Matt Hilton - Blood and Ashes

A man emerged from the shadows of the next building.

‘Gant! Gant! He’s here!’ The man was yelling into a hand-held radio.

He should have been shooting.

Lifting the SIG, I continued forward and double-tapped the man, both times in the chest.

He went down, his legs swinging up like a clown doing a pratfall.

Skidding to a halt over him, I aimed my gun at the man’s face. It was already bashed up, his nose having been recently broken judging by the dry blood smeared over his top lip, and the beginnings of bruising under his eyes. Maybe this was a result of the crashing vehicles earlier. Didn’t matter. He was dead, and he had certain items that would prove useful.

The radio and the gun.

Unlike the others he was armed with a shotgun, a sawn-off with a shortened stock and two barrels. I broke the stock and nodded. Two shells of 12-gauge shot were enough to kill anyone. A quick check of the man’s body showed he hadn’t brought extra ammo. I jammed the shotgun down the back of my jeans. It was uncomfortable, yes, but also a comforting weight.

Racing on, I thumbed down the volume on the radio so it didn’t give away my position. I pushed the radio into a front pocket of my shirt, listening to the jumble of voices as the surviving skinheads called out to each other.

The radio traffic was largely indecipherable, but more than once the name ‘Gant’ was mentioned. The man who I just killed had called out the same name. Gant, I concluded, was the name of the tattooed man, their leader.

Good, because it’s always preferable to know the name of an enemy.

Goading Gant was something to be considered, a way to force the battle towards me and away from Millie and the children. Except the likelihood was that Gant would order his men to turn off their radios, and then I’d have lost an advantage.

Something struck me: there were only three voices chattering over the channel. I had counted four still living and wondered why one of them wasn’t involved in the plan to ambush me. I considered the hillbilly kid and how different he looked from the others, if in fact he was part of this group or if he had his own agenda. If that was the case then it meant I had two distinct enemies to contend with. That confused the issue and added to the danger stakes. Maybe I should have dropped him when the opportunity was there.

Racists and radical extremists come in all shapes and forms, some with hair and some without, so maybe it wasn’t that unusual for Nazis to band with KKK wannabes when they had a common cause. However, I still had no idea what that cause was, other than they all wanted Don Griffiths and his family dead.

Well, my entire military career had been based upon fighting people who were governed by hatred and a desire to see anyone dead who didn’t sit with their ideals. Stopping this bunch would have been an enjoyable nostalgia trip if not for the fact that the consequences of failure were more dire than usual.

An H amp;K rattled.

Don was still alive.

Two against four, the odds were piling in our favour every second.

OK. So let’s get this done while things are swinging our way.

Rushing to the right, I gained the slope and the cover of the trees. The going would be a little slower, but there was less chance of running into any of my enemies while out in the woods. I thumbed the volume on the radio, listening as men reported the negative result of their search. If I could circle round behind them, gain entry to the structure where the children were, I could wait there for them and take them out one at a time.

If, I cautioned, wasn’t a word allowed in my vocabulary. More psychobabble from my Arrowsake days, but I had to abide by the rule. You didn’t plan on if, you made it so.

Gant was seething.

What should have been a simple forced entry to an unguarded house, a quick in-and-out mission, had turned to shit. Things didn’t look like they were going to get any better, either.

He’d thought about the men accompanying him as being disposable, but now that wasn’t the case. He wished that they were all back, hale and hearty and ready to lay down their lives all over again.

‘Who the fuck is out there?’ he yelled into his radio as he tried to staunch the flow of blood from his damaged ear.

‘Fuckin’ Rambo, you ask me,’ came back Darley’s whining tone.

‘I don’t mean him. I’m talking about our people. Sound off… one at a time.’

‘Won’t take much doing,’ Darley said. ‘There’s only me and Holland still kicking.’

‘Jesus…’

Gant pushed into the front of a cabin, shutting the door behind him with his foot. There he toyed with the oozing wound in his ear. ‘You sure that’s all there is, Dar?’

‘I ain’t heard much from Dillman since we last heard him shout out. I’m taking it that the bad-ass took him out.’

‘Yeah,’ Gant said touching his ear again. The bad-ass had come close to finishing him, too. Chances were that a hopeless cretin like Dillman wouldn’t have fared better. He felt little regret. Dillman wouldn’t be too much of a miss; the useless idiot had allowed Vince to get away. ‘Holland, you still out there?’

‘I’m here,’ Holland said.

‘Where?’

‘Ass-end of the camp. Just spotted the minivan, but I can’t get to it. Don Griffiths has me pinned down with a machine-gun.’

‘You’ve found their vehicle? Tell me where.’

‘Like I said, I’m at the ass-end of the camp.’

‘That’s a real help, Holland. This whole place is the fuckin’ ass-end of the world.’

Darley cut into the conversation. ‘Boss, I see the minivan. It’s under a lean-to next to the last cabin on the right.’

‘Can you get to it, Dar?’ Gant asked.

‘Will do.’

Holland said, ‘I’d rather you gave me cover, Darley. Griffiths is getting too close for my liking.’

‘So kill the bastard,’ Gant snapped.

‘You sure, boss? I thought you wanted to be the one to-’

‘Things have changed, Holland. Or haven’t you noticed? Just kill the bastard so we can get the fuck outa here.’

‘With you, boss,’ Holland said.

A machine-gun rattled in the distance.

‘What about the other guy?’ Darley asked.

‘We see him, we kill him. Otherwise he’s not our priority just now. Get to the minivan, Dar, and tell me what you find.’

Gant pinched his ear, trying to stop the flow of blood. Waste of time that was. He flicked scarlet drops on the walls, thinking about what he’d just said. Not a priority, my ass! If I see that piece of shit I’m gonna make it my life’s work to put him in a grave.

Two machine-guns competed further up the camp. Gant opened the door of the cabin and peered out. A small figure sprinted through the haze of drizzle and gunsmoke, Darley heading for the lean-to. There was muzzle flash from where Holland was hunkered down behind an old flat-bed trailer abandoned when the last logging company truck rolled out. Gant added up his chances of getting round behind Griffiths and blasting the man, but discarded the idea. A far better plan was finding the kids and using them as a shield. He could then force Griffiths and whoever the fuck the other guy was into the open, where he could riddle them full of bullets with little fear of them shooting back.

‘Van’s empty, boss!’

Gant thumbed his radio up to his good ear.

‘Say again, Dar.’

‘The minivan’s empty. What now?’

‘Start checking the buildings next to it, I’m gonna make my way to you.’

He checked his assault rifle and it was almost empty. He dumped the depleted magazine then fished a fresh one out of his jacket pocket and slammed it in place.

As an afterthought, he called Holland.