Agent 21 by Chris Ryan Page B

moon that shone through the window, and he felt a sinking feeling inside.
    ‘Wake up,’ Raf said.
    Zak sat up in his bed. It was his first night on the island and it felt like he’d only fallen asleep two minutes ago.
    ‘What time is it?’ he asked. ‘What’s going on?’
    ‘Midnight. Get dressed. We’re going out.’
    ‘Am I leaving?’ Zak felt suddenly hopeful.
    ‘Of course not.’
    Gabs was waiting for them in the main hallway to the house. She smiled at him as he walked in behind Raf. ‘You look tired, sweetie,’ she said, running onehand unconsciously through her white-blonde hair.
    ‘Funny that,’ Zak replied. ‘It being midnight and everything.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s Michael?’
    ‘Michael’s left,’ Gabs said. ‘You won’t be seeing him for a while.’
    ‘So it’s just me and my guardian angels, is it?’
    Gabs and Raf exchanged a look. ‘Didn’t take you long to work that out,’ Gabs said. She held something up. ‘Put this on,’ she said.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘A blindfold, sweetie.’
    Zak took a step backwards. ‘No way,’ he said. He looked at the two adults nervously.
    Gabs just smiled at him again. ‘What do you think we’re going to do, Zak? Kidnap you?’
    ‘You already did that.’
    Raf walked up to Gabs, took the blindfold and approached Zak. ‘Actually, Zak, we didn’t. It was your decision to come here, and the sooner you start accepting that, the better. And if you think we’re blindfolding you because we want to hurt you in some way, think again. This isn’t the movies, you know. If somebody wants to kill you – and chances are that at some stage they will – they’ll just do it. There won’t be any of that James Bond stuff.’ He handed over the blindfold. ‘Put it on.’
    Gabs was standing next to him now. ‘You need tostart trusting us,’ she said. ‘Now’s as good a time as any.’
    Zak looked from one to the other. Both dressed in black, they had equally serious expressions as they stood there. Zak stared at the ground for a moment then, slowly, put on the blindfold.
    Immediately he heard the main door open. Raf took his hand. ‘Come with me,’ he said, his voice as firm as his grip.
    They exited the house, Zak treading carefully as he went. And then they started to walk. At first it was difficult – the ground felt treacherous underneath him and he tripped several times, although Raf was always there to pull him up. Soon, though, he got the hang of it and they started covering ground more quickly, even when the cold wind started to bite. After about an hour they stopped. ‘You can take the blindfold off now,’ Raf said.
    Zak did so. He blinked and looked around. They were in the middle of a featureless stretch of moorland, and although the almost-full moon was bright enough to cast a shadow, he couldn’t make out anything beyond about thirty metres. He shivered.
    ‘Do you know where you are?’ Raf asked him.
    ‘The middle of nowhere,’ Zak said.
    ‘So how will you find your way home?’
    ‘Follow my nose, I guess.’
    Raf looked unimpressed. ‘You can do better than that. Imagine you need to get to a rendezvous point, and you know that the RV is two miles to your northwest. How are you going to do it?’
    Zak thought for a moment. ‘Maybe I’ve got GPS on my phone.’
    ‘OK,’ Raf replied. ‘GPS is good, but you can’t rely on it. What if your battery’s down? What if you’ve stumbled in a ditch and water’s got into the mechanism? Let’s say you’ve got no GPS.’
    Zak chewed lightly on his lower lip. He was getting into this now. ‘Map and compass?’
    ‘You’re in an area that has a lot of underground metallic ores. They’re messing with the accuracy of your compass.’
    ‘Does that happen?’
    ‘Sure.’
    ‘Then I don’t know. Wait – hang on . . .’
    He looked up.
    The stars were astonishingly bright. There was no light pollution in this deserted place, so they glowed like the fires they were.
    ‘Well