Blood and Ashes

Chapter 28

‘Did you ever catch that TV series on the Fox network? Twenty-one Jump Street?’

Couldn’t help but smile at the reference. It was almost as if I’d been expecting it. ‘You know, Vince, from certain angles you remind me a little of Johnny Depp.’

The agent attempted to conceal the smugness, but some of Vince Everett’s swagger returned. ‘So I’ve been told.’

‘Ever seen Edward Scissorhands?’

Vince made a noise in the back of his throat but my smile helped show I was only joking. I had in fact been thinking of another movie Depp featured in where he played a 1950s juvenile delinquent, the one with Ricki Lake and Iggy Pop.

‘If,’ Vince went on, ‘you’re familiar with the concept of Jump Street, you’ll know that it followed a group of undercover cops who infiltrated youth gangs. Well, I’m part of a similar FBI operation. Only we target home-grown militant groups.’

‘So you posed as a racist to get inside Gant’s mob? Odd that neo-Nazis would welcome someone with so much hair.’

‘It was a conscious decision to use the Vince Everett cover. It would have been too difficult carrying off an act that I was a Nazi. Sooner or later, my cover would have been blown. But you know what they say about birds of a feather?’

‘They accepted you through your common hatred of everyone who wasn’t a WASP?’

‘Yeah, but it wasn’t easy. The only way I got in was through Sonya Madden.’

‘The punk rocker girl?’

‘Yeah.’ For a second Vince’s eyes clouded over.

‘You regret that she came to harm. I hope you don’t hold her death against me?’

‘I can’t really do that, Hunter.’ He flicked a glance around, checking for the electronic ears that were more than likely in existence in the command unit. He lowered his voice to a whisper and mimed a nudge of his elbow. ‘Not when I helped her out the window as we crashed. Couldn’t really allow her to harm anyone else, and it was the first opportunity I got.’

Accepting what he said without comment was difficult; the thought of murdering a woman was abhorrent to me… usually. Having the woman’s death on my conscience would have been terrible if she wasn’t trying to kill those under my protection. Instead I said, ‘Vince Everett had to have been a real person. Gant would have checked.’

‘Yeah, Everett was real. He was a young junkie who murdered his grandfather during a bungled robbery. He was also suspected of beating a cop to death with a PR24 baton, not to mention a number of rapes where he first throttled his victims within an inch of their lives with a guitar string. He was as heavy a white supremacist as any in Gant’s outfit. Shame he turned up dead after overdosing: he should have gone to prison for a long time, maybe in a cell alongside some brothers.’

Yes, that would have been justice, rather than the relatively easy way that Everett went. ‘The FBI kept his demise a secret, I’m assuming, and you slipped right into the role.’

‘The name helped. I’ve been called Vince by all my friends since kindergarten, so I was never going to mess up and forget to answer someone calling my name.’

‘There was more to it than that.’

‘Of course there was. I had to get into his mind, become Vince Everett in every way. I had to think like him, act like him, do what he would do. It wasn’t nice being in his head like that, but I had to show those assholes that I was a worthy ally. Plus there was the fact that Everett was just the kind of guy Sonya Madden found irresistible.’ Again the agent’s eyes clouded. ‘Madden by name but mad by nature. It’s a shame she was such a psychopath, ’cause underneath it all she was quite a girl.’

‘Forgetting that she was part of a radical extremist network, as well?’

‘Yeah, there was that.’ Vince straightened his cap, winning a few seconds to compose himself. While he ordered his next words, Fluffy sauntered across the desk beside him. The cat glowered at him like he was something to be utterly and contemptuously destroyed. Vince broke open a carton of cream and offered it to the tom. ‘Peace offering?’

Fluffy sniffed and sashayed, but then settled down to lap the cream from the tub. Its occasional glance my way demanded to know what I was worrying about, now that Vince was his new best friend.

‘Traitor,’ I called the cat. It turned its back on me.

Vince grinned at the cat. ‘He has a lot in common with me, I guess.’

I squinted at him, not quite getting the reference. Vince said, ‘To Gant and Carswell Hicks I’m a traitor to their cause.’

‘Little notice Hicks will take. Last I heard he was dead.’

‘You and millions of others…’

I didn’t like the undertone of Vince’s delivery.

‘What exactly are you saying, Vince?’

‘Carswell Hicks is as alive as you or me. The death story is just that.’

‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘Why would I lie to you?’

‘You’re a feebie. You’re undercover. You have your own agenda. Take your pick.’

‘Christ, you’re a cynic, Hunter.’

‘It tends to keep me alive.’

‘And you’re full of pithy sayings.’

‘Good guy one-o-one, I told you.’

Vince sipped coffee. I mirrored him. The cat nudged the empty cream carton along the desk, unaware of or indifferent to the silence between the two men in its presence.

Finally I placed the empty Styrofoam cup down. ‘Carswell Hicks. Where is he?’

‘Sure wish that we knew. As you probably heard, an attempt was made to break Hicks out of prison when he was transferred to a less-secure hospital wing. The hospital’s medi-vac chopper was hijacked but later went down off the coast with no apparent survivors. Hicks’ body was never found, although the general public wasn’t informed of that in case it caused a furore. It was while Obama was running for president, and his supporters wouldn’t take kindly to someone possibly back in the public arena who’d make it his mission to destroy a black presidential candidate. You could say Hicks earned a modicum of protection from the same government he’d tried to disrupt all those years. Go figure, man!’

‘Sounds ridiculous, but not unheard of,’ I said, as disgusted as Vince was. ‘The British government released IRA murderers, and actually settled them on the mainland, under the Good Friday Agreement, gave them new identities so that no one would know who was living in their midst. Talk about pandering to your enemies.’

‘As far as everyone’s concerned, Hicks is dead and no threat to the president or the stability of our country. The reality is that the corpse they displayed was that of a homeless John Doe who bore a passing resemblance to Hicks. The guy had fallen into a river and drowned, so he fit the part. But to further disguise him, the JD was liberally doused in aviation fuel and burned.’

‘Jesus, that’s brutal.’

‘Had to make it look real, Hunter.’

‘OK. So what happened? Hicks took his freedom but that wasn’t enough for him? He has reinitiated his old hate campaign?’

‘Yes. He laid low for a while, but then… Bam!’ Vince waved his arms like the flourish of a magician. ‘Suddenly he’s back and people are beginning to die. We’re concerned that he’s planning something big.’

‘But you’ve no idea where he’s currently hiding, so it’s difficult to check?’

‘It’s why I infiltrated his group, to try to get a lead on his location.’

‘And when you find him he’s going to be taken right back to prison?’

Shaking his head, Vince smiled, and it was like a reflection of the smile I often view in mirrors. ‘Don’t forget, Hunter, he’s already dead. Can’t suddenly dump him back in the system, can we?’

‘Your job is to take him out?’

‘What I sometimes have to do isn’t FBI procedure.’

‘Assassination isn’t even CIA procedure these days,’ I said, though I knew differently. Another thought struck me. ‘The attacks on Don Griffiths and his family have nothing to do with revenge, have they? Don found him first time, and now Hicks is making sure that history doesn’t repeat itself.’

‘It’s worse than that, Hunter. I wasn’t party to everything that was said — unfortunately all our orders came via Gant — but what I understand is that Hicks wants something from Griffiths. And if Griffiths doesn’t hand it over then his family will pay.’

I went very still.

Vince studied me, noting the coldness slip into my face. ‘Your killer eyes are back,’ he said.

‘Yes.’ My voice seeped across to him like a freezing fog. ‘You knew that Gant was going to attack the family, yet you allowed it to happen.’

‘I didn’t have an opportunity to call it in, not with Sonya at my side every second,’ Vince said. But he knew his excuse sounded lame.

‘No. You wanted them to get what they wanted from Griffiths. You fully intended helping them. That way, Gant would trust you and then lead you back to Hicks. It’s why this FBI task force was on hand and in such numbers.’ Fisting my hands, it was a struggle to keep them on the desktop.

To his credit, Vince didn’t attempt to lie. Instead he said, ‘Sometimes small sacrifices have to be made. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.’

‘And you call me pithy.’

Vince threw up his arms. The sudden movement startled Fluffy, who instantly reverted to his former self. The tom arched his back and spat and then retreated to crouch between the protective walls made by my forearms. Wary of both the cat and the man, Vince said, ‘Well it’s all fucked, isn’t it? My cover’s blown, there’s no way I can get close to Hicks now.’ He waited a beat before saying, ‘I guess we move to Plan B and send a new man after him.’ Vince grinned. ‘We have, of course, got someone in mind. In fact, Walter Hayes Conrad endorsed the idea and says he knows the ideal person for the job.’