CHAPTER ONE – UNO STOVORSKY

      “ALL RISE!” EVERYBODY in the courtroom obeyed the sombre instruction except two bowed figures.

      “This isn’t fair!” shouted Olivia Muzbeke, her voice thin with fear and fatigue. Her husband tried to move a hand across to comfort her, but his wrists were chained to a metal bar in front of him. A guard dragged them both to their feet.

      The stern-faced judge eased himself into his chair. “This is as fair as it gets for bad citizens,” he mumbled.

      Neil Muzbeke looked across the courtroom to where the jury used to sit, in the days when a jury was still part of the legal system. Inside, he felt as empty as those benches. He was past shouting. He had given everything. He had protested, he had pleaded and now he was resigned to whatever fate the judge had been told to pass down to them. Any other thoughts were eclipsed by the image of the son he might never see again.

      “You knew that the dangerous criminal, Jimmy Coates, was a fugitive from the authorities,” the judge intoned, “yet you shielded him and then helped him to escape, putting the life of Prime Minister Ares Hollingdale at risk. Not only that, but your own son…” he scoured his notes for the name, “…Felix Muzbeke, even at the age of eleven, has shown himself to be an enemy to the Neo-democratic State of Britain.”

      The judge wheezed and adjusted his glasses. Then, without even looking up, he passed sentence.

      “Incarceration,” he announced. “At the discretion of the Home Office.” He slammed down his hammer to make the decision final. That noise killed any lingering faith Neil Muzbeke had had in his country’s justice system.

      At the back of the courtroom stood a woman who seemed too attractive for such miserable proceedings. But she was satisfied with the result of the trial and the speed at which it had been conducted.

      “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