Matt Hilton - Blood and Ashes

‘What’s their problem? Makes me wonder if they secretly wanted Gant to succeed,’ I said. ‘That would have proved their point that domestic terrorism is a dire threat.’

Walter didn’t answer. Perhaps he was thinking the same thing.

‘I’ve a business to run,’ Rink said. ‘I don’t have time for another vacation. I’ve already had a few days break on taxpayers’ money, thank you very much.’

‘Seriously, boys, I think it’s best that you lay low for a while.’

‘We aren’t hiding from them, Walter,’ I said. ‘It’s those old men who have to cover their heads in shame.’

Rink grunted. ‘They need to cover their asses. I see their wrinkly butts again, I’ll pop a cap in ’em.’

‘Stay away from them, boys. They’re very dangerous people.’

‘So are we,’ I said. ‘When I last spoke to Don Griffiths, I suggested he put everything he knew about this plot in a file someplace, with instructions that it should be opened if anything suspicious happened to him, his family or any of us three. Maybe you should whisper that in one of those old bastards’ ears.’

‘You think that’s enough to keep us safe?’

‘It will be for now. Maybe somewhere down the line they’ll try something but not now. Our silence keeps them safe, so they have to keep us all happy.’

Walter’s face settled into a semblance of resignation. ‘Leave it to me, son.’

I hugged my mentor, a show of full forgiveness for the old man’s indiscretions. ‘You should watch yourself, Walt. Maybe it’s you who should take a vacation.’

‘I’m too busy overseeing damage control for that.’ He dug in his pocket and brought out his ubiquitous cigar. He looked at it fondly. ‘But maybe I should give up on my old ways, huh? Once I’ve passed Arrowsake your message I’m going to sever all ties with them.’ He flipped the cigar into a waste basket.

We left him then. I wondered if Walter would delve in the basket after we were gone, because bad habits weren’t as easily dropped as that. As he was to the cigar, I felt the old man was too much of a slave to Arrowsake to let it go so easily, or it him.

Together we took a ride out on the Staten Island ferry. There were a couple of hundred passengers, all jostling for places on one side of the boat, cameras poised, as the ferry chugged past Liberty Island. Everyone had come to see the Lady in all her glory. She’d stood here as a symbol of freedom from persecution for a century and a quarter and she’d stand here for many more years to come.

Gant’s attempt at destroying her had failed miserably. My theory had proven unfounded: Kwon hadn’t double-crossed Hicks; he’d delivered to him the real deal: plutonium 238. Only Samuel Gant’s ham-handed attempt at jerry-rigging a bomb had failed. The petrol container had blown as he’d planned, but it wasn’t enough to damage the plutonium flasks. They’d been fabricated to withstand blunt force in case they were ever mishandled or involved in a collision. The containers had come without the capacity for fission or fusion, and with no spillage the plutonium retained its atomic structure — although it had degraded substantially from its original weapons grade capacity. Thank God. The containers had been found undamaged, and already maintenance teams had scrubbed the scorch marks and soot residue away and Lady Liberty was once more open for business. She had thwarted the attack with stoic will, her torch still bright.

Later, Rink took a flight out of Newark, and once he’d passed through security, I had detoured to a rental booth and picked up the car. I’d set off through New Jersey, a rhythm and blues collection playing through the CD system. Maybe it was sheer coincidence that the first track was John Lee Hooker’s ‘Boom, Boom.’

I only stopped once on the drive over. Eating at a diner, I downed more mugs of coffee than were good for my health, then looked for a telephone booth. I called Imogen Ballard and apologised for missing spending St Valentine’s Day with her. I meant every word, as well as the promise that I’d come over to Maine as soon as I was finished up. She told me to bring flowers and maybe she’d forgive me. Flowers and chocolates, I promised. After hanging up, I returned to the rental car and I was smiling. I only wished that I’d had the nerve to tell her I loved her.

The road past Hertford wound up into the hills. It went over the crossroads and I followed it with barely a glance to the north. Up along there was the shell of the house where Adrian Reynolds had died. I didn’t want to think about that now. Most of the journey here from New York City had been filled with those thoughts already. For now I felt at peace. It wouldn’t last, I knew, so I relished the simple comfort. I passed where I’d concealed the first two men I’d killed. I didn’t think of their deaths as murder any more, not when it had been proven that Rooster and Cabe had both been part of Hicks’ gang. I passed the Seven-Eleven where all of this started, and on into town to the green and its wishing well. I thought of the coins I’d dropped into it and how it had proven a waste of money after all.

I parked on the drive outside Don Griffiths’ imposing house. As I sat in the car, I took a steadying breath, not quite sure how I should play this.

Nice and easy, I told myself.

Finally I got out and walked up the path to the door. There were new vehicles on the drive. Before I could ring the bell the door opened and it was deja vu as I was greeted by Millie. Her smile didn’t extend to her eyes, perhaps because she understood why I’d come.

Millie let me in and we walked to the kitchen. There I found an old friend waiting for me. Not Don, but Fluffy the tomcat. It stared at me from the top of a counter. The cat had been cleaned up, the matted fur brushed, and it looked like it had gained a few pounds in weight. At least its name suited it better now. I scratched it between its ears and the cat purred. ‘Looks like you’re being well looked after, boy.’ Millie was watching me from across the kitchen, trying to decide why I had come. ‘My lifestyle makes keeping a pet a little awkward these days. Fluffy can stay here, can’t he?’

‘Beth and Ryan have fallen in love with him. It’s good that they have something to keep their minds off what happened.’

‘Where are they?’

‘In the sitting room, watching TV. You want to say hello?’

‘No, it’s best if they don’t know I’m here.’

She nodded. The children had lost their parents in terrible circumstances and they didn’t need reminding of that by my reappearance.

‘How are the little ones?’ I asked.

‘It isn’t easy on them. They’re both traumatised, as anyone would imagine, but my dad has brought in the best counsellors that money can buy. Time’s a healer, they say, but I’m not sure they’ll ever fully recover from this.’

Children should be insulated against the horrors that Beth and Ryan had had to endure, but that was not the way of the world. My hope was that they weren’t victims of such terror ever again: my real reason for being there.

‘What about Don?’

‘Dad’s upstairs in bed. You can go up, if you like. I’ll wake him.’

‘Later, Millie. It’s you I’ve come to see. Come take a walk with me.’

‘Where to?’

‘Somewhere else. I don’t want the kids hearing any of this.’

Millie followed me through the house. At the front door she paused and looked back along the hall to a closed room from where canned laughter filtered. No children’s voices joined in with the merriment.

‘C’mon,’ I said softly. ‘They’ll be OK alone for a few minutes.’

She trailed me down the path, across the road and on to the green. I led her to the wishing well where I rested a hip against the brickwork. Millie stood beside me, her arms folded under her breasts, her dark hair hanging past her eyes. I looked all around. A few townspeople were out and about, but none of them in earshot. I patted the wall next to me, invited her to sit.