Endgame (Agent 21)

by Chris Ryan

  But for how long? Ricky had no energy. He wasn’t even sure if he could stand . . .

  Zak was pulling him up. His face was fierce, his eyes bright. ‘Ricky, can you hear me?’ His voice sounded slurred and slightly distant. Ricky’s eyes went in and out of focus. He nodded.

  ‘We have to get you to that forest. We need a fire to dry you out and warm you up. Can you walk?’

  Ricky tried to speak. He wanted to say ‘bear’, but the sound that came from his mouth was indistinct. Zak seemed to know what he was trying to say, however. ‘Don’t worry about that now. This is more important.’ And through his wooziness, Ricky could hear the urgency in his companion’s voice. He knew what it meant. This was life and death.

  Zak put Ricky’s arm round his neck and supported him as they started moving through the snow. Ricky’s uncontrollably shaking limbs made it incredibly difficult to walk, and he felt his feet dragging through the powder. Ricky had no sense of where Malcolm was at first, but gradually became aware of him walking just over his shoulder. He hoped Zak was keeping an eye on him too . . .

  Minutes passed. Or maybe it was hours. Ricky felt only semi-conscious. He blacked out for seconds at a time. When he came to again, Zak was practically dragging the dead weight of his barely-standing body through the snow. And with each minute that passed, the feeling in his limbs was replaced by a sinister numbness, and the violent trembling subsided slightly as his body burned up what energy was left in an attempt to keep itself warm.

  Above it all was Zak’s voice. Constant. Encouraging. ‘Stay awake, buddy.’ ‘You can do it.’ ‘Keep with me.’ ‘We’re almost there.’

  Above that was the howling of the wind, which bit harshly into his wet clothes.

  And above that, dipping in and out of his consciousness, the occasional howl.

  He didn’t know how long it was before he realized they had stopped. All he knew was that his back was propped up against the trunk of a tree. His rucksack was no longer on his back, and he was sitting on one of the rubber floor mats from the car. He was panting desperately, as if his body needed to get oxygen inside it, but simply didn’t have the energy to take a deep enough breath. He looked through half-closed eyes, trying to make out his companions, but he couldn’t see them.

  In a tiny active corner of his mind, he felt sudden panic. Where were they? Had they just left him here? Or had something happened to them? He tried to muster enough strength to push himself to his feet, but there was nothing there. He simply slid to the side, and blacked out again in the snow.

  Someone was shaking him. It was Malcolm. He was speaking, but now Ricky’s brain was too slow even to make any sense of the words. Perhaps he’d heard him say ‘firewood’, but the voice was too blurred and confused to be sure.

  Malcolm helped him to sit up again. He was aware of activity in front of him. Another figure, presumably Zak, was removing something from Ricky’s rucksack. The pungent smell of petrol hit Ricky’s weakened senses, and he saw the spark of a cigarette lighter, followed by a glowing flame. By the dim light of that flame, he saw Zak’s silhouette hunched over the fledgling fire. He was feeding strips of ripped car tyre into the car-stuffing tinder. A worse smell filled the air. Burning rubber. Foul though it was, Ricky tried to gulp it in. In his confused mind, he thought the smoke might warm him up. And the stench reminded him that he was still alive.

  The flames grew bigger. Ricky realized that Zak was slowly piling dead branches onto the fire. Small ones first, then slightly larger ones as the fire grew bigger. The active corner of his brain wondered how Zak had managed to find firewood amid the snow, and he noticed how the fuel smoked and sizzled as it started to burn. But most of all, he felt the warmth. It was like life itself, seeping into his blood, defrosting his limbs and drying him out.

  He tried to shuffle closer, but suddenly Zak was there, gently holding him back. ‘Don’t get too close,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ll burn yourself.’ His voice no longer sounded blurred.

  Zak moved round to the other side of the fire. Ricky saw that he and Malcolm had made a little frame out of branches. They were hanging the silver space blanket over the frame. It was clearly a strategy to reflect the heat of the fire back towards Ricky, but would also have the added advantage of shielding some of the light spill from anyone following, or from any predators.

  Predators.

  ‘The bear,’ he said hoarsely.

  Zak looked over his shoulder from the other side of the fire. ‘Don’t worry about it. Chances are, it’ll avoid the fire.’

  ‘But if it’s hungry . . .’ Malcolm said weakly.

  ‘We have to get Ricky warm and dry, mate. We don’t have a choice about that.’

  Ricky didn’t have the energy to argue. He stayed huddled by the fire. Malcolm joined him, but Zak took the entrenching tool and started digging a protective wall out of the snow on the other side of the fire. ‘It’ll shield us from the wind,’ he said, but Ricky knew it was also another way of camouflaging their position. He cursed himself for his stupidity in falling in that river. Thanks to him, their situation had just got ten times worse.

  As his body warmed up, so did his senses. He looked around. They were in a small clearing. The snow was not quite so deep here, but the trees were heavily laden. ‘How far back from the tree line are we?’ he whispered.

  ‘About twenty metres,’ Zak said. ‘With a bit of luck, that’s enough to stop anyone seeing the fire, but we shouldn’t let it get too big. How are you feeling?’

  Ricky was just about to reply with a sarcastic ‘On top of the world’, when yet another strange sound cut through the air. It was more high-pitched than the roar of the bear they’d heard, and it came from more than one animal. The sound sucked some of the newly acquired warmth from Ricky’s body.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Malcolm shouted, jumping to his feet. ‘Did you hear it?’

  Zak stopped digging. They all looked around, trying to work out which direction the sound had come from.

  ‘What was it?’ Ricky breathed, even though he knew what the answer would be.

  Zak’s face, sweaty from the exertion and the fire, creased into a frown. ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘Damn right I want to know.’

  ‘Wolves,’ said Zak.

  16

  GRIZZLY

  ‘Wolves,’ Zak said. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach.

  He bent over and started digging again, but could see Ricky and Malcolm exchanging an anxious look. ‘You don’t seem very worried,’ Ricky said.

  Zak gave him a slightly forced smile. ‘Feeling better enough to argue with me? That’s a good sign.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be arguing,’ Malcolm said. ‘You shouldn’t be. What if there are wolves nearby? What if they attack us?’

  ‘Just because we can hear them, it doesn’t mean we’re going to see them. Packs rarely attack, unless they’re very sure that they’ve got easy meat.’

  ‘I feel like easy meat right now,’ Ricky said with a slightly rueful look on his face.

  ‘Just stay close to the fire. Most animals are afraid of it. There aren’t many animals that’ll be brave enough to approach.’ Zak hoped he sounded convincing. The truth was, they weren’t in a state to run anywhere – and he hadn’t forgotten about the bear tracks they’d seen.

  He continued digging his trench and wall around them. The scraping sound of his entrenching tool was dull and monotonous. He was glad to hear Ricky talking. He’d given them a scare back there. In conditions like this, contact with icy water could bring about death in a matter of minutes if you didn’t act correctly in the few golden moments you had. In a way, Zak was thankful that it had been Ricky not Malcolm who’d fallen in – he doubted that Malcolm would have been able to survive that. He was also thankful that Raf and Gabs had thoroughly briefed him in cold-weather survival techniques back at St Peter’s Crag.

  He felt a pang. In the struggle to escape their pursuers and keep alive, he’d almost forgotten abo
ut his Guardian Angels. They were the whole reason the three of them were here, on the run in this inhospitable Alaskan backwater, with no idea of how they were going to travel hundreds of miles across the frozen state. He felt his lip curling bitterly. Things were looking bad. They were lost, and a very long way from where they needed to be.

  But he wasn’t going to give up. He’d crawl the length and breadth of Alaska rather than give up now—

  He looked up suddenly. Had he seen something move from the corner of his eye, away to his eleven o’clock? He squinted into the darkness, trying to pick it out.

  Nothing.

  Zak took a deep breath, trying to ease the sudden pumping of his heart. He looked over his shoulder. Neither Ricky nor Malcolm showed any sign of having seen anything.

  He drew Malcolm to one side. ‘Listen, mate,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You need to keep an eye on Ricky. Watch his movements carefully. If he speaks, listen to his words. Any sign of slowness or slurring, you tell me, right? It could be a sign that hypothermia is setting in.’

  Malcolm nodded while Zak went back to his digging.

  It took thirty minutes to finish building up the wall. He looked at the pile of wood he and Malcolm had collected while Ricky had been semi-conscious. He estimated that, if they kept the fire low, it would be enough for another two to three hours. It meant they’d need to collect more before sunrise. But he didn’t want to leave Ricky just yet. He joined the other two by the fire.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Ricky asked. His words were clear. No slurring.

  ‘We stay here till dawn,’ Zak said. ‘There’s no point moving around at night now that we’ve lost our bearings. When the sun comes up, we can use it to orientate ourselves. Maybe even see some physical landmarks to help us get back into Anchorage.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then we find a way of getting to the Bering Straits.’ As Zak spoke, there was a sudden, more vigorous flurry of snow, as if someone was telling him that this would be impossible. He looked over at Malcolm. He was huddled by the fire, staring deep into its embers. ‘You OK, buddy?’

  Malcolm opened his mouth to answer. But he was interrupted by Ricky. ‘What was that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I saw something move. That direction.’ Ricky pointed to nine o’clock.

  Zak looked. He saw nothing but snow and night. He was about to say as much when he heard it. A deep-throated roar. A bear’s roar. Identical to the one they’d heard above the wind.

  But louder. Which meant closer.

  All three of them jumped to their feet. They circled the fire, with their backs to it. Zak’s heart was pumping brutally again. He could feel the blood moving around his veins as he tried to work out which direction the roar had come from, and how far away it was. Eleven o’clock, and maybe thirty metres, he decided – but he knew it could easily be closer.

  ‘Make a loud noise!’ Zak shouted.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We can’t fight a bear! If we make a loud enough noise, we might spook it and drive it away. SHOUT!’ He started to shout at the top of his voice – short, aggressive barks. Ricky joined him, bellowing into the darkness. Malcolm tried to do the same, but his shouts were much quieter.

  Still yelling into the darkness, Zak turned to the pile of wood. He grabbed three sturdy branches and placed them so that the end of each branch was nestling in the hottest part of the fire. Then he took another two branches, held them over his head and started banging them together to make even more noise.

  Another roar. Twice as loud. Twice as aggressive. Either their new companion was getting angrier, or it was getting closer. Or both.

  ‘It’s not working!’ Ricky shouted, his voice edged in panic. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘Keep making a noise!’ Zak urged. But Ricky was right. They weren’t scaring the animal away . . . Zak glanced down at the branches he’d placed in the fire. They weren’t burning yet. His mind was frantically whirring. He looked behind him at the nearest trees. They were ten metres away. Should they try to climb them? He knew bears could also climb trees, but if they each took a different one, at least two of them would be safe. But the trunks were tall and smooth – almost impossible to climb freestyle. In any case, that would be retreating, and as Raf and Gabs had told him a hundred times, you can never win a defensive fight. Stuck up those trees, the bear could pick them off at his leisure.

  Still shouting and clacking his branches noisily, he looked back in the direction of the roar and his blood turned to ice. He could just make out a shape on the edge of the clearing. Distance: approximately twenty metres. Size: massive. Brown bear? Black bear? Grizzly bear? Zak didn’t know. But now it had launched itself onto its hind legs, and Zak reckoned it was well over two metres tall.

  A third roar. It seemed to echo through the trees. The dark silhouette of the bear fell down onto all four paws, then began to lumber towards them.

  ‘Get to the far side of the fire!’ Zak shouted. ‘Now!’

  Quickly, Zak, Ricky and Malcolm circled round their tiny fire, so that it stood between them and the approaching bear. Zak checked the branches again. The ends in the fire were beginning to smoulder, but they were not yet flaming.

  The bear stopped five metres beyond the snow barrier that Zak had dug. It reared up on its hind legs again. Zak had underestimated its height. It was easily three metres high, and almost as broad. Its paws were enormous, its eyes mean and hungry. And when it roared yet again, the noise seemed like it was going straight through Zak’s body. The bear thumped down onto all four paws once again, slamming into the wall of snow that Zak had built and slipping down into the trench beneath it. This seemed to enrage it even more. It swiped a front paw aggressively at the space blanket that was still erected between it and the fire. It ended up in a crumpled heap five metres away. Snow spat up into the air and hissed as it landed on the fire. The glow of the embers dulled slightly. The bear started to pad heavily round the fire, clockwise towards them, growling ferociously.

  Zak, Ricky and Malcolm also circled the fire clockwise, in an attempt to keep that burning barrier between them and the snarling bear. Distance between it and them: barely four metres.

  ‘We should run,’ Malcolm whispered.

  ‘Run and you’re dead,’ Zak said bluntly. ‘It’ll chase you down in seconds.’ An image of three badly mauled teenagers flashed across his brain. They were face down and surrounded by blood-streaked snow . . .

  Zak checked out the branches he’d laid in the fire. Their ends were burning now. He bent and grabbed two of them with trembling hands, before handing them to Ricky and Malcolm to hold like swords. Then he bent down again for the third branch. His fingers just touched the bark when the animal bared its teeth and took a sudden pace forward. Zak jumped back, out of reach of the burning branch. The bear was padding clockwise again. They had to do the same to keep the fire between them and it. Ricky and Malcolm waved their branches in the bear’s direction. But Zak had no such weapon. He felt naked without it, and now it was out of reach, unless they performed another full circuit of the fire.

  The bear stopped. It moved a little closer to the blaze again. Zak could sense that it was feeling braver. The fire was becoming less effective as a barrier. And when the animal kicked up another shower of snow that fizzed and hissed on the flames, Zak had an instinct that the animal knew what it was doing. In which case, they wouldn’t have the fire for much longer.

  They continued to stalk around the circle. A quarter-turn . . . a half-turn. Zak was sweating badly, but also shivering. The trio continued to move about the fire in this terrifying game of round and round.

  Ten seconds later, he was alongside his burning branch. He stepped forward to pick it up. But as he lifted it from the fire, he heard a whimper from behind him. He glanced back. Malcolm’s branch had gone out. He let it fall to the snow. He was staggering backwards, terror etched on his face.

  ‘Stay with us,’ Zak hissed, trying to keep himself sounding and loo
king as unruffled as possible. Not easy. ‘Just stay with us!’

  But Malcolm was still retreating.

  Zak knew it was coming. So, clearly, did Ricky who, still waving his burning branch in the direction of the bear, shouted: ‘Stop!’ But Malcolm ignored them. He turned tail, then ran into the darkness.

  Zak’s stomach plunged as the bear, with more agility than he would have thought possible from such a large animal, gave yet another roar, then lolloped away, curving round to intercept Malcolm.

  ‘NO!’

  Neither Zak nor Ricky hesitated for a second. Brandishing their burning branches, they sprinted through the snow after their friend. They didn’t have to run far, because he had slipped and fallen fifteen metres from the fire. He was splayed out in the snow. The bear had moved fast. It was just five metres from him.

  It launched itself up on its hind legs, front paws outstretched, ready to strike. Another great roar cracked through the air.

  Zak’s muscles burned as, with Ricky alongside him, he sprinted the final few metres through the snow to position himself in the space between Malcolm and the bear. Shouting loudly, they waved their burning branches at the beast. It seemed to flinch backward. It landed heavily back on all four paws, but it was still snarling and Zak could smell a rotten stench on its breath now he was only a couple of metres away . . .

  ‘Get back to the fire!’ he yelled at Malcolm, thrusting the burning branch, sword-like, in short jabs towards the bear.

  No movement from behind. He looked over his shoulder. Malcolm was still lying there. Maybe he was frozen with terror. Maybe he was unconscious. Zak couldn’t tell. All he knew was that if Malcolm couldn’t move, none of them could retreat. And the only things stopping the bear attacking them all were two burning branches. Zak and Ricky held them aloft, waving them at the snarling bear. But . . .

  ‘They’re going out! ’ Ricky shouted. His voice was high-pitched with stress.

  He was right. The flaming ends of the branches were flickering. Tendrils of thick smoke were curling up from them.