Jimmy’s older sister Georgie followed with her friend Eva, and Jimmy’s best friend Felix Muzbeke stumbled after them, his face scrunched up against the elements.
Viggo hung back from the rest of the group. As they walked through an orchard at the back of the farmhouse, he stopped to fill his arms with fallen branches. Already the internal struggle in Jimmy began again: the agent in him realised he should help Viggo to camouflage the helicopter, but the temptation of food and warmth kept him following the others towards the house. He held himself rigidly in line. Control meant everything.
At the farmhouse door was a tiny woman, who looked like the oldest person Jimmy had ever seen. Yannick bent down to kiss her on the cheek and she clipped him round the back of the head.
“Everybody, this is my mother,” grinned the chef.
Jimmy smiled cautiously at the woman, who scowled as they all shuffled awkwardly into the building. Clearly, she hadn’t been expecting visitors. Despite being large, the interior of the farmhouse was dark and austere. The ceiling dipped at unusual angles as if the central beam were reaching for the fire that dominated the room. It didn’t seem to be doing much to heat the house, thought Jimmy, shivering.
A staircase lurched upwards out of the corner and there was a door at each end of the room. Yannick’s mother trudged through one of them, revealing a glimpse of a large, old-fashioned kitchen. Yannick followed her, pleading and explaining as best he could without being indiscreet.
Soon they were all sitting round the fire with giant mugs of hot chocolate.
“When 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
