Joe Craig - Jimmy Coates - Target

“Release the news,” she whispered to a young man in a black suit, who trembled at the woman’s complete authority. “Make sure it reaches France.”

“Yes, Miss Bennett.”

Jimmy was hardly conscious of the thud as the helicopter touched ground. The oleopneumatic shock absorbers of the EC975 were designed for the smoothest of landings. What woke him was the change in the noise of the rotors. The steady drone that had surrounded them since they left London was dying now.

Jimmy shook off his nightmare. As always, he had no recollection of what he had been dreaming, only shortness of breath and a thumping heart – the remnants of his terror. He pulled his blanket tighter round him. What did he have to be afraid of? In the past fortnight he’d crashed through brick walls, breathed underwater and caught a bullet in his hand. Even stabbing a knife into his wrist had done no serious damage. The bloodless slit would heal abnormally fast. The bandage (which his mother had wound too tight) was unnecessary, but it was a comfort to him now. Nevertheless, he feared what might be out there waiting for him.

NJ7, Britain’s most secret intelligence agency, could be anywhere. Their scientists had designed Jimmy to be an assassin when he reached eighteen then sent him to kill seven years too soon. As soon as Jimmy had disobeyed that order, struggling against his physiological destiny, he had become an enemy. And there could be no less desirable opponent than NJ7.

Perhaps even more than that, Jimmy feared what was inside him. He felt so human, but now he knew that part of him was an inhuman power, created to kill.

Everyone else in the cabin was asleep. Christopher Viggo stepped out of the pilot’s seat and stretched, his lithe physique outlined beneath the creases in his shirt. He turned to meet Jimmy’s gaze, gave a tired nod then stalked away. That was the man NJ7 had sent Jimmy to eliminate.

Viggo was fighting to make Britain a democracy again. Under the unlikely cover of running a Turkish restaurant, he had been building an organisation that might one day be able to oppose the Government. It had taken all of Jimmy’s mental strength to reject his first mission and join Viggo’s cause.

Now they had landed, the others quickly woke up. The wind whipped around them as they alighted from the helicopter. Jimmy could almost taste the countryside air, so different from the city they had escaped. They were in the middle of a field and the only building between them and the horizon was an ancient, half-timbered farmhouse, with its upper floor projecting out over the lower one.

So this is what France looks like, Jimmy thought to himself. He had never been out of Britain before. He had never even wondered what it was like anywhere else. Now he realised how strange that was. Perhaps he had always assumed everywhere else would be just like home. Anyway, he was too tired and scared to feel excited about finally being abroad. Besides, he wasn’t on holiday. He was on the run.

Yannick Ertegun, the chef from Viggo’s restaurant in London, led the way. Jimmy walked with his mother, Helen, followed by the dark and beautiful Saffron Walden, who was Viggo’s girlfriend and a vital part of his outfit in her own right. Jimmy’s older sister Georgie followed with her friend Eva, and Jimmy’s best friend Felix Muzbeke stumbled after them, his face scrunched up against the elements.

Viggo hung back from the rest of the group. As they walked through an orchard at the back of the farmhouse, he stopped to fill his arms with fallen branches. Already the internal struggle in Jimmy began again: the agent in him realised he should help Viggo to camouflage the helicopter, but the temptation of food and warmth kept him following the others towards the house. He held himself rigidly in line. Control meant everything.

At the farmhouse door was a tiny woman, who looked like the oldest person Jimmy had ever seen. Yannick bent down to kiss her on the cheek and she clipped him round the back of the head.

“Everybody, this is my mother,” grinned the chef.

Jimmy smiled cautiously at the woman, who scowled as they all shuffled awkwardly into the building. Clearly, she hadn’t been expecting visitors. Despite being large, the interior of the farmhouse was dark and austere. The ceiling dipped at unusual angles as if the central beam were reaching for the fire that dominated the room. It didn’t seem to be doing much to heat the house, thought Jimmy, shivering.

A staircase lurched upwards out of the corner and there was a door at each end of the room. Yannick’s mother trudged through one of them, revealing a glimpse of a large, old-fashioned kitchen. Yannick followed her, pleading and explaining as best he could without being indiscreet.

Soon they were all sitting round the fire with giant mugs of hot chocolate.

“When will we start looking for my parents?” Felix whispered in Jimmy’s ear. Jimmy stared deliberately into the flagstones and shrugged. He had almost forgotten that Neil and Olivia Muzbeke had been arrested for helping him escape NJ7. He had been completely caught up in his own thoughts. He silently scolded himself for being so self-obsessed. Even at that moment, he could feel the ever-growing presence of his powers, deepening the split between his heart and his instincts, his mind and his body. He could control his powers for now, but only by succumbing to them. It scared him beyond anything he had ever felt before to think that he might be relinquishing his humanity.

Whenever Jimmy did think back, he could only relive the last time he had seen his own father. Jimmy could picture in alarming detail Ian Coates’s face as he refused to escape from the British Government with Jimmy. The split inside him was forcing his family apart now too.

Felix started saying something else, but Jimmy hushed him and stood up. There was a tingle in his stomach. The assassin’s instinct again. He’d heard something outside.

“Does anybody else live here?” he asked Yannick quietly.

“No, just my mother.”

“You’re being paranoid,” said Georgie calmly. Jimmy wished that could be true, but his killer instinct had been infallible so far. Then Jimmy’s mother stood up as well.

“I heard something too,” she said.

“It must be Chris coming in,” whispered Saffron.

Jimmy shook his head. His insides were swirling now. “Move to the centre of the room.”

Everyone did as he said except Eva. “This is ridiculous,” she chuckled. “We’re in the middle of the French countryside about a million miles from anywhere. How could they possibly find—”

CLUNK!

The door slammed open. A masked figure in black crashed through with a battering ram. Another one stormed in behind him and dropped to his knees. Almost blending into the black of his gloves and sleeves was a Beretta 99G pistol. Then a dozen identical figures ran in, filling the room.

“Haut les mains!” came a shout from somewhere. Then, in a thick French accent, “‘Andz urp!”

Jimmy could feel the overwhelming power of his killing instinct drumming through his body. But his mind was serene. He stayed as still as all his friends and raised his hands. One thought was utterly clear: This is not NJ7. If it had been, he would have been dead by now. Besides, NJ7 wouldn’t have issued instructions in French.

The group backed towards each other. The shock on their faces changed instantly to puzzlement. Their gasps were drowned out by the protestation from Yannick’s mother. She was screaming her head off in coarse French, while Jimmy was trying to concentrate.

“Ferme-la!” he shouted, then immediately clasped his hand to his mouth. Oh my God, he thought, / speak French.

The front door was flapping open and in strode three more men. Two were dressed in black combat gear just like the others, but they carried FAMAT F9 assault rifles. Jimmy knew this for certain, in the same way he now knew French. It was all part of his conditioning – buried in his head, coming to the surface piece by lethal piece.