23: Hike
"I can't even explain how good it is to see you," Michael said, when they'd got far enough from the ferry terminal for George to slow down and blend in with the regular traffic. He was still in the back but sitting up now.
"You could've at least got a decent forged passport," George complained.
"Unfortunately funds are a little low at the moment," Michael told him. "Being on the run from the police has limited my employment options."
It was still early and being the weekend there was relatively little traffic on the roads. This was both a blessing and a curse; less traffic meant they could make faster progress, but also meant fewer cars to blend in with.
George's phone rang and he passed it back to Michael to answer.
"Good morning, George Knight's phone," Michael said, putting on a posh voice as he put it on speaker.
"Leave it out, Michael," Lucy snapped back. "The police have put out a nationwide alert for your arrest."
"Relax, we're well on our way back to campus," George said. "So long as the police don't start blockading the motorways we should be fine."
"They've got the number plates of both of the cars," Lucy replied. "You'll be all over the camera system and the traffic police do know what they're doing. You'll turn a corner and there will be ten of them waiting with a helicopter."
"What if we went down some back routes?" Michael suggested. "It'll take longer but they're less likely to be able to follow."
"Too risky," James cut in, his voice faint. "You only need to get stuck behind a tractor or at some traffic lights and they'll swoop."
"So we're out of ideas?" George asked.
"Well, Michael, you're back in the UK. You could try throwing yourself on the mercy of the police before anything gets worse?" James asked.
Michael shook his head. "Nah, no way. I need somewhere to lie low, and being arrested by some lowly copper who thinks he's reeled in a big fish is going to be all over the press."
"The traffic helicopters only have a limited amount of fuel," George pointed out. "You can outrun them."
"A high-speed pursuit is going to attract a ton of attention," James replied. "What's better is going on foot where they can't get you until the helicopter has to go back to base."
"Exactly," Lucy chimed in. "They're always losing people who leg it on foot."
Michael nodded. "Alright, let's do that. Get the police off our backs."
"I'll keep heading towards campus for now," George told them. "You act as decoys to draw the police away and we'll fall back on Plan B."
Michael hung up the phone and held it out to George, but George shook his head.
"You hang onto it," he said.
Michael nodded. "So what's Plan B?" he asked.
George pulled into the outside lane of the motorway and hit a clear patch, so he accelerated up to speed. "Have a look in the boot," he said, smiling. Michael turned and rooted around, before laughing.
"Straight out of a CHERUB survival exercise, I like it," he laughed. "We're going cross-country."
Their decoy plan worked perfectly, and whilst the police mostly took an interest in the BMW that Lucy was currently driving in the direction of London, George had come off the main routes and had worked his way through some back roads until they reached the side of a reservoir. It was the middle of the day by now and there were a handful of families and hiking groups braving the cold, parked in the car park by the water's edge. George and Michael blended in with them easily, stopping the car between two people carriers. The bag James had packed was a standard CHERUB survival pack; there was a tent, some emergency rations, a flare, water purifier, and, George was relieved to see, a pair of boots in his size.
"He's thought of everything," Michael said, waiting until George had changed his shoes and then hoisting the massive bag onto his back.
"I can carry some of it," George said, feeling useless with nothing to carry as he locked the car and tucked the key under the wheel arch.
"This is nothing compared to what I've been carrying every day for the past six months," Michael pointed out. "You just focus on navigating."
There was a map in the pack, and as they followed a group of middle-aged hikers out of the car park, over the main road again and up onto an open area of countryside, George got their bearings and traced out the route.
"It's forty kilometres as the crow flies," George told Michael. "But probably nearly twice that in reality."
"No problem," Michael said, optimistically. "We've got all day."
"It'll be dark not long after five," George added. "I can use GPS to keep us on track once it gets dark but we'll need to stop and sleep eventually."
"Let's get as far as we can tonight," Michael said, picking up speed to a marching pace and overtaking the hikers. "Someone will notice the abandoned car eventually."
George had thought that Michael was tough when he'd left CHERUB, but he was in a different league now. Even though he was carrying all of their supplies, the ground was boggy and he'd been sleeping outdoors for days, he still covered the miles like they were nothing. George had to steel himself just to match the pace, and his legs were aching by the time they'd covered the first ten kilometres and the sun was rapidly heading for the horizon. They'd climbed up into the hills and there was nobody else around, just a few indifferent sheep and Michael surveyed the landscape.
"Looks pretty manageable," he said, pointing to a handful of patches where there was snowfall which hadn't melted.
George stopped, hands on his thighs, trying to catch his breath a little. "You're worse than Kazakov was," he muttered, rubbing his legs.
Michael laughed. "Same training," he said. "After you've spent a month in the wilderness somewhere where any wrong move could mean a terrorist gun in your face, you get pretty good at pushing yourself to the limit. That's why they use guys like Kazakov for training, they're tough as nails."
After it got dark, Michael pulled head torches out of the bag and George led the way, slowing the pace down so they didn't stumble into a deep section of bog or go straight off the side of a cliff. Even then, George found his boots were covered in a thick layer of mud and as the temperature dropped, even staying active wasn't enough to keep him completely warm.
"Here," George said, pointing to a length of stone wall up ahead. "Let's get some rest, the wall will block the wind."
"Good shout," Michael said, following George as he picked his way across a muddy section to the foot of the wall. It was only waist-high, but squatting down on the side of it out of the wind immediately raised the temperature a few degrees.
"I'll get the tent up," Michael told George, "You get something warmed up for dinner."
Normally on survival exercises they'd be expected to gather firewood and make a fire, but up on the hills everything was completely sodden and there were hardly any trees to get wood from. So instead George grabbed a compact gas bottle out of the pack and connected it to a tiny gas cooker, then crumbled the high-calorie rations into a tin with some water and started heating it. Ration soup didn't count as delicious by any means, but George was craving something hot.
"Here," Michael said, when the tent was up. He handed George a Wispa bar.
"Where did this come from?" George asked gratefully, unwrapping it and cramming half into his mouth.
"In the pack," Michael told him, smiling. "Told ya, James thinks of everything."
"More likely Kerry," George pointed out.
With hot food inside them and the shelter of the tent, George felt slightly better. He managed to get his boots off and burrowed into a sleeping bag, zipping it up to his chin to conserve body temperature while Michael double-checked that all the guy ropes were secure before zipping up the tent's entrance and getting into his own sleeping bag.
"Well, by this time tomorrow I'll either be tucked up in a nice warm bed on campus, or I'll be in a nice warm cell in a police station somewhere," Michael remarked when he'd flicked his head lamp off. The wind whistled past the tent, but its bark was worse than its bite, and in his sleeping bag George was starting to feel a bit cosy.
"What have you really been doing?" George asked, finally, feeling tired but still sustained by some remnants of adrenaline in his system.
"Hm?" Michael asked. "You mean, why am I a wanted man?"
George laughed slightly. "I suppose," he said. "Did you really join some kind of army?"
Michael seemed to think about this for a minute. "When I was doing the construction programme, you could see how much of a difference really basic things, like a well with brick around it, or a school with a proper roof, actually made to people. But then the people running the governments have enough money to pay for all this, but they're corrupt and spend it all on Mercedes for their wives and million-pound houses in London. And then when the extremists move in and start shooting and torturing people, the government doesn't protect them. So what was the point of me building yet another school when in three, maybe six months, a bunch of guys with rifles move in and murder the teacher so they can use it as a bunkhouse?"
"Right," George said. "I suppose that makes sense."
"One of the blokes I got friendly with in Ethiopia, Guy, he had some contacts with a resistance group. I realised I could do more good fighting alongside them than working for a useless charity that can't keep up with the political changes. At first I thought I would mainly be just doing guard duty, stuff like that, but they're desperate for recruits and pretty fast I was doing front line patrols. A big guy like me was valuable for them, and I really liked the squad I was with. Guys from all over the world, Iraq, China, Venezuela, Egypt. It was hard and pretty dangerous, but I felt so much more alive, you know? Like when you're on a mission and things are changing and you have to rely on your training and your abilities."
"I know the feeling," George grinned.
Michael sighed and shifted in his sleeping bag. "Life after campus just wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be, I guess."
"Why did you leave?" George asked, closing his eyes for a bit to rest.
"The government stopped paying us. Some of the squad wanted to go into Congo and look for some work down there, but I realised that nobody has a long career on the front lines like that so I hitchhiked north and ended up in Morocco, which took about a month. Then I suppose you know the next part."
But George had already fallen asleep, breathing evenly, so Michael chuckled to himself instead.