Bionic Agent (7 page)

Jordan should have been able to open a link to Winter’s laptop with his brain/computer interface and ask for backup. With these guys in his face, though, he couldn’t summon up the
necessary concentration. Anyway, he hated the idea of admitting he needed help within minutes of his first job.

He knew he should have taken Winter’s advice already to get out before trouble started. He hoped he wasn’t too late. He took a deep breath, twisted and stabbed his false fist at the
door. The wood was too thick to splinter but the lock could not withstand the force of his punch. It shattered and the door swung inwards.

Jordan dashed inside while the men stood and stared in amazement. He knew he only had a moment before the heavies on the other side of the door reacted. He scanned the room. Large grey filing
cabinets, a huge desk, a safe and a fire exit to the right. On the left, there was some sort of laboratory bench. His amplified sense of smell detected something vaguely chemical.

He turned towards the only exit but didn’t dare to move towards it. The guy with the gun had stepped into the room. He wasn’t hiding the weapon any more. He was pointing it at
Jordan’s chest.

Jordan stopped and put his hands up.

“You’re not in a cowboy film,” the man said with a cruel grin. “You’re in deep trouble.” The smirk was replaced by an expression of sheer malice. “No
one comes in here. And no one messes with us like that. No one. The boss’ll want to meet you.”

It wasn’t an invitation. It was a demand.

“Who’s that?” Jordan asked. Trying to keep his voice under control, he lowered his arms.

“Come with me.”

It was an opportunity to find out who had taken over the club from Mr. Goss, Jordan realized, but it was too risky. It would be pointless to discover the godfather’s identity but not get
out alive. If these people had blown up half of Medway, they wouldn’t hesitate to dispose of one fourteen-year-old boy. After all, he didn’t officially exist and they might have killed
him once already. “I don’t think so,” he replied.

“I’ll end it here and now, then.” The thug took aim.

Jordan didn’t know what he’d said, seen or done to provoke such an extreme reaction. Facing execution, his legs were quaking. But he remained alert. His eyes picked
out the first movement of the man’s forefinger on the trigger. Jordan thought of his bionic arm protecting his heart. Immediately, his arm moved in front of his chest and the bullet clanged
against his hand. The force of the blow knocked his forearm harmlessly into his body and the bullet bounced away. There was no blood, no wound.

The gangster’s mouth and eyes opened wide. He took at least five seconds to respond. “Who are you?” Astonished, he added, “
What
are you?”

Jordan was stunned as well. His tense fingers locked onto the desktop and his right hand began to crush the wood. “Just a boy,” he said, pretending to be calm as the adrenalin surged
around his body. Then he lifted the entire desk and threw it at the startled bunch of dealers. He didn’t wait to see it hit home. He didn’t wait for the havoc it would cause. As he made
for the fire exit at full speed, he heard the crash, the cries and swearing behind him. His right arm hit the door first and it burst open. He dashed round the tennis court and onto the
club’s football pitch.

He didn’t hesitate in case any of the men had recovered from the shock and were about to chase him. Wishing he had bionic legs as well, he doubled back. He didn’t turn right to
return to the crossroads where Winter would be waiting in the car park, because the streetlamps along the straight road would keep him in view for several minutes. Instead, he went to the left and,
after a few metres, right into Button Drive. Grateful for the darkness, he was out of sight of the club within seconds. Besides, no one would expect him to go in that direction. Almost everyone
thought of it as a no-through-road, but not Jordan. He hurried to the end and sprinted round the back of the flats. He scrambled over the wooden fence and hurtled across the narrow field towards
the farmyard and its grain silos.

Jordan didn’t try to count the metal containers but there seemed to be fewer than he remembered. Panting, he came to a halt between three of the silos, hidden from the world, and sank onto
the damp ground. It was only after he’d got his breath back that he blinked and scanned the blackened gap with infrared vision. He let out a gasp. Two paces away, there was a yellow and red
glow in the shape of a human figure crouching in the darkness.

“Hello?” Jordan called. “Is someone there?” Of course, he knew that someone was lurking in his secret hideout.

A familiar voice called out, “Who are you?”

Amy! Jordan hoped that she didn’t hear him gasp again. At least the darkness hid the emotions on his face. She was a gleaming warmth to him but he’d be a bare outline to her.
“Jordan,” he said.

“Sounds like you’ve been running.”

Straight away, he recognized an opportunity. “I...er...got into trouble with the guys in the sports centre.”

Amy’s voice became urgent and edgy. “They aren’t following you, are they?”

“No. Do you know them?”

“I used to know the people who ran it, but not this lot.”

The glimmer was not exactly Amy-shaped. She was taller now. But it was definitely Amy plus a year. Talking to her, Jordan’s heart was hammering as much as it had when he’d confronted
the dealers, but for an entirely different reason. “They didn’t seem very nice.”

“No.”

He wanted to rush over to her, give her a hug and whisper, “It’s me. I’m back.” But that was one thing he could never do. In his enthusiasm, he might even have hurt her.
He tried to focus on what he was supposed to be doing. Those drug dealers were clearly operating with the full knowledge of the new owner. “Who are they?” he said. “Who runs it
now?”

She didn’t answer right away. Perhaps she was suspicious. Perhaps she thought he was asking too many questions. “Do you know what’s weird?”

“What?”

“You haven’t asked me why I’m here.”

“Why are you?”

Amy paused. “Because I meet my friend here.”

So, she had a new friend. Or she was trying to give the impression that someone could turn up at any second because she felt threatened. “When’s he coming?”

“Who said it was a he?”

“I just...assumed.”

“Another thing that’s weird. You told me your name but you didn’t ask me mine.”

“I was scared you might think I was...you know.”

“Chatting me up?” Amy laughed softly. “You can’t even see me.”

“No.”

“Your voice is a bit strange. You speak like a local but you don’t go to our school.”

“Home tuition,” Jordan replied. He knew that today was the first day of the summer term but it made no difference to him.

“So you go to the club because you don’t do sport at school.”

Jordan nodded but, remembering that she couldn’t see him, he said, “Yes.”

“Bad mistake,” Amy muttered. Then she added, “I don’t like the people in charge – to put it mildly – and they don’t like you. I suppose that puts you
and me on the same side.”

“I guess.”

Amy drew in a deep breath. “Everyone around here’s too frightened to talk...” She went quiet for a few seconds. “The new Mr. Big isn’t Mr. Big at all. It’s
Ms. Big, I suppose. My dad says it’s someone called Melissa Pink.”

“A woman. When did she take over?”

“Straight after the river blast. A year ago. He said she’s not from round here.”

At once, Jordan’s brain fumbled around for the right thoughts that would log him on to Unit Red’s system.
Melissa Pink. Criminal activity
.

When he established a link, the visual effect was like looking at a shop window. He would see the display inside and, at the same time, a reflection of what was behind him. Right now,
Amy’s shape shone through the scrolling pages of Melissa Pink’s file.

It seemed that Pink was the mastermind behind the Midlands crime scene. She’d never been convicted of a serious crime, but the police were in no doubt that she was responsible for much of
it. They also regarded her as ruthless and vicious. Even so, Jordan did not spot any references to bombings in her record. If she’d moved in on Kent with a devastating explosion, she’d
also stepped up several leagues in violence.

“You’ve gone quiet,” Amy said. “Have you heard of Pink?”

“No,” he answered.

“She’s vile, according to Dad. Way beyond cruel.” Looking like a candle flame that had suddenly elongated, Amy got to her feet. “I’m off,” she announced
abruptly as she walked away. She’d done it so often in the dark that she didn’t bump into the sides of the silos.

Jordan called after her, “If I see your friend, I’ll tell him you’ve gone.”

For a moment, the flame flared yellow. “I don’t think you’ll see him. It’s too late.”

Abandoned, Jordan watched her stroll down the track. When her radiance faded to nothing, he experienced a twinge around his stomach. One of his wounds there hadn’t healed properly. The
hurt had never really gone away and he was left with a sensitive scar. That’s how he felt over Amy as well.

In the Gillingham safe house, Winter gazed at him like a mother who had just heard a pack of lies from her son. “So, it all went smoothly. You didn’t bump into
anyone you recognized, you saw drug dealers who weren’t there before the big bang, and you heard them saying a woman called Melissa Pink is in charge?”

Jordan nodded. “That’s it.” He was determined to keep quiet about meeting Amy.

“Took a long time.”

Jordan shrugged. “They talked about a lot of other stuff first.”

“Such as?”

“Football.” Trying to avoid further interrogation, Jordan said, “What I don’t know is whether Melissa Pink planted the estuary bomb or just took advantage of it. Maybe
she made her move on Mr. Goss’s business when everyone was...you know...”

“Panicking?”

“Yeah.”

“And while you were listening to the football chat, you smelled a chemical sort of smell.”

“Like, from a lab.”

“But you don’t know what it was?”

“No.”

To Jordan, Winter didn’t look like a mother. She looked stunning, even though she was about thirty. An occasional peek with terahertz vision was impossible to resist.

She’d taught him the Unit Red rules, but Jordan preferred his mum’s nuggets of advice on life. His mum had been full of them. She never went on, though. Her advice came in pithy
one-liners, like proverbs. Often, they were serious. Sometimes, they weren’t. Her advice on women? “When you’re living in a house with the opposite sex, don’t leave the
toilet seat up.” Jordan’s inward smile was sad and wry.

Winter gulped back some coffee. “I think our chemist ought to take you through a few smells in case you can pin it down. Starting with the whiff of a bomb-making factory. And we need to
know a lot more about what Melissa Pink’s up to. Then there’s the disciplinary action against you.”

“What?”

She smiled and pointed to his right hand. “Damaging government property.”

Jordan glanced down at the patch of artificial skin that the bullet had ripped out. “Ah, that.”

She nodded. “How did it happen?”

He didn’t want to admit to his handler that, on his very first outing as a Unit Red agent, he hadn’t obeyed her instruction to keep out of trouble. “I...er...caught it on the
door. I’m still a bit...you know.”

“Economical with the truth?”

“No. Clumsy.”

Winter shook her head, laughed and swigged the rest of her coffee. “The technician who’ll repair it will work out what caused it and tell us, even if you won’t.”

“Changing the subject...” he said.

Winter’s mug was decorated with two cartoon frogs. She put it down and gazed at him.

“I think you should trace Salam Bool’s mobile. It went missing the same day as the explosion.”

Winter was taken aback. “How do you know?”

“He was one of my...I mean, one of Ben Smith’s teachers. And he was in a temper because someone had nicked it.”

“I’ll get onto it. I want to figure out if we can get you close to Melissa Pink as well, but it’d be pushing you in at the deep end. Especially now her people have seen you.
So, let’s try something else first. A shallow-end tactic.”

“Like what?”

“I think you should make friends with the Quickfall kids. See if you can find out anything about the family’s animal rights and environmental activities. The question is, would they
go as far as bombing? Are they that radical?” She stood up. “That’s after a visit to the lab to get your hand fixed – and before you forget that smell.”

The train ran alongside the river estuary on its approach to Southend Central. The wrecks of
Ocean Courage
and the oil supertanker were no longer cluttering the
waterway. They had been salvaged and removed to clear the important shipping lane.

Just before the train rattled through Chalkwell Station, it passed some small boatyards on the right. Jordan watched out for them because Cara Quickfall had kept her boat there until it went
missing. Straight after the station, on the left, were the tennis courts where Cara’s sons went after school every Tuesday and Thursday.

Jordan looked down at his robotic arm. His attitude to it had changed. Had it been only flesh and blood, he would not have got out of the sports club alive. The mechanical hand was perfect
again. The technician had diagnosed the damage straight away. “Someone’s hammered a pointed tool against it or you’ve been shot.” The patches on Jordan’s face that
were natural skin had turned bright red. Without mentioning Amy, he’d admitted what had happened. No doubt the story would make its way to Angel and Winter so he expected a telling-off
soon.

Back in the Unit Red labs, he’d been taken to the chief chemist. She’d listened to him and then said, “You probably got a whiff of a volatile solvent.” She’d taken
him to a fume cupboard and asked him to sniff a series of liquids. The first one to catch his attention had been acetone. “It’s not quite right,” he’d told her, “but
it was something like that.” She’d thought about it for a few seconds, mixed two solvents together and told him to try again. And that was it. Exactly. She’d nodded. “You
said they were dealing drugs. That was the clue. It’s not about bomb-making. A one-to-one mix of diethyl ether and acetone is the classic solvent for purifying cocaine. It’s more than
likely you stumbled across an illicit drug lab.”