Endgame (Agent 21) by Chris Ryan Read Free Book Online Page A

still sitting on the coffee table – started to buzz. It shifted along the glass table top with each ring. Ricky’s eyes narrowed. Nobody ever called that number apart from Felix, and he’d gone ‘under the radar’, as he put it.
    Ricky stepped over to the phone. The screen said ‘Number withheld’.
    – Probably just a junk caller.
    – What if it’s Felix?
    – Felix just told me he has to go under the radar. I hardly think he’d be calling so soon after that. Anyway, I’m starving, let’s go.
    The phone was still ringing as Ricky locked the apartment door behind him.
    At the front of the building in which Ricky lived there was a large plaza. It was busy. Ricky pulled his hood over his head, hunched his shoulders and started to cross it. He was halfway across when something made him stop. He’d seen something from the corner of his eye that didn’t make sense. He looked back at the apartment block.
    A building like that had a lot of windows that needed cleaning. From time to time, a large cradle lifted the window cleaners up the entire height of the building. The cradle was there this morning. It was about halfway up, but there was nobody in it.
    – That’s weird. If there’s nobody in the cradle, who’s operating it?
    – Maybe it’s just malfunctioning.
    – Yeah. Maybe.
    He turned again, and continued on his way. At the far side of the plaza, he noticed a man sitting on a bench, reading a copy of
The Times
. For the briefest moment, their eyes met. The man immediately pulled his gaze back to the newspaper. Ricky felt a little uneasy. This was turning into an odd morning.
    Ricky had a bit of a problem with cafés. Last time he’d been in one, exactly a week ago, a man had died and Ricky had been lucky to escape with his life – thanks to a kid his own age who went by ‘Agent 21’. Agent 21 had got him out of there by smashing the whole glass frontage of the café to smithereens.
    But surely something bad couldn’t happen
every
time he went into a café. There was a greasy spoon just five minutes’ walk away. He reckoned today was as good a day as any to try it. What could possibly go wrong?
    It was steaming and busy inside. Rihanna was playing on the radio in the background. There was only one table left, next to the window. Ricky took a seat and, two minutes later, had ordered himself tea and breakfast.
    Ricky had always been observant. But since he’d met Felix, his observation skills had improved tenfold. So much so that he found himself recording minute details of everything around him without even knowing it. He noticed how the old man by the window had his knife and fork in the wrong hand, but his watch still on his left wrist. He noticed how the girl at the table opposite, with a sleeping child in a pushchair, had two ear studs in her left ear and only one in her right. She looked exhausted, and her purse was lying on the table, teetering on the very edge. He noticed how three guys in their early twenties, sitting together with mugs of tea, had newspapers open on the table, but weren’t reading them. They were all looking in different directions: one towards the kitchen, one towards the door and one directly at the young mum’s teetering purse . . .
    – They’re casing her. They’re going to try to steal her purse.
    – Very observant. It’s her own fault for leaving it on display like that.
    – She looks knackered. I bet the last thing she needs is for her purse to go missing.
    – Not your problem, Ricky. Isn’t Felix always saying you shouldn’t use your skills to get involved with things that aren’t your concern?
    This was true. Felix was like a stuck record about stuff like that. The Rihanna song finished on the radio, and a news bulletin started. Ricky felt his ears tuning in.
    ‘
Reports are coming in of a shooting in Hyde Park. Two men are suspected dead, and police are actively searching a teenage boy to help them with their enquiries . . .
’
    Ricky frowned. Right