Agent 21

EPILOGUE

Zak Darke awoke to the smell of cherry tobacco.

He was in a stark bright room. No windows and no furniture. Just a bed and a drip stand, with a bag of saline solution feeding through a tube into the back of his hand. The wound on his arm was tightly bandaged. His vision was blurred, and as he looked round it took a moment to realize that he wasn’t alone. There were three other figures standing in the room.

‘Nice of you to join us, sweetie,’ Gabs’s voice said. ‘We thought you were going to sleep for a week.’ She walked round to the side of the bed and put a hand tenderly on his shoulder.

‘Where am I?’ he asked in a croaky voice.

‘London. We airlifted you out two nights ago. You’re a lucky boy — there aren’t many people who get a C-17 Globemaster chartered just for them, you know.’

‘Where’s Raf?’ Zak asked. ‘Is he OK?’

‘I’m fine, Zak.’ Zak’s vision was clearing now and he saw Raf’s distinctive, flat-nosed features. ‘But next time you want to pull a trick like that, you might like to give me a couple of seconds warning.’ Maybe Zak was still a bit concussed, but he could have sworn that Raf was almost smiling.

Which left the third figure. He was standing at the end of the bed and he had a thin black cigarette between his fingers.

‘I thought you weren’t supposed to smoke in hospital,’ Zak said.

Michael inclined his head. ‘I believe you’re right, Zak. But this isn’t quite an ordinary hospital.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Let’s just say you’re not being cared for by the NHS.’ Michael looked at Gabs and Raf. ‘Gabriella, Raphael, I’m sure you’re as glad as I am to see Zak awake, but perhaps you would excuse us. Zak and I have a few things to discuss.’

Gabs rolled her eyes. ‘All these secrets,’ she said. ‘What’s a girl to think?’ But she and Raf quickly left the room.

‘That’s quite a hole you had in your arm,’ Michael said.

‘M16s have a habit of doing that.’

‘Quite. You’ll be glad to know the doctors have been able to save the limb. Raphael and Gabriella told me what happened in Martinez’s compound. It was a good idea of yours — to get Martinez to show himself by threatening Cruz. You might have discussed it with them first, though.’

‘As far as I can remember,’ Zak said, thinking back to the events of that night, ‘we didn’t have much time to chat.’ There was a silence as Zak lay back in his bed and briefly closed his eyes. ‘You knew all along, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘About Martinez and my parents, I mean.’

‘Of course.’

‘Then why didn’t you tell me?’

Michael took a suck on his cigarette. ‘If you had known the truth, do you really think you’d have been able to look Martinez in the eye and pretend to be Harry Gold?’

Zak thought about that. ‘I suppose not.’

‘By a happy coincidence, that’s what I supposed too.’

Another silence as something occurred to Zak. ‘You didn’t really want Martinez because he’s a drug lord, did you?’

Michael’s eyes gleamed with approval. ‘Not really, Zak. Not really.’

‘Then why did you want him?’

The older man started to pace the room. ‘It all started a year ago in a hotel in Lagos. You don’t need me to tell you what happened then. There were a number of British citizens killed in that attack. Thirteen in all, of which your parents were two. We knew Martinez was responsible, but we couldn’t prove it. Naturally we couldn’t let the murder of these thirteen people go unpunished, but we needed a pretext under which to detain Martinez. That was why the evidence you gathered was so important. Even with Martinez dead, though, the evidence is still useful. We’ll be passing it on to the Mexican authorities. I’m sure that little processing plant in the jungle will be wiped out in the next few weeks.’

‘Was Gabs supposed to kill him?’ Zak asked.

Michael looked mildly surprised. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘She only shot him to protect you. I have the impression, Zak, that young Gabriella would do almost anything to keep you safe. In that, she and Raphael are not unalike. No, our plan was very much to take Martinez alive, even though there are plenty who will not mourn his death.’

Zak remembered Martinez’s body, dead on the floor, with Cruz kneeling beside it. ‘And some who will,’ he said. He felt himself frown.

‘What is it?’ Michael asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Zak replied. ‘I guess it’s just… When my parents died, I knew it wasn’t food poisoning like they said. Sometimes I wondered if they were killed, and I dreamed about going after the person who did it. And now…’ His voice trailed away.

‘And now,’ Michael continued, ‘it doesn’t feel the way you thought it would.’

Zak shook his head.

‘Revenge never does. People think it will solve everything, but life is more complicated than that.’ He gave Zak a serious look. ‘I had hoped to make it easier for you,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I had hoped to be able to tell you the truth once your evidence had put Martinez behind bars. My plan was to give you the opportunity to avenge your parents by bringing Martinez to justice. You have the makings of a remarkably good operator, Zak. As time passes, you will become better and better. I would not have been able to stop you from going after your parents’ murderer yourself, and you are a little young to have blood on your hands, don’t you think?’

Zak thought about the surge of triumph he had felt at the sight of Martinez’s dead body, and he nodded.

‘I think I told you once before that too much knowledge can sometimes be a dangerous thing. I hope you understand that now. Perhaps you feel angry with me for the way things have turned out, but I will not apologize for trying to keep you safe. In the future, Zak, you’ll have to get used to not knowing the whole story.’ He looked away for a moment. ‘Assuming,’ he added, ‘that there is a future for Agent 21.’

A long pause.

‘Well, is there?’ Michael asked.

Zak closed his eyes. He thought about the last six months. About Raf and Gabs and the training. About the Martinez operation. About how much his life had changed in the past few months…

And then he spoke. ‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘I guess there is.’

Michael smiled. ‘I hoped you’d say that,’ he said. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a few matters to attend to.’ He made his way towards the door, but stopped at the last minute and turned round. ‘Oh, and well done, Zak,’ he said. ‘You did better than even I could have expected.’

Michael winked at him, then left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

Six thousand miles away, a young man sat behind his father’s desk. He was thin and gangly, but in the last two days he had developed a look of steel.

On the other side of the desk stood a man with one eye, wearing a green Mexico football shirt. He didn’t look like he wanted to take orders from this person; he also looked like he didn’t have a choice.

‘How much did my father pay you, Adan?’ asked Cruz Martinez.

Calaca told him.

‘From today, you earn double.’

Calaca looked surprised. ‘That is very generous, señor,’ he said.

‘Generosity has nothing to do with it,’ Cruz replied. ‘I am buying your loyalty. If I suspect you are shortchanging me, I will ask for more than my money back. You will serve me as you served my father. Is that understood?’

‘Yes, señor.’

‘The other cartels, do they know of his death?’

‘By now, señor, all of Mexico knows it. Your position is dangerous. The other cartels will move in on your business very quickly — more quickly, even, than the authorities will destroy the processing plant your father took the boy to.’

Cruz considered that for a moment. ‘Every government official we are bribing, and every police officer, they too are to have their payments doubled.’

‘Yes, señor. But you will have to do more than that. You will have to show that you have the stomach to stand up to your enemies, and to crush them when necessary.’

Cruz shook his head slowly. ‘You still have Raul in custody?’

‘As you instructed, señor.’

‘Good. Take him away and kill him. Leave his body on the doorstep of a police station. Let it be known that he had a problem with me taking over the family business. That will show that I’m not to be trifled with.’

An unpleasant sneer crossed Calaca’s face, as though he very much approved of the suggestion.’

‘Yes, señor.’

He turned to leave.

‘One more thing before you go, Adan.’

Calaca turned and Cruz gave him a flat, dead stare. ‘Harry Gold. Agent 21. Whatever you want to call him. Find out who he is. Find out where he is. Find out who he works for. Then find him. And when you have found him, bring him to me.’

‘Dead or alive, señor?’

Cruz raised an eyebrow. ‘Alive, Adan. Very much alive. Because when I have Agent 21 in front of me, I will require the pleasure of killing him myself. Is that understood?’

‘Yes, Señor Cruz. It is understood.’

And with that, Adan Ramirez walked out of the room, closing the door behind him and leaving his new boss alone with his thoughts.