Matt Hilton: Blood and Ashes

Carswell Hicks was lying on the floor in front of a desk, the only furniture in the room. Beyond the desk was an open door, but the closet behind it was empty. I approached the only hiding place where Gant could be, going round the desk quickly, gun poised to shoot.

Gant wasn’t there, but I found a metal lock-box with the lid thrown wide. Indentations in the foam interior were empty. The spaces in the foam were large enough to contain a couple of thermos flasks and it didn’t take a genius to deduce that there had lain the plutonium receptacles. They were gone, and so was Gant. Searching around, I found scuffed footprints formed of blood and at this angle saw that they led back out the way I’d come. I followed them to the doors and outside on to the deck. The beating rain obscured the tracks here, but there was only one place where Gant could have headed. I craned up, looking at the elegantly robed woman towering three hundred feet above, her torch held high as if to ward off the rain.

Just as I feared, Gant was going to despoil the symbol of freedom. It was ironic; I had always fought against tyranny, and now it looked like I was going to have to be the champion of Lady Liberty herself. I strode along the deck, eyes still on the proud face high overhead, hoping that she would approve of me if she was given voice.

The rattle of a machine pistol rang out, followed by a shriek of pain, and all whimsical thought fled.

It was time to get deadly serious.

Public access to the statue halted at six p.m. sharp but the National Park Rangers and support staff responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the site stayed on hand later into the evening. Luckily for Gant, by the time he’d decided on his target and had steered the yacht to its cumbersome arrival at the island, only a skeleton crew was left behind. He killed one stetson-wearing Ranger down on the dock, and a black woman lugging a cart full of cleaning materials at the entrance to the foyer to Old Fort Wood, the eleven-pointed star that Lady Liberty loomed over. Luckier still, the cleaning woman had been on her way out of the door, because passing through the portal he found it to be at least four inches thick and even his machine pistol wouldn’t have been enough firepower to gain entrance.

He had visited here once, back when he was a gooey-eyed kid, blinded by the lies told to him by his schoolteachers, the government and even his parents. The original torch had been relocated to the lobby at some point in the past and he’d joined the throng of school brats oohing and aahing at it. Following stairs to the second floor, he’d found an exhibition hall where he recalled marvelling at full-sized replicas of Lady Liberty’s face and one of her feet. Now, as an adult, with the blinkers lifted, none of this mattered to him, and he went up the stairs at a run, heading for the tenth-floor observation platform where he could get a good view of Liberty Island all the way back down to the abandoned yacht.

He exited through of a door fitted with push bars. There he pulled off the cumbersome rucksack he’d brought from the boat and wedged it against one of the doors so it wouldn’t close on him. It was good to drop the heavy weight for a while, and he worked the kinks out of his muscles, then crept out on to the balcony and scanned the area below him. He thought he heard a motor, but it idled and then went silent. He tried to peer through the rain and was sure he saw someone clamber over the gunwale of the yacht. He blinked raindrops from his lashes, stared but couldn’t see movement now. Deciding it was more than likely just a play of the shadows caused by the shifting of the rain, he shifted his gaze across the harbour towards Manhattan. The downtown financial district dominated the skyline, but since the Twin Towers had come down it just wasn’t as impressive any more. He wished he’d been responsible for 9/11 instead of goddamn bin Laden, but then thought, to hell with it. Ground Zero still attracted thousands of visitors; in contrast no one would be coming to Liberty Island for a long time.

He smiled, holding it until it slipped into a grimace. He’d never planned on being a suicide bomber like one of them Islamic zealots, but it could come to that now. Fuck it. It’ll be worth it. His name would be revered in the white supremacist movement: he’d be bigger than McVeigh, Matthews, Dr Pierce and even James Earl Ray.

He took one last look, searching the heavens for helicopters swooping his way, or boats racing across New York Harbor, but it looked like he had a few minutes’ grace yet. He didn’t doubt that Darley had run squealing like a pig to the cops, but the advantage was still his: they didn’t know where he was.

‘Excuse me, sir. The attractions are closed for the day. Uh… can I ask you what you are doing here?’

Gant heard the voice and his grimace became a rictus smile. Slowly he turned and looked at the tall black man standing with one hand on the open door. Rent-a-cop or domestic staff, Gant couldn’t immediately tell. The man was in a beige shirt and trousers, a broad leather belt holding nothing more dangerous than a walkie-talkie.

As the man got his first good look at Gant’s face he was at first offering up a genial enough smile. Christ, he’d just caught a terrorist and he was still being polite. Ain’t that just the state of things these days? In the next second the man took in the tattooed visage, the shaved head, the gun in Gant’s hand and the smile flickered and disappeared.

‘What I’m doing, nigger,’ Gant said, ‘is what every good white man should’ve done a long time ago. I’m making a stand against the likes of you.’

The man knew he was going to die, and all he could do was throw up his hands. Little good they did against the nine mm hollow-points that tore through his body. The man was thrown back into the interior of the building, a shrill scream following him inside.

Gant went quickly after him, scooping up the rucksack and its weighty contents with a grunt. He swung it on to one shoulder, as he covered the man with his Ruger MP9. The man’s scream of agony petered out, sputtered and went silent.

Below him other voices were raised in question, more of the night crew responding to the shocking sound of death inside such a sanctified place. Give them their due, they were no cowards. He heard footsteps from below. Gant loped to the head of the stairs, looked down and thought he saw movement. He aimed and fired a short burst downwards. He was rewarded by shouts of alarm, followed by running footsteps as the once brave hearts made a dash for freedom. He heard squawks of alarm bleating from the radio on the dead man’s belt.

‘Oh, well, the cops will be on their way now.’ His voice reverberated back to him from the hollow shell of Lady Liberty above. He went up a short flight of stairs, looked up into the dimness. The lights that adorned the steel structure inside the statue had been turned off hours ago. Only an occasional security light offered a dim glow on each landing of the stairs that wound up inside the body to the observation platform in the crowned head. He took one last look down, before turning his attention to the spiral stair. It was going to be difficult lugging the cumbersome rucksack, but as a soldier he’d carried heavier packs and for much further.

He recalled this climb from his youth, charging in noisy abandon up the steel staircase alongside a crowd of his school mates. Back then they’d been forbidden from using the elevators, but as kids they didn’t mind. Going all the way to the top was a challenge that young Sammy had relished. He was only pissed when on reaching where the arm stretched into the sky he was halted. Only maintenance personnel were allowed up into the torch these days, he’d been told by a member of staff. Well, there was no one around to stop him this time.