switch and jammed his thumb on the orange button.
He didn’t need to take aim. He knew that without a specifically programmed target, the AGM-99 would automatically seek out the largest solid object within its scope. He just hoped that one of the logs in the water would be big enough to register.
A single missile flamed through the sky ahead of them, twisting in the direction of its target. Ten centimetres either side and the missile would have plunged hundreds of metres beneath the waves before exploding. But it hit the log right in the centre. Up came a blast of red and black flame, heating the air immediately around it by hundreds of degrees and igniting the fumes caught in the parachute.
The updraft was enough to push the Growler out of its spiral.
“Now!” Jimmy yelled. Bligh knew exactly what Jimmy meant. That moment he re-ignited the engines. The roar returned. The silk canopy behind them was incinerated instantly and they swooped along the surface of the water.
Jimmy couldn’t help smiling.
“Good flying, kid,” Bligh gasped, lifting them back into the clouds at hundreds of kilometres an hour. “But it’s not over.” He tapped his display unit. The red flashing dot was still on the screen and it was closing in. Jimmy was amazed that the man still sounded so calm.
“We’d better eject,” said Jimmy, constantly manoeuvring the plane so they couldn’t be shot at. “The plane’s damaged and we’re out of fuel. If we’re not hit first, we’ll crash anyway.”
But then Bligh looked across at Froy.
“Froy!” he cried, shaking his CIA colleague by the arm. “He’s unconscious, Jimmy! I’m not ejecting without him.” Bligh reached across to check the other CIA man’s pulse. “Here, you take this.” He unclipped his parachute and passed it back to Jimmy.
Jimmy pulled the straps of the parachute pack over his arms.
“I’ll fasten myself to Froy,” Bligh went on, feeling for one of the hooks on his belt. “I’ll get us both out and I’ll pull the cord on his ’chute.”
Jimmy was about to follow the agent’s instructions, but his hand hesitated over the eject mechanism. He glanced again at the red dot on his screen. Come on, he told himself. Get out of here. But there was a dark force inside him, stopping his muscles going through with action.
“They’ll see me,” Jimmy gasped suddenly. “I can’t jump out. If an NJ7 pilot sees a boy coming out of this plane, the information will get back to Miss Bennett. She’ll know it’s me. The whole operation will be for nothing.”
“Who’s Miss Bennett?”
“She’s the head of NJ7. I can’t let her know I’m still alive.”
“It’s too late for that!” Bligh yelled. “We’ve got to go. I can’t eject until you’ve gone—I’m flying this thing!”
But still Jimmy held back. In his head was a human cry, willing him to eject from the plane. His programming swamped it.
“No,” he announced. “We can get rid of them.”
Determination tensed his face.
“We can’t!” Bligh screamed. “They’ve…”
His voice faded. Jimmy looked up. Through the black grime on the glass, he saw a missile burning towards them. All his muscles seemed to melt in fear.
“Hold Froy!” he screamed.
But Bligh wasn’t moving. The high-pitched whine of the missile grew louder. Jimmy stared at its black point, bearing down on them.
“Come on! I’m wearing your parachute!”
“It’s up to you, Jimmy,” said Bligh quietly. Jimmy could barely hear his voice. “There’s nobody else.” The man turned round and Jimmy saw his face for the first time. His skin was dark and his eyes were commanding. “Get back to Colonel Keays. Tell him about the missile base, Jimmy. Someone has to stop Neptune’s Shadow.”
SMACK!
The missile hit the nose of the Growler. Jimmy felt himself thrust forwards, as if they’d flown into a brick wall. His hands jumped to his face and he squeezed his eyes shut. His helmet smashed the back of Froy’s seat. When he opened his eyes, for a split-second he caught sight of Bligh’s face again. A large shard of glass was sticking out of the agent’s cheek, just below his eye.
“Neptune’s Shadow!” the man bellowed. Jimmy reached out to catch him, but too late.
BOOM!
The plane disintegrated in a massive explosion. Jimmy was thrown into the air. He felt the cold wind and the burning metal blasting into him at the same time. He desperately tried to keep his eyes open, searching for Bligh and Froy. They’re going to die, he told himself. In his panic, he thought he saw them falling through the debris, one with a parachute on his back but unconscious, the other completely helpless.
Neptune’s Shadow! Jimmy heard Bligh’s last words in his ears over and over again, above the din of the air rushing past him as he hurtled down through the atmosphere.
The noise was matched by the turmoil in Jimmy’s head. I could have saved them, he thought. Why did I hesitate? Why did I take his parachute?
Parachute…The word seemed to reawaken Jimmy’s programming. It would never forgot its first priority—to stay alive. While his mind was in chaos, his hands moved calmly and expertly to the ripcord. Even while he wanted to scream, free-falling through the carnage, he could hear a quiet voice in his head counting to ten. Then he felt his arm go tense and suddenly everything changed.
It felt as if his whole body was jerked upwards. The parachute burst open above him. The roar of the wind in his ears changed to the sound of a breeze. Bits of the plane still dropped around him, but soon he was far above them, floating down towards the sea.
Mitchell Glenthorne stalked through Terminal One of New York’s JFK airport, limping slightly. His shoulders were broad for a thirteen-year-old, but they were hunched over, masking the size and strength in his chest. His face was fixed in a scowl. The inside of his head was nothing but a jumble of silent curses. He was passing the time by running through a list of all the people he wished he could have it out with. It took in most of the people he had ever met, starting with his brother Lenny and his parents.
He thought of Lenny, lying on a slab somewhere in London, being kept alive by NJ7 for experimental purposes. Serves him right, he thought. Mitchell’s parents’ only fault had been to die in a car crash when he was a baby, but now he had reason to doubt these family relationships.
Jimmy Coates, the renegade assassin—the dead renegade assassin, Mitchell corrected in his head—had claimed before he was shot that Mitchell and Jimmy were half-brothers. If that were true, where did that leave Mitchell’s parents and Lenny?
Now wasn’t the time to work
