Revenge (11 page)

From the top of the Cranberry Tower in Brooklyn Heights, the view of Manhattan was spectacular. But nobody ever came up to see it. According to public records, the building didn’t even exist – despite the fact that it was pretty hard to miss. All seventy-eight floors of it. Among the exclusive residential enclave, this was the only building that was strictly business – and it was Government business.

Zafi picked it out from over a mile away – it was the only building in the area without ‘Keep Clear’ signs covering every fire door. But Zafi had the benefit of an aerial view, in restricted airspace. She pointed at the building out of the side of the helicopter as the door slid open. The pilot nodded patiently. He’d seen it too.

They buzzed down like a bee circling a flower. The more the tiny helicopter rocked, the more Zafi smiled. To her left sat Uno Stovorsky, a senior agent in the French Secret Service. He’d turned green as soon as
they left the ground in Paris. In contrast, Zafi loved flying and found it hilarious to listen for Stovorsky’s groans over the white noise of the flight.

As well as Zafi, Stovorsky and the pilot, there was a fourth man. He was posing as a diplomatic attaché, but really was just cover to get Zafi into the country as his daughter. He’d be watched closely for his whole stay in the US, while Zafi would be left to move through the city unobserved. The Americans were never smart enough to suspect that a child would be on a mission.

And Zafi was on a most vital mission.

The helicopter landed with a bang and bounced up a couple of times. The three passengers jumped out even before it had come fully to rest. Zafi ripped off her helmet and walked with her ‘father’ across the asphalt, following Stovorsky. She attempted in vain to smoothe her hair down and tried not to think about the horrific outfit she was wearing as part of her cover – white frilly socks, a tartan skirt and a white blouse buttoned all the way to the top.

A woman was there to meet them. She was in her thirties, wearing a black business suit, too much makeup and her hair in a tight bun. She ushered them as far from the helicopter as possible – right to the edge of the roof. The noise of the chopper, combined with the blustery wind, made conversation almost impossible, so it was understandable that this woman didn’t waste time on niceties.

“The President was upset when he read your message,” she yelled. “Britain is an ally. Why go to war with them?”

“It must be the season,” Stovorsky barked back. His long grey raincoat wrapped around him in the wind. “If the President is on Britain’s side, why did you arrange for us to meet with you?”

“Just because we are friendly with them in public, it doesn’t mean we can’t hear arguments from both sides – in private, of course.” The woman’s face still revealed no emotion.

Stovorsky looked back at Zafi. She smiled sweetly, as if she hadn’t heard a word. Stovorsky smiled too, knowing that she had understood everything. He turned back to the American, his expression serious again.

“So can we count on the President’s support?”

“President Grogan has considered your position,” the woman announced. “I’ve been instructed to tell you that current US policy is not to intervene in foreign conflicts. However, the President places great importance on the historical friendship between our two nations.” She reeled off her speech as if the words meant nothing to her. “Therefore, he would like to offer you a package of the finest military hardware the US industry has to offer.”

“How much?” snarled Stovorsky, without missing a beat.

“Eighty billion dollars.”

“Tell Grogan that if I’d wanted to go shopping I would have landed at Bloomingdales.”

Before the woman could even draw breath, Stovorsky spun round. He winked at Zafi and marched back towards the helicopter, signalling to the pilot to start it up again. Zafi fluttered her eyelashes at the American woman, but didn’t move. Nor did the man next to her. They stood together as Stovorsky issued one more instruction. His words were almost lost in the wind.

“Look after my new attaché and his daughter!” he hollered, taking his seat in the helicopter. He was quickly several metres off the ground. “Show them the sights – especially the art galleries.”

Jimmy felt the rumble of a helicopter in the air. He instinctively ducked his head and sidestepped into the shadow of a doorway. Then came the swish of a rotor overhead. Jimmy kept his face down towards the pavement so that it was invisible from above.

“Ha! Don’t worry,” chuckled Colonel Keays. “It’s one of ours. You’ll find nothing but CIA choppers in the air round here today. Even the birds are scared of us.”

Jimmy trusted what the man was saying, but still couldn’t bring himself to step into the open until the helicopter was gone. He watched it pass across the crack of sky between the skyscrapers. Unfamiliar
judgements throbbed in his head:
Looks like a Bell 450
armed reconnaissance helicopter
, he thought.
Definitely
US army
.

“Nobody from NJ7 is anywhere near here,” Keays added, reading Jimmy’s expression. “I made sure of that.”

“Come on,” urged Viggo. “Let’s keep going. You’re the one who insisted on being at this press conference.” He looked as nervous as Jimmy.

The three of them marched down 6
^th
Avenue, hunching their shoulders against the furious wind. The power of Jimmy’s obsession had drawn him here. Something inside was forcing him to follow this overpowering sensation of doom. It could lead to Jimmy preventing the murder of the President or it could lead to nothing at all. Either way, he had to find out – the torment of the images in his head made it that way.

They crossed 51
^st
Street, then 52
^nd
. Apart from them, the place was deserted, despite it being the middle of the day. These few blocks in midtown Manhattan had been ringed by a security cordon for hours.

“Don’t people want to come and cheer the President when he arrives?” Jimmy asked, kicking at an empty can. The clatter echoed against the buildings.

“Sure they do,” Keays replied. “That’s what we have a team of actors for.”

“Actors?” Jimmy thought he’d misheard because of the wind.

“Yeah – they cheer when I tell them to cheer, and they cheer right.”

“What do you mean they cheer right?”

“You know, they cheer so it looks good on Fox News. Normal people don’t do it right.”

Jimmy was about to question him further, but Viggo cut him off.

“You won’t understand how they do things here, Jimmy,” he said. “This is a real democracy.”

“And soon,” Keays added, “you and your friends will be able to enjoy it. Preparations are under way. We’ll relocate you and you’ll be able to live almost as if you were American.” He looked very pleased with himself, then he quickly added, “You could never be completely American, of course. That’s not the way things work in a free country.”

Jimmy didn’t fully understand what Keays was saying. He tried to feel happy about the chance to escape to a new life, but inside him his thoughts weren’t connecting with his emotions. It felt wrong. He didn’t want to be American or even nearly American. The more he thought about it, the more he realised that he didn’t even want to go into hiding. What sort of life was it to pretend to be someone else and live every day in fear of being discovered?

Jimmy wanted to be himself, but it was becoming harder and harder to work out who that was. Suddenly, he stopped dead. It was as if his legs had been frozen. He stared up at the street sign.

“This is it,” he gasped.

“What?” asked Viggo, but he didn’t need an answer. He followed Jimmy’s stare and knew instantly what was wrong.

It was the same as any street sign in Manhattan. They all have the same design: white lettering on a green background. But to Jimmy, this sign was more chilling than having a gun in his face. They were standing on the corner of 53
^rd
Street. Above them, on the sign, was a white 53 surrounded by green. It could have been a precise copy of one of the pictures Jimmy had drawn over and over in his notebook. Even the way the light reflected off it seemed familiar to him. It was already inside his head.

“Let’s go,” Viggo ordered.

They turned together into 53
^rd
Street. One feeling gripped Jimmy’s muscles: determination to find the assassin who was here to kill the President. He was convinced now more than ever that there would be one hiding somewhere in the Museum of Modern Art. He had to stop them.

53
^rd
Street was lined with CIA agents. Jimmy thought to himself how similar they looked to the men and women of NJ7 – the lean physiques, close-cropped hair and black suits. Only the green stripes were missing. To Jimmy, it was just one more way that Britain and America were more alike than he would have guessed: the dirty streets, the cameras tracking
every move, the Security Services controlling what was seen on TV. He tried to remind himself that instead of the Green Stripe, the Americans had freedom.

Jimmy flashed his pass at the team on the door. Keays and Viggo followed him in.

“Where now, Jimmy?” Keays whispered. “Where is your sixth sense leading now?”

Jimmy ignored the man’s mocking tone. Why did he seem to be enjoying this so much?

The lobby of the Museum of Modern Art was a large white hallway leading to a reception desk and a staircase up to the main part of the museum. Jimmy wandered towards the stairs, looking around him all the time, searching for anything that would give him a clue about where to go.

“I don’t recognise any of this,” he whispered, almost to himself. Then he noticed a line of CIA agents all eyeing him suspiciously. Jimmy shuddered at the thought that any one of them might be connected to NJ7 somehow.

“It’s all right boys,” Keays reassured them. “Show them your pass, Jimmy.”

Jimmy did, breathing deeply. It felt good to know that Colonel Keays was protecting him.

“Sir,” replied one of the agents, a huge man in a black suit, “the press are ready to take their seats and the President will be arriving in four minutes. We need
you in position to greet him and your guests need to clear the lobby.” He nodded his head respectfully, then walked away. When he turned, Jimmy noticed a wire coil coming out of the back of his jacket and into an earpiece. All of the agents had them, along with radio sets clipped to their belts. Almost immediately, Keays was handing a set to Jimmy.

“Take this,” he ordered. “The second you see anything I should know about – send out a general alert. You just push this button.” He showed Jimmy and gave a set to Viggo too. “Go upstairs and look at where the President and the Prime Minister will be speaking. Then stay in one of the service stairwells so the Prime Minister doesn’t see you. He’ll have his personal security team with him – you don’t want them seeing you here either.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” said Jimmy. He clasped the radio handset. It was much smaller and lighter than he had expected – only just bigger than his palm in fact. After a few seconds, he was aware of a voice in the back of his mind.
Icom F-Series
, it said.
Looks like an
upgrade
. He turned the handset over and saw the maker’s logo on the back: Icom. He would never be able to escape that relentless voice in his head. Right now, he wished it would just shut up. He made his way up the main stairs with Viggo.

“Looks like this is it,” Viggo said in an undertone. “Anything you recognise?”

At the top of the stairs was a much larger hall. The ceiling was way above them, and the bright white walls made it look like they’d got lost inside a massive fridge. CIA dogs were leading agents between the rows of chairs on a final sweep for explosives. On the far side of the hall were two lecterns, each with a single microphone. This is where the two heads of state would announce what they’d been talking about all day at the United Nations. There were two huge flags as well – a Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. But Jimmy looked straight past them.

His eyes went directly to the wall behind the lecterns. It was covered by a long abstract painting that sent panic into Jimmy’s heart. The pace of his breathing tripled. Even his programming couldn’t put him at ease – the assassin in him was as excited as the boy was terrified. The painting was a dull beige canvas covered in bold splashes of red and yellow. Every one of them could have been plucked from inside Jimmy’s head.

“It will happen here,” Jimmy announced, his voice struggling to get out.

Viggo was too shocked to say anything. They both hit the alert buttons on their radio sets. Within seconds, Colonel Keays was back with them.

“What is it?” he asked. “The President is about to arrive.”

Journalists and photographers filed past to take their seats. Jimmy had to ignore them. He pointed to the painting.

“What does it mean?” asked Keays.

“There’s an assassin in the building. The President is the target. I’m sure of it.”

The Colonel’s face didn’t flicker, but his eyes were pinched at the edges. He wasn’t laughing now.

“Find him,” he ordered. “I’ll send you back-up.”

He spun round without waiting for an answer and barked orders into his radio set as he jogged down the stairs. The applause and the cheering had already started. President Grogan was close. Would Ian Coates be far behind?

“Where do we start?” Viggo asked.

Jimmy looked around the hall, moving through it, scanning for anything familiar. It was an amazing building – sleek and modern. This central hall went right up the middle for the entire height, with balconies overlooking it from every floor. Everything was white except the flags and the painting.

By now, Viggo was surrounded by six CIA agents, all poised for action, awaiting instructions. They looked to Jimmy, but Jimmy had nothing to tell them. All he knew about the Museum was from a thirty-second glance at the blueprints and the images that had been pounding in his head.

That’s when he realised – he didn’t have to search the building. The images were giving him precise instructions. He closed his eyes and searched his mind instead. He didn’t have to look very hard to recall the
images one by one. 53 and the coloured splashes had already appeared in real life. There were three left: rainbow stripes, black K and the President’s face.