by Joe Craig
“But that’s not the plan,” Browder protested. “How about I let you—”
“Do I look like I’m negotiating?” Jimmy’s voice was low and firm.
Browder threw up his arms in exasperation and swivelled 180 degrees. “OK,” he declared at last. He was still shaking his head while he unflipped his mobile phone and sent a text. The reply came in less than a minute. “Let’s go,” he mumbled, and marched off towards the island.
As they crossed the Pont de Sully, Jimmy’s head was an electrical storm of conflicting urges. Heading into a nest of DGSE safehouses was good protection from the Capita, but it was a risk. He felt his muscles preparing for every possible kind of attack. At the same time his imagination incorporated each of the six bridges off the island into a different escape route, plus a few more through the water.
Suddenly his muscles tightened. He looked up. As the sun set behind them, it glinted off the windows further down the street. But one glimmer seemed out of place. It connected with something at the core of Jimmy’s brain, which spun it round and spat out a picture: the long, thin, silver barrel of a sniper’s rifle.
Jimmy turned and ran.
“Hey!” Browder shouted.
Jimmy shut it out. He didn’t care whether Browder had planted the sniper or somebody else. He just ran across the cobbles with the power and speed of a Formula One Ferrari. His leg muscles felt like they would split his skin.
He rounded the corner, but three black four-wheel drive Mercedes hurtled towards him, their tyres squealing like animals at a slaughterhouse. One mounted the pavement in front of him, barely squeezing between the bollards that lined the street.
Jimmy didn’t hesitate. He jumped up on to a bollard, balancing on top like a circus gymnast on a pole. In strong, precise leaps, he flew from one bollard to the next, slipping between the cars. Mid-flight, he pushed himself off the wing mirror of one of the Mercs, then raced for the other end of the side street.
BAM!
A massive blow crunched into Jimmy’s right hip. He was thrown up into the air in a giant arc. For a second he lost all sensation in his right leg, then he landed cruelly, hitting the stone kerb with his shoulder. But he couldn’t stop. He could already see the huge black motorbike that had hit him. It was turning to come back and finish him.
Jimmy staggered to his feet with only one choice: he limped back towards the main street, eking more speed out of his battered system with every step. He knew there would be snipers waiting, but the fear only powered him to overcome his pain. He flashed past Browder.
“Wait!” the man yelled, his voice betraying genuine panic. “What’s happening?” He stayed rooted to the spot.
Suddenly there was another shriek of car brakes. Ahead of him, Jimmy saw a dirty white van jerk to a halt. The side door slid open. This was his chance.
“The van!” Browder bellowed. “GO!”
Jimmy could hear the motorbikes behind him, growling like a pack of panthers, and he could almost feel the snipers’ targets hovering around the back of his neck, waiting for that one clean shot. He lurched towards the van. Out of the blackness came a white hand, reaching for him. The driver gunned the engine.
Jimmy pushed all of his strength into his last few paces, caught the outstretched hand and dived into the back of the van. The door slammed shut behind him. He wiped the sweat from his forehead while the van roared away.
Jimmy’s eyes were watering from the pain in his hip and his shoulder. He could tell there were other people in the van with him, but his head was foggy and there was no light. He wheezed for a few seconds, rolling on the bare metal until he could calm his body.
Slowly his programming was able to drive away most of the pain – for now at least – and his night-vision hummed into action. Two men crouched in front of him, leaning against the back of the driver’s seat.
Then the van stopped. What’s happening? Jimmy thought desperately. The words set off a chain of vivid memories – Browder standing in the street asking the same question. Why didn’t Josh run? Jimmy could feel his brain clearing. Questions attacked him with as much ferocity as the French special forces. But one stood out: why would Browder shout for Jimmy to escape without him, before finding out where the actinium was buried?
Jimmy pulled himself upright into a seated position on the floor. He pushed himself back, but felt the knees of somebody crouched behind him and smelt the musty reek of the man’s breath. The door of the van slid open. Light streamed in across the faces of the men opposite him.
One of them he had never seen before. He was young, muscular and dressed in a paint-spattered boiler suit. And he was clutching a large black rucksack that looked full, but Jimmy didn’t know of what. Next to him was Uno Stovorsky.
“Bonjour, Jimmy,” he said softly, his expression blank. He was sitting on the floor awkwardly, with his knees up and the tails of his usual grey raincoat gathered in a pool underneath him. His hands were at floor level, by his waist, and in one of them he gripped a revolver. The barrel never wavered from Jimmy’s stomach.
Now another man appeared at the door of the van. Jimmy’s gut lurched when he saw who it was.
“Sorry, Jimmy,” declared Joshua Browder brightly. “It’s just business.”
The young Frenchman closer to the door rolled the rucksack out of the van, into Browder’s arms.
“However much money you’ve got in that bag,” Jimmy croaked, his voice barely under control, “the actinium is worth a thousand times more.”
“But the actinium was going to the Capita,” Browder replied, a smile emerging on his lips. “This,” he heaved the rucksack on to his shoulder, “is all for me.”
Jimmy opened his mouth, but no words came out.
“Business, Jimmy,” Browder repeated, reaching out to close the van door. “Goodbye.”
“You idiot!” Jimmy yelled, finally finding his voice. “You betrayed me and the Capita? They’ll kill you!”
“They’ll never find me.” Browder gave a nod of thanks to Stovorsky and hauled the door shut.
“I’ll kill you!” Jimmy raged. He made a grab for the van door, but Stovorsky stuck out his foot and shoved Jimmy in the chest. At the same time the man behind Jimmy grabbed his shoulders and pushed him down. They were back in darkness for only a second before Stovorsky turned on some dim sidelights.
“Sometimes,” he explained, still not smiling, “all you need to do to get what you want is to make the highest bid.”
28 THE SECOND THING
Jimmy’s whole body was throbbing with fury. Stovorsky’s face seemed to distort into a grotesque monster. Jimmy clutched at his temples. What was happening to him?
He nodded towards Stovorsky’s gun. “Are you just playing with that?” he asked under his breath, his French coming to him as naturally as his anger. “Or are you going to shoot me?”
“Do I have reason to shoot you?” replied Stovorsky, also in French.
“You seemed to think you did in the desert.”
“I only shot at your bike, Jimmy. Never at you. I’m not a killer and I know you’re not either.”
How could Stovorsky so casually announce what Jimmy was or wasn’t? You don’t know what I might do, Jimmy wanted to scream. That urge came with a flood of terror. He realised that he himself didn’t know what he might do either. The horrors of being led into this trap now felt like nothing compared to the torture in his mind.
“I’m here to make a deal with you,” Stovorsky explained. “Just like Browder made a deal with me to bring you here.”
“Business,” Jimmy scoffed. “Right?”
“Right.”
For a second Jimmy thought he saw a hint of pity in Stovorsky’s eyes, but that made no sense to him.
“The trouble is,” Stovorsky went on, with a sigh, “I made a deal with you before and you broke it straight away.” Jimmy stared straight at Stovorsky, not flinching in his glare. “So I’m going to make this very simple.”
“You want the actinium
?” Jimmy was doing everything he could to appear calm and not give away any sign that inside he was almost falling apart.
“That’s the first thing.”
“What’s the second?”
“That you never go back to Britain.”
“What?” The shock felt like a blast of cold water to Jimmy. “But you know I have to go back. I have to show the Government I’m still alive. And the British people.” The words poured out of him, his thoughts finally beginning to fall into order. “This is the only way to prevent a war!”
Stovorsky let out a derisive laugh. “The war’s started!” he shouted. “Get over it, Jimmy. If NJ7 found out now that you’re still alive, only one thing would change: they’d know Zafi was still alive as well.”
Jimmy didn’t understand. What did Zafi have to do with this? He waited for the explanation, but Stovorsky just stared at him and waited.
Go back, Jimmy told himself. Think. The oil rig…
He could almost feel the flames on his body. He would never forget it. The smell of the oil and his own flesh burning. The explosion rocked his head again. He had to close his eyes and force his mind under control. No, he told himself. What about after that?
Then it came: that flood of guilt he’d felt when he first realised the British were going to blame the French for the explosion. They’d seen a child at the rig and assumed it was Zafi. Of course! Jimmy couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid. NJ7 thought Zafi had been killed. So now she was carrying out operations in England without surveillance and without suspicion. For the French, it was the perfect cover. And Jimmy turning up alive in the UK would blow it.
“So you were never going to let me go back to Britain?” Jimmy asked, already knowing the answer.
Stovorsky narrowed his eyes. “If we’re at war,” he said, “I need Zafi in Britain and I need NJ7 thinking she’s dead.”
“And what’s your end of the bargain?” Jimmy asked, drawing himself upright, trying to fool his own body into being confident again.
“In return for your two things,” Stovorsky announced, “I give you two things. The first is a place to live. We’ll let you stay here in France, or I can arrange a helicopter to escort you anywhere in the world – except the UK, of course.”
“I don’t need an escort,” Jimmy interrupted.
“It’s part of the deal.”
“Then you don’t get the actinium.”
Stovorsky clenched his jaw, but kept his frustration in check. He thought for a moment. “OK,” he said at last. “Then instead of an escort, I’ll give you the helicopter. Satisfied? I assume you’ll work out how to fly it. You give me the actinium and fly anywhere except Britain.”
“The actinium is buried in the desert,” Jimmy explained quickly. “In a lead suitcase. As soon as I have the chopper, you can have the exact location.”
“Good.” Stovorsky nodded and seemed to relax a little. Jimmy didn’t want him to relax too much.
“What’s the second thing?” he asked.
“Oh yes, the second thing.” For the first time, Stovorsky’s eyes dropped from Jimmy’s. He cradled the gun in his lap and fixed his gaze on that.
“The second thing,” he said softly, “is a list of specialist doctors who can help you.”
“Doctors?”
Jimmy had no idea what the man was talking about. Help him with what? Then Stovorsky lifted his eyes, but not to Jimmy’s face – to his hands. Jimmy looked down, following Stovorsky’s line of sight. What he was looking at, Jimmy didn’t believe. Instead, once again he saw that flock of vultures crowding around him and he felt the pain of their talons on his skin.
“I’m sorry, Jimmy,” Stovorsky whispered.
“But… but…” Jimmy stuttered. He finally forced away the images in his mind to focus on his fingers – and the blue tinge around the base of his nails.
“You were the only one who stood any chance,” said Stovorsky. “We didn’t know for sure you’d be affected. We hoped you wouldn’t be of course. And then you…”
He didn’t have time to finish. The ice in Jimmy’s gut erupted into thick, black flame. It rose in his chest and detonated.
Jimmy sprang forwards. The DGSE agent behind reached out to stop him, but Jimmy kicked both his feet into the man’s stomach with the force of a charging rhino. Then he flicked his heel up into the man’s head. It connected with the pressure point just between his eye and his eyebrow, sending such shockwaves through the man’s brain that he instantly blacked out and slumped against the back door of the van.
But now Jimmy was stuck in a press-up position and Stovorsky lifted his gun, while the other agent planted his huge hands on the top of Jimmy’s back and held him down. Jimmy didn’t know what his own body was doing. His muscles fizzed with the combination of his programming and his rage. His body was a primed and finely tuned combat instrument.
Jimmy punched his left hand into Stovorsky’s wrist. It knocked the gun off target, forcing Stovorsky’s finger against the trigger. The blast shook Jimmy’s brain and set his ears ringing. The bullet, however, lodged in the other DGSE agent’s shoulder.
Blood sprayed everywhere. Jimmy rolled to the side and slammed his knee into the man’s chest, then caught Stovorsky’s wrist and gave one sharp twist. The bone snapped with a loud, deep crack and the gun dropped to the floor.
Stovorsky didn’t make a sound. Jimmy looked into his face – bright white and contorted in horror and shock. But Jimmy hadn’t finished with him. He pounced on the man, pinning his chest to the floor under his knee and gripping his throat.
Jimmy felt like his mind was coated in tar. He watched his limbs moving, but couldn’t feel where they went. Every action was a slow, blurred composite of light flashes and blocks of colour. He could hear Stovorsky gasping for air, but didn’t know what it meant. He saw Stovorsky’s cheeks grow even paler, his lips fade to purple. He even stared at the red marks on the man’s throat where the tips of his fingers dug in, but all he saw were the blue crowns growing up his own nails, like ten tiny sunrises painted in negative.
“Jimmy…” Stovorsky tried to gasp, but only the faintest noise emerged.
Jimmy! screamed a voice inside his own head. Somewhere, deep down, he was battling for a moment of control. His own name echoed around his head a thousand times, in the voices of every person he knew. Each time, it blended with the sounds of violence – the oil rig exploding, mixed with his mother’s voice; the British destroyer powering into the mine complex, mixed with the terrified cry of his sister. Finally he heard his name once more, but this time it cut through all the other chaos in his mind. It sounded cruel and stern, but at the same time it was unmistakably pleading. It was the voice of his father.
With a sudden snap, Jimmy twisted his shoulders. He jerked as if his muscles didn’t want to obey him, but with just enough power to dislodge his grip on Stovorsky’s neck. Then he threw himself backwards, hitting the side of the van with a sharp slap.
Stovorsky doubled up in a wild fit of coughing, gasping for air. He rolled on to his front, clutching at the floor of the van for support, then collapsed again, blinking fast.
Jimmy couldn’t bear to watch. He shrunk into the corner of the van, hugging his knees. There was nowhere for him to look. In every corner was another slumped body, semi-conscious or just struggling to come round. Even on the ceiling was a thick spatter of blood, some of it dripping off into pools on the floor.
Jimmy wheezed and retched. The danger inside him hadn’t faded. He clutched at himself, clawing his chest and throat, desperate for some way to control this force inside him. He felt his lips crumpling and scrunched up his face. He wanted to cry, but his eyes refused to well up.
At last Stovorsky was strong enough to sit up against the side of the van. He leaned at an acute angle and stared at Jimmy. He forced out his words with venom, having to catch his breath again between each one.
“Do… we… have… a… deal?” he panted.
Jimmy closed his eyes and l
et out a huge wail from the very base of his gut.
“UUURGH!”
All his strength seemed to die with the noise of his scream. He opened his eyes, still breathing hard, and forced his voice out, as loud as his body could manage.
“Yes. We have a deal.”
29 PANDORA SHOULD HAVE PACKED LIGHT
Jimmy could hardly believe how quickly things could change. Less than an hour ago, he and Stovorsky had been trying to kill each other in the back of a van. Now Stovorsky was helping him into the pilot’s seat of an old Fennec AS550 helicopter at Sauvage Military Airbase, 60 kilometres northeast of Paris.
“I’m trusting you, Jimmy,” Stovorsky shouted over the wind that howled across the tarmac.
The sun had gone down fully by now, but the airfield was brightly lit. A ring of stadium floodlights reached out of the earth like huge claws, and there was line upon line of ground lights, criss-crossing the landing field.
“I have your chopper,” Jimmy replied, adjusting his helmet. “So you have my word. I won’t go to Britain.”
“If you head in that direction we’ll have to shoot you down. We can’t risk our asset.”
Jimmy nodded. In his head was the steady thud of the memory of what Stovorsky had told him back at the detention centre in the Pyrenees: Lies work. Lies kill.
“Write this down,” Jimmy ordered.
Stovorsky reached awkwardly for the inside pocket of his suit, lifting his right arm out of the way and adjusting his sling. Jimmy noticed him wince a little as he pulled out a mobile phone.
“Write it down?” he repeated bitterly. “I’m right-handed.” He flipped open the phone. “Speak into this instead.” He mashed a few keys and held up the handset. “I’ve got a hazardous materials response unit waiting in the Sahara.”