Matt Hilton - Blood and Ashes

‘Very soon. Days, I’m not sure,’ Gant muttered without opening his eyes.

‘Won’t Hicks’ statement lose a little meaning?’

‘How’d you come to that conclusion?’

‘We’re months away from November ninth, I thought Hicks wanted to mark the anniversary.’

Gant shrugged, turning his head away from Darley in a none too subtle attempt to shut him up. ‘Maybe he’d prefer to have his own date on the calendar. Anyway, I’m beginning to think that Kristallnacht Two is a poor name for what we’re planning. There’ll be more for the Jews to worry about than broken glass, Dar, much more.’

Darley nodded glumly, letting out a sigh that roused Gant. The tattooed man looked over at him. His yellow eyes were the proverbial piss holes in snow. ‘By the sound of things you’re worried about that.’

‘Just concerned that the statement we’re making is a little too big. One-Four, brother, all the way. But that shit’s poison to everyone, Gant.’

One-Four. Code for the fourteen words in the racist skinhead pledge: we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.

Gant grunted. ‘Yeah, it’s poison, and that’s the whole point. No Jew-boy will ever tread there again.’

‘Neither will any of us whites.’

‘Darley, the white race is on the verge of extinction, and if we don’t strike now we’re doomed. Unless we do this thing there won’t be a white man setting his foot any place, because we’ll all be gone. So don’t go quoting the One-Four to me without remembering exactly what it means. We have to tear down US society and rebuild it as a segregated nation with us whites back in control. That ain’t going to happen while the Jews are at the head of the wave of colour that’s engulfing us. Other people don’t care, and that won’t change until we show them what’s really happening here. When we make this statement, when we make our stand, then every white man will rise up at our sides and finally do what needs doing.’

Darley had heard similar anti-Semitic propaganda for years, and he didn’t need reminding. He hated what was happening in his country, how whites were being bred out of existence, all of them becoming grey men. He knew that the Jews were behind the conspiracy to infect the nation, using feminism and liberalism to take away the white man’s masculinity. Hell, the Jews were behind the immigration laws that took away all the manufacturing jobs that were the mainstay of the white-skinned, blue-collar classes, and he was certain, too, that they were guiding the blacks, the poisoners of the white race with all their drugs and genetically inferior blood. He hated the Jews with as much passion as Gant or Hicks or any of them, but still, what Hicks had in mind was extreme even for a radical extremist like him.

‘I grew up there, Gant…’ he whined.

Gant slammed his hands on the dashboard. ‘Are you turning into a fucking race-mixing left-winger, Dar? Don’t you see that’s exactly what I’m talking about? You can’t even walk through your own neighbourhood without feeling like you’re the fucking foreigner. You want to just hand over the place you grew up to those bastards? White people built this country, and we can sure as hell tear it down overnight.’ Gant blinked slowly, sitting back in his chair. When he continued his voice was steadier, and held more promise.

‘Marches and demonstrations are old school. They didn’t work. Burning niggers on crosses didn’t work. We have to do something much bigger if we ever hope to get the mongrel races out of here. There’s only one solution: kill every one of them that’re here, and make sure they can never return. That’s the only way we can start over.’

The little man still wasn’t sure. A bomb he was OK with, but this?

It was as if Gant could read his mind. ‘McVeigh tried with a bomb in Oklahoma and achieved nothing. We have to do something with more impact than that. That’s why Hicks has declared war against the destructive forces that are taking over our country. We all know that the Big Brother central state is destroying us. We have to see our government, and the Jews controlling it, for what it is… our mortal enemy. We have to strike against them where it really hurts. Ultimately nothing changes in this world without violence, you have to see that.’

‘Course I do, Gant. I’m with you all the way, but it’s one thing kerb-stomping a nigger, another doing something as… as brutal as this.’

Gant laughed. ‘Darley, the white man is the most brutal, the most vicious creature on the face of the earth. And this is the white man’s way of showing that when we get our backs up, then we won’t stop at nothing to reclaim what’s rightfully ours.’

Darley concentrated on the road, pretending that the hammering rain demanded his silence. He reflected again on his pledge, the One-Four, and was as staunch a follower as ever. The only problem: Manhattan was a part of this white nation, but he couldn’t see how it could figure in any future, let alone that of his people or their children. There’d be no reclaiming it when Manhattan became a no-go area for everyone.

‘Ever feel like we’re being poked and prodded like a bug in a Petri dish? That we’ve been cultivated all this time, till we’re a more virulent strain than the disease itself?’

That caused me to blink at the morose face of my friend. ‘Christ, Rink, that’s heavy thinking for an ignoramus brute like you.’

Rink nudged my ribs with an elbow, taking the gibe for what it was. ‘You know exactly where I’m coming from, Joe.’

‘That I do, Rink. That I do.’

We were back in the FBI chopper, swooping low over the wooded hills of northern Pennsylvania, en route for Hertford. Vince had sat up front this time, alongside the pilot. It was as much an excuse to nurse his painful jaw without looking a wimp as it was an opportunity to conduct business in private. I was glad that the FBI-cum-Arrowsake stooge was out of the way. It gave us the opportunity to talk about Walter’s denouement without having to worry about our words reaching the wrong ears.

‘I’m even surprised that Arrowsake chose to show its face in this,’ Rink said.

‘They didn’t have to show up; I already had no option but follow instructions,’ I said.

‘You coulda chose to go to prison.’

‘Yeah, right, like I was going to do that? Seriously, the FBI offered me a deal. Stop Carswell Hicks and my involvement would be buried. Now you and I both know that the FBI doesn’t have the power to offer a deal like that, so it was obvious that someone else was behind it. Soon as I heard Walter’s name mentioned I knew. Still, I have to admit it’s strange that the commanders made things official by giving their personal nod of approval.’

‘Maybe they don’t trust that frog-gigger, Vince, to get the job done.’

‘There’s more than Vince dealing with this. Rest assured. Homeland Security, NSC, FBI, CIA; everyone will have their own team on it. Plus, there’ll be others from Arrowsake.’

‘It’s not a good feeling knowing that there are others from our unit out there.’

‘Not from our unit, Rink. These are a new breed.’

‘Yeah, I get that, but you know where I’m coming from. And what that might mean.’

‘You think they’re using us as scapegoats and they’re prepared to sacrifice us?’

‘Like I said, germs in a Petri dish. If we’re their superbugs, you can bet your sweet cheeks they’ve designed an antidote.’

‘If that was the case, Walter would have warned us.’

‘Walter would sell us down the line as quick as that!’ Rink snapped his fingers. ‘Don’t know how you can trust him after the way he’s used us all these years.’