.'
I couldn't be bothered to explain, so I just shrugged. 'It was the only way I could get you out of the shit.'
His shoulders began to heave and I suddenly realized he was laughing.
'How did you know when to set the bomb off? I mean, I could have been killed if I hadn't been upstairs.' It was nervous laughter.
I looked up, searching for the North Star again so he couldn't see my face. 'You've no idea the trouble I went to, mate. Anyway, we'll talk about that later. We have to get a move on now.'
'How far, do you reckon?'
His parka hood was looking skyward, too, but he didn't have a clue what he was looking for. He started to shiver.
'Not far, Tom. Just a couple of hours. If we play our cards right, we'll be on a nice warm train soon.'
Why tell him the truth now? I hadn't bothered to so far. 'You ready then?'
He was coughing up the last of the brick dust like a TH patient.
'Yeah, Is'poseso.'
I started down the road and he followed on behind. After just a couple of hundred yards we hit a treeline, about fifteen yards off the road on our left. I headed for it, leaving ridiculous amounts of tracks in snow which was up to my knees and sometimes waist high. It didn't bother me. Why worry about things you can't change?
I waited for Tom to catch up. The pace wasn't going to be anything to write home about. You have to move at the speed of the slowest; that's just how it is if you want to keep together. I wondered about improvising snow shoes by tying tree branches to our feet, but quickly decided against; these things look good on paper but in the dark it's just a pain in the ass to prepare and wastes time.
I looked up. Wispy clouds were starting to appear and scud across the stars.
Tom caught up and I allowed him a minute's rest before we moved on. I wanted to get out into the open fields before starting cross country, following Polaris. That way we'd give the compound a wide berth as we had to head north, back toward it.
At the end of the treeline, visibility was about fifty to sixty yards in the starlight. The landscape was white, fading to black. In the middle distance to my half left I could see the dim glow of the target area.
I felt the cold bite into my face as I looked up at the sky once more.
Tom shuffled up next to me, knees buried in snow, standing so close that his breath merged with mine, losing itself in the wind. His hood was off again as he tried to cool down. I put it back up and slapped him on the head. 'Don't do that, you'll lose all the heat you've just generated.'
He pulled the fur around his face once more.
I tried to find a reference point on the ground north of us, but it was too dark. The next best thing was to pick a star on the horizon below Polaris and go for that-it was easier than constantly checking skyward. I got one, not as bright as some, but good enough.
'Ready?'
The hood moved and the material rustled as a head nodded about in there somewhere.
We headed north. The only positive thing I could think of was that the pain in my ass had now disappeared. Either that or it was even colder than I'd realized.
43
The ground beneath the snow was plowed, so both of us kept slipping and falling on the angled, frozen furrows. The best way forward seemed to be to keep my feet low and push through the snow. I became the icebreaker and Tom followed in my wake; anything to speed him up.
Clouds drifted across the sky more frequently now, intermit tendy blotting out my guide on the horizon. Polaris, too, was in and out of cloud cover.
Tom lagged about ten yards behind, hands in pockets, head down. There was nothing to do but keep pushing north as the clouds moved faster and gained in mass.
After about an hour the wind began to pick up, attacking my face and tugging at my coat. It was time to put down the furry earflaps. Each time we lost direction, all I could do was keep heading in what I thought was a straight line, only to find that we were way off course when the cloud cleared. I felt like a pilot flying without instruments. Our trail through the snow must have been one long zigzag.
My major concern was that the wind and cloud would bring snow. If that happened, we'd lose our means of navigation altogether, and without protection, catching the train would be the least of my worries.
With a bad feeling that we were going to be in even deeper shit very soon, I stopped when I found a natural dip and used my back to push a groove in the snow to get us out of the wind. I scraped a channel in the lip to act as my north marker before Polaris disappeared again.
Tom reached me as I dug myself in with my gloved hands. I expected him to follow my example, but when I turned he was having a piss, the steam and liquid disappearing almost immediately in the wind. He should have been retaining his warm body fluids at all costs, but I was too late. I went back to preparing our makeshift shelter. Stress hormones are released in cold weather, filling out the bladder more quickly. That's why we always seem to urinate more when it's cold. The problem is that you lose body heat and a serious thirst develops. Unless hot fluids are taken on board it's a vicious circle from there on out, with dehydration helping to bring down the body's core temperature. If your core temperature falls below 83.8 degrees F you will die.
Tom was done, and putting his hands back in his pockets he turned and collapsed ass first into the dip.
The wind hit the lip, sounding like one of the gods blowing across the neck of a bottle, and blasting the snow onto our backs and shoulders.
Tom's fur rim turned to me as I slid into the dip beside him.
I knew what he was going to ask.
'Not long now, mate,' I preempted. 'It's a bit further than I thought, but we'll have a rest here. When you start to get cold, tell me and we'll get moving again, okay?'
The hood moved, which I took to be a nod. He brought his knees up to his chest and lowered his head to meet them.
I bit off my gloves and held them between my teeth while I fumbled to tie the earflaps under my chin, then I unzipped his parka a bit so he could ventilate, yet still retain his body heat. Finally, standing up into the wind, I undid my pants and tucked everything back in, and pushed the bottoms of my heavy wet jeans into my boots. It was a cold and uncomfortable process in wet, clingy clothes, but it was worth it.
I would have lost heat doing it, but sorting my shit out always made me feel better.
As I was about to lie down again in the dip, I saw Tom tucking his hand into his sleeve and lifting some snow to his mouth. I put out a hand.
'That's off the menu, mate.'
I wasn't going to waste energy explaining why. Not only does it use up crucial body heat through melting it in your mouth, it also cools the body from the inside, chilling the vital organs. Nevertheless, water was going to be a problem. I put my gloves back on and scooped up a handful of snow, but only passed it over when I'd I worked it into a compressed ball. 'Suck on that. Don't eat it, okay?'
I looked at the sky. The cloud cover was now more or less total.
Tom soon lost interest in the ice ball, hunching once more into a fetal position, knees up by his chest, hands deep in his pockets and head down. His body was starting to shake, and I had to agree with him; I'd had better days out.
Now that we'd cleared the danger area and were resting for a while, it seemed the right time to ask him a few questions. I hoped it would help take his mind off the shit we were in. I also needed some answers.
'Why didn't you tell me you knew Valentin? I know you were trying to access Echelon at Menwith Hill for him.'
I couldn't see his reaction, but there was movement in the hood. 'I'm sorry, mate,' he mumbled. 'She's got me by the balls. I'm sorry, I really wanted to, it's just that? you know?'
His hood dropped down as if his neck muscles had lost control.
'You mean threats? Some kind of threat to you or your family?'
His shoulders jerked up and down as he fought to contain the sobs.
