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
