Bionic Agent (21 page)

Melissa turned, zigzagged across the deck and leaped over the safety rail.

By the time Amy fired, she was out of sight.

They all made for that side of the trawler and leaned against the rail.

“Where is she?” one of her gangsters cried.

“I can’t see nothing.”

“She’s not coming up.”

They waited anxiously, scanning the surface.

There was nothing but the gentle stroke of waves against the boat’s flank.

“She’s gone under!”

“No one lasts long in there. She said so herself. It’s too cold.”

“Her clothes must have dragged her down.”

The skipper steered the trawler hard to starboard and turned a complete circle. They saw nothing.

Dumbfounded, Melissa’s men stared at one other. None of them was willing to go overboard in a crazy attempt to save their leader.

Amy was still clutching the gun with both hands, but she had drooped. She was no longer capable of lifting it and firing again.

Two of the gangsters advanced menacingly towards her.

Standing protectively beside her, the scarred thug shouted, “No! Think about it. There’ll be a reward for taking her back.”

“Reward? What are you talking about?”

“Her father’s the biggest thing in town again now. If we take her back, he’ll reward us with a job. Goss’ll pay our wages.”

“Yeah. Good point.”

There was a murmur of agreement.

“So, what do we do now?”

He shouted to the captain, “It’s all over here. Pink’s had it. Gone. Take us back.”

“Okay. But first, get that lump overboard,” he said, pointing at the body of the minder. “And wash down the deck. I don’t want a trace left by the time we get
ashore.”

There was no sentiment in Melissa Pink’s world. A couple of the men rolled the body over the side and then swilled away the stain as if they were cleaning up after hooking an unwanted
fish.

Jordan was concussed. He could barely stand. In his mind, the boat wasn’t pitching calmly. It seemed to be turning right over. He leaned over the side and vomited.

He didn’t notice the blood trickling from the top of his head and his neck. He wiped his mouth and somehow felt a little better for being sick. He gazed at Amy. She seemed to sway from
side to side. He knew he’d lost control of the full range of his vision because she had an infrared glow. At times, her wet clothes muted some of the yellowy-red colour, then they dissolved
from his sight altogether. To Jordan, she was an unstable ghost.

“I’m sorry, Amy,” he said weakly. “I can explain.”

Amy shook her head. “Not now, you can’t. You look like you’re about to pass out.” She paused before mumbling, “You’re not the only one feeling wrecked.
I’ve just killed a man.”

While the trawler made for the jetty, where their journey had begun, Jordan sat near Amy on an upside-down crate. Melissa’s heavies kept an eye on them but said nothing
and didn’t bother them. Amy kept the small gun on her lap.

Jordan knew he had to do something. Yes. He had to contact Unit Red. He had to update Angel. But he wasn’t sure if his brain/computer interface was still functioning. Nothing seemed to
respond normally. When he thought he was online, he tried to leave the message:
Heading back to land. Melissa Pink drowned
. But he could have uploaded a meaningless jumble of words –
or nothing at all – into his section of the system. He wasn’t sure.

If he had been thinking clearly, he would have asked the captain where they were so that he could inform Unit Red. But his head wound made him woozy. He was still hoping that Angel had figured
out their position from his aircraft sightings and that help was already on its way.

He turned towards Amy and whispered, “Will your dad give this lot jobs?”

“Not a chance. He’ll go ballistic – to put it mildly – when I tell him they tortured me. On top of that, they switch sides way too easily. But I’m not letting on
till they get me back.”

Jordan nodded. He took a deep breath, swallowed, and tried again. “Amy. There’s a reason I couldn’t tell you...”

She shook her head. “There’s never a reason to lie to your best friend.”

Jordan gave up.

In the distance, the landing stage came into view.

There was no threat when the men ushered Jordan and Amy off the trawler and onto the jetty. One of them even asked Amy if she was feeling better. The mood was very different
from when they’d been shoved onto the boat.

The gangsters shambled along the pontoon towards the two vans, but Jordan and Amy hung back as if they didn’t want to admit they belonged to the same bunch.

Nearing the first van, the men suddenly froze. Four armed people had stepped out from behind it.

Further back, Jordan’s heart stopped for a moment. A second later, he let out a sigh. Despite his distorted vision, he recognized Winter and three agents.

“It’s okay,” he told Amy. “They’re on our side.”

Within seconds, the Unit Red team had stripped the gang members of their knives, forced them into the second van, and locked them inside. Winter instructed the agents to take them all to the
nearest police station. “I’ll look after Jordan and Amy,” she announced, putting her gun away.

She walked towards Jordan at the edge of the jetty and said, “Sorry it took so long to find you, but it looks like you didn’t need us. Again. Good work.” She peered at his head
and neck wounds with concern before glancing at Amy and noting the gun in her fist. “Are you both all right?”

They were exhausted, bruised and bedraggled, but they nodded anyway.

“I think you’d better give me that,” she said to Amy, holding out her hand for the gun.

“No,” Amy snapped, clinging on to it protectively. “I don’t know you.”

Winter was about to insist, but seemed to think Amy was in a fragile and possibly unstable state. “Okay. You keep it safe.” Instead, she turned round. “Come on. Let’s get
you both sorted out.” She strode up the gravel path.

Melissa’s hands were numb and white with cold. She could no longer cling to the trawler’s rope. She lowered herself into the water and swam to the shore. Hearing
voices near the jetty, she ducked down behind a bush and waited for an opportunity.

Refusing to move, Amy nodded towards Winter and asked, “Who’s she?”

Jordan smiled nervously. “Her name’s Winter.”

“What sort of a name is that?”

“She’s okay,” Jordan said. “Really.”

“I bet it’s a name like Jordan Stryker. Made up. Does she know who you are?”

Jordan nodded. Keeping his voice down, he said, “But it’s important you don’t let her know that you do as well.
Very
important.”

Amy didn’t ask why. She was still too annoyed. She also looked worried. “Is she some sort of cop? Is she going to ask what I did on the boat?”

“It’s all right,” Jordan replied as the trawler chugged away from the jetty. “No one’s going to blame you. Trust me...”

“Trust you? How can I trust you now?”

“I’ll explain, Amy. At least, I’ll try. Honest. Jordan Stryker, Winter, everything. But not here. Not now.” Noticing that his Unit Red handler had disappeared into the
van, Jordan said to Amy, “Come on. Winter’ll take us home.”

But Amy stayed where she was, looking at the revolver in her hand. Making up her mind, she drew her arm back, ready to launch the evidence into the sea.

She was about to throw it as far as she could when someone behind her snatched the weapon from her grasp.

Jordan twisted round and gasped in shock as he came face-to-face with Melissa Pink. The gang leader had sneaked out from the bushes and for once touched one of her enemies. In a slick move, she
hooked one arm around Amy’s neck and pushed the barrel of the gun against her head with the other.

It was exactly how Jordan had threatened Melissa Pink on the trawler.

She dragged her victim a few steps away from Jordan. Her expression was contorted with rage and she was dripping seawater like blood. Her long hair was flattened against her head and shoulders.
A tangled piece of seaweed gave her a bizarre green ribbon. She was shaking and wild growling noises came from her nose and throat. But she also looked triumphant.

Jordan was numb. He thought that Melissa was going to kill Amy right there in front of him, just three or four metres away. She was certainly in the mood to kill someone.

Slowly, her mouth curved into a smile and she shook her head at him. “No, I’m not going to shoot your precious girlfriend. Not yet.”

With horror, Jordan watched Melissa turn the gun towards him until it was pointing straight at his face. That cold metal barrel was all he saw. It blanked out everything else from his vision.
The last thing he would see was an emerging bullet and a puff of smoke.

Melissa Pink milked the moment. “This is so easy,” she said. “No challenge at all, but immensely satisfying.” She squeezed the trigger.

Two loud bangs made Jordan jump. But there was no pain, no sudden impact. Just two gunshots echoing in his head like a death knell.

First, Amy slumped forwards and then Melissa jerked sideways. Both crumpled onto the wooden surface of the jetty.

Still groggy, Jordan couldn’t work out exactly what had happened. He saw Winter sprinting from the van to the jetty. He heard her shout, “I had no choice.” He saw blood
spreading. Some of it was his, coming from his open wounds. The rest collected between Amy and Melissa.

Amy had rolled oddly onto her back. Her arms and legs were splayed out on the ground. She seemed to be staring up at the sky. But she wasn’t. Her eyes had glazed over.

That was all that Jordan saw. Shock and exhaustion got the better of him. He blacked out.

On one side of Jordan was a stone angel, standing on a plinth. Like Jordan, the winged boy was missing a right arm. On the other side was a row of grubby headstones at odd
angles. They reminded him of rotten teeth.

He imagined that, when she was thirteen, Amy would have gone to his funeral. Yet he was still here. Alive. Lying on the ground of Highgate Cemetery. And where was Amy? Lying on a cold slab in a
pathology laboratory. But Jordan would not be able to go to her funeral when her body was released to her family. He could not risk the Goss family asking him difficult questions.

Jordan thumped the earth. He had died and come back to life. He could not get used to the idea that Amy would not do the same. The bullet had done too much damage. Modern medicine had come to
his rescue, but apparently it couldn’t help Amy.

In his head, Jordan could still hear Winter’s explanation of what she had done. “I was by the van. Melissa Pink was about to kill you. I couldn’t let that happen, Jordan. But
she was holding Amy in front of her. I had to go through Amy. It was a snap decision. There was no other way.”

Winter had been totally successful. Her first bullet had passed through Amy’s body and wounded Melissa before she could fire. A moment later, the second had killed the gangster
outright.

Amy was no longer a security risk. No longer an embarrassment to Unit Red. She was no longer upset with Jordan. No longer waiting for an explanation for his strange behaviour and appearance. She
was no longer his secret friend.

His shoulders shaking, Jordan took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He could not escape the thought that, if he’d really died and been buried in a place like this cemetery, Amy would
still be alive. But he’d cheated death and somehow they’d swapped fates. He felt guilty, nauseous and numb. He felt that the world was carrying on without him.

Still grieving for his old friend, Jordan slumped into a chair in the bunker. He didn’t even have half a right arm any more. The upper part had been unscrewed from his
shoulder and removed for repair. Once fixed, it would be reattached to the forearm that Winter had rescued from the ground between the silos. Then he would get a complete refit.

It seemed that Angel was saying sorry to him for the hundredth time. “I can’t tell you how much I regret what happened. It’s always dreadful when an innocent life... I know Amy
meant a lot...”

The estuary explosion had damaged Jordan’s eyes but apparently it had not damaged his tear ducts. He felt tears welling up yet again. “Winter shot Amy. It wasn’t an accident.
But you said killing’s never the first choice.”

“That’s perfectly true, Jordan. But we’ve been through this before. Melissa Pink wasn’t drowned. She was alive with a firearm. She turned it on you and she was about to
fire. Did you have any doubt she was going to kill you?”

“No,” Jordan admitted.

“That’s not a situation Winter could tolerate. Shooting was her
only
choice. It was justified and I would have done the same.”

Of course, it wasn’t the story that had emerged in the news. The gangster, Melissa Pink, had shot a rival’s daughter and then a police marksman had shot her. No mention of Winter,
Jordan or Unit Red.

“But did she have to...”

“I’m afraid so. If Pink had been taller than Amy, Winter would have had a line of sight for a head shot. But she wasn’t. Holding Amy in front of her, there was no direct
target.” Sympathetically, Angel added, “Look, I can’t make you feel any better about it, but I’ve got some good news.”

Jordan did not show any interest.

Carrying on, Angel said, “Forensics analysed the metal fragments of Lightfoot’s
Windsong
bomb. They were identical to the parts salvaged from the device planted on the wreck
of the
Richard Montgomery
.”

At once, Jordan looked up. “So, there’s a link to the estuary blast?”

“A strong link. And you were right about a remote control. They got it out of the River Crouch. It’s a type that would have been capable of setting off the Thames bomb. So,
that’s the physical evidence that wraps it up. You got your man. I’m impressed.”

Jordan closed his eyes for a moment and, despite everything, allowed himself to feel relieved that he had uncovered the truth. Then he looked at Angel. “I still want to go and see
him.”

Angel shook his head. “The answer’s still the same. I wouldn’t blame you – and I wouldn’t be surprised – if you wanted to murder him.”