Survival (15 page)

Jimmy Coates and Josh Browder travelled swiftly and
quietly. Browder drove them to Rome Termini Station,
where there were already tickets waiting for them.
Jimmy wondered whether any visitor to Rome had
ever seen less of it than he just had. The efficient
workings of an international criminal organisation had
whisked him through it. He longed to hold on to the
noises, the colours, the traffic, the smells… and the
snatched glimpses round street corners of columns
and white stone ruins: the kind he’d never realised
existed in real life.

Without a word, they boarded the huge Artesia
Express, moments before the train pulled away. The
carriages were gleaming silver with tinted windows and
a distinctive red stripe all along the length of the train.

Browder collected a duffel bag from the rack by the
door and thrust it into Jimmy’s arms. He pointed to the
toilet and grunted, “Get changed.”

The tone of his voice told Jimmy there was no point
asking questions. A couple of minutes later, Jimmy
emerged in an old tracksuit and trainers with a baseball
hat pulled down low. His sweaty, stained desert
camouflage and borrowed boots had undoubtedly
attracted attention at the station.

Browder was just finishing a phone call, so Jimmy
slipped into the seat next to him.
Probably setting up
the next stage of the journey
, Jimmy thought. He was
already starting to feel more at ease. He was on the
move and finally going in the right direction. Still in
silence, Browder produced a loaf of ciabatta bread and
a block of provolone cheese, as if out of nowhere.

“Sorry,” he grunted, concealing a smirk. “No wine.”

Jimmy grinned and tucked in.
I think I’m going to be
OK
, he thought.

They changed trains at Milan, then settled in for the
main leg of the fourteen-hour journey. Before long,
Jimmy was watching a snowscape flashing past him.
So
these are the
Alps
, he thought, shuddering at the
memory of his mountain ordeal. The vibrations of the
train window throbbed through his forehead and when
he sat up he saw a trail of drool down the glass.

“Did I fall asleep?” he asked, stretching and rolling
his shoulders.

“For twenty years,” said Browder with a totally
straight face. “You’re in your thirties with a wife, three
kids and a job cleaning drains.”

“Drains?” Jimmy scoffed. “At least invent something
realistic.”

“Don’t worry,” Browder added, “your wife loves you.
Even if she does come round to my house quite a lot.”

Jimmy sighed and shook his head. “I knew one day I’d
marry a zookeeper.”

“Hey!” Browder protested, barging Jimmy with his
shoulder. Jimmy laughed and snatched a crisp from
an open packet Browder had on the flip-down table in
front of him. It felt so good to be laughing again. It
reminded him of Felix and his life before NJ7 had
come for him. Maybe one day life would be like that
again. Jimmy dwelt on that hope. He promised himself
that he would never let the people he loved be out of
his thoughts.

But since leaving Rome there had been another
person Jimmy hadn’t been able to stop thinking about.

“Josh,” Jimmy said quietly, “do you know what the
effects of radiation poisoning are? The type you get
from uranium or actinium, I mean.”

Browder didn’t look at him, but replied immediately.
“I know what you mean.” His expression darkened.
“Forget Marla, Jimmy. She’ll be dead within a week. Two
at the most.”

Jimmy was shocked by Browder’s bluntness. “You
don’t know that,” he insisted. He could feel his chest
tightening again – that heavy fear that he’d felt slowly
dissolving since he got on the train.

“Radiation poisoning isn’t like chicken pox,” Browder
mumbled.

“Well, can I—”

“There’s nothing you can do,” Browder cut in. Now
he turned and grabbed Jimmy by the shoulders. “And
you shouldn’t have to either. It’s a tragedy, but it isn’t
your fault.” He stared into Jimmy’s face, as if he was
searching for something. “You didn’t do that to her.”

Jimmy crumbled in Browder’s glare. He felt as if
every breath he took was bringing blackness into his
body, where it grew and came to life, consuming him
from the inside. And Jimmy knew the one thought that
was fuelling it.
I didn’t do it to her
, he heard pounding in
his head. He pictured the British rockets speeding
through the air and penetrating the mine complex with
deadly precision.
Ian Coates did
.

“
He
did it,” Jimmy snarled.

“Who?”

“MY DAD!” Jimmy screamed it at the top of his
voice. As he yelled, he thrust the palm of his hand into
the back of the seat in front, powered by the mountain
of aggression growing in his system. The flip-down table
snapped like a cracker.

“
Excusez-
moi
!
” came a high-pitched squeal. It was the
lady sitting in the seat in front. She half-stood and
twisted to look over the top of the seat, down her nose
at Jimmy. Her face was a picture of elderly indignation
– all creases and smudged purple eye-shadow.

“I’m sorry,” blustered Browder in stilted French. “It’s
time for his medication.” The old woman turned again
and sat back down. As soon as she did, Browder
slammed his elbow into Jimmy’s head, twice. “Take two
of these, son,” said Browder, deliberately loudly. “You’ll
feel much better.”

Jimmy took the blows without flinching, too enraged
to fight back. He slumped in his seat, fury boiling under
his skin.

“Risk your own life, boy,” Browder growled, “but
not mine.”

Just then a conductor moved through the carriage,
checking passports. When he reached Browder and Jimmy
he kept moving, winking as he passed by. Jimmy tried to
smile, but he felt like he’d left all of his joy behind in Italy.

In Paris, Jimmy and Browder hurried away from Gare
de Lyon. “There’s a contact waiting for us with a van at
the Sorbonne,” said Browder in a hushed voice. “It’s ten
minutes’ walk. He’ll drive us north, to the boat.”

“What’s wrong with the train?” Jimmy asked, trying
to sound curious rather than suspicious.

“Are you running this operation or am I?” Browder
asked. He said it with a smile though and glanced down
at Jimmy with a sympathetic nod. “Eurostar security,”
he explained. “It’s tight these days. And the roads aren’t
watched so heavily.”

The explanation sounded valid to Jimmy, but still he
could feel doubts mounting. He’d been betrayed too many
times before – once already by Browder. His programming
was growling inside him and he couldn’t think of any
reason to resist what it was telling him to do.

Jimmy stopped suddenly. “Call the contact,” he ordered.

“What?”

“Change of plan. Tell him to meet us there.” Jimmy
pointed across the water, a little way ahead and to his
left, to the Île St- Louis. It looked as pretty as ever – an
island in the River Seine with about seven blocks along
a narrow main street. Jimmy had been there once
before, in very different circumstances. He knew the
island was packed with DGSE safehouses – it was the
last place on Earth the Capita would try to ambush him.

“But that’s not the plan,” Browder protested. “How
about I let you—”

“Do I look like I’m negotiating?” Jimmy’s voice was low
and firm.

Browder threw up his arms in exasperation and
swivelled 180 degrees. “OK,” he declared at last. He
was still shaking his head while he unflipped his mobile
phone and sent a text. The reply came in less than a
minute. “Let’s go,” he mumbled, and marched off
towards the island.

As they crossed the Pont de Sully, Jimmy’s head was
an electrical storm of conflicting urges. Heading into a
nest of DGSE safehouses was good protection from the
Capita, but it was a risk. He felt his muscles preparing
for every possible kind of attack. At the same time his
imagination incorporated each of the six bridges off the
island into a different escape route, plus a few more
through the water.

Suddenly his muscles tightened. He looked up. As the
sun set behind them, it glinted off the windows further
down the street. But one glimmer seemed out of place.
It connected with something at the core of Jimmy’s
brain, which spun it round and spat out a picture: the
long, thin, silver barrel of a sniper’s rifle.

Jimmy turned and ran.

“Hey!” Browder shouted.

Jimmy shut it out. He didn’t care whether Browder
had planted the sniper or somebody else. He just ran
across the cobbles with the power and speed of a
Formula One Ferrari. His leg muscles felt like they would
split his skin.

He rounded the corner, but three black four-wheel
drive Mercedes hurtled towards him, their tyres
squealing like animals at a slaughterhouse. One
mounted the pavement in front of him, barely squeezing
between the bollards that lined the street.

Jimmy didn’t hesitate. He jumped up on to a bollard,
balancing on top like a circus gymnast on a pole. In
strong, precise leaps, he flew from one bollard to the
next, slipping between the cars. Mid-flight, he pushed
himself off the wing mirror of one of the Mercs, then
raced for the other end of the side street.

BAM!

A massive blow crunched into Jimmy’s right hip. He
was thrown up into the air in a giant arc. For a second
he lost all sensation in his right leg, then he landed cruelly,
hitting the stone kerb with his shoulder. But he couldn’t
stop. He could already see the huge black motorbike that
had hit him. It was turning to come back and finish him.

Jimmy staggered to his feet with only one choice: he
limped back towards the main street, eking more speed
out of his battered system with every step. He knew
there would be snipers waiting, but the fear only powered
him to overcome his pain. He flashed past Browder.

“Wait!” the man yelled, his voice betraying genuine
panic. “What’s happening?” He stayed rooted to the spot.

Suddenly there was another shriek of car brakes.
Ahead of him, Jimmy saw a dirty white van jerk to a
halt. The side door slid open. This was his chance.

“The van!” Browder bellowed. “GO!”

Jimmy could hear the motorbikes behind him,
growling like a pack of panthers, and he could almost
feel the snipers’ targets hovering around the back of his
neck, waiting for that one clean shot. He lurched
towards the van. Out of the blackness came a white
hand, reaching for him. The driver gunned the engine.

Jimmy pushed all of his strength into his last few paces,
caught the outstretched hand and dived into the back
of the van. The door slammed shut behind him. He wiped
the sweat from his forehead while the van roared away.

Jimmy’s eyes were watering from the pain in his hip
and his shoulder. He could tell there were other people
in the van with him, but his head was foggy and there
was no light. He wheezed for a few seconds, rolling on
the bare metal until he could calm his body.

Slowly his programming was able to drive away most
of the pain – for now at least – and his night-vision
hummed into action. Two men crouched in front of him,
leaning against the back of the driver’s seat.

Then the van stopped.
What’s happening?
Jimmy
thought desperately. The words set off a chain of vivid
memories – Browder standing in the street asking the
same question.
Why didn’t Josh run?
Jimmy could feel
his brain clearing. Questions attacked him with as much
ferocity as the French special forces. But one stood out:
why would Browder shout for Jimmy to escape without
him, before finding out where the actinium was buried?

Jimmy pulled himself upright into a seated position on
the floor. He pushed himself back, but felt the knees of
somebody crouched behind him and smelt the musty reek
of the man’s breath. The door of the van slid open. Light
streamed in across the faces of the men opposite him.

One of them he had never seen before. He was
young, muscular and dressed in a paint-spattered boiler
suit. And he was clutching a large black rucksack that
looked full, but Jimmy didn’t know of what. Next to him
was Uno Stovorsky.

“
Bonjour, Jimmy
,” he said softly, his expression blank.
He was sitting on the floor awkwardly, with his knees up
and the tails of his usual grey raincoat gathered in a pool
underneath him. His hands were at floor level, by his
waist, and in one of them he gripped a revolver. The
barrel never wavered from Jimmy’s stomach.

Now another man appeared at the door of the van.
Jimmy’s gut lurched when he saw who it was.

“Sorry, Jimmy,” declared Joshua Browder brightly.
“It’s just business.”

The young Frenchman closer to the door rolled the
rucksack out of the van, into Browder’s arms.

“However much money you’ve got in that bag,”
Jimmy croaked, his voice barely under control, “the
actinium is worth a thousand times more.”

“But the actinium was going to the Capita,” Browder
replied, a smile emerging on his lips. “This,” he heaved
the rucksack on to his shoulder, “is all for me.”

Jimmy opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“Business, Jimmy,” Browder repeated, reaching out
to close the van door. “Goodbye.”

“You idiot!” Jimmy yelled, finally finding his voice. “You
betrayed me
and
the Capita? They’ll kill you!”

“They’ll never find me.” Browder gave a nod of thanks
to Stovorsky and hauled the door shut.

“
I’ll
kill you!” Jimmy raged. He made a grab for the
van door, but Stovorsky stuck out his foot and shoved
Jimmy in the chest. At the same time the man behind
Jimmy grabbed his shoulders and pushed him down.
They were back in darkness for only a second before
Stovorsky turned on some dim sidelights.