They drew it out for a while, enjoying the sensation, talking softly, saying things they’d waited these long days to say, saying new things they’d never admitted to each other before. They’d been bound in blood and pain, but it had been their own; now they were bound in the blood and pain of others, and it was a far stronger bond. They’d seen overwhelming suffering and need, and had responded. For Nikolas, this had been a revelation of a better nature he’d not known before, a part of him that hadn’t been given the opportunity to develop in the frozen wastes of his childhood. Ben had watched the flowering of an inner beauty in Nikolas that now matched the outer beauty he’d always worn as a mask hiding the darkness.
As Nikolas and Ben made slow love upon the floor, people came to the door, knocking, seeking entry. They shouted back they were busy. Most people got the message. Neither Ben nor Nikolas cared if the whole camp knew they were lovers. These things, in the face of the almost unthinkable horror they’d witnessed, were insignificant. All that mattered was that you loved. Who you loved was immaterial.
Ben took his turn when Nikolas was finished, the heat making their bodies sweat, their release copious and spilling out and sticking them together. Their bodies were so alive and hard and healthy and uninjured. Everything worked; nothing caused them pain. They were a small oasis of life and vitality in a world around them filled with injury and death. It was like replenishing a battery, feeding a hunger. They finished and lay entangled, just running fingers through hair or stroking sweating skin and talking, still talking, sharing words and thoughts as freely as they’d shared their bodies.
Finally, Kate came to the door and told them she had a key and she was giving them five minutes or she’d come in and find out answers to a lot of questions she had. Ben shouted back something rude, which only made her laugh, and they reluctantly rose to their feet. They had work to do.
By now the bodies had to be buried in mass graves. They needed more supplies of everything, chainsaws, bulldozers, and always fuel, more fuel. Everything, from the generators in the hospital, their lights and field kitchens, to the vehicles and equipment, ran on fuel, and it was constantly in short supply. Nikolas, through his contacts, sold the gold, turning it into actual money, not donations, promises, foreign aid, or charity budgets, but unaccounted for cash that he handed to nurses, doctors, teachers at the newly established orphanage, locals who wanted to buy a new boat so they could resume fishing, anyone and everyone who had a genuine need. He was either a very good judge of human nature or his physical presence and quirky personality ensured he wasn’t often wrong in his choice of recipient. He even used the money freely to bribe officials if things weren’t done fast enough. He had no moral qualms at all about bribery. He was half-Russian, after all.
Ben brought in almost as much money through his appearances in the media as Nikolas did from his gold sale. Ben had become something of a media star. As he was told by one production assistant in the BBC, to his intense embarrassment, in the world of television, where the next new thing was constantly being sought, finding a genuine expert on anything who looked like he did and who had authentic experiences was like a god falling into their greedy hands. He had empathy for loss that cut across the shallow, empty sympathy of the paid correspondents who tried with great gravitas in their voices to convey horror they hadn’t personally experienced and grief they couldn’t understand. Ben could. If the rubbing of his wrist was usually off camera, it didn’t mean it wasn’t there. He knew only too well what losing someone you loved could do to you, and this knowledge flowed like visible truth through his words.
He was constantly referred to as Ex-Special-Forces-Expert Ben Rider, as if this were an official title, and donations to the hotline appeal were always in direct relation to Ben Rider’s appearances on television. He was offered the chance to make a documentary about the disaster, which Nikolas insisted was tacky and incredibly insensitive. Ben retorted he was just jealous, which earned him a taking down. In more ways than one.
§ § §
Nikolas tried to stay out of the limelight, working tirelessly in the background but refusing to appear on camera or be quoted directly in the press. He wasn’t even sure which identity he was there under anymore, and didn’t want or need the attention. Secretly, he revelled in Ben’s new fame. He loved watching him giving interviews while standing at the back of the group of journalists. Ben was a natural, charming, beautiful, well spoken, articulate and genuine. They ate him up.
By the middle of the fifth week, things had become more officially organised. There were so many government agencies on the ground Nikolas’s work often became mired in frustration, tangled up in red tape. He didn’t do red tape—refused to acknowledge it, cut it, trampled it into the mud of the tsunami. Eventually, however, like a man in a net, twisting to free himself, he only entangled himself more. One evening at the end of a day when he’d seen bulldozers turned away from the site because they had the wrong documentation, and local children from his makeshift orphanage were being bussed out away from the remainder of their fractured community to the big orphanage in the capital, he knew their time on the island was done.
He called Ben and Kate in and told them they’d all leave the next day. He expected opposition, but they both acquiesced to his decision. He knew Ben felt he’d become more of a star than the tsunami, a distraction from the real story. Ex-Special-Forces-Expert Ben Rider was done. Kate said she wanted to leave on a high and not have all their work undermined by the new political atmosphere and the backbiting and in-fighting of the various charities.
As mysteriously as they’d emerged from the mud, therefore, they disappeared. They left all the equipment up and running, taking nothing with them. Nikolas enjoyed picturing the face of the priest of the local Catholic church when he woke up to find fifty million pesos in his desk drawer. He hoped the man would take it as a gift from God.
They caught a first class flight back to Singapore. Unlike last time in their immaculate suits and with expensive travel luggage, now they travelled like hobos in torn jeans and T-shirts and with old army duffels they’d scrounged from the camp. They’d been away almost two months. They were unshaven, hair long and scraggly, but those were only the surface differences.
Nikolas no longer felt like a man tied down and trapped by sickness, inactivity, boredom, and frustration, a wild creature escaped into a narrower world. He didn’t even think about alcohol or smoking or want his drugs to ease the frustration of being trapped in the life of someone so constrained. He’d blossomed and emerged into something he’d never considered himself to be. Everything he’d done in the camp, he’d done with single-minded purpose but without any self-aggrandisement or ulterior motive. His whole life up to this point had been one of deception and hidden agendas. He felt freed from the burden of having to be something he was not, and filled with the possibility of finding out what he yet could be. He had the germ of an idea, too early in its inception to tell Ben, but burning deep within him.
As they covered the miles, he doodled, drawing a man falling from the sky, and the more he drew it, the more it resembled an angel, wings burning, plummeting to earth. He pictured this flawed angel with blond hair and a scar.
Nikolas knew Ben had also undergone a transformation. He was immediately recognised when they arrived at Changi. As they were waiting in the first class boarding lounge, he came onto the television when an old news report was being repeated and updated. He had to sign an autograph for the air steward. He was recognised at Heathrow as well, and they walked through the arrival halls like rock stars with people standing back, whispering and smiling at them. They’d have stood out without Ben’s new fame, but it was a novel experience for both of them.
London was in late spring. It was cool and bright and lovely after what they’d left. The intensity of the tropical paradise of the first two weeks of their stay had been irrevocably tainted by what had come after—the realisation such beauty was only transitory; it was an illusion, and a dangerous one at that. It was better to be prepared, to be ready. God didn’t bless his favoured children with too many escapes like the one they’d been given. They didn’t intend to waste it.
Nikolas had missed his required return to the doctor one month after his initial visit. He hadn’t attended his MRI scan either. But at Ben’s insistence, he made an appointment the day after they returned. Andrea Gillian appeared utterly taken aback by the deeply tanned, forceful man who came into her office in jeans and sat relaxed and smiling at her. She came out from behind her desk and examined his now invisible wound. His hair had grown back to highlighted stubble and seemed promising to continue to grow. He didn’t stiffen or flinch at her touch. Any touch from the living was good now. She sat back down and asked him similar questions as she had before, was he eating, sleeping, exercising, and avoiding alcohol and cigarettes? To each of these he gave entirely honest answers, good answers. He did, however, lie about one thing. He probably told the biggest lie of a life that had been entirely constructed of falsehoods. When she asked him if he’d stayed away from stress, he looked her frankly in the eyes and told her he’d been on holiday in the sun for two months.
What could possibly be stressful about that?
To Be Continued in The Bridge of Silver Wings
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John spent twenty-two years in the military, perfecting the art of looking busy whilst secretly writing. He left as a senior officer when his tunnel was ready for use. He is now living in New Zealand until he can raise enough money to leave. Although he has no plans to return to the army, he can occasionally be caught polishing his medals.
TRADEMARKS ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
The Mandarin Oriental Hotel: Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group
Dinner by Heston Blumethal: Tapestry Management Limited
Tate Modern: Tate Group
Abercrombie and Fitch: Abercrombie and Fitch Company
Ducati: Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A.
Mercedes Benz: Daimler AG
Range Rover: Jaguar Land Rover, Limited.
Lada: AvtoVAZ
Hobnobs: United Biscuits
Claridge’s: Maybourne Hotel Group
Haynes Manual: Haynes Publishing Group
The Descent: Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation
Midnight Express
Red Cross: International Committee of the Red Cross
BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation
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