The Hit

  “The roof — we can get out up there,” Jess panted. They had no choice but to climb. Christian, yelling behind them, paused to try a shot, but he was still too far off. He cursed and ran forward. He was in the shed with them before they had made it more than a few yards up the mountain of scrap.

  Adam clawed his way up, but the cost of the adapted Death leaving his system was catching up with him. He felt nauseous and weak. The metal carcasses were often precariously balanced on top of each other and to make matters worse, not all of them had been emptied before they had been thrown away. As they climbed, fridge and freezer doors swung open like stinking mouths, dribbling black slime, all that remained of food that had been rotting inside for years. The stink was overpowering. It got on their hands, on their feet, on their faces. But they couldn’t stop. Another bullet whistled past. Christian was at the bottom of the mountain now. He stuck his gun into his waistband and began to climb after them.

  “Bitch, I’m going to kill you, bitch! I’m gonna C4 you all …” His voice choked as he breathed in some vileness, but his madness had given him an inhuman strength and recklessness, and he didn’t stop. Even now, clawing his way over the fridges and freezers, he was gaining on them.

  It was a horrible effort. Their feet plunged suddenly into cavities, or slipped on a slimy surface. Underfoot, the rusting units tipped dangerously. It had to happen — an accident. As he pushed forward, Jess slipped; his foot jammed in a gap, caught tight in between two heavy units. He tugged — it refused to move. In a panic he tugged again and pulled it out — but badly wrenched. As soon as he tried to put some weight on it, it gave way under him.

  Below him, Christian saw and grinned. “C4,” he hissed excitedly, and then bawled up at them, an incomprehensible cawing of rage and madness that no one could make out. Jess lunged forward, desperate to escape, but he slipped and fell back down several feet. Christian screamed in triumph; Adam and Lizzie turned back to help.

  “Go. Go!” Jess demanded. But Adam shook his head. He and Lizzie tried to pull Jess up after them, but as they did the area they were standing on rocked and shifted downward. They were balanced on the side of a huge industrial chilling unit, some kind of ancient meat refrigerator, one of a cluster of several towering over them like small cliffs. The whole lot was highly unstable, tipping under their weight, shifting down.

  “Get off this thing — maybe we can push it down,” said Adam. The three of them slid off the corner of the big unit, got down behind it, and pushed. The mass of metal moved a few inches — then ground to a halt.

  “Together,” hissed Jess. They heaved again. Nothing moved. The unit had jammed.

  “I’m gonna have you, you little fucks!” bawled Christian. He was no more than thirty feet away, clawing, shoving, and heaving his way toward them. They were hidden behind the unit, but he’d be on them in moments.

  “Again!” said Adam. “One … two … three … push!”

  Together they heaved. The huge unit shifted, moved down, slid sideways slightly — and at last began to go. One more push and it was on its way, picking up speed, sliding down, twisting as it went, dislodging and crushing everything in its way, straight toward Christian. For a second it looked as if it was going to jam — but then the units under it crumpled and it shot forward. Christian leaped desperately to one side, but the unit was just too big to avoid and it passed straight over him. For a second or two afterward they could see him, looking curiously flattened and smeared into the metal beneath him. One of his arms twitched, then the whole thing went — an avalanche of fridges. A great mass of them toppled down on top of him, with a grinding, crunching noise, like a metal river passing over a tin mountain. Distantly, caught up in the noise, they heard a scream, cut suddenly off.

  The avalanche slowed, petered out, and stopped. Lizzie stared down at the place where he had disappeared. It was over, wasn’t it? Finally. Christian was dead.

  She turned to look at Adam. “Yeah?” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Adam.

  She grinned. “He was on my bucket list, too,” she said. She whooped. “Hey! High five!” They slapped hands.

  “Sorry to break things up, guys — but it’s not over till we’re safely out of here,” said Jess. “Ballantine and his men must have heard that racket. We just killed his only son.” He nodded to the top of the mountain. “It’s safer to go up, I reckon. There’s ladders on the roof.” He glanced at his watch. Quarter to one. He still had time …

  They began to climb the final leg.

  * * *

  The heap of fridges and freezers was unstable now, and it was hard to see what they were doing in the deep shadows right up by the roof. But they made it OK. After that it was just a short walk across to the ladders at the back of the building. They were halfway there when a group of men appeared on the roof.

  There was no chance of escape. They were fifty feet off the ground — it was certain death to jump. There were six or seven men waiting for them, all armed. One of them was Florence Ballantine himself.

  Jess sank down, sat on the roof, and hung his head. They had been so close — so close!

  “Yeah, innit?” said Ballantine. “Thought you’d got away with it. Fake Death.” He shook his head. “Oh, yeah — I know. A couple of our, eh, experiments should have died a few hours ago. Wasn’t difficult to work out after that.” He shook his head and wagged his finger at Jess. “Clever boy. And look! I’m not even angry. Why would I be? This drug is going to be a whole lot more popular than the real stuff. You get a great week — and then you live! What’s wrong with that? And it gets better! Despite your bad manners trying to run out on me, I still want to work with you. Son, you and me are going into business, only this time, you are going to show me how to make it myself, regardless of what your Zealot bosses say. Then — maybe I’ll let you go. Maybe I’ll let your brother go. Who knows?”

  He smiled broadly.

  “And as for you two,” he went on to Adam and Lizzie, “only one question. Christian’s around here somewhere — we know he came in after you. So. Please. Where’s my son? Don’t tell me you’ve done anything bad to him because if you have, that’s going to make me very angry indeed.”

  Lizzie licked her lips. “He was chasing us,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “He was on the fridges last we saw of him,” began Adam. But Ballantine wasn’t interested.

  “What I’m thinking is,” he said, “who to do over? I need the boy to put pressure on Jessie here. I guess that means — Lizzie, isn’t it? Sorry, love. You’re looking very expendable to me.” He spread his arms. “So who’s going to talk first? Before I start snipping the young lady’s fingers off one by one. Or perhaps the boys here would like a go at her first. Hmm?”

  No one spoke.

  “I will find out,” said Ballantine. “And you know that. So I’m going to ask you one more time: Where’s … my … son? Come on. No one got anything to say?”

  “I have.”

  Ballantine spun around. The voice, a female one, was coming from behind him. The slight figure of a young woman was standing at the edge of the roof by one of the ladders.

  It was Anna.

  “You! Stupid enough to run and then come back. So now I got the full set. You guys got her covered?”

  “She’s covered, boss.”

  Anna smiled. “Mr. Ballantine,” she said. “I know how to make this stuff, too. I’ll show you — if you pay me.”

  “And what makes you think I need to pay anyone?”

  “It’s easier this way. But I don’t expect you to take my word. I have the formula and the chemical route to it right here — minus a line or two, of course. That’ll be put back in once I get my money. Here …” Slowly, she lowered a hand toward her coat pocket and began to advance toward him.

  “Stay where you are!” shouted one of the heavies.

  Ballantine held up a hand. “OK, let’s have a look. Take it out,” he told her. “But move very, very slowly. Un
derstand?”

  “I understand.”

  Carefully, she put her hand in her pocket and took out a notebook. “It’s all here. All you’ll have to do is follow the numbers.”

  The gangster nodded. With her arms up, Anna advanced slowly toward him and handed him the book. Ballantine flicked through it.

  “I’m going to bleed a chemist to check this out,” he said.

  “Then why don’t we go and get one?”

  He paused, then nodded. “It’s not going to do any harm checking it out. First things first, though. You two,” he said, turning again to Adam and Lizzie, “this might — might — just let your brother off the hook. But — I still need to know where my son is.”

  Over beyond the waste disposal site and the container terminal, there came a roar from the city. The speeches had begun in Albert Square. Even though the distance turned it into a dull murmur, you could tell it was a noise formed in a million throats.

  Anna smiled. “Listen!” she said. The gangster paused and cocked his head, and as he did she suddenly launched herself at him, seizing him around the neck.

  “Run!” she yelled. Ballantine swatted out at her, catching her in the face, but she had a grip on his neck and was holding tight. Adam, Jess, and Lizzie turned and fled. One of the men turned to give chase, but Ballantine was screaming at them to get the girl off him, and they all turned to help. She disappeared in a mass of bodies. It gave Adam and the others enough time to cross the short distance to the ladder, and begin to climb down one at a time.

  “She’s wired!” someone screamed. Adam, last down, paused to see what was going on. The heavies had fallen back; Anna had been pulled away from Ballantine and was on the floor. The gangster and his men were beginning to run, but it was too late. Anna got to her feet in an almost leisurely movement and opened her coat wide, to show off the odd-looking packets tied to her body. Adam saw her stand there for a moment longer, the little control box in her hand, her coat spread, head up, proud like the soldier she was. Then, she exploded.

  There was a flash of blinding light ripping open the sky and a dull boom. Adam ducked down below the wall and clung on to the ladder for dear life as the blast ripped across the roof toward him. Shards of blazing roofing plastic rushed over his head and high into the air, caught in a wind of burning dust and fire. But it wasn’t a huge explosion; it didn’t need to be. On the other side of the wall, the roof crumpled; Ballantine and his men fell down, down into the space beneath. Their bodies flamed and twisted as they descended, until the dust thickened over them and they disappeared forever.

  Anna had been given her target. The last thing the Zealots wanted was a gang like this working against them so close to the city. One of the first things they planned was to cut down on organized crime. The cleanup had begun.

  The blast died down. Adam put up his head to see what was left. Most of the roof was gone. High above him, pieces of it were still falling, some still ablaze. A cloud of dust and ash was boiling in front of him but it was already settling, and through it he could see the city beyond.

  “Adam! Are you OK? What happened?” Adam looked down to Lizzie’s shocked face. Hidden below the wall, she hadn’t seen a thing. He shook his head, unable to speak.

  Jess hadn’t seen, either, but he could guess.

  “Anna?” he asked.

  “She had explosives. She … just …”

  Jess rested his head briefly on the rungs of the ladder, then looked back up. “Move over,” he said.

  Adam edged carefully onto the wall while Jess and Lizzie made their way up.

  “Suicide bomb,” Adam said, in answer to Lizzie’s horrified look.

  “She blew herself up? My God, that’s terrible!”

  “She saved our lives,” Adam said. But why? he thought. She’d smiled as she did it. He could see her face now, gazing at him serenely in the moment before she detonated. He remembered her in the hotel room a few days ago. She had loved life, he had no doubt about it — and yet it seemed as if she wanted this. How was it possible that you could choose to die, while you still loved life?

  “You don’t understand,” said Jess. “It’s what she wanted.” He looked down in the smoking cauldron of dust below them, where the wreckage was still settling. The mountain of old appliances was moving again under the weight of the debris that had fallen on top of it and a new cloud of dust rose slowly below them. “She was a soldier. She didn’t do it just for us; she died as a Zealot, for something she believed in. Ballantine was her target. What she’s done is noble. I’m not sure she even saw it as a sacrifice.”

  “Noble?” demanded Lizzie. “She can’t know what she’s done. She’s lost everything …”

  Jess was looking down with a tender expression into the open warehouse where his friend had died. He seemed almost pleased for her.

  “Do you envy her?” Adam asked him.

  Jess turned to look at him. The question obviously took him by surprise. What Anna had done was something he had believed for a long time was going to be his fate. There had been a time when he wanted it more than anything else in the world.

  “No,” he said at last. “I wish I did. But I don’t.” He looked back down. “God bless, Anna,” he said. “You got ’em right on the nose.”

  Across the other side of the container terminal, the town hall clock struck one.

  Adam looked at Jess, stricken. “You’re not there,” he said.

  “You know what?” said Jess. He pointed across the terminal. “Grandstand view, isn’t it?” Adam followed his gaze. The smoke from the explosion was blowing away in the wind and Manchester lay spread out before them. There was the Hilton Tower, poking up above the city. There were the apartment buildings, the shops, the cathedral, the town hall. It was a beautiful sight. Everything went very quiet.

  “The announcement,” said Jess. “They’ll be making it right now.”

  “I’m sorry you missed it,” said Adam. Now that they were all safe, he felt dreadful. They had survived — but beautiful, kind Anna was dead, and he had been through a week more intense than anything he could ever have imagined. What had it all been for?

  “I haven’t missed anything,” said Jess. “I’m alive. I’m up here with my brother, and I can see the whole thing. Look at it! No one else is going to have a view like this.” He waved his hand again. “It’s the future. And you know what? For the first time, Adam, it’s ours.”

  But Adam was inconsolable. Lizzie took him in her arms. “What is it, Ads?” she said.

  “I made such a mess,” he wept. “I ruined everything. I nearly killed you and Jess. I owe both of you my life.” He looked up at them. “What shall I do?” he demanded. “Tell me what to do with my life, and I’ll do it.”

  Jess shook his head. “Just live it.”

  “Yeah,” said Lizzie. “Enjoy!” She paused. “Listen! There it is.”

  Across the container terminal, a great roar went up, louder than ever, as several thousand people realized they were going to live and that the future was theirs for the making. High up on the warehouse wall, Adam, Lizzie, and Jess got to their feet and made their way down to join them.

  The first I heard of this book was in a phone call from Barry Cunningham, boss of the Chicken House, with an unlikely story involving A-level philosophy students, their tutors, and an idea about a recreational drug that killed you in a week.

  “And I thought — now, who do I know who doesn’t mind working differently?” Barry said.

  Intriguing …

  The Hit is an unusual book in that it has so many parents. It wasn’t my idea in the first place. Some of the settings — in particular the container terminal — and most of the characters all started somewhere else. In some cases only the names are left and I hope I’ve made it my own, but it’s a matter of fact that this book would never have been written if it hadn’t been for other people besides myself. I feel like a sort of foster parent to it. Without a number of folk and their generosity in handing the b
aby over, I would never have had the pleasure of this story, these characters, or the fascinating experience of bringing someone else’s baby into the world.

  So more than the usual special thanks, then, first of all to Brandon Robshaw and Joe Chislett, for coming up with the brilliant idea of using a thriller to touch on the big issues, as well as for so many of the settings and characters, and especially for the basic idea of a drug that kills you in a week and the wonderful response — how would you spend that week? Thanks are also due to their students for helping those ideas along.

  Having a good idea is great, of course, but the other side of the coin is recognizing it. Most of us in the course of our lives no doubt have countless ideas that would make good books, films, and TV shows, but without the gift to work out which are good and which are bad ideas, you’re no better off than if you never did. You need to be able to sort the seed from the fluff. So big thanks to Barry Cunningham for picking this idea out of many others, and then picking me out of many authors. Putting the right idea in the (hopefully) right hands is a rare skill, and I’m delighted to be on the receiving end.

  Thanks as well to my editor Rachel Leyshon, for showing such great patience and making so many useful suggestions — a pleasure to work with.

  And to Banksy for the Zealot logo inspiration, and everyone who worked on the book, cover, blurb, PR, the lot — thanks!

  Melvin Burgess

  January 2013

  MELVIN BURGESS is the recipient of both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian children’s fiction prize for his controversial bestseller Junk — published as Smack in the United States. He is the author of more than twenty books for young readers, including Doing It, Bloodtide, Sara’s Face, and Kill All Enemies. Visit his website melvinburgess.net and follow him on Twitter @MelvinBurgess.

  Text copyright © 2014 by Melvin Burgess • All rights reserved. Published by Chicken House, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. CHICKEN HOUSE, SCHOLASTIC, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. • www.scholastic.com • First published in the United Kingdom in 2013 by Chicken House, 2 Palmer Street, Frome, Somerset BA11 1DS. • Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data • Burgess, Melvin, author. • The hit / Melvin Burgess. — First American edition. • pages cm • Summary: There is a new drug on the mean streets of Manchester that promises the most intense week of your life, and then you are dead — and after he watches a pop star die on stage, Adam thinks that his own life is so miserable that he might just as well try it. • ISBN 978-0-545-55699-6 • 1. Designer drugs — Juvenile fiction. 2. Death — Juvenile fiction. 3. Teenagers — England — Manchester — Juvenile fiction. 4. Families — England — Manchester — Juvenile fiction. 5. Manchester (England) — Juvenile fiction. [1. Drugs — Fiction. 2. Death — Fiction. 3. Family life — England — Fiction. 4. Manchester (England) — Fiction.] I. Title. • PZ7.B9166Hit 2014 • 823.914 — dc23 • 2013013792 • First American edition, March 2014 • COVER ART BY LAURENTIU IORDACHE / ISTOCKPHOTO • COVER DESIGN BY WHITNEY LYLE