by Joe Craig
No, Jimmy thought, desperately trying to break into his own consciousness. He forced himself to look away. His body followed and he swung across the width of the bridge to the very edge, until he could reach up and hook his fingers on to the walkway. Mitchell followed like a deadly shadow. When Jimmy looked again at his opponent, the light had shifted again. The tricks in Jimmy’s brain projected an older face on to Mitchell’s body: the face of Ian Coates.
“NO!” Jimmy screamed. He closed his eyes and pushed a lifetime of fury into one final kick. For once, Mitchell’s defence was insufficient. Jimmy’s foot crashed into the other boy’s chin. Mitchell’s head rocked back and a fountain of blood spurted from his nose. Finish it, Jimmy heard his programming growl.
Jimmy fought against his own arms, forbidding them to strike out while Mitchell was unguarded. A single punch at the base of his neck would send Mitchell’s dead body dropping into the Thames. Jimmy deliberately squeezed his fingers into the metal, as if he could send down roots that would hold them in place. Then they started vibrating.
At first Jimmy thought his body was resisting his will, but then he heard a sound that made sense of everything: the clatter of a train. Jimmy was hanging from the first of the three bridges that ran alongside each other: a footbridge. But barely a metre behind his head was the central passage: the railway bridge.
Just then, Mitchell shook off Jimmy’s strike and launched his counter-attack. But Jimmy was already swinging to gather momentum. Then he threw himself backwards. The last thing he saw was the wide red streak that ran from Mitchell’s nose, completely covering the grimace on his lips.
Jimmy flipped over and pulled his knees into his chest. He judged the thrust of his flight perfectly. He had enough distance to reach the railway line and enough height to curl over the safety fence. He landed on his feet, but couldn’t keep his balance and immediately fell backwards, tripping on the railway line. He landed with his neck on one rail, staring straight down the track towards the oncoming train. The tremors in the cold steel seemed to stir up Jimmy’s resolve. He didn’t have time to be afraid and simply rolled across the track to the other side. The train rattled past a split-second later.
Jimmy knew Mitchell wouldn’t give up. Perhaps he had already followed Jimmy on to the railway bridge. But before there was any chance of the fight continuing, Jimmy jumped up and caught the side of one of the carriages. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the metal, breathing slowly and deeply, regardless of the thick diesel fumes.
In his mind, the hammering of the train became Mitchell howling for him in the night, and merged with his own silent screams.
In a tiny cell at Westminster police station, William Lee’s huge frame looked wildly out of place. He leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the creaking of the metal legs. In his head, he replayed the events of the last few hours, trying to work out logically where things had gone wrong and formulating a plan for what he should do next.
As soon as he’d seen that Miss Bennett had that recording of him, he knew that she was going to manipulate the media to further her own power. What he hadn’t been prepared for was how quickly she’d been able to do it. Lee felt a crushing shame in his heart at the memory of seeing himself ranting on TV. He’d immediately changed his plan. Instead of taking over the country, he’d realised he needed to get as far away as possible. He’d reached the end of Downing Street before Miss Bennett’s men picked him up.
A part of him wanted to admit that Miss Bennett had acted masterfully, but he couldn’t detach his emotions. Suddenly, he jumped to his feet, snatched up the chair by one leg and slammed it against the wall over and over. He only stopped when he heard the clang of the door behind him.
Lee dropped the misshapen lump of metal and plastic, drew himself up to his full height and smoothed back the hair on the sides of his head.
“What is it?” he snarled.
There was no reply, and Lee turned to see one of the NJ7 agents who had brought him in leaning casually in the doorway. He beckoned with his head for Lee to follow and together they marched along the cells and back up the stairs to the offices.
A duty officer was waiting with Lee’s personal belongings in a clear plastic bag—including his watch, his wallet and phone—even his tie, belt and shoes. One by one each item was handed back to him and ticked off a list.
“What’s happening?” Lee asked, still maintaining that air of authority in his voice.
“There was an attack on the Prime Minister,” replied the agent. “And Miss Bennett. She wants you released.”
“So the attack failed?”
“Unfortunately for you—yes.”
Lee rushed to tie his shoelaces, but tried to disguise his eagerness to get out of the police station. “So Coates wants me back,” he said proudly.
“Not Coates,” the agent explained. “Miss Bennett.”
Lee dropped his laces and snapped bolt upright. He was at least a head taller than the NJ7 agent and stared down at the man. “I don’t want to,” Lee announced flatly. “Take me back to my cell.”
“I don’t think you have a choice,” replied the agent, not making eye contact.
Lee took a long time to think. Eventually he picked up his tie and started threading it round his neck. “What happened?” he asked. He had to get as much information as he could from this agent before he was thrown into the lion’s den.
“Nothing serious,” the agent replied, peering through the blind at the dark street. “They’ve had routine medical checks. I hear Miss Bennett and the Prime Minister are being treated for minor burns. Nothing more. There was a small explosion at the hospital.” He paused and stroked his chin as if he was considering what might have happened. “Oh, and that girl was with them too.”
“Girl?” said Lee. “You mean Eva?”
“That’s the one. She got burned too. Also not serious. You’re to report to her at 0700.”
“Report to Eva?” Lee snatched his wallet from the duty officer and shoved it roughly into his jacket pocket. “Surely you mean I should report to Miss Bennett.”
The agent shook his head. “Eva Doren,” he confirmed, still refusing to look directly at Lee. “She’ll brief you in the morning. You work for her.”
The agent turned away and Lee was sure he did it to hide his smirk. The agent signed a piece of paper on the duty officer’s desk and led Lee out of the building.
“Get in the car,” he ordered, pointing to the waiting NJ7 vehicle.
Lee refused to budge. “You address your seniors as ‘sir’,” he growled.
The agent calmly climbed into the driver’s seat, started the engine and rolled down the window. Now, for the first time, he fixed Lee with a cold stare. “Get in the car,” he said.
Lee felt the chill of the air bite through to his core. He strode forwards and folded into the back seat, having to pull his knees almost up to his chest to fit in.
Neither man said another word to each other. Lee let the streets of Central London blur outside the window before closing his eyes and pinching the top of his nose to fight back the extreme tiredness. He felt a sickness in his stomach and his mind was churning. After a minute he pulled out his phone and clutched it in his palm. There were several messages waiting for him, but he ignored them. His thoughts were somewhere else.
Moving slowly at first, then faster and faster, he ran his thumb over the buttons, typing a text message. When he was finished, he reread it several times, then finally typed in an unrecognised phone number and hit ‘send’. He watched the screen until it flashed up ‘Message sent’, then closed his eyes again and dropped his head back against the leather.
He fell asleep with the words of his message scrolling through his mind: “How does an unwanted player switch teams? Be discreet.”
Jimmy Coates slumped down outside the train toilet, exhausted. His senses allowed his pain to creep through him again. It didn’t stop until he was aching and throbbing all over. The only consolat
ion came when he realised that the next stop was London Bridge.
Only a couple of minutes later the train pulled in and Jimmy staggered on to the platform. His mind was completely dazed. His agony seemed to intensify with every step, as if his body didn’t want to let him relax. He couldn’t help glancing over his shoulders, scanning the faces of everybody else who’d stepped off the train and everybody waiting along the platform. Did they track me? he asked himself.
He couldn’t let his guard down. But as he limped through the station, he became fascinated to see the lives of Londoners going on around him as if nothing had happened that night. There were no NJ7 agents. Nobody shot at him. Nobody sprang an ambush.
Jimmy slowed to a complete stop in the centre of the main concourse. Nobody even seemed to notice him. If they’d ever known who he was, they didn’t recognise him any more. They’d forgotten, distracted by the fresh news of an election, or by whatever was going on in their lives. His thoughts melted into a haze.
“Waiting for a train?” came a girl’s voice from behind him. Jimmy snapped out of his daydream and spun round. It was his sister Georgie. Jimmy didn’t even have time to draw breath before his sister wrapped him in a hug.
“How did you—?” Jimmy gasped, the breath being squeezed out of his lungs by Georgie’s embrace. He was so shocked he couldn’t even return the hug at first.
“Chris has his own surveillance on the whole station,” Georgie answered. “You’re going to love it. He’s got a whole base set up in the vaults under the bridges. Come on—we’ve been waiting for you.” She let Jimmy go and marched away towards one of the platforms. Jimmy followed, hardly able to believe this was real.
“He’s here,” Georgie said softly into a mobile phone. She snapped it shut straight away and slipped it back into her pocket. Jimmy suddenly remembered his own phone. He patted his pockets, but realised he must have dropped it back at the hospital when Mitchell had first attacked him.
“Georgie,” he said. “My phone…Mum’s, I mean…”
“Forget about that,” Georgie told him, grabbing his arm and pulling him along. “You wouldn’t be able to use it anyway. We have to change phones every few hours. You’ll get the hang of it. Chris has everything organised.”
Jimmy was still in shock, but finally he felt a smile forcing its way on to his lips. “There’s going to be—”
“I know,” Georgie interrupted. “An election. Chris is totally psyched about it. Now get a move on. NJ7 will have themselves organised again in a few minutes. We don’t want to get killed before we’ve won the election, do we?”
That’s when Jimmy saw the others: Christopher Viggo, Saffron Walden, his mum and Felix all hurrying across the concourse. Before he knew it, Jimmy was swamped at the centre of all of them, and everybody was talking at once.
“Well done, Jimmy,” said Viggo.
Saffron beamed a huge smile. Jimmy’s mother said something, but it was so muffled by her hug that Jimmy couldn’t make it out. For a moment they looked just like any of the ordinary families or groups of friends that were reunited at the station every day. For a few seconds, Jimmy felt like a normal life was close enough to touch.
When they moved away, the smiles faded. Jimmy felt warm having friends walking on either side of him, but he knew that they were all thinking the same thing: the battle for control of the country was about to begin.
“You look totally mashed up,” said Felix, landing a punch on Jimmy’s shoulder.
Jimmy forced a smile. “I feel fine,” he lied, slipping his blue-tinged fingers into his pockets.
Acknowledgment
Thank you to Sarah Manson, Ann Tobias,
Marc Berlin, Sophie Birshan, Miriam Craig,
Oli Rockberger and everyone at HarperCollins,
particularly Stella Paskins.
Thank you also to:
Catriona Savage, for help with the French
Dr Anna Gorringe, for medical advice
Greg John, for use of his flat,
and Sacha Wilson, legend.
About the author
Joe Craig studied Philosophy at Cambridge University, then became a songwriter. Within a year, however, his love of stories had taken over and he was writing the first novel in the Jimmy Coates series. It was published in 2005. He is now a full time author and likes to keep in touch with his readers through his website www.joecraig.co.uk.
When he’s not writing he’s visiting schools, playing the piano, inventing snacks, playing football, coaching cricket, reading or watching a movie.
He lives in London.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Other Books By
Also by Joe Craig
1. Jimmy Coates: Killer
2. Jimmy Coates: Target
3. Jimmy Coates: Revenge
4. Jimmy Coates: Sabotage
5. Jimmy Coates: Survival
TEAM UP WITH
JIMMY COATES ON MYSPACE!
WWW.MYSPACE.COM/JIMMYCOATES
Copyright
First published in Great Britain by
HarperCollins Children’s Books 2008
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a
division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London, W6 8JB
www.harpercollinschildrensbooks.co.uk
FIRST EDITION
Copyright © Joseph Craig 2008
Joseph Craig asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
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EPub Edition © NOVEMBER 2009 ISBN: 978-0-007-35706-2
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