Jimmy Coates: Survival. Joe Craig

full alert. Have they examined me? Jimmy wondered. What have they found? Maybe whoever had examined him had simply followed the usual procedure for victims of extreme cold and not noticed any unusual results yet.

      “Uno Stovorsky?” came a high-pitched male voice.

      “Yes,” Jimmy tried to cry out, but his throat felt like it had been slashed from the inside. He didn’t care. Somehow whoever was looking after him had found out that he needed to see Uno Stovorsky.

      “Hello, Uno,” the man said in a thick French accent. “You are English?”

      Jimmy’s heart crumpled. Why would anyone think he was Uno Stovorsky? He strained his neck to get a better look at the doctor. He was a short, middle-aged man with scars on his cheeks and a tidy goatee beard. A line of biros stood to attention in the top pocket of his immaculate white coat.

      “I’m not Uno,” Jimmy said. His voice came out deeper than he was expecting and with a rough tone. He repeated himself, but this time relaxed his lips and tongue, letting his programming take control. His words came out in perfect French. “Je ne suis pas Uno Stovorsky.”

      The doctor apologised, obviously shocked that his patient spoke the language like a native. He continued in French. “It’s the name you were muttering when they brought you in. You said it over and over. You have no identification on you, so we assumed it was your own name. Tell me—”

      “When who brought me?” Jimmy didn’t have time to make a fuss about introductions and he certainly didn’t want to explain what he was doing in the Pyrenees in the first place.

      “You set off the alarm when you touched the border fence.” The doctor’s face turned sour at Jimmy’s interruption. “That is only about five kilometres from here. We don’t get many who have survived a journey over the mountains. And children travelling alone…” He tailed off as if he expected Jimmy to give an explanation.

      It didn’t happen. The man shrugged. “The patrol picked you up immediately. ”

      In the past, the French-Spanish border had been left virtually unmanned, with travellers free to cross one way or the other as they pleased. But that wasn’t the case any more. Despite the relatively civil relations between the two countries, there were still security concerns. Now the border was clearly marked out by fences, patrols and checkpoints.

      Jimmy remembered the silver glimmer he’d seen before he collapsed. It gave him a thrill of achievement. He’d made it to the border.

      “Uno Stovorsky is an agent of the DGSE,” Jimmy explained. “Your Secret Service. Can you contact him for me? It’s urgent.”

      Very slowly he flexed his elbows to force his upper body off the bed.

      “You can’t get up,” the doctor protested. He tried to push Jimmy down, kindly but firmly. “It might not seem like it because you’re on powerful painkillers, but you’re very ill.”

      “I’ll be fine,” Jimmy insisted. “I take vitamin tablets.”

      He shook his chest to get the doctor off him, which sent a harsh stabbing pain through his ribs. Jimmy winced, but kept moving. In a second he was sitting upright. The ward housed five other beds, but they were all empty.

      “You don’t understand,” said the doctor. “Even if you can get up, you can’t leave.”

      Jimmy stared the doctor down, trying to read what he really meant. Then the details of his surroundings flashed up in his brain – details he didn’t even realise he’d noticed.

      “Bars on the windows,” Jimmy muttered. “Doors of double thickness with reinforced glass. What sort of hospital is this?”

      The doctor didn’t say anything, but glanced over his shoulder towards the thick double doors. Meanwhile, Jimmy rolled his shoulders, without knowing why. Then he realised. His programming was testing his mobility.

      He had to know which movements were impossible and which were just painful.

      He raised his hands to look at what damage the cold had done and for the first time saw that they were completely wrapped in bandages. He looked down. So were his feet. The balls of bandaging looked like four large portions of candyfloss, one stuck on the end of each limb. Now Jimmy also noticed the tube inserted into his arm, attached to a saline drip next to his bed.

      “I don’t need this,” Jimmy announced, surprised at his own confidence. It increased as his programming fuelled his strength. Jimmy was feeling the effects of several weeks’ recovery condensed into a few minutes. It was thrilling. He hooked one bandaged hand under the tube and yanked it out of his skin. “Thanks for your help, doctor. I’m leaving.”

      “Stay where you are,” the doctor ordered. “This isn’t a hospital. It’s the medical wing of a border control detention centre.”

      “Detention centre?” said Jimmy, testing how far he could flex his knees.

      “It’s where we keep people who try to cross the border illegally until they can be identified and—”

      “Are you going to help me or not?”

      “We are helping you. That’s why I can’t let you—”

      Before he could finish, Jimmy swivelled in the bed and stuck a leg out. He hooked his bandaged foot round the bottom of the metal stand his drip was hanging on and flicked it upwards. The base of it smacked the doctor in the knee. The man stumbled forwards.

      Jimmy grabbed the pole between his forearms and stamped down on the wheel lock on one leg of his bed. Then he kicked against the wall to send himself rolling across the lino on the bed.

      The doctor scrabbled for a whistle that was round his neck and gave it a huge blast. The echo had barely died when the double doors burst open. Two armed security guards charged towards Jimmy, one reaching for the baton on his belt, the other going for his gun. Jimmy kept rolling, using the metal pole as a paddle.

      He crouched low on the bed and waited until the very last second. His programming was thrusting power into every corner of his being, as if it was grateful to be let off the leash at last. At the same time it gripped Jimmy’s mind, controlling his actions.

      Just as the guards descended on him, Jimmy steered himself round in a sharp twist. He twirled the pole over his arm and smacked it into one guard’s face. The momentum spun the bed all the way round so Jimmy was facing the wrong way. Jimmy brought the pole under control and jabbed it backwards, under his arm. The foot of the stand connected with the other guard’s chest, then Jimmy snapped it upwards into his face.

      When both guards hit the floor they stayed down.

      But two more were hurtling towards the ward. Jimmy stayed calm. He rubbed his feet together to loosen the bandaging, then twisted his right hand into it and pulled. Within seconds it had unravelled, exposing his blackened and twisted left foot. Jimmy stared, relieved that the power of his programming combined with the painkillers meant he could hardly feel it.

      The new guards were through the ward doors. Using his wrists and forearms, Jimmy wrapped the length of loose bandage round the metal pole. Then he kicked the pole directly upwards. The foot of it caught on a strut of the ceiling fan above Jimmy’s head.

      Jimmy twisted his arms into the other end of the bandage and swung into the air, leaning back to control his direction. He slammed his knees into the guards’ faces and they toppled like skittles.

      By now the first two guards were rolling over, trying to get up, but they were too late. Jimmy was through the doors. He hurtled down the corridor, half running and half sliding, with one foot still cocooned in bandage.

      A quick glance at the emergency evacuation notice told him the layout of the building. As he ran, he tore at his bandages with his teeth, desperate to free his hands. He turned a corner, heading for the nearest fire exit.

      Another guard sat in front of the exit reading a newspaper. When Jimmy tore into