скачать книгу бесплатно
Jimmy felt the panic swirling in his chest. He had to get as far away from NJ7 as possible, as quickly as possible. Every second he spent sitting in the back of that car was a second too long.
“Don’t worry,” Froy reassured him. “Your plane was diverted to McGuire because of high winds, but I’m not going to let a little breeze get in our way. I’ve told them to ignore the weather. They’ll find us something.”
How long will that take? Jimmy wondered—though he didn’t dare say it aloud. He scanned the sky. With nothing to distract him, he couldn’t help returning to one thought he wanted more than anything to forget about for now—his father. It still seemed amazing to Jimmy, but Ian Coates had just taken over as Prime Minister of Great Britain.
Already the man had shown that he planned to continue the policy of not letting the public vote. He called it ‘Neo-democracy’ and the more Jimmy found out about it, the worse it sounded. The Government held on to absolute control, with no opposition, and everything was run by the Secret Service.
Even worse than that, Ian Coates had threatened to go to war with France over a tiny misunderstanding. The only thing that had stopped him so far was the fact that the American President wasn’t going to support him unless Britain spent billions of dollars on American weapons.
In spite of all this, the one thing that stuck out for Jimmy was the moment when Ian Coates had revealed that he wasn’t Jimmy’s biological father. Jimmy took a deep breath. It doesn’t matter, he insisted inside his head. He’s nothing to do with me now. Forget his lies. Jimmy longed to believe the words he was repeating to himself. But underneath it, he could feel a mist of confusion. Britain could never be his home as long as the Neo-democratic Government was in power—his fake father included.
Suddenly, Jimmy felt his muscles tense up. He could hear something. A drone.
“Here it is,” announced Froy.
The noise was huge now, and getting louder all the time. The shadow of the plane loomed over them. Then Jimmy saw it—like a sharpened bullet, the EA-22G Growler scythed through the wind. The slim grey fuselage was almost camouflaged against the sky, but the fins were tipped with red and they flashed like flames. Then, with the thunder of the plane touching ground, a glimmer of sunlight caught the emblem on the side of the cockpit—a white star on a navy disc.
Jimmy gasped. For the first time, he was awed by the power of the organisation that was taking care of him now. Colonel Keays hadn’t just used his CIA resources—now he’d mobilised the US airforce. Jimmy felt a smile creep over his face, confident that they would be able to escort him anywhere in the world in safety.
But where? Jimmy laughed at his own stupidity. In all the fuss of escaping NJ7 and the trauma of leaving his family behind, he hadn’t thought to ask where in the world he was going to be taken.
“Where will it…?” he started, almost overcome by excitement. “I mean, where am I…?”
Froy broke into a huge smile.
“I hope you like Mexican food.”
02 PROTECTED OR HUNTED? (#ulink_22cb5b91-21d9-5f89-88cc-dce2e96b109f)
Felix bent double and pressed his hand into his stomach, trying to ease a stitch.
“Wait,” he panted.
“Come on,” insisted Georgie, a couple of paces ahead. “We can’t stop.” She looked around, her face twisted with concern. It was almost fully light now. The shadows no longer offered a place to hide.
“We don’t even know where we’re running,” said Felix, still catching his breath.
“New York’s a big place.” Georgie replied. “We can disappear. But that safehouse is definitely not safe.”
“But where do we sleep? What do we eat? I’m going to need breakfast in a minute and, like, every day for the rest of my life.”
“I don’t know,” said Georgie. She wiped the sweat from her face and Felix noticed her hands were trembling. “We can’t let them take us. We can’t trust them.”
“But we can’t just run in no direction at all, can we?” Felix asked. “This is the CIA—if they want us, they’ll find us. We’ve got no chance.”
Georgie ignored him. She was searching the street signs.
“We need a hostel or something,” she whispered to herself.
“They might even help us,” Felix went on. “They helped Jimmy, didn’t they?”
“We think they’ve helped Jimmy.” Georgie glared at Felix, her eyes full of fear. “But they were meant to be protecting us too. How come NJ7 knew where the safehouse was? If the CIA had been doing their job properly, NJ7 would never have taken your parents.”
Felix didn’t have an answer for that. It was the last thing he wanted to think about and for Georgie to bring it up was cruel. In his head, Felix could see his mother being forced to the ground by those huge men in black suits. He could picture her face trying to reassure him and at the same time urging him to get away. He thought he could remember his father crying out for him, but he couldn’t have actually heard that. By the time Olivia and Neil Muzbeke had been forced into a car, Felix and Georgie had already escaped in the back of a grocery lorry, unseen by the NJ7 agents. Felix’s memory was playing tricks.
The wind swept across Manhattan, straight off the sea. Felix shivered.
“I’m sorry,” said Georgie, seeing the distress on her friend’s face. “I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s OK. They’ve been taken before.” Felix tried to smile, but his large brown eyes remained full of anxiety. “I think it’s their new hobby.”
“Wait,” said Georgie. “What happened to that map your dad gave you just before…you know…”
Felix’s face lit up. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a crumpled leaflet. Their hands scrabbled to open it out. It was a tourist map of Manhattan from the rack in the restaurant beneath the safehouse. It highlighted all of the main attractions and, even better, all the hostels.
“This is perfect,” said Georgie. “Let’s head there.” She stabbed her finger on to the paper, at the north end of Manhattan, in the heart of Harlem.
“That’s miles away,” said Felix.
“The further from the safehouse the better. Do you have any money on you?”
Felix slapped his pockets, then shook his head.
“Never mind,” said Georgie. “We’ll think of something.”
“Don’t worry,” Felix reassured her with a cheeky grin. “I always think of something.”
They set off at a jog again, weaving through the side streets and back alleys, constantly looking over their shoulders. Manhattan was quiet—it was still too early for anybody to be driving around except a few yellow cabs. But they both knew that within the next hour it would come alive with people and cars. If they were still out on the streets then, they wouldn’t be able to spot anybody coming for them until it was too late. They had to get somewhere safe fast.
They rounded another corner, Georgie still running slightly ahead of her friend. With every sound, they imagined the grip of an agent round their necks. In every cab that passed, the driver looked like he was watching them. At the end of their alleyway was a main road. Georgie grabbed the map as they stopped reluctantly. They slipped between a line of dumpsters to be out of sight. The smell was bitter and powerful, but it was the least of their worries.
“Where are we?” she asked, panting hard.
Felix slowly leaned out of the shadows, looking for a street sign.
“Doesn’t look like Chinatown any more,” he started. “But I’m never—”
Something grabbed him under the arm. He tried to shout, but a hand clamped down over his mouth. Georgie looked up in horror. The breath froze in her throat. Felix had disappeared into the blackness of a doorway opposite. Then a white arm reached out.
Georgie shrank back, but the dumpsters blocked her in. She was trapped. She wanted to scream, but when Georgie opened her mouth, nothing came out. The hand stretched closer, spreading its white fingers into a claw.
Then Georgie realised her breathing had steadied and her heart wasn’t pounding. She didn’t feel scared any more, but couldn’t work out why. Then her brain finally caught up with what her eyes had seen—a wedding ring. It sparkled in the light on the ring finger of the hand in front of her, and it was a ring she recognised.
“Get in here now!” insisted a woman’s voice from the doorway opposite.
“Mum!” Georgie whispered, bounding out from between the dumpsters.
“What’s going on?” asked Helen Coates, wrapping her arms round her daughter. “Are you OK? And where’s Jimmy?”
“He’s OK,” Felix started, almost breathless with excitement. “He must have planned this whole thing with the CIA without even telling us about it, and then we saw him being shot—but not really shot. And he fell backwards into the river and it really looked like he was dead—but we knew he wasn’t, I mean, he isn’t, because he left us a message before he did it and we worked it out. It was pretty cool the way he fooled them.”
“Wait, slow down,” said Helen. “He was shot?”
“Yeah,” Felix replied. “But it must have been with fake bullets or something.”
“So where is he now?”
“If we’re right,” said Georgie, “then he’s with the CIA.”
“Of course we’re right,” Felix insisted.
“So what are you two doing running away from the CIA?”
Georgie and Felix hesitated, and looked at each other. “Have you seen them?” Georgie asked. “Are they really after us?”
Helen wiped her face with her hands. Very slowly, she nodded. “I’ve been tracking you from the safehouse.”
Georgie knew her mother used to be an NJ7 agent herself years and years ago, but she was still impressed.
“You’ve had two agents on your tail as well,” Helen went on. “If they’re as good as I think they are, they’ll have accessed the satellite surveillance by now. They’ll be here any minute.”
“So what do we do?” Felix gasped.
“Quick,” Georgie whispered. “We should get moving.” She was about to dash back out into the alley, but her mother caught her by the arm.
“Wait,” said Helen firmly. “Why are you running? What do you know that I don’t?”
“The safehouse,” Georgie answered straightaway. “These men came and we had to escape. But they got Felix’s parents.”
“I know,” Helen replied. “I saw it all.”
“You were there?”
“I couldn’t find Chris at the airport, so I was going back to the safehouse. I’d reached the end of the street when I saw the men taking Neil and Olivia. I’m sorry, Felix.” She put a hand on his shoulder and crouched down to look in his eyes. “They’re going to be OK. We’ll find them and sort all of this out. It might take a little time, that’s all.”
Felix looked away. He didn’t like being forced to think about it.
“If the CIA is on our side,” he asked, a little break in his voice, “how come NJ7 knew where the safehouse was?”
“I don’t know,” said Helen. “It could be a million reasons. It might not even have been NJ7.”
“What?” Felix gasped.
“I watched those men. Their methods were…” She searched for the right word. “…different. But NJ7 can’t have a lot of agents posted in America. Most likely, they had to employ MI6 to do the work. Or…” She paused, as if she didn’t want to continue. “Or it could have been the French.”
“What?” Georgie exclaimed. “What are the French doing here?”
“Everything they can to stop America helping Britain.”
“What have my parents got to do with that?” Felix asked.
“Nothing,” Helen sighed. “But the French know about Jimmy. If they can make it look like the CIA failed to protect his friends, they might be hoping Jimmy will turn against America and go back to France.”
Felix’s face was scrunched up in confusion. “Why can’t anything ever be what it looks like?” he whispered.
“You’re right,” Helen agreed. “Look, what do we know for sure?” She counted off the items on her fingers as she went. “First, the safehouse isn’t safe. Second, the area is crawling with agents of all kinds, and third, the CIA is the only organisation likely to protect us.”
“OK,” Georgie muttered, thinking hard. “I suppose we should go with the CIA. I don’t trust them, but at least we’ll get more information that way. We can ask them about Jimmy. That’s the only way we’ll be certain.”
“We are certain,” Felix insisted. “There’s no way Jimmy would let himself be shot like that unless it was on purpose.”
“OK, Felix,” Helen reassured him. “I’m sure you’re right. But in any case, the best way to find out whether we can trust Colonel Keays and his agents is to keep them close. If we run, we’ll never know if they want to protect us or kill us.”
Georgie drew in a deep breath and took a long look at Felix.
“I suppose they were going to catch us soon anyway,” she said. “There’s no way two kids can hide from the CIA.”
“I disagree.” A man’s voice with a New York accent interrupted them. Georgie and Felix spun round to see a thin, chiselled man leaning casually on the dumpster opposite. He was wearing a plain black suit. “I thought you were doing a pretty good job.”
Then he put his mouth to his lapel and whispered into a small microphone, “We got ’em.”
03 NEPTUNE’S SHADOW (#ulink_69e87e5f-44f4-5d44-8a66-2cc846f74bb1)
At 800 kilometres an hour it can be hard to make out what somebody’s saying to you. Jimmy shifted the earpiece in his helmet. It obviously wasn’t designed to fit the head of an eleven-year-old. The wind and the plane’s engine combined to create a powerful roar. Jimmy wanted to concentrate on looking for a break in the clouds beneath them. Every now and again they offered a glimpse of an incredible sight: America’s east coast from 13,000 metres up. But the Growler wasn’t designed for passengers to enjoy the view. With all the dials and switches packed around him, Jimmy found it hard to see anything outside the plane except miles and miles of bright, empty sky.
The plane had only four seats, set out two by two. Jimmy was strapped in tight directly behind Froy. Next to Froy was the pilot, another CIA agent whose name Jimmy didn’t know. He couldn’t even see the man’s face from where he was sitting, just some wild strands of black curly hair creeping out from under his helmet. The seat next to Jimmy was empty.
In the three hours since the pilot had picked up his new passengers, he and Froy had done nothing but argue.
“I told you,” Agent Froy shouted into his headset, “there weren’t any other planes available.”
“So because the hangars were empty you decided to pluck a ride out of the sky?” The pilot’s voice was gruff and Jimmy placed his accent from one of the Southern states. “This isn’t American Airlines. I’m not here to take you and some kid on vacation.”
Jimmy gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to get involved—he was just pleased that at last they were getting wellaway from New York. But Froy was steaming. “You want me to tell Colonel Keays you’re giving us grief?” he yelled.
“Don’t you get it?” came the other agent’s retort. “This plane is still on an operation! I haven’t delivered my package!”
“Give me a break, Bligh,” Froy sighed. “You’re on your way home, you needed to refuel anyway and you were up in the air again in under a minute. What’s your problem?”
“My problem? First of all, I’m not on my way ‘home’. I’m on my way to the data analysis centre in Miami. To drop you over sunny Me-hi-co is a 2500-mile round trip out of our way.”
“Excuse me,” Jimmy asked meekly, “Did you say drop us over, or drop us off?”
“I said drop over and I meant drop over, kid. That’s a parachute strapped to your back.”
Jimmy felt the square pack pressing into his shoulder blades and felt like an idiot for asking.
“And that’s another thing.” Bligh took a deep breath then blew straight on. “This is a spy plane. I’m meant to stay above observable altitude. That’s above radar, above the clouds, above everything. I was meant to refuel in-flight and I’ll have to drop again so you can make the jump to the ground. But coming down sucks! The minute I dip low enough you can forget about the enemy needing radar. My grandmother could have seen us back there—and she’s blind!”
