will we start looking for my parents?” Felix whispered in Jimmy’s ear. Jimmy stared deliberately into the flagstones and shrugged. He had almost forgotten that Neil and Olivia Muzbeke had been arrested for helping him escape NJ7. He had been completely caught up in his own thoughts. He silently scolded himself for being so self-obsessed. Even at that moment, he could feel the ever-growing presence of his powers, deepening the split between his heart and his instincts, his mind and his body. He could control his powers for now, but only by succumbing to them. It scared him beyond anything he had ever felt before to think that he might be relinquishing his humanity.
Whenever Jimmy did think back, he could only relive the last time he had seen his own father. Jimmy could picture in alarming detail Ian Coates’s face as he refused to escape from the British Government with Jimmy. The split inside him was forcing his family apart now too.
Felix started saying something else, but Jimmy hushed him and stood up. There was a tingle in his stomach. The assassin’s instinct again. He’d heard something outside.
“Does anybody else live here?” he asked Yannick quietly.
“No, just my mother.”
“You’re being paranoid,” said Georgie calmly. Jimmy wished that could be true, but his killer instinct had been infallible so far. Then Jimmy’s mother stood up as well.
“I heard something too,” she said.
“It must be Chris coming in,” whispered Saffron.
Jimmy shook his head. His insides were swirling now. “Move to the centre of the room.”
Everyone did as he said except Eva. “This is ridiculous,” she chuckled. “We’re in the middle of the French countryside about a million miles from anywhere. How could they possibly find—”
CLUNK!
The door slammed open. A masked figure in black crashed through with a battering ram. Another one stormed in behind him and dropped to his knees. Almost blending into the black of his gloves and sleeves was a Beretta 99G pistol. Then a dozen identical figures ran in, filling the room.
“Haut les mains!” came a shout from somewhere. Then, in a thick French accent, “‘Andz urp!”
Jimmy could feel the overwhelming power of his killing instinct drumming through his body. But his mind was serene. He stayed as still as all his friends and raised his hands. One thought was utterly clear: This is not NJ7. If it had been, he would have been dead by now. Besides, NJ7 wouldn’t have issued instructions in French.
The group backed towards each other. The shock on their faces changed instantly to puzzlement. Their gasps were drowned out by the protestation from Yannick’s mother. She was screaming her head off in coarse French, while Jimmy was trying to concentrate.
“Ferme-la!” he shouted, then immediately clasped his hand to his mouth. Oh my God, he thought, / speak French.
The front door was flapping open and in strode three more men. Two were dressed in black combat gear just like the others, but they carried FAMAT F9 assault rifles. Jimmy knew this for certain, in the same way he now knew French. It was all part of his conditioning – buried in his head, coming to the surface piece by lethal piece.
Between the two soldiers was a short man with a grim expression. His hair was thin and his shoulders hunched towards his ears. His skin seemed to blend in with his grey city overcoat, which was totally unsuitable for the rustic surroundings.
“By authority of the French military,” he declared in perfect English, “you are all under arrest on suspicion of espionage. Keep your hands above your heads and—”
“You’re making a mistake.” It was Viggo. He was holding a gun to the back of the Frenchman’s head. “Drop your weapons!” he shouted.
Even before Viggo had finished his sentence, the soldier to his left spun round. His rifle pointed at Viggo and his finger squeezed the trigger.
“Nan!’ snapped the man in the overcoat – just in time. The soldier held fire, but maintained his aim. Nobody moved. ‘That sounds like Christopher Viggo,” the man in grey continued, “but Christopher Viggo is not an enemy to France.”
Then he calmly issued a stream of orders in French. As one, his team lowered their guns.
“Uno?” gasped Viggo, trying to peer round at the man’s face. “Uno Stovorsky?”
“And only now do I see you’ve brought Saffron with you.” The man shook his head in disbelief.
“Hello, Uno,” Saffron called out, cool as ever. “How’s the DGSE?”
“What’s going on?” Felix whispered to Jimmy.
“The DGSE is the French Secret Service,” he replied, but more than that he couldn’t say. How come everyone seemed to know each other all of a sudden?
Viggo circled the man in the grey overcoat, his mouth hanging open in amazement. “Uno! I never thought…”
Then, without warning, Uno Stovorsky slammed his fist into Viggo’s jaw.
“If I weren’t on duty, I’d kill you right now,” he growled.
Mitchell hoisted himself off the sofa, sweating. Another nightmare, but he had lost all memory of it now his eyes were open. His alarm clock no longer worked, but he knew it was about 3.00 a.m. because he could hear the punters being thrown out of the club below the flat. He staggered to the bathroom and doused his face with the cold brown water that dribbled out of the hot tap.
His brother would be back soon. As usual, he’d come home, start a fight, then fall into bed, drunk. It made Mitchell angry just thinking about him. He had been forced to share this place since he and his brother had run away from their foster home. Sometimes, Mitchell wished he could go back there, but he knew what he really longed for wasn’t possible – for his real parents to have come out alive from the crash.
Then he heard the click of the front door.
“Mitchell!” His brother sounded cheerful, but that wasn’t necessarily a good sign. “Come here, mate, I have to do something.”
Mitchell felt sick. He knew that greeting his brother face to face was the last thing he should do, but the flat was so small there weren’t exactly places to hide. He heard his brother stomp into the living room and pictured precisely what he was doing. First, he’d throw something at the sofa – probably his shoe. Then, when there was no reaction, he’d pull off the blankets and take on that mystified look, unable to comprehend why Mitchell wasn’t lying there, waiting to be harassed.
“Mitchell?” This time his brother sounded confused. Mitchell’s stomach turned over. He scrabbled through the bathroom cabinet for any medicine that wasn’t out of date. “Listen, mate,” his brother continued, still in the other room, “this guy said I could have ten grand, but, er…”
The bathroom door creaked open and Mitchell caught sight of his brother’s haggard face in the mirror.
“All right, bruv?”
“All right, Lenny.” Mitchell turned to face his brother, but clutched his stomach. It felt like something in his belly was burning.
“Like I said,” Lenny explained, blocking his brother in, “this bloke offered me ten grand. He had it there in a suitcase and everything.”
It wasn’t like him to talk so much, thought Mitchell. For some reason his brother had decided to make up some ridiculous story as a build-up to the violence. Then Lenny’s face took on a leering grin. Mitchell knew what that meant.
“I have to knock you around a bit,” Lenny chuckled. “Shall we do it in the living room?” He slapped Mitchell across the cheek then turned to go. Mitchell wasn’t following. The blood rushed to his face and his breathing deepened.
“Come