Revenge (18 page)

Helen Coates moved slowly through Manhattan, keeping to the shadows. Overhead, the lights of a plane disappeared into the clouds. For all she knew, Viggo could be on it, heading back to London. But for now she had to put that out of her head.

She stepped off the pavement to cross Canal Street, but a truck loaded with crates of cabbage rattled past. She pulled herself back violently to avoid getting knocked down. She took a deep breath and jogged on, back towards the safehouse.

When she reached the corner of the street she stopped. She knew immediately that the safehouse had been breached. The discreet sign that Neil Muzbeke had left was clear – leaving the broken window uncovered. But Helen didn’t need it because in the middle of the road was a long black car. With a lurch of dread, she saw two of her best friends being ushered into the back, their hands secured behind them with strips of white plastic.

Her first instinct was to run and try to help them. But she knew there was nothing to be gained from
barging in and getting captured herself. She held herself in a doorway, watching, waiting. Gradually, panic crept over her. Where were the others? Where was Jimmy? Where was Georgie? The car drew away like a rat scurrying through the gutter.

Helen could feel herself shaking, but she couldn’t stop it. Every day for thirteen years she had known what it was like to fear for her family. This was worse. She tried desperately to clear her thoughts. But her heart was being attacked by guilt.
I should never have left
them alone
, she thought. Tears gathered in her eyes.

Even once the car was out of sight, Helen held herself back in the shadow of the doorway. She could feel a buzz rising up inside her. It was the terrible thrill of being in danger. It was time to recall everything she had learned all those years ago, before she was a mother, when she had been on active duty as an NJ7 agent, a servant of her nation.
Time to do what I should
have been doing every day since then
, she told herself.
Time to serve my family
.

Though tears were running down her cheeks, she felt stronger. Then a picture emerged in her head: Neil and Olivia being forced into the back of the car. Something wasn’t right. With everything else burning through her mind – the guilt, the panic, the excitement – she couldn’t see anything clearly. Then it hit her. The white plastic hand ties round her friends’ wrists. NJ7 used metal cuffs.

Whoever had taken Neil and Olivia Muzbeke, it wasn’t NJ7.

When Jimmy opened his eyes he still couldn’t see. The wind buffeting his face had made his eyes water so much that a constant stream of tears flew up to the sky behind him. With a mammoth effort he brought his arm to his face to wipe them away. At last he could see where he was heading – just in time.

A wave of relief sent a new power through his muscles. He had judged his jump perfectly. He was heading for the domed plastic roof of the Roosevelt Island Tennis Club courts. He turned his shoulder to cushion the impact, then,

SMACK!

His whole skeleton clattered inside his skin. It was the kindest landing he could have hoped for. Hitting the dome at its peak would have splattered his body into a thousand pieces, but he landed just below that. He slid and bumped down the side of the dome. The friction allowed him to slow down more gradually. Effectively, it was like putting the brakes on. Then Jimmy hit the ground with a nasty thud.

He groaned and rolled over, clutching his shoulder. He looked up to the sky, and could just make out a tiny face peeking through the glass of the cable car, way above him. Even from this distance, Paduk did not look pleased.

Seeing him was a chilling reminder. Jimmy hadn’t got away yet. But he’d made it to the island. From here he would be going deeper into the centre of the NJ7 trap – and that was exactly what he wanted. Today was the day he settled this.

Jimmy bulldozed his pain to one side and staggered to his feet. Hardly pausing for breath, he clambered over the low railing of the Tennis Club and broke into a run. At first he had to clutch his shoulder and his running was unbalanced – he’d landed on his right side and it wasn’t ready for any more action yet. But Jimmy forced his way through that. He could already picture the cable car docking at the terminal and Paduk coming after him. In seconds, Jimmy was running normally again.

He ran down the side of the island, heading for its Southern tip. That’s where the waitress at the Oyster Bar had said he’d find the ruin. The image of it blasted at him from the inside with all the force that the wind had put on him in his fall. He ran on as if he could run away from what was inside his head.

To his right was a slim railing separating the walkway from the river. There were posts every few metres along it and on top of each post was a fat seagull. Jimmy raced past them and they each in turn launched themselves into the air, giving Jimmy a fanfare of feathers as he ran.

Manhattan was just across the river. In the corner of his eye Jimmy could see the giant buildings squeezed
into every possible space. But Roosevelt Island was completely different. There were no skyscrapers. Just a single road winding through a deserted medical centre, and the walkway along the river that Jimmy was on.

He closed his mind to the surroundings. All he could see were the two remaining images: the ruin and SILVERCUP. All he could hear were the squawks of the seagulls. They were like sirens warning him of the danger. Then came the first gunshot – Paduk was behind him. But the man wasn’t giving chase. Instead, when the shot missed, Jimmy heard the crackle of Paduk’s radio. Jimmy knew all he’d find at the tip of the island would be scores of NJ7 agents. And they’d be ready for him.

The end of the path came quickly, but Jimmy knew he wasn’t at his destination yet. Ahead of him was a high metal fence, with a sign saying SOUTH POINT – NO TRESPASSING NO LOITERING. Jimmy didn’t have time to pay attention to that. He knew what was waiting for him on the other side of the fence. He leapt up and caught the metal. In under a second he had scrambled to the top. This was no obstacle to him – and NJ7 knew it. But they had to make it seem like it had been difficult for Jimmy to get there. A trap that’s easy to walk into is easy to spot.

Jimmy jumped down on to the other side. Here the island was a wasteland – just a rubbish tip surrounded by weeds and discarded Christmas trees. Jimmy ran on
past the rubbish. The wind whipped around him, swooping in off the river. And then, at last, there it was: the ruin.

It was exactly as he’d pictured it. A crumbling brownstone building with holes where there should have been windows. Jimmy couldn’t have known, but it was actually the remains of a nineteenth century smallpox hospital for children. Thousands had died there. This morning, NJ7 planned to kill one more.

Jimmy heard the metal fence rattling. Paduk was catching up. But that was the least of his problems. Suddenly, from out of the silence of the early morning, there came the buzzing of motors. Jimmy turned to look across the water and straight away saw the foam tracks of six military speedboats jetting towards him, against the stunning backdrop of Manhattan. One building stood out: the United Nations.

The boats scythed through the water. Jimmy had reached the ruin and sprung the trap, but for a second he couldn’t move. He was imagining the lies that had filled that building this week: Ian Coates pretending to negotiate for peace, while all the time preparing for war.

The boats reached the shore. From further down the river came six more. Jimmy didn’t need to see them to know that on the other side of the island there would be another six. Each boat carried two riflemen, with their long black barrels loaded on their shoulders. Jimmy was startled into action.

With a desperate glance at the sky, he pushed off his heels and made for the ruin. It was the only protection from the guns. He clambered over the rubble – the roof of the place had collapsed almost a century ago. Then he hauled himself up the inside of the wall, gripping the dead ivy. So far, this was not how he’d planned for things to go.

“Jimmy!” The shout echoed through the ruin, then was lost in the open air. Jimmy kept moving, trying to work out where the voice had come from and who it could be.

“Jimmy!” it came again. “Give up. You’re surrounded.” Only now did Jimmy realise it was the shout of a thirteen-year-old boy.

“Is that what you’d do, Mitchell?” Jimmy yelled back. He found a ledge where there used to be a floor and edged his way round it. There was nothing in the middle of the ‘room’ but a big hole. A single floodlight illuminated the place as if it was some kind of tourist attraction. Long corridors of light beamed up from ground level. Jimmy kept to the shadows.

He could hear the rustling of the long grass outside the ruin. The snipers had him encircled, but as long as he stayed within these walls, they couldn’t shoot him. However, the walls held other dangers.

Mitchell’s shadow appeared on the wall next to him. Jimmy jumped across to it, catching the brickwork. Broken rocks pattered down to join the rubble below.

“I hear you, Jimmy!” Mitchell cried. “Better get out of here while you can.”

Jimmy kept moving. “You’re on the wrong side!” he yelled, throwing his voice to try and confuse his opponent, though he knew Mitchell would be doing the same thing. “NJ7 tricked you. I told you that: they have your brother.”

“I know,” Mitchell countered straight away. His shadow shifted again. Jimmy moved with it, on the ledges around the barren spaces that had once been second floor rooms.

“So you should be attacking them, not me!” Jimmy yelled. “Take your revenge.”

“Everybody wants revenge!” Mitchell bellowed, so loud Jimmy thought the whole ruin might crumble away. But Mitchell followed it with a whisper: “I already got mine.”

Suddenly, Jimmy pinpointed the source of the voice. He whipped his head round. Mitchell was in mid-air, looming down at him, arm raised, ready to strike. Jimmy caught Mitchell’s wrist a centimetre from his throat and lurched backwards. He dropped on to his back – there was barely enough space on the ledge. He used Mitchell’s momentum to hurl the boy away, over his head.

Mitchell caught the ledge on the other side of the hole and swung himself to his feet again.

“I hated my brother,” he grunted between gritted teeth, then jumped back at Jimmy. Jimmy spun on his
back and pushed his legs against the wall. That sent him hurtling into Mitchell’s midriff like a battering ram. He twisted in the air and the two of them, locked together, fell through the hole on to the pile of rubble right in the centre of the ruin.

Mitchell slammed two fists into the small of Jimmy’s back. Jimmy felt it like a bomb going off inside him, forcing out all the air. For a second he lay face down on the rubble, helpless. But his programming lurched up a gear.

He rolled to the side just as Mitchell’s hand chopped down, splitting a slab of stone. Jimmy pushed himself to his feet. The two boys circled each other, their postures identical, arms spread, ready for action.

“Because of you I failed another mission,” Mitchell sneered.

“So you didn’t catch Zafi?” Jimmy smiled to himself.

“She’s crawled back to France. But I’ll get her. Right after I’ve killed you.”

Jimmy glanced quickly up at the sky again, as if any moment he expected to sprout wings and be able to fly into the heavens. It was getting lighter all the time. The shadows were fading as the floodlight gave way to natural light – the sun would be up soon.

“Expecting help from above?” Mitchell quipped.

Jimmy ignored him. Then, at precisely the same moment, they both drew their arms in and wiped the sweat from their faces with their sleeves.

Mitchell didn’t even notice what he’d done, but Jimmy felt like he was looking in a mirror. It hit him harder than any of Mitchell’s blows and made any pain in his muscles seem insignificant. Realisation flooded through him.

“Your brother,” Jimmy gasped. “Is he your…”

Mitchell didn’t flicker. His eyes were steady, waiting for that opening in Jimmy’s defences. Then he mumbled, “NJ7 wheeled him away to be a human guinea pig. That’s what I call revenge.”

“But he was only your half-brother,” Jimmy whispered, as if explaining it to himself.

Mitchell’s confusion showed now, but he was still just as lethal. He dipped his shoulders to the left, then ducked down and grabbed for Jimmy’s waist.

Jimmy was quick and alert. He gave a small skip, planting his foot on Mitchell’s neck and launching himself off again. Mitchell controlled his fall, and rolled back to his feet.

“My half-brother?” he shouted.

Jimmy nodded. “And so am I.”

Just then, the ruin shook with the noise of a helicopter. Jimmy smiled and dashed for the other end of the ruin. Mitchell was frozen to the spot.

Jimmy threw himself out of the ruin so fast that he had made it twenty metres before the snipers even took
aim. The helicopter roar grew louder and a cloud of dust rose from the ruin, sucked into the whirlwind of its blades. He cemented the memory of Mitchell’s confused expression in his mind. The same man had to be the father of both of them, he thought. But they were so different. And if the same man could produce two such different sons, did it matter who the man was?

He hurtled towards the very tip of the island. The sun was creeping up over Queens, turning the UN building into a dazzling orange monolith. It was the first real sunshine of the year. Jimmy felt it warming his cheeks. Then he heard the click of a sniper’s trigger behind him. A noise like that cuts through everything else. He threw himself into a roll, avoiding the bullet, but he wouldn’t be so lucky with the next shot. There were too many agents behind him, all expert marksmen.

Finally, Jimmy ran out of island. He reached the flimsy gauze fence between him and the water. He turned to face the snipers. For a split-second, the sun almost blinded him. Then he made out dozens of crouching figures, all with their guns pointed at him. As one, they all pulled their triggers.

Jimmy’s programming was processing information so fast, he could see the bullets spinning towards him, glinting in the sun just as brightly as the UN building.
Is
this it?
he heard a voice ask in his head. It asked without fear, without indignation. It felt like his entire
body was as empty as the universe was large.
Is this
how I die?