with smoke and my eyes started to water.
The flames were now higher and threw dancing shadows on the walls of the hut. I could feel the heat on my face.
I had to get more wood before all my good work was undone. I looked around and gathered up as much as possible from what was to hand. Once I'd established the fire, I'd be able to venture outside into the howling wind for more.
I kicked the door open slightly to get rid of the smoke. It let some of the wind and snow whistle in, but it had to be done. I'd block up most of the gap as soon as I could.
Tom was much quieter. I crawled over to him, coughing smoke from my lungs. I wanted to see if there was any wood under him or in the corner. There was; only a few twigs, but it all helped. I couldn't make a big fire as the hut was too small, and besides, we wouldn't need it; the walls were so close that the heat would bounce straight back on us anyway.
I checked the flames and started to feed on some more wood. 'Not long now, mate. We'll be getting our kit off in a minute because we're so hot.'
My next priority would be a hot drink, to get some heat directly to Tom's core. Placing the rest of the wood near the fire to dry it out, I turned and looked at his face. 'Tom, I'm just going to see if I can find something to heat snow in for a '
He was lying too still. There was something very odd about the way his legs had now curled up to his chest.
'Tom?'
I crawled back to him, pulling him over and getting the hood off his face. Illuminated by the flames it told me all I needed to know.
Tilting his head toward the fire, I pulled open his eyelids. There was no reaction to the light. Both pupils stayed as fully dilated as a dead fish's. It wouldn't be long now before they clouded up.
I could hear the fire sucks now collapsing on each other, with glowing embers as well as flame. It was a wonderful sight, but it was too fucking late.
I tried his carotid pulse. Nothing. But that could be just my numb fingers. I listened for breathing and even tried his heart. Nothing.
His mouth was still open from when he had taken, or fought for, his last breath. I gently closed his jaw.
It was time to think about me. Pulling off my wet clothes, I wrung them out one by one before putting them back on.
I sat and fed the flames some more, knowing there were still things that I should do to him. I should try to resuscitate and reheat him until I was so exhausted I couldn't carry on, in the million-to-one chance he could be revived. But for what? I knew he was dead.
Maybe if we'd dug in for the night once the weather had closed in he would still be alive. We would have been in a desperate state in the morning, but maybe he would have survived. Maybe if I hadn't pushed him so hard to get here, or had realized what condition he was in and had stopped earlier. All these questions, and the only thing I was certain of was that I had killed him. I had fucked up.
I looked at his limp body, its mouth reopened, his long hair wet against his cheeks, the ice crystals on his peach fuzz now melting down his face. I'd try and remember a gabby but happy Tom, but I knew this image was the one that would stay with me. It was going straight to the top of the list of my sweaty, guilty, wake- upintheearly-hours nightmares. When I was put into the counseling program the Firm sets up for operators now and again, I'd told the shrinks I didn't have them. I was talking shit, of course. Maybe it was a good thing I was going to be part of Kelly's treatment now. I started to realize I might need it just as much as she.
Dragging him to the doorway, I sat him up against the gap, leaving a space of a foot or so above him for the smoke to escape. I covered his face with his parka.
Feeling was already starting to come back to my extremities and I knew I was going to be okay. All I had to do was find a station.
I turned back to the flames and watched the steam rise from my drying clothes. There would be no sleep for me tonight. I had to keep the fire going.
45
LDNDDN. ENGLAND
Wednesday, January 5,2DDD I was nursing a hot frothy Starbucks in the church doorway opposite the Langham Hilton, the only place I could keep a trigger on the hotel and also keep out of the drizzle.
It was breakfast time, and the sidewalks were packed with over coated wage slaves throwing Danish pastries and coffee down their throats, and shoppers out early for the after Christmas sales. Judging by the frenzy, it was clear the Y2K bug hadn't brought the world to its knees after all. It had been the last thing on my mind as I'd seen in the new century aboard an Estonian fishing boat, along with twenty six cold and seasick illegals from Somalia. Slipping away from a seaside village under cover of darkness, we'd battled across the Baltic in huge seas, heading for a peninsula east of Helsinki. Lion King told me it was midnight as we approached the Finnish coastline, where we were suddenly treated to one of the finest fireworks displays I'd ever seen.
The whole place seemed to light up as towns all along the shore celebrated the new millennium. I wondered if it held in store any new beginnings for me. Christ, I hoped so.
It was eighteen days since I'd left the hut and set off again into the blizzard. Tom had stayed behind, parka draped over his face, his body sterile of any item that could ID him. They probably wouldn't find him before the spring. I only hoped they'd give him a decent burial. If things worked out well here in London, maybe I'd go back and see to it all myself.
At first light, and without Tom, I was able to make distance at my own pace, even in the driving snow, and it was only a couple of hours before I hit a station about five or six miles away.
A train arrived heading west, toward Tallinn, but I let it go without me.
The one after that was heading east, toward Russia, and I climbed aboard. Without a passport it could take weeks to get out of Estonia on my own, but with Eight helping me, maybe it would be a different story. That was why I jumped off at Narva, and that was how I'd ended up on the fishing boat with my new Somalian friends. It had cost me all the dollars in my boot and had meant spending several uncomfortable days and nights hiding in the apartment with the land mines while Eight got things arranged, but it had been worth it.
Eight wasn't too happy about his car becoming history, but he still seemed thrilled to help me, even though he must have been aware of what had happened to Carpenter and the old guy in Voka, and put two and two together. I wondered if he gave a shit.
Eight didn't ask me again about helping him to escape to England, but as I stood on the jetty waiting to board the fishing boat, I turned to him and handed over Tom's passport. From the expression on his face and the tears in his eyes, you'd have thought I'd given him the three million.
I knew I was taking a big risk, but I felt I owed him that much. I just hoped he did a good job of doctoring Tom's picture, or that the day he tried to use it, immigration wasn't checking their computer screens too closely. Otherwise poor Eight would find himself being lifted by a team of heavies and whisked off to a 3x9 sooner than he could say 'Crazy boy.'
I'd told myself then that the passport was part of what I owed him for his help, along with a new car. But now, standing in London with a hot coffee in my hands and time to think, I knew it was more to do with trying to get over my guilt about Tom. I had pushed him beyond his limits in outrageous conditions and I'd killed him. Giving Eight the possibility of a new life was an attempt to square my conscience and make things right: The job was done, now cut away.
At first I thought it had worked and that things were all right. But I knew they weren't, not with Tom, not with Kelly. She was much the same; the New Year had passed her by, too. I'd phoned the clinic twice in the two days since I'd got back. I'd lied both times, telling them I was overseas but would be back soon. I was desperate to see her, but I just couldn't face it yet. I knew I wasn't going to be able to look her in the eye. Hughes picked up the phone the second time and told me that her plans for Kelly's therapy sessions, which included me, would have to stay on hold until I got back. I still felt confused about it.
I knew it had to be done, and I wanted to do it, but To add to the confusion, I'd also had a call from Lynn. He wanted to see me this afternoon. There seemed to have been a change of heart since our last meeting. He said he
