Bionic Agent (2 page)

As the enormous pillar of water plunged back down into the estuary, a four-metre wave radiated outwards, heading with devastating force for the coastlines of Medway and Essex. It rocked the
blazing
Ocean Courage
, swept over the smaller vessels and sank them. The shock of the explosions caused an earth tremor that travelled through the estuary clay and shook every building up to
three kilometres inland. Some wobbled, several collapsed.

A supertanker discharging its supply of oil under the floodlights of Canvey Island terminal blew up in a mass of searing yellow flame and black smoke. The nightshift workers who hadn’t yet
been evacuated didn’t stand a chance. The ammunition stored at Canvey Arms Factory ignited. The detonation flattened the factory and burning fragments shot into the sky like malicious
fireworks. Huge oil storage tanks exploded in sequence along the Essex estuary. The deafening blasts could be heard from four counties.

The area would have been hit very hard even if the bombs stored in the
Richard Montgomery
had been the only source of destruction. But the arms factory, the supertanker, the oil
containers, and the passing
Ocean Courage
made a far more lethal cocktail. Metal shards flew like bullets across Southend and the other coastal towns. The authorities’ attempts to get
the residents away only made it worse. People were on the streets and in vehicles when the lethal missiles arrived and the shock wave turned windows into weapons.

The emergency services had put all their effort into clearing the large centres of population. The smaller places had no warning.

In Lower Stoke, just a short distance across the fields from the gas terminal, Ben Smith was by his bedroom window. When the gasworks exploded, his house was the first to feel the power of the
blast. Immediately, the roof above his head ripped away. Tiles and beams came down. His window splintered and showered him with glass. He didn’t even have time to cry out. He was tossed
across the room along with bricks, plaster, his bed and electronic drum kit. His head smacked sickeningly against something solid. Then he was falling because there was no longer a floor beneath
his feet.

The shock wave caused a massive change in air pressure. It ruptured his lungs, eardrums and bowels.

Ben knew he was badly injured. He’d seen his right arm being torn away from his shoulder. He was aware of warm blood. Lots of it. But he felt no pain. Perhaps it was so intense that his
body had shut down. He had already moved on to a calmer place. Yet his eyes remained open.

The firefighter didn’t need to look closely into the ruins. The state of the bodies told her all she needed to know. The explosion had wiped out an entire family. She
said into the microphone attached to her uniform, “Fourteen Shepherds Way – with parts of sixteen, I think – Lower Stoke. Just awful. Too close to the blast.”

“Fourteen Shepherds Way is a priority address,” Control said through her earpiece. “A police officer’s house. DS Smith. According to records, she wasn’t on duty.
She was probably in bed.”

“I’m sorry. It’s a war zone down here. No one’s alive.”

But, as Debbie turned to leave, the boy’s body caught her attention. He was so young. A teenager, she guessed. His skin was as deathly grey as the rest of his family. There was no
movement, no sign of breathing, but his eyes were open and they didn’t have the usual clouded appearance.

“Just a second,” she said, clambering over the debris.

“What is it?” Control asked. “Do you want medical assistance?”

“I don’t think so.” She kneeled by the boy and felt his left wrist. His right arm was completely missing. Glass from a shattered window had slashed and speared several parts of
his body. Even his eyes had been pierced. The back of his skull had smashed against the remains of the brick wall. His brain had probably been severely damaged and he’d lost a huge volume of
blood. His arm was still warm and soft but there was no pulse. She reached out and felt his pale neck. Nothing.

“False alarm,” she told Control. “It’s a boy. He’s dead. I just hope he went quickly.”

“Move on,” said Control.

Even though she believed no one could survive such awful injuries, Debbie did not abandon the boy straight away. With the back of her hand, she stroked his unresponsive bloodless cheek. At his
age, he would have had so much to look forward to. She shook her head with desperation, maybe with defiance.

She knew that medical teams were stretched to breaking point treating the injured. They didn’t have time for hopeless cases. But something inside her refused to accept the boy’s
fate. Maybe it was because of those bloodshot eyes. She could imagine some lingering consciousness behind them. “No,” she said into the tiny microphone. “I want medical
backup.”

“What? Do you have signs of life?”

No pulse, no breathing, no movement. No ordinary human would have the strength and willpower to survive an ordeal like this. But she sensed that this boy was different. She sensed some sort of
determination about him. She knew that Control wouldn’t send help if she was honest, so she lied. “I thought he just moved.”

“Are you sure?”

Deborah Metland swallowed uncomfortably. She had to be crazy but her instinct told her that what she was doing was right. It told her that this boy was more than ordinary. “Yes. Quick. Get
a resuscitation team in here.”

Pumped full of someone else’s blood, Ben lay in a coma in the Intensive Care Unit of The Whittington Hospital. For a week, he was also pumped full of antibiotics to fight
infection, and adrenalin to keep his blood pressure above zero. No one gave him a chance of surviving. Then, against all the odds, he showed signs of regaining consciousness and he was pumped full
of morphine to make the pain bearable. At first, he was barely aware of his surroundings but, once he was out of immediate danger of dying, he was moved to a high dependency room.

Amazing the medics with his will to live, he suffered long periods of confusion and vague wakefulness before he began to make sense of the world and his injuries. Yet he was determined.

He was especially determined to move, to live without tubes attached, to go to the bathroom on his own and to confront his condition. Two nurses were with him when he first manoeuvred his legs
over the edge of the bed. Feeling like a baby about to become a toddler, he looked down at the floor and wondered if he could walk. He also wondered how painful it would be. If he fell, the nurse
on his left would clutch his arm. He didn’t know what the nurse on the right would do. There wasn’t much for her to grab. But he did it. He didn’t fall. He took a few steps
– as far as the tubes and monitors would allow. For a few seconds, he was independent. He was in control of himself.

As soon as he was capable of staying on his feet for a brief period with the aid of a walking frame, he stood in front of a full-length mirror in his private room. He couldn’t see very
well but, even though his doctors had warned him about his appearance, he was horrified by the damage that an explosion could inflict on a human being. What he saw in the mirror was a terrible and
torn imposter. It was a rag doll that had been ripped to pieces and sewn back together again. But it wasn’t even complete. Whoever had stitched the cruel figure had not found all of the
pieces. And the image brought tears to his eyes.

He was bruised, battered, cut and scarred. He was a mass of swellings, scabs, stitches and dressings. Missing his right arm and ear, he was also lopsided. His eyesight was clouded, unfocused and
lacked colour. Short-sighted – anything beyond a few metres was washed out in a hazy grey – he didn’t stand a chance of identifying anything moving rapidly. His hearing was poor.
The sounds of the hospital were muffled. Apparently, a part of his brain that handled hearing, sight and smell had been mangled in the Thames Estuary explosion.

His mouth was cut and distorted. His cheek had been ripped away. Part of his shaved head was still bandaged. The rest was covered with blisters, bumps and blackened blood. His whole head seemed
to be a different shape, especially at the back where he couldn’t quite see. He knew that his skull was broken there, though. That’s why he’d been given a boxing helmet. It was
supposed to protect the fracture from further damage if he fell over or walked into a wall. Tottering right up to the glass, he peered closely at his eyes. He couldn’t make out what was wrong
with them, but they didn’t look right.

Ben had unseen scars as well. Mental scars. When a doctor had managed to make him understand what had happened to his family, he’d wished he’d been allowed to die beside them. His
mum, dad, big brother and sister. Gone in an instant.

His mum used to say with a smile, “When I’m past it, just take me out and shoot me. Get it over with. Let me bow out with a bit of dignity.” It was illegal, of course. But,
even though she was a police officer, she kind of meant it. Perhaps a massive dose of morphine had been more on her mind than a gun. In Ben’s case, though, the morphine was not meant to take
life away. It made life tolerable by killing his pain.

There was one sentence he kept hearing.
You’re lucky to be alive
. All the doctors and nurses said the same thing. It was the first sentence he remembered hearing when he’d
come round. He couldn’t hear properly, but he’d heard that. Lucky! He didn’t feel lucky. He felt incredible pain. That’s all.

Standing in front of the mirror, he wondered what he’d be called. The patchwork boy. The orphan. The scarecrow. The invalid. Where was the luck in that?

And what about all the things he used to do with his right arm? Playing tennis, drumming, throwing, writing, supporting his own weight, tapping a keypad, punching and everything else. What about
all those simple things – like getting dressed and eating – that required two hands? Exhausted, he shuffled back to bed like a ninety-year-old.

Yet, over the coming days, somehow, he summoned the strength and courage to carry on.

As soon as The Whittington had made him stable and treated the worst of his injuries, Ben had his first visitor. Confined to his room in the north London hospital, he was
pleased to hear that someone had come to see him. Maybe some relative had heard what had happened and come to take care of him. Maybe Grandma and Granddad had flown in from their home in Australia.
Maybe it was Amy Goss. He hoped it was Amy. He needed to talk to someone. But his visitor wasn’t a friend or relative.

An immensely tall and skinny but authoritative figure stepped out of the fog of his damaged eyesight. When the man came closer, Ben realized that he’d never seen him before.

“It’s Ben Smith, isn’t it?” he said in a loud voice. Obviously, he knew that Ben was partly deaf.

Ben nodded. “Yes.”

“I heard about you – and your circumstances. You’re an extraordinary boy. These injuries would’ve been too much for most people, but your body’s decided to carry
on. I’m Angel, by the way.”

“Oh.” Not Dr. Angel, Mr. Angel or Angel Something. Just Angel.

“I run a specialist unit up the road.”

“Specializing in what?”

“Well, one thing I can do is help someone like you,” Angel replied. He almost shouted. “Artificial limbs, the very best in plastic surgery, getting your brain and eyes to
function properly again, and coming to terms with a new life. It’s about enhancing a damaged body, making you stronger than you were before.”

Ben liked the sound of being stronger than before, but he couldn’t believe that it would ever happen. He imagined he was beyond repair. “What’s this unit called?”

“It’s got a name,” Angel said, “but I’d rather not talk about it here when anyone could just walk in on us. Don’t worry, though. It’s all been cleared
with the hospital. They’ve given me your details and I’ve set up a medical room especially for you.”

Ben frowned. It was a strange response from a strange man. There again, Ben was going through a strange period. It was a time when doctors and nurses ruled his life. Apparently, it was a time
when a weird man could come into his room and take control over his treatment.

A mother and father were made for moments like this. A mother or father would say, “Hey, what’s going on here? Who are you, exactly? What are your qualifications? Tell me
more.” A mother or father would check everything and then say, “Yes, Ben. It’s for the best. This Angel’s going to help you.” But Ben didn’t have a mother or
father any more. He was on his own. He had to make his own decisions.

“What do I have to do?” Ben asked.

Angel smiled. “Not a lot. I’ll get one of the doctors – a friend of mine – to come in and talk to you about it. Make sure you’re happy with what’s happening.
Then the hospital discharges you into my care. That’s it. A drive up the hill and we’re there in five minutes.” He shrugged. “If it doesn’t work out, you come back
here, but I don’t think you’ll want to do that.”

Ben thought about it for a moment and then said, “Okay.”

“Good decision,” Angel replied. “I’ll get things moving.”

The mysterious Angel didn’t waste time. The next day, Ben saw the outside world for the first time since the explosion. But not for long. The car went up the busy hill to Highgate Village,
and turned left into the narrow road called Swain’s Lane. Suddenly, it didn’t feel like London any more. The car crawled along, past a large radio mast, avoiding the tourists heading
for Waterlow Park and Highgate Cemetery. Within a minute, it pulled up outside a large house which backed onto the lane. The tall wall that separated its garden from Swain’s Lane was topped
with spikes and two security cameras scanned the area.

Angel got out, tapped a code into a keypad by the garage and then pushed open the steel door. “Don’t be put off by the back. Come up to the living room. It’s superb.”

Ben hoped no one was looking. He looked stupid in the protective boxing helmet. Then he went to grab the door with the hand he no longer had. He adjusted his position so that he could hold it
open with his single crutch instead. It closed behind him with a clunk that even he could hear was solid and secure.