Agent 21 by Chris Ryan Read Free Book Online Page A

burglars when they entered the house. Police believe he may have recognized one of the intruders and was abducted to stop him revealing their identity.

    Zak felt himself shiver. It was like staring at his own tombstone.
    He looked around at the others in the room. Michael’s tanned face was expressionless. So was Raf’s; he stood hulking nearby with his arms crossed. Only Gabs showed any concern, her big blue eyes full of sympathy and her lips parted.
    ‘We’ll plant it in the local newspaper in about a week,’ Michael said. ‘Are you comfortable with that?’
    ‘Comfortable with being dead?’ Zak asked. ‘Not really. Do I get a funeral?’
    ‘Alas, your body won’t be found for some time. Which reminds me - I’ll be needing a single hair from your head. You needn’t look so perturbed, Zak, it’s perfectly simple. We’ll be on the lookout for a corpse of a similar size and shape as you. Suitably mutilated as to be unrecognizable, of course. We have ways of ensuring that your DNA is substituted for that of the deceased and for that I’ll need a single hair from your head. In answer to your question, yes, I’m sure there will be a funeral of sorts. I wouldn’t recommend investigating it, however. You never know what you might hear at such events. And in any case, your family and friends aren’t the only people who need to say goodbye to Zak Darke. You do too.’
    He took something else out of the drawer: a plain brown padded envelope, which he handed to Zak.
    Zak emptied it out onto the desk. There were five documents: a red passport, slightly dog-eared; an old birth certificate; an out-of-date library card; a printout of some emails going back a couple of years; and a mobile phone contract. The passport and the library card both had photographs. Zak didn’t know when the pictures had been taken, but he recognized the person well enough. It was him. A younger version, but definitely him.
    He looked at the name on the documents. Zak Darke was nowhere to be seen. It was like he’d beenscrubbed from the face of the planet and somebody else had parachuted in to take his place.
    ‘Meet Harry Gold,’ Michael said. ‘The new you.’
    Zak continued to stare at the documents. They made him feel incredibly uneasy and he was only half listening as Michael continued to talk.
    ‘When I say “the new you”, what I mean is
one of
them. Part of your training, Zak, will be to assimilate new identities, quickly and thoroughly. Harry Gold has not led a very interesting life, but even dull lives are full of facts. You need to know everything about him – not just the big things, like where he lives or what schools he’s been to, but the little things too. His favourite food. What he likes to watch on TV. We have planted these little nuggets of information in the public domain, to make Harry seem like a real person. If somebody suspects you’re not who you say you are, they’ll test you by asking you about one of these inconsequential facts. And let’s just say it’ll be the kind of test where only ten out of ten will do. Do you understand?’
    Zak nodded.
    ‘Only four people in the whole world will know your real identity, Zak, and three of them are standing in the room right now.’
    ‘Who’s the fourth?’ Zak demanded.
    Michael carried on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘It will benecessary for other people to know of your existence, but not of your identity. They will know you only by the codename Agent 21.’
    ‘Why 21?’ Zak asked. ‘What happened to Agents 1 to 20?’
    A bland smile from Michael, and again he continued as though Zak hadn’t even said anything. ‘For the next few weeks, you will undergo a rigorous training schedule. Raf and Gabs will be your new teachers. Apart from them and myself, the only person you might see is an old man called Stan. He lives in a hut on the beach, and it’s his job to make sure nobody arrives on this island without us knowing, and to take occasional deliveries of