by Chris Ryan
Ricky didn’t reply. There was something in Zak’s voice that chilled him. He’d only met the guy once before yesterday, but he could tell that Zak had changed. He didn’t know if it was for the better or for the worse. All he knew was this: next time Zak Darke and Cruz Martinez met face to face, only one of them was walking away.
Zak looked at his watch. ‘We land in three hours,’ he said. ‘We should follow Malcolm’s lead and get some more sleep. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to need it.’ He frowned. ‘This is all going too smoothly,’ he muttered, almost to himself. ‘It can’t last.’
He stood up and walked back to his seat, leaving Ricky to stare out over the frozen wastes of the north.
It was a cavernous space. Metal walls. Metal roof. Concrete floor. Harsh strip lighting flickering high overhead.
And cold. The kind of cold that saps everything from you. That makes your joints feel so solid you can barely move them. The kind of cold that hurts. There was frost on the walls and icicles hanging, in places, from the ceiling. The only blessing was that the interior was protected from the harsh wind outside.
There were four figures in this space. Two of them – both men – were standing. The other two – a man and a woman – were sprawled on the floor with their hands tied between their backs.
The two men standing spoke in Spanish. Clouds of frosty condensation billowed around them with each word. One of them had only a single eye. The missing one was covered over by a pale layer of skin. ‘The Russians want them dead,’ he said.
‘The Russians, Calaca, can wait,’ said the second figure. He was much younger than Calaca, but his eyes were even colder than the icy air. ‘They are still useful to us.’ He looked down at their two prisoners. They were a pitiful sight, shivering almost uncontrollably. The bleeding wounds on their faces had frosted over in the cold, and it was all they could do to keep their eyes open – as if their bodies were trying to shut down, but they were forcing themselves to stay awake, just a minute at a time. A helicopter had put them down on the water’s edge, and they had been forced to follow a difficult path to get here. It had been hard enough for the two able-bodied men. For their prisoners, it had been torture – only their high level of fitness had made it possible for them to get through the journey at all.
The young man crouched down to look at them. ‘You think,’ he said in English, ‘that your boy wonder is coming to rescue you?’
The prisoners stared at him, but they seemed incapable of responding.
The young man suddenly lashed out, swiping the woman harshly round the side of her face. ‘When I speak to you,’ he hissed, ‘you answer.’
The woman’s glazed eyes rolled as a fresh trickle of blood dripped from her nostril. ‘Whatever . . . you . . . say . . . sweetie,’ she whispered.
‘If I was in his shoes,’ the young man spat, ‘I would leave you here to rot, or freeze.’
‘If you were in his shoes, sweetie,’ whispered the woman, wincing with every word, ‘you’d find they wouldn’t fit.’
Calaca bent down now. ‘If I cut out her tongue,’ he said, ‘it would put an end to her smart remarks.’
The young man shook his head. ‘No, my friend,’ he said. ‘She’ll be needing her tongue. They both will. It’s time for them to send our precious Agent 21 another video. Maybe this time I’ll let them talk to him. It would be a shame for him to lose interest.’ He grinned nastily at his prisoners. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you,’ he said. ‘After my Russian friends have extracted everything they need from Zak, and they’ve handed him back to me to dispose of in whatever way I see fit, what will your people do? Employ number 22? Or can’t your kids count that high?’
He laughed at his own joke, but only for a few seconds. There was something in the cool gaze the woman gave him that he didn’t find funny. He looked at Calaca. ‘You have the camera?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’
‘Start filming. And hand me your knife.’
The blade which Calaca handed him was long, narrow and very sharp. The flickering strip light reflected off the metal, which made it look like a shard of ice. The young man’s thin, cold face had a greedy expression as he held it up, with Calaca filming him on a handheld GoPro camera. He approached his female prisoner first, held the blade lightly against her bruised, swollen right cheek, then gently sliced the skin. Her eyes widened slightly, but she gave no other indication that she was in pain. The young man pulled his hand away to reveal a knife wound, no wider than a paper cut but at least ten centimetres long. Blood streaked down the woman’s pale skin as the young man moved over to his male prisoner, whose cheek he sliced in exactly the same way.
He stepped back to admire his handiwork. Both faces looked suitably gruesome: bruised, exhausted and smeared with blood, new and old.
‘Go ahead,’ the young man said. ‘Give your boy wonder a message. Make it count. It might be the last time you ever speak to him.’
12
ANCHORAGE AWAY
21:00 Pacific Time Zone
‘Would you like some headphones?’
Zak blinked at the heavily made-up stewardess who was holding out a set of inflight headphones in a clear plastic bag. ‘Thanks,’ he said quietly. ‘Whatever.’
Their landing at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport had been choppy, but not nearly as choppy as their takeoff two hours later. The aircraft taking them north-west to the Alaskan town of Anchorage was an elderly twin-prop, easily buffeted by the high winds that screamed across the runway. It was almost as if someone was warning them not to travel north, but Zak put that thought from his mind. They needed to rely on logic, facts and skill. Not superstition.
It was a very bumpy flight. As the light started to fail, Zak just had time to see that the terrain below was turning white again, before his view was obscured by thick, grey, swirling cloud. And as the aircraft descended through that cloud bank, the lights flashing at the end of the wings illuminated thick sheets of heavy snow, which was falling almost sideways thanks to the howling winds. This wasn’t picturesque, Christmas-card snow. It was harsh, violent and strangely alien. Zak closed his eyes, trying to ignore the fact that even the cabin crew looked scared, and attempting to put the violent shaking of the aircraft from his mind. He’d flown a light aircraft before, and even been involved in a dramatic crash landing. But that didn’t make it any easier.
The tyres screamed as they touched down. Zak realized he was sweating. Through the aircraft windows he could see snow-shifting vehicles along the side of the runway, their neon lights flashing in the frosty night. As they queued up to leave the aircraft, he saw that both Ricky and Malcolm had faces that were as white as the snow drifting outside. They were obviously as glad as he was to be back down on solid ground.
‘You OK?’ Zak asked Malcolm quietly. Malcolm nodded a bit unconvincingly. ‘Cousins, remember,’ Zak breathed. He wasn’t sure Malcolm was listening.
As they stepped out of the aircraft onto the landing steps, the cold air made Zak gasp as it hit his chest. The swirling snow bit into his face. From the top of the landing steps, he surveyed the surrounding airfield. There were a lot of flashing lights, but he couldn’t tell what kind of vehicles they were coming from because visibility through the snow was so poor. Somehow that made him even more anxious than the bumpy flight had.
Ricky drew up behind him as they walked down the steps. He was shivering. ‘What next?’ he asked.
‘We clear passport control, then we find out about flights to Nome, and then on to Little Diomede. And we get online. We need to see if there’s anything else from Cruz.’
Having successfully cleared immigration at Seattle, getting through passport control at this smaller, more out-of-the-way airport was somehow less nerve-racking. They encountered no difficulties. In the immigration hall, Ricky’s eyes picked out a couple of US army personnel. He saw that they each had a badge on their sleeve showing a picture of a ferocious polar bear, and figured that had to be the insignia of th
e Alaskan branch of the army. He kept his head down, and didn’t catch their eye.
It was just past 11 p.m. as Zak, Ricky and Malcolm walked out onto the airport concourse. At this time of night, very few of the airport shops were open. Just a café, and a stall selling postcards and cheap Alaskan souvenirs. They used a few of their dollars to buy hot coffee and chocolate bars. Zak left Ricky and Malcolm to refuel, then approached the one ticketing booth that seemed to be open.
It was manned by a broad-shouldered guy in his late sixties. He wore a baseball cap with a picture of a brown bear embroidered on it, and a scowl that was about as welcoming as the weather outside. He was reading a slim paperback book, and pretended not to see Zak at first. When he did finally – and reluctantly – lower his book, Zak gave him what he hoped was a winning smile. ‘I need to know about flights to Nome,’ he said.
The guy raised his book again. ‘You’re not from around here,’ he said in a lazy American drawl.
A hint of steel entered Zak’s eyes. ‘That’s why I’m asking you,’ he said.
‘You can forget about flying north, son. Ain’t been no flights out of here for the past two days with these blizzards. Ain’t going to be none for two days coming, neither. Probably longer.’ He licked one finger, and made a point of carefully turning the page of his book.
Zak narrowed his eyes, but he could tell there was no point arguing. He turned and strode back to the café where Ricky and Malcolm were sitting. Ricky had both hands wrapped round his hot cup of coffee. Malcolm had his laptop out. ‘Weak wireless,’ he said. ‘But I’m on it.’
‘Have you hidden your IP address?’ Zak asked.
Malcolm looked at him in such a way that it was clear he thought that a very stupid question. He continued to type, then a sharp look crossed his face. ‘There’s another video,’ he said quietly.
Zak looked around to check they weren’t being observed. Then he took a seat next to Malcolm. ‘Play it,’ he said. ‘Keep the volume down so we’re not overheard.’
Malcolm clicked his trackpad as the three of them leaned in towards the laptop. The video started.
It was shaky to start with. The footage seemed to show a starkly lit open space – maybe a warehouse or a hangar – with metal walls and concrete floor. As the camera steadied, it fixed on two figures sitting on the ground, hands tied behind their backs. Zak instantly recognized Raf and Gabs. They looked worse than before. Their faces were more bruised. Their eyes rolled. They shivered.
Another figure entered the scene. He had his back to the camera, but Zak instantly recognized Cruz’s thin frame and dark, lank hair. And he caught a glimpse of the cruel-looking knife he was holding. He watched, in frozen horror, as Cruz bent over and sliced Gabs’s cheek, and then Raf’s. The worst thing wasn’t the blood. It was the tightness about their eyes. Zak, who knew them so well, could tell that they were in pain, but were doing what was necessary to stop themselves showing it.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. Ricky. ‘You all right, mate?’
Zak nodded. Cruz spoke. ‘Go ahead. Give your boy wonder a message. Make it count. It might be the last time you ever speak to him.’
The camera focused in on Raf. He lifted his head with difficulty. And when he spoke, his words were slurred, almost as though he was drunk. ‘Remember the first thing I ever taught you – that your first duty is to stay alive.’
He drew a deep breath. Even over the tinny laptop speakers, Zak thought he could hear his lungs rattling. He coughed weakly, then spoke again. ‘That means you have to stay on the . . . on the right side of the track . . .’ His voice petered away. Zak clenched his jaw. His Guardian Angel was barely making sense.
The shaky camera footage moved over to Gabs. She looked monstrous close up: puffy, bruised skin, blue lips and blood streaming from the fresh cut on her face. But she managed to stare straight into the camera, and even let the beginnings of an odd smile flicker at the corner of her mouth. Zak concentrated on her bloodshot eyes, trying to see if she was blinking him another message. Sure enough, her eyelids were flickering.
‘You getting it?’ he asked Ricky.
‘F – I – N – D – M – O—’
Zak held up one hand to stop him reciting the letters out loud. Still blinking, Gabs spoke. Her words were as incomprehensible as Raf’s had been. ‘Be careful . . . of hangers-on, eh, sweetie?’
Cruz’s voice. Harsh. Angry. ‘Switch off the camera. Do it!’
The screen went black.
The three teenagers sat in silence. Zak struggled to keep his breathing steady. Malcolm started typing again.
‘What was the Morse code message?’ Zak breathed. He’d been concentrating too hard on what Gabs had been saying out loud.
‘I think she said: Find Moriarty. But who’s that? Is it someone you know?’
Zak shook his head. The only Moriarty he’d ever heard of had been in a Sherlock Holmes book.
‘What was all that stuff about hangers-on?’ Ricky asked. ‘More secret messages?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Zak said.
‘So what did she mean by it? Is she talking about us? Me and Malcolm?’ Ricky sounded a bit offended.
Zak shook his head. ‘They sounded delirious, that’s all. They’re in a bad state.’ His voice cracked as he spoke.
‘She was able to blink a message and speak at the same time,’ Ricky pointed out. ‘I don’t think she was that delirious.’
‘You’re right,’ Zak said. ‘Gabs is tough. And clever. So we’ve just got to figure out what she was trying to tell us.’ He looked around. ‘But we have to get there first. And there are no flights to Nome. We need to find another way.’ He frowned. ‘Either that, or we need to find someone called Moriarty.’
Ricky stared at him. ‘Mate,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to put a damper on things, but it’s five hundred miles to Nome, it’s the middle of winter, and there are no roads to take us in that direction. We wouldn’t make it in five weeks, let alone five days. Flying’s our only option.’
‘Be quiet,’ Malcolm said suddenly.
Zak and Ricky turned to look at him. ‘What?’ Zak asked.
‘I’m on the UK passport system. They know they’ve been hacked.’ He was blinking very fast. ‘They’ve identified the three fake passports. The details were supplied to Interpol and immigration agencies twenty-eight minutes ago.’ He looked up from his screen. ‘The Agency knows we’re here,’ he said.
Zak felt his body tense up. He immediately started to scan the terminal concourse. It was not busy at this time of night – there were maybe a hundred passengers milling around, and only a handful of airport staff. But even as he looked, at a distance of fifty metres, just by the entrance to airport security, he saw three uniformed police officers, all armed, speaking urgently to each other and examining a smartphone screen.
‘We’ve got three . . .’
‘I see them,’ Ricky breathed. ‘We need to get out of here. Malcolm, pack up your laptop.’
But as Ricky spoke, another four officers seemed to appear from nowhere. They were by the ticketing office, and were speaking to the surly man with the paperback book. He was a lot livelier now – as they showed him another smartphone screen, he nodded vigorously and started looking around the concourse.
‘We’ve got about thirty seconds to get out of here,’ Zak said. ‘Move.’
The ticket guy was still scanning the area. One of the police officers was speaking into his radio.
‘Move!’ Zak hissed.
Malcolm was still closing up his laptop, but there was no time for that. ‘Leave it,’ Zak hissed. Malcolm started to object, but Zak grabbed him by the arm, pulled him to his feet and pushed him towards the exit, which was thirty metres away with a bright yellow sign over a revolving door. As Ricky, his rucksack over one shoulder, hurried their companion in that direction, Zak grabbed both his and Malcolm’s rucksacks and marched after them. They didn’t run – that would draw attention to themselves – but they walked ver
y fast.
Malcolm was the problem. He practically stumbled all the way to the revolving doors, saved from falling only by Ricky, who kept stabilizing him with one arm. As they hit the exit, Zak looked over his shoulder. The armed officers had moved no closer, but the three by the security entrance were jogging towards their colleagues. The ticketing guy continued to survey the concourse.
They were no more than three metres from the exit when his eyes locked with Zak’s. He grabbed one of the officers by the arm and shook him vigorously while pointing in their direction. Zak cursed himself for letting the guy see his face, but there was no time to regret it. A second later he heard a loud American voice shouting from behind them.
‘STOP! STOP OR WE SHOOT! ’
‘They won’t fire in a crowded area,’ Zak hissed as they slammed into the revolving door. It took an agonizing three seconds to spit them out of the terminal building. Once again, Zak found the air shockingly icy. He inhaled noisily as he surveyed the scene in front of him. A one-way vehicle lane ran the length of the terminal building. It was clearly a drop-off area – a line of fifteen vehicles were parked along the kerb. The area was covered, but Zak could tell it was snowing because the vehicles had a layer of snow over their bodywork. Their lights glowed in the night, and their exhaust fumes billowed in the freezing air. Passengers were hauling luggage out of open trunks, and in a few instances, money was changing hands with cab drivers.
Zak looked up. He immediately saw three security cameras covering the area. Then he turned his attention back to the vehicles. One of them, ten metres away, was a dark-green people carrier, with good, sturdy snow tyres. It was obviously a cab because the passengers were handing over some money to the driver.
‘This way,’ he hissed to the others and, grabbing Malcolm by the elbow, pulled him towards the people carrier. The driver was a shabby guy, with a pinched, lined face and hair greying at the temples. He raised an eyebrow at these three young people sprinting towards him. Zak didn’t like the look of him – not one bit – but their choices were limited. They had to get out of sight. ‘Can you take us downtown?’ he asked breathlessly.