Blindside acalf-3

by G. J. Moffat

  ‘What do you mean, think?’

  ‘There’s not much left of them. They were found in a skip outside a building site about a half-mile from the locus. Someone set fire to them.’

  ‘Is there enough left to do us any good?’

  ‘Don’t know till the forensics people go over it. It’ll be tomorrow now before they make a start.’

  ‘Thanks, Jim.’

  She finished the call and held Logan’s hand.

  ‘How do I look?’ She straightened her back and sniffed, lifting her chin.

  Logan tilted his head to one side.

  ‘You really want me to answer that?’

  ‘Yes, actually.’

  He leaned towards her and kissed her gently on the lips, moving up the injured side of her face and kissing her eyes as she closed them.

  ‘How’s that for an answer?’

  ‘Pretty good. You practise that?’

  ‘Only on you.’

  They moved through to the living room and sat together on an oversized couch. Logan put his arm around her and pulled her to him.

  ‘What is this case anyway that causes you to get beaten up?’

  ‘It’s a drug squad thing that I got pulled into because there’ve been some deaths.’

  ‘What, like gang hits or something?’

  ‘No. Not like that. Overdoses.’

  ‘Why is CID interested in overdoses?’

  ‘They think there’s a new strain of drug going around. A heroin derivative. If the suppliers know that it’s potentially lethal we might be able to charge them in relation to the deaths, not just the supply.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it that way.’

  ‘Can we not talk about it any more? When do you leave tomorrow?’

  ‘Alex is picking me up at seven.’

  ‘How’s Ellie taking it?’

  ‘Better than I thought. Sam said you can go over there any time. If you want.’

  ‘I will, if I get the time. This case feels like it’ll keep me busy.’

  They sat for a while without talking, watching the fire crackle in the hearth and enjoying the quiet.

  Irvine turned her face and kissed his neck, small and soft. Her hand slid across his chest and inside his shirt. Logan kissed her.

  ‘You have to get up early,’ she said, bringing her hand up to his face.

  ‘Not that early.’

  Part Six:

  Patriots

  1

  The place looked smaller than Seth Raines remembered. He got out of his pick-up truck and walked up the steps to the front door of the single-storey house. He rapped his knuckles on the door and waited. He looked back at his truck sitting in the dirt driveway behind the crumbling front wall.

  ‘That you, Seth?’ a voice sounded from inside.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Come on in. It’s open.’

  Raines looked down at his boots and wiped them on the welcome mat before pushing the door open and stepping into the narrow hallway. It led to a small kitchen at the back of the house with a couple of rooms off to either side.

  ‘Through here,’ the voice shouted from Raines’s right.

  He pushed open the first door on his right and walked into the room, looking back to see if he was trailing any dirt. The man he had come to see was sitting by the fireplace. It was warm outside but the fire was roaring. The man turned to look at Raines. The pain never seemed to leave his eyes. Raines knew why.

  Raines lay on the ground beside the dirt track watching blood soak through his combat trousers. Andy Johnson kneeled beside him and tore at his trousers until the wound was exposed. Raines put his head back against the dirt and ground his teeth against the pain as it burned through his leg.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Johnson said. ‘You’ll be okay, man.’

  His voice was high and difficult to hear over the noise.

  Raines felt sweat run back off his face and into his ears.

  A British Chinook helicopter came in to land using the cover of the three Land Rovers to shield it from the enemy position. It settled on the ground quickly and heavily and a medical team rushed forward. One of the team came to treat Raines, but he shouted at them to get Horn first.

  ‘Keep him alive,’ he screamed at the medics as they fitted an oxygen mask over Horn’s face and lifted him on to a stretcher.

  The rotor blades of the Chinook continued to spin, blowing dust and grit into Raines’s eyes. He closed them and held his hand up as a shield.

  When he got back to the base, Horn was already in surgery. Raines leaned against a wall in the operating theatre while the British medics worked on Horn, oblivious to the blood soaking the field dressing on his own wound.

  They told him he couldn’t be there. Try and move me, he told them.

  No one did.

  They worked hard on Horn. He couldn’t have asked for any more effort.

  First thing they did was saw off what remained of his left foot. Tried to stem the blood flow from the stump where his right leg used to be by clamping arteries.

  His heart still stopped.

  They opened his chest and put paddles into the cavity.

  Raines closed his eyes, certain that his man was not coming back.

  But he did. Somehow. And now here he was in front of Raines.

  ‘You don’t have to like these people,’ Raines told Matt Horn. ‘They’re a means to an end is all. A tool to help us get what we want.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘You need convincing at every stage. It’s getting old real fast.’

  Horn said nothing and looked out of the window at the front of the house. Raines hated the weakness he saw in his friend’s eyes. He walked to the window and leaned against the wall beside it, his face set in a perpetual frown. The picture of Charlie Company that first day in Afghanistan was on the mantel above the fireplace. The same one Raines had in his office at the compound. Raines stared at it. Tried to reconcile the face of Matt Horn that he saw in the picture with the man he was now.

  Horn turned his head and followed Raines’s gaze to the photo. He stood awkwardly, pushing himself up with his arms, and walked in a stiff gait to look out of the window. Raines knew that Horn was still getting used to the new artificial legs.

  ‘You heard about the latest one?’ Horn said. ‘The guy that died in Veterans Park?’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘He was a soldier. Or at least he used to be.’

  ‘I said I heard.’

  ‘What about the others? And what about Stark?’

  Raines moved off the wall, opening and closing his fists.

  ‘If that was even his name.’

  ‘Goddamnit,’ Horn shouted at Raines. ‘When did it get so easy for you?’

  He turned and Raines saw his eyes glisten in the light from the sun. Horn wiped the sleeve of his shirt across his face. Raines bowed his head. Wondered if it would be easier for everyone if he killed Horn now. He would never have believed that he could have such a thought.

  ‘It’ll be over soon,’ Raines told him.

  ‘It won’t bring any of them back.’ Horn’s voice trembled. ‘Will it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And how many more will die?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t have anything else to say to me?’

  Raines looked again at the photograph above the fireplace — thought about what he would do if he could rewind it all back to that day. Would he do it differently? Any of it? Never volunteer for that trip to the poppy field? He wasn’t sure. His current mission seemed hard-wired into his psyche and nothing would turn him away from it. In quiet moments, he secretly relished it.

  ‘I used to love this country,’ he said.

  ‘You still do.’

  Raines looked at Horn again and smiled, shaking his head.

  ‘And now I want it to burn,’ Raines said. ‘I mean, I love the country. But not the bastards that run it. They can rot in Hell for all
I care. For all they did to us.’

  He pointed at the photograph.

  ‘We have to look after ourselves. That’s what this is about.’

  ‘And what about the people we hurt in the process?’

  Raines turned to the window.

  ‘I told you already. I’m tired of this conversation.’

  ‘Can you at least tell me how this all ends?’

  There was no answer.

  2

  Raines pulled up outside his building and looked in his mirror. He saw that he now had shadows. They were parked in an obvious Fed car across the street. They must have been waiting for him since this morning. Had to be expected after what happened to Stark. He was impressed that they had found him because he had rented the apartment under a different name but felt kind of insulted that they weren’t very good at being covert, if that was their intention. Two young guys in suits sitting on the street in a Ford on a working day. Their ineptitude would have been funny if it wasn’t for the fact that they were supposed to be the ones protecting the security of the country.

  What used to be his country.

  Raines decided on a direct strategy. They had nothing on him anyway. He reached under his seat, grabbed his Smith amp; Wesson nine-millimetre off the floor, stuck it into the rear waistband of his jeans and got out of his truck. He walked across the street towards the Ford, saw the men inside turn their heads to talk to one another. Their movements were fast and jerky.

  Raines got to the car, leaned down to the driver’s window and motioned with his hand for the man to lower the window. The man did what he was told, the window buzzing down, and stared at Raines through the narrow opening he had made.

  ‘Let me in back,’ Raines told him.

  The driver turned to his companion who was entirely non-committal.

  ‘We should talk.’

  The driver turned back to Raines, stared at him for a while longer and nodded his head towards the back of the car. Raines heard the soft click of the car door being unlocked. He went to the rear door, pulled it open and sat inside.

  ‘How old are you guys?’

  The driver turned in his seat to look at Raines.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I asked first.’

  The driver sighed and looked at the man beside him in the front passenger seat. They were both Hispanic men and looked to Raines like they were too young for the job.

  ‘I mean, you don’t look any older than, what, thirty?’ Raines asked. ‘Am I right?’

  The driver looked at Raines again but said nothing.

  ‘What did you do before you signed up for the badge and the gun? Or did you get into this straight out of college?’

  ‘I was a cop,’ the driver said.

  His partner looked at him and shook his head.

  ‘Why are we even talking to this guy?’

  ‘What about you, chief?’ Raines asked the partner.

  The man faced forward again and ignored Raines.

  ‘You’ve never fought for your country, have you? Never put yourself in harm’s way for others. Because that’s what it’s about, you know. Self-sacrifice.’

  ‘What is it that you want?’ the driver asked him.

  Raines snorted a laugh.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re the first person to ask me that,’ Raines told him. ‘That’s how we got to this.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If someone like you, some government salary slave, had actually asked me what I wanted and been genuine about it, we might not be sitting in this car together today.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Raines looked down.

  ‘We can end it all if you want,’ the driver said to him. ‘Say the word and we’ll take you in right now.’

  ‘And charge me with what?’ Raines asked, without looking up.

  ‘We’ll think of something,’ the partner said, looking out of the windscreen.

  ‘That’s what I’m talking about,’ Raines said, jabbing a finger at the man in the passenger seat. ‘You guys are all the same, aren’t you? So confident in your ability to always be right.’

  ‘This is going nowhere,’ the passenger told the driver. ‘Cut him loose.’

  ‘See,’ Raines said, ‘you can’t even answer my question and so, instead of admitting that I’ve done nothing wrong, you treat me like a piece of shit on your shoe. Cut him loose, he says.’

  The passenger turned to face Raines before he spoke this time.

  ‘Don’t get righteous with us now. We all know that it’s only a matter of time.’

  ‘Before what?’

  ‘Whatever it is that you’re planning on doing.’

  Raines knew that they didn’t have a clue. He’d kept Stark at arm’s length the whole time, suspicious of his background story. Stark didn’t know enough before he got on that plane.

  ‘What is it that you think you’re trying to stop me from doing? Has anyone even told you that, or do you get kept in the dark?’

  ‘This isn’t a game.’

  ‘ I know that. But I don’t think you do. It’s all just a game for you. There’s no sense of responsibility for what you do in the name of this country.’

  The passenger looked away. ‘This is a waste of time.’

  The driver sighed at his partner and looked at Raines.

  ‘If there’s nothing we can do for you right now…’

  ‘There’s nothing you can do for anyone at any time. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.’

  ‘This isn’t anyone’s fault except your own, sir. Don’t try to convince yourself otherwise. You make your own decisions.’

  ‘Are you even listening to what you’re saying? I mean, some asshole with an inflated sense of his own importance told you to stake out my place and you accept blindly that he’s right but you don’t even ask why. Do you realise how stupid that sounds?’

  The driver held Raines’s gaze. ‘Sir, I think you’re the one that’s confused.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘You were a soldier, am I right?’

  ‘I was. I put my life on the line for the likes of you.’

  ‘And why did you do that?’

  ‘To serve my country.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m making myself clear enough. Let me try again. Why did you pack up your gear, get on a plane and go to a country thousands of miles away to fight?’

  ‘Because I was ordered to do it by my Commander-in-Chief.’

  ‘You mean the President?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But that’s not true, is it? I mean, the President himself didn’t come down to your base and address you individually to give you an order.’

  ‘That’s not how it works.’

  ‘Exactly. The President set the mission and you followed the orders of your superiors. You did it without question because the chain of command is important. Because it is necessary.’

  Raines regarded the man, watching to see if he was being taunted. There was no trace of humour in his eyes.

  ‘You’re trying to tell me that we’re the same?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what exactly are your orders?’

  ‘We watch you. We report back. Simple as that.’

  ‘And what is it that you think you’ve seen?’

  ‘Nothing so far. But it’s early.’

  ‘I don’t like being treated like a piece of garbage someone can throw away after it’s been used up.’

  ‘Look, sir. I don’t know what your gripe is and, honestly, I’m not paid to care. I’m paid to make sure you don’t do something that will hurt others.’

  Raines wondered if he could get the drop on the two men — pull his weapon before they could. The thought of a gunfight in the close confines of the car got his heart pumping.

  ‘Do we understand each other?’ the driver asked.

  Raines stared at him until the man looked away. You have no idea how close
you are right now, Raines thought.

  ‘Let’s not do this again, okay? If you get on with your life as a respectful, law-abiding citizen of the United States, we can leave you alone. How does that sound?’

  Raines put his hands on his lap.

  ‘Maybe it’s too late for that,’ he said. ‘Did you think about that?’

  The man looked down at Raines’s hands and back at his face. Raines saw the realisation dawn that they had allowed a man into their car, a suspect, without searching him. Neither of the two men in the front of the car had any idea whether he was armed or not.

  ‘It’s never too late, sir,’ the driver said.

  Raines let his hands drop to his sides. The driver shifted in his seat. Raines knew that he was trying to get into a position where he could reach his sidearm — figured he would have it in a shoulder rig like all the Feds do.

  ‘Sometimes it is, son. That’s why we go to war.’

  The passenger seemed oblivious to what was going on and sat staring out of the windscreen. Raines wanted to do it so much it hurt. Take out some of his anger on these two men and all that they represented.

  ‘Sir…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think you better leave now.’

  The strain in the man’s voice caused the passenger to turn to look at Raines. His hands stayed loose by his sides, palms now resting on the back seat of the car.

  ‘Maybe I don’t want to leave.’

  The passenger’s eyes flicked between the two other men.

  ‘Some other time,’ Raines said eventually, reaching out to open the door. ‘It’s been a blast.’

  3

  The apartment felt emptier than when he had left. Raines went to the kitchen and dropped his keys on the counter before getting a can of Coke from the fridge and popping the tab. He drank half the can in one go and went to the living room, sitting on the couch and flicking aimlessly through twenty or so channels before happening on news coverage of some new military initiative in Afghanistan. He watched for a while until the various senior officers being interviewed blurred into one indistinguishable whole.

  Light from the setting sun washed over the living room before fading to dark. Raines muted the sound on the TV and closed his eyes, the flickering light from the screen playing across his face.