see,” mumbled Lee. “And you saw the agent?” Mitchell nodded.
“She was masked and covered in oil, but from her size and capabilities, it was definitely Zafi.”
“Zafi is…” William Lee took a moment to consult one of the pages in his own files. “…the French child assassin, correct? Mitchell’s counterpart? Another genetically modified humanoid assassin?” He grunted a dry laugh.
“Humanoid?” Mitchell exclaimed in horror. “What do you—”
“Yes.” Miss Bennett cut him off sharply. “Zafi is the French child assassin.”
“Was,” Mitchell corrected. “She was blown up with the rig, remember?”
“Do we have her body?” Lee asked brightly.
“I said she was blown up. You know – kaboom!” Mitchell gestured an explosion with his hands. “As in ‘scattered in tiny pieces around ten square kilometres of the North Sea’. Do you want me to hunt down all those fish you were talking about and make them give excrement samples?”
“OK, fine. So the French blew up the oil rig, but now at least their operative is dead. The question is, how do we strike back?”
“The PM has my dossier on that,” said Miss Bennett.
“The PM has read your dossier. But I’m afraid he’s been unwell. Everything goes through me for the time being.”
“You?” Miss Bennett was taken aback, but quickly hid it. Lee perused his files, then carried on as if Miss Bennett weren’t even there.
“Mutam-ul-it,” he announced. The strange word seemed to linger on his tongue and in the air. “I have a strong suspicion we’ll be going with that option. Have everybody on standby.”
He got up to leave and Eva was shocked at his height all over again. It was almost as if he’d grown during the meeting.
While he gathered his papers a thought struck him.
“By the way, did you see the memo about my predecessor’s memorial service tomorrow?”
“I see every memo,” Miss Bennett hissed.
“It’s at the Mercantile Marine Memorial,” he continued. “The PM is expecting everybody to be there. Paduk was his friend.”
“Of course we’ll be there,” said Mitchell. “Paduk was our friend too.”
“And one more thing,” Lee added, ignoring Mitchell’s annoyance. “What about this Jimmy Coates? Anything to worry about there?”
“The file is closed.” Miss Bennett pulled a slim brown folder from the middle of her pile and threw it across the table. One page slid out. In the top right corner was a grainy image of Jimmy’s face, next to yet another green stripe. Large red letters were stamped across his forehead. They read ‘TERMINATED’. Under that was typed ‘New York, USA’.
“I know all of this,” Lee snarled, looking down his nose at the file. “But do we have a body yet?”
“Another tasty meal for the fish,” Mitchell cut in with a smirk.
“There are no fish in the East River,” Lee said, reading the details more closely. “Too much pollution.” There was a moment’s pause, then he tossed the file back on to the table and shot an expectant look at the others. “Well?”
“We had divers trawl the river,” Miss Bennett explained with a sigh.
“No bodies?” asked Lee.
“Too many bodies actually.”
“Children?” Lee was shocked.
“This is New York we’re talking about.” Miss Bennett shrugged. “We’re not the only organisation to use children as operatives. There’s the Mafia, the Triads, the Capita…”
The thought made Eva’s skin crawl. Could there really be that many people in the world prepared to kill children, and to use children as killers?
“In any case, Jimmy could breathe underwater,” Mitchell put in. “He could have drifted miles before finally dying.”
Miss Bennett agreed. “The search area is far too big for us to cover,” she said with another shrug. “And without jurisdiction…”
“But we’re sure he’s dead,” Lee asked, stooping to lean one hand on the table. He and Miss Bennett stared at each other. She slowly nodded.
“That many bullets in him? We’re sure.”
Lee absorbed the information, nodded, then marched out without another word. Miss Bennett waved Mitchell out of the room as well. He gave her an awkward salute before he left and dropped a nervous glance at Eva.
Before Eva could follow the others, Miss Bennett held up a hand. She leaned to the centre of the table and tapped the stop button on the digital recorder. Concentration furrowed her brow.
“Find out about that man,” she whispered, without looking up.
“William Lee?” Eva frowned. “Find out what?”
“Everything. Where he’s come from, who he is and what he wants.”
“What he wants? What do you mean?”
“Everybody wants something.” Miss Bennett slowly tapped her finger on the table and raised her eyes to Eva. “If you find out what it is, you find their weakness.”
03 A WING AND A PRAYER
Jimmy Coates had been chased, kicked, shot at and throttled. He’d been blown up, nearly drowned in oil and set on fire. But it was the lies that had done the damage.
He shivered violently. Several hours at 10,000 metres was taking its toll. Without the climate control systems of a commercial jet, it was almost as cold as the Arctic. The Falcon wasn’t designed for it and Jimmy certainly wasn’t dressed for it. His jeans were ragged and torn, and his hoodie was too thin to provide any real insulation.
Keeping control of the plane was even more difficult now. He had to shift the flightstick with the weight of his shoulders because he couldn’t rely on the delicate touch of his fingers any more – he couldn’t even feel his fingers. Not only that, but soon his chest was straining for every breath. It felt as if each rib was barbed wire.
Despite the pain, all Jimmy could think about were the lies that had brought him here. First, the head of the CIA had tricked him into blowing up a British oil rig. He knew the British were blaming the French and were ready to strike back. Any second a war could start between France and Britain. It’s partly my fault, Jimmy thought. His stomach lurched and it wasn’t because of the turbulence.
His whole life had become a network of lies and secrets. Secrets like the fact that he was even alive. The British Secret Service thought they’d killed Jimmy in New York, but he’d tricked them and survived.
Lies
