Target (5 page)

“Call that intelligence?” Miss Bennett mocked. “I’ve had enough of your sort of intelligence, Coates.”

“I don’t like your tone, Miss Bennett,” Coates replied calmly, his eyes piercing Miss Bennett’s.

“Why are you even in this office?” she sneered. “A month ago you were sitting at home with your feet up. Do you think your opinion matters? If you’d raised that boy properly we wouldn’t have this problem. You’re no better than Christopher Viggo.”

Ian Coates looked away. Christopher Viggo’s name sent a pulse of anger across his face.

“Miss Bennett, that’s enough,” Hollingdale barked, “lan’s opinion is of the highest importance to me. His loyalty has been tested and he has proven himself.” He rubbed his hands together, every vein clearly visible. His cuff rode up slightly, revealing a small tattoo of a green stripe on the inside of his left wrist. “We don’t know for sure what the French are capable of,” he continued. “Until we do, we must attack Jimmy Coates, not France.”

M
ITCHELL’S PREY LOOMED
large in his binoculars. It was Jimmy Coates. The circle of vision encompassed him like a tightening noose. At first, Mitchell had been surprised when he discovered who his target was. They had crossed paths before. It seemed so long ago that Mitchell had tried to mug him in London, and ended up showing him where the police station was. But that was a lifetime away. Nothing could surprise him now. Mitchell pushed back the memories of his old existence. Those miserable days were over. This was a fresh start.

His room at the Auberge de I’Aubergine overlooked the main square. From here he could keep an eye on anything that went on. The village held no secrets for him. It wasn’t that Beuvron was so small – it was on the cusp of becoming a town – but Mitchell let no detail escape him.

He thought with pride of the hours he had spent in
the grass outside Jimmy’s farmhouse hideaway. His surveillance had even included close observation of the old woman that he now knew was Yannick’s mother. He watched her buy food and clothes for her guests. He listened to her moan about it to the shopkeepers. All the information went towards building a rich picture of Jimmy’s life in hiding.

Mitchell felt a surge of delight as Jimmy took a seat outside the crêper¡e across the square. It was perfect. Jimmy had done the same thing every day for the four days that he and his friends had been allowed out of the farmhouse by Jimmy’s mother. Mitchell had spent the whole night in preparation, banking on Jimmy doing it again today.

Mitchell mouthed the words with him as Jimmy ordered a
citron pressé.
The blend of fresh lemon juice, water and sugar that you mix yourself had become their favourite drink.
Yes,
Mitchell thought,
your last drink. Such a shame you’ll be dead before it arrives.
Then he dropped his binoculars on to his bed and dipped his hand into a long slim pouch of black leather that hung on the bedpost. He drew out three separate sticks of bamboo, each about twenty-five centimetres long.

With the precision of a surgeon, he screwed them together, end to end. He went to the leather pouch once more and brought out a silver ring with a tiny clip attached to it. He clamped it on to the top of his bamboo rod. Finally, he reached up to his own head.
With a deft tug, he plucked out two hairs. His hair was, as always, cropped short. It didn’t matter. The strands were a perfect length for his purposes. He dabbed the ends on the tip of his tongue and secured them delicately across the ring.

What emerged in his hands was a specially adapted weapon of his own design. It was probably the most sophisticated peashooter in the world, complete with a target sight and cross-hairs.

Mitchell moved back to the window. He pulled up the glass just a crack and knelt on the floor. From his pocket he produced a handful of tiny pebbles. Afterwards, there would be no bullet on the scene to arouse suspicion. The pebbles would disappear among the everyday debris of the street. It wouldn’t even be a pebble that killed Jimmy Coates.

There was no question of sympathy as Mitchell loaded a stone into his shooter. Far from it. As far as Mitchell was concerned, Jimmy deserved his punishment.
So you’re 38 per cent human too,
Mitchell thought.

“Well, you’ve had it easy,” he muttered, watching Jimmy leaning back in his chair, comfortable, smiling. “You’re not like me.”

Gently, he raised the bamboo and whispered, “Show time.”

“Deux citrons pressés, s’il vous plâit,”
announced Jimmy to the waiter, his French accent perfect.

“Oh, order one for me too,” whispered Felix, licking his lips.

Jimmy raised his eyes to the sky, “Don’t worry, you’ll get one,” he sighed.

“Oh, you think he knows what I want already?” Felix muttered, watching the waiter walk away.

Against his better judgement, Jimmy found himself laughing. “By the way,” he added, “I think you should put sugar in it this time.”

“No way,” Felix replied. “I like the lemon flavour.”

Jimmy had forgotten how much fun it was when Felix was just being Felix. What’s more, it felt fantastic to be outdoors. Jimmy’s mother hadn’t been able to justify keeping everyone in the house much longer. In any case, Yannick’s mother was being driven mad by having kids around. If they hadn’t been allowed out, she would probably have thrown them out.

In the four days since Viggo and Saffron left for London, there hadn’t been any news from them. Jimmy realised it would take time to gather enough intelligence to raid the Embassy without being discovered, but the waiting was still excruciating. Meanwhile, he and Felix had been taking advantage of being allowed out and not having to go to school.

Now they had a chance to enjoy spring in France. It wasn’t all that hot, but there was enough sunshine
for the crêperie to have umbrellas up over the outside tables. Except for the logo of some French beer company, they could have been giant blue lily pads. Jimmy and Felix made themselves comfortable in the shade. Jimmy was almost ready to forget his troubles.

But something wasn’t quite right.

“What’s the matter?” Felix asked, noting the concern on Jimmy’s face.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Maybe it’s nothing.”

“What’s nothing?”

Jimmy shrugged, but still he couldn’t relax. “It’s my…you know…” he dropped his voice, “…programming. It won’t go away.”

Felix leaned forward. “I thought it would always be there. You have to get used to it. Otherwise you could let it ruin a perfectly beautiful—”

PING!

The noise cut off the end of Felix’s sentence. At that moment, the umbrella that sat in the centre of their table wheeled off its pole.

Felix let out a laugh, half from amusement and half from shock. Jimmy found nothing to be amused about. The umbrella crashed down in front of him. It passed a centimetre from his face. He rocked back in his chair, startled. The spokes of the umbrella dug into the table like darts on a dartboard. The ends were unusually sharp. The umbrella came to rest on its side, the
material sticking up from the table between Jimmy and Felix.

Jimmy leaned forward to regain his balance, but he couldn’t. The back leg of his chair snapped clean off and he clattered on to his back. Then—

PING!

The umbrella from the next table careered downwards. Jimmy watched as its points glinted in the sun. They were heading straight for his face. At the last instant, he rolled out of the way. The spokes of the umbrella smashed on the pavement. Before Jimmy could get up—

PING!

Another umbrella. Then: PING! PING! PING! One after another, every umbrella rocked on its pole and wheeled towards him. Jimmy lunged between the spokes. They came like daggers. He snatched up a chair and used its legs to fend them away. At last, he made it under one of the tables.

The noise of crashing metal gave way to the shouts of waiting staff. Jimmy looked around him at the forest of chair and table legs. Then Felix’s face appeared, red but grinning.

“You OK?” he yelled over the hubbub.

“I suppose,” panted Jimmy. “Except that a bunch of street furniture just tried to kill me.”

Felix roared with laughter. Jimmy didn’t feel like joining in.

Mitchell knelt on his bed, forcing his disappointment down. So that plan had failed. Now he had to press on with a new plan straightaway. There was no time to dwell on his mistakes.

He looked around his room. There was barely enough space for a bed and a sink. It was filthy too, but Mitchell wasn’t looking at that. He was examining the charts and maps that he had pasted up all over the walls. His mission surrounded him.

He tore down one of the maps and spread it out on the bed in front of him. He banged his fist on to it then scolded himself for letting his frustration show. Of course his first attempt hadn’t worked. At the back of his mind he had always known that the plan with the umbrellas had been a long shot. Now he had to get serious.

Mitchell scratched at his heel. The itch was a constant reminder that Miss Bennett was watching him. There was nowhere he could go that she wouldn’t find him. He felt towards her almost the way he would towards a very strict teacher. Facing her without having done his homework was out of the question. But there was a difference. Mitchell
wanted
to complete his assignment. For the first time in his life he felt like he had a real future. He couldn’t wait until his eighteenth birthday. By then his conditioning would have taken over
his entire being. And he’d never again be haunted by the face of his brother.

Mitchell drove those thoughts out of his head. They would destroy his concentration – and Miss Bennett’s task demanded total concentration.

He traced his finger along a line on the map. It represented the road that joined the farmhouse and Beuvron. Jimmy and his friends walked along it every day.
Here?
Mitchell wondered.
A traffic accident?
He pictured the narrow carriageway, the muddy ditch and the poplars that bordered it. He shook his head. That would be enough to kill a normal human, but Jimmy Coates was faster, stronger, with reactions that would see him through almost anything.

Where then?
Mitchell’s finger wandered around the farmhouse in a spiral, searching the fields. It paused over a small collection of buildings.
What’s this?
Mitchell asked himself. He peered closer. It was some kind of industrial site.
The perfect place for an accident,
he thought.
But I have to get closer to the target. How?

He leapt off the bed and crouched low by the window, watching but invisible. He saw Jimmy in a heated discussion with the manager of the crêperie about the broken umbrellas. Felix was stumbling about trying to help clear up the mess. He wasn’t doing terribly well.

Then two girls arrived. Mitchell knew it was Georgie and Eva. He knew too that they were about his age and
that they spent most of their time in the Internet café round the corner. They had obviously heard that something had happened and come to check that Jimmy and Felix were OK.

Mitchell nodded gently, an idea trickling into his head.
Yes,
he thought.
It’s time to make my move.

J
IMMY LAY IN
the dark, staring up at the intricate cobwebs that decorated the ceiling. He was replaying over and over the accident at the crêperie. He tried to bring up exact images. That way he could search them for details he hadn’t noticed before. He wanted to be able to zoom in as if his memories were photographs. Unfortunately, he wasn’t doing very well, but something inside him wouldn’t let him sleep until he’d examined every moment.

“You still awake?” came a whisper through the darkness. It was Felix.

“You can see I’m awake,” Jimmy replied. The curtains at the window weren’t doing a great job of keeping out the moonlight.

Jimmy and Felix were in neighbouring beds in one of the two upstairs bedrooms of the farmhouse. The other room was just for Yannick’s mother. On the other side of the room were another two beds. In one, Yannick’s bulk
heaved up and down to the rhythm of his snoring. The other was empty.

“Do you think Chris will be back soon?” Felix asked. “With my parents, I mean.”

“Oh,” Jimmy answered, distracted from his thoughts. “Oh yeah. Sure. If anyone can do it, he can.”

“Or you,” Felix said quickly. “You could do it. You could do anything.”

“Maybe. I dunno.” Jimmy turned on to his side to face his friend. He smiled and closed his eyes, but opened them again almost straightaway.

“Felix,” he whispered hesitantly, “do you think that was really an accident in the village today?”

“That was so funny. The manager couldn’t believe it when he saw that
all
of his umbrellas had broken!”

“The thing is, though, I don’t think I believe it either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, don’t you think it was a bit, kind of, funny that they all broke? And that the ends were all so sharp? That was really dangerous.”

“Yeah,” Felix replied, the moonlight catching the enthusiasm in his eye, “but you were so quick, you dodged out the way like, like…” he wriggled about in his bed, acting out some of Jimmy’s moves.

“And did you hear the noise just before each of them fell?”

“What noise?” asked Felix, completely tangled up in his bed sheets.

“That sort of pinging noise. As if something was knocking them over deliberately.”

Felix stared at Jimmy, trying to make out whether his friend was serious.

“You mean,” he started, “there was some invisible man, sent by Miss Bennett, who sharpened the ends of the umbrellas then knocked them over, aiming for you?” He pulled a face that stretched one of his nostrils almost up to his eye. “You’re crazy.”

Jimmy let out a deep breath. Maybe Felix was right. There was no rational way to explain his suspicion. But there was a voice in his head that blared out like a trumpet. It told him over and over that when that many umbrellas, with sharpened points, all come within a centimetre of your head, it’s more than a coincidence.

“What about my chair?” Jimmy insisted.

“What about it?”

“The leg snapped. How does the leg of a metal chair snap, unless somebody has weakened it?”

“Wait a minute,” Felix said, sitting up. “How did this invisible man know you were going to sit in that particular chair?”

“He could have done it to all the chairs.”

“Oh,
all
the chairs,” Felix repeated sarcastically. “Then the invisible man
does
exist.”

Jimmy huffed a little to disguise the fact that he was about to laugh. How could he take his worries seriously when Felix was there to make light of them?

“Thanks, Felix,” he whispered. “I suppose I’m just paranoid.”

“Yeah, and don’t tell your mum any of your crazy theories or she won’t let us go out again.”

They both turned over in a fresh attempt to get some sleep. Then Jimmy spoke again, quieter than ever, as if he was talking to himself.

“Felix,” he muttered, “sometimes, just before I go to sleep, I feel like my programming takes me over completely. I don’t feel human at all because I don’t feel anything.”

Felix was silent for a second. Yannick’s snorts filled the room.

“Jimmy, don’t worry,” Felix replied eventually. “You’ll always seem human to me. You
smell
human anyway.”

With that, he burst out laughing – and so did Jimmy.

“That wasn’t me!” Jimmy grinned. “It was Yannick!”

A few days later Jimmy and Felix were hanging out at the lake. In fact, Felix was literally hanging out. He was dangling from a tree trying not to fall in the water below him.

“Jimmy!” he shouted, the branch dipping drastically under his weight. “Get up here!”

Jimmy closed his eyes for a fraction of a second to feel inside himself for that powerful sensation. It washed over him so easily now, and for the time being he was
still able to hold it in check. He ran three strides towards the tree and bounded upwards. His hands scurried up the bark and his legs kept running as easily as if they were on the ground. It was only seconds before Jimmy was as high as Felix. But he didn’t stop.

As he climbed higher he glanced down to see Felix’s amazed expression growing smaller. Looking up, Jimmy could see around the entire lake now. The branches grew thinner, but Jimmy didn’t pause on them long enough for them to break. He kept dashing on to the next one until he could see all the way to the farmhouse and beyond that to Beuvron.

He stopped when he found a sturdy enough place to sit. His breathing was still steady and the wind refreshed his cheeks. His smile had grown with every metre he’d climbed. Then something caught his eye. Between him and the farmhouse he could make out three figures walking towards them.

“Felix!” he called out. “Someone’s coming!” He couldn’t see his friend through the canopy of leaves, but there was something rustling below him. Then Felix’s head popped up right next to him.

“Hey, looks like I have
special powers
to climb trees!” Felix said sarcastically. Jimmy blushed. It was so hard to separate what he was doing because of his programming and what he would have been able to do anyway.

“Oh yeah,” said Felix, looking out at the field below them, “Looks like Georgie and Eva.”

“But who’s that with them?” Jimmy squinted into the sun. The third figure definitely wasn’t Yannick or Jimmy’s mother.

“It’s probably that boy,” Felix grumbled.

“What boy?”

“Don’t you listen to anything?” Felix asked, incredulous. “Georgie and Eva met some boy at the Internet café in the village. He’s English. They’ve been trying to keep it secret from your mum. I think they fancy him.”

Jimmy realised he hadn’t really talked to his sister much lately, and he usually tried to avoid talking to Eva.

“They’re always in the kitchen when I go down for a snack at night,” Felix explained.

“They shouldn’t be on the Internet and they shouldn’t be talking to anyone they don’t know,” Jimmy whispered. The girls were close now and were obviously looking for them.

“Yeah, it might be Miss Bennett in disguise.” Felix made a face then began his climb to the ground. “Carrying a deadly umbrella.” Jimmy waited a moment. He shook off his concern and followed his friend down.

“Jimmy!” shouted Georgie just before she saw him jumping out of the tree. “Oh, hi, this is Mitchell. His family’s on holiday nearby. He wanted to meet you two.”

Standing between Georgie and Eva was a stocky boy with a short haircut. Jimmy did a double take. It couldn’t be…

“Mitchell?” he said. The boy casually raised a hand.

“Hey, I know you,” he said. “I took you to the police station, like, a few weeks ago.”

Jimmy didn’t answer. They had met before. The night NJ7 had first come for him, Jimmy had nearly been mugged by this boy. Jimmy tried to think back, but he had been so scared and confused at the time that he couldn’t make out any distinct memories. He hesitantly shook the boy’s hand.

“That’s a coincidence, I suppose,” Jimmy said steadily, looking him right in the eye.

“Yeah, I’m from North London too.” Mitchell sounded confident and returned Jimmy’s stare. “I overheard English voices, looked round and saw two beautiful girls.” He indicated Eva and Georgie. “I had to introduce myself.”

The girls giggled and hid their faces behind their hands.

“Actually,” said Eva, “/spoke to
him
first. You know, life here isn’t so bad after all.”

Felix shook his head and stuck out his tongue in disgust.

“We’re going riding,” Eva announced, her face flushed. “Wanna come?”

“What, on a horse?” Felix sounded nervous.

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Mitchell said, turning to walk away with Eva and Georgie on either side of him.

Jimmy hesitated. Something was wrong. The boy Jimmy had met in the park when he was trying to find
the police was surly and hated company. Now Mitchell was acting like everyone’s new best friend.

“We should go with them,” Jimmy whispered to Felix. “Make sure nothing happens.”

“You want to sit on a French horse just because some boy fancies your sister?” Felix didn’t look pleased about the prospect of riding.

“I have a bad feeling about him, that’s all.” Jimmy couldn’t tell whether it was his assassin’s instinct or the natural mistrust of a younger brother.

“Whatever.” Felix shrugged and they both set off after the others.

Jimmy’s horse stank and clouds of flies surrounded him, but there was no backing out now. At the stables, Jimmy had settled a price with the man who owned the horses. He suspected it would have cost double if he hadn’t negotiated in French. The mud-clad stable keeper wasn’t too concerned about safety. There were no helmets and he didn’t care what anyone did with the horses as long as they were back before sunset.

The others trotted a little way ahead while Jimmy and Felix caught up, wobbling every step of the way.

“My bum!” Felix cried. “I don’t deserve this kind of pain. My bum’s going to die and fall off.” Jimmy chuckled, despite suffering the same discomfort. But Felix wasn’t finished: “I like my bum,” he went on. “I need it for…sitting.”

Eva was the only one of them who had ridden before, and she was keen to show off her expertise. Jimmy was glad he couldn’t hear her simpering advice. Georgie’s riding was shaky, but Jimmy’s attention was fixed on Mitchell. He didn’t want to take his eyes off him for a second.

At first, the group kept a measured pace and followed the paths, but Eva was quickly bored. “Let’s go for a canter,” she announced. Without waiting for a response she leaned down to open the gate and kicked her heels in. Her horse moved steadily away into an orchard. Mitchell was quickest to follow, much to Jimmy’s frustration.

Jimmy sighed and tried to block out the pain throbbing up from his backside. Why did they make saddles so uncomfortable? The leather creaked as he put every effort into persuading the horse to leave the road. At last he managed it.

Georgie and Felix weren’t having such an easy time.

“This horse is such a donkey!” shouted Felix, flapping the reins to no effect. Jimmy wanted to laugh, but he was too concerned with watching the two riders ahead of him.

“Yours isn’t a horse, Felix,” Georgie corrected him. “You’re on a pony.” Then, desperate not to lose touch with Mitchell and Eva, she shouted, “Wait for us!” But her horse was going nowhere. She threw down the reins in frustration. “This is stupid.”

“I agree,” added Felix. “If humans were meant to ride horses, God wouldn’t have invented motorbikes.”

Jimmy was still waiting for them, growing more and more agitated.

“Jimmy!” shouted Georgie. “We’ve had enough. See you back at the farmhouse.”

She and Felix waved frantically. Jimmy caught her words on the breeze and waved back. On any other day he would have gone with them, but he couldn’t shake his suspicion of Mitchell. It was too much of a coincidence that they had both come to the same village. Was he right to feel so uneasy? Jimmy decided that if he was wrong, and just being paranoid, he wouldn’t lose anything except the feeling in his bum. But if Mitchell had somehow found them deliberately, Jimmy had to find out why. This was his chance.

Mitchell could clearly handle a horse as well as Eva. The pair of them chatted and flirted while Jimmy kept close watch from behind.
How come he can ride so well,
Jimmy wondered,
when he’s a thief from London?

Jimmy bobbed beneath the branches, catching glimpses of Mitchell through the canopy of leaves. When the three of them rode out into the fields of low, green corn it was easier to keep an eye on him. They carried on for most of the afternoon, but Jimmy was never able to catch up completely.

He saw Mitchell pull up close to Eva. Their feet knocked against each other in the stirrups. What
were they saying? Then Eva dug her heels in and sped away with a gleeful squeal. A moment later and Mitchell set off at a gallop in the other direction.
They’re trying to lose me,
Jimmy thought. He would happily have let them go; he had nothing to base his suspicion on but an uneasy feeling, and knew he was no match for either of them on horseback. But they had come so far from the farm Jimmy wasn’t sure of the way back, and besides, something inside him didn’t let him stop.

It was his programming. Of course, thought Jimmy – if he could cook, fence and breathe underwater, why shouldn’t he be able to ride a horse? Eva was nearly out of sight now in a clump of trees, but Mitchell was only a couple of hundred metres away. He glanced over his shoulder, almost teasing Jimmy, tempting him to follow. So that’s what Jimmy did.

The muscles in his legs were taut. His posture in the saddle shifted. Now he was a rider. The horse responded to Jimmy’s sudden transformation. It jerked into a gallop. Jimmy crouched low like a jockey, the horse’s mane brushing his chin, dust flying into his face. The heavy thud of the hooves carried him flying towards the rider in the distance.

They rushed across the countryside, Jimmy gaining ground all the time. Ahead of him, Mitchell reached the edge of the field. His horse leapt effortlessly into the air, soaring over the hedgerow. Seconds later, Jimmy
plunged towards the same obstacle. He gathered his horse, allowing the reins to fall slack in his hands. The horse lowered its head, then almost immediately Jimmy felt the huge force of its back legs surging forwards and upwards. He clung to the saddle with his thighs as they left the ground.