Your Still Beating Heart by Tyler Keevil

Author:Tyler Keevil
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Myriad Editions
Published: 2020-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

a change of plans

Time has changed again. Since yesterday time has only meant sticking to their schedule, getting to your waypoints and destinations. Staying on track. Time has been useful, but not valuable. Now it is. Now, time is vital, critical, not only valuable but invaluable. You don’t just hear the clock ticking but feel each precious second, reverberating through your body, pounding in your head, pulsing in your limbs, your hands, your fingertips tapping the steering wheel. Time is life. Yours, and Gogol’s. And if you waste it, squander it, you may run out of time completely. The moment in a board game when the sand-timer finishes: time’s up.

It’s hard to say precisely when you made the decision. In a way it wasn’t a decision at all, but a realisation, a dawning awareness. You suspect why they want Gogol, what they intend to do with him. And that suspicion is enough. To alter course, to change the plans. To disobey them.

You have considered all the angles – at least, all the angles you can see. You could have chosen not to cross the border. You could have gone east, the other direction. But if you were being watched at the inn (as you felt you were) this might have been reported. Or it certainly would have been reported when you failed to appear at the border. You would have been pursued, probably. And caught. Likely. You have little knowledge of Ukraine. Your ignorance would have hurt you. They would have got Gogol anyway. No, you had to return to the EU. At the border you could have confessed to the guards, told them everything, tried to save Gogol that way. But clearly at least one of the guards is working for them. One has been bought, or blackmailed, or coerced. No. The border was not safe.

In Prague, you are convinced, you will find a way. A way home.

It won’t be easy. Measures have to be taken, and risks. Risks that may or may not pay off. But you can hedge your bets. And the car journey will give you time to think, to adapt. For now, they still believe everything is going according to plan. You’ve made your pick-up, stayed at the inn, crossed back over. They’ll be expecting you to call, soon. To find out where to meet them. That’s the next step. And for as long as possible, it’s important for them to think it’s all going ahead. If they continue to expect your arrival, you’ll have an advantage. Once they find out, that will change things.

Once they find out, they will be tracking you, hunting you, seeking to kill you.

For now, a strange time. The clock ticking even though the race is not on. Like watching the countdown before the starting signal, the green flag for go.

On the Slovak side, the roads are flatter and smoother, better tended. Humming beneath the wheels of the Octavia. A gentle warm-up run. Surrounded by snow-crusted fields. Gogol in the seat beside you, his seatbelt on now, gazing at the scenery.

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