Jimmy Coates

by Joe Craig

  The two limos tore after them, but spread out across both carriageways. One of them flashed its headlights.

  “Did you see…?” Jimmy started, but Saffron was already responding. She nudged the wheel to send the Bentley screaming across the lanes, past the opening to a slip road.

  “It’s your mum,” she said. “Telling me to go down here.” Suddenly she yanked the wheel to the side. The Bentley careered sideways, swinging and screeching back round to power on to the slip road. Jimmy was flung across the back seat, crashing against the door.

  “How about warning me?” Jimmy spluttered.

  “Aren’t you strapped in?” Saffron called out, with a laugh.

  Jimmy scrambled back to his seat in time to see what was happening behind them. One of the limos followed them up the slip road but then, at the narrowest point of the carriageway, swung itself round sideways. It was blocking the road so NJ7 had no way of following the Bentley.

  “They’ve blocked the…” gasped Jimmy, his heart thrilling to every moment.

  “I know,” replied Saffron, gritting her teeth and tearing the Bentley round a curve in the road.

  “But how will they get away?” Jimmy asked.

  “It doesn’t look like they will.”

  The Bentley roared round the bend, but just before his view of the limo behind them disappeared, Jimmy caught sight of the two beefy bodyguards stepping out, their hands raised, and three NJ7 cars screeching towards them. He was relieved to see that it wasn’t the limo carrying his mum, his sister and his friend, but at the same time he wondered what NJ7 might do to two innocent security guards.

  “They’ll be fine,” said Saffron, reading Jimmy’s thoughts. “They’ll cooperate with NJ7 the way that other guard did.” She smiled and slammed her foot down even harder.

  Jimmy hadn’t realised any more acceleration was possible, but they surged forward again, cutting every corner, winding their way towards Central London. “Fortunately,” Saffron went on, “those guards know nothing about us that will help NJ7.”

  Jimmy was suddenly brought back to the bigger problem – the rigged election. He realised he hadn’t told Saffron the truth about what they’d found on the Chisley Hall hard drive. But the guards had been in the room. They knew someone had tried to fix the election for Viggo. What if they told NJ7? Jimmy’s mind turned over rapidly. There’s no evidence, he told himself. Without the hard drive it’s just a story. Jimmy was reassured for a split second before rage blew up in his mind again. Was Viggo behind this?

  “Move!” Saffron hissed, swooping past a truck that had been taking up the road, slowing them down.

  “Wait,” said Jimmy, rocked out of his thoughts by the speed of the car. “Pull up under the next bridge.”

  Saffron glanced round at him with a flash of confusion.

  “They’re tracking us,” she insisted. “Even if there aren’t any cars behind us, they’re watching us on satellite and they’ll send a chopper, or they’ll just wait to see where we stop and close the net. We have to get underground. I’m heading for the nearest tunnel.”

  “No.” Jimmy was firm. “That wouldn’t help us anyway, we—”

  “It gives us the best chance…”

  “Listen!” Jimmy surprised himself with his forcefulness, but he knew he had information that Saffron didn’t. “They don’t have satellite surveillance.”

  “What?”

  “Eva told us they were having problems with it. We can pull up under the next bridge, wait for the search helicopters to scan the area and move on, then keep driving.”

  “Eva told you?”

  “Yes.” Jimmy was trying to sound his most confident, even though he could feel his doubts squirming in his stomach. It seemed like a long time since Eva had told them about NJ7’s satellite problems. What if the system had been fixed since then? “It’s our best chance,” Jimmy urged, more to reassure himself than to convince Saffron.

  Without another word, Saffron slowed to a more normal speed and in under a minute they were parked on the hard shoulder under a road bridge. Jimmy clicked his door open a crack so they’d hear the choppers above the traffic noise, and waited.

  Felix craned his neck to see the two guards surrendering to NJ7 as Helen zoomed onwards past the slip road. She was testing the limo’s engine to its limit.

  “Jimmy and Saffron got away, I think,” said Felix, with no certainty. “But what about the guards? What if…?”

  “I gave them very specific instructions,” Helen Coates explained with a soft smile.

  “But wait…” Felix slumped down on the leather, his mind racing. “Basically, we’ve just given them over to NJ7. Won’t they get, you know…”

  “You’re actually worried about them?” Georgie was shocked. “What, are they your mates all of a sudden?”

  “Well, they weren’t the ones that tried to shoot us, were they?” Felix’s face was pale and he couldn’t help his lip trembling. It hadn’t sunk in yet that he’d just seen two men shot dead right in front of him. He could feel the shock inside him like a block of ice, waiting to melt through the rest of his body.

  “Don’t worry,” said Helen. “They’ll say they’re the victims – and it’s true. They had no choice but to help us, and NJ7 have no reason to do anything to them except give them a cup of tea and ask them a few questions about us.”

  “I can’t imagine anybody at NJ7 serving tea,” Georgie muttered.

  “I can’t imagine them serving anything else,” said Felix with a hint of anger. “Tea in English china with English biscuits, sitting on their hard English sofas talking about English things like, I dunno… fruitcake.”

  “How does a sofa talk about fruitcake?” Georgie pretended to be confused until Felix dug his elbow into her ribs. He knew she was just trying to distract them from the horror of what they were going through. That’s my specialty, he thought to himself.

  “Put your seat belts on!” Helen ordered, slamming her foot on to the accelerator and swerving to dodge traffic. “We’re not the ones who got away.”

  “They’re still after us?” Felix sat bolt upright and craned his neck to see out of the back window. “Go faster! They’re catching up!”

  Helen stayed calm. She was already weaving in and out of spaces in the lines of cars that were barely big enough for the limo. Twice the back bumper caught on the front of the car they were overtaking. They ripped up the road in front of them, careering across the lanes, sending the vehicles behind them into spins, spreading chaos in their path. But the NJ7 cars weren’t far behind. They were faster and more manoeuvrable than the limo. They darted between the other vehicles like charging dogs, their grilles seeming to snarl and spit.

  “We have to get off this road,” said Georgie, through gritted teeth. She was braced in her seat. “If they get people ahead of us they can block us in!”

  “Captain Obvious strikes again,” said Felix.

  “Any suggestions?” Helen flicked her eyes to the rear-view mirror.

  “The airport!” Felix exclaimed suddenly.

  “There’s more security there than anywhere else in the—”

  “No, we can,” Felix cut in. “The UN guy, he said he didn’t need to check in or anything like that. He just gets driven straight on to the runway and his plane’s waiting for him.”

  “He said that?” Georgie asked, disbelieving.

  “He just drives straight in!” Felix repeated. “In this car!”

  “Then what, genius?” Georgie asked. “Even if we can get on to the runway, we’ll—”

  Suddenly Helen jammed the steering wheel fully to the right. The limo spun full circle in a squeal of rubber. The cars charging up behind them couldn’t stop in time – including the NJ7 unit. They swerved and twisted, but the limo split them down the middle and sped back towards the airport.

  “What are you doing?!” Georgie shouted. “We’ll get trapped on the runway!”

  “Sometimes you have to choose your trap,” Helen expla
ined. “Our choice: a blocked road or a runway full of planes.”

  “We’re going to hijack a plane?” Felix beamed.

  “No,” said Helen. Felix slumped back, disappointed. “We’re going to improvise. We have more options on an airport runway.”

  Helen circled the main terminal buildings, following the airport signage. Police cars and armed trucks poured on to the roads around them, but in no time they were charging along a narrow strip of concrete with high walls on either side – the VIP vehicle route to the aircraft gates behind Terminal 3.

  The limo bounced over the speed bumps so hard that Felix and Georgie hit their heads on the roof. But Helen didn’t slow down.

  “You’re sure he said he just drove on to the runway?” Helen called out, suddenly sounding less sure of herself.

  “Yes!” Felix yelled. “Why?”

  Helen didn’t answer. Looking out of the front window, Felix and Georgie saw the problem. The end of the passageway was blocked by raised steel bollards, behind a line of jagged metal in the ground.

  “Stop!” Felix shouted, digging his nails into the leather.

  “Did you say faster?” Helen replied. She’d spotted the laser scanner beside the security measures. At the last second, it read the limo’s number plate. The jagged metal retracted into the ground just as the limo passed over. The steel bollards sunk agonisingly slowly. The bottom of the car scraped their tops, then screeched away on to the huge expanse of concrete ahead of them.

  “Which one of these do you think is the right plane?” Felix asked, his voice shaking.

  “The right plane?” Helen asked. “Since when were you so fussy?”

  They charged towards a line of huge jumbo jets, all of them waiting at their gates. Security vehicles and sirens swarmed towards them from every direction. Baggage cars and airport workers scurried to get out of the way. The limo snaked between the planes, swooping under the wings like a gnat buzzing round sleeping seals. At last Helen saw what they needed – a smaller plane that was still empty of passengers. It was being refuelled while luggage was loaded up the conveyor belt ramps on either side.

  “Get ready to run,” Helen ordered, sending the limo rushing across the tarmac in a race with the police and the NJ7 cars. “When I give the word, get out my side of the car and sprint.”

  “Sprint where?” Georgie asked, managing to keep her voice surprisingly calm.

  “Into the plane. And keep your heads down.” Helen twisted the wheel to send the limo into another giant skid. The screech pierced through the noise of the sirens and the whole vehicle tipped up until Felix was sure they were going to topple over. They careered into the side of the refuelling buggy and bounced back on to four wheels.

  “GO!” Helen shouted. They exploded from the limo and sprinted the few metres to the plane, keeping their heads ducked down below the level of the limo’s roof. Helen jumped up on to the plane’s loading ramp while the baggage handlers rushed away in panic. Georgie and Felix were right behind her. Together, they leapt over the bags, straight into the belly of the plane – but they didn’t stop. Helen led them straight out of the other side of the plane, down the other baggage ramp. This ramp was moving upwards, requiring a burst of even greater effort. Felix nearly stumbled, but righted himself to take in the new surroundings.

  It was chaos. While the police and NJ7 descended on the plane, the baggage handlers were tearing in the opposite direction. Helen, Georgie and Felix joined them. They dashed on to the nearest abandoned baggage cart. Helen snatched a handful of fluorescent vests from the back, threw one over her head and thrust the others at Felix and Georgie.

  “Get right down!” she shouted, bundling her hair up into a cap that had been left on the front seat. She started up the cart, which whined and heaved itself along the tarmac at a steady crawl.

  To Felix’s amazement, the security forces blasted straight past them, ignoring the terrified herd of airport staff that was fleeing the scene. Instead, they encircled the plane. The flashing blue lights of the police vans reflected off the spreading black pool of aviation fuel in a haze of fumes. The smell burned into Felix’s nostrils. The pool of fuel had spread out under the whole plane, with parallel trails leading all the way back along the route of the baggage car’s wheels.

  “Felix,” said Helen firmly. “I’m about to ask you to do something which you must promise never to tell your parents about.”

  “What is it?”

  “I want you to blow up that plane.”

  Felix’s mouth dropped open.

  “Look through those bags behind you and find a lighter,” Helen went on.

  “I will absolutely do that for you!” Felix exclaimed, his eyes wide. He frantically heaved on the suitcases one at a time and ripped them open, searching through the contents. “There must be a lighter here,” he muttered. “Doesn’t anybody pack a lighter? Come on! This might be the only chance in my life I get to make something massive blow up!”

  “I can’t believe you’re letting him do this…” said Georgie, with a small smile.

  “It’ll take them a few seconds to search the plane and see we’re not there,” her mum explained. “But if they had to search a wreckage for our bodies…”

  “Yes!” Felix punched the air, a pink plastic lighter in his fist.

  “Wait until all the fuel is off our wheels,” said Helen, glancing back. “I don’t want you setting light to us at the same time.” The trail from one of their wheels had run out, leaving just a single, thin line connecting them to the highly inflammable reservoir.

  Felix clambered over the baggage towards the back and leaned over the side. He ignited the trail of fuel just as Helen surged the cart forward, out of the danger. The flames licked the ground behind them, almost invisible, until a sudden streak of fire ripped towards the plane.

  BOOM!

  A huge black and orange fist seemed to burst out of the ground and squeeze the whole plane. Vehicles toppled over and the security forces were knocked off their feet.

  “This is the greatest moment of my life,” Felix whispered.

  The constant buzz of the helicopters overhead went on longer than Jimmy or Saffron expected. NJ7 weren’t giving up the search easily.

  “Looks like you were right about their satellites,” Saffron said. They’d left the car now and were sitting near it on the muddy verge under the bridge. “They might keep the choppers up until it gets dark.”

  She peered out, trying to get a glimpse of the helicopters’ flight patterns. The light was already fading. Next to her, Jimmy wasn’t interested in looking out at the world. He was staring down at what he held in his hands: the small rectangle of card that the Capita had shot through the window after they abducted Viggo. The corners were dog-eared and some of the print had rubbed off a little from all the wear and tear it had suffered in Jimmy’s back pocket, but the type was still bold and clear: LOCO.

  “Once it’s dark we’ll have to move quickly,” Jimmy said. “The Capita said twenty-four hours and I doubt they admit latecomers.” He stuffed the flier back into his pocket. That black mist was already building up inside him: his programming swirling into action. Was it formulating a plan? Jimmy had no idea how his own body was preparing for the night ahead, and he realised he probably wouldn’t find out until he was executing the will of his assassin instinct. How was he going to get Viggo back? He searched inside himself, longing for some clue about how he could handle the battles to come.

  “We have nothing to negotiate with,” he sighed, almost to himself. “Nothing. We don’t have the money Chris owed them, we don’t have the H Code, and the computers from Chisley Hall were useless. We’re going up against the Capita with nothing.”

  For at least an hour they’d been sitting under the bridge watching the shadows lengthening and listening to the helicopters. Jimmy’s hunger had grown and he’d felt his energy fading. The crack of gunshots haunted his imagination. He was sure they wouldn’t be the last he’d hear. He couldn’t stop him
self picturing Dr Longville and his guard slumped over each other. One enemy, one man who had turned out to be a friend. Both dispatched in an instant with no second chances.

  “We’ll find a way,” said Saffron gently. “We have to. We owe it to Chris. However he’s acted lately, we have to get him back.”

  Jimmy let her soothing voice wash through him. He was hardly listening. She didn’t understand what was on his mind, or the torment he felt twisting his guts.

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” Saffron went on. “Even if things between us all are different afterwards – even if Chris isn’t…” She paused, searching for the right word. “We owe it to everybody in Britain to save him. This country deserves the leader it voted for.”

  Jimmy felt a shiver rip through him. He hadn’t been able to tell her. She still thinks NJ7 fixed the election for the Government. Jimmy held himself still, not wanting to give away that he was hiding this secret. He wanted to give Viggo the chance to defend himself first, if he could. Had Viggo been behind the corruption, or was it all down to the Capita? Jimmy wanted to believe his friend was innocent, but the more he thought about it, the more unlikely that felt.

  The darkness in Jimmy’s mind was growing. Why had so many people voted against Viggo? Enough people for it not to matter that the HERMES system was crooked. Jimmy looked up to watch the cars whizzing past. All these people – did they really believe in Ian Coates? Jimmy hated even thinking about the man, but he had to. He had to work out why so many people seemed to want him to stay in charge of Britain. He noticed that a few of the cars even had bumper stickers with the Government’s election slogan: Efficiency. Stability. Security. Maybe they’d been fooled, Jimmy thought. Maybe Miss Bennett had organised such a brilliant campaign, and been able to manipulate the TV, the press, the radio… and ultimately the voters.

  Or maybe they were right. Maybe people had voted for Ian Coates because it was the right decision. Even though he had promised to abolish voting again – once and for all, this time. Maybe that’s what people really wanted. Maybe it was the best way to run the country… Efficiency. Stability. Security. Christopher Viggo couldn’t have offered any of those things.