Bionic Agent

by Rose, Malcolm

  On impulse, Jordan thrust out his bionic arm and grabbed the man’s left wrist. The driver’s weight jolted Jordan forwards but he didn’t topple over. He held on tightly.

  Tom had been injured in the fall but he stumbled towards Jordan and lay across his blood-stained jeans, pinning his legs down and making sure he didn’t tumble over the edge. He couldn’t do much more.

  Winter’s white Audi slithered across the grass, just missed the remains of the stone arch and screeched to a halt. Winter flung the door open and rushed to the scene of the accident. Seeing both Jordan and Tom Flynn, she breathed a sigh of relief. Leaning over the edge, she looked down at the dangling driver and said, “What have we here?”

  “Help!” he cried.

  Winter smiled. “Jordan’s only fourteen, you know.”

  “What?”

  “He’s strong but, when you’re fourteen, you get tired. You can’t expect him to hold you very long.”

  The activist spluttered and yelped like a wounded creature.

  She kneeled down to get close to him. “Tell me. Did you or your group have anything to do with the Thames Estuary explosion?”

  “No!” he shouted. “Get me up!”

  “Why should we? What are you offering in return?”

  “Please!”

  Winter looked at Jordan. “Are you getting tired?”

  There was something much worse than being tired. He was worried that his arm might be wrenched from its fitting to his shoulder. And his legs had gone numb. But he played her game anyway. “Very.”

  Winter looked down at the terrified man. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll check with my boss if I can do a deal with you. Hang on there a minute.” She took out her phone, giggled and said, “Sorry about the pun.” She hit a few buttons and then turned away, waiting for a response.

  Jordan guessed that she was only pretending.

  She spoke as if updating a superior on the situation and then let out a series of responses. “Yes.” “Yes.” “That’s right.” “Okay.” “I’ve got your go-ahead, then.” “Good.”

  Winter squatted down again at the edge of the cliff. “Right,” she said. “I can offer you a deal. If your group bombed the wreck in the Thames, you can shop the people who actually did it, and walk away free yourself. Unless Jordan drops you, of course.”

  “But we didn’t do it! Help me.” Squirming, his legs scraped against the cliff face and sent stones cascading down to the beach below.

  Along with the smell of smoke, Jordan had become aware of the nearby whiff of urine. He shifted his position and his grasp of the driver’s wrist slipped a little. He gripped more firmly.

  A police car had turned up, but the officers had checked the registration of Winter’s Audi and found it on a very special list. They would not come forward and cramp her style. They simply kept back the gathering onlookers.

  “We’ll even give you a new identity,” Winter was saying. “We’ll forget the charge of attempted murder and ship you to your country of choice. Think about it. You won’t get a better trade-off. Information for your life and freedom.”

  “It wasn’t us!”

  “So, we just wait till Jordan can’t hold you any more.”

  “Please! It really wasn’t!”

  Winter stared at his upturned, pleading face for at least ten seconds. “Tom,” she called out, still gazing down at the panicked campaigner. “Did you hear them talking about setting off the Richard Montgomery?”

  “No,” he answered.

  “See?” the activist gasped. “Nothing to do with us!”

  Jordan had never before held another person’s life in his hand. And it was a man who would have killed him and Tom Flynn. But Jordan refused to condemn him. He tried to remain in control. He held the driver’s arm tightly enough to stop the hand slipping through his artificial fingers, but not so tightly that he cut off the man’s blood supply or crushed his wrist entirely.

  “You must be in touch with other political protest groups,” Winter said. “Was it one of them?”

  “I don’t think so. Now, help me!”

  Winter relented. She put her arm over the edge. “You know, I think you’re telling the truth. Give me your other hand.”

  Together, Jordan and Winter hauled him up and onto the level ground. At once, he collapsed.

  Caressing his aching shoulder with his left hand and checking that his false arm was still firmly attached, Jordan got to his feet gingerly.

  Winter yelled at the police, “The driver’s all yours. Is there an ambulance on its way?” Seeing the officers nod, she pointed at Tom Flynn and said, “Make sure they treat my colleague first. And when the press arrives,” she added, “keep him out of it.” She nodded towards her car and said to Jordan, “Come on. We’ve got to report to Angel. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Sort of.”

  “We’ll get you checked over at Highgate.”

  Slipping into the car, Jordan asked, “How did you know I was here?”

  “It didn’t take a genius. Angel was locked on to the signal from Flynn’s GPS chip. He guided me in.”

  Jordan gazed at her as she started the engine. “Were you really going to tell me to drop that man?”

  She laughed. “What do you think?”

  He had just learned that she was ruthless, but he didn’t want to believe that she was cold-blooded as well. “I hope not.”

  Making for the main road, she glanced sideways at him. “You’re probably right.”

  Jordan sat back and wondered what would have happened if he’d gone over the cliff in the lorry. The political campaigners would still have got publicity from their spectacular stunt, but the murder of Jordan Stryker and Tom Flynn probably would not have been splashed across the news. Tom was working undercover with a secret organization and Jordan did not officially exist. Their lives and deaths might well have passed unnoticed by everyone outside of Unit Red.

  Winter sped south. For a moment, she took her eyes off the road again to look at Jordan. “More good work back there, by the way,” she said. “Pity we didn’t have time for a stroll along the seafront.”

  “It’s not very nice anyway,” Jordan replied wearily. “Someone’s junked a lorry on the beach.”

  14 VANISHED

  The cuts on his legs had been patched up. Apart from bruising, his shoulder had coped well with the ordeal and his mechanical arm was undamaged. A doctor and a Unit Red engineer declared him fit for duty. But the thought of continuing his mission straight away made Jordan shudder. “Do we ever get a day off?” he asked.

  Winter laughed, but Angel answered, “Yep. As soon as we’ve caught all the bad guys, we allow ourselves a break.” Then he smiled. “But you can have tomorrow to yourself. Relax a bit.” He glanced down at Jordan’s torn jeans and added, “Buy yourself some new trousers.”

  “What do I do for cash?”

  “I’ve set up an account for you,” Angel replied. “And deposited a tidy sum in it. You never asked what salary you get from Unit Red, but I don’t think you’ll complain. If things go well, you won’t be short of funds.”

  In his room, Jordan glanced down at his clothes. Everything he was wearing had been provided for him by Unit Red. Jeans, shoes, jackets and all the rest had simply appeared in his cupboards. It wasn’t bad gear. It wasn’t embarrassing. It was the right size and shape. But it wasn’t his choice. He relished the thought of going to the shops tomorrow and getting some things for himself.

  He was standing in the huge window that looked over the graveyard. In the daytime, he occasionally caught sight of a distant group of visitors taking the guided tour. In the hours of darkness, the dead seemed to reclaim the cemetery. Every noise sounded sinister to Jordan. The undergrowth rustled whenever some creature stirred and the trees creaked uncannily in the wind.

  His thoughts turned to the bomb blast: motives, suspects, and what he had discovered so far. He ran through every lead he had ruled out.

  Melissa Pink had taken over M
r. Goss’s patch, but Jordan was fairly sure that she had not marked her arrival with mass murder. Even so, if she ever got hold of him, he’d expect no mercy. He’d been caught on her territory twice, escaped twice and seen too much for his own good. He had also convinced himself that the Quickfalls and Salam Bool were not Red Devil. Mr. Bool had sought out specific people to hurt – nothing like the random violence of the Thames Estuary blast.

  Like the police, Jordan didn’t know if he was investigating a criminal act or terrorism, but he seemed to have eliminated anti-war, environmental, animal rights and political extremists. But he wasn’t much further forward than the original enquiry. The fact that he had discovered nothing definite gnawed at him.

  A fox prowled past the window. It shone yellowy-red in the infrared part of Jordan’s vision. Several birds called out. Jordan recognized the sound of an owl beginning its night-time hunt.

  He had the nagging feeling that everyone involved in the case of the Thames explosion was overlooking something. Or at least they hadn’t asked the right questions. He hadn’t asked the right questions. In his mind, he shut down the police file. It was no further use. He needed to think for himself. He needed to see the investigation with fresh eyes.

  But right now, he needed sleep more than anything else.

  Perhaps returning to Medway wasn’t the best use of a day’s holiday. It certainly wasn’t wise when Melissa Pink’s heavies were looking out for him. Yet Jordan couldn’t help himself. Something drove him back. It wasn’t just the shops in Strood. Thoughts of an unknown firefighter lured him back.

  He hesitated outside Strood Fire Station only for a moment. Then he made for the entrance to the left of the large doors that opened in emergencies to let the fire engines out. As he entered, the man behind the desk looked at him quizzically. “Yes?” he said, clearly suspicious of a teenager. “Can I help?”

  “I...erm...I’m trying to find out about one of your firemen. I mean, firefighters.”

  “Yes?” he repeated.

  “A couple of days ago, I helped her drag someone out of a burning car in Hoo...”

  The look of distrust disappeared from the fire officer’s face. He leaned on the desk and nodded.

  Jordan continued, “I wondered if I could have a word with her.”

  “I know who you mean. She told me about you. Said you were special.”

  Jordan hid his artificial hand by slipping it into the pocket of his new denim jacket. He shrugged. “What’s her name? Is she around?”

  “Debbie, we call her. Deborah Metland. And, no, she’s not around. Sorry. What did you want with her?”

  “She was good to me. I want to thank her.”

  Downcast, the fire officer sighed. Then he said, “Come outside. I need a cigarette break.” He paused before adding, “Yes, I know, it’s a filthy habit, especially for a fireman.”

  The breeze soon dispersed the trail of grey smoke from the man’s nose and mouth. On the grass beside the road, hidden from it by an oversized bush, he looked into Jordan’s face and said, “She’s vanished.”

  “What?” Jordan exclaimed.

  “She’s not here, she’s not at home, and she isn’t in any of her usual haunts.” He took another drag. “We’ve told the police. They’re looking into it. But I don’t think they’re taking it very seriously. Not yet.”

  “When did she disappear?”

  “Yesterday.” He shook his head sadly. “Not all of the men...you know. Some of them don’t think a woman’s up to it. But they’re wrong. Debbie’s a good engineer – she works on the appliances – and a good firefighter. Remember the estuary explosion?”

  Jordan nodded.

  “That was her first job after basic training. Some introduction. She lost a lot, saved a few. She handled it well. Better than most.” The tip of the cigarette glowed as he sucked heavily on it again.

  Jordan remembered that Angel had called her a hero and a security risk. He also recalled Winter’s words to the lorry driver as he dangled over the edge of Hunstanton cliff. We’ll give you a new identity and ship you to your country of choice. Was that what had happened to Deborah Metland? Because she posed a security risk, maybe Unit Red had brushed her aside. Maybe the organization had removed her altogether.

  “She was very brave,” Jordan said. “That car in Hoo could have blown up when she was right by it.”

  “I heard she wasn’t the only one,” the man replied. “That’s why I’m telling you all this.”

  Back in Highgate, Angel sat down beside the technician in the Communications Room. “Thanks for calling me. Where’s he been?”

  Angel and Winter had not told Jordan that he’d been fitted with a GPS chip and a microphone. They feared that Jordan would not have cooperated. They doubted that any teenager would volunteer to be under the constant surveillance of adults.

  The technician tapped a few keys to access Jordan’s internal tracking device. “There,” he said, touching the map on the screen. “The edge of Strood. Actually, it’s the fire station.”

  His face glum, Angel nodded. “I see. Could be important. Did you keep a record of what was said?”

  “I’ll send the audio file to your computer. He found out about Deborah Metland.”

  Angel sighed. “Where is he now?”

  “Here. In the leisure park at Gillingham. He’s been stationary for a few minutes.”

  Angel imagined his new agent looking out harmlessly over the river while, just out of his sight, police divers were searching the murky water for the remains of Salam Bool’s body. “Okay,” Angel said to the technician. “Keep tracking.”

  Jordan gazed at the Medway that led to the Thames. He was still thinking about Deborah Metland. It was very convenient for Unit Red that the firefighter had gone missing. Jordan was wondering if Angel had taken her out of the equation. If Angel had done something to her, that would make him another Salam Bool. A hitman for the good guys, but a hitman all the same.

  Red Devil was also on Jordan’s mind. Red Devil was always on his mind, haunting him day and night. He was desperate to find the culprit and uncover the truth behind the estuary blast.

  He ran again through the events of that night twelve months earlier. He wondered who or what was the true target. Was it the people, the buildings, the businesses on and around the river, or something else? The people who had lost their lives – like Ben Smith and his family, the people in boats, those crushed by falling masonry and speared by flying glass – formed such a random group that Jordan couldn’t see the sense in slaughtering them all. Maybe just one or a few of them had been the intended victims and the rest were an accidental side effect. Maybe all of the deaths were merely a by-product of hitting the real target.

  Whatever the truth, Red Devil must have been utterly heartless. What grievance could possibly drive someone to such cruelty?

  Of course, the destruction would not have been so overwhelming if a supertanker had not been unloading its supply of oil at Canvey Island and Ocean Courage had not been delivering liquefied natural gas to the terminal on the Isle of Grain when the bombs exploded. The presence of the enormous ships had been a disastrous coincidence – at least, the police teams had assumed that their presence was a coincidence.

  Behind Jordan in the Strand Leisure Park, a girl screamed in frustration on the crazy-golf course, a group of boys shouted to each other in the adventure playground, and tennis balls thwacked in turn against rackets and clay.

  Jordan heard all of the noises but none of them made any real impact on him. He was absorbed in a new idea. Maybe the closeness of the ships wasn’t a massive coincidence at all. Maybe it was a deliberate plan.

  According to all of the documents Jordan had studied, the investigators believed that Red Devil had used a time delay to allow him or her to escape before the blast. But what if that assumption had been wrong all along? What if something else dictated Red Devil’s timing? What was special or important about the moment when everything went crazy? Maybe it was ch
osen precisely because Ocean Courage was passing, the supertanker was unloading, or something else was happening.

  Red Devil could have pressed the button before reaching a safe distance simply because he – or she – thought the river police were moving in to make an arrest. But it might have been for a different reason altogether. Maybe the target had turned up earlier than expected.

  Was this the fresh thinking that the mission needed? Jordan wasn’t sure. But he rushed away, eager to check it out.

  Visibility in the water was almost nil. The divers could hardly see their hands in front of their faces. Each of them felt their way carefully around the bottom of the river, putting their finds in a plastic basket on a rope. Whenever they filled a basket, it was hauled up by their colleagues in a patrol boat above them. The contents were emptied onto a plastic sheet covering the deck and searched by gloved fingertips.

  It was near the Upnor Road jetty that one of the officers in the boat held up two items that looked like pale twigs. He said, “I think we’ve got human bones here.”

  15 ANGRY

  On its way into London, the train seemed to wait outside each station for an age before pulling up to a platform. Jordan used the time to do some more online research. He wanted to know what sort of bomb had set off the World War Two ammunition. According to police files, the forensic team had found fragments that could have come from a remote-control device or timer mechanism. There had been so little evidence left after the sequence of powerful blasts that a reliable result was impossible.

  The Unit Red system did not have answers to Jordan’s most important questions. Was the supertanker’s cargo of oil being unloaded on schedule and was Ocean Courage arriving on time? At least, he couldn’t find any records of shipping timetables. But he was sure that the operators of the Canvey Island oil terminal and the owners of Ocean Courage would have the information he needed. A simple internet search brought up a newspaper article about the wrecking of Ocean Courage. According to the report, it was owned by the giant power company, Energistics. Their head office was in central London.