Jimmy Coates: Revenge
Jimmy Coates: Revenge
Joe Craig
A third action-packed adventure for the incredible Jimmy Coates.Will Jimmy Coates ever be free of NJ7? Why should they need to find him if they are able to control him.Through Christopher Viggo's powerful new contacts, Jimmy and his friends escape to the USA. They go into hiding in Chinatown, New York City. While they are there, Jimmy finds himself experiencing headaches accompanied by flashing images – something that hasn’t happened to him before. Are they prophetic visions?Can Jimmy piece together the puzzle of his obsession before time runs out? And how can he convince anybody of what he thinks he knows, when the only evidence is locked inside his head?Revenge will come. But what form will it take?
JOE CRAIG
JIMMY COATES: REVENGE
Contents
Title Page (#u87674289-1749-5405-ba6b-31e9a92402e8)Chapter One – The Visitor (#udf0a3d63-b266-570d-abd0-055729c65b53)Chapter Two – Seeds Of Retribution (#ufe8fecfa-7b14-5ee2-a20c-9184b55b0d04)Chapter Three – Thwarted (#u4fdaa51b-b6aa-58c3-97f9-a60a470500da)Chapter Four – Diamond In The Rough (#ubc118026-07cb-5679-8282-b145e6329169)Chapter Five – The Reflex Plan (#u9b63d7e4-341f-57d8-bc52-3e583afebd29)Chapter Six – Twenty-Seven Lives (#u173fead3-e78d-5de2-97b6-852d98d854f4)Chapter Seven – Kill Zaf-1 (#u56041108-cc44-51b6-9479-0de30967c138)Chapter Eight – I Dreamed (#u4a79bd2b-7b90-5545-b234-43cd7eca0b41)Chapter Nine – Fatal Thumbs (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten – Storm In A Teacup (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven – Star Of Manchuria (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve – Premonition (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen – Clean Strike (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fourteen – Face Of Power, Face Of Death (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fifteen – Knickerbocker (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Sixteen – Colonel Keays (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seventeen – Bloodprints (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eighteen – Strips, Splashes, 53, K (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nineteen – Rats In The Attic (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty – Mars (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-One – Revenge Of The Son (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Two – A Walk In The Park (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Three – Protect Them (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Four– Amateur Revenge (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Five– Silvercup (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Six– Familiar Face (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Seven– Time Avenges (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Eight– Terminal Meeting (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Nine – Tramway Crossing (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty – Roosevelt Island (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-One - Professional Revenge (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Two – New Vision (#litres_trial_promo)Preview (#litres_trial_promo)About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)Also By Joe Craig (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE – THE VISITOR (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
Jimmy’s eyes opened before he even realised he was awake. His head was throbbing – another nightmare that vanished before he could grasp it. When he was asleep, his programming took over his brain completely. It grew like a vine, reaching into every part of his psyche. It spread dangerous knowledge and developed his amazing skills. Day by day Jimmy found himself becoming more lethal – and there was nothing he could do about it. Time was turning him into a killer.
What had woken him, he wondered. Judging by the eerie half-light it was the early hours of the morning. Jimmy didn’t dare move his head from the pillow in case someone was watching him, but he listened, analysing every sound. He felt a familiar agitation in his chest – a paranoia he could never shake off. It was part of his nature now and he had learned to trust in it.
His right calf twitched under the duvet. Was that a sign? It could be nothing. He realised that his muscles probably trained while he slept. How long had it been since NJ7, the most covert and advanced military intelligence agency in the world, had burst into his house to take him away? It felt like forever, but might not even have been more than a fortnight.
Since then, he’d had to live with the knowledge that NJ7 had manipulated human genetics to grow him – an organic assassin, designed to reach active-service capability when he was eighteen. It was crazy. Jimmy still thought of himself as a normal human boy. But he was far from normal. He was only 38 per cent human.
He pictured millions of tiny electric pulses emanating from his brain to the tips of each limb, making them ever more resilient. But the sensation he had now was something more than just his programming.
A drop in temperature. There was a draught from somewhere. The window had been shut when they went to bed. Jimmy was facing away from it now, so he couldn’t check it. But how could anybody have broken the window without waking everybody?
He scanned what he could see of the room, his eyes quickly enhancing every shape, enabling him to see in the semi-dark. Three beds stuck out into the middle of the room, their headboards against the wall. In the bed next to Jimmy’s, his friend Felix Muzbeke was fast asleep. A slow thread of drool trailed from his lips, glistening like a spider’s web in the rain.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jimmy could discern the end of the third bed. His sister’s feet made a reassuring bump in the duvet. OK, he thought, so Felix and Georgie haven’t been abducted. That’s a good start.
Jimmy was constantly aware that it wasn’t just his own life under threat. As well as Georgie and Felix, there was Jimmy’s mother. They’d all arrived at the Bed and Breakfast the night before, on the run from NJ7. Felix’s parents, Neil and Olivia, had already been in hiding there.
Deep inside, Jimmy’s human self was now starting to wake up. With this came a surge of anger, brought on by the thought of his own father – or at least the man he had always believed was his father. The man’s words would never leave Jimmy’s head: “You’re not my son.” To him, Jimmy was nothing but an enemy of the State. He had been ever since overcoming his programming and refusing to kill for NJ7. Now Ian Coates, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, wanted him eliminated.
Then Jimmy heard it. A sound so faint that Felix’s drooling almost drowned it out. Immediately, an image popped into Jimmy’s head that identified the noise – grease trickling down wood. It told him two things. One: the room had definitely been breached. Two: whoever had broken in was highly dangerous.
They’ve found me, he thought. Terror shook his entire body, but with it came a blast of confidence – the artificial self-assurance of his programming. It seemed to flick away the fear. Before he could even think about it, Jimmy exploded into action.
He kicked his right leg up and back, sending his duvet flying towards the window. It wrapped itself around an approaching figure. In the same movement, Jimmy flipped up into a handstand by his pillow – just in time. The intruder slammed the duvet back on to the mattress, then rolled to his feet on the other side of the bed.
Jimmy used his bare feet to push himself off the wall. He cartwheeled over and landed, standing, opposite his attacker. They had both moved without a sound. Felix and Georgie hadn’t stirred. Now, for the first time, Jimmy was able to look at the person who had broken in. He was small – only just taller than Jimmy, in fact – and his physique was slight. His face was masked by a black balaclava, which matched the black combat uniform. On his chest Jimmy noticed three small vertical stripes. Even though his night-vision made it hard to distinguish colours, Jimmy knew that they had to be green – a green stripe was the emblem of NJ7. But why were there three of them? He shrugged off the inconsistency and noticed the contrast between the black military outfit in front of him and the Kermit pyjamas that he’d been forced to borrow from the B&B owners. He shivered, suddenly aware of his vulnerability.
Jimmy picked out the intruder’s eyes – their pale blue was intensified by his night-vision. The eyes looked Jimmy up and down.
“They’re not my pyjamas,” Jimmy insisted. “I usually sleep in a T-shirt and…”
“What’s going on?” Felix interrupted. His face was scrunched up like a new-born piglet and he was peering around blindly. For him, it was too dark to see.
Jimmy only glanced at him for an instant, but he knew straight away it was a mistake. In that split-second, the masked figure dived at him. Jimmy dropped to the floor and slid out of the way on his back. He went straight under Felix’s bed and out the other side.
“Is that you, Jimmy?” Felix asked, with no clue what was going on.
The intruder landed with a roll, then sprang up and leapt at Jimmy again – right over Felix’s head.
“Morning, Felix,” Jimmy grunted, flipping himself up, feet first. He caught his attacker in mid-air – with his knees locked around the intruder’s neck. “Bit of help would be nice.”
The two fighters tumbled over each other across the floor. The noise woke Georgie.
“Jimmy, you OK?” she whispered frantically. There was no answer. She jumped out of bed and stumbled for the light switch.
Jimmy clung on to the attacker with every bit of strength he could muster. They twisted together, a flurry of limbs wrestling for control. Jimmy’s programming was serving him well. He wrenched one arm free and clamped a hand down on top of his assailant’s head. With one twist, he threw him off balance. The intruder’s face hit the floor and the balaclava came away in Jimmy’s fist.
Jimmy pounced, holding him down. Except, he gradually realised – it wasn’t a him. There was a tickling sensation on Jimmy’s lips. Stray hairs fluttered around his face. He spat them away, conscious of not loosening his hold. There was a strange smell in the air. Was that coconut shampoo?
Finally, Georgie found the light switch – but it didn’t work. She clicked it on and off frantically. The room remained dark. Instead, she went for the door handle. In a burst of strength, the intruder performed a back flip so powerful it took Jimmy along too. She landed on him, knocking the wind out of him, and immediately launched herself at Georgie.
As Georgie pulled the door open a centimetre, the intruder slammed into the small of her back. The door banged shut, with Georgie’s face pressed against the wood. She tried to scream for help, but before the breath even reached her lungs, she was pulled away and flung back on to her bed. The mysterious figure wrapped the duvet across Georgie’s face and spun her over like a log down a hill. Georgie tried shouting again, but the bedclothes completely muffled the noise. She was rolled up so tight she couldn’t move her arms from her side.
Jimmy was slightly dazed, but he shook it off and hurled himself at the base of Georgie’s bed. It knocked into his attacker, throwing her off-balance. Immediately, Jimmy rolled under the bed, out the other side and slammed into her ankles. He tried to pin her to the floorboards again, but she spun like a break-dancer, planting a foot in Jimmy’s face with each revolution.
Felix was out of his bed now, tentatively shuffling across the room with his arms outstretched. When he reached the wall, his hands felt about for the light switch, not knowing Georgie had already tried that. From inside her duvet-cocoon, she hollered and squirmed, gradually wriggling her way out.
“Don’t worry, Jimmy,” Felix announced. “I’m coming.” Then, at the top of his voice, he yelled, “Help!”
“Quiet, Felix,” Jimmy snapped, crawling backwards to avoid another kicking. The last thing he wanted was the neighbours arriving. That would give away their hideout to NJ7 in no time. “Get out and get my mum.”
Felix went for the door, but the intruder turned to stop him. That was the distraction Jimmy needed. He flipped on his front and hooked his legs underneath the empty bed behind him. Then, with a thrill flooding his muscles, he bent his knees and heaved the bed off the floor. He lifted it right over his head with just his legs. It scraped the ceiling, then came crashing down in front of him. One leg snapped clean off and the frame smashed into splinters. The bed had landed upside-down – right on top of Jimmy’s opponent.
Finally, Jimmy dragged her out. He dug his knee into her spine and his elbow into the back of her neck. She wasn’t getting out from his hold this time.
“I’m on your side!” came her muffled shout. The tension in Jimmy’s gut eased slightly, but he was far from relaxed.
“It’s a trick,” Georgie urged. She had made it out of the duvet at last.
“Who are you?” Jimmy demanded. It was becoming clearer by the second that this person was not part of an NJ7 assault team. She dipped her hand in her pocket. Jimmy clenched his muscles again, ready for anything, but his opponent pulled out nothing more than a small round piece of black plastic. It looked like the remote locking device on a car key. She clicked the button and on came every light in the room.
Jimmy felt her muscles relax. It was as if she was deflating slightly. The fight was over. She was giving up – for now. Jimmy stood up and slowly backed away.
For the first time, the intruder’s face was revealed. Jimmy, Georgie and Felix let out a gasp. The person on the floor in front of them was a girl about their age. A flurry of auburn hair tumbled around her face. Jimmy was astounded. Felix was mesmerised.
“I’ve come to have a conversation with you,” the girl said. Her voice was soft, with a very faint accent that made her sound slightly exotic.
Jimmy remained deadpan. “If that’s what you call a conversation,” he replied, “I can’t wait for us to argue.”
CHAPTER TWO – SEEDS OF RETRIBUTION (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
“Was I too rough for you?” the girl pouted. “I’m sorry. I was playing. I wanted to see what you could do.” She stood up, moving with a strange elegance that didn’t seem to fit someone so young.
“If I’d wanted you dead, Jimmy Coates,” she continued, “you would never have even known I existed. I could have killed you quietly, quickly and from a distance.” She moved towards him, almost gliding across the floor, her eyes never wavering from Jimmy’s. “I think I would have done it painlessly though. You seem nice.” Then she winked. Jimmy lost all feeling in his cheeks for a second. He was a picture of astonishment.
“My name is Zafi Sauvage.” The girl held out her hand, which was covered in a black leather glove. In a daze, Jimmy shook it. The whole thing felt so bizarre. He wouldn’t normally shake hands with anybody – especially not some strange girl, and especially not one who, only seconds before, had been trying to break his neck.
Felix brushed the others aside and shoved his hand in Zafi’s direction. “Yeah, hi,” he started. “I’m, like, delighted to meet you.” Jimmy grimaced at the unusually posh accent Felix was trying on. “Frightfully delighted. My name is Felix. And may I welcome you by saying that, frightfully and awfully, you’re, like, a knockout.”
“If you’re not here to try to kill me…” Jimmy interrupted. He didn’t finish his sentence. There were too many questions all bursting to get out at the same time. Who did this girl work for? What did she want? How had she found out where Jimmy and the others were hiding? Above all the others was one question that repeated in his head like a siren. Is this girl a programmed assassin like me?
“I can’t believe it,” Georgie whispered, echoing his thoughts. “Another one. A third assassin.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me to sit down?” Zafi said, raising one eyebrow. Felix immediately ushered her to the end of his bed.
“Don’t mind them,” he blathered. “They’ve forgotten their manners. Hey, look what I can do.” He pulled out his top lip and, with his thumbs, shoved it into his nostrils. He glared at Zafi like this until she let out a high giggle.
“My, how attractive,” Zafi laughed. “Look what I can do.” She pulled off her glove and pressed her palm flat against her eye. She twisted her hand, which made a weird sucking noise. Then she pulled her palm away and her eyeball popped out. It bounced around on the end of her optic nerve halfway down her cheek. She beamed with glee.
“Wow.” Felix was so impressed that his voice quivered. Zafi calmly popped her eye back into its socket and flicked her hair behind her ear.
“Jimmy, look at this,” Felix insisted. “It’s so cool.”
But Jimmy wasn’t paying attention. He was examining the window to confirm what he suspected: the frame had been lubricated with some kind of grease. Zafi had opened the window expertly and with less noise than a shadow. But Jimmy didn’t stop to admire her work.
He looked back at Zafi. Why did she look like she was about to smile, Jimmy wondered. Didn’t she take any of this seriously? It was as if the corners of her mouth couldn’t help curling upwards.
With the lights on, it was obvious that there was no green stripe on her chest. Instead, three vertical stripes formed an emblem just as powerful and just as proud. In his night-vision, Jimmy had assumed they were green, but one was blue, one white and one red. It was the Tricolore – the French flag. That seemed to answer the question of who she worked for.
Jimmy realised that because the French Secret Service, the DGSE, had helped him, relations between Britain and France were worse than they had been for centuries. In fact, both had threatened war. Jimmy was starting to see that if Zafi was an enemy of Neo-democratic Britain, she could be an important ally for him. His curiosity became urgent now.
“Hey, you two lovebirds,” he began, “stop messing about. I need to know what’s going on.”
“Didn’t you see what she did with her eye?” Felix panted. Jimmy ignored him.
“What’s this ‘conversation’ you wanted to have with me?” he insisted. But before Zafi could answer, Georgie marched towards the door.
“I wouldn’t bother fetching your mother,” Zafi whispered. “She’s a little drowsy at the moment.”
Georgie turned to her with horror on her face. Jimmy felt a double layer of confusion – first was a lurch of panic for his mother’s safety, but beneath it came a reassuring warmth. To his programmed side, it made perfect sense. Felix’s cry for help. The crash of the bed on the floor – the other people in the house must have been drugged somehow to keep them out of the way. Assigned Zafi’s mission, he would have done the same. As the thought ran through his head, Zafi explained it to the others.
“I sent some sleeping gas under the necessary windows before I came through yours.”
Georgie looked at Zafi with a mixture of disbelief and anger. Then she marched out of the room anyway.
“Doesn’t she trust me?” Zafi asked with a cheeky sparkle in her eye.
That was enough for Jimmy. How dare she make a joke of it, he thought. Didn’t she realise she was playing with people’s lives? And she hadn’t even started to explain what she was doing there. Jimmy gripped Zafi’s shoulders and held her down on the bed.
“How can you do all this?” he hissed, his eyes only centimetres from hers. His face was turning red, but Zafi’s only reaction was to open her eyes wide and give a little smile.
“What a silly question,” she replied, ever so gently. “The same way you can, Jimmy Coates. I’m a genetically programmed—”
“No, I mean, how can you bring yourself to do it?” Jimmy was really seething now. “Don’t you realise that attacking innocent people, drugging them, even killing them – it’s wrong.”
“It might be wrong,” Zafi whispered back, “but it’s not me doing it, is it? It’s nothing to do with me. I watch it happen. Maybe I’m sad about it, maybe not. It’s not my responsibility.”
Jimmy wanted to scream right in her face. He felt like tearing her to shreds on the spot, but instead his grip melted to nothing. He slipped off her. If he’d demanded any more answers, he might have had to admit to himself that he envied her.
Georgie came back into the room. She didn’t look happy. “I can’t wake Mum,” she announced.
“What about my parents?” Felix asked.
“I can’t wake any of them, OK? It’s like they’re hibernating or something.”
“They’ll be asleep for a few more hours,” Zafi said, sitting up and flicking her hair behind her ear. “They’ll be fine by lunchtime.”
Jimmy wanted to get up and reassure his big sister, but he was still distracted by a small question at the back of his mind – what would he be capable of if nothing was his responsibility?
Georgie started the questioning again. “You’d better explain what’s going on.”
Zafi sighed. “But this is so much fun,” she said, too brightly. “It’s like a sleepover.”
Felix almost laughed, but only because he was nervous.
“I work for France,” Zafi continued with a shrug. “My government expects that Britain and France might be drawn into a war.”
“What?” Georgie gasped. “Why?”
Jimmy cut in to explain. “Yesterday, the French sent a fighter jet into British airspace.”
“Only after NJ7 bombed a French farmhouse,” Zafi added.
“But that wasn’t to attack France,” Jimmy sighed. “It’s where we’d been hiding. NJ7 were trying to get us.”
“Well, all they’ve got for themselves is trouble.”
Zafi and Jimmy stared at each other.
“I’ve come to invite you to join the right side,” Zafi announced.
“You want me to work for France against Britain – in a war?” Jimmy tried to keep his voice as calm as possible. Zafi nodded.
“Who says there’s going to be a war?” Felix asked. “That’s rubbish. Nobody’s loony enough to start a war.”
Jimmy wished his friend was right, but he was far from sure. He walked over to the window. It was still open from when Zafi had sneaked in. For a second, he hesitated. Perhaps something in his head was suggesting he could escape into the night and disappear forever. It only lasted a second. He slid the window shut. It closed as silently as it had opened for Zafi, but to Jimmy it felt like the portcullis on a castle coming down to trap him inside.
Did she expect him to give an answer straight away? He had already put everybody he loved in mortal danger to avoid working as an assassin for one government. Surely it was madness of the French to think he would kill for them.
So why was he still thinking about it? And why was his hand shaking?
“I came to you before,” he began eventually. “To the DGSE, I mean. When we needed your help. I offered to co-operate then.”
“To co-operate?” Zafi questioned. “Or to join us?”
“I offered information. But Uno Stovorsky said he didn’t need it. And he never suggested that I work for you.”
“The DGSE didn’t need you then, did we.” Zafi explained haughtily. “We had me.” At that she gave a sly chuckle. “But yesterday changed things. France needs you now.”
Jimmy couldn’t order any of his thoughts. “I don’t understand,” he started quietly. “I thought there were only two of us. Me and Mitchell. We’re both English. How come you’re also… like us, except that you’re French?”
“I suppose you want a history lesson,” Zafi sighed. “Well, the team of scientists that designed us fell out with each other twelve years ago. One of them was French and he escaped back to Paris when he realised there was going to be trouble.”
“And he took you with him?” Felix gasped. His mouth was hanging open.
“Sort of.” Zafi smiled at him fondly. “I wasn’t born yet, was I. But he took with him all the files and the chip he needed to make me.”
“So nobody at NJ7 knows about you?” Jimmy asked.
Zafi shook her head. “They’ve been looking for something called ZAF-1.”
Jimmy recognised that name. He’d heard it inside NJ7 Headquarters, but he didn’t know what it meant.
“You’re… ZAF-1?” he suggested.
“You should pay attention more closely, Jimmy Coates.” Zafi looked up at him and fluttered her eyelashes. “I said they’re looking for ZAF-1. They think it’s a Secret Service agency. But there’s no such thing. There’s only…”
“…Zafi.” Jimmy completed the sentence for her.
“That’s right – me!”
“They don’t know anything about you,” Jimmy exclaimed, the words tumbling out in his excitement. “I was there, in NJ7.” He looked at Georgie, Felix and Zafi in turn. “I heard them talking about ZAF-1, trying to work out what it meant. They were scared of it, but didn’t know what it meant…”
“Not yet,” Zafi cut him off. “They will soon. They’ll work it out from Dr Higgins’ papers.”
Dr Higgins – the scientist behind the original organic assassin project. The name still gave Jimmy an odd feeling. He wanted to hate the old man, but wasn’t physically able to. The result was like being seasick, but enjoying it. Jimmy wondered where the doctor was these days. Higgins had gone on the run after doing some assassinating of his own. He could have been anywhere in the world. For all Jimmy knew, NJ7 had already found him and taken their revenge.
“I don’t have any more time, Jimmy,” Zafi said softly. She stood up and placed a hand on his wrist. “And nor do you.” Jimmy tensed up. So did Georgie and Felix. “I did what I could tonight to help you,” Zafi continued.
“What do you mean?” Georgie asked suspiciously.
“I created a diversion so they couldn’t follow you out of London so easily.” Zafi thought for a moment and smiled to herself. Jimmy couldn’t stand the way everything seemed to amuse her. “I need you to come with me now.”
Jimmy looked at his friend and his sister. He could see on their faces what they thought. The last thing they wanted was for him to leave them. But everything inside him was drawing him to go with Zafi. Surely he couldn’t – up to now, he had done everything he could to avoid causing harm to anybody. The DGSE would almost certainly send him to kill. But who?
He closed his eyes and pictured Paduk, the huge Secret Service agent who ran the Prime Minister’s ‘Special Security’. He pictured Miss Bennett, who had pretended to be protecting Jimmy for so long as a fake form teacher at school. Then she had emerged as his most venomous enemy – Head of NJ7. They had stolen his life. They had tortured and tried to kill the people he loved. Was this the chance that he had wanted so badly? Was this the opportunity to get his own back and be working for a good cause at the same time?
Then Jimmy pictured Ian Coates.
“I’ll do it,” he rasped. His voice seemed reluctant to leave his throat. “I’ll do it.”
CHAPTER THREE – THWARTED (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
“Jimmy you can’t!” Georgie shouted.
Jimmy was already moving towards the window. It was Zafi who stopped him.
“I presume we can leave by the front door, no?” she chuckled.
Jimmy felt himself laugh too, but it came out like a grunt. It didn’t even sound like him. He turned to the door.
“Jimmy, stop,” Felix ordered, grabbing his friend by the arm. Jimmy didn’t look at him.
“Get off me,” he growled.
“No way.”
“Get off me, Felix,” Jimmy said again. “You know I could snap you in two, don’t you?”
“Jimmy, what are you saying?” Georgie yelled. She stepped between her brother and the door. Her face had gone white. “What’s happening to you?”
“Let him come,” Zafi insisted. “He wants to, can’t you see?”
“No, he doesn’t,” Georgie countered. “It’s not him.” She seized Jimmy’s face in her hands. “Come on, Jimmy, pull yourself together!”
Suddenly, Jimmy exploded with rage. “Get off me!” he boomed. He shook off his sister’s hands and pushed Felix away. They both staggered back a step or two.
“It doesn’t matter what you say,” Zafi muttered. “He doesn’t have any choice about it anyway. It’s his destiny.”
Jimmy felt the dark power inside him. It was the force that he thought he had learned to control. But it was always there and always growing more layers. It felt like a wild animal had burrowed even deeper inside him, devouring his soul as it went.
“Why are you doing this?” Georgie whispered. Jimmy looked at her and saw a horrible fear on her face.
“Are you winding us up?” Felix asked. “You are, aren’t you?”
Jimmy didn’t know how to respond. Felix’s chirpy tone was completely out of synch with the weight of Jimmy’s emotions.
“All right, tell you what,” Felix continued, bouncing on the spot, “I’m coming too.” Jimmy sighed. “Let’s go,” Felix insisted. With a flourish, he plucked one of the pillows from the bed and whipped off the pillowcase. Then he tied it around his neck. “Got to wrap up warm, cos, baby, it’s cold outside.”
“Felix, what are you doing?” Jimmy asked.
“I, my friend, am going to come with you and become a killer.”
None of them knew what to make of this – least of all Jimmy.
“Felix, this is serious,” he said.
“Yeah, serious,” Felix echoed. “Seriously, I’m so serious. Let’s go get serious with some Frenchies.” He grabbed Jimmy’s wrist again, but this time he was dragging his friend towards the door. “Come on, come on, haven’t got all day. People to kill.”
“Stop,” Jimmy urged feebly. He pulled his hand away. “You’re nuts.”
“I’m nuts?” Felix mocked. “Oh, I’m nuts. Yeah, cos, funny thing is, we all thought you wanted to stick with us and get away from the fighting and the murdering. But some little French bird flutters in here with her little gadgets and her cool eyeball trick – that was so cool by the way,” he quickly turned to Zafi and grinned. “And next thing you want to skip off to Paris to become an assassin, which is what NJ7 wanted you to be in the first place. But you’re right – I’m nuts.”
The others were stunned. If Georgie hadn’t been so upset, she would have laughed. Zafi was the first to break the silence.
“Your friend is weird,” she whispered.
“I know,” Jimmy mumbled, “He’s…”
“I like it.”
Finally, a smile forced its way on to Jimmy’s face. “Take off that pillowcase,” he said. “You look ridiculous.”
“So we’re staying?” Felix asked. Jimmy nodded, and his sister plunged her arms around him.
“You’re such an idiot,” Georgie scolded Jimmy even as she was hugging him. “You have to think about these things more carefully. We’re going to get out of here and be safe and normal again.”
“It’s a shame,” interjected Zafi. “They said if you didn’t want to come with me I should kill you.” Jimmy’s blood fizzed in his veins. Georgie gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. “Ha! Joking!” Zafi exploded into laughter. “Your faces are hilarious.”
Felix and Jimmy both let out a huge sigh of relief.
“I don’t think that’s funny!” Georgie shrieked.
“It was quite funny,” Felix suggested. “Not as funny as me obviously.”
“So it’s OK if I don’t, you know…” Jimmy asked.
“Of course,” Zafi replied, her voice light and almost squeaky. “You won’t work for us, but that’s OK because we know that you are no friend of NJ7.”
“I’d never work for them, don’t worry.” At last Jimmy started to relax. He almost felt like himself again.
“But NJ7 won’t have any distractions now,” Zafi warned him. “I can’t throw them off your trail any more. And if I can find you, they can find you. Get out of the country as quick as you can.” She opened the door and was framed by the darkness in the rest of the building. “Maybe we’ll meet again.”
To his surprise, Jimmy was sad that this girl was leaving. There was so much she might have been able to tell him. He was suddenly overcome by the urge to know everything about her. Had she also grown up thinking she was a normal child? Or had she always known that she was only 38 per cent human? She seemed a lot happier with it than Jimmy was. Did she have parents? Were they, like Jimmy’s, agents of the Government’s intelligence services? And had they kept it a secret?
With all this blurring his thoughts, Jimmy found it hard to say anything – even a simple goodbye. Zafi reached into her pocket.
“I’ll rewire the power supply outside on my way out,” she announced casually. Her hand emerged holding the remote control clicker that had turned on the lights in the room. “Something to remember me by.” She tossed it at Jimmy, who caught it in a daze.
“Don’t you need it?” Felix called out, but Zafi was already floating down the stairs, making hardly a sound. She glanced over her shoulder, her hair catching the streak of light through the banisters.
“I’ll make another one.”
Jimmy, Georgie and Felix were unable to move. They were stunned. Zafi had come in like a whirlwind and left as much devastation. She had made so little noise – they didn’t even hear the front door closing after her – and she displayed all the clinical killing instincts of a highly trained assassin. Yet her eyes had sparkled, her physique was delicate, her voice was soft and high, with a giggle that reminded Jimmy of the most annoying girls in his year at school.
While Jimmy was trying to fathom out how he felt, Felix reached across and swiped the gadget from his open palm. He clicked the lights on and off a couple of times.
“Cool,” he muttered under his breath. Then he asked, “Do you think we’ll, you know, see her again?”
Jimmy didn’t answer. His gut was telling him that he hoped they would. But, at the same time, he could hear a stern voice in his head. It told him that if he ever did see Zafi Sauvage again, it could only mean that he was in trouble.
Jimmy, Felix and Georgie didn’t bother going back to bed. There was no way any of them would have been able to sleep anyway. They were buzzing with adrenaline from Zafi’s visit. Instead, the three of them took their duvets down to the living room. Felix turned on the TV.
“Chris will go ballistic when he hears about what happened tonight,” he said.
“Do you think he’s OK?” Georgie asked Jimmy. “And Saffron?” There was no reply. “Well? Do you?”
Jimmy exploded with frustration. “I don’t know, do I? How is any of us meant to know?”
“All right, calm down, psycho.” Georgie threw up her hands.
Jimmy mumbled an apology. He could picture Christopher Viggo’s face as the man had driven off into the darkness the night before. With him had been his girlfriend, Saffron Walden, dying from an NJ7 bullet. Jimmy had already gone over and over it in his mind – hospitals were out because they were covered in security cameras, and they’d report a bullet wound to the police straight away. So unless Viggo knew a surgeon nearby who was also a so-called ‘enemy’ of Britain, Jimmy had no idea how Saffron was going to survive.
He curled up on the sofa, wishing his morbid thoughts would go away. Saffron and Viggo had done so much to help Jimmy. Viggo used to be an NJ7 agent himself, but he’d fled thirteen years earlier because of the evil of one man: Ares Hollingdale. From being Director of NJ7, Hollingdale had risen to become Prime Minister – but an undemocratic one. He’d used NJ7 to secure his position at the head of a dictatorship. And the population did nothing to stop him.
Sometimes, it seemed like Viggo and Saffron were the only sane people in Britain – at least, the only ones who were fighting for democracy.
Gradually, Jimmy’s attention returned to the TV.
“The new Prime Minister, Ian Coates, is about to land in Washington DC to meet with the American President, Alphonsus Grogan.” The newsreader was a woman with a vacant stare and a half-smile permanently on her lips. “The first item on their agenda will be American support for Britain in any possible military action against France, following French incursion into British airspace yesterday afternoon.”
With every mention of the Prime Minister, Jimmy felt something rumble in his belly. He forced it down and told himself it was hunger.
“Ian Coates will first meet with the President at the White House,” the newsreader went on, “before touring the cities of the East Coast of America. He will address the UN Security Council in New York in four days’ time to present the case for Britain’s legal right to retaliate against France.”
Usually, the last thing Jimmy would have wanted to do was watch the news. But everything had changed. Now it was urgent that they all knew what the Government was doing. This was their enemy.
“I can’t believe that’s our dad,” Georgie muttered.
Jimmy didn’t answer. Not ‘our’ dad, he thought. ‘Your’ dad. He felt a sting in his throat and wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. When he looked up, he saw his own face on the TV screen. It was the same old school photograph that Jimmy had seen on TV the day before.
“…still thought to be behind the murder of Ares Hollingdale,” the reporter was saying, “and still on the run.” The camera zoomed in on Jimmy’s eyes.
“It’s all right,” Felix stated calmly. “You don’t really look like that.”
“It’s all right?” Georgie exclaimed. “How is it ‘all right’ that they’re telling the whole country that Jimmy murdered the last Prime Minister?” Jimmy shrunk into himself. He just wished they didn’t have to talk about it.
In the last few weeks he had learned not to trust what came out of the TV. He could almost see the puppet-strings attached to the limbs of the newsreaders, and Miss Bennett somewhere, just out of shot, dictating every word that was said.
“Anyway,” Georgie piped up again, furious, “NJ7 knows Jimmy didn’t do it – because they did it.”
“What?” Felix asked. “You think Miss Bennett sent someone from NJ7 to kill their own Prime Minister?”
“Maybe. Hollingdale was sadistic and cruel and probably crazy. Maybe they’d had enough and wanted Dad to take over.”
Hardly realising he was speaking, Jimmy cut in. “He had it coming,” he snarled.
All three of them looked at each other, shocked at what Jimmy had said, even if it was true. Was it him or his programming that was spitting out such venomous thoughts? Jimmy couldn’t get any more words out of his mouth. He could feel his lips trembling, but there was nothing more to say.
The only sound was the drone of the television and the incessant ticking of a clock.
CHAPTER FOUR – DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
The British Prime Minister stepped out of the White House’s Oval Office to rejoin his assistants and his head of security, Paduk. The look on his face was far from optimistic.
“The President is considering our position,” he announced.
“What does that mean?” Paduk asked. “You were in there with him for over an hour. It’s not rocket science. Either he’s on our side or he isn’t.”
Ian Coates’ advisors huddled together in debate. He ignored them and threw himself into a chair of plush red velvet beneath a portrait of Hillary Clinton. He leaned his elbows on his knees and held his head. The quiet of the corridor was stifling and the cream walls seemed to be closing in on him. He felt like he was trapped inside a giant trifle. Somewhere, a clock ticked too loudly. Next to him, Paduk itched at his shirt collar.
“He can’t keep us waiting like this,” he grumbled. “Where’s the respect?”
Ian Coates shook his head. “It’s natural,” he explained, trying to stay calm. “We’re asking for their army to come and fight a war with us against France. That’s not a decision that can be hurried.”
Paduk grunted. “I remember when Americans were grateful to fight alongside us. Now they’ve forgotten everything. Most people in this country don’t even know where France is.”
“Most of them don’t know where Britain is either, Paduk.”
Suddenly, a door opposite them opened. They both shot to their feet and instinctively straightened their jackets. But it wasn’t the President who emerged, merely one of his aides. She was a woman in her early thirties, with brown hair tied back in a tight knot. The shoulders of her business suit were just a little too wide to be stylish and there was too much red lipstick lining her fake smile.
“Current US policy is not to intervene in foreign conflicts,” she announced. Her voice was clipped, with a clean mid-American accent. “But the President places great importance on the historical friendship between our two nations. Therefore, he would like to offer you a package of the finest military hardware the US industry has to offer.”
“Weapons?” Coates spluttered. “You’re offering me weapons?”
“Well, yes,” replied the aide. “As well as hardware of all other types – trucks, planes, missiles—”
“I know what military hardware is,” interrupted the Prime Minister. “So how much will this package cost?”
“Eighty billion dollars.”
Ian Coates let out an incredulous laugh. “I knew it,” he scoffed. “Grogan needed just enough time to phone the bosses at the arms companies, didn’t he?”
“I can’t answer that, sir,” replied the aide blankly.
“Tell Grogan I came to meet a President – not an arms dealer.” Coates spun on his heels and marched away, with Paduk and his own aides following close behind.
As they were escorted out of the White House, Ian Coates tried to contain his anger. He tried to imagine how he’d behave at the press conference that was coming up in a few days. How could he put a brave public face on this and pretend to be friends with the President of the USA? He also had to go through the motions of meeting with the UN in New York. But none of that ruled out the drastic action he could take in secret.
“Call Miss Bennett,” he hissed under his breath. “I’m approving the Reflex Plan.”
“The Reflex Plan?” Paduk gasped. “Are you sure?”
The Prime Minister nodded.
* * *
Mitchell checked the platform clock again. It was just habit now. He didn’t need to know the time – he wouldn’t even have remembered what it was if anybody had asked him. But every few minutes he looked up at the clock. His fingers tore and twisted at a paperclip he had found on the platform the night before.
It was days now since Mitchell had faced Jimmy, but not for a second had the confrontation left him. Every possible thought had blasted through his brain. And, like a high-powered water jet wearing down stone, his torment had reduced his mind to dust. At least, that was how it felt.
Your brother’s still alive.
Mitchell could still hear Jimmy’s words in his head. He had repeated them to himself so many times that they had almost lost all meaning. Another teenage boy walked past. He was probably a couple of years older than Mitchell – fifteen or sixteen. In Mitchell’s hunger and fatigue he saw his brother’s face on the boy, just the way it had looked when Mitchell had beaten it senseless. He shook his head hard and rubbed his eyes. The other boy was gone, but for Mitchell, the image of Lenny Glenthorne lying limp on the floor was as vivid as ever.
He could still feel the horror of being told that he had murdered his own brother. With that power over him, it had been easy for NJ7 to make Mitchell their assassin. They’d quickly sent him after his first target – Jimmy Coates. But when the moment came to complete the job, Mitchell was defeated – not by a stronger punch or some secret gadget, but because Jimmy had claimed that Mitchell’s brother wasn’t dead after all.
Since then, Mitchell’s survival instinct had forced him below ground. He had wandered through the Underground network, easily hiding from the overnight workers when the network closed in the early hours of each morning. He’d broken into the staff toilets to find water. He’d slept only a few hours at a time in any one place, continually moving on, sometimes walking through the tunnels and always avoiding the District Line – the line represented on the map by the biggest green stripe in London. His clothes and hands were black with dirt.
He could feel NJ7 all around him, watching. Not just in the thousands of security cameras, but in person. He’d seen those figures waiting for him – shadows that hovered on the platforms and by the exits. Agents of the Green Stripe were everywhere. He knew they could pick him up any time. They’d implanted a tracking chip in his heel. But that didn’t matter. Mitchell knew he was going to go back to them eventually. NJ7 was his life now. And it was a life that seemed to suit him well. The incident with his brother had led him to these things – training, purpose and something that could almost have felt like happiness.
Now he didn’t even know whether he wanted his brother to be alive or not. The possibility didn’t fill him with joy. His brother had beaten him up countless times. Maybe Lenny didn’t deserve to die, but he certainly didn’t deserve Mitchell fighting for him. Whether Mitchell had killed him, or NJ7 had just made it look that way, what difference did it make? Either way, Leonard Glenthorne was out of his life. Even if it turned out that NJ7 had killed him, there was nobody left in the world who was going to take revenge. Least of all me, Mitchell thought.
He looked up at the clock again. He didn’t even know how much time had passed. It was a good feeling to know that it had passed at all. He gave his paperclip a sharp kink with his thumb. A commuter strutted by, glancing at Mitchell’s face. All he saw was grime and suspicion. He looked away quickly, like everybody else did, and clutched his briefcase tighter.
Is this what I’ve become? thought Mitchell. No. I’mbetter than this. I’m different. I work for NJ7. He pushed himself off the bench and marched along the platform. He was still as strong as ever, despite so long with hardly anything to eat. After these days of confusion, he was ready for the truth. He was ready for NJ7.
Halfway along the platform Mitchell dropped to his knees. There was a square in the platform floor that looked like some kind of trapdoor. He had seen dozens of these all over the tube network. Each one was about half a metre square, with a tiny keyhole.
Hardly aware of what he was doing, Mitchell opened his fist. There was his paperclip, bent into a strange and intricate shape. Of course, he thought to himself, there must be easier ways to reach NJ7 than walking through the streets.
He jabbed his paperclip into the keyhole. All this time, his programming had been fashioning the perfect key. In one fluid movement, he hauled open the hatch, threw himself in, feet first, and pulled the door shut over him. He didn’t even bother opening his eyes.
Instead, he surrendered himself completely to the intelligent force that drove him. He had landed on his back in a dank crawlspace. He immediately rolled a few metres to the side, feeling the platform floor just a whisker above him. Without knowing why, he counted the rolls – one, two, three, four – until eventually his body stopped itself dead. His hands shot up and, after only a second to feel around, he again pressed his paperclip key into a hole. He gave it a quick turn, then punched open another hatch door.
Mitchell emerged beneath bare strip lights that warmed his face. Around him were grey concrete walls covered in loose wiring that looked like a rainbow on a glorious day. This was no longer London Underground. Mitchell was back at NJ7 Headquarters and he wanted some answers.
He snapped his paperclip in two and flicked it to the floor, then broke into a sprint. It felt as if every muscle was thanking him for the chance to run again. He still felt as if he was watching somebody else’s actions, but it was a show he enjoyed watching. He swelled with pride to see himself move with such authority.
He tracked his progress through the labyrinth with ease. There were no features to mark his route, just miles and miles of grey concrete tunnel. They were like the veins of his own body. He just needed to look inside himself to see where they led.
In some places the corridors were broad thoroughfares; in others they were barely wide enough for Mitchell to squeeze down. There were no doors of course – NJ7 Headquarters were designed so that if it ever became necessary to evacuate, the whole complex could be flooded by the Thames in 120 seconds.
The constant pad of Mitchell’s feet was virtually the only sound, but he ran on his toes, keeping the noise to a minimum. Then he heard something from round the next corner – tapping on a keyboard. In an instant, he made the calculation: just one person. A man. Sitting down. Facing the entrance of a room with no other way out. As he approached, he made more deductions based solely on the sound of the person typing: left-handed. Not a trained fighter because the arms weren’t strong enough, so a technician, not a field-agent.
Whoever it was, he was about to meet Mitchell Glenthorne.
Mitchell whipped round the corner. In front of him was exactly the scene he had pictured – a lone man, typing at his desk. The light from his computer screen picked out the whites of his eyes, which were stretched out in astonishment, and a green stripe on his lapel. A diamond twinkled in the man’s left earlobe. There was no time for him to cry out. Mitchell moved too fast, diving over the desk. He rocketed into the man’s torso, forcing him backwards over his chair. As they landed, one on top of the other, Mitchell’s fingers homed in on the earring.
With a vicious twist, he ripped it straight out of the man’s ear, bringing half the lobe with it. Now the man found the breath to cry out in agony. His hand snapped to the side of his head. Blood splattered over his crisp white shirt.
Mitchell held him down with one arm across his neck. They were face to face. Mitchell hadn’t seen this man at NJ7 before, and though he looked young, he didn’t seem inexperienced. There was a sinister confidence in his expression that said he knew situations like this.
“Where’s Miss Bennett?” Mitchell hissed.
“Mitchell, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” the man replied calmly. His accent was faintly Irish. “But I don’t believe you have an appointment.”
Mitchell was outraged by the lack of fear. He brought the earring up to the man’s face and examined the sharp tip at the back. “I’ll appoint this in your eye unless you tell me where Miss Bennett is.”
The man didn’t flinch. For a second the only movement was the throbbing of a vein in his temple. “She’s in a meeting.” A smile crept up the man’s cheeks.
Mitchell pretended to stab the earring downwards, but stopped short. The man blinked and tried to pull away, but he was at the mercy of a thirteen-year-old boy. Mitchell felt the man’s breathing quicken.
“Try again,” Mitchell hissed. “I won’t be pretending next time.”
The answer came almost straight away, but in a smug whisper: “Dr Higgins’ old office.”
Mitchell rolled to one side and pushed himself up, launching into a run. He wove through the tunnels again, with a diamond earring in his fist and blood covering one arm.
“Did you lie to me?” he barked as soon as he turned the corner into Dr Higgins’ office. Miss Bennett was facing away from him, pencil and notepad in hand, studying one of the charts on the wall. The room was lined with computers and in the centre was a large empty desk. Miss Bennett’s curves were silhouetted against the wall. There was a green stripe down the back of her stilettos.
“Welcome back, Mitchell.” She sounded almost bored and didn’t turn round. “Been sightseeing?”
“Where’s my brother?” choked Mitchell. “Is he alive?” He edged round the room towards her and at last she turned to face him. The smile on her face offered no comfort.
“What do you think?” she asked.
Mitchell couldn’t hold back his temper any more. “Tell me the truth or I’ll rip you apart.”
“You’ve made a very basic mistake,” Miss Bennett stated clearly.
“My mistake was trusting you.”
“It’s worse than trusting me, I’m afraid.” For an instant, her cheeks seemed to flush with excitement. “You’ve underestimated me.”
Still staring at Mitchell, she reached behind her and tapped a key on the keyboard of a computer. Suddenly, a blinding strobe light flashed from the monitor. Mitchell’s hands rushed to his face, but it was too late. He was temporarily blinded. Then he felt a vicious stab on his forehead. It knocked all sense of balance out of him. He tumbled to his knees. After a few moments, he could see again, but he just dropped his head and looked to the floor.
Miss Bennett took a deep breath. “Mitchell Glenthorne, I don’t respond well to threats. In future you will raise all your enquiries with the appropriate courtesy.” Mitchell made no response. Miss Bennett bent down low. She placed a finger under Mitchell’s chin and raised his face to meet hers. Her perfume coated Mitchell’s nostrils. “I mean you’ll say please and thank you,” she whispered. To Mitchell it felt like the most terrifying telling off he could have imagined.
He couldn’t believe it. With such a powerful assassin inside him, surely he could have sprung up and taken control. He heard a distant calling in his head, urging him to resist. But the fight was gone from his heart. He had no real reason to challenge Miss Bennett. She was one of the few people in his life who had treated him well.
“If we hadn’t told you your brother was dead,” she explained gently, “you would never have agreed to work for us, would you?” Mitchell shook his head. “And that would have been the real tragedy, wouldn’t it? Because, you see, this is where you belong.”
“So you killed him, not me?” Mitchell asked meekly. A release of energy surged through him – was that relief?
Miss Bennett took him by the shoulder and helped him to his feet. “No,” she replied. “Nobody killed him.”
Mitchell’s relief froze. The news should have made him happy, but it didn’t. Instead, he could feel anxiety creeping through him, stiffening every muscle.
“You came close,” Miss Bennett went on, “but NJ7 doctors are keeping him alive for their own purposes.”
Mitchell felt a jolt of anger. His cheeks grew hot and his hands trembled slightly. But it was anger at himself. How could he have behaved like this? He was an assassin working for the finest espionage organisation in the world. It was time to annihilate his old feelings. He clenched his teeth and forced himself to stand tall, looking straight at Miss Bennett. This was his family now.
“You sent agents after me,” he said, holding his voice steady. “Just now, when I was hiding on the Underground, I mean. Why didn’t they bring me in?”
“I knew you’d come back,” Miss Bennett countered, obviously trying to sound casual about it. “You’re not like that other one, Jimmy Coates. I had agents keeping an eye on you just to make sure you didn’t cause any trouble, but I thought you deserved some time to yourself. You’ve worked very hard. Now, isn’t it good that I trusted you?” She smiled a feline smile, then pulled out a mobile phone from her suit jacket and punched a few keys.
“But while you’ve been away, some of us have been working,” she added. “There’s someone you need to meet.”
A few seconds later there were footsteps in the corridor. Then in walked a short man in his mid-twenties, who had a blood-soaked rag clutched to his ear and a look of deep resentment on his face.
“This,” Miss Bennett announced grandly, “is the man who is going to end the Jimmy Coates affair and bring order back to Britain’s Neo-democratic project.” She held out an arm in welcome. “Mitchell, meet the new head of NJ7’s technological team, Ark Stanton.”
“Yeah,” grunted the man. “We already met, thanks.”
CHAPTER FIVE – THE REFLEX PLAN (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
Mitchell couldn’t help laughing. This was clearly a man who liked to be smartly turned out. There’s only so much you can do to look good when there’s blood pouring out of one ripped earlobe. Apart from that, he looked like an artist had sculpted his head out of olive-brown clay and stuck on two flints of slate for his eyes. It was a perfectly proportioned face, even down to the impeccably neat layer of stubble.
“What the hell happened to your ear, Stanton?” Miss Bennett asked.
“Just an experiment that went wrong.” He glared at Mitchell, his Irish accent a little stronger than before.
“I think this belongs to you,” Mitchell announced casually, holding out a diamond earring. Ark Stanton pocketed it abruptly.
It didn’t take long for the man to find some bandages and patch up his ear properly. Then he pulled a mirror from Dr Higgins’ old desk and wiped most of the blood from his face. His shirt was almost completely red, blending in with the worn, leather worktop.
“Well?” barked Miss Bennett. “What have you got for me? I’ve been told you’re a genius.” Before Stanton could even smile, she added, “I never trust what I’m told.”
In response, Stanton could only sneer. When he started his explanation, there were daggers in his voice.
“As you know,” he began, “Jimmy Coates doesn’t transmit a signal.” He pulled out a pile of papers from a drawer and slammed them down in front of him on the desk. “He was designed that way so that no enemy could trace him. Unfortunately, it means that we can’t trace him either. So I wondered whether, instead of transmitting a signal, he could receive one. He wasn’t designed to receive signals electronically, but I studied Dr Higgins’ old notes and I believe that if we transmit a series of strong enough images, bombarding every frequency, it could be enough to jam Jimmy’s programming.”
“What do you mean, jam his programming?” Miss Bennett scoffed. “He’ll just fall over and melt?”
“No, he won’t even realise it’s happening, but we could force him to do certain things he would never usually do, or go places without knowing why. All the time, he’d feel like it was his programming compelling him to act. But it’ll be us.”
Mitchell looked across at Miss Bennett’s blank expression. He wasn’t great with computers, but this seemed like technical talk that was fairly simple to understand.
“You mean it’ll be like hacking into him and giving him a virus.” He tried to sound casual about it, but really he thought Stanton’s idea was one of the most fantastic he had ever heard. Miss Bennett glanced at him. He didn’t look back, but couldn’t hide his proud smile.
“Yeah, that’s sort of right,” Stanton replied. His ear may have been bandaged now, but he hadn’t forgotten about his run-in with Mitchell. He glared at him a moment longer than was necessary. “Except that we can’t just email it to him,” he went on. “We need to transmit it through the airwaves and force it on him. So it’s everywhere around him – in the very air he breathes.”
“But we don’t know where he is,” Miss Bennett interjected. “We’d need a transmitter strong enough to cover the whole country.”
“Or a network of transmitters.” Stanton let his full lips curl into a smile. His eyes twinkled like the earring Mitchell had ripped out.
“You look like a man who has something in mind, Ark,” Miss Bennett cooed.
“Mobile phone masts.”
“Yes, of course,” Miss Bennett gasped, leaning back in her seat. Her eyes seemed to go misty for a second or two and her words were faint. “Even if we can’t find him,” she whispered, “we can control him.”
“The signal might periodically jam some other electrical systems,” Stanton interrupted, “but nothing serious.”
“Like what?” Miss Bennett asked suspiciously.
“The power supply, air-traffic control, TV reception.”
“Air-traffic control isn’t serious?”
Stanton shrugged. “Were you thinking of flying somewhere?”
Miss Bennett stroked her chin for a second, then also shrugged.
“What about me?” Mitchell asked. “Won’t I also, you know, pick up the signal?” He squirmed a little – referring to himself as if he was a radio didn't come naturally.
“Forget about it,” Stanton told him. “You might get headaches or muscle cramps, but the signal’s designed for Jimmy’s psyche, not yours.”
Mitchell nodded uncertainly.
“So,” Miss Bennett cut in, “apart from control over every phone mast in the country, what else do you need?”
“I need to know everything there is to know about Jimmy,” Stanton gabbled, delighted that his plan was being taken seriously. “For maximum impact I’ll need a psychologist, a graphic designer, and a complete behavioural and emotional profile of the target.”
“You need to know how Jimmy behaves and feels?”
“Yes – I need to get inside his head. Will I have any chance to interview the Prime Minister? He would know him best, wouldn’t he?”
“No time for that,” Miss Bennett murmured. “He’s in America.”
She thought for a moment and looked sideways at Mitchell. He always assumed he had done something wrong when she did that, but he held his chest out, not wanting to seem uneasy.
“Eva Doren,” Miss Bennett announced suddenly. “The girl’s known him for years through his sister. Recently she was even living with him. She must have observed something. I knew that girl would be useful to this organisation.” Miss Bennett jumped up, full of excitement.
“What about her family?” Stanton asked. “Are they still looking for her?”
“Unfortunately, yes. They’re a nuisance.”
“What if they find out she’s here and take her away? I don’t want to lose Eva halfway through the project. I’m not so worried about her parents, but those two brothers of hers are angry. I heard they were smart too. They could cause problems. And Eva’s intelligence will be integral to this project.”
Miss Bennett raised an eyebrow. “Is she that clever?”
“This isn’t a joke, Miss Bennett. You know I mean the vital information she can provide us about the target.” Stanton’s expression was becoming more fraught. Miss Bennett raised a hand to calm him down.
“I’ll deal with them,” she said softly. “Her parents and her brothers. Don’t worry. But wait a minute, if we’re going to control Jimmy, we have to decide what we’re going to make him do…”
Stanton smiled, relaxed once more and leaned forward to conspire closer.
“Actually, I have designed some rough images ready for transmission. I thought this would be the perfect way to implement the Reflex Plan.”
Miss Bennett seemed to freeze. This was the first time Mitchell had seen her remotely close to being dumbfounded, but he had no idea what this ‘Reflex Plan’ was. Gradually, Miss Bennett’s expression melted into one of utter glee.
“Well, that would mean I could assign this young gentleman another mission.” She was almost talking to herself, but Mitchell knew she meant him. Then she leapt up and her words reverberated around the bunker. “Well, what are you waiting for? We can improve the images as we go along. For now – start transmitting the signal.”
“Miss Bennett,” Stanton smirked, “we already are.”
Jimmy knew not to look the checkout girl in the eye. But his new appearance made him seem older than nearly twelve, and he could think of a much more natural way for a teenage boy to act. When he took his change he lifted his head and smiled.
“Thanks, love,” he grunted. Then he winked and swaggered away.
His hair was bleached blond now, and spiked. It wasn’t inconspicuous, but it was certainly different to the pictures of him on the news. His new look, combined with his confident demeanour, meant there was no way that checkout girl would connect him to the boy everyone was after.
Jimmy moved briskly down the street. Since Zafi had left them, they had spent three days in hiding at the Bed and Breakfast place. Too long, Jimmy thought. Despite Zafi telling them to move on straight away, they had stayed put, waiting for Christopher Viggo. But now, even in this short walk back from the corner shop, Jimmy saw threats on every side. Every shadow twitched; every sound was a cocked rifle; every passer-by was an NJ7 agent about to pounce.
Jimmy pulled his hoodie over his head and quickened his stride. His heart picked up its pace as well. There was something wrong. It was in the rhythm of his steps – they had an echo. Somebody was following him. He stopped dead. One step later, so did whoever was following. Jimmy pretended to be looking in a shop window. He studied the reflection, comparing every shadow to what he could remember of the street behind him. What had changed? He could feel his gut churning, but was it his programming preparing for a strike, or his fear?
A breeze sent a chill through his body. He couldn’t stay standing in the street like that. It was too exposed. Should he run? I shouldn’t have come out at all, he thought. Even though it was starting to get dark, he felt far too visible. He knew the others were just as vulnerable to an ambush by NJ7. Any of them could be recognised, but Jimmy was the only one equipped to deal with the danger, except for his mother. She had once been a fully trained NJ7 operative, but she’d already been out for a pile of second-hand clothes, the bleach for Jimmy’s hair and basic food supplies. It was too risky for the same person to go out again and they’d needed to replenish their stock of fresh groceries.
Jimmy’s eyes flicked from side to side, checking for even the slightest hint at the presence of the Green Stripe. Am I imagining things? he wondered. Noises, shadows, suspicions – was this the only evidence he had that he was being followed? The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Get back, he ordered himself. Quickly. His instincts were screaming it.
When he turned to carry on walking, he was sure he caught a glimpse of a figure crouching behind one of the cars. Attack me, he urged inside his head. Please, attack. At least if they did, Jimmy would know that he wasn’t going mad and then maybe this whole thing could be over. But no attack came.
Eventually, he was back inside the refuge of the Bed and Breakfast.
“We’ve got to move on,” he shouted out. One by one the others emerged into the hallway. “This is crazy. They know we’re here. I can feel it.”
“Calm down,” his mother reassured him.
“You’re the one that’s crazy,” added Georgie. “If NJ7 knew where we were they would have come to get us.”
“Somebody was following me out there.” Jimmy looked at the faces of the others. Each of them was more filled with doubt and fear.
“Are you sure?” his mother asked. Jimmy didn’t answer. He knew he couldn’t be sure, but he was almost overwhelmed by that jittery feeling. His programming was warning him that there had been somebody else out there in the street. And Jimmy had learned that when his programming told him something, he should trust it – without question.
“We have to wait for Chris,” Helen Coates insisted.
“Why?” Jimmy snapped back. “Why do we have to wait for Chris?”
His mother was astonished. “What do you mean?”
“If this were an NJ7 operation,” Jimmy went on, “would we wait for Chris? Would we? I’m telling you, it’s the wrong decision. We’re running out of money already, and for all we know Chris might not be back for weeks. What if he can’t find a doctor who will help Saffron in secret? What if—”
“We have to give him every chance,” his mother cut in. “Otherwise we’re abandoning the one man who’s done most to help us, aren’t we?”
“Is that really why we’re waiting for him, Mum? Because he helped us?” Jimmy dropped the groceries and rubbed his eyes. “What good does it do him if we wait here? Does he need us? Or do we need him? Do you need him, Mum?”
Everybody stared at him – Felix and Georgie, Felix’s parents, and Jimmy’s mother. Even the couple who used to run the B&B shuffled down the stairs to see what the shouting was about. Jimmy longed to know what was going on in his mother’s mind.
“What if he doesn’t come back at all?” he whispered.
Everybody in the hallway took on a look of horror. But gradually, Jimmy realised none of them was looking at him any more – they were staring straight over his head.
Jimmy spun round to see a black silhouette in the frosted glass of the door. Before he could move, the door handle slowly turned. With a click, the door opened just a crack, and four fingers curled around the wood. The wind swept in, bringing with it the words, “You shouldn’t leave the door unlocked.”
With that, Christopher Viggo was back.
CHAPTER SIX – TWENTY-SEVEN LIVES (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
Eva stepped into the spotlight with a heavy sigh. The panel had allowed her a break, but it had seemed like only a few seconds – one deep breath and it was over. She had no idea what time it was because the room was one of NJ7’s concrete bunkers, completely enclosed from the outside world. When she turned to face the panel again, she felt like they had been going so long and worked so hard that they had pummelled time itself out of existence.
Her reddish-brown hair was tied back in a pony tail. Her head was spinning and her eyes throbbed from the hours under the intense illumination. She couldn’t even see the people interviewing her from here, though she knew it was a man called Ark Stanton, a psychologist called Dr Amar and a graphic designer. The designer had a clipboard on his lap and the sound of his felt-tip pen scratching against the paper ground at Eva’s nerves. A bead of sweat tickled the back of her neck.
“Let’s return to Jimmy’s temper,” Dr Amar began. His voice was high-pitched – a smug, Scottish whine. “If a wasp stung him, would he respond a) with indifference, b) by saying ‘ouch’ and frowning, c) in some more physical manner or d) by chasing after the wasp and trying to kill it?”
Eva wiped her brow. “I don’t know,” she whimpered. “I told you, I don’t know things like that. This whole thing is ridiculous.”
She couldn’t see the panel, but she could feel them glaring at her even more intensely than the 400-watt bulb that shone in her face. She knew she had to help NJ7 so that she could keep pretending to be on their side. They mustn’t suspect for an instant that she was still loyal to Jimmy and, of course, her best friend Georgie. In the long run, she was sure that it would turn out to be the right decision – she could do her friends more good as a spy within NJ7 than if she’d also escaped. But that meant she could never refuse to cooperate with the Government. If they suspected her deceit, she would be finished.
But today, they had taken a sudden extra interest in her. They’d subjected her to these strange and intense conditions, then interrogated her with hardly a moment’s pause. Hours and hours, with more and more questions – all about Jimmy. Surely this meant they had found her out.
“We need to know, Eva,” Ark Stanton said firmly.
“Erm…” Eva squirmed and fought back the tears. Any second she knew she would break down and confess everything. She could picture herself doing it and a huge part of her longed to give in.
“Make your best guess,” Dr Amar insisted. “Is it a, b, c or d?”
Eva was genuinely trying to work out the answer, but could hardly remember the question. Her thoughts were continually invaded by memories of her friends. She missed them all even more than she missed her own family. The feeling was so strong it made her feel sick. She peered into the light, shielding her eyes with her hand.
“I’m sorry about the extreme conditions, my dear,” the psychologist added. “They are necessary so that we can scrutinise your physical responses as well as your verbal ones. We need a thorough psychological profile of the target.”
“The target?” Eva repeated instinctively. She did her best to hide her distress, but how could she conceal anything under this much scrutiny? The light burned into her forehead. The designer’s pen tapped against his clipboard, and each tap pounded through Eva’s head. They know, she thought. They know I’m a traitor. Admit it and they won’t kill you.
Her breathing was rapid. Each breath felt like sandpaper in her throat. A tear dripped through the sweat on her face. She opened her mouth, about to spill everything, but suddenly… blackness.
Stanton had switched off the spotlight. Eva’s eyes took several seconds to adjust to the normal light of the room.
“I think we’ve got as much out of you as we can for today,” Stanton muttered. “You’ve done well. Thanks, kid.” Eva couldn’t speak. She choked back a scream and looked around her, dazed.
“We can carry on tomorrow,” Stanton continued. “Thanks, doctor.” He signalled to the psychologist and the graphic designer. Both nodded, gathered their notes, and left. On his way out, Dr Amar took the film from a camera that had been trained on Eva the whole time. Then she was alone with Ark Stanton.
“That was tough, wasn’t it?” he started, his soft voice coming like an embrace to Eva’s ears. “Your intelligence is vital, you know. Dr Higgins would have had all the answers, but he’s gone. Miss Bennett knew Jimmy well as his form teacher, but that’s old data now. You are the last person to have spent time with Jimmy. The last person on our side anyway. You can tell us how he thinks, how he acts and how far his capabilities have developed.”
“Maybe it would help if I knew what all this was for,” Eva suggested. If she knew what was going on, she might be able to help Jimmy.
Stanton thought for a second, then nodded. “Let me show you what we’re going to use it for. You deserve it. You’ve worked hard.”
He dashed out of the room and came back cradling a cat in his arms. Its fur was black and ragged, sticking out from a tough, wiry frame.
“Say hello to Miles,” Stanton announced, shaking the cat’s paw in Eva’s direction. “This used to belong to Dr Higgins. He left it here when he deserted.”
Eva was so confused she didn’t know what do with herself. Seconds before, she thought she was going to be exposed as a double agent – now she was being introduced to the staff pets. She could feel her knees quivering and had to consciously try to relax them.
“This isn’t an ordinary cat though,” Stanton explained, placing the animal carefully on the floor. He pulled his chair up behind his desk and tapped a few keys on his computer. His eyes were still on the screen as he spoke. “When Dr Higgins and his team were designing the organically programmed assassins, they needed a prototype.”
“A prototype?” Eva gasped, slowly pulling herself back together.
“To test the technology,” Stanton replied, still focused on the computer. “So they built a cat.”
Eva couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She stared at the creature at her feet. It curled round her ankles and peered up at her, purring.
“This cat is… an organic assassin?” She could hardly contain a laugh. It was as if she’d slipped into a weird dream.
“No,” tutted Stanton. “The cat’s not an assassin. They couldn’t programme that sort of intention into a cat. Miles is just tougher, stronger and faster – plus he’s survived to be about three times the age of any cat that ever lived.”
“A cat with twenty-seven lives,” Eva mumbled, reaching down to stroke it.
“What was that?”
“Oh, nothing.” She felt its warmth on her hand. “Poor thing.”
“Useful thing, you mean,” Stanton insisted. “Thanks to Miles I can test out my theory about Jimmy Coates.” Then he reached forward and set up what looked like a grey plastic stick on a little stand – an aerial. There was a broad smile on his face as he tapped one final key. He leaned back, a glint in his eye, and whispered, “Watch this.”
Eva didn’t know what he was talking about at first. Stroking the cat was the most relaxing thing she’d done in all the time she’d been at NJ7. She was quite happy to lose herself in that feeling, but suddenly the cat pulled away and hissed. Eva jumped and drew her hand back sharply. For a second, she was terrified that the cat was going to attack her. But it didn’t.
Instead, the creature lurched sideways as if an invisible train had hit it – then slammed against the concrete wall. Eva let out a yelp of disgust. The cat slid down to the floor. But that wasn’t the end of it. Eva could only watch as Miles shook off the pain, crawled a few metres, then hurled itself against the wall once more. This time it crashed head first and a smear of cat blood followed it to the floor.
“Stop that!” Eva screamed. “He’s gone mad! He’s going to kill himself!”
“Ha! Don’t worry,” Stanton laughed. “He’s tough. It would take hours of this to kill him.”
“Stop it!” Eva cried again, her hands over her face. “Stop it now!” Her whole body was trembling at the horror of it. She staggered forwards to grab hold of the cat, but it hissed at her with murder in its eyes, then dived at the concrete again.
“Enough!” Eva yelled, her words barely audible through her tears.
At last, Stanton tapped the space bar. “Looks like Miles was receiving my signal all right,” he chuckled.
Eva felt she never wanted to open her eyes again, but she couldn’t stop herself watching the cat. Its self-destructive passion had gone. It was reeling about as if it was drunk, and licked its paws to start slicking back its fur. Then it limped out of the room.
“You’re going to do that to Jimmy?” Eva panted. The blood on the wall burned into her eyes. It was the only colour in a room full of grey.
“No, no,” Stanton replied. “He might be a kid, but he’s smarter than that cat. Jimmy will destroy himself in a much more sophisticated way. I’m designing the signal now.”
Terror seized Eva’s body. She had guessed what Ark Stanton was going to say next.
“And Eva,” he declared, “I couldn’t do it without you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN – KILL ZAF-1 (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
Viggo walked into a scene of stunned silence. He smiled his small smile, nodded his head to Helen and ruffled Jimmy’s hair as he walked past. He went straight through the hall and into the living room without anybody stopping him. His stubble seemed a little coarser than when he had left them and there was a cut healing along the right side of his imposing jawbone. It looked a couple of days old to Jimmy.
“So, like, what?” Felix blurted out. “Did I miss something? Are we not speaking to him any more?”
“I think we’re just pleased to see him,” said Felix’s mum glancing at Helen Coates, who sighed wearily.
“I suppose I better put the kettle on,” she said.
“Great,” chirped Felix. “Any biscuits in those bags, Jimmy?”
Unfortunately, as soon as Helen flicked the kettle on, the lights went out.
“See what you did, Chris?” she called out, trying to make a joke of it. “You turn up and there’s a power cut.”
“Looks like the whole block,” added Felix’s mum, pressing her nose up against the window.
It was a few minutes before they found candles and some matches. Eventually they crowded round Viggo in the living room.
“You know what?” he announced. “I actually missed all you ugly mugs.”
“I bet you thought we couldn’t survive without you,” Jimmy chuckled.
Viggo broke into a broad smile. “Without me,” he said, “I thought you wouldn’t even be able to wipe your—”
“That’ll do, Chris,” Jimmy’s mum cut in, placing a hand on his shoulder. Felix tried hard to stifle his laughter, and Jimmy felt his tension dissolve. But there was still a dark question on his mind. It was Georgie who asked it first:
“How’s Saffron?”
Viggo’s mood suddenly changed. He sucked some air in through his teeth.
“She’s going to be OK,” he said. Everybody sighed with relief. “I found someone who could help and she’s being looked after. I think she’s safe.”
“And she’s recovering?”
“It was touch and go when I left, but more touch than go.”
“Wait, which one’s good?” Felix chipped in. “Touch or go?”
“What I mean is,” Viggo explained, “she seemed to be getting better. But slowly – her recovery will take time. And unless Jimmy has developed the power of a Delorean, time is what we don’t have.”
“What’s a Delorean?” Jimmy asked, his face screwed up. Georgie and Felix were pulling the same expression. Felix’s dad let out a deep, explosive laugh.
“It’s from an old movie,” he chuckled. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Shouldn’t you have stayed with Saffron?” asked Felix’s mum.
“I wish I could,” Viggo replied. “But she’s safer without me there – apart from Jimmy, I’m NJ7’s most wanted. As soon as I can, I’ll go back for her or get her to join us. But for now, we’ve got a great opportunity to escape. And we have to take it quickly. It looks like the only reason NJ7 haven’t found us already is because something threw them off the scent.”
“That was Zafi,” Jimmy said firmly.
“Zafi?” spluttered Viggo. “Who or what is Zafi?”
“ZAF-1,” Jimmy replied, feeling the words stick slightly. He’d never said this out loud before. “She’s the French version of me.”
“Bloomin’ brilliant,” muttered Viggo, rubbing the back of his neck. “This gets better and better, doesn’t it? Well, you don’t have to worry about what this Zafi person told you. I’ve got some new contacts of my own. It’s a huge chance for us. They’re going to help us get out.”
“Out of the country?” asked Georgie.
“That’s right – out of the country and into hiding.”
“We’re running out of money,” Helen interjected. “And I can’t exactly withdraw cash from my account. You realise that, don’t you?”
“Don’t worry.” Viggo dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand. “It’s all taken care of.” Helen raised an eyebrow.
“Where are we going?” Jimmy and Felix asked at almost exactly the same time,
Viggo couldn’t help smiling now – and smiling properly, with his teeth glinting. He stood up, stretched, then took Jimmy by the shoulders and announced, “New York City!”
Jimmy, Felix and Georgie were overjoyed. The boys jumped up and down, punching the air, nearly knocking over some of the candles. Georgie let out a tiny scream and slapped her hand over her mouth.
Jimmy had heard so much about the USA. It was the place where all the great products came from – the best games, the best clothes, the best music. But most of it was only available in the UK if it was imported illegally. Ares Hollingdale had gradually made it harder and harder for foreign companies to sell their products in Britain. He’d hated anything that wasn’t British. Even American TV shows were heavily censored – sometimes the jokes didn’t even make any sense, although Jimmy realised that might not have been to do with the censoring. In any case, that had been the only way for him to learn about the USA. He had never imagined that he would have the chance to go there.
Jimmy’s mother was more subdued. She moved closer to Viggo and asked under her breath, “Who are these new contacts, Chris?”
“I’ll explain later.” They stared into each other’s eyes for a second before Viggo finally looked away. “Everything’s arranged. There’s a van outside – the one I came here in. In the morning we’re all driving to Heathrow. These guys will get us through customs and everything.”
“Must be pretty powerful contacts,” muttered Helen. Only Jimmy noticed her unease. Everybody else was celebrating. An extra cheer went up when the lights suddenly came back on. In the split-second before anybody had adjusted, Jimmy caught sight of Viggo’s face. Why wouldn’t he explain who these contacts were, Jimmy wondered. He could feel his insides shifting like quicksand. There was something wrong here. What bargaining had Viggo conducted to set up such an easy escape? And what sacrifices was Jimmy going to have to make in order to fulfil that man’s side of the deal?
“We’ll leave early,” Viggo proclaimed. “Everyone should try to get a few hours’ sleep.”
It was only on his way up to bed that a new worry hit Jimmy. America was where Ian Coates was. The Prime Minister of Great Britain, the man Jimmy now referred to, in his head, as his “ex-father”, was in Washington to meet the President and the US Senate.
Am I cursed? Jimmy thought. Do I have to follow that man wherever he goes? At least his ex-father would be in a different city. There was some comfort in that. Nevertheless, Jimmy went to sleep with one fear – that if the two of them ever met again, Jimmy didn’t know what his instincts would make him do.
“Miss Bennett, I don’t get it.” Mitchell was hunched forward at his desk in one of the briefing rooms at NJ7. He was alone in there with the director of the agency. The surroundings were as bare as they could be – slabs of concrete for walls, with a few exposed wires snaking their way around. This briefing room, like all the others, also had a few desks and an overhead projector attached to a laptop. Mitchell noticed that the logo on the back of the laptop didn’t belong to any huge American corporation. It was a simple green stripe.
“Why aren’t you sending somebody else instead?” he went on. “I’d understand that. But there’s nobody going after Jimmy Coates at all.”
Miss Bennett was busy at the laptop, but after a few seconds she looked up at Mitchell.
“Oh, you’d understand it, would you?” she said sarcastically. “If I sent somebody else to kill Jimmy Coates? After you were in a position to kill him twice and failed? That’s so understanding of you.”
Mitchell hadn’t been to school in a while now, but that feeling of being the least significant person in the world flooded back. He bowed his head and stared at his desk.
“Oh, cheer up, Glenthorne,” Miss Bennett insisted. “You’re still the best thirteen-year-old, genetically programmed assassin we’ve got.” She laughed, and after a couple of seconds Mitchell did too. He buzzed with the excitement of being back in the briefing room. It could only mean a new mission. And if it wasn’t Jimmy Coates, Mitchell had no idea what it could be.
The overhead projector flashed to life. Emblazoned across it in massive letters was ZAF-1.
“ZAF-1,” announced Miss Bennett.
“Yeah,” Mitchell muttered, “I can read.”
Miss Bennett glared at him. He shrunk into his chair. Clearly, sarcasm was a one-way street.
“Dr Higgins’ papers seem to suggest that for over a decade, the DGSE, the French Secret Service, have had access to the assassin technology that built you.”
Mitchell tensed up. Suddenly, he was paying closer attention. Miss Bennett went on, her voice sounding just like a teacher explaining part of some textbook.
“At first we thought ZAF-1 referred to a second French intelligence agency. Now we’ve realised, of course, that there’s hardly enough intelligence in the whole of France for one agency – let alone two.”
Mitchell chuckled.
“Our current theory,” Miss Bennett went on, “is that ‘ZAF-1’ refers to a French assassin. The oldest he could be is about twelve, and if he were any younger than nine he would be almost completely ineffective.” She pressed a button on the laptop to flick to the next screen. Nothing happened.
“Oh, blast,” she exclaimed. “I hate PowerPoint.”
“I’ll show you,” sighed Mitchell, pushing himself up. His chair leg screeched on the floor, but not as loud as Miss Bennett yelled at him now.
“I don’t need showing, thank you!” She slammed the lid of the laptop shut. “The rest is simple. Find the French assassin. Kill him before he kills you.”
“What do you mean, ‘before he kills me’?”
“What do you think I mean? If the French could steal the assassin technology, they could also know about you. Pretty soon we’re going to be at war with France. We know that and they know that. So, just like us, the first person they will want to eliminate is their enemy’s most powerful assassin.”
Pride rushed through Mitchell. Miss Bennett wasn’t being sarcastic about his abilities any more. He sat at his desk with his chest upright and broad. “Where do I start looking?”
He had never expected to be sent on a mission where so little was known about his target – what he looked like, where he was or even whether he definitely existed. But somehow, all of that doubt added to the feeling of responsibility. It certainly added to the excitement. Mitchell could feel the tips of his fingers tingling.
“Paris,” Miss Bennett explained. “I have a support network spread out across France right now and several agents in the process of infiltrating the DGSE as moles. They should have information for you in a few days. Start your own investigations in Paris and I’ll arrange for you to meet with one of these agents as soon as they have something for you. Good luck. Britain is depending on you.”
Mitchell’s face stretched into the biggest smile of his life. The trials of the last week were behind him now. The boy in him had set aside his confusion. He was an assassin again – time to find his target.
CHAPTER EIGHT – I DREAMED (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
Heathrow airport was full of armed police. It always was. Jimmy knew that. But he still couldn’t force down the feeling that every one of them was staring at him. CCTV cameras peered into every corner of the terminal building.
Suddenly, there was a bang. Jimmy jumped. He sniffed for the smell of cordite and swivelled round, expecting the black nose of a machine gun to be pointed straight at him.
“Calm down,” Felix hissed. “It was just that guy dropping his suitcase.”
Jimmy said nothing. He marched on through the terminal. There weren’t many people about – it was before the midmorning rush, and in any case, not that many people travelled in and out of Britain these days. The light glared off the lino floor. The sounds of people getting on with their business mixed with the squeaking of their shoes and the ticking of the terminal clock.
In Jimmy, every muscle was ripped tight. He and Felix had been paired off together, while the others spread out around the terminal. Each group was to check in at a different desk and at a different time, though every now and again Jimmy caught a glimpse of one of them through the crowd.
“I should be tense,” Felix carried on. “Not you. They could bring me down by sneezing too hard.”
But I’m the one they’re after, Jimmy thought. He checked the back pocket of his jeans again. The corners of the fake documents dug into him. Another false identity. Another new life he’d destroy as soon as it was finished with. He’d examined them in the van on the drive to the airport. He’d looked as hard as he could without getting car sick, and they seemed good – too good in fact. The more pieces of this operation Jimmy saw, the more he was worried about who these new contacts of Viggo’s might be. Still, he had no choice now but to go along with the plan and remember his false details: Sam O’Shaughnessy, from Acton.
Suddenly, he let out a yelp of pain and pressed his fingers to the point where his right ear joined his skull.
“What is it?” gasped Felix.
Jimmy’s head felt like someone was firing lightning bolts at him. And it wasn’t the first time it had happened that morning. Felix quickly realised what was wrong.
“Again?” he asked. They stopped and Jimmy bent double, holding his head. “It’s like Harry Potter and that stupid scar, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” moaned Jimmy sarcastically. “It’s exactly like that.” That was the fourth time in the day already. Each attack hit in the same spot on Jimmy’s head and with the same pain – a precise and piercing stab that lasted thirty seconds or so, then dissipated to nothing. He took a deep breath and pulled himself upright.
“You OK?” Felix asked. Jimmy nodded and squeezed out a smile.
“So what’s wrong with your head?” Felix said as they reached the queue for check-in. Jimmy didn’t know how to answer. It wasn’t like anything he’d experienced before. His only explanation was that it must have something to do with his programming developing.
He liked to think that he was more comfortable with his programming now – that he knew roughly what it was capable of and almost how to control it. But really he had to admit he had no idea. It was like an alien growing inside him. More than that – the alien was him, and it was more him than the human part.
“Dunno,” he shrugged, trying to sound casual about it. The truth was, the pain wasn’t the only new phenomenon Jimmy had woken up with. There was something else. Something much more worrying to him. He had tried to bring it up a couple of times – with Felix and with the others too – but each time he had stopped himself because it sounded so insignificant. The last thing he wanted was more attention on the tiniest detail of his development.
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Joe Craig
A third action-packed adventure for the incredible Jimmy Coates.Will Jimmy Coates ever be free of NJ7? Why should they need to find him if they are able to control him.Through Christopher Viggo's powerful new contacts, Jimmy and his friends escape to the USA. They go into hiding in Chinatown, New York City. While they are there, Jimmy finds himself experiencing headaches accompanied by flashing images – something that hasn’t happened to him before. Are they prophetic visions?Can Jimmy piece together the puzzle of his obsession before time runs out? And how can he convince anybody of what he thinks he knows, when the only evidence is locked inside his head?Revenge will come. But what form will it take?
JOE CRAIG
JIMMY COATES: REVENGE
Contents
Title Page (#u87674289-1749-5405-ba6b-31e9a92402e8)Chapter One – The Visitor (#udf0a3d63-b266-570d-abd0-055729c65b53)Chapter Two – Seeds Of Retribution (#ufe8fecfa-7b14-5ee2-a20c-9184b55b0d04)Chapter Three – Thwarted (#u4fdaa51b-b6aa-58c3-97f9-a60a470500da)Chapter Four – Diamond In The Rough (#ubc118026-07cb-5679-8282-b145e6329169)Chapter Five – The Reflex Plan (#u9b63d7e4-341f-57d8-bc52-3e583afebd29)Chapter Six – Twenty-Seven Lives (#u173fead3-e78d-5de2-97b6-852d98d854f4)Chapter Seven – Kill Zaf-1 (#u56041108-cc44-51b6-9479-0de30967c138)Chapter Eight – I Dreamed (#u4a79bd2b-7b90-5545-b234-43cd7eca0b41)Chapter Nine – Fatal Thumbs (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten – Storm In A Teacup (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven – Star Of Manchuria (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve – Premonition (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen – Clean Strike (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fourteen – Face Of Power, Face Of Death (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fifteen – Knickerbocker (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Sixteen – Colonel Keays (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seventeen – Bloodprints (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eighteen – Strips, Splashes, 53, K (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nineteen – Rats In The Attic (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty – Mars (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-One – Revenge Of The Son (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Two – A Walk In The Park (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Three – Protect Them (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Four– Amateur Revenge (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Five– Silvercup (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Six– Familiar Face (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Seven– Time Avenges (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Eight– Terminal Meeting (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Nine – Tramway Crossing (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty – Roosevelt Island (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-One - Professional Revenge (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Two – New Vision (#litres_trial_promo)Preview (#litres_trial_promo)About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)Also By Joe Craig (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE – THE VISITOR (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
Jimmy’s eyes opened before he even realised he was awake. His head was throbbing – another nightmare that vanished before he could grasp it. When he was asleep, his programming took over his brain completely. It grew like a vine, reaching into every part of his psyche. It spread dangerous knowledge and developed his amazing skills. Day by day Jimmy found himself becoming more lethal – and there was nothing he could do about it. Time was turning him into a killer.
What had woken him, he wondered. Judging by the eerie half-light it was the early hours of the morning. Jimmy didn’t dare move his head from the pillow in case someone was watching him, but he listened, analysing every sound. He felt a familiar agitation in his chest – a paranoia he could never shake off. It was part of his nature now and he had learned to trust in it.
His right calf twitched under the duvet. Was that a sign? It could be nothing. He realised that his muscles probably trained while he slept. How long had it been since NJ7, the most covert and advanced military intelligence agency in the world, had burst into his house to take him away? It felt like forever, but might not even have been more than a fortnight.
Since then, he’d had to live with the knowledge that NJ7 had manipulated human genetics to grow him – an organic assassin, designed to reach active-service capability when he was eighteen. It was crazy. Jimmy still thought of himself as a normal human boy. But he was far from normal. He was only 38 per cent human.
He pictured millions of tiny electric pulses emanating from his brain to the tips of each limb, making them ever more resilient. But the sensation he had now was something more than just his programming.
A drop in temperature. There was a draught from somewhere. The window had been shut when they went to bed. Jimmy was facing away from it now, so he couldn’t check it. But how could anybody have broken the window without waking everybody?
He scanned what he could see of the room, his eyes quickly enhancing every shape, enabling him to see in the semi-dark. Three beds stuck out into the middle of the room, their headboards against the wall. In the bed next to Jimmy’s, his friend Felix Muzbeke was fast asleep. A slow thread of drool trailed from his lips, glistening like a spider’s web in the rain.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jimmy could discern the end of the third bed. His sister’s feet made a reassuring bump in the duvet. OK, he thought, so Felix and Georgie haven’t been abducted. That’s a good start.
Jimmy was constantly aware that it wasn’t just his own life under threat. As well as Georgie and Felix, there was Jimmy’s mother. They’d all arrived at the Bed and Breakfast the night before, on the run from NJ7. Felix’s parents, Neil and Olivia, had already been in hiding there.
Deep inside, Jimmy’s human self was now starting to wake up. With this came a surge of anger, brought on by the thought of his own father – or at least the man he had always believed was his father. The man’s words would never leave Jimmy’s head: “You’re not my son.” To him, Jimmy was nothing but an enemy of the State. He had been ever since overcoming his programming and refusing to kill for NJ7. Now Ian Coates, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, wanted him eliminated.
Then Jimmy heard it. A sound so faint that Felix’s drooling almost drowned it out. Immediately, an image popped into Jimmy’s head that identified the noise – grease trickling down wood. It told him two things. One: the room had definitely been breached. Two: whoever had broken in was highly dangerous.
They’ve found me, he thought. Terror shook his entire body, but with it came a blast of confidence – the artificial self-assurance of his programming. It seemed to flick away the fear. Before he could even think about it, Jimmy exploded into action.
He kicked his right leg up and back, sending his duvet flying towards the window. It wrapped itself around an approaching figure. In the same movement, Jimmy flipped up into a handstand by his pillow – just in time. The intruder slammed the duvet back on to the mattress, then rolled to his feet on the other side of the bed.
Jimmy used his bare feet to push himself off the wall. He cartwheeled over and landed, standing, opposite his attacker. They had both moved without a sound. Felix and Georgie hadn’t stirred. Now, for the first time, Jimmy was able to look at the person who had broken in. He was small – only just taller than Jimmy, in fact – and his physique was slight. His face was masked by a black balaclava, which matched the black combat uniform. On his chest Jimmy noticed three small vertical stripes. Even though his night-vision made it hard to distinguish colours, Jimmy knew that they had to be green – a green stripe was the emblem of NJ7. But why were there three of them? He shrugged off the inconsistency and noticed the contrast between the black military outfit in front of him and the Kermit pyjamas that he’d been forced to borrow from the B&B owners. He shivered, suddenly aware of his vulnerability.
Jimmy picked out the intruder’s eyes – their pale blue was intensified by his night-vision. The eyes looked Jimmy up and down.
“They’re not my pyjamas,” Jimmy insisted. “I usually sleep in a T-shirt and…”
“What’s going on?” Felix interrupted. His face was scrunched up like a new-born piglet and he was peering around blindly. For him, it was too dark to see.
Jimmy only glanced at him for an instant, but he knew straight away it was a mistake. In that split-second, the masked figure dived at him. Jimmy dropped to the floor and slid out of the way on his back. He went straight under Felix’s bed and out the other side.
“Is that you, Jimmy?” Felix asked, with no clue what was going on.
The intruder landed with a roll, then sprang up and leapt at Jimmy again – right over Felix’s head.
“Morning, Felix,” Jimmy grunted, flipping himself up, feet first. He caught his attacker in mid-air – with his knees locked around the intruder’s neck. “Bit of help would be nice.”
The two fighters tumbled over each other across the floor. The noise woke Georgie.
“Jimmy, you OK?” she whispered frantically. There was no answer. She jumped out of bed and stumbled for the light switch.
Jimmy clung on to the attacker with every bit of strength he could muster. They twisted together, a flurry of limbs wrestling for control. Jimmy’s programming was serving him well. He wrenched one arm free and clamped a hand down on top of his assailant’s head. With one twist, he threw him off balance. The intruder’s face hit the floor and the balaclava came away in Jimmy’s fist.
Jimmy pounced, holding him down. Except, he gradually realised – it wasn’t a him. There was a tickling sensation on Jimmy’s lips. Stray hairs fluttered around his face. He spat them away, conscious of not loosening his hold. There was a strange smell in the air. Was that coconut shampoo?
Finally, Georgie found the light switch – but it didn’t work. She clicked it on and off frantically. The room remained dark. Instead, she went for the door handle. In a burst of strength, the intruder performed a back flip so powerful it took Jimmy along too. She landed on him, knocking the wind out of him, and immediately launched herself at Georgie.
As Georgie pulled the door open a centimetre, the intruder slammed into the small of her back. The door banged shut, with Georgie’s face pressed against the wood. She tried to scream for help, but before the breath even reached her lungs, she was pulled away and flung back on to her bed. The mysterious figure wrapped the duvet across Georgie’s face and spun her over like a log down a hill. Georgie tried shouting again, but the bedclothes completely muffled the noise. She was rolled up so tight she couldn’t move her arms from her side.
Jimmy was slightly dazed, but he shook it off and hurled himself at the base of Georgie’s bed. It knocked into his attacker, throwing her off-balance. Immediately, Jimmy rolled under the bed, out the other side and slammed into her ankles. He tried to pin her to the floorboards again, but she spun like a break-dancer, planting a foot in Jimmy’s face with each revolution.
Felix was out of his bed now, tentatively shuffling across the room with his arms outstretched. When he reached the wall, his hands felt about for the light switch, not knowing Georgie had already tried that. From inside her duvet-cocoon, she hollered and squirmed, gradually wriggling her way out.
“Don’t worry, Jimmy,” Felix announced. “I’m coming.” Then, at the top of his voice, he yelled, “Help!”
“Quiet, Felix,” Jimmy snapped, crawling backwards to avoid another kicking. The last thing he wanted was the neighbours arriving. That would give away their hideout to NJ7 in no time. “Get out and get my mum.”
Felix went for the door, but the intruder turned to stop him. That was the distraction Jimmy needed. He flipped on his front and hooked his legs underneath the empty bed behind him. Then, with a thrill flooding his muscles, he bent his knees and heaved the bed off the floor. He lifted it right over his head with just his legs. It scraped the ceiling, then came crashing down in front of him. One leg snapped clean off and the frame smashed into splinters. The bed had landed upside-down – right on top of Jimmy’s opponent.
Finally, Jimmy dragged her out. He dug his knee into her spine and his elbow into the back of her neck. She wasn’t getting out from his hold this time.
“I’m on your side!” came her muffled shout. The tension in Jimmy’s gut eased slightly, but he was far from relaxed.
“It’s a trick,” Georgie urged. She had made it out of the duvet at last.
“Who are you?” Jimmy demanded. It was becoming clearer by the second that this person was not part of an NJ7 assault team. She dipped her hand in her pocket. Jimmy clenched his muscles again, ready for anything, but his opponent pulled out nothing more than a small round piece of black plastic. It looked like the remote locking device on a car key. She clicked the button and on came every light in the room.
Jimmy felt her muscles relax. It was as if she was deflating slightly. The fight was over. She was giving up – for now. Jimmy stood up and slowly backed away.
For the first time, the intruder’s face was revealed. Jimmy, Georgie and Felix let out a gasp. The person on the floor in front of them was a girl about their age. A flurry of auburn hair tumbled around her face. Jimmy was astounded. Felix was mesmerised.
“I’ve come to have a conversation with you,” the girl said. Her voice was soft, with a very faint accent that made her sound slightly exotic.
Jimmy remained deadpan. “If that’s what you call a conversation,” he replied, “I can’t wait for us to argue.”
CHAPTER TWO – SEEDS OF RETRIBUTION (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
“Was I too rough for you?” the girl pouted. “I’m sorry. I was playing. I wanted to see what you could do.” She stood up, moving with a strange elegance that didn’t seem to fit someone so young.
“If I’d wanted you dead, Jimmy Coates,” she continued, “you would never have even known I existed. I could have killed you quietly, quickly and from a distance.” She moved towards him, almost gliding across the floor, her eyes never wavering from Jimmy’s. “I think I would have done it painlessly though. You seem nice.” Then she winked. Jimmy lost all feeling in his cheeks for a second. He was a picture of astonishment.
“My name is Zafi Sauvage.” The girl held out her hand, which was covered in a black leather glove. In a daze, Jimmy shook it. The whole thing felt so bizarre. He wouldn’t normally shake hands with anybody – especially not some strange girl, and especially not one who, only seconds before, had been trying to break his neck.
Felix brushed the others aside and shoved his hand in Zafi’s direction. “Yeah, hi,” he started. “I’m, like, delighted to meet you.” Jimmy grimaced at the unusually posh accent Felix was trying on. “Frightfully delighted. My name is Felix. And may I welcome you by saying that, frightfully and awfully, you’re, like, a knockout.”
“If you’re not here to try to kill me…” Jimmy interrupted. He didn’t finish his sentence. There were too many questions all bursting to get out at the same time. Who did this girl work for? What did she want? How had she found out where Jimmy and the others were hiding? Above all the others was one question that repeated in his head like a siren. Is this girl a programmed assassin like me?
“I can’t believe it,” Georgie whispered, echoing his thoughts. “Another one. A third assassin.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me to sit down?” Zafi said, raising one eyebrow. Felix immediately ushered her to the end of his bed.
“Don’t mind them,” he blathered. “They’ve forgotten their manners. Hey, look what I can do.” He pulled out his top lip and, with his thumbs, shoved it into his nostrils. He glared at Zafi like this until she let out a high giggle.
“My, how attractive,” Zafi laughed. “Look what I can do.” She pulled off her glove and pressed her palm flat against her eye. She twisted her hand, which made a weird sucking noise. Then she pulled her palm away and her eyeball popped out. It bounced around on the end of her optic nerve halfway down her cheek. She beamed with glee.
“Wow.” Felix was so impressed that his voice quivered. Zafi calmly popped her eye back into its socket and flicked her hair behind her ear.
“Jimmy, look at this,” Felix insisted. “It’s so cool.”
But Jimmy wasn’t paying attention. He was examining the window to confirm what he suspected: the frame had been lubricated with some kind of grease. Zafi had opened the window expertly and with less noise than a shadow. But Jimmy didn’t stop to admire her work.
He looked back at Zafi. Why did she look like she was about to smile, Jimmy wondered. Didn’t she take any of this seriously? It was as if the corners of her mouth couldn’t help curling upwards.
With the lights on, it was obvious that there was no green stripe on her chest. Instead, three vertical stripes formed an emblem just as powerful and just as proud. In his night-vision, Jimmy had assumed they were green, but one was blue, one white and one red. It was the Tricolore – the French flag. That seemed to answer the question of who she worked for.
Jimmy realised that because the French Secret Service, the DGSE, had helped him, relations between Britain and France were worse than they had been for centuries. In fact, both had threatened war. Jimmy was starting to see that if Zafi was an enemy of Neo-democratic Britain, she could be an important ally for him. His curiosity became urgent now.
“Hey, you two lovebirds,” he began, “stop messing about. I need to know what’s going on.”
“Didn’t you see what she did with her eye?” Felix panted. Jimmy ignored him.
“What’s this ‘conversation’ you wanted to have with me?” he insisted. But before Zafi could answer, Georgie marched towards the door.
“I wouldn’t bother fetching your mother,” Zafi whispered. “She’s a little drowsy at the moment.”
Georgie turned to her with horror on her face. Jimmy felt a double layer of confusion – first was a lurch of panic for his mother’s safety, but beneath it came a reassuring warmth. To his programmed side, it made perfect sense. Felix’s cry for help. The crash of the bed on the floor – the other people in the house must have been drugged somehow to keep them out of the way. Assigned Zafi’s mission, he would have done the same. As the thought ran through his head, Zafi explained it to the others.
“I sent some sleeping gas under the necessary windows before I came through yours.”
Georgie looked at Zafi with a mixture of disbelief and anger. Then she marched out of the room anyway.
“Doesn’t she trust me?” Zafi asked with a cheeky sparkle in her eye.
That was enough for Jimmy. How dare she make a joke of it, he thought. Didn’t she realise she was playing with people’s lives? And she hadn’t even started to explain what she was doing there. Jimmy gripped Zafi’s shoulders and held her down on the bed.
“How can you do all this?” he hissed, his eyes only centimetres from hers. His face was turning red, but Zafi’s only reaction was to open her eyes wide and give a little smile.
“What a silly question,” she replied, ever so gently. “The same way you can, Jimmy Coates. I’m a genetically programmed—”
“No, I mean, how can you bring yourself to do it?” Jimmy was really seething now. “Don’t you realise that attacking innocent people, drugging them, even killing them – it’s wrong.”
“It might be wrong,” Zafi whispered back, “but it’s not me doing it, is it? It’s nothing to do with me. I watch it happen. Maybe I’m sad about it, maybe not. It’s not my responsibility.”
Jimmy wanted to scream right in her face. He felt like tearing her to shreds on the spot, but instead his grip melted to nothing. He slipped off her. If he’d demanded any more answers, he might have had to admit to himself that he envied her.
Georgie came back into the room. She didn’t look happy. “I can’t wake Mum,” she announced.
“What about my parents?” Felix asked.
“I can’t wake any of them, OK? It’s like they’re hibernating or something.”
“They’ll be asleep for a few more hours,” Zafi said, sitting up and flicking her hair behind her ear. “They’ll be fine by lunchtime.”
Jimmy wanted to get up and reassure his big sister, but he was still distracted by a small question at the back of his mind – what would he be capable of if nothing was his responsibility?
Georgie started the questioning again. “You’d better explain what’s going on.”
Zafi sighed. “But this is so much fun,” she said, too brightly. “It’s like a sleepover.”
Felix almost laughed, but only because he was nervous.
“I work for France,” Zafi continued with a shrug. “My government expects that Britain and France might be drawn into a war.”
“What?” Georgie gasped. “Why?”
Jimmy cut in to explain. “Yesterday, the French sent a fighter jet into British airspace.”
“Only after NJ7 bombed a French farmhouse,” Zafi added.
“But that wasn’t to attack France,” Jimmy sighed. “It’s where we’d been hiding. NJ7 were trying to get us.”
“Well, all they’ve got for themselves is trouble.”
Zafi and Jimmy stared at each other.
“I’ve come to invite you to join the right side,” Zafi announced.
“You want me to work for France against Britain – in a war?” Jimmy tried to keep his voice as calm as possible. Zafi nodded.
“Who says there’s going to be a war?” Felix asked. “That’s rubbish. Nobody’s loony enough to start a war.”
Jimmy wished his friend was right, but he was far from sure. He walked over to the window. It was still open from when Zafi had sneaked in. For a second, he hesitated. Perhaps something in his head was suggesting he could escape into the night and disappear forever. It only lasted a second. He slid the window shut. It closed as silently as it had opened for Zafi, but to Jimmy it felt like the portcullis on a castle coming down to trap him inside.
Did she expect him to give an answer straight away? He had already put everybody he loved in mortal danger to avoid working as an assassin for one government. Surely it was madness of the French to think he would kill for them.
So why was he still thinking about it? And why was his hand shaking?
“I came to you before,” he began eventually. “To the DGSE, I mean. When we needed your help. I offered to co-operate then.”
“To co-operate?” Zafi questioned. “Or to join us?”
“I offered information. But Uno Stovorsky said he didn’t need it. And he never suggested that I work for you.”
“The DGSE didn’t need you then, did we.” Zafi explained haughtily. “We had me.” At that she gave a sly chuckle. “But yesterday changed things. France needs you now.”
Jimmy couldn’t order any of his thoughts. “I don’t understand,” he started quietly. “I thought there were only two of us. Me and Mitchell. We’re both English. How come you’re also… like us, except that you’re French?”
“I suppose you want a history lesson,” Zafi sighed. “Well, the team of scientists that designed us fell out with each other twelve years ago. One of them was French and he escaped back to Paris when he realised there was going to be trouble.”
“And he took you with him?” Felix gasped. His mouth was hanging open.
“Sort of.” Zafi smiled at him fondly. “I wasn’t born yet, was I. But he took with him all the files and the chip he needed to make me.”
“So nobody at NJ7 knows about you?” Jimmy asked.
Zafi shook her head. “They’ve been looking for something called ZAF-1.”
Jimmy recognised that name. He’d heard it inside NJ7 Headquarters, but he didn’t know what it meant.
“You’re… ZAF-1?” he suggested.
“You should pay attention more closely, Jimmy Coates.” Zafi looked up at him and fluttered her eyelashes. “I said they’re looking for ZAF-1. They think it’s a Secret Service agency. But there’s no such thing. There’s only…”
“…Zafi.” Jimmy completed the sentence for her.
“That’s right – me!”
“They don’t know anything about you,” Jimmy exclaimed, the words tumbling out in his excitement. “I was there, in NJ7.” He looked at Georgie, Felix and Zafi in turn. “I heard them talking about ZAF-1, trying to work out what it meant. They were scared of it, but didn’t know what it meant…”
“Not yet,” Zafi cut him off. “They will soon. They’ll work it out from Dr Higgins’ papers.”
Dr Higgins – the scientist behind the original organic assassin project. The name still gave Jimmy an odd feeling. He wanted to hate the old man, but wasn’t physically able to. The result was like being seasick, but enjoying it. Jimmy wondered where the doctor was these days. Higgins had gone on the run after doing some assassinating of his own. He could have been anywhere in the world. For all Jimmy knew, NJ7 had already found him and taken their revenge.
“I don’t have any more time, Jimmy,” Zafi said softly. She stood up and placed a hand on his wrist. “And nor do you.” Jimmy tensed up. So did Georgie and Felix. “I did what I could tonight to help you,” Zafi continued.
“What do you mean?” Georgie asked suspiciously.
“I created a diversion so they couldn’t follow you out of London so easily.” Zafi thought for a moment and smiled to herself. Jimmy couldn’t stand the way everything seemed to amuse her. “I need you to come with me now.”
Jimmy looked at his friend and his sister. He could see on their faces what they thought. The last thing they wanted was for him to leave them. But everything inside him was drawing him to go with Zafi. Surely he couldn’t – up to now, he had done everything he could to avoid causing harm to anybody. The DGSE would almost certainly send him to kill. But who?
He closed his eyes and pictured Paduk, the huge Secret Service agent who ran the Prime Minister’s ‘Special Security’. He pictured Miss Bennett, who had pretended to be protecting Jimmy for so long as a fake form teacher at school. Then she had emerged as his most venomous enemy – Head of NJ7. They had stolen his life. They had tortured and tried to kill the people he loved. Was this the chance that he had wanted so badly? Was this the opportunity to get his own back and be working for a good cause at the same time?
Then Jimmy pictured Ian Coates.
“I’ll do it,” he rasped. His voice seemed reluctant to leave his throat. “I’ll do it.”
CHAPTER THREE – THWARTED (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
“Jimmy you can’t!” Georgie shouted.
Jimmy was already moving towards the window. It was Zafi who stopped him.
“I presume we can leave by the front door, no?” she chuckled.
Jimmy felt himself laugh too, but it came out like a grunt. It didn’t even sound like him. He turned to the door.
“Jimmy, stop,” Felix ordered, grabbing his friend by the arm. Jimmy didn’t look at him.
“Get off me,” he growled.
“No way.”
“Get off me, Felix,” Jimmy said again. “You know I could snap you in two, don’t you?”
“Jimmy, what are you saying?” Georgie yelled. She stepped between her brother and the door. Her face had gone white. “What’s happening to you?”
“Let him come,” Zafi insisted. “He wants to, can’t you see?”
“No, he doesn’t,” Georgie countered. “It’s not him.” She seized Jimmy’s face in her hands. “Come on, Jimmy, pull yourself together!”
Suddenly, Jimmy exploded with rage. “Get off me!” he boomed. He shook off his sister’s hands and pushed Felix away. They both staggered back a step or two.
“It doesn’t matter what you say,” Zafi muttered. “He doesn’t have any choice about it anyway. It’s his destiny.”
Jimmy felt the dark power inside him. It was the force that he thought he had learned to control. But it was always there and always growing more layers. It felt like a wild animal had burrowed even deeper inside him, devouring his soul as it went.
“Why are you doing this?” Georgie whispered. Jimmy looked at her and saw a horrible fear on her face.
“Are you winding us up?” Felix asked. “You are, aren’t you?”
Jimmy didn’t know how to respond. Felix’s chirpy tone was completely out of synch with the weight of Jimmy’s emotions.
“All right, tell you what,” Felix continued, bouncing on the spot, “I’m coming too.” Jimmy sighed. “Let’s go,” Felix insisted. With a flourish, he plucked one of the pillows from the bed and whipped off the pillowcase. Then he tied it around his neck. “Got to wrap up warm, cos, baby, it’s cold outside.”
“Felix, what are you doing?” Jimmy asked.
“I, my friend, am going to come with you and become a killer.”
None of them knew what to make of this – least of all Jimmy.
“Felix, this is serious,” he said.
“Yeah, serious,” Felix echoed. “Seriously, I’m so serious. Let’s go get serious with some Frenchies.” He grabbed Jimmy’s wrist again, but this time he was dragging his friend towards the door. “Come on, come on, haven’t got all day. People to kill.”
“Stop,” Jimmy urged feebly. He pulled his hand away. “You’re nuts.”
“I’m nuts?” Felix mocked. “Oh, I’m nuts. Yeah, cos, funny thing is, we all thought you wanted to stick with us and get away from the fighting and the murdering. But some little French bird flutters in here with her little gadgets and her cool eyeball trick – that was so cool by the way,” he quickly turned to Zafi and grinned. “And next thing you want to skip off to Paris to become an assassin, which is what NJ7 wanted you to be in the first place. But you’re right – I’m nuts.”
The others were stunned. If Georgie hadn’t been so upset, she would have laughed. Zafi was the first to break the silence.
“Your friend is weird,” she whispered.
“I know,” Jimmy mumbled, “He’s…”
“I like it.”
Finally, a smile forced its way on to Jimmy’s face. “Take off that pillowcase,” he said. “You look ridiculous.”
“So we’re staying?” Felix asked. Jimmy nodded, and his sister plunged her arms around him.
“You’re such an idiot,” Georgie scolded Jimmy even as she was hugging him. “You have to think about these things more carefully. We’re going to get out of here and be safe and normal again.”
“It’s a shame,” interjected Zafi. “They said if you didn’t want to come with me I should kill you.” Jimmy’s blood fizzed in his veins. Georgie gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. “Ha! Joking!” Zafi exploded into laughter. “Your faces are hilarious.”
Felix and Jimmy both let out a huge sigh of relief.
“I don’t think that’s funny!” Georgie shrieked.
“It was quite funny,” Felix suggested. “Not as funny as me obviously.”
“So it’s OK if I don’t, you know…” Jimmy asked.
“Of course,” Zafi replied, her voice light and almost squeaky. “You won’t work for us, but that’s OK because we know that you are no friend of NJ7.”
“I’d never work for them, don’t worry.” At last Jimmy started to relax. He almost felt like himself again.
“But NJ7 won’t have any distractions now,” Zafi warned him. “I can’t throw them off your trail any more. And if I can find you, they can find you. Get out of the country as quick as you can.” She opened the door and was framed by the darkness in the rest of the building. “Maybe we’ll meet again.”
To his surprise, Jimmy was sad that this girl was leaving. There was so much she might have been able to tell him. He was suddenly overcome by the urge to know everything about her. Had she also grown up thinking she was a normal child? Or had she always known that she was only 38 per cent human? She seemed a lot happier with it than Jimmy was. Did she have parents? Were they, like Jimmy’s, agents of the Government’s intelligence services? And had they kept it a secret?
With all this blurring his thoughts, Jimmy found it hard to say anything – even a simple goodbye. Zafi reached into her pocket.
“I’ll rewire the power supply outside on my way out,” she announced casually. Her hand emerged holding the remote control clicker that had turned on the lights in the room. “Something to remember me by.” She tossed it at Jimmy, who caught it in a daze.
“Don’t you need it?” Felix called out, but Zafi was already floating down the stairs, making hardly a sound. She glanced over her shoulder, her hair catching the streak of light through the banisters.
“I’ll make another one.”
Jimmy, Georgie and Felix were unable to move. They were stunned. Zafi had come in like a whirlwind and left as much devastation. She had made so little noise – they didn’t even hear the front door closing after her – and she displayed all the clinical killing instincts of a highly trained assassin. Yet her eyes had sparkled, her physique was delicate, her voice was soft and high, with a giggle that reminded Jimmy of the most annoying girls in his year at school.
While Jimmy was trying to fathom out how he felt, Felix reached across and swiped the gadget from his open palm. He clicked the lights on and off a couple of times.
“Cool,” he muttered under his breath. Then he asked, “Do you think we’ll, you know, see her again?”
Jimmy didn’t answer. His gut was telling him that he hoped they would. But, at the same time, he could hear a stern voice in his head. It told him that if he ever did see Zafi Sauvage again, it could only mean that he was in trouble.
Jimmy, Felix and Georgie didn’t bother going back to bed. There was no way any of them would have been able to sleep anyway. They were buzzing with adrenaline from Zafi’s visit. Instead, the three of them took their duvets down to the living room. Felix turned on the TV.
“Chris will go ballistic when he hears about what happened tonight,” he said.
“Do you think he’s OK?” Georgie asked Jimmy. “And Saffron?” There was no reply. “Well? Do you?”
Jimmy exploded with frustration. “I don’t know, do I? How is any of us meant to know?”
“All right, calm down, psycho.” Georgie threw up her hands.
Jimmy mumbled an apology. He could picture Christopher Viggo’s face as the man had driven off into the darkness the night before. With him had been his girlfriend, Saffron Walden, dying from an NJ7 bullet. Jimmy had already gone over and over it in his mind – hospitals were out because they were covered in security cameras, and they’d report a bullet wound to the police straight away. So unless Viggo knew a surgeon nearby who was also a so-called ‘enemy’ of Britain, Jimmy had no idea how Saffron was going to survive.
He curled up on the sofa, wishing his morbid thoughts would go away. Saffron and Viggo had done so much to help Jimmy. Viggo used to be an NJ7 agent himself, but he’d fled thirteen years earlier because of the evil of one man: Ares Hollingdale. From being Director of NJ7, Hollingdale had risen to become Prime Minister – but an undemocratic one. He’d used NJ7 to secure his position at the head of a dictatorship. And the population did nothing to stop him.
Sometimes, it seemed like Viggo and Saffron were the only sane people in Britain – at least, the only ones who were fighting for democracy.
Gradually, Jimmy’s attention returned to the TV.
“The new Prime Minister, Ian Coates, is about to land in Washington DC to meet with the American President, Alphonsus Grogan.” The newsreader was a woman with a vacant stare and a half-smile permanently on her lips. “The first item on their agenda will be American support for Britain in any possible military action against France, following French incursion into British airspace yesterday afternoon.”
With every mention of the Prime Minister, Jimmy felt something rumble in his belly. He forced it down and told himself it was hunger.
“Ian Coates will first meet with the President at the White House,” the newsreader went on, “before touring the cities of the East Coast of America. He will address the UN Security Council in New York in four days’ time to present the case for Britain’s legal right to retaliate against France.”
Usually, the last thing Jimmy would have wanted to do was watch the news. But everything had changed. Now it was urgent that they all knew what the Government was doing. This was their enemy.
“I can’t believe that’s our dad,” Georgie muttered.
Jimmy didn’t answer. Not ‘our’ dad, he thought. ‘Your’ dad. He felt a sting in his throat and wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. When he looked up, he saw his own face on the TV screen. It was the same old school photograph that Jimmy had seen on TV the day before.
“…still thought to be behind the murder of Ares Hollingdale,” the reporter was saying, “and still on the run.” The camera zoomed in on Jimmy’s eyes.
“It’s all right,” Felix stated calmly. “You don’t really look like that.”
“It’s all right?” Georgie exclaimed. “How is it ‘all right’ that they’re telling the whole country that Jimmy murdered the last Prime Minister?” Jimmy shrunk into himself. He just wished they didn’t have to talk about it.
In the last few weeks he had learned not to trust what came out of the TV. He could almost see the puppet-strings attached to the limbs of the newsreaders, and Miss Bennett somewhere, just out of shot, dictating every word that was said.
“Anyway,” Georgie piped up again, furious, “NJ7 knows Jimmy didn’t do it – because they did it.”
“What?” Felix asked. “You think Miss Bennett sent someone from NJ7 to kill their own Prime Minister?”
“Maybe. Hollingdale was sadistic and cruel and probably crazy. Maybe they’d had enough and wanted Dad to take over.”
Hardly realising he was speaking, Jimmy cut in. “He had it coming,” he snarled.
All three of them looked at each other, shocked at what Jimmy had said, even if it was true. Was it him or his programming that was spitting out such venomous thoughts? Jimmy couldn’t get any more words out of his mouth. He could feel his lips trembling, but there was nothing more to say.
The only sound was the drone of the television and the incessant ticking of a clock.
CHAPTER FOUR – DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
The British Prime Minister stepped out of the White House’s Oval Office to rejoin his assistants and his head of security, Paduk. The look on his face was far from optimistic.
“The President is considering our position,” he announced.
“What does that mean?” Paduk asked. “You were in there with him for over an hour. It’s not rocket science. Either he’s on our side or he isn’t.”
Ian Coates’ advisors huddled together in debate. He ignored them and threw himself into a chair of plush red velvet beneath a portrait of Hillary Clinton. He leaned his elbows on his knees and held his head. The quiet of the corridor was stifling and the cream walls seemed to be closing in on him. He felt like he was trapped inside a giant trifle. Somewhere, a clock ticked too loudly. Next to him, Paduk itched at his shirt collar.
“He can’t keep us waiting like this,” he grumbled. “Where’s the respect?”
Ian Coates shook his head. “It’s natural,” he explained, trying to stay calm. “We’re asking for their army to come and fight a war with us against France. That’s not a decision that can be hurried.”
Paduk grunted. “I remember when Americans were grateful to fight alongside us. Now they’ve forgotten everything. Most people in this country don’t even know where France is.”
“Most of them don’t know where Britain is either, Paduk.”
Suddenly, a door opposite them opened. They both shot to their feet and instinctively straightened their jackets. But it wasn’t the President who emerged, merely one of his aides. She was a woman in her early thirties, with brown hair tied back in a tight knot. The shoulders of her business suit were just a little too wide to be stylish and there was too much red lipstick lining her fake smile.
“Current US policy is not to intervene in foreign conflicts,” she announced. Her voice was clipped, with a clean mid-American accent. “But the President places great importance on the historical friendship between our two nations. Therefore, he would like to offer you a package of the finest military hardware the US industry has to offer.”
“Weapons?” Coates spluttered. “You’re offering me weapons?”
“Well, yes,” replied the aide. “As well as hardware of all other types – trucks, planes, missiles—”
“I know what military hardware is,” interrupted the Prime Minister. “So how much will this package cost?”
“Eighty billion dollars.”
Ian Coates let out an incredulous laugh. “I knew it,” he scoffed. “Grogan needed just enough time to phone the bosses at the arms companies, didn’t he?”
“I can’t answer that, sir,” replied the aide blankly.
“Tell Grogan I came to meet a President – not an arms dealer.” Coates spun on his heels and marched away, with Paduk and his own aides following close behind.
As they were escorted out of the White House, Ian Coates tried to contain his anger. He tried to imagine how he’d behave at the press conference that was coming up in a few days. How could he put a brave public face on this and pretend to be friends with the President of the USA? He also had to go through the motions of meeting with the UN in New York. But none of that ruled out the drastic action he could take in secret.
“Call Miss Bennett,” he hissed under his breath. “I’m approving the Reflex Plan.”
“The Reflex Plan?” Paduk gasped. “Are you sure?”
The Prime Minister nodded.
* * *
Mitchell checked the platform clock again. It was just habit now. He didn’t need to know the time – he wouldn’t even have remembered what it was if anybody had asked him. But every few minutes he looked up at the clock. His fingers tore and twisted at a paperclip he had found on the platform the night before.
It was days now since Mitchell had faced Jimmy, but not for a second had the confrontation left him. Every possible thought had blasted through his brain. And, like a high-powered water jet wearing down stone, his torment had reduced his mind to dust. At least, that was how it felt.
Your brother’s still alive.
Mitchell could still hear Jimmy’s words in his head. He had repeated them to himself so many times that they had almost lost all meaning. Another teenage boy walked past. He was probably a couple of years older than Mitchell – fifteen or sixteen. In Mitchell’s hunger and fatigue he saw his brother’s face on the boy, just the way it had looked when Mitchell had beaten it senseless. He shook his head hard and rubbed his eyes. The other boy was gone, but for Mitchell, the image of Lenny Glenthorne lying limp on the floor was as vivid as ever.
He could still feel the horror of being told that he had murdered his own brother. With that power over him, it had been easy for NJ7 to make Mitchell their assassin. They’d quickly sent him after his first target – Jimmy Coates. But when the moment came to complete the job, Mitchell was defeated – not by a stronger punch or some secret gadget, but because Jimmy had claimed that Mitchell’s brother wasn’t dead after all.
Since then, Mitchell’s survival instinct had forced him below ground. He had wandered through the Underground network, easily hiding from the overnight workers when the network closed in the early hours of each morning. He’d broken into the staff toilets to find water. He’d slept only a few hours at a time in any one place, continually moving on, sometimes walking through the tunnels and always avoiding the District Line – the line represented on the map by the biggest green stripe in London. His clothes and hands were black with dirt.
He could feel NJ7 all around him, watching. Not just in the thousands of security cameras, but in person. He’d seen those figures waiting for him – shadows that hovered on the platforms and by the exits. Agents of the Green Stripe were everywhere. He knew they could pick him up any time. They’d implanted a tracking chip in his heel. But that didn’t matter. Mitchell knew he was going to go back to them eventually. NJ7 was his life now. And it was a life that seemed to suit him well. The incident with his brother had led him to these things – training, purpose and something that could almost have felt like happiness.
Now he didn’t even know whether he wanted his brother to be alive or not. The possibility didn’t fill him with joy. His brother had beaten him up countless times. Maybe Lenny didn’t deserve to die, but he certainly didn’t deserve Mitchell fighting for him. Whether Mitchell had killed him, or NJ7 had just made it look that way, what difference did it make? Either way, Leonard Glenthorne was out of his life. Even if it turned out that NJ7 had killed him, there was nobody left in the world who was going to take revenge. Least of all me, Mitchell thought.
He looked up at the clock again. He didn’t even know how much time had passed. It was a good feeling to know that it had passed at all. He gave his paperclip a sharp kink with his thumb. A commuter strutted by, glancing at Mitchell’s face. All he saw was grime and suspicion. He looked away quickly, like everybody else did, and clutched his briefcase tighter.
Is this what I’ve become? thought Mitchell. No. I’mbetter than this. I’m different. I work for NJ7. He pushed himself off the bench and marched along the platform. He was still as strong as ever, despite so long with hardly anything to eat. After these days of confusion, he was ready for the truth. He was ready for NJ7.
Halfway along the platform Mitchell dropped to his knees. There was a square in the platform floor that looked like some kind of trapdoor. He had seen dozens of these all over the tube network. Each one was about half a metre square, with a tiny keyhole.
Hardly aware of what he was doing, Mitchell opened his fist. There was his paperclip, bent into a strange and intricate shape. Of course, he thought to himself, there must be easier ways to reach NJ7 than walking through the streets.
He jabbed his paperclip into the keyhole. All this time, his programming had been fashioning the perfect key. In one fluid movement, he hauled open the hatch, threw himself in, feet first, and pulled the door shut over him. He didn’t even bother opening his eyes.
Instead, he surrendered himself completely to the intelligent force that drove him. He had landed on his back in a dank crawlspace. He immediately rolled a few metres to the side, feeling the platform floor just a whisker above him. Without knowing why, he counted the rolls – one, two, three, four – until eventually his body stopped itself dead. His hands shot up and, after only a second to feel around, he again pressed his paperclip key into a hole. He gave it a quick turn, then punched open another hatch door.
Mitchell emerged beneath bare strip lights that warmed his face. Around him were grey concrete walls covered in loose wiring that looked like a rainbow on a glorious day. This was no longer London Underground. Mitchell was back at NJ7 Headquarters and he wanted some answers.
He snapped his paperclip in two and flicked it to the floor, then broke into a sprint. It felt as if every muscle was thanking him for the chance to run again. He still felt as if he was watching somebody else’s actions, but it was a show he enjoyed watching. He swelled with pride to see himself move with such authority.
He tracked his progress through the labyrinth with ease. There were no features to mark his route, just miles and miles of grey concrete tunnel. They were like the veins of his own body. He just needed to look inside himself to see where they led.
In some places the corridors were broad thoroughfares; in others they were barely wide enough for Mitchell to squeeze down. There were no doors of course – NJ7 Headquarters were designed so that if it ever became necessary to evacuate, the whole complex could be flooded by the Thames in 120 seconds.
The constant pad of Mitchell’s feet was virtually the only sound, but he ran on his toes, keeping the noise to a minimum. Then he heard something from round the next corner – tapping on a keyboard. In an instant, he made the calculation: just one person. A man. Sitting down. Facing the entrance of a room with no other way out. As he approached, he made more deductions based solely on the sound of the person typing: left-handed. Not a trained fighter because the arms weren’t strong enough, so a technician, not a field-agent.
Whoever it was, he was about to meet Mitchell Glenthorne.
Mitchell whipped round the corner. In front of him was exactly the scene he had pictured – a lone man, typing at his desk. The light from his computer screen picked out the whites of his eyes, which were stretched out in astonishment, and a green stripe on his lapel. A diamond twinkled in the man’s left earlobe. There was no time for him to cry out. Mitchell moved too fast, diving over the desk. He rocketed into the man’s torso, forcing him backwards over his chair. As they landed, one on top of the other, Mitchell’s fingers homed in on the earring.
With a vicious twist, he ripped it straight out of the man’s ear, bringing half the lobe with it. Now the man found the breath to cry out in agony. His hand snapped to the side of his head. Blood splattered over his crisp white shirt.
Mitchell held him down with one arm across his neck. They were face to face. Mitchell hadn’t seen this man at NJ7 before, and though he looked young, he didn’t seem inexperienced. There was a sinister confidence in his expression that said he knew situations like this.
“Where’s Miss Bennett?” Mitchell hissed.
“Mitchell, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” the man replied calmly. His accent was faintly Irish. “But I don’t believe you have an appointment.”
Mitchell was outraged by the lack of fear. He brought the earring up to the man’s face and examined the sharp tip at the back. “I’ll appoint this in your eye unless you tell me where Miss Bennett is.”
The man didn’t flinch. For a second the only movement was the throbbing of a vein in his temple. “She’s in a meeting.” A smile crept up the man’s cheeks.
Mitchell pretended to stab the earring downwards, but stopped short. The man blinked and tried to pull away, but he was at the mercy of a thirteen-year-old boy. Mitchell felt the man’s breathing quicken.
“Try again,” Mitchell hissed. “I won’t be pretending next time.”
The answer came almost straight away, but in a smug whisper: “Dr Higgins’ old office.”
Mitchell rolled to one side and pushed himself up, launching into a run. He wove through the tunnels again, with a diamond earring in his fist and blood covering one arm.
“Did you lie to me?” he barked as soon as he turned the corner into Dr Higgins’ office. Miss Bennett was facing away from him, pencil and notepad in hand, studying one of the charts on the wall. The room was lined with computers and in the centre was a large empty desk. Miss Bennett’s curves were silhouetted against the wall. There was a green stripe down the back of her stilettos.
“Welcome back, Mitchell.” She sounded almost bored and didn’t turn round. “Been sightseeing?”
“Where’s my brother?” choked Mitchell. “Is he alive?” He edged round the room towards her and at last she turned to face him. The smile on her face offered no comfort.
“What do you think?” she asked.
Mitchell couldn’t hold back his temper any more. “Tell me the truth or I’ll rip you apart.”
“You’ve made a very basic mistake,” Miss Bennett stated clearly.
“My mistake was trusting you.”
“It’s worse than trusting me, I’m afraid.” For an instant, her cheeks seemed to flush with excitement. “You’ve underestimated me.”
Still staring at Mitchell, she reached behind her and tapped a key on the keyboard of a computer. Suddenly, a blinding strobe light flashed from the monitor. Mitchell’s hands rushed to his face, but it was too late. He was temporarily blinded. Then he felt a vicious stab on his forehead. It knocked all sense of balance out of him. He tumbled to his knees. After a few moments, he could see again, but he just dropped his head and looked to the floor.
Miss Bennett took a deep breath. “Mitchell Glenthorne, I don’t respond well to threats. In future you will raise all your enquiries with the appropriate courtesy.” Mitchell made no response. Miss Bennett bent down low. She placed a finger under Mitchell’s chin and raised his face to meet hers. Her perfume coated Mitchell’s nostrils. “I mean you’ll say please and thank you,” she whispered. To Mitchell it felt like the most terrifying telling off he could have imagined.
He couldn’t believe it. With such a powerful assassin inside him, surely he could have sprung up and taken control. He heard a distant calling in his head, urging him to resist. But the fight was gone from his heart. He had no real reason to challenge Miss Bennett. She was one of the few people in his life who had treated him well.
“If we hadn’t told you your brother was dead,” she explained gently, “you would never have agreed to work for us, would you?” Mitchell shook his head. “And that would have been the real tragedy, wouldn’t it? Because, you see, this is where you belong.”
“So you killed him, not me?” Mitchell asked meekly. A release of energy surged through him – was that relief?
Miss Bennett took him by the shoulder and helped him to his feet. “No,” she replied. “Nobody killed him.”
Mitchell’s relief froze. The news should have made him happy, but it didn’t. Instead, he could feel anxiety creeping through him, stiffening every muscle.
“You came close,” Miss Bennett went on, “but NJ7 doctors are keeping him alive for their own purposes.”
Mitchell felt a jolt of anger. His cheeks grew hot and his hands trembled slightly. But it was anger at himself. How could he have behaved like this? He was an assassin working for the finest espionage organisation in the world. It was time to annihilate his old feelings. He clenched his teeth and forced himself to stand tall, looking straight at Miss Bennett. This was his family now.
“You sent agents after me,” he said, holding his voice steady. “Just now, when I was hiding on the Underground, I mean. Why didn’t they bring me in?”
“I knew you’d come back,” Miss Bennett countered, obviously trying to sound casual about it. “You’re not like that other one, Jimmy Coates. I had agents keeping an eye on you just to make sure you didn’t cause any trouble, but I thought you deserved some time to yourself. You’ve worked very hard. Now, isn’t it good that I trusted you?” She smiled a feline smile, then pulled out a mobile phone from her suit jacket and punched a few keys.
“But while you’ve been away, some of us have been working,” she added. “There’s someone you need to meet.”
A few seconds later there were footsteps in the corridor. Then in walked a short man in his mid-twenties, who had a blood-soaked rag clutched to his ear and a look of deep resentment on his face.
“This,” Miss Bennett announced grandly, “is the man who is going to end the Jimmy Coates affair and bring order back to Britain’s Neo-democratic project.” She held out an arm in welcome. “Mitchell, meet the new head of NJ7’s technological team, Ark Stanton.”
“Yeah,” grunted the man. “We already met, thanks.”
CHAPTER FIVE – THE REFLEX PLAN (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
Mitchell couldn’t help laughing. This was clearly a man who liked to be smartly turned out. There’s only so much you can do to look good when there’s blood pouring out of one ripped earlobe. Apart from that, he looked like an artist had sculpted his head out of olive-brown clay and stuck on two flints of slate for his eyes. It was a perfectly proportioned face, even down to the impeccably neat layer of stubble.
“What the hell happened to your ear, Stanton?” Miss Bennett asked.
“Just an experiment that went wrong.” He glared at Mitchell, his Irish accent a little stronger than before.
“I think this belongs to you,” Mitchell announced casually, holding out a diamond earring. Ark Stanton pocketed it abruptly.
It didn’t take long for the man to find some bandages and patch up his ear properly. Then he pulled a mirror from Dr Higgins’ old desk and wiped most of the blood from his face. His shirt was almost completely red, blending in with the worn, leather worktop.
“Well?” barked Miss Bennett. “What have you got for me? I’ve been told you’re a genius.” Before Stanton could even smile, she added, “I never trust what I’m told.”
In response, Stanton could only sneer. When he started his explanation, there were daggers in his voice.
“As you know,” he began, “Jimmy Coates doesn’t transmit a signal.” He pulled out a pile of papers from a drawer and slammed them down in front of him on the desk. “He was designed that way so that no enemy could trace him. Unfortunately, it means that we can’t trace him either. So I wondered whether, instead of transmitting a signal, he could receive one. He wasn’t designed to receive signals electronically, but I studied Dr Higgins’ old notes and I believe that if we transmit a series of strong enough images, bombarding every frequency, it could be enough to jam Jimmy’s programming.”
“What do you mean, jam his programming?” Miss Bennett scoffed. “He’ll just fall over and melt?”
“No, he won’t even realise it’s happening, but we could force him to do certain things he would never usually do, or go places without knowing why. All the time, he’d feel like it was his programming compelling him to act. But it’ll be us.”
Mitchell looked across at Miss Bennett’s blank expression. He wasn’t great with computers, but this seemed like technical talk that was fairly simple to understand.
“You mean it’ll be like hacking into him and giving him a virus.” He tried to sound casual about it, but really he thought Stanton’s idea was one of the most fantastic he had ever heard. Miss Bennett glanced at him. He didn’t look back, but couldn’t hide his proud smile.
“Yeah, that’s sort of right,” Stanton replied. His ear may have been bandaged now, but he hadn’t forgotten about his run-in with Mitchell. He glared at him a moment longer than was necessary. “Except that we can’t just email it to him,” he went on. “We need to transmit it through the airwaves and force it on him. So it’s everywhere around him – in the very air he breathes.”
“But we don’t know where he is,” Miss Bennett interjected. “We’d need a transmitter strong enough to cover the whole country.”
“Or a network of transmitters.” Stanton let his full lips curl into a smile. His eyes twinkled like the earring Mitchell had ripped out.
“You look like a man who has something in mind, Ark,” Miss Bennett cooed.
“Mobile phone masts.”
“Yes, of course,” Miss Bennett gasped, leaning back in her seat. Her eyes seemed to go misty for a second or two and her words were faint. “Even if we can’t find him,” she whispered, “we can control him.”
“The signal might periodically jam some other electrical systems,” Stanton interrupted, “but nothing serious.”
“Like what?” Miss Bennett asked suspiciously.
“The power supply, air-traffic control, TV reception.”
“Air-traffic control isn’t serious?”
Stanton shrugged. “Were you thinking of flying somewhere?”
Miss Bennett stroked her chin for a second, then also shrugged.
“What about me?” Mitchell asked. “Won’t I also, you know, pick up the signal?” He squirmed a little – referring to himself as if he was a radio didn't come naturally.
“Forget about it,” Stanton told him. “You might get headaches or muscle cramps, but the signal’s designed for Jimmy’s psyche, not yours.”
Mitchell nodded uncertainly.
“So,” Miss Bennett cut in, “apart from control over every phone mast in the country, what else do you need?”
“I need to know everything there is to know about Jimmy,” Stanton gabbled, delighted that his plan was being taken seriously. “For maximum impact I’ll need a psychologist, a graphic designer, and a complete behavioural and emotional profile of the target.”
“You need to know how Jimmy behaves and feels?”
“Yes – I need to get inside his head. Will I have any chance to interview the Prime Minister? He would know him best, wouldn’t he?”
“No time for that,” Miss Bennett murmured. “He’s in America.”
She thought for a moment and looked sideways at Mitchell. He always assumed he had done something wrong when she did that, but he held his chest out, not wanting to seem uneasy.
“Eva Doren,” Miss Bennett announced suddenly. “The girl’s known him for years through his sister. Recently she was even living with him. She must have observed something. I knew that girl would be useful to this organisation.” Miss Bennett jumped up, full of excitement.
“What about her family?” Stanton asked. “Are they still looking for her?”
“Unfortunately, yes. They’re a nuisance.”
“What if they find out she’s here and take her away? I don’t want to lose Eva halfway through the project. I’m not so worried about her parents, but those two brothers of hers are angry. I heard they were smart too. They could cause problems. And Eva’s intelligence will be integral to this project.”
Miss Bennett raised an eyebrow. “Is she that clever?”
“This isn’t a joke, Miss Bennett. You know I mean the vital information she can provide us about the target.” Stanton’s expression was becoming more fraught. Miss Bennett raised a hand to calm him down.
“I’ll deal with them,” she said softly. “Her parents and her brothers. Don’t worry. But wait a minute, if we’re going to control Jimmy, we have to decide what we’re going to make him do…”
Stanton smiled, relaxed once more and leaned forward to conspire closer.
“Actually, I have designed some rough images ready for transmission. I thought this would be the perfect way to implement the Reflex Plan.”
Miss Bennett seemed to freeze. This was the first time Mitchell had seen her remotely close to being dumbfounded, but he had no idea what this ‘Reflex Plan’ was. Gradually, Miss Bennett’s expression melted into one of utter glee.
“Well, that would mean I could assign this young gentleman another mission.” She was almost talking to herself, but Mitchell knew she meant him. Then she leapt up and her words reverberated around the bunker. “Well, what are you waiting for? We can improve the images as we go along. For now – start transmitting the signal.”
“Miss Bennett,” Stanton smirked, “we already are.”
Jimmy knew not to look the checkout girl in the eye. But his new appearance made him seem older than nearly twelve, and he could think of a much more natural way for a teenage boy to act. When he took his change he lifted his head and smiled.
“Thanks, love,” he grunted. Then he winked and swaggered away.
His hair was bleached blond now, and spiked. It wasn’t inconspicuous, but it was certainly different to the pictures of him on the news. His new look, combined with his confident demeanour, meant there was no way that checkout girl would connect him to the boy everyone was after.
Jimmy moved briskly down the street. Since Zafi had left them, they had spent three days in hiding at the Bed and Breakfast place. Too long, Jimmy thought. Despite Zafi telling them to move on straight away, they had stayed put, waiting for Christopher Viggo. But now, even in this short walk back from the corner shop, Jimmy saw threats on every side. Every shadow twitched; every sound was a cocked rifle; every passer-by was an NJ7 agent about to pounce.
Jimmy pulled his hoodie over his head and quickened his stride. His heart picked up its pace as well. There was something wrong. It was in the rhythm of his steps – they had an echo. Somebody was following him. He stopped dead. One step later, so did whoever was following. Jimmy pretended to be looking in a shop window. He studied the reflection, comparing every shadow to what he could remember of the street behind him. What had changed? He could feel his gut churning, but was it his programming preparing for a strike, or his fear?
A breeze sent a chill through his body. He couldn’t stay standing in the street like that. It was too exposed. Should he run? I shouldn’t have come out at all, he thought. Even though it was starting to get dark, he felt far too visible. He knew the others were just as vulnerable to an ambush by NJ7. Any of them could be recognised, but Jimmy was the only one equipped to deal with the danger, except for his mother. She had once been a fully trained NJ7 operative, but she’d already been out for a pile of second-hand clothes, the bleach for Jimmy’s hair and basic food supplies. It was too risky for the same person to go out again and they’d needed to replenish their stock of fresh groceries.
Jimmy’s eyes flicked from side to side, checking for even the slightest hint at the presence of the Green Stripe. Am I imagining things? he wondered. Noises, shadows, suspicions – was this the only evidence he had that he was being followed? The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Get back, he ordered himself. Quickly. His instincts were screaming it.
When he turned to carry on walking, he was sure he caught a glimpse of a figure crouching behind one of the cars. Attack me, he urged inside his head. Please, attack. At least if they did, Jimmy would know that he wasn’t going mad and then maybe this whole thing could be over. But no attack came.
Eventually, he was back inside the refuge of the Bed and Breakfast.
“We’ve got to move on,” he shouted out. One by one the others emerged into the hallway. “This is crazy. They know we’re here. I can feel it.”
“Calm down,” his mother reassured him.
“You’re the one that’s crazy,” added Georgie. “If NJ7 knew where we were they would have come to get us.”
“Somebody was following me out there.” Jimmy looked at the faces of the others. Each of them was more filled with doubt and fear.
“Are you sure?” his mother asked. Jimmy didn’t answer. He knew he couldn’t be sure, but he was almost overwhelmed by that jittery feeling. His programming was warning him that there had been somebody else out there in the street. And Jimmy had learned that when his programming told him something, he should trust it – without question.
“We have to wait for Chris,” Helen Coates insisted.
“Why?” Jimmy snapped back. “Why do we have to wait for Chris?”
His mother was astonished. “What do you mean?”
“If this were an NJ7 operation,” Jimmy went on, “would we wait for Chris? Would we? I’m telling you, it’s the wrong decision. We’re running out of money already, and for all we know Chris might not be back for weeks. What if he can’t find a doctor who will help Saffron in secret? What if—”
“We have to give him every chance,” his mother cut in. “Otherwise we’re abandoning the one man who’s done most to help us, aren’t we?”
“Is that really why we’re waiting for him, Mum? Because he helped us?” Jimmy dropped the groceries and rubbed his eyes. “What good does it do him if we wait here? Does he need us? Or do we need him? Do you need him, Mum?”
Everybody stared at him – Felix and Georgie, Felix’s parents, and Jimmy’s mother. Even the couple who used to run the B&B shuffled down the stairs to see what the shouting was about. Jimmy longed to know what was going on in his mother’s mind.
“What if he doesn’t come back at all?” he whispered.
Everybody in the hallway took on a look of horror. But gradually, Jimmy realised none of them was looking at him any more – they were staring straight over his head.
Jimmy spun round to see a black silhouette in the frosted glass of the door. Before he could move, the door handle slowly turned. With a click, the door opened just a crack, and four fingers curled around the wood. The wind swept in, bringing with it the words, “You shouldn’t leave the door unlocked.”
With that, Christopher Viggo was back.
CHAPTER SIX – TWENTY-SEVEN LIVES (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
Eva stepped into the spotlight with a heavy sigh. The panel had allowed her a break, but it had seemed like only a few seconds – one deep breath and it was over. She had no idea what time it was because the room was one of NJ7’s concrete bunkers, completely enclosed from the outside world. When she turned to face the panel again, she felt like they had been going so long and worked so hard that they had pummelled time itself out of existence.
Her reddish-brown hair was tied back in a pony tail. Her head was spinning and her eyes throbbed from the hours under the intense illumination. She couldn’t even see the people interviewing her from here, though she knew it was a man called Ark Stanton, a psychologist called Dr Amar and a graphic designer. The designer had a clipboard on his lap and the sound of his felt-tip pen scratching against the paper ground at Eva’s nerves. A bead of sweat tickled the back of her neck.
“Let’s return to Jimmy’s temper,” Dr Amar began. His voice was high-pitched – a smug, Scottish whine. “If a wasp stung him, would he respond a) with indifference, b) by saying ‘ouch’ and frowning, c) in some more physical manner or d) by chasing after the wasp and trying to kill it?”
Eva wiped her brow. “I don’t know,” she whimpered. “I told you, I don’t know things like that. This whole thing is ridiculous.”
She couldn’t see the panel, but she could feel them glaring at her even more intensely than the 400-watt bulb that shone in her face. She knew she had to help NJ7 so that she could keep pretending to be on their side. They mustn’t suspect for an instant that she was still loyal to Jimmy and, of course, her best friend Georgie. In the long run, she was sure that it would turn out to be the right decision – she could do her friends more good as a spy within NJ7 than if she’d also escaped. But that meant she could never refuse to cooperate with the Government. If they suspected her deceit, she would be finished.
But today, they had taken a sudden extra interest in her. They’d subjected her to these strange and intense conditions, then interrogated her with hardly a moment’s pause. Hours and hours, with more and more questions – all about Jimmy. Surely this meant they had found her out.
“We need to know, Eva,” Ark Stanton said firmly.
“Erm…” Eva squirmed and fought back the tears. Any second she knew she would break down and confess everything. She could picture herself doing it and a huge part of her longed to give in.
“Make your best guess,” Dr Amar insisted. “Is it a, b, c or d?”
Eva was genuinely trying to work out the answer, but could hardly remember the question. Her thoughts were continually invaded by memories of her friends. She missed them all even more than she missed her own family. The feeling was so strong it made her feel sick. She peered into the light, shielding her eyes with her hand.
“I’m sorry about the extreme conditions, my dear,” the psychologist added. “They are necessary so that we can scrutinise your physical responses as well as your verbal ones. We need a thorough psychological profile of the target.”
“The target?” Eva repeated instinctively. She did her best to hide her distress, but how could she conceal anything under this much scrutiny? The light burned into her forehead. The designer’s pen tapped against his clipboard, and each tap pounded through Eva’s head. They know, she thought. They know I’m a traitor. Admit it and they won’t kill you.
Her breathing was rapid. Each breath felt like sandpaper in her throat. A tear dripped through the sweat on her face. She opened her mouth, about to spill everything, but suddenly… blackness.
Stanton had switched off the spotlight. Eva’s eyes took several seconds to adjust to the normal light of the room.
“I think we’ve got as much out of you as we can for today,” Stanton muttered. “You’ve done well. Thanks, kid.” Eva couldn’t speak. She choked back a scream and looked around her, dazed.
“We can carry on tomorrow,” Stanton continued. “Thanks, doctor.” He signalled to the psychologist and the graphic designer. Both nodded, gathered their notes, and left. On his way out, Dr Amar took the film from a camera that had been trained on Eva the whole time. Then she was alone with Ark Stanton.
“That was tough, wasn’t it?” he started, his soft voice coming like an embrace to Eva’s ears. “Your intelligence is vital, you know. Dr Higgins would have had all the answers, but he’s gone. Miss Bennett knew Jimmy well as his form teacher, but that’s old data now. You are the last person to have spent time with Jimmy. The last person on our side anyway. You can tell us how he thinks, how he acts and how far his capabilities have developed.”
“Maybe it would help if I knew what all this was for,” Eva suggested. If she knew what was going on, she might be able to help Jimmy.
Stanton thought for a second, then nodded. “Let me show you what we’re going to use it for. You deserve it. You’ve worked hard.”
He dashed out of the room and came back cradling a cat in his arms. Its fur was black and ragged, sticking out from a tough, wiry frame.
“Say hello to Miles,” Stanton announced, shaking the cat’s paw in Eva’s direction. “This used to belong to Dr Higgins. He left it here when he deserted.”
Eva was so confused she didn’t know what do with herself. Seconds before, she thought she was going to be exposed as a double agent – now she was being introduced to the staff pets. She could feel her knees quivering and had to consciously try to relax them.
“This isn’t an ordinary cat though,” Stanton explained, placing the animal carefully on the floor. He pulled his chair up behind his desk and tapped a few keys on his computer. His eyes were still on the screen as he spoke. “When Dr Higgins and his team were designing the organically programmed assassins, they needed a prototype.”
“A prototype?” Eva gasped, slowly pulling herself back together.
“To test the technology,” Stanton replied, still focused on the computer. “So they built a cat.”
Eva couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She stared at the creature at her feet. It curled round her ankles and peered up at her, purring.
“This cat is… an organic assassin?” She could hardly contain a laugh. It was as if she’d slipped into a weird dream.
“No,” tutted Stanton. “The cat’s not an assassin. They couldn’t programme that sort of intention into a cat. Miles is just tougher, stronger and faster – plus he’s survived to be about three times the age of any cat that ever lived.”
“A cat with twenty-seven lives,” Eva mumbled, reaching down to stroke it.
“What was that?”
“Oh, nothing.” She felt its warmth on her hand. “Poor thing.”
“Useful thing, you mean,” Stanton insisted. “Thanks to Miles I can test out my theory about Jimmy Coates.” Then he reached forward and set up what looked like a grey plastic stick on a little stand – an aerial. There was a broad smile on his face as he tapped one final key. He leaned back, a glint in his eye, and whispered, “Watch this.”
Eva didn’t know what he was talking about at first. Stroking the cat was the most relaxing thing she’d done in all the time she’d been at NJ7. She was quite happy to lose herself in that feeling, but suddenly the cat pulled away and hissed. Eva jumped and drew her hand back sharply. For a second, she was terrified that the cat was going to attack her. But it didn’t.
Instead, the creature lurched sideways as if an invisible train had hit it – then slammed against the concrete wall. Eva let out a yelp of disgust. The cat slid down to the floor. But that wasn’t the end of it. Eva could only watch as Miles shook off the pain, crawled a few metres, then hurled itself against the wall once more. This time it crashed head first and a smear of cat blood followed it to the floor.
“Stop that!” Eva screamed. “He’s gone mad! He’s going to kill himself!”
“Ha! Don’t worry,” Stanton laughed. “He’s tough. It would take hours of this to kill him.”
“Stop it!” Eva cried again, her hands over her face. “Stop it now!” Her whole body was trembling at the horror of it. She staggered forwards to grab hold of the cat, but it hissed at her with murder in its eyes, then dived at the concrete again.
“Enough!” Eva yelled, her words barely audible through her tears.
At last, Stanton tapped the space bar. “Looks like Miles was receiving my signal all right,” he chuckled.
Eva felt she never wanted to open her eyes again, but she couldn’t stop herself watching the cat. Its self-destructive passion had gone. It was reeling about as if it was drunk, and licked its paws to start slicking back its fur. Then it limped out of the room.
“You’re going to do that to Jimmy?” Eva panted. The blood on the wall burned into her eyes. It was the only colour in a room full of grey.
“No, no,” Stanton replied. “He might be a kid, but he’s smarter than that cat. Jimmy will destroy himself in a much more sophisticated way. I’m designing the signal now.”
Terror seized Eva’s body. She had guessed what Ark Stanton was going to say next.
“And Eva,” he declared, “I couldn’t do it without you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN – KILL ZAF-1 (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
Viggo walked into a scene of stunned silence. He smiled his small smile, nodded his head to Helen and ruffled Jimmy’s hair as he walked past. He went straight through the hall and into the living room without anybody stopping him. His stubble seemed a little coarser than when he had left them and there was a cut healing along the right side of his imposing jawbone. It looked a couple of days old to Jimmy.
“So, like, what?” Felix blurted out. “Did I miss something? Are we not speaking to him any more?”
“I think we’re just pleased to see him,” said Felix’s mum glancing at Helen Coates, who sighed wearily.
“I suppose I better put the kettle on,” she said.
“Great,” chirped Felix. “Any biscuits in those bags, Jimmy?”
Unfortunately, as soon as Helen flicked the kettle on, the lights went out.
“See what you did, Chris?” she called out, trying to make a joke of it. “You turn up and there’s a power cut.”
“Looks like the whole block,” added Felix’s mum, pressing her nose up against the window.
It was a few minutes before they found candles and some matches. Eventually they crowded round Viggo in the living room.
“You know what?” he announced. “I actually missed all you ugly mugs.”
“I bet you thought we couldn’t survive without you,” Jimmy chuckled.
Viggo broke into a broad smile. “Without me,” he said, “I thought you wouldn’t even be able to wipe your—”
“That’ll do, Chris,” Jimmy’s mum cut in, placing a hand on his shoulder. Felix tried hard to stifle his laughter, and Jimmy felt his tension dissolve. But there was still a dark question on his mind. It was Georgie who asked it first:
“How’s Saffron?”
Viggo’s mood suddenly changed. He sucked some air in through his teeth.
“She’s going to be OK,” he said. Everybody sighed with relief. “I found someone who could help and she’s being looked after. I think she’s safe.”
“And she’s recovering?”
“It was touch and go when I left, but more touch than go.”
“Wait, which one’s good?” Felix chipped in. “Touch or go?”
“What I mean is,” Viggo explained, “she seemed to be getting better. But slowly – her recovery will take time. And unless Jimmy has developed the power of a Delorean, time is what we don’t have.”
“What’s a Delorean?” Jimmy asked, his face screwed up. Georgie and Felix were pulling the same expression. Felix’s dad let out a deep, explosive laugh.
“It’s from an old movie,” he chuckled. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Shouldn’t you have stayed with Saffron?” asked Felix’s mum.
“I wish I could,” Viggo replied. “But she’s safer without me there – apart from Jimmy, I’m NJ7’s most wanted. As soon as I can, I’ll go back for her or get her to join us. But for now, we’ve got a great opportunity to escape. And we have to take it quickly. It looks like the only reason NJ7 haven’t found us already is because something threw them off the scent.”
“That was Zafi,” Jimmy said firmly.
“Zafi?” spluttered Viggo. “Who or what is Zafi?”
“ZAF-1,” Jimmy replied, feeling the words stick slightly. He’d never said this out loud before. “She’s the French version of me.”
“Bloomin’ brilliant,” muttered Viggo, rubbing the back of his neck. “This gets better and better, doesn’t it? Well, you don’t have to worry about what this Zafi person told you. I’ve got some new contacts of my own. It’s a huge chance for us. They’re going to help us get out.”
“Out of the country?” asked Georgie.
“That’s right – out of the country and into hiding.”
“We’re running out of money,” Helen interjected. “And I can’t exactly withdraw cash from my account. You realise that, don’t you?”
“Don’t worry.” Viggo dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand. “It’s all taken care of.” Helen raised an eyebrow.
“Where are we going?” Jimmy and Felix asked at almost exactly the same time,
Viggo couldn’t help smiling now – and smiling properly, with his teeth glinting. He stood up, stretched, then took Jimmy by the shoulders and announced, “New York City!”
Jimmy, Felix and Georgie were overjoyed. The boys jumped up and down, punching the air, nearly knocking over some of the candles. Georgie let out a tiny scream and slapped her hand over her mouth.
Jimmy had heard so much about the USA. It was the place where all the great products came from – the best games, the best clothes, the best music. But most of it was only available in the UK if it was imported illegally. Ares Hollingdale had gradually made it harder and harder for foreign companies to sell their products in Britain. He’d hated anything that wasn’t British. Even American TV shows were heavily censored – sometimes the jokes didn’t even make any sense, although Jimmy realised that might not have been to do with the censoring. In any case, that had been the only way for him to learn about the USA. He had never imagined that he would have the chance to go there.
Jimmy’s mother was more subdued. She moved closer to Viggo and asked under her breath, “Who are these new contacts, Chris?”
“I’ll explain later.” They stared into each other’s eyes for a second before Viggo finally looked away. “Everything’s arranged. There’s a van outside – the one I came here in. In the morning we’re all driving to Heathrow. These guys will get us through customs and everything.”
“Must be pretty powerful contacts,” muttered Helen. Only Jimmy noticed her unease. Everybody else was celebrating. An extra cheer went up when the lights suddenly came back on. In the split-second before anybody had adjusted, Jimmy caught sight of Viggo’s face. Why wouldn’t he explain who these contacts were, Jimmy wondered. He could feel his insides shifting like quicksand. There was something wrong here. What bargaining had Viggo conducted to set up such an easy escape? And what sacrifices was Jimmy going to have to make in order to fulfil that man’s side of the deal?
“We’ll leave early,” Viggo proclaimed. “Everyone should try to get a few hours’ sleep.”
It was only on his way up to bed that a new worry hit Jimmy. America was where Ian Coates was. The Prime Minister of Great Britain, the man Jimmy now referred to, in his head, as his “ex-father”, was in Washington to meet the President and the US Senate.
Am I cursed? Jimmy thought. Do I have to follow that man wherever he goes? At least his ex-father would be in a different city. There was some comfort in that. Nevertheless, Jimmy went to sleep with one fear – that if the two of them ever met again, Jimmy didn’t know what his instincts would make him do.
“Miss Bennett, I don’t get it.” Mitchell was hunched forward at his desk in one of the briefing rooms at NJ7. He was alone in there with the director of the agency. The surroundings were as bare as they could be – slabs of concrete for walls, with a few exposed wires snaking their way around. This briefing room, like all the others, also had a few desks and an overhead projector attached to a laptop. Mitchell noticed that the logo on the back of the laptop didn’t belong to any huge American corporation. It was a simple green stripe.
“Why aren’t you sending somebody else instead?” he went on. “I’d understand that. But there’s nobody going after Jimmy Coates at all.”
Miss Bennett was busy at the laptop, but after a few seconds she looked up at Mitchell.
“Oh, you’d understand it, would you?” she said sarcastically. “If I sent somebody else to kill Jimmy Coates? After you were in a position to kill him twice and failed? That’s so understanding of you.”
Mitchell hadn’t been to school in a while now, but that feeling of being the least significant person in the world flooded back. He bowed his head and stared at his desk.
“Oh, cheer up, Glenthorne,” Miss Bennett insisted. “You’re still the best thirteen-year-old, genetically programmed assassin we’ve got.” She laughed, and after a couple of seconds Mitchell did too. He buzzed with the excitement of being back in the briefing room. It could only mean a new mission. And if it wasn’t Jimmy Coates, Mitchell had no idea what it could be.
The overhead projector flashed to life. Emblazoned across it in massive letters was ZAF-1.
“ZAF-1,” announced Miss Bennett.
“Yeah,” Mitchell muttered, “I can read.”
Miss Bennett glared at him. He shrunk into his chair. Clearly, sarcasm was a one-way street.
“Dr Higgins’ papers seem to suggest that for over a decade, the DGSE, the French Secret Service, have had access to the assassin technology that built you.”
Mitchell tensed up. Suddenly, he was paying closer attention. Miss Bennett went on, her voice sounding just like a teacher explaining part of some textbook.
“At first we thought ZAF-1 referred to a second French intelligence agency. Now we’ve realised, of course, that there’s hardly enough intelligence in the whole of France for one agency – let alone two.”
Mitchell chuckled.
“Our current theory,” Miss Bennett went on, “is that ‘ZAF-1’ refers to a French assassin. The oldest he could be is about twelve, and if he were any younger than nine he would be almost completely ineffective.” She pressed a button on the laptop to flick to the next screen. Nothing happened.
“Oh, blast,” she exclaimed. “I hate PowerPoint.”
“I’ll show you,” sighed Mitchell, pushing himself up. His chair leg screeched on the floor, but not as loud as Miss Bennett yelled at him now.
“I don’t need showing, thank you!” She slammed the lid of the laptop shut. “The rest is simple. Find the French assassin. Kill him before he kills you.”
“What do you mean, ‘before he kills me’?”
“What do you think I mean? If the French could steal the assassin technology, they could also know about you. Pretty soon we’re going to be at war with France. We know that and they know that. So, just like us, the first person they will want to eliminate is their enemy’s most powerful assassin.”
Pride rushed through Mitchell. Miss Bennett wasn’t being sarcastic about his abilities any more. He sat at his desk with his chest upright and broad. “Where do I start looking?”
He had never expected to be sent on a mission where so little was known about his target – what he looked like, where he was or even whether he definitely existed. But somehow, all of that doubt added to the feeling of responsibility. It certainly added to the excitement. Mitchell could feel the tips of his fingers tingling.
“Paris,” Miss Bennett explained. “I have a support network spread out across France right now and several agents in the process of infiltrating the DGSE as moles. They should have information for you in a few days. Start your own investigations in Paris and I’ll arrange for you to meet with one of these agents as soon as they have something for you. Good luck. Britain is depending on you.”
Mitchell’s face stretched into the biggest smile of his life. The trials of the last week were behind him now. The boy in him had set aside his confusion. He was an assassin again – time to find his target.
CHAPTER EIGHT – I DREAMED (#u1b044b11-92a4-595b-a429-cc92c8b301c7)
Heathrow airport was full of armed police. It always was. Jimmy knew that. But he still couldn’t force down the feeling that every one of them was staring at him. CCTV cameras peered into every corner of the terminal building.
Suddenly, there was a bang. Jimmy jumped. He sniffed for the smell of cordite and swivelled round, expecting the black nose of a machine gun to be pointed straight at him.
“Calm down,” Felix hissed. “It was just that guy dropping his suitcase.”
Jimmy said nothing. He marched on through the terminal. There weren’t many people about – it was before the midmorning rush, and in any case, not that many people travelled in and out of Britain these days. The light glared off the lino floor. The sounds of people getting on with their business mixed with the squeaking of their shoes and the ticking of the terminal clock.
In Jimmy, every muscle was ripped tight. He and Felix had been paired off together, while the others spread out around the terminal. Each group was to check in at a different desk and at a different time, though every now and again Jimmy caught a glimpse of one of them through the crowd.
“I should be tense,” Felix carried on. “Not you. They could bring me down by sneezing too hard.”
But I’m the one they’re after, Jimmy thought. He checked the back pocket of his jeans again. The corners of the fake documents dug into him. Another false identity. Another new life he’d destroy as soon as it was finished with. He’d examined them in the van on the drive to the airport. He’d looked as hard as he could without getting car sick, and they seemed good – too good in fact. The more pieces of this operation Jimmy saw, the more he was worried about who these new contacts of Viggo’s might be. Still, he had no choice now but to go along with the plan and remember his false details: Sam O’Shaughnessy, from Acton.
Suddenly, he let out a yelp of pain and pressed his fingers to the point where his right ear joined his skull.
“What is it?” gasped Felix.
Jimmy’s head felt like someone was firing lightning bolts at him. And it wasn’t the first time it had happened that morning. Felix quickly realised what was wrong.
“Again?” he asked. They stopped and Jimmy bent double, holding his head. “It’s like Harry Potter and that stupid scar, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” moaned Jimmy sarcastically. “It’s exactly like that.” That was the fourth time in the day already. Each attack hit in the same spot on Jimmy’s head and with the same pain – a precise and piercing stab that lasted thirty seconds or so, then dissipated to nothing. He took a deep breath and pulled himself upright.
“You OK?” Felix asked. Jimmy nodded and squeezed out a smile.
“So what’s wrong with your head?” Felix said as they reached the queue for check-in. Jimmy didn’t know how to answer. It wasn’t like anything he’d experienced before. His only explanation was that it must have something to do with his programming developing.
He liked to think that he was more comfortable with his programming now – that he knew roughly what it was capable of and almost how to control it. But really he had to admit he had no idea. It was like an alien growing inside him. More than that – the alien was him, and it was more him than the human part.
“Dunno,” he shrugged, trying to sound casual about it. The truth was, the pain wasn’t the only new phenomenon Jimmy had woken up with. There was something else. Something much more worrying to him. He had tried to bring it up a couple of times – with Felix and with the others too – but each time he had stopped himself because it sounded so insignificant. The last thing he wanted was more attention on the tiniest detail of his development.
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Joe Craig
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Детские приключения
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: A third action-packed adventure for the incredible Jimmy Coates.Will Jimmy Coates ever be free of NJ7? Why should they need to find him if they are able to control him.Through Christopher Viggo′s powerful new contacts, Jimmy and his friends escape to the USA. They go into hiding in Chinatown, New York City. While they are there, Jimmy finds himself experiencing headaches accompanied by flashing images – something that hasn’t happened to him before. Are they prophetic visions?Can Jimmy piece together the puzzle of his obsession before time runs out? And how can he convince anybody of what he thinks he knows, when the only evidence is locked inside his head?Revenge will come. But what form will it take?