Survival (3 page)

Felix Muzbeke’s fingers trembled on the glass of the
door. Usually he had no doubts about walking into a
restaurant, but tonight he hesitated. His arm seemed
frozen. He stared at his reflection: large brown eyes a
little too far apart and a chaos of black frizz on his head.
But in his mind he was seeing something else.

He was remembering another glass door just like this
one, nearly five thousand kilometres away in Chinatown,
New York. And he could see the scene that he’d replayed
in his imagination so many times. Hiding in the darkness
when that long black car pulled up. The two huge men in
black suits who’d calmly stepped out, grabbed his parents
and forced them to the ground. His mother looking up
from the pavement, signalling to him to escape.

“It’s OK,” came a whisper from behind him, startling
him out of his memories. “It’s not like Chinatown.” It
was Georgie.

Although he was a couple of years younger, these days
Felix felt almost as close to Georgie Coates as he always
had to her brother, Jimmy. And behind Georgie stood her
mother, Helen. Both offered the same reassuring smile,
lips pressed together, concern in their eyes.

So Felix opened the door and entered one of the
few remaining sushi restaurants in Soho, in Central
London. There was a time when the place had been
packed with them, when there would have been
hundreds of people around to eat in them as well –
tourists, locals, shop workers. But Felix and Georgie
had never seen it in those days and tonight Brewer
Street was deserted. The buildings twisted above
them, Victorian and Georgian styles butting edges like
brickwork pick ‘n’ mix.

Before Georgie and Helen followed Felix in, they both
instinctively glanced up and down the street. They all
knew they were watched every moment by NJ7, either
on camera or by field agents. Checking over her
shoulder was an old habit for Helen and had become a
new one for Georgie. A habit it was safer not to break.

Just as Georgie stepped over the threshold of the
restaurant, a man swept along the street so fast he
was already past them. But Georgie heard the echo
of his whisper:

“Nasu Miso.”

Nasu
Miso
?
Georgie repeated the words in her
head. Was it some kind of message, or just a foreigner
saying “excuse me”? She watched the man’s silhouette
marching away along the street. His body and head
were both round – like a satsuma balanced on a melon.

Her mother hurried her into the restaurant.

It was only a small room, with a low bar and about
thirty stools, all of them empty. A conveyor belt snaked
its way through the place, carrying dozens of small
dishes, each loaded with different morsels. Japanese
waiters with crisp white coats and stern expressions
hovered about, their arms behind their backs.

“Three green teas, please,” announced Felix
nervously, perching on the nearest stool.

They all knew they weren’t there to have a meal. They
just had to look like they were, for the sake of the NJ7
surveillance. Georgie knew they were all thinking about
the same thing: whether the man they would be
meeting could find Felix’s parents. He was from a
French charity that specialised in tracking down people
who had been made to disappear by the British
Government. It all made Georgie feel sick, not hungry.

She’d hardly sat down when her mother announced,
“OK, let’s go.”

“Wait,” Felix blurted. “Aren’t we…” He looked around at
the waiters. They were all watching. Felix knew he couldn’t
say anything, but his face was a picture of anxiety.

“He’s just late,” Felix whispered. “We should wait.
This could be the only way to—”

Helen hushed him with a smile. She’d taken a single
dish from the conveyor belt: chunks of aubergine in a
gloopy-looking sauce, their purple skins glistening in
the low lighting.

Georgie glanced at the menu and scanned the
pictures. There it was. “Nasu Miso,” she mumbled
under her breath.

“So let’s go,” Helen repeated softly. She slipped her
fingers under the dish and pulled out the three cinema
tickets that had been concealed there. “We don’t want
to miss the trailers.”

As Helen, Georgie and Felix took their seats in the
centre row of the cinema, the opening credits were
already finishing. A black and white title card announced
that the film was called
The Lady From Shanghai
, then
the actors started talking in American accents.

“What sort of cinema is this?” Felix whispered. “How
come they’re allowed to show American movies?”

“Old films are OK,” Helen whispered back. “This was
made in the 1940s.”

Felix scrunched up his face, as if the images on the
screen were giving off a bad smell.

“They expect people to sit through a movie that’s older
than me, not coloured in and about some Chinese woman?
No wonder the place is empty.” He slumped down and
started fiddling with the tattered velvet seat cover.

In fact there were a few other people there – a
solitary bald head in the front row that reflected the
flickering light from the film and two girls a few years
older than Georgie. Felix thought they were probably
students and wondered whether they had boyfriends.
He was so desperate to think about anything except the
reason they were there that he forced himself to pay
attention to the movie.

Then came a sharp whisper from the row behind.

“Don’t look round.”

It was a man with a French accent. Felix and Georgie
froze in their seats, but Felix couldn’t help very slowly
trying to glance over his shoulder.

“Enjoying the film?” snapped the man behind them.
He leaned all the way forward, until Felix could smell the
popcorn on his breath. Felix quickly turned back, before
he’d caught a proper glimpse of the man. Helen didn’t
turn round at all, even when she started speaking.

“I assume you got my message?” Helen began.

Felix felt his blood fizzing with excitement. Maybe the
man already knew where his parents were. But his
hopes died almost immediately.

“A lot of people have disappeared since this Government
came to power,” the man said. “My organisation is
overstretched already. Every day we get new messages
begging for help to find family members, friends, teachers.
Thousands of them. Anybody with any views this
Government doesn’t approve of. Anybody who shows any
kind of support for Christopher Viggo. They all disappear.
What makes you think your case is so special?”

“If there’s nothing special about our case why did you
agree to meet us? Why take the risk?” countered Helen.

“In your message you said you thought NJ7 might use
your friends for some political purpose. That’s unusual.
What did you mean? These people weren’t politicians.
Were they public figures? Scientists perhaps?”

“No.”

“Then don’t waste my time.”

Felix heard the man heave himself to his feet. He
wanted to reach back and grab him, or shout out –
anything to get the man to stay and help them. Then, to
his shock, Helen Coates spun round and stated loudly:
“I used to work for them.”

The man slowly walked back to them. The bald man
at the front of the cinema turned round and gave a
loud “Shh!”.

“For this boy’s parents you mean?” asked the French
man, crouching again behind Helen’s seat.

“No – for NJ7.” There was a pause, filled only by the
voices from the film. “Many years ago. I was NJ7, but I left
when…” She stopped, suddenly wary of her surroundings.

“It’s OK,” the man reassured her. “This building still
has walls lined with lead. It makes it difficult for them to
listen in or to watch without having an agent inside.”

“Well, that’s all.” Helen added no more details.

“I see.” The man pondered for a moment and shovelled
in a fistful of popcorn. “It makes sense now. Your method
of communication, you demanding this meeting…”

While the man considered everything, Felix couldn’t
help peering round. He didn’t want to miss a single
word. Now for the first time he got a proper look at
their contact’s face: podgy and sullen, with a neat,
blond moustache.

Suddenly the moustache twitched. “Neil and Olivia
Muzbeke could be more significant than I first thought,”
the man announced.

Felix shuddered slightly at the mention of his parents’
names.
They
are significant
, he insisted in his head.
“You’re going to help us?” he exclaimed, with a surge of
energy. He could barely keep his voice to a whisper.

The French man ignored him and spoke directly into
Helen’s ear.

“You said in your message they were taken in New
York, so they could be at any one of dozens of British
detention centres all over the world. But from what
you’ve told me I don’t think they’ll be dead. Yet.”

Felix felt a lump lurching up in his throat. He fought
back tears.

“If I need to contact you again?” asked Helen.

“You’ll never see me again,” replied the French man.
“But somebody will contact you.”

He left them with instructions to stay until the end of
the film and go straight home afterwards. Felix sat in
the darkness thinking of nothing but his parents and
how wonderful it must be to be French.

Jimmy opened his eyes. He was surrounded by a
whiteness so intense that at first it hurt the backs of his
eyes. He tried to look down at his body, but moving his
head was awkward, as if it was being held in place by a
surgical clamp. Every bit of his skin was prickling from
the cold. It grew more acute the more awake he
became, until it was the pain of a thousand stabs.

The pounding of his heart and the flow of blood
through his ears were the only sounds. Beyond that
was unwavering silence. His slightest movement caused
a low creak that was like a hurricane in comparison.
What is that
?
he asked himself. Then he realised it was
the noise of densely packed snow shifting.

Only now did Jimmy remember the details of his
crash and that he must be suspended in a snowdrift in
the Pyrenees. Every sensation became less disturbing
because he could explain it. But then he was attacked
by another memory – the reason he was here in the
first place.
Britain is going to attack France. How long
have I been unconscious? I have to warn the French
.
For all he knew he could be too late.

Jimmy tried to raise his right hand to wipe his face,
but the weight of snow packed in around him held it
down. He jerked it free, sending a stab of agony through
his ribcage.

He struggled to think clearly. He didn’t even know
which way was up. He spat out a globule of saliva. His
mouth was so dry it took some effort. The spit dribbled
up his cheek, then froze just below his eye.

Great
, he thought.
I’m upside-down
.

At last he loosened enough of the snow around him
and tumbled backwards, just managing to avoid landing
on his head. It was only a short fall, but the impact
doubled every pain in his body. He gripped the right side
of his ribcage and let out a cry of agony that rang off
the cliff faces and echoed back to him.

The world was still almost completely white. Plumes of
mist swirled around him, only parting for fleeting seconds
to reveal glimpses of the mountain peaks. Massive rock
formations, hundreds of times the size of Jimmy, poked
their heads out of the whiteness to peer down at him,
then disappeared again as if they’d seen enough.

Apart from these flashes of clarity, Jimmy’s visibility was
less than a couple of metres. His body had developed the
ability to see in the dark far better than any normal person
and he had used it to escape some nasty situations in the
past. But this wasn’t darkness – it was the opposite.
His night-vision wasn’t going to help him here.

He glanced back and just made out the hole where
he’d been stuck. Buried about half a metre into a wall of
snow and ice was a cavity roughly the shape of Jimmy’s
inverted body, with extra holes where he’d wriggled free.

He struggled to his feet, still clutching his ribs.
Without realising he was doing it, his palms were
prodding around the bones. When he came to the
origin of the worst pain he winced and let out another
cry.
Two cracked
, he heard himself thinking. He knew
his programming was evaluating his condition and
keeping him alive. Without it he would certainly have
frozen to death hours ago.

He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and
tried to calm down. He took several deep breaths, but
every gulp of air chilled his gullet. Now he was out of the
shelter of his snow hole, the wind brought the
temperature plunging down. And Jimmy felt it threatening
him. His shivering was brutal and uncontrollable. Then he
looked down at his hands and knew that two cracked ribs
were going to be the least of his problems. The ends of
his fingers had turned yellow and white.

Immediately Jimmy found himself marching away
from his snow hole. Every step sent a severe stab of
agony from his feet. He assumed they were turning the
same colour as his fingers, but he didn’t have any choice
but to keep going. He deliberately planted every pace
more firmly, almost revelling in the torture, challenging
his programming to lessen the anguish. It was the only
way he could make himself carry on walking.

Soon he developed a rhythm, then at last his
programming swelled inside him. It felt as if he was
growing an extra protective layer against the cold –
almost like a fleece just underneath his skin. But still the
wind bit into him, attacking every pore.

The further he walked, the more the snow around
him revealed blackened corners of debris, like spots on
a Dalmatian. A few paces on he saw the wreckage. It
was a mess of ashen detritus and twisted metal, hardly
recognisable as a plane. It might have been invisible in
the snow except for fragments of metal shimmering
under the thin layer of frost and blackened, burnt-out
corners flapping in the wind.

Jimmy rushed forwards as fast as his body would allow.
He crouched among the wreckage, desperate for some
shelter, and dug around the ash and snow looking for
anything that could help him. He tucked his hoodie into his
trousers and scooped up armful after armful of ash from
inside the body of the plane, stuffing it down his top for
added insulation. Some he forced down his trouser legs
too, until he felt like he was wearing a fat suit.

His hands were virtually useless now. He had no
sensation in them except throbbing agony and couldn’t
flex his fingers. Nevertheless he forced them into the
snow and shovelled.

The only recognisable piece of debris he pulled from
the wreckage was a half burned, blackened, in-flight
washbag. The cloth cover had protected its contents
surprisingly well. Jimmy pulled out an eye-mask, a mini-
toothbrush, a tiny tube of toothpaste and a shoehorn.

With a rush in his veins, he snapped the shoehorn in
two and used the elastic from the eye-mask to strap the
pieces to the soles of his shoes. The upside-down curved
shape would dig into the ice and give him vital extra grip.

Then he snatched up the travel-size tube of
toothpaste, squeezed it in his fist and forced the
contents down his throat.

Take all the energy you can get
, he told himself.
You’ve got some walking to do
.

The waves attacked the shoreline with such ferocity, it
was as if the water was angry that it couldn’t reach any
further. For all its might, it couldn’t change the fact that
just a few metres away was the edge of the largest
desert on Earth. This was the battle line where
thousands of miles of water met thousands of miles of
sand – the West Coast of Africa.

On a mound overlooking the beach stood a single
figure, lean and supple. She seemed to bend with the
wind, not letting it bother her, and held a Zeiss-Ikon
rangefinder steady at her eyes. Behind her trailed a
stream of hair as black as her skin. Against the sand,
her limbs stood out like charcoal twigs on snow.

Suddenly her whole body stiffened at what she saw
in her scopes.

Through the thunder of the waves approached a ship
so powerful and furious it looked like a salivating beast
on its way to fight the whole of Africa single-handed. A
Type 48 destroyer; 7500 tonnes of warship. She
recognised the curious straight edges of the bridge
section and the slim, arrow-like construction of the bow.
From the centre rose a huge mast, which was more like
an Egyptian monument. Radar balloons stuck out on
either side and when the sun hit them they glinted like
scowling eyes.

The destroyer was charging through the swell of the
ocean towards the shore. She estimated the rate at
over 30 knots. And at the sharp point in the front of the
ship flew a bright Union Jack flag.

The British are coming
, the girl thought, fear
creeping into her joints.

She looked to her left, down the coastline, and
adjusted the triangulation of the rangefinder. From
here she had the perfect view of the only buildings for
several kilometres. A couple of heavily marked tracks
scarred the sands to the south and led to parallel lines
of high fences. Within that was a complex of low
buildings, connected to a dozen vast warehouses that
backed on to the water. And there were two concrete
towers supporting crude look-out stations, both
topped by sun-bleached flags of red, white and blue –
the French Tricolore.

Despite the distance, the girl could also make out
human figures around the outer fence. Were they
running? Yes. That’s when she knew for sure.

Mutam-ul-it was preparing for an attack.

So should we
, she thought, steeling herself.
Time to
raise the alarm
.