Target (8 page)

Everyone else was left in silence. Even Felix had nothing to say for the moment. Jimmy could only imagine
the kind of trouble Viggo and Saffron were in if their cover was blown. Stovorsky paced the room, his shoulders hunched.

“I can’t believe it,” he fumed. “How could Viggo be so stupid as to trust a bunch of children?”

“Georgie made a mistake, that’s all,” Helen said. “We can put this right.”

“This could jeopardise all the DGSE field agents posted in the UK.” As Stovorsky’s anger grew, his English accent became more erratic. “NJ7 could trace their entry into the UK. Do you know what that could lead to?”

“Then you have a reason for helping us, don’t you?”

Jimmy could see his mother was upset, but trying her best to stay calm for the sake of the situation. Stovorsky closed his eyes and let out a long, slow sigh.

“If NJ7 are on to us then our lines of communication have been compromised,” he muttered. “Someone has to go in and sort this out.” He looked hard at Jimmy, then at Helen. “I’m the only one of us who can go in by traditional routes. You two will have your faces all over police lists.”

Suddenly Felix piped up. He may have been silent, but his brain had been working away all this time. “What about me and Georgie?” he chirped. “We can go back – we’re not targets, are we?”

Stovorsky grunted – it was a cross between amusement and horror. But apart from that, he didn’t
even bother to respond. Felix glanced at Jimmy then down at the floor, crestfallen.

“I’ll follow Viggo and Saffron to the Embassy,” Stovorsky said at last, pulling out a notebook and scribbling something down. “I’ll find out what’s going on then you two follow in a couple of days.” He pointed at Helen and Jimmy. “That should be enough time for me to arrange to smuggle you into the country and it will have to be enough for you to recover, Jimmy.” He tore a page from his notebook. Felix leaned over to read what was written on it. Stovorsky pulled the note away and thrust it into Helen’s hands. “It’s 5.00 p.m. You two will travel separately. Here are the details of a safehouse. We’ll all rendezvous there in exactly seventy-two hours. Memorise these instructions then destroy them.”

He glanced from Jimmy to Helen, checked his watch, and marched out.

Jimmy lay on his back on the kitchen table. His legs were in the air with his knees bent. His face strained with concentration and effort. This was because Felix was sitting on his feet.

“One more!” Georgie shouted from the side.

Jimmy straightened his knees, a millimetre at a time, lifting Felix towards the ceiling.

“One hundred!” Georgie cried. Felix jumped off and
paraded round the kitchen as if he’d been doing the lifting himself.

Jimmy wiped his brow and took a few deep breaths. His injuries had healed well, helped by his determination to build up his strength again. His face was still slightly bruised and on his neck was a discreet plaster. He didn’t pay too much attention to that, though, except for wearing his collar turned up to hide it.

“How do they feel?” Georgie asked.

“I dunno,” Jimmy replied. “Stronger, I suppose.”

“What are you talking about?” Felix cut in. “Those are the strongest legs in the known universe.” Jimmy hopped off the table and gingerly took a turn round the room.

“I can’t believe it,” said Georgie. “Two days ago your leg was splattered all over the French countryside. Now you’re hardly limping. It’s amazing.”

“Well, I don’t feel amazing,” Jimmy grumbled.

“Lean on me,” Felix chirped, rushing to support Jimmy with his shoulder.

“I don’t mean that.” Jimmy slumped into a chair and took a swig from a plastic bottle of water. “I should never have let Mitchell put me in that shredder.”

Georgie put a hand on his knee. “You’re being too hard on yourself,” she told him. “Mitchell’s two years older than you, remember? So he’s two years more developed.”

“But that means his programming is two years less
sophisticated,” Jimmy countered straightaway. “What’s the point of being the way I am if I still have to worry about getting hurt the whole time?”

“Jimmy—” Georgie tried to interrupt, but Jimmy wouldn’t let her.

“You don’t understand,” he insisted, his eyes misting. “I have this thing inside me every minute of every day. All it means is that people chase me and stuff me in shredders and shoot at me. But you heard what the doctor said. Being subhuman won’t help me. I’ll just die slower when the bullet goes in.”

“You’re not subhuman,” Felix reminded him.

“And so what if a bullet would kill you?” Georgie added. “You still have an advantage over the rest of us.” She reached down inside her T-shirt and pulled out the chain that hung round her neck. Jimmy had never noticed her wearing a necklace like that before. Hanging from it was a small silver cylinder. She let it rest in her palm. Jimmy saw instantly what it was – a bullet.

“Where did you get that?” he asked.

“You gave it to me,” Georgie replied. Then Jimmy realised: it was the bullet he had caught the last time an NJ7 agent had fired at him.

“So cheer up,” Georgie said gently, peering into her brother’s face. “I don’t want my friends acting so miserable.”

Jimmy couldn’t help but smile when he heard that. He
had never thought of himself as his sister’s friend before. The happiness didn’t last though. Georgie had reminded him of the last time he saw Eva.

Georgie read the change in his expression. “What’s up now?” she asked, but then she worked it out. “Don’t talk about her. She doesn’t exist any more.”

“Unfortunately, she does,” Jimmy replied quietly, “and she abandoned us.”

“I don’t understand it,” Georgie muttered, shaking her head. “She was just getting used to being here. She said she was starting to like it. We even agreed that we could get along without our mobile phones.”

“She was certainly less annoying than she used to be,” Felix added.

Georgie dropped her chin to her chest. “And then she…ruined it all.”

Now it was Jimmy’s turn to comfort Georgie. He put his arm round her as tenderly as he could.

“I’m proud of you,” came a voice from behind them. They turned to see that their mother had slipped in without being heard.

“Hey, Mum,” Jimmy chirped.

“Hey, Jimmy.” Without another word, she strode over to them and crushed them in a hug. After only a second she took in Felix too.

“Mum!” cried Jimmy, hardly audible. “You’re suffocating me!”

“Oh, sorry.” She released them and stepped back.

“I’m leaving now,” she went on. “For London, I mean. Later, Yannick’s going to drive you to meet your contact.” She fixed Jimmy with a smile.

“Great,” he said. “Jacob Estafette, right? From a Dutch meat company?” He had been repeating the details to himself over and over ever since Stovorsky explained the arrangements.

“Yeah,” Felix said enthusiastically, “and you’ll be Michael Vargas, Secret Agent.” He said the name as if he was doing the voice-over for a movie trailer, then burst out laughing.

“Shut up!” said Jimmy playfully. “You’re not meant to know any of that.” Jimmy was embarrassed at having shared his alias with Felix.

Jimmy’s mother didn’t seem to mind. “Don’t worry,” she laughed. “You don’t have to remember anything. He’ll know you.”

“Of course,” Jimmy replied, gathering his thoughts together. “Cool.”

“But listen,” his mother went on, addressing all three of them. “It isn’t easy to smuggle people through border controls. Especially into Britain. In a way, you’ve got a better chance of making it than I have, simply because you’re smaller.”

“Mum, you’ll be fine,” implored Georgie.

“I know. Thanks, Georgie. But if for some reason I don’t make it to the rendezvous, don’t worry. I can find my way back here and make contact with you later.” She looked
deep into Jimmy’s eyes. He looked away, not wanting to deal with the nerves in his stomach.

There was a strange familiarity to this feeling. It brought back all the terrible memories of the first night NJ7 had come for him. Miss Bennett had taken his mother away from him then, though he hadn’t known it was Miss Bennett at the time. Jimmy couldn’t help thinking that she was doing the same thing again.

“Good luck, Mum,” he whispered.

“Yeah, good luck,” Georgie agreed. “I know you won’t need it.”

“Good luck,” chimed in Felix.

She hugged them each individually one more time and kissed them hard on the cheek.

“See you in London,” Jimmy announced as proudly as he could.

Helen nodded. “See you in London,” she replied, with a hint of a smile. Then she was gone.

As soon as he heard those words, Jimmy felt something jolt inside him. It wasn’t fear and it wasn’t his programming. It was nothing to do with Viggo and Saffron being in danger. It wasn’t even because they might soon find Felix’s parents. Jimmy knew in his mind that he should be pleased about that, but his heart’s response was blank.

He was going back to London. What was it that confused him so much about that? Then he realised.

He rolled the lid of his water bottle in his fingers. In his other hand he felt the weight of the bottle, half full. Then, in a deluge of fury, he hurled the bottle top against the wall. The bottle itself followed, smashing against the plaster in an explosion of water and plastic.

In London he would see his father.

J
IMMY WAS DELIGHTED
when Felix insisted on coming with them. Jimmy felt so much calmer when they were together. No matter what happened, Felix treated Jimmy the same way he always had.

“You’d think that they would have designed a way to stop this happening,” groaned Jimmy. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“Stop moaning, will you?” said Felix. “So you feel travel-sick if you read in a truck. So what?”

“I’m not moaning,” Jimmy replied. “I’m just saying that if it was up to me to design a person, I’d make sure they didn’t get travel-sick.”

“Well, one of you has to follow the map,” Yannick grunted, “or you’re never going to get anywhere, let alone London.” He accelerated hard.

Jimmy passed the map over to Felix, who curled up his nose. “It’s all in French,” he protested.

“What do you mean, it’s all in French?” asked Yannick,
taking his eyes off the road for a split second. “A map’s a map. The lines can’t be in French, can they?”

“OK,” sighed Felix, twisting the map from side to side. “Let’s see. We’re here, yeah?” His finger almost poked through the paper.

Jimmy opened one eye. “Yes,” he groaned. “We’re there.”

“Great,” announced Felix. “Then we need to take this blue one.”

“Blue one?” said Yannick. “It’s not blue in real life, you know.”

“Obviously,” Felix replied. “It’s road-coloured. But this is the one we need. Now how do we get on to it?” He studied the map up close, every now and again lifting his head to peer out of the window for any landmarks.

Jimmy opened his eyes again. He couldn’t help watching what Felix was doing. “Do you mean
that
blue one?” he asked.

Felix nodded frantically and flapped him away. “Shh, I’m working it out.”

“Er, Felix,” Jimmy said carefully, “that’s a river.”

It took another hour before they finally found the meeting point. It was a lay-by, or an
aire,
off one of the
autoroutes
that ran like veins through Northern France. This one was as basic as they came – just a telephone, a toilet and a couple of rotting picnic tables.

“This is it, Jimmy,” muttered Yannick. “We’re not supposed to wait with you, you know.”

“I know,” Jimmy replied.

Yannick didn’t even shut off the engine as Jimmy jumped out of the truck, following strict instructions from Stovorsky. Jimmy turned back to his friends and made himself smile. He quickly regretted it. It would probably make him look even more nervous than he actually was, he thought.

“Say ‘hi’ from me,” Felix blurted.

“What?”

“When you see my parents. Tell them ‘hi’.”

Jimmy looked into his friend’s face. “Pretty soon you can tell them yourself,” he said, then he slammed the truck door.

Yannick gave a cautious wave and drove off. Felix pressed his face hard to the glass and inflated his cheeks. He looked hideous. Jimmy coughed up a chuckle. Then he turned away and strolled to a picnic table, raising his arm to wave. He wanted to look as casual as he could. He certainly didn’t want to watch the others driving away. It was time to adjust to being on his own again.

The place was desolate. Even the roar of the roads was dulled by thick and wild hedges, making it sound like a ghostly whine. There was a chill in the air and Jimmy breathed it in, keeping himself calm. He wasn’t really on his own, he thought. He had a whole underground
operation working with him. Uno Stovorsky, a top agent of the French Secret Services, had sewn together a chain of contacts. In no time he would be in London, working with a team again. Despite his efforts to convince himself otherwise, it still felt as if Jimmy was sitting alone, in the middle of nowhere, as the sun went down.

While he waited, Jimmy went over his back story. His contact was not to know his real name, nor his reasons for smuggling himself into the UK. But Jimmy didn’t have to wait long before a van pulled off the road.

It wasn’t one of the biggest vans – only about six metres long – and it certainly didn’t look very new. The cabin was smeared with mud and the trailer wobbled as the truck slowed down. It bore a picture of a ridiculously cheerful cartoon pig above bold bubble writing that said “Thoosavlees”.

The vehicle hissed and spluttered to a halt. Then out of the cabin lumbered a stocky man bundled from head to toe in densely padded waterproofs. His face was mostly hidden by a wild black beard, but when he drew closer Jimmy could see enough to know that this man had been in a few fights over the years. His nose looked as if someone had flattened it then twisted it askew for good measure, and his gnarled left eye was lower than the right. The smell of stale sweat drifted from the man’s clothes.

He stopped right in front of Jimmy, but didn’t look at him. “Michael Vargas?” he huffed in a voice as gruff as
his beard. Jimmy turned away from the reek of the man’s breath. “Eleven years old, travelling alone, collar turned up,” the man continued. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

“You must be Jacob Estafette,” said Jimmy at last, mustering his confidence.

The man’s fists were buried in his pockets, but now he twisted his right hand. Out of the top of the pocket peeked the tip of a knife. “Say my name again and I slit your throat.”

Jimmy didn’t need to look at the knife. He had noticed it already in the way the man’s coat bulged. He stared intently into Estafette’s eye – the one that wasn’t almost obscured by the flesh hanging down over it. He recognised the nervous energy behind this man’s bravado. Estafette was obviously wary of anyone who wanted to sneak
into
the UK. Usually it was goods in, people out. He was a small cog in a tidy operation, making money by smuggling any of the foreign products that Hollingdale had banned from Britain: Coke, Nike trainers, even music by foreign artists.

Jimmy nodded slowly, calming himself. There was no need to reveal that he was far more dangerous than this small-time criminal. Estafette obviously had no idea who Jimmy was and probably didn’t even suspect that the Secret Service was involved. They walked together to the back of the van and Estafette hauled it open.

Jimmy felt like he’d been slapped on the forehead. He reeled backwards and had to steady himself. It was only
then that he realised what had hit him wasn’t actually solid. It was the smell. In the back of the trailer, hanging from the ceiling in three rows, side by side, were dozens of huge smoked hams. The beasts they came from must have been some of the biggest pigs in Europe.

Jimmy raised the back of his hand to his nose.
Am I meant to get in there?
he thought, looking up at Estafette with the question in his eyes. The man smiled and beneath the moustache Jimmy glimpsed a gaping hole where there should have been teeth.

Jimmy climbed up into the back of the trailer, swallowing up gulps of the smell. It could have been worse, he realised. It was then that the cold wrenched his breath away – the trailer was refrigerated.

“This – is – ridiculous!” Jimmy gasped, snatching air into his lungs between each word.

Estafette held out a finger. Jimmy followed its stubby point to the floor of the van. At first he saw nothing except the pattern in the metal, but when he looked again there was a hole. Checking each action with Estafette, who nodded his assurance, Jimmy bent down and pushed his way through the meat, with the hams thudding into his back. When he reached the middle of the trailer, Jimmy stuck his finger in the hole and pulled. A thick section of insulated flooring came up – the lid of a hatch. It revealed a small hidden compartment beneath the truck.

Jimmy didn’t need confirmation from Estafette to
know what to do next. He lowered himself through the floor, teeth chattering, and curled up in the hole on his side. There wasn’t enough room for him to stretch out.

Estafette climbed into the back of the truck, too, and leered down into the hole.
Just a fat ham with a coat and beard,
Jimmy thought to himself.

“You a fan of sardines?” Jimmy quipped, settling into his tin can.

“I like anything that doesn’t talk,” came the reply.

Then Jimmy asked, “That meat – can I have some?”

Estafette peered at the ham as if he’d only just noticed it was there. Then, with a note of amusement in his face, he tore off a strip and dropped it into Jimmy’s hand. “Sorry. No blanket,” he smirked.

“Just get me to England,” Jimmy hissed back. Estafette clanged shut the cover of Jimmy’s hiding place. The darkness brought with it the relief of relative warmth – it was only the main section that was refrigerated. Then there was the second crash of the van door closing. Jimmy was entombed.

Jimmy wasn’t sure how much more of this he would be able to take. He twisted as much as he could, but he’d been stuck in the same position for almost four hours. At first he’d thought that the journey was going to be fine, but he hadn’t accounted for the added discomfort of crossing the channel. The ferry rolled unsteadily from
side to side, never relenting. It seemed that Jimmy’s programming had no mechanism to combat seasickness.

Don’t puke,
he told himself over and over.
Don’t puke.
He closed his eyes, trying to imagine himself lying in the park on a glorious sunny day. It didn’t do much good. There was no light, but nothing to see even if he had used his night-vision. All he was aware of was the listing of his stomach. His ears seemed to magnify the creaking of the boat and background groan of the sea.

Nearly there,
Jimmy told himself, though he knew that he had completely lost track of the time. He had long since finished his strip of ham, which meant that now he was the worst possible combination: hungry and queasy.

At last, he made out the snorting of car engines. Soon they’d be on the move again. “Thank you,” he sighed, feeling a burst of joy when the truck drove off the boat.
England,
he thought. He couldn’t see it, but he was there. It was only a couple of minutes before the truck stopped again. This was the real test – passport control. There had been a time when people could come and go freely across British borders, but Hollingdale had changed all that. Now there were rigorous checks on everybody.

The truck engine fell silent. Jimmy strained his ears, trying to make out what was going on. There were murmuring voices. Jimmy’s heartbeat drowned out the words. The injury in his neck throbbed.
Why are we waiting so long?
Jimmy shouted inside his head.

He was sure that at any moment the lid of his hiding place would be ripped off. He pictured the face of Miss Bennett leering in at him. Instinctively, he held his breath.

He needn’t have worried. After three tantalising minutes, the truck rumbled on. Jimmy breathed heavily and felt a little silly for being so scared. He wondered whether his mother was going through the same ordeal. He knew it would be harder for her. It wasn’t just that Jimmy was smaller. One of the first things he had discovered about his design as an assassin was that dogs couldn’t pick up a scent from him. His mother didn’t have that advantage.

A couple of hours later the truck stopped again. A gurgling noise gave it away that they were at a filling station. Once Estafette had filled the tank, Jimmy heard the clang of the doors opening. Suddenly, the hatch cover flew off and Estafette’s craggy face appeared. As always, Jimmy’s eyes adjusted quickly to the new light.

“Come on,” grunted Estafette. “You can sit up front the rest of the way. We’re nearly there.”

“It’s about time,” Jimmy replied. He hauled himself out of his hole while Estafette trudged off to pay for the fuel. Jimmy shivered and tore himself another strip of meat. His knees wobbled. He had spent so long cramped up in that compartment that he had to lean on the meats as he stumbled out of the van. The service station glowed in the night, a neon oasis.

Every bit of Jimmy tingled; the blood was returning to all corners of his body. He stretched and moved to the front of the van, casting his eyes round the service station forecourt. About a dozen people were filling their cars, staring into the middle distance. Were any of them watching Jimmy?
Don’t be paranoid,
he told himself.

He pulled himself up into the passenger seat, chewing on some ham. The cabin of the truck was decorated with all sorts of paraphernalia. There were photos stuffed round every edge of the windscreen, some faded and crumpled. Smiling kids, people playing on the beach – Jimmy could almost have pieced together Estafette’s entire life from these scenes. Then something caught his eye that completely took his mind off Estafette’s decorations. A police car pulled in to the service station. The driver got out and grabbed a pump.

Jimmy froze.
If he looks my way,
he told himself,
don’t flinch.
He didn’t want to arouse the policeman’s suspicions. Jimmy’s programming rumbled inside him, holding him still. There was no reason to believe the patrol car had been sent to look for him. NJ7 thought Jimmy was dead. If Mitchell had believed otherwise, he would have stayed to complete his mission. This was just bad luck.

The policeman was a young man whose lean frame seemed to bend under the weight of his body armour. He surveyed the scene while the petrol dribbled into his tank.
Come on,
Jimmy urged silently, both to the policeman and to Estafette. Jimmy kept his eyes straight
ahead, deliberately not watching the policeman. But the policeman’s head had stopped turning from side to side. His face was towards the truck.

Jimmy chewed on another hunk of meat. He held himself low in his seat, trying to look small, insignificant, like every regular child in the country. His fingers picked at the black gaffer tape that covered a tear in the fabric of the seat.

At last Estafette was on his way back. He headed straight for the truck, paying no attention to the policeman.
This is good,
thought Jimmy.
Keep coming.

Estafette was within two metres of the truck when he stopped. The policeman was calling him over. Jimmy looked into Estafette’s face. He read the doubt in the man’s eyes. Should he turn around? Should he pretend he hadn’t heard?
Do something,
Jimmy implored, unable to move a muscle. The policeman had a clear view of him.