JIMMY COATES: SABOTAGE

Jimmy Coates is dead. If NJ7 finds out he isn’t, they’re going to kill him.

JIMMY COATES: SABOTAGE
JOE CRAIG

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

JIMMY COATES: SABOTAGE

Eight Years Previously

01 EXILE

02 PROTECTED OR HUNTED?

03 NEPTUNE’S SHADOW

04 DEATH SPIRAL

05 TERMINAL INTENTION

06 SUSPICION

07 SUSHI FOR ONE

08 HAPPY RETURNS

09 KOLAPORTID

10 SHADOW IN THE CROWD

11 CITIZENS AGAIN

12 MOVIE NIGHT

13 HOW TO CONTROL A COUNTRY

14 IT CAN BE DONE

15 SYNPERCO

16 FEEDING THE FISH

17 NEPTUNE’S WELCOME

18 THE WRONG SABOTEUR

19 THE WRONG INSTINCT

20 OFFSHORE SHUFFLE

21 NEPTUNE’S VOLCANO

22 BLACK DEATH

23 OUT OF THE FRYING PAN…

24 NEWS FROM AUNTIE

25 PROMISES KEPT

26 CHASING GHOSTS

27 SPIT AND DUST

28 FLOOR 57

29 THE ILLUSION OF POISON

30 A LITTLE WAR

31 MR PIGGY GOES TO SCHOOL

32 ABSEILING ONLINE

33 FLYING A FLAG

34 FINDING VIGGO

35 BLACK WIDOWS

36 PROMISES BROKEN

37 NOBODY’S ASSET

38 SOMEONE YOU NEED

About The Author

Also by Joe Craig

Copyright

About the Publisher

EIGHT YEARS PREVIOUSLY…

Twelve black dots crept through the night sky. They were only visible because the North Sea was relatively calm that night and the lights of the oil rig reflected off the water. In the wind, the night manager’s tie blustered round his beard. He pulled his suit jacket tighter, but it was too small to cross over the front of his considerable stomach.

“Are they…?” he gasped. His words were lost beneath the constant pounding of the rig’s machinery.

“I think they’re helicopters, sir!” shouted a burly man next to him. “Do you know anything about this?”

The night manager shook his head and just caught his hard hat before it slipped off. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the horizon and the twelve silhouettes, moving like a pack of airborne panthers through the clouds. His mouth gaped in horror.

“Pack your belongings!” he yelled. “Tell everyone!”

“What?”

“They’re coming here! Don’t you see?” The night manager grabbed his colleague by the collar of his fluorescent work jacket. “I thought we’d be safe. I didn’t believe they would actually ever do it! But they’re coming!”

With that, he turned and ran as hard as he could back to his office, panting heavily. By the time he reached the office door, twelve helicopters were hovering over the rig. Their drone was as powerful as the thrashing noise of the rig. The night manager watched, a crunching panic in his heart.

From each chopper dropped twelve ropes, making the sky a grid of black lines. Then down each rope slid a black figure. The curve of each man’s back was interrupted by the solid horizontal line of his machine gun. The night manager collapsed against his office door.

Seconds later, a giant man loomed over him. He hitched his machine gun behind his back, pulled off his balaclava and held out a hand. His face looked like a veil of skin had been stretched over a construction of iron scaffolding.

“Get up!” he ordered. “I’m the commanding officer of this SAS unit. This oil rig is now the property of the British Government and temporarily under my supervision. Instruct your staff that you will all be leaving at 07:00, when a new workforce will arrive to take over.”

At last the night manager gathered the strength to slap the soldier’s hand away.

“You can’t do this!” he screamed. “This rig is owned by a private company! You’re stealing it!”

“I’m nationalising it.”

“Is that what the Government calls stealing now?”

The soldier dug his heel into the night manager’s beard and pushed him all the way to the floor. “So call the police,” he grunted.

He stepped over the night manager into the office, looking down his nose at the shelves of exotic ornaments that had obviously been collected from all over the world. He ran his finger along the edge of a checked board, covered in an arrangement of shiny black and white stones.

“Don’t touch that!” the night manager pleaded, sitting up against the door. “Please! I’m in the middle of a game.”

“A game? Looks like a bunch of stones to me.”

“Yes, yes, but it’s a Padukp’an board. An ancient Chinese game.”

“Paduk-what?”

“Padukp’an.” The night manager was panting even harder now and constantly wiping sweat from his face. The soldier thought for a moment, then announced,

“I like this. I’m keeping it.”

“What?” the night manager squealed. “You can’t! It’s mine!”

The soldier took a seat behind the desk. “The rig is the British Government’s,” he declared, “and that game is now mine.”

“But you don’t even know how to play!”

“I’ll teach myself,” said the SAS man. “Now get out of my office.”

01 EXILE

When you know the British Secret Service wants you dead, it’s hard to relax. But Jimmy Coates was forcing himself to try. Every second that passed, every mile he was driven away from New York, it became a tiny bit easier. No hand burst through the window of the car to grab him. No sirens pierced the quiet drone of the road. He had really done it. He had fooled NJ7, the top-secret British intelligence agency. They thought he was dead.

According to NJ7 files, Jimmy Coates—the boy their scientists had genetically designed to grow into a killer—had been terminated by machine-gun fire and his body lost in New York’s East River. They could call off the search. Jimmy didn’t want to let himself smile. Not yet. He wasn’t far enough away.

“Welcome to Blackfoot Airbase,” announced Agent Froy, the CIA man who had grasped Jimmy by the shoulder to lift him out of the East River a few hours before.

The black sedan slowed down and Froy pulled into a driveway. The iron gate in front of them rolled back automatically. Jimmy sat up in his seat to look for whatever device must have identified the car. His eyes scanned the foliage that lined the road. The hedge wasn’t a hedge; he noticed that immediately. It was an iron wall, six metres high and at least a metre thick, constructed to resemble a line of Leyland cypress trees and painted dark green.

In a second, Jimmy picked out four security cameras and a laser scanner all concealed in the fake hedge. A cockroach couldn’t get into this place without being microwaved by the lasers first.

He twisted in his seat as they drove through and watched the gate slide back into place. The last sliver of the rest of the world disappeared. He was cut off from everything, sealed inside Blackfoot, the classified military airbase on the outskirts of Piscataway, New Jersey.

Jimmy’s family was a lifetime away. He had left his sister Georgie and his best friend Felix Muzbeke with Felix’s parents back in New York. They were also in the care of the CIA. Jimmy could see them now, in the safehouse apartment above a Korean restaurant in Chinatown. He didn’t know when the CIA would relocate them, but he hoped it would be soon.

Meanwhile, his mother had been on her way to find Christopher Viggo, the former NJ7 agent who had helped Jimmy escape Britain. Viggo had run off back to Britain, full of anger. Jimmy pictured him trying to overthrow the Government single-handed.

He had to hold on to the hope that he would see them all again. Even if it wasn’t for several years, whatever happened or however he changed, Jimmy knew he must always remember his family.

But Jimmy had no idea how he would change. Inside him was a powerful organic programming. It enabled him to do amazing things, but day by day the assassin instincts in his DNA took over more of his mind, subduing his human voice. Would that voice become just an echo in his memory? And what if his memory itself was pushed aside to make room for the assassin’s skill?

For a horrible minute, Jimmy imagined himself in a few years’ time, about to turn eighteen. His programming would be fully developed—what would he feel when he looked at a picture of his mum? Or Georgie? Would they be like forgotten files, lost in the back of a computer’s hard-drive, never accessed? Jimmy tried to imagine looking without any hint of emotion, thinking of them as just two more faces. It made him feel sick, so he closed his eyes and dropped his head back on to the leather.

A few seconds later, the car stopped abruptly. Jimmy sat up. The long driveway had opened out to reveal an expanse of concrete stretching for at least two miles ahead of them. Right in the middle was a one-storey breeze-block bunker, covered in a jumble of satellite dishes.

The wind whipped across the tarmac, buffeting the side of the car. There was none of the noise or bustle found at a commercial airport. The place was deserted.

“Where are the planes?” Jimmy asked.

Froy was busy punching numbers into his mobile phone. “That’s what I’m going to find out,” he grumbled. Then he barked into his phone, “Where’s our plane?!”

Jimmy leaned forwards, but he couldn’t make out what the person on the end of the line was saying.

“Get one down here now! Anyone!” Froy went on. “I don’t care about the weather conditions. Colonel Keays is overseeing this operation himself. There are only two people more powerful than Colonel Keays: the President and God Almighty. Have either of them called you? No. So get the closest military air vehicle out of the sky and on to that runway.”

Froy snapped his phone shut and stuffed it back into his pocket. “Sorry, Jimmy. An operation like this is usually planned weeks in advance. This obviously had to be a bit last-minute.”

Jimmy felt the panic swirling in his chest. He had to get as far away from NJ7 as possible, as quickly as possible. Every second he spent sitting in the back of that car was a second too long.

“Don’t worry,” Froy reassured him. “Your plane was diverted to McGuire because of high winds, but I’m not going to let a little breeze get in our way. I’ve told them to ignore the weather. They’ll find us something.”

How long will that take? Jimmy wondered—though he didn’t dare say it aloud. He scanned the sky. With nothing to distract him, he couldn’t help returning to one thought he wanted more than anything to forget about for now—his father. It still seemed amazing to Jimmy, but Ian Coates had just taken over as Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Already the man had shown that he planned to continue the policy of not letting the public vote. He called it ‘Neo-democracy’ and the more Jimmy found out about it, the worse it sounded. The Government held on to absolute control, with no opposition, and everything was run by the Secret Service.

Even worse than that, Ian Coates had threatened to go to war with France over a tiny misunderstanding. The only thing that had stopped him so far was the fact that the American President wasn’t going to support him unless Britain spent billions of dollars on American weapons.

In spite of all this, the one thing that stuck out for Jimmy was the moment when Ian Coates had revealed that he wasn’t Jimmy’s biological father. Jimmy took a deep breath. It doesn’t matter, he insisted inside his head. He’s nothing to do with me now. Forget his lies. Jimmy longed to believe the words he was repeating to himself. But underneath it, he could feel a mist of confusion. Britain could never be his home as long as the Neo-democratic Government was in power—his fake father included.

Suddenly, Jimmy felt his muscles tense up. He could hear something. A drone.

“Here it is,” announced Froy.

The noise was huge now, and getting louder all the time. The shadow of the plane loomed over them. Then Jimmy saw it—like a sharpened bullet, the EA-22G Growler scythed through the wind. The slim grey fuselage was almost camouflaged against the sky, but the fins were tipped with red and they flashed like flames. Then, with the thunder of the plane touching ground, a glimmer of sunlight caught the emblem on the side of the cockpit—a white star on a navy disc.

Jimmy gasped. For the first time, he was awed by the power of the organisation that was taking care of him now. Colonel Keays hadn’t just used his CIA resources—now he’d mobilised the US airforce. Jimmy felt a smile creep over his face, confident that they would be able to escort him anywhere in the world in safety.

But where? Jimmy laughed at his own stupidity. In all the fuss of escaping NJ7 and the trauma of leaving his family behind, he hadn’t thought to ask where in the world he was going to be taken.

“Where will it…?” he started, almost overcome by excitement. “I mean, where am I…?”

Froy broke into a huge smile.

“I hope you like Mexican food.”

02 PROTECTED OR HUNTED?

Felix bent double and pressed his hand into his stomach, trying to ease a stitch.

“Wait,” he panted.

“Come on,” insisted Georgie, a couple of paces ahead. “We can’t stop.” She looked around, her face twisted with concern. It was almost fully light now. The shadows no longer offered a place to hide.

“We don’t even know where we’re running,” said Felix, still catching his breath.

“New York’s a big place.” Georgie replied. “We can disappear. But that safehouse is definitely not safe.”

“But where do we sleep? What do we eat? I’m going to need breakfast in a minute and, like, every day for the rest of my life.”

“I don’t know,” said Georgie. She wiped the sweat from her face and Felix noticed her hands were trembling. “We can’t let them take us. We can’t trust them.”

“But we can’t just run in no direction at all, can we?” Felix asked. “This is the CIA—if they want us, they’ll find us. We’ve got no chance.”

Georgie ignored him. She was searching the street signs.

“We need a hostel or something,” she whispered to herself.

“They might even help us,” Felix went on. “They helped Jimmy, didn’t they?”

“We think they’ve helped Jimmy.” Georgie glared at Felix, her eyes full of fear. “But they were meant to be protecting us too. How come NJ7 knew where the safehouse was? If the CIA had been doing their job properly, NJ7 would never have taken your parents.”

Felix didn’t have an answer for that. It was the last thing he wanted to think about and for Georgie to bring it up was cruel. In his head, Felix could see his mother being forced to the ground by those huge men in black suits. He could picture her face trying to reassure him and at the same time urging him to get away. He thought he could remember his father crying out for him, but he couldn’t have actually heard that. By the time Olivia and Neil Muzbeke had been forced into a car, Felix and Georgie had already escaped in the back of a grocery lorry, unseen by the NJ7 agents. Felix’s memory was playing tricks.

The wind swept across Manhattan, straight off the sea. Felix shivered.

“I’m sorry,” said Georgie, seeing the distress on her friend’s face. “I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s OK. They’ve been taken before.” Felix tried to smile, but his large brown eyes remained full of anxiety. “I think it’s their new hobby.”

“Wait,” said Georgie. “What happened to that map your dad gave you just before…you know…”

Felix’s face lit up. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a crumpled leaflet. Their hands scrabbled to open it out. It was a tourist map of Manhattan from the rack in the restaurant beneath the safehouse. It highlighted all of the main attractions and, even better, all the hostels.

“This is perfect,” said Georgie. “Let’s head there.” She stabbed her finger on to the paper, at the north end of Manhattan, in the heart of Harlem.

“That’s miles away,” said Felix.

“The further from the safehouse the better. Do you have any money on you?”

Felix slapped his pockets, then shook his head.

“Never mind,” said Georgie. “We’ll think of something.”

“Don’t worry,” Felix reassured her with a cheeky grin. “I always think of something.”

They set off at a jog again, weaving through the side streets and back alleys, constantly looking over their shoulders. Manhattan was quiet—it was still too early for anybody to be driving around except a few yellow cabs. But they both knew that within the next hour it would come alive with people and cars. If they were still out on the streets then, they wouldn’t be able to spot anybody coming for them until it was too late. They had to get somewhere safe fast.

They rounded another corner, Georgie still running slightly ahead of her friend. With every sound, they imagined the grip of an agent round their necks. In every cab that passed, the driver looked like he was watching them. At the end of their alleyway was a main road. Georgie grabbed the map as they stopped reluctantly. They slipped between a line of dumpsters to be out of sight. The smell was bitter and powerful, but it was the least of their worries.

“Where are we?” she asked, panting hard.

Felix slowly leaned out of the shadows, looking for a street sign.

“Doesn’t look like Chinatown any more,” he started. “But I’m never—”

Something grabbed him under the arm. He tried to shout, but a hand clamped down over his mouth. Georgie looked up in horror. The breath froze in her throat. Felix had disappeared into the blackness of a doorway opposite. Then a white arm reached out.

Georgie shrank back, but the dumpsters blocked her in. She was trapped. She wanted to scream, but when Georgie opened her mouth, nothing came out. The hand stretched closer, spreading its white fingers into a claw.

Then Georgie realised her breathing had steadied and her heart wasn’t pounding. She didn’t feel scared any more, but couldn’t work out why. Then her brain finally caught up with what her eyes had seen—a wedding ring. It sparkled in the light on the ring finger of the hand in front of her, and it was a ring she recognised.

“Get in here now!” insisted a woman’s voice from the doorway opposite.

“Mum!” Georgie whispered, bounding out from between the dumpsters.

“What’s going on?” asked Helen Coates, wrapping her arms round her daughter. “Are you OK? And where’s Jimmy?”

“He’s OK,” Felix started, almost breathless with excitement. “He must have planned this whole thing with the CIA without even telling us about it, and then we saw him being shot—but not really shot. And he fell backwards into the river and it really looked like he was dead—but we knew he wasn’t, I mean, he isn’t, because he left us a message before he did it and we worked it out. It was pretty cool the way he fooled them.”

“Wait, slow down,” said Helen. “He was shot?”

“Yeah,” Felix replied. “But it must have been with fake bullets or something.”

“So where is he now?”

“If we’re right,” said Georgie, “then he’s with the CIA.”

“Of course we’re right,” Felix insisted.

“So what are you two doing running away from the CIA?”

Georgie and Felix hesitated, and looked at each other. “Have you seen them?” Georgie asked. “Are they really after us?”

Helen wiped her face with her hands. Very slowly, she nodded. “I’ve been tracking you from the safehouse.”

Georgie knew her mother used to be an NJ7 agent herself years and years ago, but she was still impressed.

“You’ve had two agents on your tail as well,” Helen went on. “If they’re as good as I think they are, they’ll have accessed the satellite surveillance by now. They’ll be here any minute.”

“So what do we do?” Felix gasped.

“Quick,” Georgie whispered. “We should get moving.” She was about to dash back out into the alley, but her mother caught her by the arm.

“Wait,” said Helen firmly. “Why are you running? What do you know that I don’t?”

“The safehouse,” Georgie answered straightaway. “These men came and we had to escape. But they got Felix’s parents.”

“I know,” Helen replied. “I saw it all.”

“You were there?”

“I couldn’t find Chris at the airport, so I was going back to the safehouse. I’d reached the end of the street when I saw the men taking Neil and Olivia. I’m sorry, Felix.” She put a hand on his shoulder and crouched down to look in his eyes. “They’re going to be OK. We’ll find them and sort all of this out. It might take a little time, that’s all.”

Felix looked away. He didn’t like being forced to think about it.

“If the CIA is on our side,” he asked, a little break in his voice, “how come NJ7 knew where the safehouse was?”

“I don’t know,” said Helen. “It could be a million reasons. It might not even have been NJ7.”

“What?” Felix gasped.

“I watched those men. Their methods were…” She searched for the right word. “…different. But NJ7 can’t have a lot of agents posted in America. Most likely, they had to employ MI6 to do the work. Or…” She paused, as if she didn’t want to continue. “Or it could have been the French.”

“What?” Georgie exclaimed. “What are the French doing here?”

“Everything they can to stop America helping Britain.”

“What have my parents got to do with that?” Felix asked.

“Nothing,” Helen sighed. “But the French know about Jimmy. If they can make it look like the CIA failed to protect his friends, they might be hoping Jimmy will turn against America and go back to France.”

Felix’s face was scrunched up in confusion. “Why can’t anything ever be what it looks like?” he whispered.

“You’re right,” Helen agreed. “Look, what do we know for sure?” She counted off the items on her fingers as she went. “First, the safehouse isn’t safe. Second, the area is crawling with agents of all kinds, and third, the CIA is the only organisation likely to protect us.”

“OK,” Georgie muttered, thinking hard. “I suppose we should go with the CIA. I don’t trust them, but at least we’ll get more information that way. We can ask them about Jimmy. That’s the only way we’ll be certain.”

“We are certain,” Felix insisted. “There’s no way Jimmy would let himself be shot like that unless it was on purpose.”

“OK, Felix,” Helen reassured him. “I’m sure you’re right. But in any case, the best way to find out whether we can trust Colonel Keays and his agents is to keep them close. If we run, we’ll never know if they want to protect us or kill us.”

Georgie drew in a deep breath and took a long look at Felix.

“I suppose they were going to catch us soon anyway,” she said. “There’s no way two kids can hide from the CIA.”

“I disagree.” A man’s voice with a New York accent interrupted them. Georgie and Felix spun round to see a thin, chiselled man leaning casually on the dumpster opposite. He was wearing a plain black suit. “I thought you were doing a pretty good job.”

Then he put his mouth to his lapel and whispered into a small microphone, “We got ’em.”

03 NEPTUNE’S SHADOW

At 800 kilometres an hour it can be hard to make out what somebody’s saying to you. Jimmy shifted the earpiece in his helmet. It obviously wasn’t designed to fit the head of an eleven-year-old. The wind and the plane’s engine combined to create a powerful roar. Jimmy wanted to concentrate on looking for a break in the clouds beneath them. Every now and again they offered a glimpse of an incredible sight: America’s east coast from 13,000 metres up. But the Growler wasn’t designed for passengers to enjoy the view. With all the dials and switches packed around him, Jimmy found it hard to see anything outside the plane except miles and miles of bright, empty sky.

The plane had only four seats, set out two by two. Jimmy was strapped in tight directly behind Froy. Next to Froy was the pilot, another CIA agent whose name Jimmy didn’t know. He couldn’t even see the man’s face from where he was sitting, just some wild strands of black curly hair creeping out from under his helmet. The seat next to Jimmy was empty.

In the three hours since the pilot had picked up his new passengers, he and Froy had done nothing but argue.

“I told you,” Agent Froy shouted into his headset, “there weren’t any other planes available.”

“So because the hangars were empty you decided to pluck a ride out of the sky?” The pilot’s voice was gruff and Jimmy placed his accent from one of the Southern states. “This isn’t American Airlines. I’m not here to take you and some kid on vacation.”

Jimmy gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to get involved—he was just pleased that at last they were getting wellaway from New York. But Froy was steaming. “You want me to tell Colonel Keays you’re giving us grief?” he yelled.

“Don’t you get it?” came the other agent’s retort. “This plane is still on an operation! I haven’t delivered my package!”

“Give me a break, Bligh,” Froy sighed. “You’re on your way home, you needed to refuel anyway and you were up in the air again in under a minute. What’s your problem?”

“My problem? First of all, I’m not on my way ‘home’. I’m on my way to the data analysis centre in Miami. To drop you over sunny Me-hi-co is a 2500-mile round trip out of our way.”

“Excuse me,” Jimmy asked meekly, “Did you say drop us over, or drop us off?”

“I said drop over and I meant drop over, kid. That’s a parachute strapped to your back.”

Jimmy felt the square pack pressing into his shoulder blades and felt like an idiot for asking.

“And that’s another thing.” Bligh took a deep breath then blew straight on. “This is a spy plane. I’m meant to stay above observable altitude. That’s above radar, above the clouds, above everything. I was meant to refuel in-flight and I’ll have to drop again so you can make the jump to the ground. But coming down sucks! The minute I dip low enough you can forget about the enemy needing radar. My grandmother could have seen us back there—and she’s blind!”

The more Jimmy heard, the more surprised he was at how disorganised the arrangements were.

“OK, OK,” said Froy with a sigh. “Stop busting my—”

BANG!

The plane gave a massive jolt. Jimmy was hurled to the left and his helmet slammed against the side of the cockpit. He heard both agents yelling through his headset, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. The whole plane was violently shaking. Jimmy’s stomach rolled around. Then he heard the first clear words through his earpiece.

“It’s there!” Bligh shouted. His reedy voice came as a shock. Jimmy strained against his strap to see what the man was talking about.

“On your DS!” said Froy urgently. “Your display station!”

Jimmy looked down at the screen in front of him. It was about thirty centimetres square and in full colour. There was a green outline of jagged straight lines surrounded by blue. Jimmy assumed that represented the coastline beneath them. The whole screen was criss-crossed by thin blue and red lines, but it was hard to make anything out because of the furious vibrations of the plane.

“It sprung out of nowhere!” Bligh cried. “They won’t miss next time.” Then Jimmy saw it—first the black aeroplane icon that represented the plane he was sitting in. Then, barely two centimetres away on the screen, the flashing red dot that could only mean trouble.

“They’ve found me!” Jimmy gasped, barely able to get the words out of his throat. “How did they find me?”

“Hold on tight!” Bligh screamed.

For a second Jimmy felt like the plane had disappeared from under him. Every organ inside him was thrown into his throat. Bligh had sent them into a rapid dive.

“You?” said the man suddenly. “Why do you think they’re after you?”

The plane pulled out of the dive with a sudden swoop. The massive reversal of the G-force thrust Jimmy deep into his seat. Blood rushed to his head and it felt like his brain was about to burst.

“I don’t know how they found us,” Froy shouted, peering behind him through the glass. “I’m sorry, Jimmy.” Jimmy looked over as well. With the intense shaking and the limited view, he only caught sight of it for a split-second, but it was enough—the wing tip of another plane. It was behind them, it was fast and it could only be NJ7.

“This is nothing to do with you!” yelled Bligh, still grappling with the controls of the plane.

“It’s NJ7,” Froy replied. “They’re after Jimmy. Look, their plane has a green stripe on the side. That’s their emblem. You Brits are too damn arrogant to do anything in secret, aren’t you, Jimmy?”

Jimmy blanked out the voices. He needed his body to respond to the danger. He closed his eyes, searching for that power inside him. He had to forget that he was terrified—that was only the human part of him, the 38 per cent that was a normal, frightened boy.

“No,” Bligh announced suddenly. “It’s not possible. There’s no way they could know you were on this plane and co-ordinate an attack so quickly. We’re only a few miles outside American airspace. They must have been tracking this plane. They’re not here for you, Jimmy. They’re after me. As soon as we dipped below safe altitude to pick you up, they spotted us easily.”

At last, Jimmy felt a rush up the side of his neck—like a rising flood taking over his brain and energising every muscle. His breathing slowed. The panic in his chest crumpled into a harmless ball. With that, he suddenly had the confidence to take in what Bligh was saying.

“What do you mean?” he yelled, his voice now infused with authority. “Why are they after you? You mentioned your ‘package’ before—what did you mean? What’s your mission?”

There was no response, though Jimmy knew Bligh had heard him. He could see the man’s shoulders tighten.

They surged onwards, back up above the clouds. The vibrations calmed a little and Bligh kept deploying what countermeasures he could. Without even thinking about it, Jimmy knew that first he would send out a hot flare to divert heat-seeking missiles, then chaff—debris that would disrupt any missile that automatically sought the nearest solid objects.

“Can’t we fire back?” Froy shouted.

Jimmy didn’t wait for the pilot to answer. His voice came out low and calm. Inside, he was thrilled at his own conviction.

“This is an Electronic Countermeasures plane, not an attack plane. Our missiles can take out anti-radar artillery systems and surface-to-air missiles on land or on ships over a hundred kilometres away. But we’ve got no way of attacking another plane.”

Now Jimmy turned back to Bligh. His eyes seared into the back of the man’s helmet. “If you want to survive, I need all the information,” he demanded. “You said they must have tracked you. Where from? What were you doing? What was your mission? Tell me NOW!”

The plane rocked again.

“We’re losing control!” Froy screamed, above the rattle of the metal struts. They were barely holding the cabin together.

“OK,” Bligh yelled at last. “You’re right—I need to tell you. But not to survive—to complete the mission.” He frantically punched some keys on his display station. “God, I hope this CPU is still working. Can you see that?”

Jimmy looked at his own screen. Aerial photographs flashed up in front of him, one after the other. Jimmy was amazed at their detail—he knew they must have been taken from thousands of metres up and with the plane travelling at speed.

“This is Neptune’s Shadow,” Bligh announced, rushing to get the words out, “the second-largest oil rig in the world.” His voice shook with the vibrations of the plane, but Jimmy wondered whether it was fear as well. “It’s 250 kilometres off the east coast of England, in the North Sea.”

Jimmy watched the images flash up, faster and faster, desperately trying to hold on to any of them in his head. Still the plane shook and rattled. Jimmy could barely hear what Bligh was saying.

“This is your precious package?” Froy bellowed. He was furious. “This is what was so important you couldn’t divert to pick us up? A damn oil rig?”

“It’s not an oil rig,” Bligh snapped back. “That’s what I found out. And NJ7 will do anything to stop me getting back with this intelligence. Neptune’s Shadow is a secret missile base disguised as a massive oil rig. And these pictures show that its rockets are trained on France. The Brits are preparing a strike on Paris.”

Jimmy felt his gut twisting into a rope.

“Does anybody know about this?” he gasped.

“Just us three and the Government of Great Britain,” replied Bligh. “We’re too far out of range for me to radio it. The only place this information is stored is on the CPU of this aeroplane and inside our heads. And to be honest, it doesn’t look like this plane is going to be around much longer. If something happens…” he paused and cleared his throat. “If we go down…Whoever survives…you have to take this information back to Colonel Keays. He has to know. He has to stop them.”

CRASH!

Suddenly, it felt like being in a toy plane whacked by a sledgehammer. A direct hit. Jimmy was thrown to the side, slamming his head against the wall of the cockpit again. If it hadn’t been for the helmet, his skull would have been crushed.

Then the plane went into tailspin.

04 DEATH SPIRAL

Jimmy saw every colour blend into every other. The universe whirled around him, like he was trapped in a tumble dryer—one that was falling to earth at over a hundred metres a second.

Only one thing went through his mind—Bligh has lost control. The man was shaking the flight stick frantically and clawing at the switches on the flight panel.

Jimmy looked up, straight ahead out of the cockpit. What he saw numbed the feeling in his entire body. The sea was rushing towards them. Even in the split-second that he stared, the froth on the surface became clearer. He was close enough to see the debris that bobbed on the waves.

Then he looked to the control panel. It was like the most complicated games console in the world. Suddenly, it was as if Jimmy could see through the metal, into the workings of the plane. In a single flash of thought, he could trace the wires behind every button and switch—thousands of them all at once.

“Do exactly what I say!” Jimmy yelled, fighting hard to stop himself blacking out.

“What?” Bligh shouted back in disbelief.

“Kill the engines!” Jimmy ordered. There was such authority in his voice that Bligh did as he was told. The two Pratt and Whitney P450 turbojets fell silent, leaving only the intense scream of the air rushing past the cockpit.

Jimmy’s hands tore at his strap. He unclipped his parachute, heaved it off his back and strapped it round the display station of the empty seat next to him. Then he engaged the seat’s ejector mechanism. Almost instantly, a section of the cockpit screen popped open and the seat was hurled from the plane. Jimmy saw it slam into the wing as it rotated around them. He was relieved that neither Bligh nor Froy had panicked and tried to eject themselves.

“What are you doing?” screamed Bligh.

Jimmy didn’t respond. Instead, he pulled the ripcord on his parachute. The black satin canopy billowed into the sky behind them. The resistance would only slow their fall by a fraction—the ’chute was designed to carry a single human, not a fighter jet. But it would grant them an extra split-second, which could be enough. The canopy behind them would also serve a second purpose.

“Release the internal fuel supply!” Jimmy commanded. Bligh didn’t hesitate. A trail of black liquid streamed behind them, making the plane lighter by the second, and filling the parachute canopy with petroleum fumes.

There was no time to issue another order. Jimmy reached over to the controls himself, flicked the safety cover from the missile switch and jammed his thumb on the orange button.

He didn’t need to take aim. He knew that without a specifically programmed target, the AGM-99 would automatically seek out the largest solid object within its scope. He just hoped that one of the logs in the water would be big enough to register.

A single missile flamed through the sky ahead of them, twisting in the direction of its target. Ten centimetres either side and the missile would have plunged hundreds of metres beneath the waves before exploding. But it hit the log right in the centre. Up came a blast of red and black flame, heating the air immediately around it by hundreds of degrees and igniting the fumes caught in the parachute.

The updraft was enough to push the Growler out of its spiral.

“Now!” Jimmy yelled. Bligh knew exactly what Jimmy meant. That moment he re-ignited the engines. The roar returned. The silk canopy behind them was incinerated instantly and they swooped along the surface of the water.

Jimmy couldn’t help smiling.

“Good flying, kid,” Bligh gasped, lifting them back into the clouds at hundreds of kilometres an hour. “But it’s not over.” He tapped his display unit. The red flashing dot was still on the screen and it was closing in. Jimmy was amazed that the man still sounded so calm.

“We’d better eject,” said Jimmy, constantly manoeuvring the plane so they couldn’t be shot at. “The plane’s damaged and we’re out of fuel. If we’re not hit first, we’ll crash anyway.”

But then Bligh looked across at Froy.

“Froy!” he cried, shaking his CIA colleague by the arm. “He’s unconscious, Jimmy! I’m not ejecting without him.” Bligh reached across to check the other CIA man’s pulse. “Here, you take this.” He unclipped his parachute and passed it back to Jimmy.

Jimmy pulled the straps of the parachute pack over his arms.

“I’ll fasten myself to Froy,” Bligh went on, feeling for one of the hooks on his belt. “I’ll get us both out and I’ll pull the cord on his ’chute.”

Jimmy was about to follow the agent’s instructions, but his hand hesitated over the eject mechanism. He glanced again at the red dot on his screen. Come on, he told himself. Get out of here. But there was a dark force inside him, stopping his muscles going through with action.

“They’ll see me,” Jimmy gasped suddenly. “I can’t jump out. If an NJ7 pilot sees a boy coming out of this plane, the information will get back to Miss Bennett. She’ll know it’s me. The whole operation will be for nothing.”

“Who’s Miss Bennett?”

“She’s the head of NJ7. I can’t let her know I’m still alive.”

“It’s too late for that!” Bligh yelled. “We’ve got to go. I can’t eject until you’ve gone—I’m flying this thing!”

But still Jimmy held back. In his head was a human cry, willing him to eject from the plane. His programming swamped it.

“No,” he announced. “We can get rid of them.”

Determination tensed his face.

“We can’t!” Bligh screamed. “They’ve…”

His voice faded. Jimmy looked up. Through the black grime on the glass, he saw a missile burning towards them. All his muscles seemed to melt in fear.

“Hold Froy!” he screamed.

But Bligh wasn’t moving. The high-pitched whine of the missile grew louder. Jimmy stared at its black point, bearing down on them.

“Come on! I’m wearing your parachute!”

“It’s up to you, Jimmy,” said Bligh quietly. Jimmy could barely hear his voice. “There’s nobody else.” The man turned round and Jimmy saw his face for the first time. His skin was dark and his eyes were commanding. “Get back to Colonel Keays. Tell him about the missile base, Jimmy. Someone has to stop Neptune’s Shadow.”

SMACK!

The missile hit the nose of the Growler. Jimmy felt himself thrust forwards, as if they’d flown into a brick wall. His hands jumped to his face and he squeezed his eyes shut. His helmet smashed the back of Froy’s seat. When he opened his eyes, for a split-second he caught sight of Bligh’s face again. A large shard of glass was sticking out of the agent’s cheek, just below his eye.

“Neptune’s Shadow!” the man bellowed. Jimmy reached out to catch him, but too late.

BOOM!

The plane disintegrated in a massive explosion. Jimmy was thrown into the air. He felt the cold wind and the burning metal blasting into him at the same time. He desperately tried to keep his eyes open, searching for Bligh and Froy. They’re going to die, he told himself. In his panic, he thought he saw them falling through the debris, one with a parachute on his back but unconscious, the other completely helpless.

Neptune’s Shadow! Jimmy heard Bligh’s last words in his ears over and over again, above the din of the air rushing past him as he hurtled down through the atmosphere.

The noise was matched by the turmoil in Jimmy’s head. I could have saved them, he thought. Why did I hesitate? Why did I take his parachute?

Parachute…The word seemed to reawaken Jimmy’s programming. It would never forgot its first priority—to stay alive. While his mind was in chaos, his hands moved calmly and expertly to the ripcord. Even while he wanted to scream, free-falling through the carnage, he could hear a quiet voice in his head counting to ten. Then he felt his arm go tense and suddenly everything changed.

It felt as if his whole body was jerked upwards. The parachute burst open above him. The roar of the wind in his ears changed to the sound of a breeze. Bits of the plane still dropped around him, but soon he was far above them, floating down towards the sea.

05 TERMINAL INTENTION

Mitchell Glenthorne stalked through Terminal One of New York’s JFK airport, limping slightly. His shoulders were broad for a thirteen-year-old, but they were hunched over, masking the size and strength in his chest. His face was fixed in a scowl. The inside of his head was nothing but a jumble of silent curses. He was passing the time by running through a list of all the people he wished he could have it out with. It took in most of the people he had ever met, starting with his brother Lenny and his parents.

He thought of Lenny, lying on a slab somewhere in London, being kept alive by NJ7 for experimental purposes. Serves him right, he thought. Mitchell’s parents’ only fault had been to die in a car crash when he was a baby, but now he had reason to doubt these family relationships.

Jimmy Coates, the renegade assassin—the dead renegade assassin, Mitchell corrected in his head—had claimed before he was shot that Mitchell and Jimmy were half-brothers. If that were true, where did that leave Mitchell’s parents and Lenny?

Now wasn’t the time to work it out, so instead he snorted at how ridiculous the idea was. He blocked out the thought that his whole existence was ridiculous. From his appearance, no one would have believed that he was the first 38 per cent human, organic assassin. Or that he’d been called on to enter active service five years before he was due to be fully operational.

He held the image of Jimmy’s face in his imagination a second longer, as if out of some kind of respect for the dead. Actually, it was to give Jimmy a double dose of cursing. Jimmy was the one who had given Mitchell this limp. He’d be walking normally again in no time, but still, every faltering stride gave him another reason to sneer at the memory of Jimmy Coates.

The airport terminal was busy as usual and, as usual, it was saturated with security personnel. Hardly even thinking about it, Mitchell noted their positions and sightlines as he passed each one. After he had made his move, he would have to escape the building. These armed men and women would be in his way.

Next on the list of people he was fed up with was Miss Bennett. She was technically his boss, but always seemed to act like a sarcastic schoolteacher towards him. Instead of praising him for his part in the termination of Jimmy Coates, she had immediately dispatched him to continue his ongoing mission to find and kill Zafi. She hadn’t even given him time for his knee to heal.

And that brought him to Zafi. Mitchell took up a position overlooking the Air France check-in desks, lying in wait for his target. Zafi was the organic assassin designed and built by the French Secret Service twelve years before. That made her almost two years younger than Mitchell, but so far Mitchell had to admit that her speed and ingenuity had got the better of him. But that wasn’t even what he minded the most about her. He could have respected Zafi if she’d acted with the discipline and seriousness that Mitchell always tried to bring to his job. But she never did.

Agency computers had flagged up a last-minute reservation on a transatlantic flight, under the name ‘Michelle Glenthorne’. Mitchell knew that Zafi was taunting him by booking herself a flight in that name. He clenched his fists. As soon as Zafi dared to turn up, no matter what disguise she tried, Mitchell was ready to rip her head off. That’s how annoyed he felt.

Zafi peeked through the curtain of the fitting room of the Ferragamo outlet. The clothes were too fancy for her tastes and they didn’t make anything in her size, but that wasn’t why she was here. As soon as she saw Mitchell she gave a light giggle. She laughed again when she noticed how annoyed he looked, and how hard he was studying the faces of everybody who went anywhere near the Air France check-in desks.

She slipped out of the fitting room and took a pink pashmina scarf to the till. Without looking up, the middle-aged woman behind the desk asked, “How will you pay?”

“Charge it to the Stovorsky account,” Zafi instructed confidently.

The woman shuddered slightly and her eyes jumped to her customer’s face. Zafi pouted. “Of course,” said the woman, nervously fingering the gold chains round her neck. She lifted the coin tray in the till and pulled out a selection of half a dozen airline tickets. Her hands were trembling as she fanned them on the desk.

“Get them out of sight,” Zafi snapped.

The woman gasped and shoved her hands back in the till.

“Is this Icelandic wool?” Zafi asked loudly, feeling the pashmina between her thumb and fingers. The woman took another corner of the scarf and felt it the same way.

“It’s the finest quality,” she announced.

“But too expensive for me,” Zafi replied and swept out of the shop. In her hand was the ticket that the woman had passed her under the scarf. It was a small charter flight, destination: Reykjavik, Iceland. The passenger name was ‘Glenthornia Mitchell’.

06 SUSPICION

Colonel Keays was shaped like a box and his chest was a tapestry of medals, with ribbons in every different colour against the dark blue material of his uniform. He stood tall and proud, with his chin slightly raised and his cap under his arm. The stark light of the room reflected off the parts of his head where the hair was at its thinnest.

He looked over the three people standing in front of him and for a long time there was silence. Georgie and Felix stood on either side of Georgie’s mum, shifting from foot to foot. Helen Coates herself seemed completely relaxed, staring straight back at Keays.

A small team of CIA agents had brought them deep into the basement of Sak’s Fifth Avenue Department Store. But the ornate interior of the shop floor was a world away. They had found themselves surrounded by the stormy grey of completely bare concrete walls, facing the US Director of Intelligence, while three other agents waited outside.

For no apparent reason, Keays snorted a short laugh, though he wasn’t smiling. “I’m glad we found you first,” he announced. “The streets were still crawling with NJ7 agents when my men picked you up. But don’t worry; this is America. Miss Bennett knows she can’t do anything here unless I give her the OK.”

“You know Miss Bennett?” Felix blurted.

“Of course. Intelligence agencies all over the world have to talk to each other, don’t we? Especially countries like Britain and America. Countries that used to be close.” He paused and looked at them hard. “It’s a shame we’re not so close any more.”

“A shame for who?” Helen muttered.

“Ha!” Keays laughed properly this time. “You tell me—do British people like not being allowed to buyAmerican products?”

“Do American companies like not being allowed to sell them?” Helen’s voice was soft yet full of confidence.

“We used to protect you,” Keays insisted.

“We used to fight your wars,” said Helen. “Times change.”

“And so do people,” Keays replied quickly. “I understand you used to work for NJ7 yourself, Mrs Coates?”

Helen nodded slowly. “I…retired.”

“And yet your husband appears to have been promoted.”

Helen dropped her chin to her chest and Felix noticed her fingers automatically twisting her wedding ring. “Please,” she began, her voice cracking slightly for the first time, “just tell me what happened to Jimmy.”

“You should be very proud, Mrs Coates.” Keays spoke quietly and quickly. “Your son is a remarkably intelligent young man, quite apart from his unique skills. Yes, he’s alive. He wanted me to make sure you knew that, even though it could jeopardise the safety of all of you. As long as Miss Bennett is sure that Jimmy is dead, you’ll be safe.”

Huge smiles burst out on the faces of his visitors. Helen breathed a massive sigh of relief and gripped Georgie’s hand.

“Not so tight,” Georgie whispered, but she didn’t really mind. She looked across and beamed at Felix, who was almost bouncing on the spot with delight.

“Thank you, Colonel,” said Helen.

Suddenly, Felix’s mood changed. “What about the safehouse?” he asked. “Not very safe, was it? It was rubbish.” He narrowed his eyes and folded his arms. “You don’t even care, do you? They took my…” He didn’t finish his sentence. “You were meant to be protecting us.”

“He’s right,” Helen jumped in. “Felix could have expressed it a little more politely,” she gave him a quick glare, “but we do have to know what’s going on. If the CIA spends so much time talking to NJ7, is it possible one of your agents was talking about something they shouldn’t have been?”

Keays exploded with another short, sharp laugh. It echoed round the room. “Ha! A leak!” He shook his head quickly. “Impossible. I’ve got to tell you, Felix,” he stared into the boy’s eyes, “I don’t blame you for being mad. It makes me mad too, and I’m not the one whose parents are being held by NJ7 right now. To be honest, I don’t even know what they plan to do with them. They can’t use them against Jimmy, because as far as they know Jimmy is dead. Maybe it’s a kind of insurance. I don’t know. But it’s something I’d like to find out.”

Felix was about to jump in with another question, but Keays cut him off. “And no, I have no idea how the security of the safehouse was breached. I have people looking into it right now. But one thing is for sure—double agents don’t exist any more. There is nobody in the CIA leaking classified information to NJ7. It’s a tactic that’s just too messy. The Russians demonstrated that for everybody back in the Cold War. It’s more likely to be from electronic espionage, or from one of their operatives working on American soil. We’ll have to tighten up our systems, that’s all.”

The colonel winked and it sent a shudder down Felix’s spine. He had the urge to spit, but managed to stop himself. Instead, he gave a deliberately over-the-top smile and a huge wink of his own.

“There’s good news as well, though,” Keays went on.

“Are you sending us back to the UK?” Helen asked, her voice sombre.

Keays nodded.

“What?” said Georgie and Felix together.

“I thought you would,” said Helen. “It’s for the best. We can look for Felix’s parents.” She ruffled his hair into an even more chaotic state than it was normally. “And find Chris too.” Her smile dissolved.

“Jimmy did what he did so that the rest of you wouldn’t have to be on the run for the rest of your lives,” Keays explained. “Realistically, we’d never be able to hide you as a family. It’s much harder than hiding just one person and NJ7 have the best resources in the world. They’d find you.”

“But now they think Jimmy’s dead,” said Georgie, “we have to go back to Britain?”

“Right.” Keays clapped his hands together. He sounded far too cheerful. “It’s time to go home!”

“Won’t Miss Bennett try to kill us again?”

“Ha! Don’t worry. She’s got no reason to hurt you now. And anyway, I can talk to her. I’ll sort everything out and you can be on a plane home by this afternoon.”

“What will you tell her?” Georgie asked.

“Don’t worry about it. You guys will be fully briefed and have a complete cover story. It’ll probably be something like this: you were all arrested for being in the US illegally. The authorities here obviously want to send you back to Britain, but I have to check with Miss Bennett whether you’re going to be in danger if that goes ahead. We’re not allowed to send people back home to be killed. If I know Miss Bennett at all, she’ll jump at this. She’d much rather have you under her nose where she can watch you, than see you thrown in prison over here.”

“Thrown in prison?” Georgie gasped.

“You wouldn’t really be, understand,” Keays quickly reassured her. “That’s just what Miss Bennett will think.”

Georgie nodded slowly. She was still far from certain that she should trust this man and she hated that he was so light-hearted. “Mum,” she said, trying to hold back tears.

“What’s the matter?” asked Helen, crouching down to take her daughter’s face in her hands. Georgie shivered at her touch.

“Don’t you know?” Georgie’s voice was unsteady and full of anger. Her mother just looked at her in astonishment, eyes wide. “How can you go ahead with this as if everything’s great? It’s never going to go back to normal, is it?”

“It won’t be normal exactly,” Helen said softly, “but we’ll get by. This is the only way. We’ll be able to have a life again.”

“Yeah,” scoffed Georgie. “Some life—with Dad running the country now as some kind of dictator. I suppose that’s OK, isn’t it?” Her voice was growing more and more sarcastic, and tears brimmed in her eyes. “And how can you act like it’s OK that we’re never going to see Jimmy again?”

Helen pulled her daughter towards her, but Georgie held back.

“We will see him again,” Helen insisted. “It might not be for a long time, but we will see him. One day we’ll all be back together. For the time being, isn’t it better that we’re alive and safe? Isn’t that better than running across the world with NJ7 trying to kill us every second of the day? That’s why Jimmy did this. He did it so we could stop running. You need to be back at school, getting on with your life, spending time with your friends…We need to go home.”

Georgie wiped her eyes. “How will it be home without Jimmy? And without Dad?”

“We have to try.”

“You don’t even remember,” Georgie mumbled.

“Remember what?”

Georgie stared at her mother for a long time, her face full of bitterness. Then she looked past her, to Felix.

After a long pause, Felix’s face lit up. “Oh my God!” he gasped. “You mean his birthday, right?”

Georgie nodded. “It’s next week.”

Helen stood up and ran her hands through her hair. “Is it nearly April already?” she whispered. “I guess with everything else I didn’t notice the date.”

“I haven’t got him a present,” Felix blurted out.

“Of course you haven’t,” said Georgie. “When have we had time for shopping?”

“Yeah, but, you know, a birthday’s a birthday, even if you are on the run from the Secret Service. You know what? I think they should have some kind of rule that nobody is allowed to try to kill you on your birthday.” Georgie rolled her eyes. Once Felix got started, there was no point trying to stop him. “And if you do try to kill someone on their birthday, they should be allowed to keep all your presents when it’s your birthday. And your cards. No wait, you can keep your cards. Nobody wants cards anyway. So just the presents.”

“You’re a nutcase,” Georgie mumbled—but a smile had crept on to her face. Felix was bursting with energy again and bouncing on the spot.

He turned to Colonel Keays. “Can we send Jimmy a card?” he asked suddenly. “It can be secret. Nobody has to know about it but us. And Jimmy, obviously. And you can give it to him. You can, can’t you?”

Colonel Keays was taken aback. “Jimmy’s deep in hiding,” he mumbled. “A team of agents is making sure nobody knows who he is. He’s officially dead.”

“But he can still have a birthday, can’t he?”

Keays shook his head in wonder and let out a deep chuckle. “Jimmy’s lucky to have a friend like you,” he announced, “and a sister who loves him as much as you do, Georgie.” He paused to think for a second, then went on, “I don’t think we should start sending cards to people who are meant to be dead. It’s not good to have anything identifiable lying around that might give the game away to NJ7. But how about you write Jimmy a message? Don’t sign though. Don’t even write his name on it. I’ll make sure Jimmy gets it.”

He pulled out a notepad and a pencil from his inside pocket.

“Wicked,” Felix beamed. “I’m going to write him the funniest birthday message ever.”

“Wait,” said Georgie, “I’ll give you a hand.” She moved towards Felix, but her eyes were studying Colonel Keays. “Let’s write it together.” She took the pencil and a sheet of paper from Keays. “Colonel Keays,” she said quietly. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Why did you help us escape from Britain in the first place, if you were just going to send us back?”

“I’m sending you back now that it’s safe,” Keays explained, his expression completely blank.

“You mean, now that we don’t have Jimmy—and you do?”

Keays didn’t move. His eyes locked on to Georgie’s. “Write your message,” he said, pushing the paper into Georgie’s hand. “And have a good flight home.”

Georgie and Felix huddled over the sheet of paper in a corner of the room.

“Thank you, Colonel,” said Helen. “I know they seem…ungrateful, but your help means a lot to us.”

Keays nodded silently. Then Georgie spun round, waving the paper above her head.

“OK, we’re done. Do you want to add something, Mum?” She thrust the paper into her mother’s hand. Helen examined it as if she’d never seen a page of writing before. Her whole body seemed to freeze. Georgie held out the pencil, but noticed that her mum’s lips were trembling.

“It’s OK,” said Georgie, “I’ll put ‘love from Mum’ or something at the bottom.” She pulled the pencil back towards her. Helen Coates turned away, wiping her eyes.

“Don’t worry,” said Keays. “Your son did the right thing. It’s better this way. For everyone. Jimmy is going to be fine. You have my promise.”

“Where is he now?” Helen whispered.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Where is he?” Helen insisted. “I need to know where my son is.”

“At this moment, Jimmy is absolutely fine.” Keays took the note from Georgie, folded it carefully and slipped it into his pocket. “I absolutely guarantee it. Jimmy is happy and Jimmy is safe.”

07 SUSHI FOR ONE

Jimmy’s legs hit the water and his whole body pitched forwards. Huge waves lifted him up, then sucked him down again. With incredible force he was pulled under the surface. His breathing was so fast he was afraid his heart might stop. But he wasn’t panicking. He unclipped his parachute and kicked out with his legs, desperately trying to stop his whole body going numb. He could feel the cold scratching at his bones.

His programming surged through him, controlling his muscles. It would never let him give in to the cold or the water. He was at least two metres under the surface now. Salt water stung his eyes, but Jimmy kept them open. At last another of his amazing capabilities was kicking in: his in-built night-vision enhanced the light. The underwater world took on a rich, blue haze. Jimmy would have been lost without it. Now he was able to fight towards the surface.

The ocean churned with such force that Jimmy felt like he was a sock in a washing machine. He wanted to thrash his limbs. He wanted to panic, but his body wouldn’t let him. Instead, his arms and legs moved calmly, with a maximum of precision and efficiency. His assassin’s programming guided him back to the surface within thirty seconds.

His arms wrapped themselves over one of the largest fragments of the plane’s fuselage. The air trapped underneath it supported Jimmy’s weight. He flopped his chest on to it, clutching it as the waves threw him around like a shuttlecock.

Jimmy’s lower half still dangled in the water and he kept his legs moving in a vain fight against the cold. Every few seconds he wiped his eyes. Through the spray, he could see the carpet of flaming debris spread out across the water. Beyond that was a vast empty space, stretching out between him and the horizon. It was overwhelming. But only for a second—then a wave as strong as a wall jumped up to block his view.

There were thoughts racing through his head that sounded like an overheard conversation at the end of a crackling phone line. Hardly understanding it, he was reading the current. He hauled himself completely on to the makeshift raft, steadying himself on his hands and knees.

Gradually, he reached for more fragments of debris, building up a little shelter around him. Then he heaved on the parachute that was swelling in the waves. It took all his strength to gather it in, but eventually he dumped an armful of soaking black silk on to the metal in front of him. Still the wind and the waves buffeted Jimmy around. He had to grip the piece of the plane’s fuselage with his knees, while he went about ripping up the parachute.

Every few seconds, a part of him wanted to give up. His limbs were straining just to keep him from falling off his raft back into the water. But something inside him kept him going. Maybe it was programming or maybe it was his human hunger to stay alive. Eventually, he managed to tie half of his parachute across his raft, fastened on each side to a fragment of the aeroplane. He had a sail.

In a few minutes, the sea would consume almost every scrap of what remained of the plane. There’d be hardly any evidence that they’d ever gone down there. But what about the people on board? Was Jimmy the only survivor?

“Hello!?” he shouted. His voice was lost against the crash of the waves and the wind. “Anyone there!?” he screamed, pouring out every last crumb of energy. Tears mixed with the spray of the ocean. He clenched his fists and pounded his metal raft, cursing the forces inside him.

Maybe if his genetics hadn’t taken over from his common sense, the agents would have had a chance. But the assassin in Jimmy hadn’t wanted to be seen by NJ7. Jimmy’s programming had overcome his human protests. It had saved him, but at the others’ expense. It was driven by the most selfish instinct of an assassin: self-protection at all costs.

He could feel it inside him now. It purred while his human self longed to scream at the wind. I killed them, he thought. How could they possibly have survived the fall from a plane without an open parachute? They were trying to save me and I killed them. How could he have let his programming do it? The second his human instinct had given in, he had condemned two agents.

I won’t give in again, Jimmy told himself. You won’t control me. From now on, he insisted, he would do everything he could to make his programming serve his human intuition. I control me.

He curled up, used some of the parachute to tie himself down and pulled the rest completely over him. It would give him a vital extra layer of protection against the sun and the wind. All he could do now was preserve his energy. He knew that the plane had been flying over the coastline. Had they crashed close enough to land to be washed ashore? If not, without food and water, Jimmy knew he would die.

With the black silk covering his face, his world was completely dark. He closed his eyes and felt the waves surging beneath him.

Jimmy was suddenly aware of a burning sensation on his face. He opened his eyes, then immediately shut them again. The sun was too bright and the parachute must have slipped off his face. How long had he been asleep? His mouth was so dry he thought his tongue might stick to the back of his teeth. Am I dead? he thought. No—too much pain. Every muscle ached, especially his belly, and when he squinted, the skin around his eyes stung.

It was only now that he realised why he had woken up—the roll of the sea had stopped. He had reached land. He didn’t dare move. Where was he? Faint noises invaded his thoughts. Then they grew louder. Slowly, his brain was coming back to consciousness. There were seagulls above him. Their squawks were like sirens telling him to move. He was too exposed. He could be anywhere in the world and anybody could be watching him.

A huge pelican flapped down and perched next to Jimmy’s left ear. Still Jimmy couldn’t gather the energy to move. Water—that was his next thought. Water or I’ll die. The pelican stabbed its beak into Jimmy’s hair. Suddenly, energy seemed to explode into Jimmy’s muscles. His arm thrust out so quickly the pelican never saw it coming. Jimmy stabbed his finger and thumb into the base of the bird’s neck, pinching its gullet.

In a flurry of feathers and panicked squawks, the pelican choked up one of the fish stored in its massive beak, then flapped away in a hurry.

“Sorry, mate,” Jimmy muttered. His voice was so hoarse he hardly recognised it and his throat burned. Gingerly, Jimmy rolled off his raft. His back screamed in pain when he moved, but he had no choice. The helmet weighed his head down, so he pulled it off.

He landed on wet sand and looked up for the first time. He was on a deserted beach. There were no buildings, just large dunes with long tufts of grass. A few hundred metres up the shoreline he could see some fishing boats tied to a small jetty, but they were too far away to make out the language of any writing on them. He still didn’t know what country he was in.

When he tried to get to his feet his vision blurred and his head started pounding. But he refused to black out. He could feel his programming rumbling inside him, wrapped around every nerve ending. He knew what it was urging him to do.

He slumped back to his knees and scooped the fish off the sand in front of him, picking up a shell at the same time. In swift, confident movements, his hands went about the painstaking process of scraping the scales off the fish. It took less than a minute.

Then he dug the corner of the shell under the fish’s neck and forced a slit down its entire belly. With his fingers, he carefully scooped out the guts. Blood and entrails slopped all over his hand, still warm. The smell was putrid, but Jimmy didn’t care. It was vital sustenance. He closed his eyes and started sucking the flesh off the fish’s bones. In normal life he was sure it would have tasted gross, but right now his taste buds were almost dead. There was enough fish meat here, and enough precious juice, to keep him alive for the moment.

When he had swallowed all his stomach could take, which wasn’t a lot, he turned back to his raft. He ripped down the sail. Then he used every trace of strength to scratch at the markings on the metal. If he left a piece of the US airforce on a public beach, there would be questions asked. Fortunately, there wasn’t a lot of work to do—just a serial number that Jimmy quickly bashed out of shape, using a large stone as a mallet. He buried his helmet in the sand, once he’d scratched off the airforce emblem.

The wind whipped off the ocean, blustering his hair around his ears. The tide formed puddles around his knees, but at least the air was warm and the sun had already started drying his skin.

When he’d finished, Jimmy knew he had to move. He was too exposed here. He longed to run, but his body forced him to walk. It took huge effort to move his limbs and even more effort to make it look like he was strolling casually. Running, limping or anything else would have looked conspicuous.

At last he reached the other side of the dunes and found himself on a quiet street with no cars. Across the road was a line of large houses, each one with fancy decking that looked out across the beach. Jimmy felt his fear intensify. Anybody could have seen him being washed up just now. He shuffled along, not knowing where he was going. His clothes were torn and sodden. Every step left a muddy pool on the pavement, and his feet squelched inside his trainers.

Should he knock on one of these doors and ask to go to the police?

Then he heard two words in his head: Neptune’s Shadow. They hummed in his ears beneath the sounds of the seagulls. He couldn’t get rid of that voice. It was the scream of a dying man and it taunted him.

There was no way to ignore it. Jimmy could remember Bligh’s words perfectly: If we go down…Whoever survives… Jimmy saw the image of the man flailing in the wind. It haunted him, but he forced himself to focus. Take this information back to Colonel Keays. He has to know. He has to stop them.

Outside the British Government, Jimmy was the only person in the world who knew that Neptune’s Shadow wasn’t an oil rig, but a secret missile base, with rockets trained on Paris.

Suddenly, Jimmy felt like he was back in the plane, with the massive G-force holding him down. How much time did he have? Maybe he was too late already. How long had he been stranded on the ocean? His gut was in knots. For all he knew Paris had already been destroyed by British firepower, with thousands of people dead.

Jimmy shuddered and staggered to the side. It took a huge effort just to keep walking down the street. But where should he go? How could he get a message to Colonel Keays? And what would he say? He stopped and held his face in his hands, trying to force up those images he’d seen flash before him on the plane’s display station—the aerial photographs of Neptune’s Shadow. He had to remember. They only survived in his head.

His programming seemed to buzz in his head. One by one, Jimmy started to see lines forming. He could remember. Despite only seeing the images for a fraction of a second, it might be enough. If he concentrated, he could piece parts of them together. They were taking shape now.

Then he saw a flash of blue. Jimmy looked up. He swivelled to take in everything around him. There it was—a muddy white saloon car with POLICE in massive letters across the side and a flashing blue light on the roof. Jimmy froze.

“Well, hello there, amigo,” drawled a lanky police officer, stepping out of the driver’s seat. “Welcome to Texas.” His accent was a thick Southern American. His uniform was dark blue, with a badge on his chest, and hanging off his middle was a belt stacked with every piece of hardware he might possibly need.

Very slowly, his partner climbed out of the passenger seat—a fat man with no hair and a cruel smile all over his face. In his hands was a long, slim rifle.

“We’re your ride back to Mexico,” he said.

08 HAPPY RETURNS

“I haven’t come from Mexico,” Jimmy said in a hurry. “I’ve come from New York. I’m…” He was about to say that he was British, but stopped himself. He didn’t want to say anything that could possibly attract NJ7’s attention later if it was reported. He quickly put on an American accent—imitating it almost perfectly. “It’s urgent that I speak to Colonel Keays or somebody in the CIA.”

The two policemen shared a glance. The taller one sighed.

“Sorry, my friend,” he said. “Your little American adventure is over. US Coastguard saw you washed up and radioed us.” Step by step he edged towards Jimmy. “To be honest, they thought you’d be dead. See, we don’t usually get ’em alive so far up the coast as this.” He lifted some handcuffs off his belt and held them out in front of him. Jimmy’s heart was pumping, but his eyes remained steady, taking in every movement.

“Don’t make this mistake,” Jimmy insisted, keeping his voice low and calm. “Do I look like I’ve come from Mexico?”

The two officers glanced at each other again. Jimmy couldn’t tell what they were thinking. For a second he doubted himself. Maybe he did look like he’d been trying to smuggle his way into America across the Gulf of Mexico. Thousands of people tried it every year—but obviously most of them didn’t make it this far alive.

“Look,” said Jimmy, “all you have to do is make one call and you’ll get this cleared up. Radio whoever you have to. Ask anyone in the Secret Service about a plane that went down.” He held up his hands to try and calm the situation.

“A plane?” mumbled the officer with the rifle. “I didn’t hear about any plane.”

“Well, there was one,” said Jimmy. “We crashed.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what day it is.”

“It’s April 4th.”

Jimmy froze.

“April 4th?”

“That’s right. When did this plane of yours go down?”

Jimmy didn’t answer. He wasn’t listening any more. All he could hear was the date repeating over and over in his head. Then at last it sank in. It’s my birthday, he thought.

He was suddenly aware of his fists clenching by his sides and his eyes watering. He took a deep breath, trying to clear his head. He could only think one thing. It’s my birthday. The idea was so ridiculous it almost made him laugh, but at the same time it was tearing at his heart.

Then he saw the scowls on the faces of the two officers. Jimmy had paused too long. There was no way he was going to talk his way out of this now. The lanky man stepped towards him, brandishing the cuffs.

Should he give himself up? For a second Jimmy wanted to. But then he immediately dismissed it. If he let himself get arrested there was too much risk that he could be identified, even if the situation was cleared up later on. His face would be on camera at the police station. They might even take his fingerprints. And if the police had him on record it wouldn’t be long before NJ7’s electronic surveillance red-flagged the document for analysis.

No. He couldn’t leave even the hint of a trail. To the British Secret Service, Jimmy Coates, the renegade assassin, was dead. And he had to stay that way.

“Turn round slowly,” the policeman ordered, “and put your hands behind your back. You’re coming with us.”

Jimmy cautiously started following the instructions. Then, suddenly, he ducked to the right, putting the lanky officer between him and the other man’s rifle. He rolled across the pavement, then leapt into the taller policeman’s chest, leading with his shoulder. He connected with the force of an avalanche and felt the man’s rib breaking on impact.

CRACK!

“Shoot!” the man yelled, the pain obvious in his voice. But Jimmy was too fast. He jumped up and landed on his back on the roof of the patrol car. He slid across the metal, his wet clothes greasing his way, and kicked out hard. He connected with the barrel of the rifle, sending it flying.

There was no way to stop Jimmy now. He tumbled to the ground on top of the fat man, then rolled off and hurtled across the street, diving into the alley between two houses. His muscles cried out inside him, and it wasn’t just his face that was sunburned. His whole body was in agony. Within seconds he heard sirens. Already, his lungs were ready to implode, but Jimmy kept moving.

He twisted through the streets, his head down and his legs pumping. Every corner brought new sounds and new dangers. He listened for the direction of the sirens, but they seemed to be everywhere and closing in.

Every second that passed he could feel his body being drained of energy. The world was swirling around him. He was reeling from side to side. Water. Food. His body demanded it.

At last he saw a row of shops. One of them was a place selling tacky gifts. The store window was full of T-shirts, caps, mugs and novelty pencils, all emblazoned with ‘Welcome to Port O’Connor’.

Jimmy dived in. The teenage girl behind the counter stood bolt upright in shock. Jimmy headed straight for a fridge stocked with drinks. On the bottom shelf were bottles of water. He tore open the fridge door and grabbed the largest one.

He knew he had no money on him, but there was nothing he could about it. It was stealing or dying. In one twist he unscrewed the lid of the bottle and took a swig. As the first gulp went down, he almost retched it straight back up again.

“Hey!” the girl shouted in a thick Texan accent. “This ain’t a free bar, y’know?”

Jimmy ignored her and forced himself to drink more. There wasn’t time to let his body recover slowly. Before the girl could draw breath to shout again, he grabbed another bottle of water and snatched a handful of chocolate bars from the rack, plus a packet of Mentos. Then he spun on his heels and burst out into the street. As he ran he poured water down his throat, not caring that it made his head dizzy and his stomach lurch.

Finally, he found an alley and collapsed in the shadow of a doorway, his chest heaving. His stomach retched violently and eventually he produced a spatter of vomit. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and slumped against the building.

He tore open a chocolate bar. He had to force down every bite as quickly as he could—he had almost burned more energy than he had left. The milky texture felt so soothing on his tongue.

In no time Jimmy’s heart rate was close to normal again. Even this small amount of water and food had done his body a huge amount of good. But it couldn’t help his state of mind.

Neptune’s Shadow. His finger scratched lines in the dust. He had to remember everything he had seen. He couldn’t let the details fade. He knew that his programming made him capable of memorising incredibly complex images after only a second, but he wasn’t in control of it. It was like having a camera built into his head, but not knowing how to turn it on.

Time after time Jimmy drew diagrams in the dirt. Were they accurate? He scrubbed them out and pounded his fist on the concrete. Happy Birthday, he thought sarcastically. With that, he pushed himself to his feet and started running again. He had to find a way out of town—a station, a boat, a bicycle even. Anything.

The one thing on his side was that there was hardly anybody about. He imagined that in the summer the town must be busy, but it was too early in the year for beach lovers.

With sirens still tearing at his ears, he wormed his way through the town. At last he glimpsed the sleek silver body of a bus. The last passengers were climbing aboard, then the engine spluttered into life in a cloud of dust.

Jimmy dived to the ground. He rolled over three times, so quickly that at any one moment he couldn’t tell whether he was facing the sky or the road. He caught the exhaust of the bus to stop himself abruptly. The fumes stung the roof of his mouth and the metal was growing hotter by the second, but Jimmy clung on. Eventually, he manoeuvred himself into a fairly stable position beneath the bus.

The noise and the heat drowned out the rest of the world. He was going to make it out of Port O’Connor. But Jimmy knew his struggle for survival was just beginning.

09 KOLAPORTID

Iceland’s only flea market was Kolaportid, held every weekend in a vast warehouse on the harbour in Reykjavik. The sides of the building were open to the elements and the wind whipped in off the harbour, piercing Zafi’s light fleece with ease. She was beginning to wish she’d actually bought that pink pashmina back in New York.

All around her were stalls selling everything in the world—bric-a-brac, antiques, clothes. Strange objects loomed out at every angle. The place was bustling and made to seem even more packed because everybody else was wrapped up in hefty Puffa jackets. All the men seemed to have thick beards as well, which must have helped in the cold. Zafi thrust her hands into her jeans and headed for a stand piled high with woolly hats.

Five minutes later she had some new woolly mittens and a bright red bobble hat. She was confident that the French Secret Service budget would cover the cost. Now she headed for the food section. All she had to do was follow the smell.

At the back of the warehouse was a tiled extension. The stalls there were stacked with fish. Zafi was stunned by the selection on display. Some of the creatures looked like they should have died out with the dinosaurs. The floor was glazed with the muddy remnants of fish entrails. Her trainers slid about with each step, and every now and again she felt something squish.

Straightaway, she recognised the man she was looking for and approached his stand. He was fat, with round features, a neatly trimmed chestnut beard and glasses that made his eyes look too small for his face. Zafi stood on tiptoe and leaned forwards over the fish so that she didn’t have to raise her voice too much above the noise of the market.

“You have a special order put aside for me,” she said, looking her contact up and down.

“What name please?” the man asked, with a perfect English accent. Zafi paused for a moment to maximise the impact of her response.

“The Stovorskisson account.” She loved the effect her words had on any of the contacts she used. The fishmonger’s eyes stretched wide behind his glasses, like suns about to explode seen through a telescope. He wiped his hands on his overalls and stumbled back into a private room behind the counter. Every movement was stilted. Often these contacts were ordinary members of the public who had no idea of the extent of the operation they were involved with. Sometimes they didn’t even believe they would ever really be called into action.

When the man returned he was clutching a small round container made of transparent plastic. In it were yellowish-white cubes that looked like some kind of cheese or fudge. They wobbled slightly as the fishmonger’s hand trembled. He quickly put the container down on the counter, as if he didn’t want to touch it any longer than he had to.

“You know,” he said, almost too quietly to be heard, “the raw flesh of a Greenland shark is very poisonous.”

Zafi tried hard to hide her smile.

“Of course,” she replied. “It’s the high concentration of trimethylamine oxide. To make it edible you need to bury it for six months to ensure thorough decomposition of the flesh, then dry it in a special shed for six more. The putrefied meat becomes Hákarl, an Icelandic speciality. In fact,” she announced, a look of glee coming over her face, “I’ll take a tub of that as well, please.”

She picked up the plastic container the man had brought from the back and chose an identical one from a chiller.

“What are you going to do with it?” the man asked nervously, while Zafi counted out some money. “The raw meat, I mean?”

“Kill the British Prime Minister, of course!”

The man froze for a split-second, then his whole body relaxed. He reached over the counter and patted the bobble on Zafi’s hat. A huge smile took over his face.

“Sweetheart, you’ve read too many science books,” he chortled, then quickly added, “and too many spy books!”

Zafi flashed him her sweetest smile and waltzed away with her new weapon. The tubs of shark meat chilled her fingers. For a second, a thought flashed across her mind. Do I have to do this? She wondered what would happen if she dropped the tubs to the floor, letting the cubes scatter, and didn’t stop to pick them up again. Immediately, her fingers locked more tightly around the plastic. It’s not up to me

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