Agent 21: Reloaded: Book 2

by Chris Ryan

  Zak stared through his dive mask in horror. His Guardian Angel was in real trouble. If Zak didn’t do something right now, Raf had only minutes to live.

  3

  GALILEO

  ZAK MOVED QUICKLY. He needed to get Raf to the surface. Fast.

  He pulled his knife from the scabbard round his right leg and swam up to his mate. Raf’s air tank was useless now, so Zak cut it away to reduce his body mass. The tank drifted silently down to the floor of the engine room, along with Raf’s torch. It landed on the remains of one of HMS Vanguard’s long-dead crew. By now Zak had already moved behind Raf. He put his arms round his waist and pulled him towards the stairwell, still holding the torch in his right hand.

  They moved so slowly. Raf was heavy, the water felt like treacle and Zak had to swim backwards up the stairwell. He was only halfway up when he felt his air canister bang against the corner of a metal step. It sent a shock right through him and he dropped his torch.

  Zak’s only source of light drifted downwards.

  Panic. There wasn’t time to get it back. Not if Raf was going to have a chance. He would just have to brave the darkness.

  And he had never known darkness like it. By the time he was at the top of the stairwell and pulling Raf into the corridor, he might as well have been blind. He tried not to think about how much water was above him, or about the vicious, sharp-jawed eels that could be anywhere. He just kicked as hard as he could. His muscles burned as he struggled with the dead weight of Raf’s heavy body. When the water grew slightly warmer he knew he was passing back through a cloud of plankton. But he’d lost all sense of distance and time. How far had he come? How long had Raf been out? A minute? Two? More? He just didn’t know …

  Zak couldn’t tell when he emerged from HMS Vanguard. He just knew that one moment there were slimy walls around him, the next there were none. Were they in open sea? Was there anything above them? Which way was up? All these questions tumbled through his mind as he breathed heavily, gulping air in through his breathing system. Trying not to panic, he gripped hold of Raf even harder because he knew that if he let go now, his friend was a goner.

  And when he was sure he had a good hold on him, he pulled the rip cord on his own inflatable vest. Compressed air shot sharply into it. One second later they were moving.

  Don’t let go, Zak told himself. Don’t let go!

  The speed with which they rose to the top was frightening. Like a parachute drop in reverse. Zak felt the water rushing past his ears as he gripped Raf even harder. Water rushed into his nose and he forced himself to breathe out as hard as he could to stop it rushing into his lungs. Seconds later, they crashed through the surface of the water.

  After the silence, the noise up here was almost deafening. The wind was screaming and the waves, which were half a metre high, crashed against each other. Zak spat out his mouthpiece and looked around. He was desperately trying to find the RIB, but he couldn’t see it at first because of the swell of the sea. When he finally did catch a glimpse of the small black launch bobbing on the horizon it was only for a couple of seconds and it seemed horribly far away – maybe thirty metres. He started shouting. ‘Gabs! Gabs! Over here!’ But he wasn’t at all sure that he could be heard against the elements.

  He had to think about Raf. Think of all the first-aid techniques his Guardian Angels had taught him during his months of training. Raf needed CPR – rescue breaths and possibly chest compressions. He needed to be put into the recovery position so the water could drain from his system. And it needed to happen now, before he sustained brain damage and death. None of this could happen in the water, though. He had to get to the boat, but he couldn’t see it again. Where was it? Where was it?

  ‘Gabs! Over he—’

  Suddenly she was there. The motor of the RIB caused an extra swell to crash over Zak’s head, but then he felt Gabs’s strong arms pulling him and Raf towards the boat. ‘Help me get him in!’ she shouted. Zak did what he could to lift Raf out of the water, but he was suddenly feeling weak and dizzy and Gabs had to take the bulk of the weight. She managed it, though, and five seconds later had Raf in the boat.

  ‘He needs CPR!’ Zak shouted, but Gabs was already on it. As Zak scrambled up over the side of the RIB, he saw that she had Raf flat on his back, was pinching his nose and blowing a rescue breath into his mouth. She did this twice, then laid her hands, one on top of the other, over his chest and pressed down sharply thirty times.

  ‘Is he going to be OK?’ Zak gasped. He struggled to remove his air canister and felt like the RIB was spinning.

  ‘You need to keep calm, Zak. Tell me what symptoms you get.’ Her face was deadly serious as she leaned over and gave Raf another two rescue breaths. Symptoms? What was she talking about?

  A river of salt water exploded from Raf’s mouth and he started coughing violently. Zak felt a wave of relief. It didn’t last long. The dizziness was getting worse. His muscles had started to ache and there was a horrible itchiness all over his skin. ‘Er, Gabs,’ he said weakly. ‘I’m really not feeling great.’

  But Gabs was already moving. She’d pushed herself to the rear of the RIB and was knocking the outboard motor into drive. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I feel kind of …’ He realized he was slurring his words.

  ‘You decompressed too quickly,’ she shouted. ‘We’ve got to get you to Galileo. Now.’

  The RIB shot through the water, bouncing up and down on the waves. Zak grabbed hold of one of the row locks on the side and gripped it as hard as he could. Which wasn’t that hard. Everything was spinning and it was nothing to do with the violent movement of the boat. When he’d been sixty metres below sea level and needed to get Raf to the surface, he hadn’t given decompression a moment’s thought. Before he’d arrived on St Peter’s Crag, he’d heard about ‘the bends’ but it had only been when Raf had started teaching him to dive that he’d learned how dangerous decompression sickness was. ‘At the bottom of the sea, the gas you breathe is under pressure. Come back to the surface too quickly and the gas forms bubbles in your body.’

  ‘What happens then?’

  ‘Physical pain. Disorientation. Paralysis. Death. Depends how bad you get it.’

  And Zak didn’t need a doctor on board to know he had it bad. He could feel his joints swelling up; thirty seconds later he realized he couldn’t move his arms and legs. He tried to call out to Gabs, but now he found he couldn’t speak at all. He collapsed onto the bottom of the RIB, his eyes closed.

  The boat bounced up and down, salty spray showering over him. Zak remembered being a little boy – his dad used to play a game that involved bouncing him up and down on his knee. But his dad was dead. His mum too. Killed by a man named Martinez. In a corner of Zak’s failing mind, he saw a face. A girl about a year older than himself. Ellie. He wished he could see her one more time, before he died …

  He knew he was about to join his parents, wherever they were …

  Noise. Shouting. Zak was too out of it to know whose voices they were or what they were saying. He felt hands on his body – strong hands, pulling him out of the RIB, which was listing against the side of a larger vessel. Galileo? It had to be. The pain was even worse now. His hand felt like it would burst. He tried to open his eyes but there was no strength left in him. He was limp.

  Useless.

  Everything was dark.

  It was dark when he awoke too. He lay without moving for a few seconds, trying to work out where he was. He was lying on his back, his arms by his side. When he raised his hand, his knuckle rapped against something solid. It was only a few centimetres from his body.

  Like a coffin.

  Zak panicked. Where was he? How long had he been unconscious? He remembered being in the RIB, wondering if he was about to die.

  He started banging on the walls. ‘Let me out! Let me out of here!’ His voice was deadened by the enclosed space, and the banging of his hands against the wall echoed back at him. It was a hollow, metallic sound.
/>   Metallic.

  Zak lay still. Nobody, he realized, was buried in a metallic coffin. He felt himself rocking slightly. Like he was still at sea. Seconds later, it dawned on him what his metal coffin actually was – one of two small decompression chambers aboard Galileo. Gabs had got him there in time. His thoughts immediately turned to Raf. Was he OK? Had Zak dragged him out of the wreck of HMS Vanguard quickly enough? Was he decompressing too?

  Time had no meaning in that tiny, cramped space so Zak didn’t know how long it was before the top half of the decompression chamber opened up. Light flooded in, half blinding him, and he was aware of two figures standing over him. He blinked and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘Raf?’ he asked.

  A pause.

  ‘Raf is still decompressing, Agent 21,’ said a man’s voice. ‘When he emerges, I rather think he’ll want to shake you by the hand. That was quite something you managed down there.’

  Zak pushed himself up into a sitting position. Although he still felt a bit dizzy, his vision was clearing and he could make out the man’s features. Shoulder-length grey hair. Green eyes. And the faint aroma of cherry tobacco that always reminded Zak of the first time he’d met this man, back when he was pretending his name was Mr Bartholomew.

  ‘Michael?’

  They were definitely on the deck of Galileo. The decompression chamber in which Zak was sitting was a cylinder about two metres in length and there was a second one alongside it. The sky beyond the deck was as grey and unwelcoming as the sea. He looked around, searching for another vessel or a chopper, because Michael hadn’t been on board when they’d started diving. ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘I confess,’ said Michael evasively, ‘that it wasn’t entirely straightforward. And you know how I hate to interrupt your training schedule, but I’m afraid I had no choice.’ He gave a bland smile. ‘It’s good to see you looking so well, Zak. When Gabriella told me what happened this morning, I thought you might be feeling a little peaky. And … ah … please don’t take this the wrong way, but it would have been a frightful nuisance if you had been disabled or … or anything. Something’s come up, you see – and we really don’t have any time to lose.’

  4

  BLACK WOLF

  13.25 hrs GMT

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Zak was in one of the small cabins below decks. He changed out of his drysuit and into his trademark jeans and hooded top, then went back up onto deck, where he saw Raf, now also out of his decompression chamber. His dive buddy was sitting with his back to the railings, a first-aid box next to him. His face was white and there were dark rings under his eyes. He looked about as well as Zak felt after this morning’s scare. He had cut away the right-hand sleeve of his drysuit to reveal a nasty triangular wound in his forearm where the moray eel had bitten him. In his left hand he held a hypodermic needle and was injecting himself just an inch from the wound. He looked up. ‘Tetanus booster,’ he said shortly, before turning his attention back to the wound.

  Zak nodded, suppressing a wave of sickness, before glancing around to see where Michael was.

  ‘Hey, Zak.’ Raf was looking at him again and giving him one of his slightly crooked smiles. ‘I owe you. You must have moved pretty quick.’

  Zak smiled back. ‘You’re the one who taught me to dive,’ he replied.

  ‘Not like that. It takes most people years of training to get to the stage where they can keep a cool head under pressure and underwater. I’ll be teaching you STARS extractions in high sea states next if you carry on like this.’

  ‘STARS extractions?’

  Raf had a little twinkle in his eye. ‘Surface-to-air recovery system. We stick a harness on you that has a special inflatable balloon on a cord. The balloon rises up into the air and a Hercules flies along with a clamp at the front, grabs the cord and takes you with it. Not used too often these days because helicopters can normally do the job just as well.’ He grinned. ‘It’s exhilarating, though, if you like that sort of thing.’

  Zak grimaced. ‘I can think of other words for it.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ Raf replied. ‘Maybe it’s one for another day.’

  Zak found Michael back inside, sitting alone at the bridge. It was a comfortable cabin with a large, burnished-wood steering wheel – useless at the moment because the bank of on-board navigation computers were on autopilot, taking Galileo back to St Peter’s Crag. Michael was staring thoughtfully out to sea.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you today,’ Zak said. How the older man had got here, in the middle of the ocean, was anyone’s guess.

  ‘It would be a good idea, Zak, if you learned to expect the unexpected. In our line of work, things rarely happen to a fixed schedule.’

  Just like Michael to be evasive. He was the one who had recruited Zak in the first place. Plucked him from his ordinary life and dropped him into a world of danger. Turned him from Zak Darke into Agent 21. It was Michael who, just six months before, had sent Zak to Mexico to bring down a notorious drug dealer called Cesar Martinez Toledo by getting close to his son, Cruz. At least, that’s what Zak had originally believed, but he had soon found out that Señor Martinez had been responsible for the mass murder that had killed his parents. With Michael, there was always more than met the eye. Raf and Gabs looked up to him and so, Zak supposed, did he. But sometimes he wished the older man could just give him a straight answer.

  ‘You said you wanted to talk to me?’

  Michael didn’t move. ‘Take a seat,’ he said. ‘Make yourself comfortable. I want you to take a look at something.’

  There was a low cushioned bench along one side of the bridge. Zak sat there as Michael rooted around in his pocket for a moment, like he was searching for loose change. He pulled out something the shape of two pyramids stuck together at their bases. It was opaque, like an ice cube only smaller, but heavier than Zak would have expected when he took hold of it.

  ‘Know what it is?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Looks like glass,’ Zak replied.

  ‘More valuable than glass, Zak. A lot more valuable. That’s an uncut diamond. Value on the open market? About one hundred thousand US dollars.’

  A lot of money for such a small thing. But money didn’t really mean much to Zak any more.

  ‘That diamond was mined in Angola, West Africa,’ Michael continued. ‘Angola is the site of some of the world’s biggest diamond mines. But it’s a war-torn place. Decades of civil war. In most diamond-producing countries, the sale of raw diamonds is strictly regulated. In Angola, things are a little more … lax. I’ll take that back now, Zak, if you wouldn’t mind. I’d be most unpopular if it were to get mislaid.’

  Zak handed the diamond back to his handler and waited for Michael to continue.

  ‘Because parts of Angola are so lawless, it’s a haven for terrorist groups. Many of these groups are very rich. Their money, however, comes from highly illegal sources.’

  ‘Like what?’ Zak asked.

  Michael shrugged. ‘Drugs. Gun-running. The usual. Do you understand what money laundering is, Zak?’

  ‘I think so. Is it when criminals take money that they’ve stolen or whatever, and then put it into proper businesses.’

  ‘Exactly that. They declare it. They pay tax on it. The dirty money becomes clean. The Angolan diamond trade is a very good way of laundering money. Many of the mine owners ask no questions when they sell their raw diamonds. A criminal organization can simply use their dirty money to buy diamonds in Angola, export them to the diamond markets of the West and sell them on. Hey presto! Not only clean money, but also a profit.’

  ‘Clever,’ Zak said.

  ‘Oh yes, Zak. That’s the thing about terrorists. The good ones, at least. They’re very clever. Which means we have to be a little bit cleverer.’ He gave Zak a knowing look. ‘By “we”, of course, what I really mean is “you”.’

  Zak looked out through the windows of the bridge across the grey, desolate sea. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘MI6 have been monit
oring one particular terrorist group very closely. They call themselves Black Wolf. Most organizations of this sort commit atrocities to make a point. Sometimes it’s religious, sometimes it’s political. But there’s always a reason behind their actions, Zak. Always an ideology. They say that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. I wouldn’t go that far, but I can tell you this: Black Wolf are different. The only thing they’re interested in is money. If another terrorist group wants an atrocity committed in their name, Black Wolf will carry it out for them. If the price is right, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Zak replied. He felt a bit sick and it wasn’t just the after-effects of his decompression.

  ‘Today is Monday. This Thursday, a ship called the MV Mercantile is due to make port in Lobambo on the coast of Angola. It’s a small village with a natural harbour, normally just used by local fishing vessels. The Mercantile is just one of thousands of merchant vessels sailing the oceans at any one time. A very high proportion of them are carrying out illicit activities.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘The sea is very big, Zak. Ships are very small, relatively speaking. They’re impossible to police effectively. You can monitor the ports, of course, but once they’re in the open sea …’ He shrugged, as if to say, Anything goes. ‘All our intelligence suggests that this particular ship, however, has been chartered by Black Wolf. Its purpose is to collect an extremely large shipment of Angolan raw diamonds, then carry them north-west across the Atlantic to Boston where they’ll be sold to a major diamond company. I want you to make sure it never gets that far.’

  ‘Why us?’ Zak asked. ‘Why … why me?’

  ‘There are reasons,’ Michael said calmly.

  ‘Ones that you’re going to tell me, or ones that you’re keeping to yourself?’ Zak knew he sounded a bit ungracious, but he remembered how during his last mission Michael had kept to himself the knowledge that Señor Martinez had killed his parents. ‘Anyway,’ he continued when it was clear Michael wasn’t going to follow that line of conversation any further, ‘how am I supposed to do that? I thought you said merchant ships were impossible to police.’