response was immediate. “Safe passage back to London so we can find out where they are being held. We need money and equipment. We need all the help we can get.”
Stovorsky groaned and raised his eyes to the ceiling. He waited a long time before speaking, then eventually he muttered, “I’ll see what I can do.” Wearily, he picked up a slat of a broken shutter from the floor. “Promise me this is just about the prisoners. Nothing else.”
“Mr Stovorsky,” Helen Coates said calmly, “you have my word.”
“You’re a very smart lady.” Stovorsky stared at Jimmy’s mother. “You should have kept her, Viggo. And how I wish you had.” His eyes darted to Saffron for just an instant, then away again. “I’ll be in touch,” he called out as he stomped from the farmhouse. “Until then, lie low.”
Mitchell could hear the fizz of surveillance cameras tracking him through the corridors. He was keeping pace with the hands that dragged him roughly from either side. His blindfold itched but he was still cuffed so there was nothing he could do about it. Inside, he was buzzing in a way he never had before. It was a mix of nausea and exhilaration. Every perception was pin sharp, but behind his stomach there was a swirling that threatened to throw him off-balance.
He still had nothing on his feet so the cold of the floor crept up through his body. At last he came to a stop and his blindfold was yanked off. The first things he saw were the yellow teeth of an old man’s smile. Mitchell’s anger dulled instantly.
“Welcome to NJ7,” the old man announced. “I am Dr Higgins.”
Before Mitchell could respond the two men gripping his arms lifted him up and pinned him face down on to the desk in the centre of the room. The smell of the leather worktop swamped Mitchell’s nose. He wriggled and kicked, but only for a second before he felt a sharp stab in his heel. He howled in pain. Then the two men lifted him off the desk and threw him down. Mitchell tried to stand but his right foot was too weak and he fell to the floor.
“What’s going on?” he shouted, his eyes darting around, taking in his surroundings. The walls were bare concrete. On the ceiling were strip lights and a girder loaded with two cameras that seemed to wink at him. All around were burly men in suits. Dr Higgins stood out, with his ageing physique and his white coat. A black cat curled round his ankle.
Then, through a corridor at the back of the room came a wiry figure that Mitchell recognised immediately. “You’re the Prime Minister!” he gasped.
Everyone stood to attention as Ares Hollingdale entered the room. His sallow skin almost glowed. “You’re not running away this time, young man,” he whispered, leering down at Mitchell. “Dr Higgins has placed a satellite tracking device in your foot.”
“What’s going on?” Mitchell yelled again, but then into his head flew the idea that the answer was somehow obvious; it was like a distorted memory he couldn’t bring out.
“Explain the situation to him,” the Prime Minister snapped at Dr Higgins. “Tell Miss Bennett as soon as you’re finished. She’s found the target.” Then he turned back to Mitchell with a glare. “Cause any trouble and we’ll throw you in prison for the rest of your life.”
Mitchell’s mind was frantic. Pain throbbed up from his foot. They can’t put me in prison, he thought, I’m only thirteen. But his ears replayed the sound of his fists landing on his brother’s bloodied skull. With that came the most overwhelming emotion. Was it guilt? He told himself his brother had deserved it, but the next instant he knew that he had gone too far. He had never meant to kill. He had lost control of himself and now he was going to be punished for it.
“Do as we tell you,” the PM continued, “and you could be a hero.” The words meant nothing to Mitchell.
Then came Dr Higgins’s voice. “NJ7 is the most advanced military intelligence agency in existence…”
Mitchell heard him through a daze. With the world twisting around him, he saw the shadow of the Prime Minister leave the room. Dr Higgins’s mouth was moving, but Mitchell picked up only fragments of his speech.
“…you are 38 per cent human…an assassin…you will work for us…” Whatever Dr Higgins said, it barely registered.
Mitchell was crying for his brother.
CHAPTER THREE – SPECIAL DELIVERY
“IT’S BEEN THREE days,” Jimmy muttered almost to himself. “If I don’t get outside soon I’ll go mad.” The kitchen was thick with the smells of cooking and Jimmy ripped into a bunch of parsley with bored vehemence. The bandage was gone from his wrist. The cut was hardly visible now – like a smudged line of biro.
“You know, that happens a lot,” Felix chirped, struggling to hold on to a potato. “People don’t go outside and then they lose their minds, and then they think the rest of the world has been destroyed by aliens or nuclear war or something, and—”
“You’re holding the peeler upside-down,” Jimmy interrupted.
“Oh. Oh yeah. I thought it was a bit dodgy. So what was I saying?”
“The DGSE left three days ago,” Jimmy went on, ignoring Felix’s daydreams. “Don’t you think we should have heard something by now?”
Felix shrugged and stared at his peeler, scrunching his face into a puzzled ball. “How come Yannick’s mother gets to go into the village,” he asked eventually, “but the rest of us have to stay indoors?”
“Well, somebody has to bring us food, and all the clothes and stuff.”
“But won’t she get spotted by imaginary intelligence?”
“It’s ‘imagery intelligence’,” Jimmy corrected. “From satellites. But she’s always going into the village. It would look more suspicious if she didn’t go.”
“So I suppose bringing back nine times the amount of groceries, buying every item of clothing from some grimy charity shop and being picked up in the truck by her son – that’s not suspicious at all.” Felix raised his eyebrows so high it looked like they might fly off his head at any moment.
“You’ve got a point,” admitted Jimmy. “It’s risky, but it’s necessary, isn’t it?”
Felix shrugged again. “S’pose,” he mumbled. Then he tried juggling with three of the potatoes. He didn’t have much success.
Jimmy turned his attention back to the cooking. His wrist flicked the knife through a carrot with the skill of a chef but the enthusiasm of an eleven-year-old boy. The heavy metal pans huffed and bubbled with delicious-smelling stews.
“And why have I done all the cooking?” Jimmy groaned.
“If you didn’t want to cook,” Felix replied, “you should never have helped out that first night we were here. Then we would never have found out that it’s one of your, you know, skills.”
Before Jimmy could respond, Georgie bounced in.
“When’s
