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‘Nothing fancy, Tom, you know?’

  Translation: a handgun.

  ‘I hear you. Watch your back.’

  Part Four:

  Exit Strategy

  1

  Seth Raines drove his pick-up truck west towards the Rocky Mountains with a man in the passenger seat beside him. They cleared the city limits and moved on to I-70 quickly in light traffic, the sun rising into a clear, blue sky. Raines reached into the door pocket and pulled out a pair of sunglasses, unfolding the arms with one hand while watching the road as it rose into the mountains. There had been a light snowfall in the mountains the night before and the sun sparkled in the fresh, crystalline snow.

  The road continued to climb up, snow-capped peaks high above them. It twisted through a pass before rising again into the town of Grant. As they passed through the town, Raines turned west again and, after about a mile and a half, pulled on to a track that wound up through dense woodland to a high clearing. This high up, snow covered the track and crunched under the wheels of his truck. A short distance along the track they came to a tall, metal gate. Raines stopped his truck next to a pole with a speaker on top and said his name, his breath visible in the sharp morning air.

  ‘Come on up,’ a voice answered as a buzzing sounded and the gates swung slowly open.

  They reached a clearing after another mile of the snow-covered track. There were three wooden structures built just behind the tree line at the northern edge of the clearing. Two men in green camo jackets and jeans stepped down off the porch of the middle building, the largest of the three, and walked towards the truck as Raines stopped. The men were carrying assault rifles and wore ballistic vests over their jackets.

  Raines and his passenger got out.

  ‘Heard about Stark,’ one of the men said to Raines. ‘Bad business.’

  ‘We stick to what we’re doing,’ Raines said. ‘What happens is what happens.’

  ‘Sure thing, boss.’

  Raines’s passenger sensed something more than respect emanate from the man to whom Raines had spoken. Something like fear.

  Raines nodded at the man and walked on, his passenger following behind and staring at the dark tips of the tattoos on Raines’s neck. They mounted the steps of the middle building where Raines stopped, turning to his passenger.

  ‘Those are sealed,’ he said, indicating the other two buildings.

  The passenger looked left and right, noticing now that the other buildings had no external windows. Only heavy steel access doors broke up the otherwise featureless wooden exteriors.

  ‘The wood is just cladding,’ Raines went on. ‘An external shell to cover the actual building construction.’

  ‘I like it,’ the passenger said. ‘So it looks like any other private cabin if anyone gets interested?’

  ‘Correct. That’s the way we planned it.’

  Raines opened the door from the porch into the main building. Inside, the space stretched up to a double-height ceiling with a large, central area that was split into an office space at the back and a modest living area at the front — with couches facing an open fire.

  There were two more men inside, both sitting in the office area working at computer monitors. They were dressed in jeans and heavy cotton shirts. Only the handguns in holsters fitted round their waists gave away their military background.

  Raines went to the men and leaned over, looking at the spreadsheets open on both screens.

  ‘Looks good,’ he said, no emotion apparent in his voice.

  Raines moved to the living area and motioned for the passenger to follow. They took their coats off and sat on separate couches, the passenger looking around the room and shifting in his seat. Raines looked at the man, trying hard to keep his hatred for him hidden. In this business, he didn’t have the luxury of choosing whom he worked with. The man wore what looked like an expensive suit and a white shirt open at the neck. His black leather town shoes were flecked with melting snow.

  ‘Perimeter security?’ the man asked.

  ‘Motion sensors. We have them linked to the computers back there.’

  The man frowned.

  ‘No fences?’

  ‘Other than at the front, no.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound very safe.’

  The man picked an imaginary piece of dust from his immaculately pressed trousers. Raines noticed his accent now for the first time. He did a good job of hiding it.

  Raines resisted an urge to pull his handgun and shoot the man in the face.

  ‘It’s completely safe,’ Raines said instead, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, I mean, you saw the fence at the gate we came in through, right?’

  The man nodded.

  ‘That stretches both ways to sheer drops down the mountainside. So we’re covered on both flanks by the natural terrain. No one’s getting in that way unless they’re prepared for a long climb.’

  ‘And even if they do get up, you have the motion sensors?’

  ‘Now you’re getting it.’

  ‘And at the back?’

  ‘The only way in to the back is over the top of the mountain from the other side. Ain’t gonna happen.’

  ‘And, again, the motion sensors.’

  ‘Those are located a minimum of one mile from here. And we have ordnance planted in the ground and on trees a half-mile in. Either remote triggered or via tripwires.’

  ‘Impressive.’

  Raines leaned back in the couch.

  ‘Anyone comes here up to no good and they end up dead.’

  ‘You consider the federal authorities carrying out their lawful duties to be up to no good?’

  ‘Especially the Feds.’

  Raines stared at him but did not reply. The man turned away from Raines’s hard gaze, pretended to look around again at the interior of the building to demonstrate that he had not been intimidated.

  ‘Let’s talk business,’ Raines said.

  2

  After their brief discussion, Raines waited in the main building while one of the men from the office showed his passenger around the rest of the compound.

  He walked to a door at the back of the living area and went through it into his own private office space. He sat at the sparse desk and breathed deeply, feeling more tired than he ever had.

  The drive up the track to the compound brought back the memories again: him and the other soldiers inside the Land Rover as it pitched and rolled over the rutted dirt tracks that passed for roads in Afghanistan.

  They had waited at the site of the opium field for less than an hour, the splash of pink flowers almost surreal in the washed-out haze of the desert.

  The soldiers kept mobile, not resting in one location and aware of their surroundings. Never straying too far from the track around the field for fear of wandering into an active minefield. Raines had seen two men from his platoon with traumatic amputations from mine blasts. They had survived, thanks to the swift treatment they received from the medevac team, but their lives would never be the same again.

  After the local ANP contingent had set fire to the field and the blaze had well and truly taken hold, they went back to the Land Rovers. The temperature was now close to forty degrees and was taking its toll on them.

  They took up the same positions on the rear bench seats as before. No one said anything as the Land Rover moved off, all of them watching the dark smoke rising from the poppy fields into the clear, blue sky.

  They drove back through Lashkar Gah and Raines was again struck by how primitive the place was, although he had been there many times before. The buildings were almost invariably made from mud and bricks and the roads were no better than the track they had followed from the camp.

  There were no women to be seen anywhere and men with lines etched in their faces watched the convoy pass by. Occasionally a group of children would run alongside, shouting and waving at the soldiers.

  Horn turned in his seat and waved back at one p
articularly enthusiastic boy who kept pace with them for a good fifty metres. Johnson shook his head.

  ‘What?’ Horn asked, annoyed.

  ‘Nothing,’ Johnson said.

  Horn stared at him.

  ‘Even after being here this long you can still relate to these people?’ Johnson said after a moment.

  ‘What else is it that we’re supposed to do?’

  Raines sensed the animosity between the two men, but did not interfere. Soldiers have to learn by getting their hands dirty. Or bloody. And aggression was part of the job description. But he admired Horn’s resilience — wasn’t such a bad kid for a soft, middle-class boy who volunteered to go to war. Raines thought, not for the first time, that if his own son had lived past his sixth birthday he would have been proud if he had turned out like Matt Horn.

  They passed through a more modern-looking part of town and the lieutenant asked why the rest of it was so primitive.

  ‘This is Little America,’ Raines told her. ‘We were over here in the sixties. Built some stuff and headed home again.’

  ‘No one ever stays in places like this for long,’ she said.

  ‘Is that what your job is about?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Trying to make it right with the locals. I mean, build their trust. Tell them we’ll be here till everything is all right. That it will be different this time.’

  ‘Yes. Don’t you have something similar?’

  ‘We do,’ Raines said, smiling.

  A look of annoyance passed over her face.

  ‘And there’s something wrong with that in your mind, Sergeant?’

  ‘No. I mean, I recognise that the intention is pure.’

  ‘But…’

  Raines shifted in his seat and turned to face her. He noticed up close how young she was — like a lot of the officers over here in both armies. Probably straight out of officer school and posted here with no in-theatre experience.

  ‘But it doesn’t help us much,’ Raines went on. ‘When we call in fast air support to drop a couple of five-hundred pounders on a suspected Taliban compound and go in to clean up the mess only to find children’s body parts and screaming women.’

  The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘That’s what happens in a war,’ Raines went on. ‘We can’t avoid civilian casualties. How do you explain that to their mothers and fathers?’

  ‘We can only do what we can. But we still have to try. Or don’t you believe that?’

  Raines turned from her and saw that Johnson was watching their exchange intensely.

  ‘I wanted to know what you thought of it,’ Raines said.

  He looked back at the lieutenant, saw that she was staring at him, trying to figure out if he was testing her.

  ‘It’s a pity your tour is up so soon, Sergeant,’ she said.

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘I think maybe I’d enjoy debating the finer points of our strategy with the local population some more.’

  Raines saw a smile twitch at her lips.

  ‘She got you there, Sarge,’ Horn said, laughing.

  He turned to speak to Horn and the front of the Land Rover disappeared, metal screeching as the IED in the road detonated under the vehicle.

  Raines had a split second to see Horn’s right leg torn from him just above the knee and then everything went dark.

  3

  Raines picked up the phone from his desk and dialled a number for a house back in Denver. It rang for a while and he waited, aware that it could take some time for the owner of the house to answer.

  ‘Yeah,’ the answer came eventually.

  ‘I met the guy today. You know the one?’

  ‘How did it go?’

  ‘He’s getting the full tour.’

  ‘You’re still up there, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t like the idea of working with this guy.’

  ‘So you said. We’re not in this to make friends. I told you that already.’

  ‘But it’s not necessary. I mean, for what we want to achieve. You haven’t lost sight of that, have you?’

  Raines hated the pleading quality he heard in the man’s voice.

  ‘I haven’t lost sight of anything. I can see for miles. And this is the way we’re going, so quit whining about it already. You think there’s some other way, something more noble?’

  The man on the other end of the line was quiet. Raines pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

  ‘I don’t want to have this conversation again,’ Raines said, angry now. ‘We’ve done it more than once.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s just that-’

  ‘Just nothing,’ Raines snapped. ‘This is the way it is. We get this guy on board and we do what’s necessary. After that, we’re outta here. And I’m never coming back to this goddamned country.’

  There was a pause on the other end of the line.

  ‘Is this what they’ve done to us?’ the man asked. ‘To you.’

  ‘You can get out any time you like. Just say the word.’

  ‘What happens to me then, Seth? Tell me that. The same thing that happened to Johnson?’

  Raines didn’t need to tell him.

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  Raines wasn’t sure that he could trust the man any more. Wondered if he would have to do something about that.

  ‘Come see me when you get back, okay?’ the man said.

  Raines said that he would and ended the call. He sat quietly for a moment, looking at the framed photograph on his desk. It was a shot of Charlie Company the day after they had arrived in Afghanistan.

  He picked the photograph up and looked at the faces of the young men who had been in his charge. He counted, for what seemed like the thousandth time, the faces of those who had not come back.

  He stopped when he got to Matt Horn’s face — closed his eyes and remembered.

  He’s back in that British Land Rover, opening his eyes and choking on the smoke billowing from the ruined front section of the vehicle. The two British soldiers who had been there were gone.

  Something sticky clogged up his eyes. He wiped at them, looking down at his hands and seeing his own blood there.

  He felt panic start to rise in him, patted himself down and felt that everything was intact. His head throbbed from the concussive blast of the explosion. Didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious.

  He figured the device must have been a mine triggered by the front tyre of the vehicle on Matt Horn’s side. It was the only explanation why Raines had survived intact.

  He looked at Horn. Not so lucky.

  Tonk-tonk-tonk

  Bullets impacted the armour of the Land Rover.

  Raines looked back, saw that the soldiers in the vehicles behind them were out and returning fire, using their own vehicles for cover. Dirt kicked up around them where bullets hit the ground.

  Horn had lost most of his right leg and was bleeding heavily from the wound. His right arm hung limp by his side, the sleeve of his uniform in tatters and blood staining what little cloth was left.

  His left foot was a mangled mess.

  Horn watched Raines, his eyes blinking and breaths coming in short gasps.

  Andy Johnson was in shock beside Horn, his eyes wide: staring at the female lieutenant opposite him.

  Raines turned to look at her and saw that her helmet had been split in two by a piece of shrapnel. Maybe a part of the vehicle shorn loose by the explosion. The shrapnel had done the same to her head. Raines looked away.

  Tonk-tonk-tonk-tonk

  Have to get out of here.

  Raines got up and went to the rear door. Couldn’t get it open. The armour had warped in the blast preventing the doors from opening. He kicked at them, made a little daylight. Kicked again.

  He heard the whoosh of a rocket-propelled grenade, flinched instinctively. The explosion was loud and he saw that it had landed twenty metres in front of the Snatch immediately behind
them.

  He grabbed his rifle, forced the butt into the gap between the door and the frame of the vehicle and used his weight to lever it. The door resisted and then burst open. Raines staggered forward, almost falling out. Dirt kicked up in the ground and he heard the crackle and fizz of bullets in the air.

  Johnson was still staring at the lieutenant so Raines stepped in front of him and grabbed his face with both hands.

  ‘We need to move, soldier,’ he shouted. ‘Now.’

  Johnson looked at Raines. Looked out the open rear door at the soldiers behind them.

  He turned back to Raines, nodded and grabbed his rifle.

  ‘Give me cover fire while I get Horn out of here, okay?’

  Raines realised that he was shouting everything at the top of his voice to be heard over the din.

  Johnson stepped down out of the Land Rover, turned to go around it to get cover, and started firing.

  Raines shuffled back to Horn, grabbed him by his body armour under both arms and heaved him to the back door. When he got there, one of the soldiers from the other vehicles ran up and helped take the weight as Raines pulled Horn free. Raines knew that they were exposed to the enemy now but there was no choice. He couldn’t leave Horn in there.

  They managed to get Horn around behind the vehicle and sat him on the road, his blood leaking out rapidly and staining the ground.

  Raines pulled his belt free and wrapped it around what was left of Horn’s right thigh in a makeshift tourniquet. Horn’s eyes fluttered and he shouted out in pain. Raines pulled the belt as tight as he could and was pleased to see the flow of blood ease. Still, he knew that they needed a medevac as soon as possible if the boy was to have any chance of surviving.

  ‘Where’s the support?’ Raines shouted at Johnson as another RPG whooshed above them and exploded in the desert.

  ‘There’s an Apache on its way,’ Johnson replied, still firing. ‘It’ll torch those fuckers.’

  Raines reached into one of the pockets in his trousers, pulled out his morphine needle and stuck it into Horn. He motioned for Johnson to give him his morphine too and gave Horn the second dose. Horn’s face muscles slackened as the drug took effect.