Jimmy. “To be honest, they thought you’d be dead. See, we don’t usually get ’em alive so far up the coast as this.” He lifted some handcuffs off his belt and held them out in front of him. Jimmy’s heart was pumping, but his eyes remained steady, taking in every movement.
“Don’t make this mistake,” Jimmy insisted, keeping his voice low and calm. “Do I look like I’ve come from Mexico?”
The two officers glanced at each other again. Jimmy couldn’t tell what they were thinking. For a second he doubted himself. Maybe he did look like he’d been trying to smuggle his way into America across the Gulf of Mexico. Thousands of people tried it every year—but obviously most of them didn’t make it this far alive.
“Look,” said Jimmy, “all you have to do is make one call and you’ll get this cleared up. Radio whoever you have to. Ask anyone in the Secret Service about a plane that went down.” He held up his hands to try and calm the situation.
“A plane?” mumbled the officer with the rifle. “I didn’t hear about any plane.”
“Well, there was one,” said Jimmy. “We crashed.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what day it is.”
“It’s April 4th.”
Jimmy froze.
“April 4th?”
“That’s right. When did this plane of yours go down?”
Jimmy didn’t answer. He wasn’t listening any more. All he could hear was the date repeating over and over in his head. Then at last it sank in. It’s my birthday, he thought.
He was suddenly aware of his fists clenching by his sides and his eyes watering. He took a deep breath, trying to clear his head. He could only think one thing. It’s my birthday. The idea was so ridiculous it almost made him laugh, but at the same time it was tearing at his heart.
Then he saw the scowls on the faces of the two officers. Jimmy had paused too long. There was no way he was going to talk his way out of this now. The lanky man stepped towards him, brandishing the cuffs.
Should he give himself up? For a second Jimmy wanted to. But then he immediately dismissed it. If he let himself get arrested there was too much risk that he could be identified, even if the situation was cleared up later on. His face would be on camera at the police station. They might even take his fingerprints. And if the police had him on record it wouldn’t be long before NJ7’s electronic surveillance red-flagged the document for analysis.
No. He couldn’t leave even the hint of a trail. To the British Secret Service, Jimmy Coates, the renegade assassin, was dead. And he had to stay that way.
“Turn round slowly,” the policeman ordered, “and put your hands behind your back. You’re coming with us.”
Jimmy cautiously started following the instructions. Then, suddenly, he ducked to the right, putting the lanky officer between him and the other man’s rifle. He rolled across the pavement, then leapt into the taller policeman’s chest, leading with his shoulder. He connected with the force of an avalanche and felt the man’s rib breaking on impact.
CRACK!
“Shoot!” the man yelled, the pain obvious in his voice. But Jimmy was too fast. He jumped up and landed on his back on the roof of the patrol car. He slid across the metal, his wet clothes greasing his way, and kicked out hard. He connected with the barrel of the rifle, sending it flying.
There was no way to stop Jimmy now. He tumbled to the ground on top of the fat man, then rolled off and hurtled across the street, diving into the alley between two houses. His muscles cried out inside him, and it wasn’t just his face that was sunburned. His whole body was in agony. Within seconds he heard sirens. Already, his lungs were ready to implode, but Jimmy kept moving.
He twisted through the streets, his head down and his legs pumping. Every corner brought new sounds and new dangers. He listened for the direction of the sirens, but they seemed to be everywhere and closing in.
Every second that passed he could feel his body being drained of energy. The world was swirling around him. He was reeling from side to side. Water. Food. His body demanded it.
At last he saw a row of shops. One of them was a place selling tacky gifts. The store window was full of T-shirts, caps, mugs and novelty pencils, all emblazoned with ‘Welcome to Port O’Connor’.
Jimmy dived in. The teenage girl behind the counter stood bolt upright in shock. Jimmy headed straight for a fridge stocked with drinks. On the bottom shelf were bottles of water. He tore open the fridge door and grabbed the largest one.
He knew he had no money on him, but there was nothing he could about it. It was stealing or dying. In one twist he unscrewed the lid of the bottle and took a swig. As the first gulp went down, he almost retched it straight back up again.
“Hey!” the girl shouted in a thick Texan accent. “This ain’t a free bar, y’know?”
Jimmy ignored her and forced himself to drink more. There wasn’t time to let his body recover slowly. Before the girl could draw breath to shout again, he grabbed another bottle of water and snatched a handful of chocolate bars from the rack, plus a packet of Mentos. Then he spun on his heels and burst out into the street. As he ran he poured water down his throat, not caring that it made his head dizzy and his stomach lurch.
Finally, he found an alley and collapsed in the shadow of a doorway, his chest heaving. His stomach retched violently and eventually he produced a spatter of vomit. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and slumped against the building.
He tore open a chocolate bar. He had to force down every bite as quickly as he could—he had almost burned more energy than he had left. The milky texture felt so soothing on his tongue.
In no time Jimmy’s heart rate was close to normal again. Even this small amount of water and food had done his body a huge amount of good. But it couldn’t help his state of mind.
Neptune’s Shadow. His finger scratched lines in the dust. He had to remember everything he had seen. He couldn’t let the details fade. He knew that his programming made him capable of memorising incredibly complex images after only a second, but he wasn’t in control of it. It was like having a camera built into his head, but not knowing how to turn it on.
Time after time Jimmy drew diagrams in the dirt. Were they accurate? He scrubbed them out and pounded his fist on the concrete. Happy Birthday, he thought sarcastically. With that, he pushed himself to his feet and started running again. He had to find a way out of town—a station, a boat, a bicycle even. Anything.
The one thing on his side was that there was hardly anybody about. He imagined that in the summer the town must be busy, but it was too early in the year for beach lovers.
With sirens still tearing at his ears, he wormed his way through the town. At last he glimpsed the sleek silver body of a bus. The last passengers were climbing aboard, then the engine spluttered into life in a cloud of dust.
Jimmy dived to the ground. He rolled over three times, so quickly that at any one moment he couldn’t tell whether he was facing the sky or the road. He caught the exhaust of the bus to stop himself abruptly. The fumes stung the roof of his mouth and the metal was growing hotter by the second, but Jimmy clung on. Eventually, he manoeuvred himself into a fairly stable position beneath the bus.
The noise and the heat drowned out the rest of the world. He was going to make it out of Port O’Connor. But Jimmy knew his struggle for survival was just beginning.
Iceland’s only flea market was Kolaportid, held every weekend in a vast warehouse on the harbour in Reykjavik. The