Blood and Ashes

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?

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.