Firewall (51 page)

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.

"Mum… Dad… and I've got a sister with kids, know what I mean? I wanted to tell you, Nick, honest I did, but… well, you know.

Listen, it ain't Valentin doing this shit, mate. It's her; she's freelancing. He don't know a thing about it; she's just using his name, letting you think you're working for him."

He didn't need to say any more. Things were suddenly making more sense to me than they had in a long time. That was why she'd been able to say yes straight away to the three million. That was why she'd insisted there was to be no contact with anyone apart from her. It even explained why she didn't want me to have a weapon: She probably thought that if I found out what was happening I'd use it against her.

"How did you get sucked back into all this?"

I waited for him to try to compose himself.

"Liv. Well, not her to begin with, but this guy Ignaty he came and saw me in London. The day before you did."

Where had I heard that name before? Then I realized. He was the underwriter; it had been his name on the piece of paper in Narva. So maybe Liv wasn't the only one of Val's people to be going freelance.

Now Tom had started babbling it was important not to ask the sort of questions that might suddenly make him realize he was saying too much.

I just said gently, "What happened then, mate?"

"He said Liv had a job for me and that I'd be going to Finland. That someone would come and persuade me and all that stuff. I shat myself when I found out it was Echelon again, but I had no choice, mate. My sister and what have you… Nick, you gotta help me. Please, she'll kill everyone if I don't sort this shit out. Please help me.

Please."

He wept into his hood.

"Tom…"

He didn't register. Maybe his sobs were too loud for him to hear me.

"Tom. She wanted you dead. She will think you're dead if I tell her."

His hood came up. "You were going to kill me? Oh fuck, Nick.

Don't… please don't…"

"I'm not going to kill you."

He wasn't listening. "I'm so sorry, Nick. She made me ask those questions. You know, in the train station. She wanted to know if you were gonna stitch her up or what. I had to do it. She knows everybody's addresses and everything. The guy showed me pictures of my sister's kids. Honest, Nick, I wanted to tell you what was happening but…" His hood dropped back down as a new spasm took hold of him.

I felt like a priest in a confession box. "Tom, listen. Really, I'm not going to kill you. It was me who got you out of there, remember?"

There was a small nod from within the hood.

"I'll make sure that you and your family are looked after, Tom, but we have to get back to the U.K. first. You'll have to talk with some people and tell them exactly what's been happening, at Menwith and here, okay?"

I sensed an opportunity for everything to work out whichever way this went. I wasn't exactly sure how, but there had to be a way that Tom could get a new life and I could get my money. And if the money didn't materialize, at least I could still work for the Firm. I could come up with enough bullshit to make it sound as if I'd known all along what was happening, but couldn't tell anyone because of the security risk of someone printing off the information I'd told them in Russia.

Liv need never know that Tom was alive, and I could still pick up my money and then go to Lynn. I knew it was flimsy as plans go, but it was a start-assuming she didn't shaft me.

What was more important was getting out of Estonia. After that, I'd sit down with Tom, get the full story and sort my shit out.

"Why didn't she just tell me that it was you coming with me, rather than getting me to try and talk you into it? You were already coming, right?" His babbling before hadn't exactly explained it clearly.

"Fuck knows. You'll have to ask her. That's why I shat myself when I saw you. I thought your lot had heard about it. She's weird, mate.

Did she talk as if it was all coming from Valentin?"

"Of course."

"Well it isn't, she's talking about herself. It's all her own plans, mate, I'm telling you. If Valentin knew he'd cut her in half, know what I mean?"

Well, not quite in half, but I bet he'd have her watching a few squirming eels before he'd finished with her.

For all that, there was a part of me that admired what she was doing.

Maybe the man from St. Petersburg was her feed in Val's set up, leaking her information to set this whole thing up? What was in it for her? What was her goal in all this? Maybe Tom was right, it was everything that she had talked about? Question after question leaped into my head, but the snowflakes hitting my face made me remember that there were more pressing matters to attend to.

We had no shelter, no heat and now no navigation. The cold was getting to me as the sweat on my back began to cool rapidly now that we had been stationary for a while. Tom shivered badly where he sat curled up on the snow beside me. Both of us had inherited a layer of snow. We had to move, but in which direction? The marker would only be good for a hundred meters or so; after that, and with out Polaris, we'd get disoriented and spend the rest of the night walking round in circles.

I looked at Tom and felt him shivering in almost uncontrollable bursts.

His brain was probably telling him he must start moving, but his body was begging him to stay where he was and rest.

I lifted the cuff of various layers of clothing and had a quick look at the Lion King. Just under twelve hours to go until we should RV with the train. Even if I knew which direction to take, trying to cover that distance in these conditions without navigation aids would be madness. Visibility had worsened; it was down to about fifteen feet.

In any other circumstances we should have been digging in for the night and riding out the storm, but we didn't have the luxury of time. Quite apart from making it to a train, I didn't know what sort of follow-up the Maliskia would go for, and I didn't want to find out. Trying to think of a positive, I finally dredged one up; at least the snow would cover our trail.

Tom mumbled under his hood. "I'm really cold, Nick."

"We'll get going in a minute, mate."

I was still racking my brain for some sort of navigation aid. It had been years since I'd had to use or even remember any survival skills.

Scrolling through the pages of crap in my head, I tried hard to call up what I'd learned all those years ago. I'd never been one for all that hundred-and-one-uses-for-a-shoelace stuff; I'd just got on with it and only did the snow-hole and trapped-rabbit routine when I had to.

I put my arms around him. He wasn't too sure what was going on and I felt his body stiffen.

"It's a snow thing," I said. "We've got to keep warm."

He leaned in toward me, shivering big-time.

"Nick, I'm really really sorry, mate. If I'd told you the truth we wouldn't be in this shit, know what I mean?"