Radford is about to move in when—
The baldheaded officer and two other cops converge from three different directions upon the dealer.
Radford fades back just in time; in harsh disappointment he watches it go down.
The dealer sees he’s trapped. Knowing the routine, he sighs and turns to spread hands and feet and lean against the wall. A cop frisks him. A cop unwraps the package and finds a thick bankroll. The bald cop takes it. He shows a picture of Radford to the dealer. The dealer says, “I know only one thing. My lawyer’s phone number.”
“Okay, then.” The bald cop takes out a cigarette lighter and sets fire to the bankroll. The dealer looks on in horror as his money burns up.
Radford lurches through the dark streets, hammered with pain.
Under a sudden, hard, white light, a younger bloodstained Radford lies on a table in a spartan prison hospital — primitive; rudimentary. Iraqi soldiers watch a doctor probe Radford’s head wound, look up at the soldier who interrogated Radford, and shake his head “no.” The doctor discards the probe, wraps a bandage carelessly around Radford’s head and walks away…
Charlie moves forward and cradles Radford’s bloody head in his hand. And now, to Charlie’s amazement, Radford, horribly cut and bruised, opens his eyes to look at Charlie. He’s alive on sheer will power, everything raw and bleeding. We see Charlie’s tears as he reaches out gently to touch Radford’s cheek.
Under a street lamp in the silent city Radford lurches on — afraid, confused, in pain — blindly into the night…
Conrad’s parked van stands at the curb in front of a suburban house on an ordinary street. Inside the house, in the kitchen, Harry — clean-shaven now — takes two beers from the fridge and tosses one to Conrad. Anne is watching a TV newscast. She’s worried. She glares at Conrad. She fidgets. “I want to talk to Damon.”
“Grow up.” Conrad pops the beer top.
Harry says, “We’ll see Damon sooner or later… You’re gonna stay here right now. Radford running loose, shit, God knows what may be going on in that messed-up brain of his.”
Anne says, “The poor son of a bitch.”
Conrad points a finger at her. “He’s a trained sniper. A killer, and by now he’s madder’n hell. He gets his hands on you, you won’t feel so sorry for him… You just worry what happens if they get him alive and he talks. He ID’s you — you’re an accessory.”
Anne shows a flash of heat. “So are you, Conrad baby.”
“Yeah. Well you just sit here quiet till he’s dead.”
“Jesus,” she says. “And I was once an honest-to-God fevered zealot.” She points at the TV. “Wasn’t supposed to be this way!”
“No, it wasn’t,” Conrad agrees. “Your buddy Radford was supposed to get dead.”
Harry tries to embrace Anne possessively. She pushes him away. “We started as good people. What happened to us?”
Harry says, “Hell, honey, you can’t make an omelet without—”
“Oh spare me. I hear that breaking-eggs shit enough from Damon.”
Conrad says, “This country and the tree-hugger crazies were getting too close together. It had to be stopped.” He heads for the door. “I’ve gotta go.”
Anne won’t let it go. “I bought the philosophy, Conrad — but I’m starting to think it’s a hell of a way to preserve freedom and justice for all.”
Before dawn in a scuzzy downtown park — place of business for felons; home for the homeless — a cop prowls, exploring. A few derelicts sit at trash campfires, eating scraps, drinking out of brown paper bags. Others sleep under trees or in makeshift shelters or on benches. The cop gently straightens an overcoat over a sleeping woman with a small child. He walks on, past a huddled shape under rumpled newspapers. It lifts a corner of paper stealthily to watch the cop depart — It’s Radford, shaking with a fever of pain. When he moves, his head hurts so bad he can’t stop the groan.
In the bright light of an interrogation hut the younger Radford — his face an ugly half-healed scar — peers up without interest into a TV camera. An Iraqi woman clumsily paints pancake make-up over his scabs while a soldier holds up cue-cards beside the camera. On a black-and-white monitor Radford can see himself, and on the TV screen the make-up doesn’t show; he looks puffy but not seriously injured.
He speaks straight into the camera with what seems to be peaceful calm. His eye movements betray that he’s reading from cue cards.
“I’m sorry that the leaders of my country have picked the wrong side this time. I’ve seen the terrible destruction that’s been visited on this little country by American bombs, and I feel ashamed. Ashamed of my leaders, ashamed of the petroleum imperialists who’re promoting this war on innocent civilians. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I just want to come home. I’m asking my government to reconsider — and to get out of this place where they have no business being.”
When he finishes talking, he simply stares unblinkingly into the camera. He doesn’t stir. The monitor’s screen slowly goes to black.
In the city park Radford lies in the night, hopeless amid the homeless. Something draws his attention and he turns sluggishly to see several cars drawing up over at the edge of the park. A dozen men in suits get out of them. Most of them carry shotguns or rifles.
Vickers gets out of the back of one of the cars. Behind him are the two FBI men and reporter Ainsworth. Vickers makes rapid hand-signals. The dozen armed men fan out into the park.
Radford, moving with agony, crouching to stay out of sight, staggers across a street threading traffic… and takes cover by a parked truck, and looks back at the park where the dozen men brutally roust the homeless people, shining flashlights in their faces.
Vickers and Ainsworth watch the search.
“Colonel Vickers, you really think this is going to find him?”
“Only if they get real lucky. The idea’s to give him no chance to rest. Keep him tired out. A tired man makes mistakes… He’s up there all alone without a net. He only has to slip once, and I’ve got him.”
Radford watches from behind the parked truck across the street. A government agent comes up behind him. Radford turns, looks at him. The agent deliberately takes a photo from his pocket and looks at it, comparing it with Radford’s face.
That mug-shot of Radford shows him as he looked in a previous life. The agent isn’t sure whether this is the man or not. “Mind if I see some identification?”
Across the street the dragnet is working its way toward them. In no time at all, somebody in that lot will be close enough to recognize Radford. Knowing that, he moves quickly as he takes out a wallet (cop’s wallet) and flashes the badge at the agent, and feigns exasperation. “Move on, man, you’re fucking up my stakeout.”
Embarrassed, the agent moves on. Radford reacts to the near-miss, and fades back into the shadows just before Vickers comes across the street and collars the agent.
“Who was that?”
“Some cop on a stakeout.”
“Shit. You idiot! Radford stole a cop’s ID along with that uniform.” Vickers looks in all directions, fuming with frustration.
A big illuminated sign emulates a green beret. Sure enough its lettering spells out “GREEN BERET BAR.” On both sides of the door are glass-covered shadowboxes protecting posters of soldiers, guns, combat action. Radford looks up at the “bar” sign and hesitates, and goes in. His head is killing him.
Inside he walks past a hand-lettered sign thumbtacked to the walclass="underline" “WET PANTY COMBAT NIGHT!” He goes on to the bar. The place is crowded and very noisy — a lot of exuberant shouting. Several scantily-clad women seem to be dancing in some fashion on an elevated stage, and over the sound of heavy metal music he can hear men shouting: