G. Moffat - Blindside

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.

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.