Jimmy Cortes: Target
Joe Craig

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

ELEVEN YEARS PREVIOUSLY…

CHAPTER ONE – UNO STOVORSKY

CHAPTER TWO – BROTHERS

CHAPTER THREE – SPECIAL DELIVERY

CHAPTER FOUR – MISSION

CHAPTER FIVE – IT’S RAINING UMBRELLAS

CHAPTER SIX – SOME BOY

CHAPTER SEVEN – ALWAYS RECYCLE

CHAPTER EIGHT – DEFECTION

CHAPTER NINE – VARGAS MEETS ESTAFETTE

CHAPTER TEN – HOMECOMING

CHAPTER ELEVEN – SOLITARY REFINEMENT

CHAPTER TWELVE – HEART ATTACK

CHAPTER THIRTEEN – CORTES UNCOATED

CHAPTER FOURTEEN – MURDER REMEMBERED

CHAPTER FIFTEEN – FORT EINSMOOR

CHAPTER SIXTEEN – COUNTRY RETREAT

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – POWER

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – SANOWICH WITH BITE

CHAPTER NINETEEN – MANHUNT

CHAPTER TWENTY – WAR

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE – REUNION

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO – INVASION

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE – DERTH BY SHADOW

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR – KILLERS OR HEROES?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE – BROTHERS RGRIN

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX – A QUESTION OF BLOOD

JIMMY COATES REVENGE

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Joe Craig

Copyright

About the Publisher

ELEVEN YEARS PREVIOUSLY…

THE ONLY THING that distinguished this man from everyone else on the bridge was his stillness. His collar was turned up against the wind of a typical Parisian autumn and his hat was pulled down to his eyes. Nobody noticed him. Then, with one deep sigh, he marched through the fog towards the Île St Louis. / hope nobody will have to die today, he thought.

He reached a familiar wooden door. A sharp jab with his elbow snapped the old lock and he slipped through unobserved. Around him was a small courtyard he didn’t bother to inspect. Instead, he eyed the fourth floor of the adjacent building. Drizzle slicked the drainpipe when he clasped it, but he heaved himself up, strong and persistent. He hauled himself on to the balcony, careful to land silently, and drew his gun. It felt familiar yet horrible in his grip. It’s just a precaution, he told himself.

After only a moment, he burst through the flimsy balcony doors. “Levez les mains!” he shouted.

An elderly man sat proudly at his desk among piles of papers. “There’s no need to speak to me in French, Ian,” he announced with just a hint of an accent as he raised his hands above his head. “And there’s no need to point a gun at me. If you’re going to shoot, shoot. If not, let’s talk.”

“You should have run further away, Doctor.”

“Where could I have gone that NJ7 wouldn’t find me?” Still the gun pointed at the doctor’s head, but neither man blinked. Dr Memnon Sauvage rose slowly and edged round his desk.

“You know I can’t come with you,” he continued. “What I’ve done can’t be undone, no matter what Hollingdale does to me.”

“Turn round and put your hands behind your back,” the other man replied flatly.

“How’s Helen?” The doctor stayed facing the way he was. “Has the baby been born? It must be any day now.” Despite huge effort, Ian Coates’s face flickered.

“Ah,” exclaimed Dr Sauvage with a dry smile. “Congratulations. A father for the second time!”

Ian Coates was scowling now, trying hard to detach his anger from his trigger finger. “Do as I say or I will shoot you.”

“Go ahead. Shoot me,” Dr Sauvage snapped back. “Then NJ7 will never know what France is capable of.”

“Then turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

“So you can march me back to London? Back to NJ7? Back to your wife?”

At that, Coates slapped his hand viciously across the old man’s face. The blow sent him straight to the floor.

“Hollingdale can do nothing without me,” barked Dr Sauvage, spitting blood. “Tell him that! And tell him this: the day he finds out what I’ve done will be the day it kills him.”

Ian Coates approached slowly, leading with his gun. But Dr Sauvage crawled backwards, round his desk, and stopped at the foot of a huge bookcase. The two men stayed like that for what seemed like for ever. Dr Sauvage’s blood dripped from Ian Coates’s knuckles. Then the doctor’s glance flicked for a moment towards the papers on his desk. Coates followed his gaze, but immediately regretted it. In that instant, Sauvage heaved on the bookcase.

“No!” cried Ian Coates, dropping his gun and lunging forwards. He was too late. The huge books hit Sauvage like a prizefighter’s punches. Then the bookcase itself crushed his wiry frame.

Coates was stunned. Only the doctor’s head was visible. Coates reached down to the man’s neck and felt for a pulse – out of habit, not in hope. A cloud of dust settled on the body.

Coates didn’t panic. He rifled through the stacks of papers on the desk. Everything was in code, of course, but he discarded the files at the top as obvious decoys. He paused when he came to a bright orange flash drive, the sort you could simply plug into a computer to make vast amounts of data portable. It was marked simply ‘ZAF-1’. The same initials recurred on documents, sometimes in bold. It meant nothing to him.

He snatched up his gun and stuffed as many of the files as he could under his arm, slipped the flash drive into his pocket. He ran out of the room and followed the staircase to the roof. From there he bounded across to the next building, shoving the papers into his coat so his hands were free. ZAF-1, he thought, trying to shut out the image of the doctor’s death. What could it mean?

He leapt to a balcony below, then down again, catching the arc of a lamp-post. Finally, he let himself drop into the back alley and away he ran.

CHAPTER ONE – UNO STOVORSKY

“ALL RISE!” EVERYBODY in the courtroom obeyed the sombre instruction except two bowed figures.

“This isn’t fair!” shouted Olivia Muzbeke, her voice thin with fear and fatigue. Her husband tried to move a hand across to comfort her, but his wrists were chained to a metal bar in front of him. A guard dragged them both to their feet.

The stern-faced judge eased himself into his chair. “This is as fair as it gets for bad citizens,” he mumbled.

Neil Muzbeke looked across the courtroom to where the jury used to sit, in the days when a jury was still part of the legal system. Inside, he felt as empty as those benches. He was past shouting. He had given everything. He had protested, he had pleaded and now he was resigned to whatever fate the judge had been told to pass down to them. Any other thoughts were eclipsed by the image of the son he might never see again.

“You knew that the dangerous criminal, Jimmy Coates, was a fugitive from the authorities,” the judge intoned, “yet you shielded him and then helped him to escape, putting the life of Prime Minister Ares Hollingdale at risk. Not only that, but your own son…” he scoured his notes for the name, “…Felix Muzbeke, even at the age of eleven, has shown himself to be an enemy to the Neo-democratic State of Britain.”

The judge wheezed and adjusted his glasses. Then, without even looking up, he passed sentence.

“Incarceration,” he announced. “At the discretion of the Home Office.” He slammed down his hammer to make the decision final. That noise killed any lingering faith Neil Muzbeke had had in his country’s justice system.

At the back of the courtroom stood a woman who seemed too attractive for such miserable proceedings. But she was satisfied with the result of the trial and the speed at which it had been conducted.

“Release the news,” she whispered to a young man in a black suit, who trembled at the woman’s complete authority. “Make sure it reaches France.”

“Yes, Miss Bennett.”

Jimmy was hardly conscious of the thud as the helicopter touched ground. The oleopneumatic shock absorbers of the EC975 were designed for the smoothest of landings. What woke him was the change in the noise of the rotors. The steady drone that had surrounded them since they left London was dying now.

Jimmy shook off his nightmare. As always, he had no recollection of what he had been dreaming, only shortness of breath and a thumping heart – the remnants of his terror. He pulled his blanket tighter round him. What did he have to be afraid of? In the past fortnight he’d crashed through brick walls, breathed underwater and caught a bullet in his hand. Even stabbing a knife into his wrist had done no serious damage. The bloodless slit would heal abnormally fast. The bandage (which his mother had wound too tight) was unnecessary, but it was a comfort to him now. Nevertheless, he feared what might be out there waiting for him.

NJ7, Britain’s most secret intelligence agency, could be anywhere. Their scientists had designed Jimmy to be an assassin when he reached eighteen then sent him to kill seven years too soon. As soon as Jimmy had disobeyed that order, struggling against his physiological destiny, he had become an enemy. And there could be no less desirable opponent than NJ7.

Perhaps even more than that, Jimmy feared what was inside him. He felt so human, but now he knew that part of him was an inhuman power, created to kill.

Everyone else in the cabin was asleep. Christopher Viggo stepped out of the pilot’s seat and stretched, his lithe physique outlined beneath the creases in his shirt. He turned to meet Jimmy’s gaze, gave a tired nod then stalked away. That was the man NJ7 had sent Jimmy to eliminate.

Viggo was fighting to make Britain a democracy again. Under the unlikely cover of running a Turkish restaurant, he had been building an organisation that might one day be able to oppose the Government. It had taken all of Jimmy’s mental strength to reject his first mission and join Viggo’s cause.

Now they had landed, the others quickly woke up. The wind whipped around them as they alighted from the helicopter. Jimmy could almost taste the countryside air, so different from the city they had escaped. They were in the middle of a field and the only building between them and the horizon was an ancient, half-timbered farmhouse, with its upper floor projecting out over the lower one.

So this is what France looks like, Jimmy thought to himself. He had never been out of Britain before. He had never even wondered what it was like anywhere else. Now he realised how strange that was. Perhaps he had always assumed everywhere else would be just like home. Anyway, he was too tired and scared to feel excited about finally being abroad. Besides, he wasn’t on holiday. He was on the run.

Yannick Ertegun, the chef from Viggo’s restaurant in London, led the way. Jimmy walked with his mother, Helen, followed by the dark and beautiful Saffron Walden, who was Viggo’s girlfriend and a vital part of his outfit in her own right. Jimmy’s older sister Georgie followed with her friend Eva, and Jimmy’s best friend Felix Muzbeke stumbled after them, his face scrunched up against the elements.

Viggo hung back from the rest of the group. As they walked through an orchard at the back of the farmhouse, he stopped to fill his arms with fallen branches. Already the internal struggle in Jimmy began again: the agent in him realised he should help Viggo to camouflage the helicopter, but the temptation of food and warmth kept him following the others towards the house. He held himself rigidly in line. Control meant everything.

At the farmhouse door was a tiny woman, who looked like the oldest person Jimmy had ever seen. Yannick bent down to kiss her on the cheek and she clipped him round the back of the head.

“Everybody, this is my mother,” grinned the chef.

Jimmy smiled cautiously at the woman, who scowled as they all shuffled awkwardly into the building. Clearly, she hadn’t been expecting visitors. Despite being large, the interior of the farmhouse was dark and austere. The ceiling dipped at unusual angles as if the central beam were reaching for the fire that dominated the room. It didn’t seem to be doing much to heat the house, thought Jimmy, shivering.

A staircase lurched upwards out of the corner and there was a door at each end of the room. Yannick’s mother trudged through one of them, revealing a glimpse of a large, old-fashioned kitchen. Yannick followed her, pleading and explaining as best he could without being indiscreet.

Soon they were all sitting round the fire with giant mugs of hot chocolate.

“When will we start looking for my parents?” Felix whispered in Jimmy’s ear. Jimmy stared deliberately into the flagstones and shrugged. He had almost forgotten that Neil and Olivia Muzbeke had been arrested for helping him escape NJ7. He had been completely caught up in his own thoughts. He silently scolded himself for being so self-obsessed. Even at that moment, he could feel the ever-growing presence of his powers, deepening the split between his heart and his instincts, his mind and his body. He could control his powers for now, but only by succumbing to them. It scared him beyond anything he had ever felt before to think that he might be relinquishing his humanity.

Whenever Jimmy did think back, he could only relive the last time he had seen his own father. Jimmy could picture in alarming detail Ian Coates’s face as he refused to escape from the British Government with Jimmy. The split inside him was forcing his family apart now too.

Felix started saying something else, but Jimmy hushed him and stood up. There was a tingle in his stomach. The assassin’s instinct again. He’d heard something outside.

“Does anybody else live here?” he asked Yannick quietly.

“No, just my mother.”

“You’re being paranoid,” said Georgie calmly. Jimmy wished that could be true, but his killer instinct had been infallible so far. Then Jimmy’s mother stood up as well.

“I heard something too,” she said.

“It must be Chris coming in,” whispered Saffron.

Jimmy shook his head. His insides were swirling now. “Move to the centre of the room.”

Everyone did as he said except Eva. “This is ridiculous,” she chuckled. “We’re in the middle of the French countryside about a million miles from anywhere. How could they possibly find—”

CLUNK!

The door slammed open. A masked figure in black crashed through with a battering ram. Another one stormed in behind him and dropped to his knees. Almost blending into the black of his gloves and sleeves was a Beretta 99G pistol. Then a dozen identical figures ran in, filling the room.

“Haut les mains!” came a shout from somewhere. Then, in a thick French accent, “‘Andz urp!”

Jimmy could feel the overwhelming power of his killing instinct drumming through his body. But his mind was serene. He stayed as still as all his friends and raised his hands. One thought was utterly clear: This is not NJ7. If it had been, he would have been dead by now. Besides, NJ7 wouldn’t have issued instructions in French.

The group backed towards each other. The shock on their faces changed instantly to puzzlement. Their gasps were drowned out by the protestation from Yannick’s mother. She was screaming her head off in coarse French, while Jimmy was trying to concentrate.

“Ferme-la!” he shouted, then immediately clasped his hand to his mouth. Oh my God, he thought, / speak French.

The front door was flapping open and in strode three more men. Two were dressed in black combat gear just like the others, but they carried FAMAT F9 assault rifles. Jimmy knew this for certain, in the same way he now knew French. It was all part of his conditioning – buried in his head, coming to the surface piece by lethal piece.

Between the two soldiers was a short man with a grim expression. His hair was thin and his shoulders hunched towards his ears. His skin seemed to blend in with his grey city overcoat, which was totally unsuitable for the rustic surroundings.

“By authority of the French military,” he declared in perfect English, “you are all under arrest on suspicion of espionage. Keep your hands above your heads and—”

“You’re making a mistake.” It was Viggo. He was holding a gun to the back of the Frenchman’s head. “Drop your weapons!” he shouted.

Even before Viggo had finished his sentence, the soldier to his left spun round. His rifle pointed at Viggo and his finger squeezed the trigger.

“Nan!’ snapped the man in the overcoat – just in time. The soldier held fire, but maintained his aim. Nobody moved. ‘That sounds like Christopher Viggo,” the man in grey continued, “but Christopher Viggo is not an enemy to France.”

Then he calmly issued a stream of orders in French. As one, his team lowered their guns.

“Uno?” gasped Viggo, trying to peer round at the man’s face. “Uno Stovorsky?”

“And only now do I see you’ve brought Saffron with you.” The man shook his head in disbelief.

“Hello, Uno,” Saffron called out, cool as ever. “How’s the DGSE?”

“What’s going on?” Felix whispered to Jimmy.

“The DGSE is the French Secret Service,” he replied, but more than that he couldn’t say. How come everyone seemed to know each other all of a sudden?

Viggo circled the man in the grey overcoat, his mouth hanging open in amazement. “Uno! I never thought…”

Then, without warning, Uno Stovorsky slammed his fist into Viggo’s jaw.

“If I weren’t on duty, I’d kill you right now,” he growled.

Mitchell hoisted himself off the sofa, sweating. Another nightmare, but he had lost all memory of it now his eyes were open. His alarm clock no longer worked, but he knew it was about 3.00 a.m. because he could hear the punters being thrown out of the club below the flat. He staggered to the bathroom and doused his face with the cold brown water that dribbled out of the hot tap.

His brother would be back soon. As usual, he’d come home, start a fight, then fall into bed, drunk. It made Mitchell angry just thinking about him. He had been forced to share this place since he and his brother had run away from their foster home. Sometimes, Mitchell wished he could go back there, but he knew what he really longed for wasn’t possible – for his real parents to have come out alive from the crash.

Then he heard the click of the front door.

“Mitchell!” His brother sounded cheerful, but that wasn’t necessarily a good sign. “Come here, mate, I have to do something.”

Mitchell felt sick. He knew that greeting his brother face to face was the last thing he should do, but the flat was so small there weren’t exactly places to hide. He heard his brother stomp into the living room and pictured precisely what he was doing. First, he’d throw something at the sofa – probably his shoe. Then, when there was no reaction, he’d pull off the blankets and take on that mystified look, unable to comprehend why Mitchell wasn’t lying there, waiting to be harassed.

“Mitchell?” This time his brother sounded confused. Mitchell’s stomach turned over. He scrabbled through the bathroom cabinet for any medicine that wasn’t out of date. “Listen, mate,” his brother continued, still in the other room, “this guy said I could have ten grand, but, er…”

The bathroom door creaked open and Mitchell caught sight of his brother’s haggard face in the mirror.

“All right, bruv?”

“All right, Lenny.” Mitchell turned to face his brother, but clutched his stomach. It felt like something in his belly was burning.

“Like I said,” Lenny explained, blocking his brother in, “this bloke offered me ten grand. He had it there in a suitcase and everything.”

It wasn’t like him to talk so much, thought Mitchell. For some reason his brother had decided to make up some ridiculous story as a build-up to the violence. Then Lenny’s face took on a leering grin. Mitchell knew what that meant.

“I have to knock you around a bit,” Lenny chuckled. “Shall we do it in the living room?” He slapped Mitchell across the cheek then turned to go. Mitchell wasn’t following. The blood rushed to his face and his breathing deepened.

“Come on,” insisted Lenny and slapped Mitchell again, harder this time. It really stung. As Lenny turned a second time, Mitchell’s strange stomach-ache intensified into a ball of energy. It quivered inside him and leapt up his throat.

Mitchell wanted to shout, but the energy hit him in the head with five times the force of his brother’s slap. Lenny’s back was turned and, without even realising he was going to do it, Mitchell pounced.

Lenny was a lot taller and three years older, but Mitchell yanked him backwards by the throat and they fell to the floor.

“Oi!” cried Lenny, elbowing Mitchell in the ribs.

“How stupid do you think I am?” shouted Mitchell through his teeth. He kicked his brother away and threw himself on top of him. He led with his knee and slammed it into Lenny’s midriff.

“How do you like that?” Mitchell crowed.

Lenny rammed his fist towards Mitchell’s face. Mitchell caught it. He had never had this strength before, but he was too angry to notice. Instead, he revelled in his new superiority.

“I’m sick of you!” he screamed as he pounded his fists into his brother’s face. “This is how you make me feel!” Tears blurred his vision now, but fury kept his arms moving. He was numb inside. The pain that had built up all these years was pouring out. It felt like he wasn’t even in the room, but watching from a distance.

Then something pricked his senses – a flash of blue reflected in the mirrors and tiles. It bounced around the bathroom and pulled Mitchell out of his frenzy. He sprang to his feet. His brother didn’t move. His eyes were closed and blood covered his face.

That wasn’t me, thought Mitchell, but at the same time, What have I done? He ran to the living room and smeared his hand across the window. Through the streaks of blood on the glass, he saw an ambulance waiting in the street below. It was surrounded by three police cars.

Then the door of the flat burst open and Mitchell spun round to see two beefy men in black suits. They were pointing guns at him. His mind went blank. His brother’s battered face appeared before his eyes and he couldn’t think clearly. What was going on?

Before he could even raise his hands, his knees bent without him telling them to. Then his legs snapped straight and his entire body recoiled backwards – through the window.

Glass peppered Mitchell as he fell and in his head he heard himself scream. Then he landed – but not on the ground. Something cushioned his fall. He saw a dozen men staring at him with blank faces. Mitchell was lying on some kind of air cushion – it felt like a bouncy castle. Had all this been set up, waiting for him?

Then one man, tall and broad with a face like a wrinkled toad, pulled Mitchell to his feet.

“Looks like someone didn’t play nicely,” he said, cracking his jaw. Mitchell could hardly hear for all the electricity running through his head. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Leonard Glenthorne.”

“Murder?” Mitchell gasped. His hands were shoved behind his back and roughly clasped in metal.

“Your brother’s dead. Get in the car.”

“But—” Mitchell’s throat seized up. Nothing made sense. How had they come so quickly? How did they know Lenny was his brother? And worst of all, how could Lenny be dead?

Mitchell was grabbed on each side by two men. They rushed him to a long black car with leather seats and tinted windows. As his head was pushed down to guide him into the back seat, Mitchell saw a stretcher being wheeled out of the building. On it was a zipped-up, black body bag. On the side of the bag was a thin green stripe.

CHAPTER TWO – BROTHERS

UNO STOVORSKY SIGNALLED to his unit to move out. They obeyed almost silently, retreating to the ring of vehicles a safe distance from the building. Stovorsky remained, eyeball to eyeball with Christopher Viggo.

“Come on,” Saffron said gently to the others, “we should leave them.”

Yannick nodded and shepherded them through the door opposite the kitchen. But Felix and Jimmy were transfixed.

“Jimmy!” snapped his mother. “Come here now! You too, Felix.”

The boys exchanged a glance. They knew they didn’t have a choice, no matter how much they wanted to know what was going on between the two men at the front door. They trudged after the others, into what looked like an unoccupied dormitory. There were four beds in the room, but the sheets were dusty, as if they hadn’t been slept in for years. Eva ran to one and curled up.

“It’s cold in here,” she squeaked, pulling her blanket round her.

“There are another couple of bedrooms upstairs,” Yannick explained, though nobody was paying him much attention. As soon as the door closed behind them, the shouting started. The old wattle-and-daub walls were too thick for Jimmy to make out what was being said, but it was clearly a ferocious argument.

“When I was little we used to have loads of people coming to stay all the time,” Yannick said with a nervous chuckle, as if trying to make sure nobody could hear what was going on in the next room. “For years nobody’s been here but my mother, of course.”

Nobody else in the bedroom said a word; they were all straining their ears to pick up any clues from next door.

“So let’s have the girls down here and the boys upstairs. How about that?” Yannick was making a poor job of sounding cheerful. The only reactions he got were distracted grunts and nods.

Then Jimmy noticed Saffron sitting on the furthest bed, turned towards the window. She was the only person who wasn’t trying to listen to the argument on the other side of the wall.

“What’s going on?” Jimmy whispered. “Who is this guy, Uno Sto…whatever?”

Saffron glanced over to make sure nobody else was paying attention. “He’s a French Secret Service operative,” she explained. “They must have tracked us entering French airspace.”

“I know that,” Jimmy interrupted. “I mean, how come Chris knows him, and what are they arguing about?” Saffron sighed and avoided looking into Jimmy’s eyes.

“When Chris left NJ7 he needed to disappear. He hid in Kazakhstan for a while, but wanted to use what he knew about NJ7 to put a stop to Ares Hollingdale. So he went to the DGSE.” Her eyes scanned the room. Yannick and Jimmy’s mother were doing their best to stop Felix, Georgie and Eva pressing their ears up against the wall.

“And that’s when he met this Uno guy,” Jimmy chipped in, to keep Saffron on track.

“Uno Stovorsky,” Saffron whispered. “Remember his name. He could help us.” Jimmy nodded. “But Chris fell out with the DGSE too.”

“Why? What happened?” Jimmy implored. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Saffron stood up and pulled in a deep breath. “Jimmy, they’re arguing about me.”

Moments later the door opened again and Yannick’s mother entered. “Jimmy,” she grunted in a thick French accent.

He stepped forward, but so did his mother. “They can’t keep me in the dark,” she muttered.

Saffron glided out of the room after them, as elegant as ever, to join the discussion.

“Don’t forget anything, Jimmy,” Felix called out. Jimmy didn’t have to respond. Normally, Felix wouldn’t even have asked – Jimmy would always have filled him in. But the last few days had been far from normal and the information Jimmy would be sharing was bound to be extraordinary.

“So this is your amazing automatic assassin?” Uno Stovorsky’s eyes seemed to pierce Jimmy’s skin. Jimmy opened his mouth to introduce himself, but before he could speak Stovorsky leapt from his chair. Jimmy’s eyes snapped wide open, catching the glint of a knife in Stovorsky’s fist.

Jimmy didn’t have to think. With the minimum of movement, he swayed to one side and caught Stovorsky’s wrist. With the knife point millimetres from his face, he chopped his other hand into the agent’s stomach and threw him over his shoulder. Jimmy snatched the knife before it hit the floor, where Stovorsky lay gasping for air.

“Enough, Jimmy!” shouted Viggo. “He was just testing you.”

“I know,” Jimmy replied. “Why do you think he’s still alive?” Jimmy started at his own words. He hadn’t known what he was going to say. It seemed the urge to kill was still just below the surface. He pushed away the deep sickness in his gut and reminded himself to keep control at every moment.

“Uno,” continued Viggo, “in return for your help, we are prepared to offer you a full display of Jimmy’s abilities and an inventory of the technology Britain is developing for use against France.”

Jimmy shuddered. What did Viggo mean by ‘a full display of Jimmy’s abilities’? He wasn’t a scientific sample! For a second he wanted to protest, but he quickly calmed down. He had learned to trust Christopher Viggo.

Stovorsky was still picking himself up off the floor. His expression was grim. “This information is as useless now as it was when you came to me all those years ago,” he growled. Jimmy watched Viggo’s face betray a hint of helplessness.

“Let me draw you a picture,” Stovorsky went on. “Jimmy was designed in a test tube by scientists at NJ7. Dr Higgins was one of them and he’s still there. Ares Hollingdale was another, before he became Prime Minister. The new weapon was assigned to two agents, Ian and Helen Coates.”

“Excuse me,” interrupted Jimmy’s mother, “I’m right here.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs Coates, I didn’t realise it was you.” He bowed his head slightly and took her hand up to his lips.

“How do you know this?” Viggo cut in.

Stovorsky’s demeanour shifted again, back to the animal aggression he directed at his rival. “That’s not all we know. We know Jimmy is not the first. There is another assassin, two years older, but he went missing shortly after his parents were killed. NJ7 thinks they died in a car accident.”

Jimmy felt like each piece of new information was a brick being hurled at him. There was another genetically programmed assassin? Why had nobody told him? He was dumbfounded, though he made a point of trying not to show it. Fortunately, nobody noticed Jimmy’s furrowed brow. Helen Coates and Saffron Walden were sharing a moment of concern. Viggo and Stovorsky were caught up in their own rivalry.

“Do you think I’ve been sitting on my hands since we last met?” Stovorsky jeered.

“But—” Viggo started.

“We have our own sources in England. You can’t tell me anything I don’t already know. All I can offer is that we let you live here in France. We can’t protect you, and we certainly can’t help you in your personal campaign against Ares Hollingdale.” Viggo tried to interrupt again, but Stovorsky continued over him. “Hollingdale may be anti-democracy and he may be anti-France, but the DGSE can’t meddle with anyone unless they pose a direct threat to France.”

The reaction was silence. Jimmy’s heart ached. He so wanted to go back to Felix with some good news. But how could they get anywhere near Felix’s parents without the resources of a major international agency? How else could they sneak back into England?

“Don’t look so glum!” boomed Stovorsky suddenly. “I’m letting you stay in the country. I’ll make sure you’re not arrested and, if you stay on the move, the chances are NJ7 won’t find you.” He shook his head and sighed. “Honestly, you English. Don’t you recognise a lucky break? Did you really think I was going to help you overthrow the British Government?” He dusted off the shoulders of his overcoat and strode to the door, muttering under his breath in French.

“That’s not why we need help.” Helen’s voice stopped him. “Jimmy, get Felix in here.” Jimmy flung open the door to the next room. Eva, Georgie and Felix all pretended they hadn’t been trying to eavesdrop. Without a word Felix stepped forward.

“This is Felix Muzbeke,” Jimmy’s mother continued. “The Government is holding his parents illegally. We just want to bring them here to safety.” Felix put on his most winsome expression.

Only now did Stovorsky turn round. He glanced at Felix then quickly turned away.

“Do you have children, Mr Stovorsky?” Jimmy’s mother asked.

Stovorsky held his face in his hands then rubbed his eyes. “What do you need?” he huffed.

Viggo’s response was immediate. “Safe passage back to London so we can find out where they are being held. We need money and equipment. We need all the help we can get.”

Stovorsky groaned and raised his eyes to the ceiling. He waited a long time before speaking, then eventually he muttered, “I’ll see what I can do.” Wearily, he picked up a slat of a broken shutter from the floor. “Promise me this is just about the prisoners. Nothing else.”

“Mr Stovorsky,” Helen Coates said calmly, “you have my word.”

“You’re a very smart lady.” Stovorsky stared at Jimmy’s mother. “You should have kept her, Viggo. And how I wish you had.” His eyes darted to Saffron for just an instant, then away again. “I’ll be in touch,” he called out as he stomped from the farmhouse. “Until then, lie low.”

Mitchell could hear the fizz of surveillance cameras tracking him through the corridors. He was keeping pace with the hands that dragged him roughly from either side. His blindfold itched but he was still cuffed so there was nothing he could do about it. Inside, he was buzzing in a way he never had before. It was a mix of nausea and exhilaration. Every perception was pin sharp, but behind his stomach there was a swirling that threatened to throw him off-balance.

He still had nothing on his feet so the cold of the floor crept up through his body. At last he came to a stop and his blindfold was yanked off. The first things he saw were the yellow teeth of an old man’s smile. Mitchell’s anger dulled instantly.

“Welcome to NJ7,” the old man announced. “I am Dr Higgins.”

Before Mitchell could respond the two men gripping his arms lifted him up and pinned him face down on to the desk in the centre of the room. The smell of the leather worktop swamped Mitchell’s nose. He wriggled and kicked, but only for a second before he felt a sharp stab in his heel. He howled in pain. Then the two men lifted him off the desk and threw him down. Mitchell tried to stand but his right foot was too weak and he fell to the floor.

“What’s going on?” he shouted, his eyes darting around, taking in his surroundings. The walls were bare concrete. On the ceiling were strip lights and a girder loaded with two cameras that seemed to wink at him. All around were burly men in suits. Dr Higgins stood out, with his ageing physique and his white coat. A black cat curled round his ankle.

Then, through a corridor at the back of the room came a wiry figure that Mitchell recognised immediately. “You’re the Prime Minister!” he gasped.

Everyone stood to attention as Ares Hollingdale entered the room. His sallow skin almost glowed. “You’re not running away this time, young man,” he whispered, leering down at Mitchell. “Dr Higgins has placed a satellite tracking device in your foot.”

“What’s going on?” Mitchell yelled again, but then into his head flew the idea that the answer was somehow obvious; it was like a distorted memory he couldn’t bring out.

“Explain the situation to him,” the Prime Minister snapped at Dr Higgins. “Tell Miss Bennett as soon as you’re finished. She’s found the target.” Then he turned back to Mitchell with a glare. “Cause any trouble and we’ll throw you in prison for the rest of your life.”

Mitchell’s mind was frantic. Pain throbbed up from his foot. They can’t put me in prison, he thought, I’m only thirteen. But his ears replayed the sound of his fists landing on his brother’s bloodied skull. With that came the most overwhelming emotion. Was it guilt? He told himself his brother had deserved it, but the next instant he knew that he had gone too far. He had never meant to kill. He had lost control of himself and now he was going to be punished for it.

“Do as we tell you,” the PM continued, “and you could be a hero.” The words meant nothing to Mitchell.

Then came Dr Higgins’s voice. “NJ7 is the most advanced military intelligence agency in existence…”

Mitchell heard him through a daze. With the world twisting around him, he saw the shadow of the Prime Minister leave the room. Dr Higgins’s mouth was moving, but Mitchell picked up only fragments of his speech.

“…you are 38 per cent human…an assassin…you will work for us…” Whatever Dr Higgins said, it barely registered.

Mitchell was crying for his brother.

CHAPTER THREE – SPECIAL DELIVERY

“IT’S BEEN THREE days,” Jimmy muttered almost to himself. “If I don’t get outside soon I’ll go mad.” The kitchen was thick with the smells of cooking and Jimmy ripped into a bunch of parsley with bored vehemence. The bandage was gone from his wrist. The cut was hardly visible now – like a smudged line of biro.

“You know, that happens a lot,” Felix chirped, struggling to hold on to a potato. “People don’t go outside and then they lose their minds, and then they think the rest of the world has been destroyed by aliens or nuclear war or something, and—”

“You’re holding the peeler upside-down,” Jimmy interrupted.

“Oh. Oh yeah. I thought it was a bit dodgy. So what was I saying?”

“The DGSE left three days ago,” Jimmy went on, ignoring Felix’s daydreams. “Don’t you think we should have heard something by now?”

Felix shrugged and stared at his peeler, scrunching his face into a puzzled ball. “How come Yannick’s mother gets to go into the village,” he asked eventually, “but the rest of us have to stay indoors?”

“Well, somebody has to bring us food, and all the clothes and stuff.”

“But won’t she get spotted by imaginary intelligence?”

“It’s ‘imagery intelligence’,” Jimmy corrected. “From satellites. But she’s always going into the village. It would look more suspicious if she didn’t go.”

“So I suppose bringing back nine times the amount of groceries, buying every item of clothing from some grimy charity shop and being picked up in the truck by her son – that’s not suspicious at all.” Felix raised his eyebrows so high it looked like they might fly off his head at any moment.

“You’ve got a point,” admitted Jimmy. “It’s risky, but it’s necessary, isn’t it?”

Felix shrugged again. “S’pose,” he mumbled. Then he tried juggling with three of the potatoes. He didn’t have much success.

Jimmy turned his attention back to the cooking. His wrist flicked the knife through a carrot with the skill of a chef but the enthusiasm of an eleven-year-old boy. The heavy metal pans huffed and bubbled with delicious-smelling stews.

“And why have I done all the cooking?” Jimmy groaned.

“If you didn’t want to cook,” Felix replied, “you should never have helped out that first night we were here. Then we would never have found out that it’s one of your, you know, skills.”

Before Jimmy could respond, Georgie bounced in.

“When’s dinner?” she asked, poking around the various ingredients that lay on the work surfaces.

“When it’s ready!” snapped Jimmy. He dropped the knife and flung the slices of carrot into a simmering pot. “Where’s Yannick?”

“Outside. Let him have a break.”

“Oh, ‘let him have a break’,” Jimmy mocked. “Looks like I’m the one who’ll spend my life cooking now.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

Jimmy tried to hold back his anger. “Sorry, Georgie,” he said. “I shouldn’t take it out on you. It’s just that…” he paused mid-sentence to baste a chicken. “I hate this. How come I can cook?”

“It’s your programming,” Georgie answered as gently as she could.

“That’s what I told him,” Felix chipped in.

“But it’s a stupid skill,” Jimmy grumbled. “It’s like whatever dumb idea Dr Higgins had eleven years ago is inside me.” He felt himself becoming more and more worked up, and he couldn’t hold it back. “They don’t know where I am,” he yelled, “and they don’t know what I’m doing, but NJ7 is still controlling me.”

Helen slipped into the kitchen with concern on her face. “What’s all the noise about?” she asked, picking up a potato from the floor.

“Jimmy doesn’t want to cook,” Felix announced.

“That’s OK,” Helen said immediately. “I’ll help and—”

“No!” Jimmy screamed, “I don’t want to be able to cook and I don’t want to be able to kill.”

Jimmy’s mother looked across at Georgie, then back at her son. There was one thing they had to discuss, so she forced herself to bring it up. “Look,” she began, “I know this must be confusing for you both. About me and your father, I mean.”

Jimmy glanced at his sister then dropped his eyes to the floor. Felix shifted uneasily from foot to foot.

“Er,” he stuttered, “I have to, er, go finish my…” He edged towards the door, “…you know, on that…string.”

Once Felix had gone, Jimmy found the atmosphere even more stifling.

“Whatever happens,” his mother continued, “none of this is your fault – either of you. Don’t blame yourselves.”

Jimmy let the words bounce off him. He knew what his answer was, but he refused to let himself say it. Then his sister said it for him.

“I don’t blame myself,” she mumbled. “I blame you and Dad.”

Jimmy didn’t know where to look. His sister’s words had stoked the anger inside him. He noticed his hands were shaking slightly, then saw that his mother’s were too.

“OK,” sighed Helen, “that’s fine. But we both still love you just as much. And I know you still love your father.”

“How can you still love someone,” Jimmy flashed back, “when you know what they’re doing is wrong?” He immediately regretted his words, but couldn’t take it back now. His mother said nothing. She had no answer. For a few seconds she stared at Jimmy and Georgie, then she backed out of the kitchen. As she did, the seething liquid in one of the pots bubbled over.

Helen walked straight into Christopher Viggo, who caught her delicately by the shoulders and looked into her face.

“What’s going on?” he whispered. Helen made sure the door was shut behind her so that her children couldn’t see.

“It’s nothing,” she quivered. “Forget it.”

“Listen,” Viggo rasped, “the kids are just restless. They need to get out of the house – let off some steam.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

Viggo looked deep into Helen’s eyes and let out a sigh. “Yannick says the village up the road is pretty small. The risk of NJ7 picking it out is minimal. He says there’s a lake nearby and stables…” He softly lifted Helen’s chin. “Let them have some fun. It could be days before we hear from Stovorsky.”

“You think I’m being overprotective,” Helen whispered, “but they’re my children.” She held his gaze for a moment then pulled away and hurried upstairs.

Viggo was about to follow, but there was a pounding on the front door. Jimmy had heard it too and rushed out of the kitchen followed by billows of steam. He looked to Viggo for guidance and the ex-agent shook his head as if to say, “Don’t worry”. At that instant, Felix came tearing down the stairs.

“Who’s at the d—” he started. Viggo grabbed him and put a hand across his mouth. He was too late. Whoever was outside had heard them and hammered again.

“Coming!” Viggo called out, then stuttered the same thing in French: “On arrive?’

Jimmy pointed at the shadow in the crack under the door. There was clearly only one person there, but what if there were others further from the door? They couldn’t look out of the windows as Yannick had boarded them up after the DGSE had smashed them.

Jimmy ran upstairs and approached a window that overlooked the front of the building. Crouching low, he scanned the horizon. He could just discern the rooftops of the village up the road, but nothing out of the ordinary. His heart was pumping and he was almost relieved that at last he had something to occupy him.

He opened the window as quietly as he could and squeezed out, trampling the carnations in the window box. The wind tousled his hair; what a great feeling it was to be outside again. From here he could only just make out the person waiting at the front door – the overhang restricted his view. Jimmy quickly moved up the side of the building, clinging to the timber, each finger hard as rock.

It was a matter of habit now to call up his programming when he needed it. When the swirl from his belly engulfed his brain then saturated every muscle, it was a kind of comfort. Too much of a comfort in fact. He had to keep a part of his human self active. He knew how easy it would be for him to slip into the evil ways his body craved. He knew also that the programming would grow more powerful every day until he was eighteen. It was designed to completely swamp the human in him by then. That was a terrifying thought.

Jimmy reached the roof and stalked along until he was directly above the front door. Then he jumped. The wind rushed into his face. His eyes watered, his stomach lurched, then…

BAM!

Jimmy landed right on top of the figure, flattening him. Jimmy held him down, but couldn’t see anything. His face was full of flowers. The man under him was terrified, cursing in French. The front door swung open. Viggo was ready for action.

But there wasn’t any – just a flower delivery man, quaking with fear. Jimmy brushed the man down while they were still on the ground, then rolled to one side, spat out a flurry of petals and made a mental note to land with his mouth closed in future. Viggo seized the mangled bunch of flowers and flicked a tip into the dust. Jimmy muttered an apology and skulked back indoors where Felix was laughing hysterically.

“That was so funny,” he howled. “Did you see the look on his face?”

“What’s going on?” It was Saffron, her eyes wide and expectant as if she too were ready for a fight. But then she saw the flowers in Viggo’s arms and her expression melted.

“Oh, Chris,” she gasped, “for me? They’re so…squashed.”

“They’re not for you,” he huffed. “I mean, they’re not for anyone.”

“If they’re for Helen, just tell me now.”

“No, they’re—” Before he could finish, Felix jumped in and grabbed the card.

“The flowers are just a discreet way for Stovorsky to send us a message,” explained Viggo. “Now what does he say?”

Felix’s face was scrunched up in confusion. “It’s gibberish,” he said. “Just letters and numbers: ‘Pp18N.2300’.”

“He’s going to help,” Viggo beamed. “We have to meet him in Paris.”

St James’s Park, in the very heart of London, was as serene as ever. The thick bushes kept out most of the traffic noise, but there was the sound of two runners pounding along a path. Mitchell easily kept pace with the huge man at his side. His body was exhilarated by the crisp air, while Paduk breathed it in with heavy panting. This was the only part of Mitchell’s training that took place outside the murky tunnels of NJ7 HQ: a daily run.

Mitchell asked no questions and made no objections. In fact, he had thrown himself into the training with more dedication than he had shown for anything in his life. It seemed to suit him. Yet still he could sense the unease of the people training him. He didn’t know it, but the same team had trained Jimmy Coates. This was the same routine Jimmy had followed. This was the same run.

Paduk slowed to a walk and took a swig from his water bottle. Mitchell did likewise, though he didn’t need to. Then they stopped completely. Paduk was staring through the foliage. At first Mitchell thought the man was simply catching his breath, but then he followed Paduk’s eyes beyond the limits of the park. Buckingham Palace shone out, a majestic pearl.

Apparently unprovoked, Paduk spoke. “Mitchell,” he began in an undertone, “you might be tempted to think that you’re invincible.” He wiped the sweat from his brow and cracked his jaw. “Don’t. You’re not. But nor are your enemies.”

Without a glance at Mitchell, he ran on. Mitchell followed, keen to impress, but confused by Paduk’s words.

As soon as it was dark, Helen, Saffron, Viggo and Jimmy crammed into the dilapidated truck. Felix banged on the window of the farmhouse and showed Jimmy a supportive fist. Jimmy smiled. It was great to see Felix in such good spirits, despite him being so worried about his parents. Felix was the one who had most to lose in this operation, but he hadn’t complained once about being stuck in the farmhouse. While Eva, Jimmy and even Georgie had been going stir-crazy, Felix was nothing but supportive.

“What a bucket of tin,” Viggo groaned as he started the engine.

Jimmy wondered whether Viggo would drive as wildly in this truck as he had at the wheel of his Bentley. That car had been abandoned in the garage of Viggo’s restaurant, along with the rest of his London existence.

“It’s only a couple of hours to Paris, but try to get some sleep.” Viggo was addressing all of them, not just Jimmy. “After we’ve met Stovorsky, Saffron, you drive Jimmy straight back to the farm. Try to get back before the sun comes up. Helen, you and I will be heading for England.”

“Hey,” Saffron interjected, “I thought we were all going.”

“It’s too risky.” Viggo bundled the truck over the rough tracks. “Helen and I are trained agents.”

“And what am I?” Saffron snapped back. “A babysitter?”

“Who’s a baby?” Jimmy remarked, indignant.

“She’s right,” Helen said calmly. “You should go with Saffron. I haven’t been active for years and…” She drew a deep breath, “I don’t want to leave the kids.”

“Oh, Mum,” Jimmy groaned, “you’re being—”

“I know – overprotective. But whatever you say, I’m driving back to the farm with you, Jimmy.”

They had reached a main road now and Viggo picked up the pace.

“Why am I even coming then?” Jimmy mumbled. Saffron’s response was firm.

“You’re the only asset we have to offer. Without you, there’s no reason for the French Secret Service to help us.”

An ‘asset’. Jimmy never thought he’d hear himself described like that. He realised it might be true, but it made him feel like an object. Saffron noticed his silence.

“Sorry, Jimmy,” she added. “I didn’t mean it like it sounded. An ‘asset’ can mean a person as well, you know.”

Jimmy felt comforted by that. If he was ever to feel like a normal person again, the last thing he needed was for everybody around him to treat him as a machine. He smiled cautiously. Saffron smiled back.

There was a steel behind her grace that Jimmy admired. He’d seen Saffron in action and had no doubt that she should be the one to accompany Viggo back to London. He found it hard to imagine his mother being as effective if it came to a fight.

In Paris it was raining heavily and the traffic was as bad as the weather. Viggo spat and cursed as he manoeuvred the truck through the back streets. All the time, Saffron kept her eyes on the wing mirror, watching for any patterns in the vehicles behind them. It was imperative that they weren’t followed.

They drove along the line of the river into the centre of the city. Viggo’s fingers tapped impatiently on the steering wheel. “Clear?” he called out.

“Clear,” responded Saffron.

Suddenly, the truck lurched to one side. Jimmy was thrown across his seat. They mounted the pavement and slipped through a narrow opening in the wall that ran alongside the road. It led to a cobbled ramp and in seconds they were driving right beside the Seine. Viggo slowed down drastically until the truck was growling along, centimetre by centimetre.

They stopped under the arches of the next bridge and Jimmy looked through the rain at the surface of the water. He shivered as they climbed out into the thick shadows. Water poured from the arches above his head, forming a curtain between him and the rest of the world. Here, the river exuded an eerie, sulphurous mist.

In silence, Viggo signalled the way. They ran through the rain, up a flight of thin stone steps on to the Pont de Sully. There, blending into the stonework, was Uno Stovorsky. In these conditions, his raincoat made perfect sense.

Still without a word, they followed Stovorsky along the bridge, on to the Tie St Louis. Jimmy gave up trying to keep the rain off. He wasn’t even wearing the special shirt he’d been given by NJ7. He was shivering, but he would rather have drowned in the rain than wear the Green Stripe again.

Stovorsky unlocked an inconspicuous door and guided the others through a courtyard and into a building. When they reached the fourth floor, they stepped into a small office with a balcony overlooking the courtyard. Around the walls were bookcases stacked with leather-bound tomes. Stovorsky quickly pulled down the blinds. It was strange – Jimmy didn’t feel any warmer in here than he had in the street.

Finally, Stovorsky spoke. “We don’t have long. So I don’t want any messing about.”

“Messing about?” Viggo retorted. “You think it’s messing about to make it into Paris undetected? Why couldn’t we meet nearer the farmhouse? Somewhere in a wood maybe?”

“Chris, take it easy,” Saffron cut in. “He’s helping us out.”

Stovorsky’s response was icy. “Maybe in Britain you have secret meetings in the woods all the time,” he mocked, “but this is France. We’re still an old-fashioned democracy. This is a safehouse, Viggo. Do you have a clue what that means?”

Jimmy thought he saw Viggo about to apologise, but Stovorsky rattled on. “It means we can jam listening devices, and it means we have routes to and from here that are sheltered from satellite surveillance. Now, you can go mess about in the woods if you want to or we can get down to business.”

Jimmy held his breath and watched Viggo out of the corner of his eye. The man nodded solemnly.

“Right then,” Stovorsky continued. “We know where the boy’s parents are being held.” Jimmy’s heart leapt.

“Well then,” Viggo insisted, “where is it?”

“The French Embassy in London.”

Jimmy was buzzing – the natural buzz of excitement, not the sensation of his programming taking over. This was a huge step towards rescuing the Muzbekes.

“Wait a minute,” Helen Coates cut in. “How did you find this out?”

Stovorsky nodded as if he had been expecting the question. “We have sources in England,” he stated, then quickly added, “Reliable sources.”

Saffron turned to Helen and Viggo, concerned. “What if NJ7 planted that information? Do you think it could be a trap?” she asked.

Jimmy took in her sombre mood and his initial excitement faded. Don’t ruin this, he thought. Just go and rescue them.

‘There’s only one way to find out,” Viggo mumbled. “How do we get to London?” Jimmy loved Viggo’s determination.

“I shouldn’t be doing this, you know,” Stovorsky sighed.

Before Viggo could respond, Saffron took control. “We really appreciate it, Uno,” she said with a voice coated in honey.

Stovorsky looked away for a second. Then, when he spoke again, Jimmy noticed that he looked anywhere except at Saffron. “OK,” Stovorsky began, “here’s the situation. The French Ambassador to London has been kicked out. Apparently, he provided transport to a group of dissidents.”

Viggo looked sheepishly to the carpet. “Yeah,” he muttered, “that was me.”

“I realised that when we recovered the EC975 in the field behind your farmhouse.” Stovorsky’s tone was disapproving, but Jimmy detected a hint of respect in his half-smile. “The DGSE can provide cover for one of you to go in on a diplomatic visa. Officially, you’ll be on the staff of the new Ambassador.”

Viggo stroked his chin, unsure how to ask for what he needed. Saffron did it for him.

“We need cover for two,” she stated boldly.

“She’s right, I won’t be able to do it alone,” Viggo added.

Stovorsky looked between the two of them, scratching his head. “OK,” he conceded with a sigh, “I think that can be arranged. So am I to assume that it will be you two?”

Again Viggo hesitated and Helen broke the silence. “Yes, it’s those two,” she said.

Stovorsky nodded and pulled out a mobile phone. He held it up and took one picture of Viggo then one of Saffron. Then he buried himself in the keys, sending an encrypted text message.

“Who’s going to examine Jimmy?” Viggo asked. Stovorsky furrowed his brow without looking up from his phone. “What?” he muttered.

“In return for helping us,” Viggo went on, “I assume one of your scientists will examine Jimmy?”

Jimmy prickled at the idea of being ‘examined’. He realised it wouldn’t be quite like going to the doctor. More than that, he felt indignation bristling in him again. Viggo was using him to negotiate, treating Jimmy as a commodity. The hurt quickly faded. All this was for Felix’s parents – and Felix.

“I’m ready,” Jimmy blurted out, aware that his voice betrayed his nerves. “I don’t know everything about myself yet, but I’ll show you what I’ve learned.”

Stovorsky at last finished with his phone. He stared at Jimmy, incredulous. “No,” he scoffed, “I told you. We don’t need that information.” Jimmy’s tension eased.

“Then what do you want from us?” Viggo asked.

“Just this: you’ll be working for the DGSE. We want any intelligence you can pick up while you’re there. Particularly, what NJ7 knows about us.”

“So you’re asking us to spy on the British Government?”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

The response was blank looks.

“That’s fine,” Viggo said at last.

Jimmy was surprised at the ease with which Viggo and Saffron accepted Stovorsky’s price. Viggo had worked against the British Government for years, but always for himself and his democratic ideals – never for France.

Stovorsky glanced again at his mobile phone. “We have to move,” he said, striding to the door. “You two come with me.” Viggo and Saffron followed obediently. “You two,” Stovorsky indicated Jimmy and his mother, “get out of Paris. Now.”

CHAPTER FOUR – MISSION

MITCHELL STOOD BOLT upright in front of Dr Higgins’s desk. On the doctor’s lap was a wiry black cat and in his hands was a photograph. Behind him were the other two people who had taken over Mitchell’s life. First was the huge frame of the man who had brought Mitchell in. His military uniform was as crisp as the edges of his regulation haircut. This soldier’s identity was a mystery; Mitchell knew him only as Paduk.

Dr Higgins had the power of science at his disposal and Paduk was as physically intimidating as any man Mitchell had ever seen. But the person he was most afraid of had a lipstick-red smile curling up one cheek and one eyebrow permanently cocked in an expression of disdain. Mitchell had no idea how a woman so beautiful could be so severe, but he couldn’t imagine anyone disobeying Miss Bennett.

“You’re ready,” Miss Bennett announced, clearly relishing the moment. The sickness in Mitchell’s stomach hadn’t disappeared, it had just mutated into something else. An eerie power waiting to explode. He had to know when to push it down and when to let it take him over.

“Your target is dangerous,” Miss Bennett continued. “We need him dead and you back here alive. You were very expensive.” Mitchell nodded. It was almost an automatic response. “And if you attract the attention of the French police, you’ll be useless on any future missions. So blend in and make it look like an accident.”

She was about to walk away, but one more thought occurred to her. “There’s no chance of you going off-mission, is there?” Her eyes narrowed. Mitchell shook his head hurriedly. “Remember: there’s nowhere you can go that we can’t track you. And working with us is the only chance you have to be forgiven for what you did to your brother.”

Mitchell nodded again, this time trying to make it seem like the most natural thing in the world. He had no intention of going “off-mission” as Miss Bennett called it. The second he had seen his brother’s battered face, he had begun to hate his human weakness. Learning that only 38 per cent of him was human had come almost as a relief. Now he needed to build a new life. Killing an enemy of the state was the first step towards doing that.

He followed Paduk through the dark corridors of NJ7 headquarters. His mission had begun.

Dr Higgins tutted wearily.

“Get over it, Kasimit,” snapped Miss Bennett. “Soon only one of your babies will be left alive.”

“Oh, they were never really my babies,” Dr Higgins sighed, gently stroking his cat. “The true genius behind them was chased out of NJ7 thirteen years ago.”

He closed his eyes and let the photograph in his hand fall to his desk. It was remarkably detailed considering it had been taken from 200 kilometres above the Earth’s surface. Every feature of Jimmy Coates’s face was clearly visible as he ran across the roof of a French farmhouse.

Jimmy tried to sleep on the way back from Paris, but tension hunched his shoulders. The roads were quiet. It was easy to see no one was following and his mother drove smoothly.

Jimmy leaned his head against the window. The vibrations of the truck drummed into his head. The road flashed past outside, but Jimmy wasn’t watching that. In the corner of his eye he could make out his mother’s face reflected in the glass.

Do I know her? Jimmy wondered. He knew he could trust her, but he no longer knew anything about her. She was just another ex-agent now, so different from the time before any of this business started. Jimmy wished he had happy memories of a normal family life, but he couldn’t think about that time any more without bitterness. His parents had been keeping secrets from him. Not just secrets about themselves and their jobs, but about him, Jimmy Coates, and who he was.

Helen glanced across at him as if she knew that he was thinking about her. Jimmy forced a smile then turned away. What makes her right and dad wrong? he wondered. His father supported Hollingdale’s view that the public shouldn’t be allowed to vote because they weren’t qualified to know how to run the country. So what? That wasn’t hurting anybody, was it? And if the Prime Minister held on to power through force, well, how was that different to Helen being prepared to use force to get rid of him?

“You OK, Jimmy?” his mother asked suddenly, interrupting the drone of the motorway.

“Yeah, I think so,” he replied. He was going to leave it at that, but something was on his mind more than ever. “Mum,” he started. His voice croaked so he cleared his throat before going on. “If they’d examined me, what would they have found?”

Helen Coates didn’t divert her eyes from the road, but Jimmy could see that his question had affected her. “I’m not a scientist, Jimmy,” she said.

“But you are my mum.”

There was a long silence. Helen’s eyes flickered in the lights of the road. “I don’t understand it completely,” she said at last, “but I know that they programmed a special computer chip, and that chip controlled a laser – I think it was called a microlaser. The laser operated on a single strand of DNA, which eventually created you.” She glanced across at her son. Jimmy was engrossed.

“But was I a baby like everyone else?” he asked.

“You were a beautiful baby,” his mother said, smiling. “They put you in my womb, and they even implanted the computer chip into you when you were just an embryo so that nothing could go wrong while you were growing inside me.”

Jimmy tensed up again. There was a chip inside him? His mother noticed and gave a short laugh.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “The chip was completely absorbed into your body by the time you were born. That’s what guarantees you’re unique.”

They drove on in silence for a few more miles. Jimmy marvelled at the years of research that must have gone into him. He tingled with excitement at the thought of the world’s top scientists poring over his chemical make-up. But one thought still wouldn’t let his mind relax.

“When Mr Stovorsky was at the farm, he said there was another one of me.”

His mother took her time answering, clearly choosing every word carefully. “There’s only one you, but yes, there were two chips. There was another assassin. He would be two years older than you, but they don’t know where he is. He ran away from his home. He’s probably leading a normal life somewhere. I’m sorry you can’t do that too, Jimmy.”

“It’s OK, I suppose,” he replied, trying to work out how he felt.

“Jimmy,” his mother said hesitantly, “if I’d known…” she trailed off. Jimmy watched her.

“If you’d known what, Mum?” Jimmy asked.

“Nothing,” was the response. “It’s just that…things were different back then.”

“When?”

“When I agreed to be your mother.”

Jimmy tried to imagine his mother as a younger woman. He shuddered at the thought of her standing with Dr Higgins, Paduk and Hollingdale, acting as one of them. Couldn’t she have known then the whole thing would lead to trouble?

“Why did you do it?” Jimmy asked.

His mother took in a deep breath. “A lot of reasons,” she began, sounding distant, as if remembering was difficult – or painful. “It had to do with me and your father. It had to do with Georgie. She was a baby then. I suppose I thought that it would be a way for me to stay working for NJ7, but not really be working for them, do you see what I mean?”

Jimmy shook his head, but his mother wasn’t watching him.

“It was a way out. I thought it would give me eighteen years of a relatively normal life.”

“But what about me?” Jimmy whispered, unable to force out his proper voice.

“I knew that once you were eighteen you’d work for NJ7. But by then, with your programming fully developed, I thought you’d want that life.”

Jimmy couldn’t help himself. His brain vibrated with the words: / won’t have a choice.

Helen reached across and ruffled Jimmy’s hair. “I didn’t realise you’d be…you,” she added, trying a smile. Jimmy could see how sad she really was. He didn’t smile back.

More than an hour later Jimmy shuffled into the farmhouse, ready to fall into bed. But as soon as they opened the front door, Jimmy heard whispers in the kitchen. He looked up at his mother, who gave a weary sigh.

“Well I’m going to bed,” she whispered.

Jimmy smiled, totally exhausted, but desperate to share everything that had happened. In the kitchen, Felix, Eva and Georgie were sitting round the table.

“Jimmy!” exclaimed Felix, jumping to his feet. “What happened?”

Jimmy didn’t know where to start. “Ares Hollingdale is holding your parents at the French Embassy,” he blurted.

“And Chris and Saffron are going to bust them out?” Felix beamed, one big ball of energy.

“Something like that,” Jimmy laughed.

Felix grinned one of his unmistakable grins. Eva and Georgie didn’t look quite so happy. “At least someone will be getting out of prison,” Eva grumbled.

“Yeah,” Georgie added, “who’s going to rescue us?”

“What do you mean?” Jimmy asked.

“I mean that we’ve all been stuck in this house for days.” Jimmy’s sister toyed with a stale hunk of baguette. “It’s no wonder we can’t sleep – we don’t do anything all day.”

“At least we don’t have to go to school,” Felix chipped in with a bounce.

“So what?” Eva shrugged. “I’d rather go to school than be stuck in the middle of nowhere. I don’t even have my phone with me.”

Jimmy considered everything for a moment. He never liked it when Eva moaned, especially when Georgie started moaning with her, but she had a point. It did feel like being imprisoned.

“I’d rather be back with my parents,” Eva went on, “and they’re a pain. I bet they aren’t even looking for me.” Jimmy remembered Eva’s parents with a shudder of disgust. They were supporters of the undemocratic British Government.

Suddenly, Felix cut in. “Stop moaning,” he said quickly. “This is the best night ever.” Then his face suddenly changed, scrunched up in thought. “You’re right though. We’ve been stuck in the house long enough. If anybody’s coming for us, they would have come by now. Tomorrow I’ll persuade your mum to let us go out.”

“Whatever you say.” Jimmy shrugged and forced out a yawn. “Let’s convince Mum in the morning. You do the talking. I’ll watch.”

Miss Bennett followed the tunnels of NJ7 not to Downing Street, which was still being rebuilt, but to the deepest part of the complex. There, in a stark bunker, surrounded by three men in SAS uniform and another two in NJ7 suits, Ares Hollingdale was huddled over his desk. Opposite him, leafing through a dog-eared orange folder, was Ian Coates.

“Who’s there?” the Prime Minister panted when he heard his visitor enter. “An assassin! Security!”

The soldiers around him looked confused. They all recognised the Director of NJ7.

“It’s OK, Prime Minister!” shouted Ian Coates. “It’s Miss Bennett.”

“Ah yes, of course. Stand down, men, you’re dismissed. I know this woman.” Hollingdale’s eyes darted around the room as if every second something tapped him on the shoulder unexpectedly.

“Mitchell Glenthorne has been deployed, sir,” Miss Bennett announced once the room had emptied of security attendants.

“Don’t let that thing near me,” Hollingdale muttered. “I’ve seen what they’re capable of.”

“Prime Minister,” Miss Bennett continued, “it’s not too late to call him back.”

Ian Coates jumped to his feet, startled. “Miss Bennett,” he said, “if there’s a way to safeguard our Neo-democracy without hurting Jimmy then please don’t keep it to yourself.”

Miss Bennett flashed him a patronising smile, then continued to address Hollingdale directly. “Now that we have found where Jimmy Coates is hiding, in less than an hour a single UAV could flatten the entire area.”

Ian Coates sunk back into his chair, his face suddenly pale.

“Sending out another assassin is an unnecessary risk,” Miss Bennett went on. “Haven’t we learned anything from the last time we did it? Order the UAV strike.”

“Are you mad, Miss Bennett?” the PM cried. “You’re talking about sending an unmanned plane to bomb French soil!”

“The French would probably retaliate,” Miss Bennett said, her voice devoid of emotion, “but it’s nothing we couldn’t handle.”

Hollingdale’s hands were shaking. He swung round in his chair to face the wall and waved over his shoulder. Ian Coates took that as his cue to stand again, and explain.

“The Prime Minister feels that provoking the French would be far too dangerous.”

“What do you mean?” Miss Bennett asked flatly.

Hollingdale spun back round and pounded his fists on his desk.

“Sauvage!” he screamed, eyes flashing. “Until we know what the French are capable of we must proceed with extreme caution.”

Miss Bennett inspected the faces around her, each one rigid with anxiety. Ian Coates continued his explanation.

“We have reason to believe that when Dr Sauvage fled he passed classified technology to an agency called ZAF-1.”

“ZAF-1?” queried Miss Bennett.

“Possibly the French equivalent of NJ7,” Ian Coates replied. “We don’t know. The details are encrypted in these files.” He threw the folder on to the desk and pulled out a bloodstained orange flash drive in a clear plastic bag.

“And for eleven years nobody has told me about this?” She was furious.

“Nobody knows about this, Miss Bennett,” the PM said. “Even within NJ7. If Dr Higgins knew that we had this flash drive, the only explanation would be that we killed Dr Sauvage. If he finds that out he might be dangerous.”

“You’re completely paranoid!” Miss Bennett shouted. “Dr Higgins isn’t dangerous no matter how many of his friends we kill. He could decrypt those files in minutes.”

Ares Hollingdale twitched almost imperceptibly. Miss Bennett sighed and ran her hands through her hair. “So,” she stated in a matter-of-fact tone, “the French could possess weapons far more powerful than we thought.”

“Exactly,” Hollingdale snapped. “And they could use them.”

Miss Bennett paced across the room. “But hold on,” she said, “we have no intelligence suggesting they have these weapons.”

“We have this intelligence,” Coates insisted, pointing at the flash drive.

“Call that intelligence?” Miss Bennett mocked. “I’ve had enough of your sort of intelligence, Coates.”

“I don’t like your tone, Miss Bennett,” Coates replied calmly, his eyes piercing Miss Bennett’s.

“Why are you even in this office?” she sneered. “A month ago you were sitting at home with your feet up. Do you think your opinion matters? If you’d raised that boy properly we wouldn’t have this problem. You’re no better than Christopher Viggo.”

Ian Coates looked away. Christopher Viggo’s name sent a pulse of anger across his face.

“Miss Bennett, that’s enough,” Hollingdale barked, “lan’s opinion is of the highest importance to me. His loyalty has been tested and he has proven himself.” He rubbed his hands together, every vein clearly visible. His cuff rode up slightly, revealing a small tattoo of a green stripe on the inside of his left wrist. “We don’t know for sure what the French are capable of,” he continued. “Until we do, we must attack Jimmy Coates, not France.”

CHAPTER FIVE – IT’S RAINING UMBRELLAS

MITCHELL’S PREY LOOMED large in his binoculars. It was Jimmy Coates. The circle of vision encompassed him like a tightening noose. At first, Mitchell had been surprised when he discovered who his target was. They had crossed paths before. It seemed so long ago that Mitchell had tried to mug him in London, and ended up showing him where the police station was. But that was a lifetime away. Nothing could surprise him now. Mitchell pushed back the memories of his old existence. Those miserable days were over. This was a fresh start.

His room at the Auberge de I’Aubergine overlooked the main square. From here he could keep an eye on anything that went on. The village held no secrets for him. It wasn’t that Beuvron was so small – it was on the cusp of becoming a town – but Mitchell let no detail escape him.

He thought with pride of the hours he had spent in the grass outside Jimmy’s farmhouse hideaway. His surveillance had even included close observation of the old woman that he now knew was Yannick’s mother. He watched her buy food and clothes for her guests. He listened to her moan about it to the shopkeepers. All the information went towards building a rich picture of Jimmy’s life in hiding.

Mitchell felt a surge of delight as Jimmy took a seat outside the crêper¡e across the square. It was perfect. Jimmy had done the same thing every day for the four days that he and his friends had been allowed out of the farmhouse by Jimmy’s mother. Mitchell had spent the whole night in preparation, banking on Jimmy doing it again today.

Mitchell mouthed the words with him as Jimmy ordered a citron pressé. The blend of fresh lemon juice, water and sugar that you mix yourself had become their favourite drink. Yes, Mitchell thought, your last drink. Such a shame you’ll be dead before it arrives. Then he dropped his binoculars on to his bed and dipped his hand into a long slim pouch of black leather that hung on the bedpost. He drew out three separate sticks of bamboo, each about twenty-five centimetres long.

With the precision of a surgeon, he screwed them together, end to end. He went to the leather pouch once more and brought out a silver ring with a tiny clip attached to it. He clamped it on to the top of his bamboo rod. Finally, he reached up to his own head. With a deft tug, he plucked out two hairs. His hair was, as always, cropped short. It didn’t matter. The strands were a perfect length for his purposes. He dabbed the ends on the tip of his tongue and secured them delicately across the ring.

What emerged in his hands was a specially adapted weapon of his own design. It was probably the most sophisticated peashooter in the world, complete with a target sight and cross-hairs.

Mitchell moved back to the window. He pulled up the glass just a crack and knelt on the floor. From his pocket he produced a handful of tiny pebbles. Afterwards, there would be no bullet on the scene to arouse suspicion. The pebbles would disappear among the everyday debris of the street. It wouldn’t even be a pebble that killed Jimmy Coates.

There was no question of sympathy as Mitchell loaded a stone into his shooter. Far from it. As far as Mitchell was concerned, Jimmy deserved his punishment. So you’re 38 per cent human too, Mitchell thought.

“Well, you’ve had it easy,” he muttered, watching Jimmy leaning back in his chair, comfortable, smiling. “You’re not like me.”

Gently, he raised the bamboo and whispered, “Show time.”

“Deux citrons pressés, s’il vous plâit,” announced Jimmy to the waiter, his French accent perfect.

“Oh, order one for me too,” whispered Felix, licking his lips.

Jimmy raised his eyes to the sky, “Don’t worry, you’ll get one,” he sighed.

“Oh, you think he knows what I want already?” Felix muttered, watching the waiter walk away.

Against his better judgement, Jimmy found himself laughing. “By the way,” he added, “I think you should put sugar in it this time.”

“No way,” Felix replied. “I like the lemon flavour.”

Jimmy had forgotten how much fun it was when Felix was just being Felix. What’s more, it felt fantastic to be outdoors. Jimmy’s mother hadn’t been able to justify keeping everyone in the house much longer. In any case, Yannick’s mother was being driven mad by having kids around. If they hadn’t been allowed out, she would probably have thrown them out.

In the four days since Viggo and Saffron left for London, there hadn’t been any news from them. Jimmy realised it would take time to gather enough intelligence to raid the Embassy without being discovered, but the waiting was still excruciating. Meanwhile, he and Felix had been taking advantage of being allowed out and not having to go to school.

Now they had a chance to enjoy spring in France. It wasn’t all that hot, but there was enough sunshine for the crêperie to have umbrellas up over the outside tables. Except for the logo of some French beer company, they could have been giant blue lily pads. Jimmy and Felix made themselves comfortable in the shade. Jimmy was almost ready to forget his troubles.

But something wasn’t quite right.

“What’s the matter?” Felix asked, noting the concern on Jimmy’s face.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Maybe it’s nothing.”

“What’s nothing?”

Jimmy shrugged, but still he couldn’t relax. “It’s my…you know…” he dropped his voice, “…programming. It won’t go away.”

Felix leaned forward. “I thought it would always be there. You have to get used to it. Otherwise you could let it ruin a perfectly beautiful—”

PING!

The noise cut off the end of Felix’s sentence. At that moment, the umbrella that sat in the centre of their table wheeled off its pole.

Felix let out a laugh, half from amusement and half from shock. Jimmy found nothing to be amused about. The umbrella crashed down in front of him. It passed a centimetre from his face. He rocked back in his chair, startled. The spokes of the umbrella dug into the table like darts on a dartboard. The ends were unusually sharp. The umbrella came to rest on its side, the material sticking up from the table between Jimmy and Felix.

Jimmy leaned forward to regain his balance, but he couldn’t. The back leg of his chair snapped clean off and he clattered on to his back. Then—

PING!

The umbrella from the next table careered downwards. Jimmy watched as its points glinted in the sun. They were heading straight for his face. At the last instant, he rolled out of the way. The spokes of the umbrella smashed on the pavement. Before Jimmy could get up—

PING!

Another umbrella. Then: PING! PING! PING! One after another, every umbrella rocked on its pole and wheeled towards him. Jimmy lunged between the spokes. They came like daggers. He snatched up a chair and used its legs to fend them away. At last, he made it under one of the tables.

The noise of crashing metal gave way to the shouts of waiting staff. Jimmy looked around him at the forest of chair and table legs. Then Felix’s face appeared, red but grinning.

“You OK?” he yelled over the hubbub.

“I suppose,” panted Jimmy. “Except that a bunch of street furniture just tried to kill me.”

Felix roared with laughter. Jimmy didn’t feel like joining in.

Mitchell knelt on his bed, forcing his disappointment down. So that plan had failed. Now he had to press on with a new plan straightaway. There was no time to dwell on his mistakes.

He looked around his room. There was barely enough space for a bed and a sink. It was filthy too, but Mitchell wasn’t looking at that. He was examining the charts and maps that he had pasted up all over the walls. His mission surrounded him.

He tore down one of the maps and spread it out on the bed in front of him. He banged his fist on to it then scolded himself for letting his frustration show. Of course his first attempt hadn’t worked. At the back of his mind he had always known that the plan with the umbrellas had been a long shot. Now he had to get serious.

Mitchell scratched at his heel. The itch was a constant reminder that Miss Bennett was watching him. There was nowhere he could go that she wouldn’t find him. He felt towards her almost the way he would towards a very strict teacher. Facing her without having done his homework was out of the question. But there was a difference. Mitchell wanted to complete his assignment. For the first time in his life he felt like he had a real future. He couldn’t wait until his eighteenth birthday. By then his conditioning would have taken over his entire being. And he’d never again be haunted by the face of his brother.

Mitchell drove those thoughts out of his head. They would destroy his concentration – and Miss Bennett’s task demanded total concentration.

He traced his finger along a line on the map. It represented the road that joined the farmhouse and Beuvron. Jimmy and his friends walked along it every day. Here? Mitchell wondered. A traffic accident? He pictured the narrow carriageway, the muddy ditch and the poplars that bordered it. He shook his head. That would be enough to kill a normal human, but Jimmy Coates was faster, stronger, with reactions that would see him through almost anything.

Where then? Mitchell’s finger wandered around the farmhouse in a spiral, searching the fields. It paused over a small collection of buildings. What’s this? Mitchell asked himself. He peered closer. It was some kind of industrial site. The perfect place for an accident, he thought. But I have to get closer to the target. How?

He leapt off the bed and crouched low by the window, watching but invisible. He saw Jimmy in a heated discussion with the manager of the crêperie about the broken umbrellas. Felix was stumbling about trying to help clear up the mess. He wasn’t doing terribly well.

Then two girls arrived. Mitchell knew it was Georgie and Eva. He knew too that they were about his age and that they spent most of their time in the Internet café round the corner. They had obviously heard that something had happened and come to check that Jimmy and Felix were OK.

Mitchell nodded gently, an idea trickling into his head. Yes, he thought. It’s time to make my move.

CHAPTER SIX – SOME BOY

JIMMY LAY IN the dark, staring up at the intricate cobwebs that decorated the ceiling. He was replaying over and over the accident at the crêperie. He tried to bring up exact images. That way he could search them for details he hadn’t noticed before. He wanted to be able to zoom in as if his memories were photographs. Unfortunately, he wasn’t doing very well, but something inside him wouldn’t let him sleep until he’d examined every moment.

“You still awake?” came a whisper through the darkness. It was Felix.

“You can see I’m awake,” Jimmy replied. The curtains at the window weren’t doing a great job of keeping out the moonlight.

Jimmy and Felix were in neighbouring beds in one of the two upstairs bedrooms of the farmhouse. The other room was just for Yannick’s mother. On the other side of the room were another two beds. In one, Yannick’s bulk heaved up and down to the rhythm of his snoring. The other was empty.

“Do you think Chris will be back soon?” Felix asked. “With my parents, I mean.”

“Oh,” Jimmy answered, distracted from his thoughts. “Oh yeah. Sure. If anyone can do it, he can.”

“Or you,” Felix said quickly. “You could do it. You could do anything.”

“Maybe. I dunno.” Jimmy turned on to his side to face his friend. He smiled and closed his eyes, but opened them again almost straightaway.

“Felix,” he whispered hesitantly, “do you think that was really an accident in the village today?”

“That was so funny. The manager couldn’t believe it when he saw that all of his umbrellas had broken!”

“The thing is, though, I don’t think I believe it either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, don’t you think it was a bit, kind of, funny that they all broke? And that the ends were all so sharp? That was really dangerous.”

“Yeah,” Felix replied, the moonlight catching the enthusiasm in his eye, “but you were so quick, you dodged out the way like, like…” he wriggled about in his bed, acting out some of Jimmy’s moves.

“And did you hear the noise just before each of them fell?”

“What noise?” asked Felix, completely tangled up in his bed sheets.

“That sort of pinging noise. As if something was knocking them over deliberately.”

Felix stared at Jimmy, trying to make out whether his friend was serious.

“You mean,” he started, “there was some invisible man, sent by Miss Bennett, who sharpened the ends of the umbrellas then knocked them over, aiming for you?” He pulled a face that stretched one of his nostrils almost up to his eye. “You’re crazy.”

Jimmy let out a deep breath. Maybe Felix was right. There was no rational way to explain his suspicion. But there was a voice in his head that blared out like a trumpet. It told him over and over that when that many umbrellas, with sharpened points, all come within a centimetre of your head, it’s more than a coincidence.

“What about my chair?” Jimmy insisted.

“What about it?”

“The leg snapped. How does the leg of a metal chair snap, unless somebody has weakened it?”

“Wait a minute,” Felix said, sitting up. “How did this invisible man know you were going to sit in that particular chair?”

“He could have done it to all the chairs.”

“Oh, all the chairs,” Felix repeated sarcastically. “Then the invisible man does exist.”

Jimmy huffed a little to disguise the fact that he was about to laugh. How could he take his worries seriously when Felix was there to make light of them?

“Thanks, Felix,” he whispered. “I suppose I’m just paranoid.”

“Yeah, and don’t tell your mum any of your crazy theories or she won’t let us go out again.”

They both turned over in a fresh attempt to get some sleep. Then Jimmy spoke again, quieter than ever, as if he was talking to himself.

“Felix,” he muttered, “sometimes, just before I go to sleep, I feel like my programming takes me over completely. I don’t feel human at all because I don’t feel anything.”

Felix was silent for a second. Yannick’s snorts filled the room.

“Jimmy, don’t worry,” Felix replied eventually. “You’ll always seem human to me. You smell human anyway.”

With that, he burst out laughing – and so did Jimmy.

“That wasn’t me!” Jimmy grinned. “It was Yannick!”

A few days later Jimmy and Felix were hanging out at the lake. In fact, Felix was literally hanging out. He was dangling from a tree trying not to fall in the water below him.

“Jimmy!” he shouted, the branch dipping drastically under his weight. “Get up here!”

Jimmy closed his eyes for a fraction of a second to feel inside himself for that powerful sensation. It washed over him so easily now, and for the time being he was still able to hold it in check. He ran three strides towards the tree and bounded upwards. His hands scurried up the bark and his legs kept running as easily as if they were on the ground. It was only seconds before Jimmy was as high as Felix. But he didn’t stop.

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