by Joe Craig
“Well?” asked Neil Muzbeke, appearing in the doorway with a blanket pulled around his shoulders.
Felix turned round and shrugged.
“Just Jimmy’s notebook,” he said, turning it over in his hands. Then he saw the front cover. He shivered, but it wasn’t from the cold. He ran back into the building and slammed the door behind him.
“Get the others,” he ordered. “We’re leaving.”
“What?” Neil exclaimed. “Calm down.”
“I’ll calm down as soon as we’re out of Chinatown.” Felix held up the notebook in front of his chest. On the front was a message, scrawled in red capital letters, but very shakily, as if somebody had written it with his wrong hand, or it had been written by someone very old – or both. It read:
“THEY KNOW WHERE YOU ARE. GET OUT.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE – TRAMWAY CROSSING
Jimmy looked down through the hole in the cable car floor. Paduk’s fist squeezed so tightly around his ankle that he lost all feeling in his foot. For a few seconds they stared into each other’s eyes.
A hundred metres beneath Paduk, the street rushed past. Then the tramway took them off the edge of Manhattan, over the surging waves of the East River. In the darkness, it looked like they had gone off the edge of the world.
Paduk’s other hand dangled beside him. In it he held his gun. Slowly, he lifted his arm and took aim at Jimmy’s head. Jimmy’s programming had never reacted so fast. He moved with such power and precision that he didn’t even know what position he was in until he’d already moved on. In a flash, he raised his leg and Paduk with it. Then he slammed his other foot down on Paduk’s forearm.
Jimmy felt the impact of the man’s bone. It didn’t crack, but Paduk’s grip gave way immediately. He caught the edge of the hole in the floor and started tearing at the metal, to claw his way into the cabin.
Jimmy didn’t wait for him. He jumped up, grabbing the handrail that ran through the carriage. In the middle of the ceiling was a small perspex square – a skylight. Jimmy swung his body upwards and smashed it open with both feet. It snapped off in one piece, flying away with the wind. Jimmy swung up again, this time hooking his legs through the skylight.
The wind whipped round the cabin. It tore at Jimmy’s cheeks. In his chest was a panic struggling to make itself felt above the discipline of his programming.
Paduk pulled the top half of his body through the floor. He was barely two metres away. He steadied himself on his elbows, then took aim. Jimmy hauled himself through the skylight, upside-down, swerving his body out of the way just as Paduk’s bullet ripped into the ceiling. Jimmy thought his ears were going to burst with the power of the shot.
He crouched on top of the carriage. Above his head was the squealing wheel and cable system. To his right he could see the skyscrapers of downtown Manhattan getting smaller and smaller as the tram approached Roosevelt Island. His view was cut into chunks by the rusting scaffold of Queensborough Bridge.
It was less than a second before he had to move again. He heard the click of Paduk’s gun. The man wasn’t climbing up to get him. It was more straightforward to shoot through the roof.
The first blast tore through just a centimetre from Jimmy’s right foot. A splinter of the metal jumped up and hit him in the face. He turned away instinctively and that’s when he saw it. Straight ahead of them, rising out of the mist, way out past Roosevelt Island and on the other side of the river, were four slim towers, each one painted red at the base, white in the middle and red at the top. Big Allis Power Station.
The muscles in Jimmy’s eyes locked. He couldn’t look away. It was like when two strings on a guitar play the same note and they’re exactly in tune. He had a perfect view of the towers and it set off an involuntary surge of joy in his brain. He couldn’t control it – it was a chemical reaction.
Move, he heard in his head. It was a tiny voice at first, swamped by the powerful emotion of his mental vision connecting with the world. Then he forced it through his brain’s confusion: MOVE!
Another shot ripped through the roof. Jimmy jumped backwards just in time. But there was hardly any space left on top of the cable car. In a few seconds Paduk would have shot up the whole thing and Jimmy with it.
Felix quickly roused his mother and Georgie, while Neil Muzbeke collected as many items as he could that he thought might be useful, including a couple of blankets and some leftover food. When they were all together he shared the rest of the dollars out equally between them.
“What do we do about Helen?” asked Olivia Muzbeke. “She said she’d be back by the morning.” They all looked at each other.
Georgie knew without anybody saying a word that they had to leave. The message on the notebook said it all. There was no time to wait for her mum. They had to get out now.
Felix’s father marched into the bedroom and removed the crate from the broken window.
“She’ll see that from the other end of the street,” he announced. “It should be enough to warn her. Don’t worry.” He took Georgie by the shoulders. “I know she’s coming back and I know she’ll be fine.”
Georgie looked into his big comforting eyes.
“How will we find her again?” she asked.
“We won’t need to.” Neil’s voice was confident and encouraging. “She’ll find us. She’s a top agent and a strong woman. Remember that.”
Georgie didn’t smile and didn’t nod. But she pretended there was a core of strength inside her taking control. “Let’s get out of here,” she urged.
Neil grinned.
“We don’t know where we’re going yet,” Olivia pointed out.
“Show me Jimmy’s pictures,” Georgie ordered. Felix flipped open the notebook to the four towers and the ruin. “This is where we should go.” Georgie paused, then added, “Any idea where it is?”
Felix shrugged at first, but then he dashed for the door.
“Back in a sec,” he yelled. He tumbled down the stairs, limbs flailing everywhere, and burst into the street.
“Felix, wait!” cried Neil Muzbeke. He dropped the batteries he’d found under the sink and ran after his son. Olivia and Georgie quickly followed. When they got downstairs. Felix was hammering on the door to the restaurant beneath the apartments.
His face was pressed up against the glass. There was a light on somewhere in the back of the restaurant, and after a good thirty seconds of Felix hammering, a shadow lumbered towards them across the restaurant floor. The door swung open violently and out flew a tirade of Korean.
Mrs Kai-Ro was not pleased. She hadn’t been asleep – that much was obvious. She was dressed and alert. But her hands were full of pak choi, and there were shouts ringing from the kitchen in the back. They were obviously unloading that morning’s delivery.
“Where’s this?” Felix demanded, opening Jimmy’s notebook up to the right page. The only response was a blank look. “Come on, please? Do you know where this is?”
“Insect?” Mrs Kai-Ro blurted in her thick Korean accent. “Come back later.”
“No, no!” Felix cried. “Where is this?”
“Saying it louder won’t help,” Georgie pointed out. “Didn’t you pick up any Korean when you were hanging out with her?”
“Jimmy would know what to say,” Felix mumbled.
In desperation, he performed a ridiculous mime. He bashed the paper with his finger, then walked around in a circle in the street with his hand shielding his eyes, as if he was very obviously looking for something. Georgie laughed, despite her tension.
“Stop messing about,” sighed Felix’s father. But then at last Mrs Kai-Ro’s expression changed.
“Oh!” she exclaimed with a smile. “You want to go Roosevelt Island?”
“That’s it!” Olivia shouted. “Where’s that?”
“Roosevelt Island!” Mrs Kai-Ro shouted.
“Yeah, like I said,” groaned Georgie. “Louder isn’t clearer!”
Mrs Kai-Ro gave a sprightly spin and disappea
red again into the restaurant.
“You offended her,” Felix whispered. “No, wait, maybe she’s getting us some dumplings for the journey.”
Georgie let out an exasperated squeal, but a second later, the old woman had returned with something in her hands. A map of Manhattan.
“Roosevelt Island!” she declared, pointing to the sliver of land in the East River.
“Thank you,” said Felix’s father. Then he turned to Felix and Georgie. “You two wait here.” He took the map from Mrs Kai-Ro’s hands with a smile and a nod of gratitude, and thrust it on Felix. “Your mother and I will fetch all the stuff from upstairs.”
“Be quick,” Felix urged.
“We’ll be two seconds,” was his father’s reply. “Don’t move.”
Neil and Olivia rushed back into the building and up to the apartments.
“Thanks, Mrs Kai-Ro,” said Felix, very slowly and a little too loudly. The Korean woman nodded, clearly unsure of why these people were so grateful to her. But then she looked up and her face changed. Where there had been bewilderment there was now intense fear.
Felix and Georgie spun round to see what she was looking at. Horror tore into their hearts. Round the corner, creeping like a nightmare, came a long black car. It had no number plate. It might have been the contrasting neon lights that flooded the street, but Felix flinched when he thought he saw, just under the front grill, a green stripe.
“Mum!” Felix squeaked. “Dad!” He tried to shout it, but his voice emerged as a throttled whisper.
“Quick,” said Mrs Kai-Ro. “In!” She pulled Felix and Georgie towards her and clattered the restaurant door shut behind them.
“What do we do?” Felix panted.
Georgie peered through the glass. The car stopped right outside the Star of Manchuria. The inside of the restaurant was dark though, so there was a chance they could hide.
“Do you think they saw us?” Georgie asked.
The car doors opened. Out came two huge men in dark suits. The driver straightened his tie and looked the building up and down. Together they strode straight towards the restaurant door.
“They saw us,” gasped Felix.
“Out back!” Mrs Kai-Ro shouted.
Felix and Georgie swivelled and hurtled across the restaurant, stumbling over the forest of chairs. When they made it to the door of the kitchen, Felix paused and turned back. Mrs Kai-Ro was waving them on, her face a picture of panic. But beyond where she was standing, on the other side of the glass, Felix could see why the two men hadn’t yet burst into the restaurant.
His parents had arrived in the street. Felix ran back towards the front window.
“Felix, come on,” urged Georgie. “What are you doing?”
Felix didn’t even answer. He charged to the door, but froze when his hand touched the handle. He was too late.
However much Neil and Olivia struggled, it was no good. Peeking through the slats in the venetian blind, Felix watched his parents being violently pushed to the pavement, face down. His mother looked up as one of the agents pulled plastic hand ties tight around her wrists. For a second, she was staring straight at Felix, but there was no fear in her eyes. Instead, she gave a tiny shake of her head. The agent would have thought it was from the cold of the ground, but Felix knew what his mother was telling him. He shrank back into the protection of the restaurant’s darkness.
“Let’s go,” Georgie called out behind him.
One of Mrs Kai-Ro’s kitchen workers pointed the way out and towards a truck, loaded with Chinese cabbage. Somebody else started the engine.
The last thing Felix saw before he spun round and ran for his life through the restaurant, through the kitchen, out of the back door and into the back of the truck, was his mother mouthing simple instructions:
“Go. Get to Jimmy!”
The next shot ripped through the roof of the cable car. Jimmy pulled his face back. He could have sworn he felt the bullet grazing the tip of his nose. He looked above him, searching for a way out of Paduk’s shooting gallery. The wheels of the cable car screeched on the cables. If he tried to catch hold of one, he’d surely get mangled up in the complex pulley system.
So instead he looked down. It was too far to jump. Way too far. And it wasn’t water below them any more. They’d reached the island. The water’s edge was lined with rocks, then it was pure concrete. Jimmy gulped. He had less than a second to decide which way to go – staying on top of the carriage was not an option. Through the immense noise of the wind and the screeching of the cables, Jimmy’s ear picked out the click of Paduk’s gun. The next bullet was in the chamber. The man was picking his spot.
Suddenly, Jimmy saw his chance. Without thinking, he snapped his legs straight, pushing himself forwards off the roof of the cable car and into the air. The screech of the cables vanished. Wind took its place, rushing through Jimmy’s head. He closed his eyes, trusting himself completely to the instinct that had made him jump.
His fall seemed to last forever, as if time didn’t apply any more. He hurtled through the air. The speed of his fall made his whole body go numb as the air blasted into it. A million thoughts whirled round his mind all at once. He let the bad ones fly out as soon as he’d thought them. There was no time to regret this decision. No time to consider what else he could have done. Only time to beg that he’d survive.
CHAPTER THIRTY – ROOSEVELT ISLAND
Helen Coates moved slowly through Manhattan, keeping to the shadows. Overhead, the lights of a plane disappeared into the clouds. For all she knew, Viggo could be on it, heading back to London. But for now she had to put that out of her head.
She stepped off the pavement to cross Canal Street, but a truck loaded with crates of cabbage rattled past. She pulled herself back violently to avoid getting knocked down. She took a deep breath and jogged on, back towards the safehouse.
When she reached the corner of the street she stopped. She knew immediately that the safehouse had been breached. The discreet sign that Neil Muzbeke had left was clear – leaving the broken window uncovered. But Helen didn’t need it because in the middle of the road was a long black car. With a lurch of dread, she saw two of her best friends being ushered into the back, their hands secured behind them with strips of white plastic.
Her first instinct was to run and try to help them. But she knew there was nothing to be gained from barging in and getting captured herself. She held herself in a doorway, watching, waiting. Gradually, panic crept over her. Where were the others? Where was Jimmy? Where was Georgie? The car drew away like a rat scurrying through the gutter.
Helen could feel herself shaking, but she couldn’t stop it. Every day for thirteen years she had known what it was like to fear for her family. This was worse. She tried desperately to clear her thoughts. But her heart was being attacked by guilt. I should never have left them alone, she thought. Tears gathered in her eyes.
Even once the car was out of sight, Helen held herself back in the shadow of the doorway. She could feel a buzz rising up inside her. It was the terrible thrill of being in danger. It was time to recall everything she had learned all those years ago, before she was a mother, when she had been on active duty as an NJ7 agent, a servant of her nation. Time to do what I should have been doing every day since then, she told herself. Time to serve my family.
Though tears were running down her cheeks, she felt stronger. Then a picture emerged in her head: Neil and Olivia being forced into the back of the car. Something wasn’t right. With everything else burning through her mind – the guilt, the panic, the excitement – she couldn’t see anything clearly. Then it hit her. The white plastic hand ties round her friends’ wrists. NJ7 used metal cuffs.
Whoever had taken Neil and Olivia Muzbeke, it wasn’t NJ7.
When Jimmy opened his eyes he still couldn’t see. The wind buffeting his face had made his eyes water so much that a constant stream of tears flew up to the sky behind him. With a mammoth effort he brought his arm to his face to wipe them
away. At last he could see where he was heading – just in time.
A wave of relief sent a new power through his muscles. He had judged his jump perfectly. He was heading for the domed plastic roof of the Roosevelt Island Tennis Club courts. He turned his shoulder to cushion the impact, then,
SMACK!
His whole skeleton clattered inside his skin. It was the kindest landing he could have hoped for. Hitting the dome at its peak would have splattered his body into a thousand pieces, but he landed just below that. He slid and bumped down the side of the dome. The friction allowed him to slow down more gradually. Effectively, it was like putting the brakes on. Then Jimmy hit the ground with a nasty thud.
He groaned and rolled over, clutching his shoulder. He looked up to the sky, and could just make out a tiny face peeking through the glass of the cable car, way above him. Even from this distance, Paduk did not look pleased.
Seeing him was a chilling reminder. Jimmy hadn’t got away yet. But he’d made it to the island. From here he would be going deeper into the centre of the NJ7 trap – and that was exactly what he wanted. Today was the day he settled this.
Jimmy bulldozed his pain to one side and staggered to his feet. Hardly pausing for breath, he clambered over the low railing of the Tennis Club and broke into a run. At first he had to clutch his shoulder and his running was unbalanced – he’d landed on his right side and it wasn’t ready for any more action yet. But Jimmy forced his way through that. He could already picture the cable car docking at the terminal and Paduk coming after him. In seconds, Jimmy was running normally again.
He ran down the side of the island, heading for its Southern tip. That’s where the waitress at the Oyster Bar had said he’d find the ruin. The image of it blasted at him from the inside with all the force that the wind had put on him in his fall. He ran on as if he could run away from what was inside his head.
To his right was a slim railing separating the walkway from the river. There were posts every few metres along it and on top of each post was a fat seagull. Jimmy raced past them and they each in turn launched themselves into the air, giving Jimmy a fanfare of feathers as he ran.
