Blood and Ashes

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.

That wouldn’t happen now, but it wasn’t enough to stop Gant from trying to kill the little puke-ball. He snapped out his handgun, firing at the source of the engine sound. It was a waste of. 22 shells. At this distance he wasn’t close enough to kill the man, but Gant kept on firing and yelling in wordless fury as the engine sound receded into the distance.

Worn down by the betrayal of his two closest allies, Gant allowed the gun to drop to his side. He stood there blowing hard, trying to steady himself. The wound in his ear pulsed like a drum beat, keeping rhythm with his heart. He glanced around, saw the shore off on his left, then across the broad channel the lights of the Manhattan financial district. He watched for search lights flicking on, seeking out the source of the gunshots, but nothing stirred. Luckily he was too far out on the water for anyone to have heard, or if they did, they’d no idea where the noise originated.

There was a growl coming from somewhere and it took him a moment to locate where. The sound was in his throat; anger taking shape again in a building curse. He spat it out, turned quickly from the rail and went back into the large cabin. It was pointless dwelling on the failure of others.

The two men that Darley had killed were in the corner where the buckshot had thrown them. Carswell Hicks still sat propped up against the silver lock-box. The smell was overwhelming. Too soon to be putrefaction, the stench was a pungent mix of spilled blood, voided bowels and opened bodies. Gant was familiar with the stench. It had been a constant companion when he’d fought against the Iraqis and the Taliban. Still, he threw a forearm over his nose as he stooped down over Hicks’ body. With the barrel of his gun, he flicked open Hicks’ jacket. Darley had stripped the two minders of their weapons, and because he wouldn’t risk leaving Gant anything larger than the. 22 to shoot at him with, he would have taken them with him. Gant hoped that Darley had forgotten about the Ruger MP9 that Hicks carried concealed in a shoulder rig.

The gun was there and Gant reached for it. He trembled as he neared the body of his friend, expecting Hicks to snap out his hands and go for his throat, seeking vengeance from beyond the grave. It was a fanciful thought. He unsnapped the holding strap and withdrew the Ruger. It was a compact machine pistol that Hicks had adapted for concealment under his suit jacket. The folding stock had been removed, making it not much larger than any other handgun, but the firepower was awesome in comparison to Gant’s weapon. Under Hicks’ other armpit he found three extra magazines of nine mm hollow-point rounds.

Gant studied the gun and smiled for the first time in hours. With this he could take the war to his enemies. But there was something infinitely better.

He placed the weapon and ammunition on the desk and returned to Hicks. His aversion to touching the man had fled, and he grabbed Hicks and dragged him away from the lock-box. A broad smear of blood and urine stained the boards before he was finished, but the lubricant helped him slide the heavy box from concealment. He jostled it over to the centre of the cabin and threw back the lid. Inside were the two flasks that Hicks had shown him earlier. They had been packed into slots in the foam interior. He thought they’d be heavier, but when he lifted one of the flasks free it wasn’t much weightier than a two-litre bottle of Coke. The flasks looked like elongated eggs, nine inches from rounded tip to rounded tip. One end was capped with a screw-down lid. He unscrewed it, peered inside. Some sort of viscous liquid was pooled at the bottom of a glass vial. He was no scientist, but judging by its heaviness the lock-box had to be lead-lined, which assured him these things were the real deal.

Radioactive isotope.

He screwed the lid back on and replaced the flask in its foam enclosure. Then with the lid shut he grasped one end of the box and hauled it off the floor a few inches. He could manage it, but it would be a struggle to cart the entire box off the boat with him. He could take the flasks themselves, but the lead was there for a good reason. Last thing he wanted was to damage the flasks and kill himself before he was through. He stood there a moment before the solution struck him. Why even remove the box from the boat when he could take the boat directly to his target?