The Rewind Job, Chapter 13
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters.
Warnings: For a character wishing himself harm and potentially disturbing imagery.
Recap:
"Nathan, you can't mean that." When the mastermind didn't reply, Sophie's frustration escalated. "NATE! Eliot doesn't need you condemning him as well right now; he's doing a good enough job of that by himself. You of all people should know the damage a man can do to himself over the death of a child!" Realizing what she had said, Sophie covered her mouth with her hand as Nate froze, staring into his glass.
"Get out!" the mastermind hissed.
"Nate, I'm…"
"OUT!" Nate shouted, throwing the bottle of Scotch against the nearest wall.
Chapter 13
As Nate stepped out onto the roof, he was met by a gentle breeze. The look on Sophie's face when he'd thrown the Scotch bottle earlier that day had been sobering enough that Nate had not gone down to the bar to replace it. A part of Nate knew that his reaction over the past two days had been unreasonable. He knew that Eliot would never hurt a child on purpose. He'd seen that in the way Eliot interacted with children during their cases. Still, Eliot had killed that little girl and Nate had a difficult time just letting that go. Of course, the mastermind also knew that Sophie was right. Eliot would punish himself much more than Nate ever could. With his current injuries, the walls the hitter had erected to shield himself from his own past deeds would be down. Eliot would need his friends right now, and yes, Nate was Eliot's friend and Eliot his. The mastermind could acknowledge that now. Still Nate needed to know why …to understand how it had happened, which was why he was seeking their hitter out on the roof of the building at almost midnight.
Eliot was sitting in a cast iron patio chair beside the small herb garden that he'd been cultivating for the last several months. The hitter didn't acknowledge the mastermind as he sat in the empty chair beside him. The two sat in silence for several minutes overlooking the city. "I just need to….I want to understand," Nate finally spoke.
Another couple of minutes passed before Eliot began to explain. "I first met Damien in Croatia. But he didn't go by Damien then. His real name was Damirko Milanović. He was a lieutenant with a Croatian special operations company. I was attached to their group. I could never remember Damirko, so I just started calling him Damien. We got trapped behind enemy lines for three weeks during the thick of the fighting. Damien had a bullet in him and I thought I was gonna lose him a couple of times. But he pulled through and we finally managed to get back to our base. Damien credited me with saving his life and he returned the favor a few years later."
Eliot shifted in his seat, twisting a Rosemary leaf between his fingers. "I went in with a team of three others, running reconnaissance on a terrorist group. The mission was off the record, of course. If something went wrong, we were on our own. As far as the government was concerned, they knew nothing about us or the mission. Things went downhill in a hurry. We were captured and taken to an old, supposedly abandoned prison. One of the guys was wounded and died two days after we were taken. Another survived three weeks. Our captors were more careful with their 'interviewing techiniques' after that. Almost three months in, the youngest of us flipped out and managed to grab a weapon off one of the guards, but was shot. I had spent the last couple of months telling myself that if I held on, I'd catch a break and find a way to get the kid home. I…gave up after that…actually tried to push the guards to a point where they'd finish me off. They nearly beat me to death a couple of times, but always stopped short.
Damien had left Croatia after the war with a handful of his best men, changed his name, and was working his way up in the world by legitimate and not so legitimate means. One of his men had been captured by the same group. And Damien, still a warrior at heart in those days, came after him. They breached my cell looking for their man and Damien almost didn't recognize me or what was left of me. Luckily he did. There wasn't a prettier sight in the world than that hell hole being leveled to the ground by Damien's C-4. Damien took me back to his estate and hired a doctor, around the clock nurses, and a physical therapist to get me back on my feet. That took another three months. When I finally contacted my handler, he decided that I should stay in Damien's entourage and gather what information I could about Damien himself, but more importantly about his enemies. A few weeks later, Damien asked me to make a hit. Although he didn't say, he was testing my loyalty. The target was actually someone that the government had been contemplating how best to deal with, so my handler gave me the go ahead. The next target was the same, turns out a lot of Damien's enemies were also our enemies. Then came General Flores. Killing him wasn't an option per my handler or from my own point of view. I had worked with Flores before and knew he was a good man and a fine officer. I was able to warn him and make it look like the attempted hit had just gone badly. But Damien was still suspicious. Stepanov was a murdering scumbag and I needed to insure that Damien trusted me, so when he asked, I agreed to the hit. But that morning…something felt off…from the very beginning."
Eliot shifted in his chair again and Nate could tell that he was uncomfortable physically, as well as, emotionally. The mastermind remained silent as Eliot leaned forward propping his elbows on his knees and clasping shaky hands together. "She was six years old. The nanny told reporters that she had complained of a stomach ache that morning and had been allowed to stay home from school, although an hour later she seemed fine. She had snuck out onto the terrace, creeping along the wall to surprise her father. It was a game that they played. He always pretended he didn't see her until she would pop up beside him and kiss him on the cheek." Eliot paused and his voiced dropped to almost a whisper,"I…I didn't see her until I was already pulling the trigger…until it was too late and I couldn't take it back. No matter how badly I wanted to, I couldn't take it back."
Nate watched the emotions on the hitter's face and a part of him wanted to reach out to the man, to his friend. But Eliot's body was coiled so tightly that Nate didn't dare to move, much less touch him.
When Eliot spoke again, he had schooled his features, a mask of indifference firmly in place, his voice emotionless. "I gave up guns after that, in part because I couldn't fully control the weapon, couldn't stop a bullet after the trigger was pulled, but mostly because I didn't care anymore. And I walked away from Damien. I assumed he'd kill me before he let me walk away. I think he decided that it would be a greater punishment to let me live with what I'd done. He was right. So when he wouldn't put me out of my misery, I started taking the most dangerous jobs I could find." A mirthless smile crossed the hitter's face. "But my survival instinct was too strong. I just couldn't let myself be taken out, no matter how badly I wanted it."
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This chapter is a shout out to Goran Visnjic (who played Damien Moreau) who according to IMDb trained as a paratrooper in the Croatian army at age 18, and volunteered to stay on for an additional three months during the war with Serbia.