Blindside - By Gj Moffat Page 0,14

matters. Doesn’t like sitting behind a desk all day.’

‘He came up with the name of the op?’

Armstrong nodded. ‘He wants people to think he has all the big ideas. Fine with me.’

Irvine took another bite from her biscuit and put the remains back on the plate. She liked shortbread but this stuff was cheap and not particularly good.

‘What about your DI?’ she asked. ‘What’s he like?’

Armstrong picked up her half-biscuit and put it all in his mouth. Irvine didn’t know what to make of that.

‘Now, he is a politician. More concerned about his next promotion than anything else.’

Armstrong scrunched his cup before throwing it into the bin.

‘Look, never mind me. I’m crabby today because I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in about a week and we’re getting exactly nowhere with this investigation. And then the girl this morning …’

He didn’t finish that thought.

‘I’m not normally like this,’ he told her.

He tried to smile, but it wasn’t convincing.

Irvine didn’t mind crabby, so long as there was good reason. She kind of liked him, in spite of his poorly developed social skills.

‘Where to now?’ she asked.

‘Want a tour of my nightmare?’

Part Two:

Soldiers

1

Denver, Colorado

Monday morning

Seth Raines went to the kitchen in his apartment on Capitol Hill, poured himself a glass of orange juice and drank it in one go. He switched on the coffee machine and sat at the table rubbing sleep from his eyes. The images from a dream ran through his head: a dream of war and death. The details precise and the sounds and smells resonating like it was only yesterday.

Back in another life, Raines had served in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan as Staff Sergeant for Third Platoon, Charlie Company, First Reconnaissance Division of the US Marines. That was before a simple mission two years ago to monitor the eradication of an opium poppy field. Before his convoy was ambushed on the trip back from the field to the British camp outside the city of Lashkar Gah – brigade headquarters for Four-Two Commando, the Royal Marines.

In his dream, he saw only brief, fractured images of that day: the ragged stump of a severed leg and blood soaking into desert sand. But now that he was awake, the memory of it all rushed back, hitting him like a physical blow.

Raines was sitting next to one of his men – Private First Class Matthew Horn. They were sweating heavily under body armour listening to a briefing by the commanding officer of the British Marine brigade. He was a very British soldier, immaculately uniformed with a neatly clipped moustache and a deeply tanned face.

The door of the room was open and Raines saw a Union flag fluttering outside in the low wind. Two marines were standing at the base of the flagpole taking custody of the now deposed Stars and Stripes from their British counterparts. Raines nudged Horn and nodded for him to look at the exchange taking place outside.

‘Most of you already know the lieutenant,’ the British officer said, pointing at a young-looking woman in the front row of the briefing room. ‘She is our Civil Military Ops Cell representative today and will communicate with the ANP contingent through our interpreter.’

If there was one thing that both armies had in common, Raines thought, it was their love of TLAs: Three Letter Acronyms.

ANP – Afghan National Police.

‘This is a hearts-and-minds job for the local population,’ the officer went on. ‘The ANP will burn a designated opium poppy field in a very public manner and our job is to ensure that nothing untoward happens while this is taking place.’

The Brits were good at that sort of thing, Raines knew – hearts-and-minds jobs. They’d had plenty of practice during the troubles in Northern Ireland.

‘We also have two colleagues from the US Marine force today. Sergeant Raines and PFC Horn.’

There were a total of twelve soldiers in the room for the operation and Raines and Horn were the only Americans. The Brits turned to look at them. Raines nodded his head in greeting.

Raines knew what kind of first impression he made on people. He had identical, Maori-style tattoos on his shoulder blades – all loops and curls with pointed ends – and they extended up on to his neck. The very topmost points curled around on to the sides of his neck and were visible even above his body armour. His hair was shaved down to a fine bristle and his eyes were so dark in colour that even from a modest distance they