Blood and Ashes (33 page)

‘Get outa my goddamn way, you freaks,’ he snapped as the men turned to block his way. Gant was in such a rage that his features were as dark as his tattoo.

One of Carswell Hicks’ bodyguards stepped in front of Gant, and Gant didn’t pause to consider the consequences. He kicked the man in the groin, the full swing of his leg behind the blow. Back when he’d earned the red laces in his boots, Gant had kicked a man similarly, guaranteeing that at least one black man wouldn’t spread his seed to further dilute the population.

As the bodyguard clutched at his mashed testicles, Gant snatched out his handgun and aimed it at the face of the second bodyguard. ‘Back up, asshole, or you’ll get worse than a set of crushed nuts.’

Sitting behind his desk, Carswell Hicks appeared nonplussed by the drama at the far end of the room. He was dressed in a grey suit, grey shirt, blood-red tie, a matching handkerchief tucked in his breast pocket.

‘Let Samuel in,’ he called, sounding almost jovial. ‘We’re all brothers here, aren’t we?’ He stood up, beckoning Gant deeper into the room.

The second bodyguard rolled his shoulders, like he was unfazed by the gun a couple inches from his face. He raised his eyebrows, jerked his head, giving Gant the all-clear. The tattooed man sneered at him as he pushed him out of the way with the flat of his hand. Behind Gant, Darley entered the room. He was wielding a shotgun, which he aimed at the bodyguards. ‘Get him over against the wall,’ he told the uninjured man. He covered them while the guard with the damaged testicles was helped over to the corner of the room. Darley bobbed his head. ‘I know you’re both armed. Lose the guns. Kick them over to me.’

While Darley collected the weapons, Gant continued to walk towards Carswell Hicks. His air-wear soles sucked at the planking.

‘You seem awfully upset about something,’ Hicks said, a smile half formed on his lips.

‘I kind of get that way when someone I trust craps on me.’

‘I’ve crapped on you?’ The feigned expression of bewilderment belied the coldness in Hicks’ voice. ‘How so, Samuel?’

Gant threw his arms out expansively. ‘That bullshit in the Jew-boy quarter! I thought we were supposed to kill thousands of them. I thought we were gonna bring down their temples and poison the rest of them that the explosion didn’t get!’

‘I had a change of heart.’

Hicks sat down, steepling his hands on his chest. With his close-cropped silver hair and beard he looked like a college professor preparing to lecture a dim-witted student. Gant slapped the handgun down on the desktop and leaned on his knuckles so he could look his leader directly in the eye. ‘A change of heart? You pitied our enemies?’

‘Not at all. I despise the Jews as much as I ever did.’

‘So what was it all about?’

Hicks stood up sharply, taking Gant by surprise. The tattooed man snatched up his handgun, but when he saw Hicks walk away from him, he merely watched, befuddled. Hicks went to open a door that Gant knew led into an antechamber of sorts. Inside the small room the box that he’d purchased from the Koreans reflected the dull overhead light. ‘That,’ said Hicks, pointing at the box, ‘cost me millions of dollars. If I’d blown it up, then I’d have been seriously out of pocket.’

‘We’re fighting the
Rahowa
!’ Gant screwed his mouth around the shout, causing a hallucinatory twist to his tattoo. ‘Money? You’re more concerned about money than our
racial holy war
?’

‘Of course. We cannot fight a war with empty coffers.’

The handgun was a dull matt grey: the same colour that threatened the white race. Gant swung it towards the man whom he’d once happily have given his life for. ‘You have lost your way, Carswell.’

Unperturbed by the gun pointing at him, Hicks leaned down to unlatch the lid of the box. He swung it open and indicated the large vials inside. ‘No, Samuel, I have seen
our
future.’ He became animated. Light shone behind his eyes as though his inner being was lit by an epiphany. ‘Don’t you see? With the threat of using this weapon whenever,
wherever
, we choose to, we can hold the government to ransom. We can demand billions in compensation for the injustices served upon the white race; we can take it from the Jews and the niggers and hand it back to all the God-fearing white folk who have lost their homes, their jobs and their dignity. With this,’ he shook a hand at the box, ‘we can do anything we want. We can force the President to step down from office, if we desire.
We can take back our country
.’

‘Genius.’ Gant eyed his leader, allowing his gun to trail away.

‘Yes. You see it now, don’t you? The possibilities . . . no,
the reality
, we can achieve.’ Hicks grinned and he no longer looked like a learned professor, more like a manic fool. ‘Lincoln Square was only the start, Samuel, The Day of Broken Spirits. With that one statement we showed them how vulnerable they really are, and we make them fear what we are further capable of.’

‘Genius,’ Gant repeated. Hicks’ grin began to flicker as he noted the tone in the tattooed man’s voice. Gant spat on the floor. ‘I used to think that you were a genius. Now I see you for what you really are.’

Fingers trembling, he raised the gun again.

Hicks swayed, looked at the contents of the box, back at Gant.

There were tears in the eyes of the tattooed man. ‘I followed you all these years, Carswell. I did everything you commanded because I believed in you. I believed in your vision because it was also my vision. Now I see how blind I was. This was never about establishing a segregated country for white men; it was always about greed, about money. That’s all you’re interested in. All that you ever were.’

‘Samuel, I see that you’re still hurting from your wounds. You’re not thinking straight. Once you’re well again, we will talk and you’ll see that I am right. It’s the pain that is making you act this way: don’t worry, I understand. There are no hard feelings. I promise you that . . .’

Gant blinked at the crack of the pistol, mild surprise on his face as he watched Hicks grab at his gut and drop to his knees. There was another sound in the room, a deep-throated roar that swelled inside his skull. He couldn’t tell if it was the shouts of Hicks’ bodyguards or the pounding of blood through his veins. Probably it was both. He heard a double crash, but didn’t look round. He didn’t need to as he’d already told Darley what he intended doing and that as soon as he fired, Darley should kill both of the minders.

Staring at Hicks, he saw his fingers steeple on his chest again, the man reacting to the second bullet wound before Gant was aware of having pulled the trigger.

Gant took a step forward and placed the .22 calibre handgun to the top of Hicks’ head. ‘It was never about money for me, Carswell. It was always about our pledge: we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children. Your plan would serve only to destroy us all. You are tainted, Carswell. You have joined them, the grey men.’

He heard the third bullet, felt the tug of the barrel across the top of Hicks’ skull as the recoiling of Hicks’ body tore the man away from him. He smelled the cordite, the coppery tang of blood, but for once the smell didn’t offer him any satisfaction.

He stood there for some time, for how long he had no idea. Finally it was Darley’s hand on his shoulder that roused him, and he withdrew his gaze from the middle distance and looked down at Carswell Hicks. Hicks’ corpse had collapsed so that he sat against the silver-coloured box, his legs splayed, blood on his gut and chest, head bowed as though shamed.

‘You OK, Gant?’

In a daze, Gant nodded. The bird-like man offered him a hand, but he shook his head. He saw that the two minders were as dead as their mark, their chests open cavities where Darley had blasted them. ‘We did the right thing,’ he said. His words were only partly directed at Darley, because he was still shocked that he’d gone through with it. Carswell Hicks had been everything to him, and now he’d murdered him. Gant regretted that it had come to this; he’d always thought that it would be him and Carswell standing side by side, looking out over a totally white nation. Side by side as it should be.

Darley scrubbed a palm over his shaved head, looking down on Hicks. ‘Man, what a shame Hicks lost it. Must have been all those years he spent inside, alongside all those criminals. They must have turned him, Gant, so don’t you go blaming him now.’

‘What about you, Dar?’

‘I don’t blame him,’ Darley said defensively.

‘I’m talking about you turning. Way I remember it from our talk back in Pennsylvania, you thought that Hicks’ plan was too extreme. Well, I’ve got another plan. Are you still with me?’

Darley made a pecking motion with his nose, indicating the dead man at their feet. ‘I just helped you kill our leader, Gant. I can’t believe you’d doubt me to follow you anywhere.’

‘Good,’ Gant said, and he laid a consoling hand on Darley’s shoulder. ‘’Cause if you thought that was extreme, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.’

Chapter 43

I needed the time to think.

I’d made my apologies, headed off to find a restroom. My bodily functions weren’t a major concern, but a necessity. Finished, I flushed, straightened my clothing, but stayed in the cubicle. Sitting on the lid of the WC wasn’t the place I’d like to be found if Armageddon struck. The idea was mildly humorous; who’d still be around to discover my inglorious end?

There was something slightly sordid about sitting in the locked cubicle, but it was one of the few places where I was guaranteed a few moments for solitude and reflection.

Random images flickered through my mind, events of days ago mixed in with the past few hours, so I got a disjointed replay like scenes from a Guy Ritchie movie. I saw the flicker of 35 mm film, two small girls happily playing; then Kwon lying dead with a hole between his eyes; mean-tempered Fluffy the cat screeching and heading for the trees; my knife in the chest of a man; Rooster cock-crowing and flapping his elbows up and down; Millie, soaked and freezing, gratefully accepting the coat, her eyes full of hope. But then I saw Don Griffiths lying in his hospital bed, and then running across the logging camp with Vince Everett at his heels. I saw the tattooed face of Samuel Gant, the eight-eight pattern growing and swelling in my vision.

Groaning, I jammed the heels of my thumbs in my eye sockets. This wasn’t thinking, this was not what I wanted. I scrubbed hard; saw black and red spots floating in my vision while searching for the lock on the door. I left the cubicle, went across to a sink and jammed down hard on the tap. The icy water helped; I splashed some over my face. I shuddered out a breath, leaned both palms on the sink and stared at the reflection in the vanity mirror. Now there was a misnomer if ever I’d heard one. There was nothing vain in the image staring back at me. I looked like I’d lost a few pounds, my cheekbones like vertical slashes, dark rings under my eyes, skin sallow. Maybe that was only an effect of the stark overhead lighting. I pushed fingers through my hair, making strands stick up like thorns on my head. The look didn’t suit and I smoothed them out again.

‘You aren’t getting any younger, Joe,’ I whispered at the reflection.

I thought of the younger man I once was, Sergeant Hunter, One-Para. How back then I’d been full to the brim of life and expectation. Back before Arrowsake had tainted me. I hadn’t seen it coming, the descent into the dark place they formed for me. Only those who loved me noticed. Diane had stuck by me at first, but even her love wasn’t strong enough to quell the need for violent retribution that Arrowsake had instilled in me. Maybe by leaving me she thought I’d see the light. For a while I had, but always the tug was there, and it had finally reeled me in. In Kate Piers I thought I’d found salvation, but the compulsion bred within me had spoiled everything. When I should have run away with her, found somewhere safe for us both to hide, I’d sent her away while I indulged a selfish desire for violence against her tormentors. Kate died and I’d felt the bitter stab of failure ever since. Imogen, Kate’s sister, was a lifeline, but how many times had I even thought about her over the past few days? Once, and only when I considered saying goodbye. I was stuck firmly on their hooks again: Arrowsake still owned me.

No! I slammed a palm into the mirror reflection, cracking the glass into a spider’s web. The refracted image of the Arrowsake assassin glared back at me. That was what it signified to me, a broken man.
That’s not who I am.

I threw water in my face again, spat a nasty taste into the sink.

When I was younger I understood that Arrowsake manipulated me, but I obeyed their orders to the letter, I’d been loyal and idealistic and believed that what I was doing was for the greater good. They said kill and I killed. But it was always to save the lives of countless others, or to release them from the yoke of a tyrant. Arrowsake back then had been the figurehead of a just and noble cause. But what about now? Now, they were becoming the antithesis of everything I stood for.

They had allowed a terrorist free rein on their own soil, using the tactics of their enemies to instil fear in their own people. Those three nodding men, the cabal hidden behind the government, played with the lives of innocents to serve their own ends. They desired empowerment again, they wanted to establish a world rule based upon their own despotic view that was no less horrifying than that of Carswell Hicks or any other extremist. What kind of monsters were they?
What kind of monster have they made of me?