felt the tears coming again. She wanted to scream. To run. To . . .

  A hand on her shoulder.

  Izzy spun round, her fist clenched. She was ready to hit someone. To protect herself, because from now on she’d need to do that for ever.

  Ricky’s face stared calmly back at her.

  He looked different. Tired, certainly. There were black rings around his eyes and his face was dirty. But there was something else. Ricky looked older. As though, in the day since Izzy had last seen him, he had witnessed things that most people never would. There was a serious frown on his forehead and his eyes were intense. He looked, Izzy thought, slightly scary.

  ‘You’re . . . you’re alive,’ she whispered.

  A faint nod as he held up a bandaged hand. ‘Just.’

  ‘My father?’

  ‘Prison. A long time. Or so they tell me.’

  ‘Who’s “they”?’

  Ricky didn’t answer.

  ‘What now?’ Izzy said.

  ‘You could go home. Your dad won’t be there.’

  Izzy felt like hissing. Of all people, she thought that Ricky understood. She could never go back to that house, even if it was just her mum there. She took a step backwards, glancing left and right, preparing to run.

  ‘It’s up to you, of course,’ Ricky said. ‘I’m not going to make you do anything.’

  ‘I’m never going home again,’ Izzy said. ‘Even if I have to live with Hunter and the others—’

  ‘You won’t have to,’ Ricky interrupted her. He put one hand in his pocket and pulled out a brown envelope, which he handed to Izzy.

  She looked inside, then gasped. It was full of banknotes.

  ‘How much . . .?’ she whispered.

  ‘Ten thousand,’ he said. ‘It’s all yours. Find somewhere safe to stay. A room, or a B and B. If you’re careful, that should be enough to live on till you turn sixteen. Then maybe you can go be a student or something, start a new life.’

  She clutched the envelope hard. ‘Where did you get this from?’ she breathed.

  Ricky sniffed, but for the second time he didn’t answer. ‘I’m going to go now,’ he said. ‘But if you ever get into trouble, you can find me here.’ He handed Izzy a slip of paper on which he had written the address of the apartment in Docklands.

  He held out his hand and Izzy shook it. Then she flung her arms around his neck. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘For everything.’

  Ricky said nothing. Once the hug unfolded he gave her a quick nod. Then he turned and walked away. Seconds later he had melted into the crowd.

  Izzy Cole wondered if she would ever see him again.

  An hour later, a small, lonely figure stood in the plaza outside a tall apartment block in the Docklands, looking up towards the top floor, his rucksack slung over one shoulder. The snow had started falling again, so heavily this time that all other pedestrians had taken cover inside.

  Ricky opened his rucksack and pulled out the letter from his sister. As the blizzard continued to swirl around him, he unfolded the letter and read it:

  The wet snow was smudging the ink on the page. Ricky folded up the letter and put it back in his rucksack. Then he looked up to the penthouse again.

  A light was on. Someone was home.

  Ricky hitched the rucksack over his shoulder again.

  – Are you sure about this?

  – I’m sure.

  He crossed the plaza, walked into the foyer and called the lift.

  It seemed to take an age to carry Ricky to the top floor. As the doors pinged open and he stepped out into the corridor, he saw that the door was open. He stepped towards it, took a deep breath and entered.

  Felix was there. He was standing in the main room, looking out of the window across a snow-covered London, his back to Ricky.

  ‘I was only going to give you another couple of hours,’ Felix said, still staring out of the window.

  Ricky dropped his rucksack on the floor. ‘I had a few things to sort out,’ he said.

  ‘Obviously.’ Felix turned round and took a step towards Ricky. He winced slightly as he put pressure on his prosthetic leg. ‘Well?’ he asked.

  ‘I want in,’ said Ricky. ‘Teach me everything.’

  The trace of a smile crossed Felix’s lips. He turned his back on Ricky and looked back out over London.

  ‘Welcome on board, Agent 22,’ he said.

  HAVE YOU READ ALL OF CHRIS RYAN’S

  ACTION-PACKED FICTION . . .?

  ‘I work for a government agency.

  You don’t need to know which one . . .’

  Meet Agent 21 . . .

  In a CODE RED situation, what would you do . . .?

  READ THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY, CHRIS RYAN’S

  FAMOUS, REAL-LIFE STORY OF COURAGE AND

  SURVIVAL, NOW RETOLD FOR A NEW GENERATION.

  ‘It was a tough decision. My last friend had

  disappeared . . . I checked my compass and

  started walking north. Alone . . .’

  UNDER COVER

  AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 409 02677 8

  Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,

  an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK

  A Penguin Random House Company

  This ebook edition published 2015

  Copyright © Chris Ryan, 2015

  Cover artwork © Stephen Mulcahey

  Photography © Jonny Ring

  First Published in Great Britain

  Red Fox 9781849410113 2015

  The right of Chris Ryan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable
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