"Hey, she wants to go, like yesterday."

The smile soon died but her voice wasn't sorrowful, just practical.

"But Aaron Aaron hates change just like my father. He's just hoping all the troubles will go away." Her head tilted up and back as the flock of birds screeched by, inches above the house. I looked up as well, and tracked them across the sky.

She sighed.

"I'll miss this place."

I knew I was supposed to say something, but I didn't know what. I felt that the mess I'd made of my own life didn't exactly qualify me to help sort out hers.

"I love him very much," she said.

"It's just that I've gradually realized I'm not in love with the man, I guess ... Oldest cliche in the book, I know. But it's so difficult to explain. I can't talk to him about it. It's ... I don't know, it's just time to go ..." She paused for a moment. I could feel the blood pumping through my head.

"There are times when I feel so terribly lonely."

She used both hands to put her hair behind her ears then turned towards me.

There was a silence between us again as the pulse in my neck quickened, and I found it difficult to breathe.

"What about you, Nick?" she said.

"Do you ever get lonely?"

She already knew the answer, but I couldn't help myself... I told her that I lived in sheltered housing in London, that I had no money, had to line up to get free food from a Hari Krishna soup wagon. I told her that all my friends were dead apart from one, and he despised me. Apart from the clothes I was wearing when I arrived at their house, my only other possessions were in a bag stuck in Left Luggage at a railway station in London.

I told her all this and it felt good. I also told her the only reason I was in Panama was that it would stop a child being killed by my boss. I wanted to tell her more, but managed to force the lid back on before it all came flooding out.

When I'd finished, I sat, arms folded, feeling uncertain, not wanting to look at her, so just stared out at the tubs again.

She cleared her throat. The child ... is that Marsha or Kelly?"

I spun my head round and she mistook my shock for anger.

"I'm sorry, sorry ... I shouldn't have asked, I know. It's just I was there, I was with you all night, I hadn't just appeared ... I was going to tell you this morning, but we both got embarra.s.sed, I guess ..."

f.u.c.k, what had I said?

She tried to soften the blow.

"I had to stay, otherwise you would have been half-way to Chepo by now. Don't you remember? You kept on waking up shouting, trying to get outside to look for Kelly. And then you were calling out for Marsha. Somebody had to be there for you. Aaron had been up all night and he was out of it. I was worried about you."

The pulse was stronger now and I felt very hot. What else did I say?"

"Well Kev. I thought it was your real name until just now and-' "Nick Stone."

It must have sounded like a quiz-show quick fire answer. She looked at me a moment, a smile returning to her face.

"That's your real name?"

I nodded.

Why did you do that?"

I shrugged, not too sure. It had just felt right.

When I spoke next, it was as if I was in a trance. As if someone else was doing the talking, and I was just hearing them from a distance.

"The girl's name is Kelly. Her mother was Marsha, married to my friend, Kev. Aida was her little sister. They were all murdered, in their house. Kelly's the only one left. I was just minutes too late to save them. She's why I'm here she's all I have left."

She nodded slowly, taking it all in. I was vaguely aware that the sweat was now leaking more heavily down my face, and I tried to wipe it away.

"Why don't you tell me about her?" she said quietly.

"I'd love to hear about her."

I felt the pins and needles return to my legs, felt the lid forcing itself open, and I had nothing left to control it.

"It's OK it's OK, Nick. Let it out." Her voice was cool, soothing.

And then I knew I couldn't stop it. The lid burst open and words crashed out of my mouth, hardly giving me time to breathe. I told her about being Kelly's guardian, being totally inconsistent, going to Maryland to see Josh, the only sort of friend I had left, people I liked always f.u.c.king me over, signing Kelly over permanently to Josh's care, Kelly's therapy, the loneliness... everything.

By the end, I felt exhausted and just sat there with my hands covering my face.

I felt a hand gently touch my shoulder.

"You've never told anybody that before, have you?"

I shook my head, letting my hands fall, and tried to smile.

"I've never sat still long enough," I said.

"I had to give the therapist a few details about the way Kev and Marsha died, but I did my best to keep the rest of it pretty well hidden."

She could have been looking right through me. It certainly felt that way.

"She might have helped, you know."

"Hughes? She just made me feel like a like a like an emotional dwarf." I felt my jaw clench. 'You know, my world may look like a pile of s.h.i.t, but at least I sometimes get to sit on top of it."

She gave me a sad smile.

"But what's the view like from your pile of s.h.i.t?"

"Not a patch on yours but, then, I like jungles."

"Mmm." Her smile widened.

"Great for hiding in."

I nodded, and managed a real smile this time.

"Are you going to keep hiding for the rest of your life, Nick Stone?"

Good question. What the f.u.c.k was the answer?

I stared at the tubs for a long while as the pins and needles disappeared, and eventually she gave a theatrical sigh.

"What are we going to do with you?"

We looked at each other before she got to her feet. I joined her, feeling awkward as I tried to think of something, anything, to say that would prolong the moment.

She smiled again, then clipped me playfully across the ear.

"Well, then, recess over, back to work. I have some math to check."

"Yes, right. I need one of your tubs1 think I saw some empties near the sinks."

"Sure, we're maxed out. They won't be needed soon, anyway." The smile was still there, but it had become rueful.

I held up the box.

"I'm going to play with that explosive down in the shack for a while, and I promise, no more bangs."

She nodded. That's a relief," she said.

"I think we've both had quite enough excitement for one day." She turned towards the storeroom but then paused.

"Don't worry, Nick Stone, no one will know about this. No one."

I nodded a thank-you, not just for keeping quiet, as she headed for the storeroom.

"Carrie?"

She stopped and half turned once more.

"OK if I have a mooch around in the stores and take some stuff with me? You know, food and equipment for tonight."

"For sure, but just tell me what you've got so we can replace it, OK? And, of course, nothing that can identify us like that." She pointed at the soup box, which had a white sticky label saying "Yanklewitz 08/14/00', probably the heli delivery date.

"No worries."

She gave that rueful smile again.

"As if, Nick Stone."

I watched her disappear into the store before heading round the corner towards the sinks, then got to work. I peeled off the label in three stubborn bits, which went into one of the gla.s.ses. Then, after getting a drink from the D hose and refilling my bottle, I wandered across the open ground to the shack" swinging the tub I'd just collected in one hand, the box and water-bottle in the other, trying to think about nothing except the job. It was hard. She was right, I did have worries, but at least I hadn't gob bed off about who the real target was.

The clouds were gathering big-time. I'd been right not to be fooled by the sun this morning. Just as I reached the gentle incline and started to see the roof of the hut, I heard a succession of short bursts from a vehicle's horn and looked back. The Mazda was b.u.mping along the track, and Luz was running out to greet her dad. I stood watching for a while as he jumped out of the wagon to be hugged and talked to as they walked on to the veranda.

Sitting in the still humid shade of the hut, I tore off the top and bottom flaps of the Campbell's box, scrunched them up in the bottom of the tub, and was left with the main carca.s.s, a four-sided cube, which I ripped apart at a seam and opened out so that I had one long, flat section of cardboard. I started fitting it into the tub, running it round the edges then twisting it until I'd made a cone with its apex about a third of the way up from the bottom, with all the scrunched-up flaps beneath. If I let it go now the cone shape would spring apart, so I started to pack HE, still in its wrappers, around the base to keep it in place. Then, with the cone held fast, I peeled open the other boxes, unwrapped more HE and played with the putty-like substance, packing it into the tub and around the cone.

I was trying to make a copy of the French off-route mine. These are the same shape as the tub, but a little smaller, and designed so that, unlike a conventional mine, they don't have to be directly beneath the target when detonated to destroy it. It can be concealed off to one side of a road or track, hidden in the bushes or, as I was planning, up a tree. It's a handy device if you're trying to mine a metal road, say, without having your goodies laid out for everyone to see.

One version of the mine is initiated by a cable as thin as a strand of silk that's laid over the tarmac and crushed. I was going to detonate it with a round from the Mosin Nagant.

Once triggered, the manufactured ones instantly turn a cone of copper into a hot, molten slug, the shaped charge, propelling it at such speed and power that it penetrates the target's armour and rips its insides apart. I didn't have any copper; in its place, and shaped very much the same way, was the cardboard cone, but there should be enough force in the HE alone to do the job required of it.

I continued squashing down the HE, trying to make it one solid ma.s.s over the cone. My hands stung as the glycerine got into my cuts, and my headache was back, really giving me the good news.

Thinking about the old German guy who'd given me the bayonet gave me the idea of using the explosive this way. He'd told me a story about the Second World War.

German Paras had taken a bridge, stopping the Brits from demolishing it as they withdrew. The charges were still in position, but the Germans disconnected the detonators so that a Panzer column could cross and kick the s.h.i.t out of the Brits. A young British squaddie took one shot with his bog standard Lee Enfield 3O3 rifle at the placed charges. Because it was old-style explosive, just like this stuff, it detonated, and set off all the other charges that were connected by the det (detonation) cord. The whole bridge dropped, stopping the Panzers ever getting through.

As I packed the last of the HE, I was hoping that the squaddie had at least got a couple of weeks' leave as a reward, but I very much doubted it. Probably just a tap on the tin hat with a riding crop and a "Jolly well done, that man', before getting killed a few weeks later.

When I'd finished, I sealed the top on the tub, left the device in the shed, and started back to the house, thinking about what else I had to prepare for a possible four nights on the ground.

The sky had turned metallic, the clouds every shade of grey. A gentle breeze was the only consolation.

There was a loud rumble of thunder in the distance as I crested the slope. Aaron and Carrie were standing by the sinks, and I could see they were arguing again.

Carrie's arms were flying about and Aaron was standing with his head jutting forward like a rooster.

I couldn't just stop and go back: I was in no-man's land here. Besides, my hands were stinging badly with the nitro and I needed to wash it off, and to get some aspirin down my neck. Dihydrocodeine would do the job better, but I needed to be awake later tonight.

I slowed down, lowered my head, and hoped they'd see me soon.

They must have spotted me out here in the open ground, looking everywhere and anywhere apart from the washing area, because the arms stopped windmilling.

Carrie went to the storeroom door and disappeared as Aaron dried himself.

I got to him as he retied his hair, clearly embarra.s.sed.

"Sorry you had to see that."

"None of my business," I said.

"Besides, I'll be gone tonight."

"Carrie told me you'll need dropping off ten, right?"

Nodding, I released the water pressure and soaked my hands before cutting the supply and soaping up to get all the nitro off me.

"You said you had a map? Is it on the bookshelf?"

"Help yourself, and I'll get you a real compa.s.s."