Survival by Joe Craig Page A

head, squinting against the sand and dust in the wind.
    The beach stretched out ahead of them for milesand miles. It shimmered in the heat, blurring thehorizon so that the blue of the sky melted into the sandand the sea. But somewhere in that haze was a shortslab of black. Even from here, Jimmy could recognisethe outlines of Mutam-ul-it’s vast machine halls and thetrace of smoke still rising from them.
    “Here’s your radio, Jimmy,” said Stovorsky, turning tolook at Jimmy at last. He tossed a large white handsetinto Jimmy’s lap. It landed with a thump. “The signal’sencrypted and you’ve got lithium batteries in there withtwenty-four hours’ charge, so you can leave it on in casewe need to contact you before you contact us. Andwe’re watching too, to check you’re OK.” He tapped thescreen of his laptop. To check I’m OK , thought Jimmy, or to check I’m doing what you want me to do ?
    Stovorsky reached forwards and gave the drivera jab in the shoulder. “This is about as close as wecan go, Jimmy,” he announced. The driver slammedon the brakes and the PVP skidded across the sands.“It’s up to you now.”
    Jimmy clipped the radio to his utility belt and staredout in the direction of the mine. He knew he still had achoice. He could still refuse to go. Inside him was a cloudas dark as the smoke rising from the mine, and hotter.
    The line between his programming and his ownmind was more blurred than ever. He didn’t know whowas making decisions any more – Jimmy Coates theboy, or Jimmy Coates the assassin. Does it matter ? he wondered, crushing the trepidation in his stomachwith huge mental effort. I know what I want . He glaredat Stovorsky. You’re going to give it to me .
    Without hesitating another second, he pushed openthe door and set off across the sand.
    * * *
    Zafi Sauvage dipped the end of her little finger into thefroth on her hot chocolate and tried to draw a smileyface. Looks more like a dead rabbit , she thought toherself with a smile. She sucked her finger and wentback to staring out of the window of the coffee shop.Rivulets of rain zigzagged down the glass. With that,and the cap pulled down low over her face, she knewthere was no way Mitchell Glenthorne would notice her.
    He’s meant to have the skills of a top assassin , shethought, wanting to snigger, but controlling herself. Sheknew that luck was on her side for now – it was only thiseasy to shadow him because he was preoccupied withshadowing somebody else.
    At the moment her subject was leaning back on abench across from the coffee shop, pretending to reada film magazine. It occurred to Zafi that whoever he wasfollowing might even be sitting in that same coffee shopwhere she was. She didn’t care. She had her target;she just needed to find her moment.
    Just then she was distracted by a soft vibration inher hip pocket. She pulled out her phone and discreetlychecked the message. It was encrypted of course.Whoever had sent it would have used a Secret Servicecomputer, or a mobile phone that bounced everythingthrough a DGSE server. But Zafi didn’t need anysoftware to decipher the text. She had found out veryyoung that she had the ability to retain incredibly longstrings of letters and numbers in her head. Complexalgorithms were reduced to simple codes, as if she wasseeing the symbols in three dimensions, with spacebetween the shapes for their meanings.
    The message was from Uno Stovorsky.
    Zafi let out a sigh of disappointment at what it said.She downed her hot chocolate in one massive gulp,then dashed out into the rain of North London. Hertarget would have to wait. She had confidence she’d beable to find him again fairly easily.
    Her new assignment was a strange one: track downthe mother and sister of Jimmy Coates. Make contact.But she wasn’t to do anything else until she’d receivedanother message – not kill them, nor protect them.Just find where NJ7 was housing them and makecontact without the British Secret Service noticing