Firewall Page 6

  He probably didn't even know himself.

  With legs apart and slightly bent to keep myself stable in the gusts, I stood and watched until the lights disappeared into the night. It was very tempting to go back and wait in the house, but Carpenter might return and complicate matters, and anyway, there was still the police to worry about.

  Turning parallel to the shore, I carried on toward the snow hole.

  Once in the treeline I could see the whole of the side of the house.

  Carpenter had left the lights on, but through the downstairs windows things didn't look right. It took me a second or two to work out what was happening.

  Not bothering about leaving sign, I moved as fast as I could in a direct line toward the building, stumbling over in snow that sometimes came up to my chest. I was trying so hard to get there quickly that it didn't feel as if I was making any progress. It felt like one of the recurring dreams I'd had as a kid-running to someone, but never as fast as I needed to.

  As I got closer I could see flames flickering in the room and smoke spewing out through a broken pane. A thick layer was gathering two or three feet deep on the ceiling and looking for more places to escape from. Fuck the house, it was the Volvo I was worried about.

  By the time I reached the garage I could already hear the crackling of badly seasoned wood and the screams from the smoke alarms going ape shit The door to the house was open. Smoke was pouring out from the top of the frame. Either Carpenter had been switched on enough to know that he had to feed the fire with oxygen, or he just didn't give a shit. It didn't matter which, the fact was that it had taken hold big time.

  I reached the car, the heat searing my back even through my ski jacket.

  The inside of the house was a furnace.

  As I put the key in the lock there was a sound like shotgun rounds being fired. Spray cans of something were exploding in the heat.

  I reversed slowly out of the garage. It would have been pointless screaming out like a loony, only to get stuck in the snow. I just wanted to get clear enough so the Volvo wasn't incinerated. After a three-point turn I drove 150 feet up the track and killed the engine.

  Jumping out with the keys, I stumbled back into the cover of the treeline, feeling as if I was back in that dream again.

  By the time I neared the hide I could make out my shadow quite clearly against the snow. The flames were well and truly taking over from the smoke.

  Sliding into the snow hole, I pulled out my Leatherman, felt for the plasticuffs and started to cut Val free, letting him sort himself out as I scrambled out again into the wind. He soon followed and we both stared at the burning building. Bizarrely, he started to try and comfort me. "It's all right, I knew you weren't abandoning me. I am worth too much to you, no? Particularly now. May I suggest that we leave here, and as soon as possible. Like you, I do not want to encounter the authorities. It would be most inconvenient." What was it with this guy? Did his pulse rate ever go above ten beats per minute?

  He knew that whatever had happened out here it had stopped me from meeting up with any of the team; he didn't have to convince me any more to let him go. He knew it was my only sensible option now.

  The Volvo could easily be seen in the flames. They hadn't penetrated the walls yet, but they were licking out hungrily from the windows.

  I stopped him short of the car, handed him my Leatherman and carried on to open the trunk, shouting at him to cut the cord in his jacket.

  Even at this distance, I felt the heat on my face.

  He looked about him, found the nylon cord that could be adjusted to tighten around his waist, and began cutting. There were loud cracks as the frame of the house was attacked by the flames.

  Val looked at the fire as he heard the trunk open. "Please, Nick, this time inside the car. It's very cold in there." It was a request rather than a demand. "And, of course, I'd prefer your company to that of the spare tire."

  Responding to my nod, he settled in the Volvo's rear foot well giving me back the Leatherman and offering his hands. I tied them around the base of the emergency brake with the cord, where I could see them.

  We drove out, leaving the fire to do what it had to do. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing; at least there wouldn't be any evidence of me ever having been there.

  There was no sign of Carpenter or anyone else as we bumped our way up to the chain gate. I left it on the ground where I found it, as a warning to Sergei. There was still a chance that he'd got away.

  There'd been two Hiluxes in the hotel parking lot; maybe he'd swiped the other one. It was too late now to hope that he might get us over the border, but I still didn't want him to get caught. He was a good guy, but fuck it, I was on a new phase now, and one that had nothing to do with any of them.

  I had lost, I had to accept it. Now I had to take my chances with Val.

  "I'll drop you off at a train station," I said as we headed toward Vaalimaa. "You can deal from there."

  "Of course. My people will extricate me quite swiftly." There was no emotion in his voice. He sounded like a Russian version of Jeeves.

  "May I give you some advice?"

  "Why not?"

  My eyes were fixed on the road, heading for the highway past the town, seeing nothing but piled-up snow on either side of me. The wind buffeted the side of the car enough for me to have to keep adjusting the steering. It was like having a heavy arctic drive past on a highway.

  "You will obviously want to leave the country quickly, Nick. May I suggest Estonia? From there you can get a flight to Europe fairly easily, or even a ferry to Germany. After what has happened at the hotel, only a fool would try to leave Helsinki by air, or cross into Sweden." I didn't reply, just stared at the snow in the headlights.

  Just over two hours later we were approaching Puistola, one of the Helsinki suburbs. Not that I could see any of it: first light wasn't for another four hours. People would soon be waking up to their cheese and meatballs and listening to the radio accounts of last night's gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

  I looked for signs to the train station. The morning rush hour, if there was one, would start in an hour or two.

  Pulling into the parking lot, I cut Val free of the emergency brake. He knew to stay still and wait for me to tell him when to move. He was so close to freedom, why jeopardize things now?

  I got out and stood away from the car, my pistol in the pocket of my down jacket. He crawled out and we both stood in a line of frozen-over cars, in the dark, as he sorted himself out, tucking in his clothes and running his hands through his hair. Still looking ridiculous in Carpenter's snow pants and ski jacket, he clapped his gloved hands together to get some circulation going, eventually extending one of them to me. The only shaking I did was with my head; he understood why and nodded. "Nick, thank you. You will receive your reward for releasing me. P. P. Smith. Remember the rest?"

  Of course I did. My eyes were fixed on his. I considered telling him that if he was lying to me, I'd find him and kill him, but it would have been a bit like telling Genghis Khan to watch himself.

  He smiled. He'd read my mind again. "Don't worry, you will see that I am a man of my word." He turned and walked toward the station.

  I watched him crunch along in the snow, breath trailing behind him.

  After about a dozen or so paces he stopped and turned. "Nick, a request. Please do not bring a cell phone or pager with you to Kensington, or any other electronic device. It's not the way we conduct business. Again, I thank you. I promise that you won't regret any of this."

  I made sure that he was out of the way, then got back into the car.

  * * *

  7

  Norfolk ENGLAND Friday, December 10,1999 The bedside clock burst into wake-up mode dead on seven, sounding more like a burglar alarm. As I rolled over it took me three attempts before I managed to hit the off button with my hand still inside the sleeping bag.

  The instant I poked my head out I could tell the boiler had stopped working again. My house was
a bit warmer than a Finnish snow hole, but not much. It was yet another thing I needed to straighten out, along with some bedding and a bed frame to go with the mattress I was lying on.

  I slept in a pair of Ronhill running bottoms and sweatshirt. This wasn't the first time the boiler had broken down. I wrapped the unzipped bag around me and pushed my feet into my sneakers with the heels squashed down.

  I headed downstairs, the bag dragging along the floor. I'd spent most of my life being wet, cold, and hungry for a living, so I hated doing it on my own time. This was the first place I'd ever owned, and in winter the mornings felt much the same to me as waking up in the brush in South Armagh. It wasn't supposed to work like that.

  The place was in the same state as I'd left it before I went away just over two weeks ago, to RV with Sergei at the lake house, except that the tarp had blown off the hole in the roof, and the "For Sale" sign had been flattened by the wind. If it had stayed there any longer it would have taken root anyway. There wasn't enough time to sort any of that out today. I had three vitally important meetings in London in a few hours' time, and they wouldn't wait for the boiler man.

  The trip back to the U.K. had taken three days. I'd decided to find my own way rather than take Val's advice to get out of Finland via Estonia. It wasn't as if we were sharing toothbrushes or anything, so I wasn't in the mood to trust everything he had to say. I drove to Kristians and in southern Norway, and from there I took the ferry to Newcastle. It was full of Norwegian students. While they got loaded I watched Sky News on the snowy screens. There was footage of the Intercontinental, with police apparently doing a search for forensic evidence, then came pictures of the dead, among them Sergei. A Finnish government spokeswoman gave a news conference, declaring that it was the worst incident of its type their country had witnessed since the 1950s, but declining to confirm whether it was a ROC shooting, and stressing there was no connection with, or risk to, the EU conference.

  As far as they were concerned, this was an unrelated matter. I made my way down the bare wooden staircase, trying not to snag the sleeping bag on the gripper tack strip that had been left behind when I'd ripped up the carpet.

  The house was a disaster zone. It had been ever since I'd bought it after bringing Kelly back from the States in '97. In theory it was idyllic, up on the Norfolk coast in the middle of nowhere. There was a small corner store, and three fishing boats worked out of the tiny harbor. The highlight of the day was when the local senior citizens took the free bus to the super store eight miles away to do their big shop.

  The real estate agent must have rubbed his hands when he saw me coming.

  A 1930s, three-bed roomed mess of stone, just six hundred feet from the windy beach, it had been empty for several years after the previous owners had died, probably of hypothermia. The details said, "Some renovation required, but with magnificent potential." In other words, a shit load of work was needed. My plan was to gut the place and rebuild it. The ripping out was okay; in fact, I'd enjoyed it. But after a succession of builders had sucked through their teeth when giving me their quotes, and I'd gotten pissed off with them and decided to do it myself, I'd lost interest. So now the house was all bare boards, studwork, and entrails of wiring that I didn't understand sticking out of the walls.

  Now that I was responsible for Kelly, it had seemed the right time to fulfill the fantasy of having a real home. But no sooner had I exchanged contracts than it had started to make me feel confined.

  I'd called the place in Hampstead, where she was being looked after, as soon as I'd got back last night. They said she was much the same as when I'd last seen her. I was glad she was sleeping; it meant I didn't have to speak to her. I did want to, but just never knew what the fuck to say. I'd gone to see her the day before leaving for Finland. She'd seemed all right, not crying or anything, just quiet and strangely helpless.

  The kitchen was in just as bad a state as the rest of the place. I'd kept the old, yellow Formica counter, circa 1962. They'd do for now.

  I put the kettle on the burner, readjusting the sleeping bag around my shoulders, and went out into the porch to check for mail. It hadn't been stacked up on the kitchen counter as I'd expected. I also wondered why the tarp hadn't been replaced in my absence.

  I hadn't got a mailbox yet, but a blue trash can did just as well.

  Very Finnish, I thought. There were four envelopes-three bills and a card. The handwriting told me who the card was from, and I knew before I read it that I was about to get fucked off.

  Caroline had started coming here to look in on things now and again, to collect the mail and check the walls hadn't collapsed while I was away working as a traveling salesman. She was in her thirties and lived in the village. Her husband no longer lived with her-it seemed he took too much whiskey with his soda. Things were going great between us; she was kind and attractive, and whenever I was here we would link up for an afternoon or two. But a couple of months earlier she had started to want more of a relationship than I felt able to offer.

  I opened the card. I was right: no more visits or mail collection. It was a shame; I liked her a lot, but it was probably for the best.

  Things were getting complicated. A gunshot wound in the stomach, a reconstructed earlobe, and dog-tooth scars along a forearm are hard to explain, whatever you're trying to sell.

  Making a lumpy coffee with powdered milk, I went upstairs to Kelly's room. I hesitated before I opened the door, and it wasn't because of the hole in the roof tiles. There were things in there that I'd done for her-not as much as I'd have liked, but they had a habit of reminding me how our lives should have been.

  I turned the handle. There had probably been more wind than rain in my absence, as the stain on the ceiling wasn't wet. The blue two-man tent in the middle of the floor was still holding out. I'd put nails in the floorboards instead of tent pegs and they were rusty now, but I still couldn't bring myself to take it down.

  On the mantel were two photos in cheap wooden picture frames, which I'd promised to bring down to her on my next visit. One was of her with her family-her parents Kev, Marsha; and her sister Aida-all smiles around a smoking barbecue. It was taken about a month before I'd found them hosed down in their home in the spring of '97. I bet she missed this picture; it was the only decent one she had.

  The other was of Josh and his kids. This was a recent one, as Josh was carrying a face scar that any neo-Nazi would be proud of. It was of the family standing outside the Special Operations Training Section of the American Secret Service at Laurel, Maryland. Josh's dark-pink gunshot wound ran all the way up the right-hand side of his cheek to his ear, like a clown's smile. I hadn't had any contact with him since my stupidity got his face rearranged in June '98.

  He and I still administered what was left of Kelly's trust fund, though as her legal guardian, I'd found myself shouldering more and more of the financial responsibility. Josh was aware of her problem, but it was just done via letters now. He was the last real friend I had, and I hoped that maybe one day he would forgive me for nearly getting him and his kids killed. It was too early to go in and apologize-at least that was what I told myself. But I had woken up late at night more than once, knowing the real reason: I just couldn't face all that sorrow and guilt stuff at the same time. I wanted to, I just wasn't any good at it.

  As I picked up Kelly's photos, I realized why I didn't have any myself.

  They just made me think about the people in them.

  I cut away from all that, promising myself that reestablishing contact with Josh would be one of the first things I got done next year.

  I went into the bathroom opposite, and ran the buttercup-colored bath.

  I had a bit of a soft spot for the foam tiles, now light brown with age, that lined the ceiling. I remembered my stepdad putting some up when I was a kid. "These'll keep the heat in," he'd said, then his hand slipped and his thumb left a dent. Every Sunday night, when I had a bath, I threw the soap at the ceiling to add to the pattern.

&
nbsp; Returning to my bedroom, I put Kelly's photos on the mattress to make sure I didn't forget them. I finished my coffee, then dug into one of the cardboard boxes, looking for my leather pants.

  I checked the bath and it was time to jump in, after hitting the small radio on the floor, which was permanently tuned to Radio 4. The shooting was still high on the agenda. An "expert" on ROC declared to listeners of the morning program that it had all the hallmarks of an inter faction shooting. He went on to say that he had known this was going to happen and, of course, he knew the group responsible. He could not, however, name them. He had their trust. The interviewer sounded as unimpressed as I was.

  I lay in the bath and glanced at Baby G. Another ten minutes and I had to get moving.

  The order of the day was first, the doctor's office at 11:30 to talk about Kelly's progress, then lie to the clinic's accounts department about why I couldn't pay the new invoice just yet. I didn't think they would completely understand if I told them everything would have been fine if a mad Russian called Carpenter hadn't fucked up my cash flow.

  My next visit would be to Colonel Lynn at the Firm. I wasn't looking forward to that conversation, either. I hated having to plead.

  The third stop on my agenda was Apartment 3A Palace Gardens in Kensington. What the hell, I was desperate. I didn't see the Maliskia solving my financial problems.

  My foray into the freelance market had only reinforced my reluctant dependence on the Firm. I had been weapons-free from the Firm since the fuckup in Washington with Josh eighteen months before. Lynn was right, of course, when he'd said I should feel lucky that I wasn't locked up in some American jail. As for the Brits, I reckoned they were still trying to decide what to do with me give me a knighthood or make me disappear. At least I was getting paid two grand a month in cash while they scratched their heads. It was enough to cover Kelly's treatment for about seventy-two hours.