‘Walker . . .’ she says, a pleading note in her voice I’ve never heard before. She sounds close to tears.
‘Didi,’ I say, shutting my senses down, closing my ears to the note in her voice, ‘let’s just call this a day. You and me, it was never going to work. We can’t have a future.’ I don’t have a future is what I really want to say to her.
‘How would you know?’ she exclaims. ‘You refuse to even think about the future.’
‘And that’s all you ever do,’ I shoot back.
I sense her pull back.
‘You’re always talking about when I get out of here, when I can see . . . well, I hate to break it to you, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to get my sight back, whatever anyone says.’
‘Then . . .’ She hesitates.
I butt in. ‘Then nothing. Just go.’ I hold up my hand as a goodbye and move away from her. I have to. I can’t allow myself to ruin her life.
I can feel the pain thrumming off her. It’s like a knife through my own ribs. But I don’t look back, even though there’s a voice screaming in my head.
Please stay. Please don’t go.
*
There’s a knock on my door an hour later. Immediately hope springs up in me that it’s Didi, that she hasn’t listened to me, that she’s stayed. But why should she?
I know even before I heft myself off the bed and fumble my way to the door that it’s not her. It’s Sanchez. And he’s with Dodds. Dodds isn’t competing in the race, but José figured it would do him good to get out of the centre for a couple of days.
I hear Dodds wheel himself into my room. ‘Hey,’ he says.
‘Hey,’ I answer. I’m not in the mood for this. Why are they here?
‘How you doing?’ Sanchez asks. ‘I saw Didi leaving.’
I turn away so they can’t see my face. Shit.
‘You two didn’t make up, then?’ Sanchez asks.
‘Is this about the sweepstake?’ I ask. ‘Because I’m not in the mood.’
‘Nah,’ he says, sounding offended.
‘Did you break up with her?’ Dodds asks.
‘We weren’t exactly a couple,’ I tell him.
‘You know, Lieutenant, you’re one lucky bastard,’ Dodds suddenly explodes. ‘Girl like that wants you, what right have you got to turn it down?’
‘Excuse me?’ I say.
‘The rest of us should be so lucky,’ Dodds goes on angrily, his hands tapping the wheels of his chair manically. ‘It’s all fucking meaningless. All those goddamn posters in the centre – all of them are bullshit – but there’s just this one makes sense to me. It says that love will see us through.’
Sanchez smirks.
‘Yeah, I know, sounds like a Celine Dion song, but you know what? It’s true. Connection. That’s what it’s about. I ain’t got nobody. Nobody gives a damn about me.’
‘Dodds, that’s not true,’ Sanchez argues.
‘It is true,’ Dodds says without a trace of self-pity. ‘And that’s OK. I’m used to that. Figure I’m not meant to have anyone, not in this lifetime, anyway. But you, you been given this thing, this chance, with someone like Didi, for Chrissake, and you’re giving it up. And why? Because you’re “scared of the future”.’ His voice has taken on a mocking tone.
I stare down at the ground, his words hitting raw flesh and nerve like shrapnel.
‘At least you got a future, unlike some of us,’ he tells me.
‘Dodds, you’re talking weird,’ Sanchez says, trying to make light of it.
‘I’m just saying,’ he growls in answer.
I hear the whir of his wheelchair, the door being yanked open. ‘Fuck you,’ he says as a parting shot. ‘You know, fuck you. You don’t know how good you got it.’ And then he slams the door.
There’s a moment or two of silence. Then Sanchez opens his mouth.
‘Well, that sure told you.’
Didi
I told him I loved him. I’m a total idiot. I lie face down on the bed and try not to imagine what Walker is doing on the other side of the wall. My immediate plan was to leave and drive back to LA, but it was getting late and I was crying too hard, and then Sanchez found me in my car and made me come back inside. He gave me his and Valentina’s room and they upgraded to a suite.
So here I am. For the night, at least.
A dozen times I’ve got up off the bed and thought about going and knocking on Walker’s door, but when I finally made it out of my room, I heard him and Sanchez and Dodds all talking and didn’t want to interrupt.
My eyes land on the clock. It’s 11.27 p.m. Is he sleeping? Or is he lying awake like me? I roll onto my side and bury my head under a pillow, but it does nothing to muffle the yell that suddenly comes from Walker’s room.
I throw the pillow aside and sit up. It comes again. A yell, as if he’s fighting off an attacker. My pulse is firing, my heart hammering. I get off the bed. A broken sob makes its way through the wall, and that’s enough to get my legs moving. I rush out into the hallway, forgetting that I’m only wearing an old T-shirt.
I try Walker’s door. It’s locked. Shit. I try knocking, but he doesn’t hear me. I glance up and down the darkened hallway. I could run to the lobby and ask for a key, but it turns out I don’t have to because José pops his head out of a room further down the hallway.
He sees me and comes jogging towards me. ‘Walker?’ he asks.
‘I think he’s having a nightmare.’
José has a spare key and he unlocks the door. Then he stands back.
‘I think maybe you should handle this one,’ he says.
I start to protest, but then another cry twists my attention back into the room. I step inside and José pulls the door shut behind me.
The TV is on mute, the light throwing blue shadows over the bed. Walker is naked but for a pair of boxers. The sheets are tangled around his legs in knots and he’s thrashing on the bed, his face contorted as if he’s being tortured. Tears stream down his cheeks.
I sit down beside him and put my hand on his shoulder. He tenses and then jerks wildly, throwing my arm off. He growls something unintelligible, but undeterred, I wrap my arms around him and lie down behind him, holding him, stroking his hair back from his face.
‘It’s OK,’ I whisper in his ear. ‘It’s OK. I’m here. I’ve got you.’
He lets out a wracking sob and then his hand closes around my wrist, grips it tight. A man sinking in quicksand grabbing for a branch. It hurts, but I ignore it.
‘Shhh,’ I whisper. ‘It’s OK. You’re OK.’
He mumbles something.
I lean closer to make out the words. ‘What?’
‘Please don’t go. Please stay.’
I close my eyes, my arms tightening around him. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I reassure him. Ever. The word rises unbidden in my mind.
His hold on my arm doesn’t loosen, but the rest of his body slowly starts to relax. I kiss his shoulder, making out for the first time the words that are inked there. A posse ad esse.
My Latin is rusty, but I think it means ‘from possibility to actuality’ or ‘reality’, or something like that. I muse on the words. There’s so much possibility here, between us, in us. What’s it going to take to turn that into something real?
After ten minutes Walker’s breathing has settled to something approaching normal, and his grip on my arm has eased, though he hasn’t let go.
I prop myself up on my free arm. ‘Talk to me,’ I whisper through the darkness.
He doesn’t respond, but I know he’s awake because I can see his eyes glimmering, reflecting the light from the television.
‘Walker,’ I say, stroking his arm. ‘Tell me about the dream.’
Again there’s no response, and I’m about to give up and lie back down when finally he starts talking, his voice low, raw-edged. I have to struggle to make out the words.
‘I left them.’
‘What?’ I say.
Walker’s shoulders start t
o shake. ‘I left Bailey,’ he chokes out. ‘And Lutter. They were my men. I left them behind.’
Understanding blazes through me. I squeeze Walker tighter, holding on to him as hard as he’s holding on to me. He’s started crying, quietly, burying his head in the pillow.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I tell him. ‘There was nothing you could do.’
He shakes his head angrily then turns his face so I hear the next words clearly.
‘You don’t get it. They were still alive. I left them to die,’ he says. ‘There’s no getting away from that.’
Walker
Jonas glancing over his shoulder, looking at me for reassurance. Me yelling at him to stay frosty.
My breathing’s shallow, my attention focused on the surrounding countryside. There’s silence all around, grave- like silence, rent only by the cry of a bird of prey. Something’s not right. I can sense it. Something about the car and the way it’s sitting on the side of the road. Sunlight glints off the windshield and for a moment I’m blinded, both by the light and by the realization of what it means.
I open my mouth to yell out, but Harrison has reached the car and my command is obliterated by the roar of an AK-47. Bullets start to pock the car. The windshield shatters. We’re under attack. My men hit the ground, dive for cover – Sanders behind a rock, Sanchez and Lutter behind the car.
I start firing back, lying flat on the ground, bullets whipping past my shoulder, smacking into the dirt all around me. It’s an ambush. I call in our position. Yell for back-up.
Beside me Harrison goes down, pitching face first into the dirt. Bailey – loud-mouthed, nineteen years old – is lying in the centre of the road, clutching his leg, screaming a high-pitched scream that cuts out in the next second as a bullet slices through his windpipe.
I ignore the dancing bullets and sprint towards him, lace my arm beneath his shoulders and drag him back, off the road, down into a ditch. His eyes roll in his head, big with fear, bright with pain. He makes a choking, gurgling sound and blood foams over his lips. My hands are hot with it, slick with it. I fumble for the tourniquet on my belt.
Taylor, the unit medic, is at my side. He jabs a morphine shot into Bailey’s thigh and snatches the tourniquet from my hand. I roll onto my stomach, poke my head above the ditch and do a head count.
Sanchez and Lutter are still sheltering behind the car, taking turns to spot and return fire. Sanders, barely concealed behind a boulder, makes a mad dash for it, out into the open, before throwing himself down in the dirt beside Sanchez. He’s opting to ride out the ambush with them, behind the solid wall of metal.
The car. They’re trying to get us all to shelter behind the car.
I stand up, my knee jolts out, a hot eruption of pain behind my kneecap. ‘Sanchez!’ I holler. ‘Get back!’
Sanchez looks in my direction.
‘The car!’ I yell.
I see the flare of understanding cross his face, and then it’s gone, obliterated by a wall of white light that opens up the sky, rips apart the earth beneath my feet and sends me hurtling head first into an abyss . . .
. . . And then I hit the ground like a meteor crash-landing to earth. My ears ring. My heart’s a clanging bell. I can’t stand up straight. I veer sideways like a drunk, stagger, fall, stand, stagger again, blinking through a haze of dust, my ears singing, ringing. I’m in the centre of a sandstorm. Where am I? And then the swirling clouds part almost biblically, and on the ground in front of me I spy a boot. I stare at it for a moment, confused. What’s a boot doing in the middle of the road? And what’s that inside it? That white stick surrounded by stringy red meat. It looks like an uncooked leg of lamb.
My eyes blot and blur as the boot pulls in and out of focus. It’s a foot. Inside the boot. I career in a spastic circle. My gun. It’s in my hands. I don’t remember taking aim, but I have. But I can’t see to shoot and I weave wildly, jerking the rifle this way and that. I still can’t hear anything beyond the alarm going off in my head. Are we under attack still? Where is everyone? Where are the others? Automatically I fumble for my radio and scream for a CASEVAC. We need helicopter support. Medics. I hear a crackle, a response. Alpha Whisky Tango. What the fuck does it mean?
‘Sanchez?’ I yell, but my voice sounds like it’s coming from an underwater cave and my throat feels as if it’s been stripped with paint thinner.
My eyes fall on Taylor, the medic, down in the ditch not three feet from where I’m standing. I collapse beside him in relief, calling his name, and that’s when I see his helmet’s been blown off and a piece of metal from the car has embedded itself into his skull like a Halloween knife. He’s dead. His eyes stare at me sightless, already filmy.
I can’t compute. I stare back at him and the world starts spinning around me, the edges of it slamming into my sides, forcing the air out of my lungs, and blackness begins to roll around the edges until I hear a whimper and realize that Taylor’s fallen on top of Bailey. I roll Taylor aside, trying to ignore the thud as his body rolls down the sloping hillside and smacks into a rock, and I discover Bailey, his face ashen, the tourniquet around his throat a red rag, ghoulish against the white of his dust-coated skin. His hands paw pathetically at it as though it’s a hangman’s noose he wants to loosen.
I take it all in with a madman’s sense of horror and a dead man’s numbness. This isn’t happening.
Bailey’s staring up at the sky, trying to breathe, but the air is rattling like loose change through the hole in his trachea. I bend down beside him, grab for his hand before he manages to pull off the tourniquet, but his palm slips from mine, slimy with blood and gritty with dirt.
‘It’s OK, help’s on its way,’ I tell him, but he doesn’t seem to hear.
I look up, cast around desperately. Where are the others? I called it in. Where’s the help?
‘Sanchez?’ I yell. ‘Lutter?’ Smoke scours my eyes. All I can make out is the iridescent glow of the flames shooting out of the car. And that’s when I remember where Sanchez and Lutter and Sanders were sheltering before we got lit up.
I move towards the fire, throwing up an arm to protect my face from the heat. I’m aware of a jack hammer slamming into my knee and a white hot poker jabbing at my shoulder, but the searing heat of the fire cancels it all out.
Terror cancels it all out.
‘Harrison!’ I shout, and then I see, through the choking black smoke, lying amid the wreckage of the car, a body, or at least what looks like a body.
I drop to my knees and cover my mouth to stop the smoke from filling it and start crawling towards it. The car is burning fiercely. If the engine’s full of gas then it’s going to explode any second, but I keep going. My hand closes around a leg, maybe, or a torso perhaps – something wet, something mulchy. I pull my hand away. My eyes are streaming – I can’t see. The contents of my stomach are halfway up my throat, filling my mouth. I fumble again on the ground.
My fingers make out a hand, trace up an arm. They sink into mud. Not mud. Warm. A face. Half a face. Sanders. Not Sanders. I reel backwards onto my haunches. Flames lick my back. Acid creeps up my throat.
A murmur. A voice. Alive. Someone’s alive. I crawl to a mound a few feet away. It’s Sanchez. His helmet is half off. His face is black with grime, smeared with blood. I grab him by the shirt. Alive. Be alive. His eyes roll back in his head then forwards.
‘My leg,’ he says through gritted teeth. ‘I can’t feel my leg.’
I glance down. There is no leg. There’s just shredded uniform and a fragment of bone poking out of the fabric and lakes of blood. So much blood. I thought I was kneeling in oil that had leaked from the car.
Sanchez hacks, his lungs filled with smoke, and the effort makes his eyes roll further back in his head. I force my arm under his shoulder and drag him a few feet away from the car, then I tear his tourniquet off his belt and wrap it around his thigh. When I’m done I bend once more to heave him over my shoulders. We need to get away before the car goes up. Sanders. Forg
et Sanders.
Sanchez, face black with grime and sweat, grabs my shirt in his fist. ‘Lutter,’ he hisses before he falls back with a grunt to the ground.
Shit. I turn around and scour the area around the car and then I spot a body a few feet away, lying half in and half out of the ditch. I glance at Sanchez, then drag him a few more feet from the car, praying it’s far enough if it blows, and the whole time I’m thinking of Bailey and how I need to get back to him and move him and how the fuck am I going to move him and Sanchez? And what about Lutter? Don’t think of the others. Don’t think of the dead. And where’s the helicopter? Where’s the Cobra? Where the fuck is the CASEVAC team?
My leg won’t work properly, keeps twisting the wrong way, but I ignore it and limp over to the ditch. Lutter is lying there on his side, half his body buried beneath a hunk of twisted metal. I throw myself down beside him. He’s alive, breathing, but there’s blood trickling down his temple.
Instinct has kicked in, has taken over. The rest of my brain is in chaos, cannot put it all together, but there’s a quiet, isolated part of me – the part that was trained especially for this one moment – that clicks on like a pilot light. Methodically, pushing everything else to the side, I start checking Lutter for injuries. I need to free him, see what the damage is, but when I heave my weight onto the still smouldering engine block that’s pinning him to the ground, it won’t budge. Lutter lets out a groan.
‘Get Sanchez,’ he hisses at me, his mouth tight with pain.
I glance over at Sanchez, ten feet away. And then past him to where I left Bailey, lying in the ditch. And then I remember Jonas. Jonas? Shit. Where is he?
A bullet slams into the dirt by my foot. I duck. They’re still out there. I swing my rifle into my hands and take aim, but through the wafting black smoke there’s nothing to aim at. No clear shot.
That’s my cover, I realize. The smoke. I shoulder my rifle and glance between Lutter, Sanchez and Bailey. Time stands still. Choose. Choose. Choose. I can only carry one. The decision is made by the cold, rational part of my brain that’s taken over.