Jimmy Coates: Target - Joe Craig

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up his throat.

      Mitchell wanted to shout, but the energy hit him in the head with five times the force of his brother’s slap. Lenny’s back was turned and, without even realising he was going to do it, Mitchell pounced.

      Lenny was a lot taller and three years older, but Mitchell yanked him backwards by the throat and they fell to the floor.

      “Oi!” cried Lenny, elbowing Mitchell in the ribs.

      “How stupid do you think I am?” shouted Mitchell through his teeth. He kicked his brother away and threw himself on top of him. He led with his knee and slammed it into Lenny’s midriff.

      “How do you like that?” Mitchell crowed.

      Lenny rammed his fist towards Mitchell’s face. Mitchell caught it. He had never had this strength before, but he was too angry to notice. Instead, he revelled in his new superiority.

      “I’m sick of you!” he screamed as he pounded his fists into his brother’s face. “This is how you make me feel!” Tears blurred his vision now, but fury kept his arms moving. He was numb inside. The pain that had built up all these years was pouring out. It felt like he wasn’t even in the room, but watching from a distance.

      Then something pricked his senses – a flash of blue reflected in the mirrors and tiles. It bounced around the bathroom and pulled Mitchell out of his frenzy. He sprang to his feet. His brother didn’t move. His eyes were closed and blood covered his face.

      That wasn’t me, thought Mitchell, but at the same time, What have I done? He ran to the living room and smeared his hand across the window. Through the streaks of blood on the glass, he saw an ambulance waiting in the street below. It was surrounded by three police cars.

      Then the door of the flat burst open and Mitchell spun round to see two beefy men in black suits. They were pointing guns at him. His mind went blank. His brother’s battered face appeared before his eyes and he couldn’t think clearly. What was going on?

      Before he could even raise his hands, his knees bent without him telling them to. Then his legs snapped straight and his entire body recoiled backwards – through the window.

      Glass peppered Mitchell as he fell and in his head he heard himself scream. Then he landed – but not on the ground. Something cushioned his fall. He saw a dozen men staring at him with blank faces. Mitchell was lying on some kind of air cushion – it felt like a bouncy castle. Had all this been set up, waiting for him?

      Then one man, tall and broad with a face like a wrinkled toad, pulled Mitchell to his feet.

      “Looks like someone didn’t play nicely,” he said, cracking his jaw. Mitchell could hardly hear for all the electricity running through his head. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Leonard Glenthorne.”

      “Murder?” Mitchell gasped. His hands were shoved behind his back and roughly clasped in metal.

      “Your brother’s dead. Get in the car.”

      “But—” Mitchell’s throat seized up. Nothing made sense. How had they come so quickly? How did they know Lenny was his brother? And worst of all, how could Lenny be dead?

      Mitchell was grabbed on each side by two men. They rushed him to a long black car with leather seats and tinted windows. As his head was pushed down to guide him into the back seat, Mitchell saw a stretcher being wheeled out of the building. On it was a zipped-up, black body bag. On the side of the bag was a thin green stripe.

       CHAPTER TWO – BROTHERS

      UNO STOVORSKY SIGNALLED to his unit to move out. They obeyed almost silently, retreating to the ring of vehicles a safe distance from the building. Stovorsky remained, eyeball to eyeball with Christopher Viggo.

      “Come on,” Saffron said gently to the others, “we should leave them.”

      Yannick nodded and shepherded them through the door opposite the kitchen. But Felix and Jimmy were transfixed.

      “Jimmy!” snapped his mother. “Come here now! You too, Felix.”

      The boys exchanged a glance. They knew they didn’t have a choice, no matter how much they wanted to know what was going on between the two men at the front door. They trudged after the others, into what looked like an unoccupied dormitory. There were four beds in the room, but the sheets were dusty, as if they hadn’t been slept in for years. Eva ran to one and curled up.

      “It’s cold in here,” she squeaked, pulling her blanket round her.

      “There are another couple of bedrooms upstairs,” Yannick explained, though nobody was paying him much attention. As soon as the door closed behind them, the shouting started. The old wattle-and-daub walls were too thick for Jimmy to make out what was being said, but it was clearly a ferocious argument.

      “When I was little we used to have loads of people coming to stay all the time,” Yannick said with a nervous chuckle, as if trying to make sure nobody could hear what was going on in the next room. “For years nobody’s been here but my mother, of course.”

      Nobody else in the bedroom said a word; they were all straining their ears to pick up any clues from next door.

      “So let’s have the girls down here and the boys upstairs. How about that?” Yannick was making a poor job of sounding cheerful. The only reactions he got were distracted grunts and nods.

      Then Jimmy noticed Saffron sitting on the furthest bed, turned towards the window. She was the only person who wasn’t trying to listen to the argument on the other side of the wall.

      “What’s going on?” Jimmy whispered. “Who is this guy, Uno Sto…whatever?”

      Saffron glanced over to make sure nobody else was paying attention. “He’s a French Secret Service operative,” she explained. “They must have tracked us entering French airspace.”

      “I know that,” Jimmy interrupted. “I mean, how come Chris knows him, and what are they arguing about?” Saffron sighed and avoided looking into Jimmy’s eyes.

      “When Chris left NJ7 he needed to disappear. He hid in Kazakhstan for a while, but wanted to use what he knew about NJ7 to put a stop to Ares Hollingdale. So he went to the DGSE.” Her eyes scanned the room. Yannick and Jimmy’s mother were doing their best to stop Felix, Georgie and Eva pressing their ears up against the wall.

      “And that’s when he met this Uno guy,” Jimmy chipped in, to keep Saffron on track.

      “Uno Stovorsky,” Saffron whispered. “Remember his name. He could help us.” Jimmy nodded. “But Chris fell out with the DGSE too.”

      “Why? What happened?” Jimmy implored. “What aren’t you telling me?”

      Saffron stood up and pulled in a deep breath. “Jimmy, they’re arguing about me.”

      Moments later the door opened again and Yannick’s mother entered. “Jimmy,” she grunted in a thick French accent.

      He stepped forward, but so did his mother. “They can’t keep me in the dark,” she muttered.

      Saffron glided out of the room after them, as elegant as ever, to join the discussion.

      “Don’t forget anything, Jimmy,” Felix called out. Jimmy didn’t have to respond. Normally, Felix wouldn’t even have asked – Jimmy would always have filled him in. But the last few days had been far from normal and the information Jimmy would be sharing was bound to be extraordinary.

      “So this is your amazing automatic assassin?” Uno Stovorsky’s eyes seemed to pierce Jimmy’s skin. Jimmy opened his mouth to introduce himself, but before he could speak Stovorsky leapt from his chair. Jimmy’s eyes snapped wide open, catching the glint of a knife in Stovorsky’s fist.

      Jimmy

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