Chapter 5

Sarah was having serious second thoughts about our plan.

“I think we need to come up with a different plan,” she said. She was driving and looking straight ahead, but I could see her worry by the tapping of her fingers on the steering wheel.

“Have you thought of a better one?” I asked curiously.

She sighed. “No. But I am not comfortable leaving you on your own. You are only 12-years-old.”

“It's not ideal, no. If the FBI was willing to be more reasonable none of this would be necessary,” I said with a bit of heat and then heaved a heavy sigh. “If wishes were fishes we would all cast nets. It is what it is. I can't think of a better option. I guess we have until we arrive to come up with another solution.”

“Say you survive a month on your own. What are you going to do then? I will give you some cash, but it can be taken off you by anybody bigger than you. How are you going to survive?” she asked worriedly.

“I have some plans and you know we agreed that I wouldn't discuss that with you. Worse comes to worst, I can use a burner phone to call Jack from the FBI. I would have to be in pretty dire straights to use it though.” Truthfully I didn't really have a clue, I was just going to have to wing it. If I told her that though, she would never agree to leave me.

“Grrr...”

“Look it is a shitty situation,” I admitted.

“Oi, language.”

I ignored her unhappiness about my use of bad language. Let's be honest, it was a struggle to look at my situation and find non-foul language to describe it.

“The mafia is after you, but probably only one small branch. Every criminal organisation is after me and so is the federal government. The only way I am going to escape is to do something extreme. And to do that I need to be completely isolated for four weeks. There can be no places with cameras or CCTV and those things are so prevalent now, the only answer is away from civilisation,” I continued. She knew all this and logically had agreed with me. She had managed to add a lot of flesh to the bones of my plan. Without her, none of it would be possible.

“I could stay with you,” she said quietly.

“If you disappeared for a month, the FBI would guess that you had been helping me. That would never end well and I could never stay with you without compromising my new identity.” I didn't want to add that it put her in greater danger if she knew what my new identity looked like. I trusted her, but anyone can be broken, one way or another.

I could see tears leaking down her face. “You are a child! How can they force these choices on a twelve-year-old child!.”

“I don't think I am a child anymore,” I responded gently. “I have had to grow up quickly."

She wiped her face with her sleeve leaving makeup smeared across her face. “Promise me you will keep trying to think of alternatives. You are smart, smarter than me, please use your brain and come up with something else.”

“I will try, but I have been trying for days. It's not fair, it's not right, but it is what it is. Did you manage to get everything?”

“Yes, and a lot more besides. I asked for help from the army surplus guy and he made some good suggestions. I will need to help you establish camp. There is no way you can carry it all and you need access to water. I have a small filtration system that you can set up, but you need water for everything and you can't carry it, it is too heavy.”

“As long as there is no big delay to you arriving in California, you should be fine. I think they will suspect you, but if there is clear evidence that you got to Cali without too much delay they shouldn't press you too hard.”

“Don't worry about me. Concentrate on you. Besides we are taking the scenic route to avoid all the cameras. They will expect it to take a few days,” Sarah replied.

“Have you found a good location?” I asked.

“A few possibles. We won't really know until we can see it for ourselves. Your requirements were a bit tricky. Somewhere that is not going to be too cold at this time of year. We are at the beginning of September and I have added a couple of weeks to your normal four, just in case. So that means it needs to not get too cold before the end of October. Has enough vegetation for you to be well hidden. Is relatively close to a road but with no hiking trails. Not too far from some kind of civilisation.”

“A service station or house would suffice,” I added. “I don't need people until after my four weeks.”

“For your plan that you are not going to tell me about?”

“That's right,” I said with a wan smile.

“It's going to be so lonely,” Sarah said with a sigh.

“I have spent three years with people barely talking to me and those who did were usually my guards. I'll survive.”

“I wasn't talking about you,” Sarah said, smiling.

“Why you!” I said indignantly. I was tempted to tickle her to lighten the mood further, but I was worried about her crashing the car.

There was a period of quiet where we were both lost in our thoughts.

“I like the idea of you being near a service station. It may mean the road is more of a major road or the service station would go out of business, but people just stop and go from those places, they don't explore nearby. If you were in trouble you would always have someplace to go and they are usually open all the time,” Sarah said thoughtfully.

“Works for me,” I agreed. If it made Sarah more comfortable then hopefully she would sleep better at night. After we found my campsite and loaded it with everything we thought I would need, we would probably never see each other again. Maybe if I managed to establish myself enough so that I wasn't worried about everyone who was chasing me, but that didn't seem likely.

We made the journey over three days. We didn't want any evidence of staying at motels and although I suggested Sarah get a decent nights sleep while I stayed in the car, she wouldn't hear of it. Instead, she slept in the car with me when she felt the need and we kept moving as much as possible. When we stopped at any service station, I would keep hidden and Sarah would buy some food and use the facilities. I had to make do with filling a bottle in the car or fertilizing the occasional tree. We had copious amounts of MRE's for additional meals and moist bio-degradable wipes to attempt to clean ourselves up. Water Sarah bought from the service stations. Once we arrived in Sarah's target area which was the Sequoia National Forest in California, we started visiting every service station we could find to assess its suitability.

We settled on one that was close to the entrance to the National Park. From our observation, people did stop there but were eager to get back in their cars to complete their journeys. There was a forest area within a hundred yards and a small dirt road, a couple of hundred yards past the station that led into the woods but was a dead end. We parked the car in the dead-end and walked towards the service station to get our bearings. It was about a mile away. The only question was water. We couldn't find any streams but had noted that the service station was open from 6am to 11pm. We were hoping that they had an external tap and no CCTV cameras. We searched out a suitably hidden spot and set up my tent. That night we crept to the station and luck was with us. Around the side of the toilet, there was a tap that wasn't in view of the front cameras. I filled up five 2 litre pop bottles and settled them in my backpack and carried them back to the tent. Sarah was with me, but this was also a test to see if I could do it.

The next morning was very awkward. Initially, we spent the time taking everything from the car and loading up my tent, but once that was done, we had to say goodbye. Clara/Sarah had rescued me twice. The first time, clear self-interest was involved, but to help me escape the evil clutches of the FBI meant taking a huge risk and absolutely no reward. She had offered to become my mother and adopt me. She cared about me in a way no one else ever had. My own mother would have handed me back to the FBI, I have no doubt. My father would have demanded to be paid.

She didn't just rescue my body, I think she rescued my soul as well. I had become very untrusting and cynical. She forced me to realise that not everybody was only concerned with themselves. I didn't suddenly trust everyone, but she had put a major chink in my emotional armour. I was a very strong-willed individual and was beginning to have significant doubts that love was real. She taught me that it could be. And I had to say goodbye.