Nothing, even the hell he had lived through working as a spy, had prepared Alex for a life of being truly alone. Being homeless, friendless and visibly underage was a recipe for disaster. Las Vegas was a truly eye-opening experience, the home of glittering casinos, tourist mecca and a huge underclass of dispossessed and unemployed. The hard graft of trying to get a job was a painful series of rejections, even with his false ID and legend of drifting Californian college dropout. He was lucky enough to be able to pick pockets to keep afloat, never in the tourist hub of the main casinos, but keeping to malls and smaller hotels. He was too afraid of either getting arrested by the police or getting noticed by the wise-guys who ran this mega buck metropolis.

It had taken three weeks of grubby filth to get him over his dislike of showers and reintroduce himself to the idea of personal hygiene. In mid November, he had rented a motel room on the Boulder Highway and thoroughly washed himself and his clothes. He had been living in a three hundred dollar wreck of a car bought in LA. Without a job, he studied in coffee shops and the library. He had course books and stationery and the goal of betting back to normal at some point in the future. There he found out being homeless was not an unusual thing in the Clark County, Nevada. He saw a list of homeless shelters, help lines and drop in centres. He made a note of these contacts, he could always fall back on fostering and social services, but he planned to give his game plan a good try first. By his sixteenth birthday, he wanted a job, an apartment and a life without spies, assassins or overbearing adults. In his heart of hearts he knew Yassen was not here and there was no 'us'. The Russian had found employment in Mexico or somewhere further south. Alex was sort of glad to avoid that life, even if life held no joy at the moment.

…..

It was Christmas Eve and Alex had escaped Las Vegas to camp in the desert to avoid any reminders of the season of goodwill, happy families or anything else to do with gifts and giving. He missed Jack. He missed London and home. He kept thinking of last Christmas, last in every sense. It had been a miss mash of Disney awfulness and the best of Marks and Spencer's provender. It had been their only Christmas together as she usually went back to the States o her family in Baltimore. Jack had provided a holiday completely different from his life with Ian, when Christmas and New Year had been spent abroad, on holiday doing some form of extreme sport or other training exercise loosely disguised as bonding fun.

He shivered in his sleeping bag and could not even bring himself to wank, as he was so miserable. Guilt, grief and loneliness were his constant companions and in the cold quiet of the desert night he had nothing to distract him from thoughts of Egypt and death.

In his ruck sack, he pulled out his Christmas present to himself, a bottle of sleeping tablets, some strong painkillers and a half bottle of vodka. Self medication would get him through the next 24 to 48 hours. He planned to sleep through it. Hour after hour of the night passed, but still Alex could not sleep, at midnight and then at four another cocktail of pills and booze was ingested before unconsciousness took him. This turned out to be a spectacularly bad decision as he woke at noon to drag himself out of the tent and projectile vomit behind some near by rocks, before crawling back into his tent to wallow in pity as he felt worse than he had after his accident on Liverpool Street.

…..

After an hour, he was lucid enough to realise he was in a bad way and picked up the mobile phone he had, for all the job offers that never came. He rang the number of a help line.

"I… I think I took too many pills… I've been really sick and… I'm too ill to drive anywhere."

He listened as the kind woman with the soft voice asked for details.

"My name is Alex, I'm 15 and homeless. I'm camping in the desert." Alex wondered if anyone would find his body. Five miles down some dirt track, far enough away to see the stars with no disturbance from the glow from the city.

Maybelle was insistent that he gave her directions for the cops or rangers to find him

"No… no doctors… no cops. I'm miles from anywhere. I have no insurance anyway and I'm an orphan. No one to miss me. Sorry for wasting your time. I'm sure I'll be fine and dandy tomorrow." He switched ff the phone and fell unconscious again.

It was cold… very cold. Not helped by the fact he was covered in sweat. It was dark. He was shivering and everything he was wearing was damp. He reached for the bottle of water. His tongue was enlarged and he was parched. He wet his mouth. Remembering to sip not to induce a recurrence of vomiting. He had hiked up the mountain to be truly alone. His car was three miles away and Alex doubted he could walk a hundred yards feeling like this.

By morning on Boxing Day, Alex ate a ration bar and finished his water. He changed his clothes and managed to pack up his gear. His sleeping bag and clothes needed washing. He made it to the 24 hour laundromat downtown and sat grim faced, drinking cola as he survived his hangover from hell.

The thing of being alone was that he only had himself and his thoughts for company. In the nine weeks since he had departed he had begun to change his mind over the need for help. No man was an island and he needed to talk over his life, his failing and the fact he was not getting back to normal. In fact he was slowly coming apart at the seams. It was time to phone a friend and at the moment, that was a very sort list of possible contacts.

The drunk guy in the dark suit and bad tie did not notice the fact the kid bumping into him had relieved him of his phone and wallet.

In his car, Alex sat and hoped James Sprintz was home and had not changed his phone number since they last talked.

Four..five then six rings before James Sprintz answered his mobile, "Hi, Jamie… its Alex. I need to talk. Can you give me some good advice because I think I've made a spectacularly shit decision about staying in America."

"I know from Cass and Sabina that you've run away. Where are you?"

"Clark County, Nevada. I'm homeless, jobless and a bit desperate. I think I'm fucked in the head because I almost OD over Christmas. Too much booze, too many pills and too scared to go to hospital. I can't go back to Sabina's, they had a major freaky over me admitting to being gay. I thought I could get a job, an apartment and be OK. Its a million miles from OK, James and I don't think I can get myself out of this hole I've dug for myself."