Blood and Ashes (34 page)

I’d been tricked into serving them again, but I had to search deep within myself and decide whether or not I’d have done their bidding had I been in full receipt of the facts from the beginning. No, never. But nothing would have changed concerning my own reasons for taking down Carswell Hicks or Samuel Gant or any of the others threatening Don or his family. In part, I realised now, Arrowsake had placed them all in danger.

I thought about Vince’s lies; the young agent had said he was tasked with finding Hicks, but that was bullshit. They knew where Hicks was all along, and Vince had gone along with Gant and his crew to push and prod them in the right direction. Their intention was that Don and his family were to be murdered, with the blame laid firmly at the feet of racists bent on revenge over the incarceration and subsequent death of their messiah.

I considered the shooting and the bombs at Adrian Reynolds’ home, and how Gant had almost succeeded in killing Don at the logging camp. Don’s survival was contradictory to Arrowsake’s plan, and I now understood why Vince was really there. Vince had asserted that he’d tried a coup with the intention of stalling Gant’s crew until help could arrive. That was a lie: Vince wanted to ensure that Arrowsake’s plan was fulfilled. Seeing me as another possible stooge to be used in the plot was the only reason he’d released the garrotte before it throttled the life from me.

What did that mean now that I wasn’t prepared to stay on their leash any longer? You’re either with Arrowsake or you’re against them, Walter had cautioned. I looked in the fragmented mirror, saw the burr on my flesh where Vince’s wire had dug in. Well, on that occasion I’d been running and fighting for some time, I was fatigued, half frozen, bewildered by all that had gone on. Let Arrowsake come, if that was their plan.

A soft knock on the door, and Rink leaned inside.

‘You ready yet, brother?’

Rink had also been thinking. He wore an expression that reminded me of a porcelain mask, calm and cold, expressionless. It was an inconsistent image in more ways than one: serenity concealing a tightly-wound fury just a hair’s-breadth beneath the surface; a samurai warrior kneeling in Zen-like meditation but ready to erupt into action in a blink, to mow down enemies with the razor-edge of his katana sword.

I felt like a dishevelled tramp in comparison.

‘Give me another minute or two, yeah?’

‘OK,’ said Rink, but he still came in.

I placed my hips against the sink so I could face him as he walked over.

‘This is bull crap,’ Rink said, ‘but we have to make the best of it. We don’t let those puppet masters jerk us around any more, but we still have to get this done.’

‘Don’s family are relying on us,’ I said in agreement. I winced, not at the task ahead, but what that might still mean. ‘What if they don’t stop, Rink? What do we do then? Even if we stop Hicks and Gant and those others, Don is still a threat to Arrowsake.’

‘Then we try to stop them too, like you promised.’

The phone call I’d made to Don Griffiths had been for more than to find out where Hicks was hiding or what he was planning next. Don’s response was simple. ‘I’ve no idea where Hicks would conceal himself, but he was always money motivated.’

He’d expounded and I had listened with the phone jammed to my ear. Don’s studies had pointed out that Carswell Hicks wasn’t just a white supremacist, he was also supremely greedy, someone who could never have enough cash. His attacks on the banks may have seemed racially motivated, but they also came with a rider: hand over a ransom or I keep on bombing. Don was certain that Hicks was planning something similar now, and that Arrowsake’s failure to control him had given him the necessary tools to achieve his aim. ‘Watch for huge demands coming soon,’ Don had prophesied.

Then I had asked him, ‘Why would Arrowsake want you dead?’

‘Easy when you think about it,’ Don had groaned. ‘I was an analyst for one of their think-tanks. I was approached to look into a hypothetical scenario for them. They predicted that the War on Terror would mean an end to their existence. They posed the question: how would we engineer our rebirth?’

‘You formulated this plan?’

‘I offered a hypothetical solution. I told them that the only way the public would rise up and support the security services again was if they felt vulnerable in their own homes. Raising the potential for a rise in domestic terrorism was their most viable option for obtaining the backing they desired.’

‘But instead of presenting a well-defined strategy for keeping the country safe they took things a step further . . .’

‘It looks to me like they saw Carswell Hicks as a golden opportunity.’

‘Jesus . . .’

‘Don’t be angry with me, Hunter. I was being used in the same way they’ve used us all.’

‘I’m not angry,’ I said, struggling to keep the bitterness out of my voice. ‘I’m disappointed. Your make-believe scenario led to this, Don. But now it’s very real, and it could lead to all our deaths. They’re afraid you might talk, that their involvement will no longer be a secret. They might come for you again.’

‘I’m an old man, I’m not afraid to die. But they can’t hurt my family.’

‘None of them are safe.’

‘They don’t know anything about this.’

‘Arrowsake won’t care. If they think there’s even a chance you muttered about the plan in your sleep, they’ll make sure that anyone who could’ve heard you will be silenced.’

‘I’m not in the habit of sleeping in the same room as my daughters or grandchildren.’

‘I’m speaking
hypothetically
.’ I hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic but it was there in my words nonetheless. ‘You remember Vince went to your house, yeah? He convinced us that he was there to warn Millie, and he had to go through with the sham because Sonya Madden was watching. He was lying. I think he was ordered to kill your daughter, and maybe Arrowsake’ll try again.’

‘What about Brook? Do you think it was them who had her killed?’

I had no answer to that, but I did wonder for how long Vince had been on the case.

‘Don’t let it happen again, Hunter.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Please, I’ve already lost Brook. Don’t let anything happen to Millie or the little ones.’

‘I’m only one man,’ I’d said.

Now, I looked up at Rink and saw that my final comment had been inaccurate. We were two. Rink would fight just as hard to protect the Griffiths family as I would.

‘OK, I’m ready. Let’s do this,’ I said.

Rink clapped my shoulder, and we walked out of the restroom. The synapses had stopped projecting their crazy medley in my mind’s eye, but one image was still ingrained, that of Millie and Brook squealing in glee as they splashed in a paddling pool. That idyll had turned into a nightmare of scorching flame for the older sister. I couldn’t allow anything like that to happen to another innocent.

Chapter 44

Samuel Gant stepped out on the deck of the yacht. His body was still in pain from the double shotgun blasts, but it was nothing to the agony piercing his heart. He was assailed with regret over what he’d just done. Carswell Hicks had been his mentor, more of a father to him than the drunkard who used to beat him senseless for any perceived slight. Demobbed from the US Army, he’d returned home to a country he no longer recognised, one where political correctness was making the white man seem like he was the second-class citizen. Women, blacks, Jews, Chinks, even the goddamn rag-heads he’d fought against in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, were suddenly better thought of than he was. Dissatisfied, he’d fallen in with a group of like-minded patriots led by a man who Gant believed followed the same vision as him. Carswell Hicks had taken him under his wing, treated him like family, and Gant had grasped at the attachment, and had adopted the older man as a worthy mentor. Hicks had introduced him to
The Turner Diaries
, and had spoken of his plan to take back the USA from the destructive forces led by the government. That vision had hooked Gant and until now his mind had never been swayed.

Together they’d conducted a bombing campaign against their enemies. Hicks had targeted mosques and temples, had even murdered a black minster and his small congregation when he’d torched their church while they were gathered in prayer. Hicks believed that fire was the cleansing agent required to set their nation free again. Then he’d turned his eyes on the banking system. There the intrinsic problem was that the Jews had taken control of the money, and he believed that they must take it back.

But then Hicks had been caught, sent to prison. In Gant’s mind it didn’t change anything. Gant had waited, kept their group together through the fallow years, promising that the plan would be borne out. He didn’t have to argue too hard, because while Hicks was incarcerated, things had grown even worse.

Jesus Christ Almighty, while he was locked up, we even got ourselves a nigger president!

When he heard the news that Hicks was being transferred from prison to a less secure hospital, he had been overjoyed. With Hicks back in the fold, their dream could become a reality. He launched the attack on the hospital, whisked Hicks away in the commandeered helicopter, and then they’d ditched it into the sea and transferred to a getaway craft. They had blown the chopper up; the ever-present desire for flames offering cover for Hicks’ missing body.

The only thing that had given Gant pause was why the authorities had bought his death so readily. Hicks had explained, though. It served the government if he was presumed dead. The name Carswell Hicks, he reminded Gant, was anathema to the race-mixing bastards taking control of their country.

‘Do you think they’d be happy if they knew I was out here and preparing to destroy them all?’ Hicks had asked.

Gant moved over to the rail, looked down at the turgid water of the Hudson. It was fully dark now, the lights of the nearby city swarming on the crests made by the eddy and flow of water. He spat into the river.

Carswell had told him that a man was dangerous to their mission. Don Griffiths, the pig who’d led to his capture the first time round, had figured out his plan. He was worried that he might do so again. Carswell asked that Gant go and bring Griffiths to him, so they could force from the man the location of any files or other information Griffiths had kept on him. Gant had done that, as uneasy as he felt at helming the mission, and that was where all his problems had started.

I should have just killed every one of them when I had the chance
.

While he was over in Pennsylvania, freezing his butt off in the hills, Hicks had been here, formulating his get-rich-quick scheme. If Gant had been around then, Hicks wouldn’t have got these idiotic notions in his head. Hold the fucking government to ransom; force the President to step down? Who was he kidding? He understood now that Hicks had never been the zealot he claimed. He was all about the money. He should have seen it first time round when Hicks launched his assault on the banking system – even then he’d wanted to be paid to stop the bombings. It wasn’t about money for Gant, but he’d acquiesced to Hicks’ argument: you can’t fight a war with empty coffers.

That single phrase was what had snapped inside him earlier: for the first time the blindfold had been lifted from his eyes and he’d seen Hicks for the pathetic, greedy fool that he was.
We don’t need their money, Carswell! We need them all dead
, he’d wanted to scream. Standing in the way of that was his mentor, his
pseudo
-father. Instead of screaming, Gant had shot him. And each time he’d fired his vision had grown clearer.

That he had actually murdered Hicks didn’t come as a surprise to him; he’d boarded the boat expecting that might be the outcome. Yet now that he had Hicks’ blood spattered down his shirtfront he couldn’t help but wish it had ended differently. In a more agreeable scenario, they would have gone through with everything they’d plotted together. He felt no anger at Hicks, didn’t blame him as he’d assured Darley, he was only sad that Hicks had been lured from their true path by the same greed that had infected this great country. The love of money, the Bible warned, was the root of all evil, and he couldn’t agree more. You didn’t need cash to succeed: just the will, the guts and the sheer determination to keep on fighting.

And it seemed there was only one man around here with those traits.

Out on the Hudson a motor growled. Gant straightened from the rail, scanning the water, but couldn’t see another vessel there.

Disappointment struck him anew.

He limped across the deck, slip-sliding on the wet planks, and leaned out over the dark water again. The boat on which he’d arrived here was gone. He caught a sleek shape moving away at speed. Darley, the chickenshit son-of-a-bitch, making off the second his back was turned. He must have sneaked aboard the motorboat and let it drift away on the current until he was sure he was far enough away before firing up the motor.

He knew he shouldn’t have trusted the little turkey-necked freak. Darley didn’t like it that Hicks had targeted his old neighbourhood, or that Gant planned further destruction of Manhattan. If it wasn’t for the fact that Darley had been the one to brain Vince Everett when he’d tried to usurp command, or that it was Darley who’d dragged him away from certain death in the logging camp, he’d have kerb-stamped the little punk to death when first he’d shown his doubt on the ride back to New York. He pictured it now, bundling the little man out of the van, forcing his open mouth on a raised kerbstone and then hammering down with the heel of his boot until his face was mush.