A Thousand Years of Darkness: a Thriller Read online

  The chopper came in full throttle and air skidded to a halt above Baer's stopped vehicles. Two men wearing ski masks, sleeveless bullet-proof vests, and harnesses to keep them from falling out were crouched in the chopper's open door. Both were armed with squad automatic weapons… SAWs like those carried by troops in Iraq.

  Oh, God! Jamie!

  Nail charged down the granite steps, his hand darting for the Glock at his belt, ignoring the helicopter as his eyes searched for his daughter. Let the bodyguards protect Baer.

  The scumbags in the chopper opened fire, the sound of their weapons like the magnified ripping of sailcloth. Stunned silence in the crowd for two or three heartbeats, people trying to digest what was happening. Then panic set in. Hellish screams of terror and tramping feet as people ran over each other in sudden blind flight…

  From the author of previous military and action adventure novels like THE 100TH KILL, DETACHMENT DELTA series and THE RETURN comes Charles W. Sasser's latest speculative political action-adventure thriller ripped from today's headlines and based on actual current events. Police Detective James Nail is wounded and his daughter murdered in an attack that also kills "right-wing" TV personality Jerry Baer. As Nail and Baer's producer, Sharon Lowenthal, team up to track down the shooters, they discover a conspiracy that leads to an international cartel of "One Worlders" and may implicate the President of the United States. Falsely accused of terrorism, they must keep one step ahead of Homeland Security to stay alive, bring down the traitors, and save the nation.

  What they’re saying about Charles W. Sasser

  "As for the writing, it's near perfect, flows smoothly and has that certain flair that all of us who type for a living seek to achieve..." PACIFIC FLYER on Predator: The Remote-Control Air War over Iraq and Afghanistan.

  "The most gripping scenes in the book document...emotion in the seconds just before the Hellfire missile arrives on target..." THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS (NEW YORK TIMES) on Predator: The Remote-Control Air War over Iraq and Afghanistan.

  "A gripping combat memoir…honest and exciting…a roving tale, full of sharp detail and told in the harsh language of soldiers baptized in fire..." KIRKUS REVIEWS on Taking Fire

  "Bustles with danger, intrigue, and surprise. Rapid-fire action from beginning to end." Clive Cussler on First Seal

  "Tough, raunchy, gritty, but surprisingly tender... If you never made it to 'Nam,this book will take you there... unbeatable!" MILITARY HISTORY Magazine on The 100th Kill

  "Outstanding! Exciting! Gut-grabbing...!" LEATHERNECK Magazine on One Shot—One Kill.

  "A grim, authentic window to a world of horrors only hinted at in the tabloid headlines..." PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY on Homicide!

  "A powerful emotion-packed mystery..." CONCISE BOOK REVIEWS on No Gentle Streets

  "A model of good historical writing…” LEATHERNECK on Hill 488

  "Abundant action, a fast pace and an unusual ethical dilemma..." PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY on Dark Planet.

  Books by Charles W. Sasser

  Fiction:

  A Thousand Years of Darkness

  Sanctuary

  The 100th Kill

  No Gentle Streets

  Liberty City

  Dark Planet

  The Return

  The War Chaser

  Operation No Man’s Land (as Mike Martell)

  Detachment Delta: Punitive Strike

  Detachment Delta: Operation Iron Weed

  Detachment Delta: Operation Deep Steel

  Detachment Delta: Operation Aces Wild

  Detachment Delta: Operation Cold Dawn

  OSS Commando: Final Option

  OSS Commando: Hitler’s A-Bomb

  No Longer Lost

  (Novella, in The Foxy Hens Meet a Romantic Adventurer)

  Nonfiction:

  None Left Behind

  God in the Foxhole

  Homicide!

  Shoot to Kill

  Always A Warrior

  Smoke Jumpers

  Raider

  Sniper Anthology (contributor)

  Patton’s Panthers

  At Large

  Warriors (contributor)

  My Mom is My Hero (contributor)

  First SEAL (w/Roy Boehm)

  Hill 488 (w/Ray Hildreth)

  Fire Cops (w/Michael Sasser)

  Encyclopedia of Navy SEALs

  Magic Steps to Writing Success

  Taking Fire (w/Ron Alexander)

  The Soldier of Fortune (contributor)

  The Walking Dead (w/Craig Roberts)

  One Shot—One Kill (w/Craig Roberts)

  In Cold Blood: Oklahoma’s Most Notorious Murders

  Last American Heroes (w/Michael Sasser)

  Doc: Platoon Medic (w/Daniel E. Evans)

  Arctic Homestead (w/Norma Cobb)

  Crosshairs on the Kill Zone (w/Craig Roberts)

  Going Bonkers: The Wacky World of Cultural Madness

  The Shoebox: Letters for the Seasons

  (by Nancy Shoemaker, edited by CWS)

  Devoted to Fishing; Devotionals for Fishermen

  Predator: The Remote-Control Air War over Iraq and Afghanistan

  (w/Matt J. Martin)

  The New Face of War (Time/Life series contributor)

  True Detective (Pinnacle true crime series contributor)

  A Thousand Years of Darkness

  What if the President of the United States was trying to topple the nation—and you found out about it?

  * * *

  Charles W. Sasser

  For all Americans: May we learn to live free

  Denton, Texas

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Deadly Niche Press

  An imprint of AWOC.COM Publishing

  P.O. Box 2819

  Denton, TX 76202

  Copyright 2011 by Charles W. Sasser

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  ISBN: 978-0-937660-74-4

  Author’s website: www.charlessasser.com

  PART I

  “If the lights that guide us ever go out, they will fade little by little, as if on their own accord... We therefore should not console ourselves by thinking that the barbarians are still a long way off. Some peoples merely let the torch be snatched from their hands, but others stamp it out themselves.”

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Census Worker Murdered in Cemetery

  (Tulsa)—Ron Sparks, 41, a federal census official in Oklahoma, was found stripped naked hanging from a tree this morning in a rural cemetery in northeastern Oklahoma with the word “Fed” scrawled on his chest with a felt tip pen. The witness who found the body at the Akins Cemetery told reporters that Sparks was naked, bound head and foot with duct tape, blindfolded with more duct tape, and gagged with a red rag. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are investigating whether anti-government elements may have committed the homicide...

  A statement issued by Homeland Security blamed “Southern populist terrorism whipped up by such as Zenergy News Cable and talk show personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Jerry Baer for fomenting anger, fear and vitriol.” In Washington, Senate Majority Leader Joe Wiedersham (D-Ill) expressed concern that con
servative talk show hosts like Baer might be contributing to a poisonous anti-government sentiment.

  “I think people in positions of power or influence inciting hate and violence need to be held accountable,” he said. “Political hate speech is just as dangerous as any other form of hate speech...”

  Chapter One

  Tulsa, Oklahoma

  A raw-boned laborer in his thirties, out of work during the deepening recession, grabbed a coffee and a muffin at McDonald’s and found an empty booth at the back where he could keep an eye on the parking lot. Joshua Logan wore frayed jeans, steel-toed boots, a blue chambray shirt and a Tulsa Oilers’ baseball cap.

  Outside, some kid with a ring through his lip, green-spiked hair and baggy convict jeans was “loose changing” customers. A woman who looked faded and tired led her little boy by the hand around the young beggar and climbed into a pickup truck. Logan was pretty sure neither of them was a Fed.

  He craved a cigarette to go with his coffee and muffin, but he had quit cold turkey after a pack went up to seven dollars. He sipped coffee until he spotted Morris’ old blue Ford follow a tan Toyota onto the parking lot. A black woman in a red hat got out of the Toyota and came into Mickey D’s. Morris sat in his car looking nervous.

  Morris had awakened Logan at five a.m.

  “Things are about to get hotter than an Arkansas bitch in August,” Morris warned when Logan answered his bedside phone. “Meet me. You know where.”

  Morris and Logan often had coffee at Mickey D’s when they worked construction together. The urgency in Morris’ voice told Logan this might have something to do with Ron Sparks’ hanging.

  As Logan watched, Morris got out of his Ford and looked around some more. He was a short man as thin and nervous as a starving squirrel. He wore threadbare jeans like Logan’s and a T-shirt that proclaimed God and Guns for America. He was still standing by the open door of his Ford when two plain black SUVs whipped in through the Out drive. Logan recognized them immediately. All Federal Home Security vehicles were painted black.

  Tires squalling, the SUVs sent the dude with the lip ring and spiked hair scrambling out of the way. Morris dived for his Ford. Not quickly enough. The SUVs disgorged beefy plainclothesmen armed with M4 assault rifles. The parking lot erupted in rifle fire. The black woman in the red hat screamed as she waited for her breakfast wrap at the McDonald’s counter.

  The takedown was accomplished so quickly and with such cold efficiency that Logan’s mouth was still agape when a couple of the Homies broke away and stormed the Golden Arches, rifles ready at port arms. They meant business. Like they knew Morris came here to meet someone.

  The Mickey D’s breakfast trade worked in Logan’s favor. He ducked through the lines and reached the opposite door by the time the Homies burst in and splayed themselves to either side of the doorway, eyes sweeping.

  “Everybody stay put!” barked a command. “Don’t anybody try to leave!”

  Logan ducked out the door without being spotted and fled down the back side of the building. At the corner, he flattened himself against the wall and chanced a quick peek around it. Homies were bunched up at Morris’ Ford, looking down at Morris lying on the pavement in a spreading pool of blood. Logan heard one of them laugh.

  Bastards!

  Four or five vehicles were lined up in the Drive-Through lane. A young woman behind the wheel of the first vehicle stared at Logan with terror-filled eyes. He brought a finger to his lips to swear her to conspiratorial silence. She kept staring.

  Logan glanced back toward the door. He would never reach his parked vehicle unobserved. Feds played by different rules than local cops. They’d probably kill him, whether he was armed or not.

  For an instant, he thought of carjacking the young woman since he would never be able to reach his own vehicle. Unwilling to put her through the trauma, however, he took a deep fortifying breath and sprang from hiding. He sprinted across the Drive-Through and back parking lot toward a little wooded-bank creek that ran behind the Arches into a nearby neighborhood. The muscles in his back contracted against expected gunfire.

  He threw himself face down in tall grass beyond the curb and crawled desperately toward the stream, pulling and pushing with his toes and elbows. He rolled over the side of the creek into the rocky streambed. Only a trickle of water ran through it. It had been a dry summer.

  He scrambled to his feet and parted the underbrush to see if his flight had been noted. The young woman in Drive-Through broke line and gunned her car toward 193rd Street. A Homie ran out and yelled at her, but she was already in traffic and picking up speed. In these unusual times, people kept their mouths shut and saw nothing.

  Logan doubted anyone else noticed him. Most were transfixed on the shooting and had not been looking in his direction. His first impulse was to run, using the creek as a conduit to get the hell out of Dodge. Dogs barking in the nearby neighborhood persuaded him to wait a few minutes until things calmed down.

  His heart rate and breathing quickly returned to near normal. While he watched, an unmarked Tulsa Police car drove up and parked on the perimeter where a Homie was stretching yellow crime scene tape. Anyone with street savvy could always spot an unmarked cop car. A fit Indian-looking detective wearing jeans and a brown sports jacket over a knit shirt got out and, with a noticeable limp, walked up to a Homie who seemed to be in charge. The Homie had long arms and a face as dull as an old ax blade. The detective had eyes as hard and cold as blue flint.

  It was obvious the two didn’t like each other. Logan thought for a moment the Tulsa detective was going to punch out the Homie’s lights. He was disappointed when he didn’t.

  Dogs in the adjacent neighborhoods were calming down. Logan slid from hiding and trotted up the rocky streambed. Time to get out before he ended up face down like Morris.

  Chapter Two

  Tulsa

  Detective James Nail had been nearby working a case when the shooting went down. He got out of his unmarked at Mickey D’s, hitched up the 40mm Glock-22 concealed beneath his brown sports jacket and walked up to Anthony Kimbrell, Regional Director of The Department of Homeland Security. His limp was the result of a gunshot wound to the knee several years ago. He looked around with unspoken disapproval: Blue Ford on the far side of the parking lot, driver’s door ajar, bloody corpse all torn apart by gunfire sprawled face-down on the pavement, shattered window glass sprinkled on and around the body, rifle-toting Feds in SWAT black standing around, crime scene tape cordoning off the lot to keep back a smattering of curiosity seekers. Gawkers at a crime scene could be arrested for obstruction.

  Nail started around Kimbrell to take a closer look. Kimbrell blocked him. The detective dropped his head like a cage fighter about to throw a punch.

  “You’re jumping my call, Nail,” Kimbrell snarled. “This is a federal matter.”

  “You’re on my turf, Kimbrell.”

  “We trump local yokels, Nail. It’s a new day. Why don’t you get back in your buggy and go write some poor fucker a traffic ticket?”

  Homeland Security had formed after Nine-Eleven to protect the United States against terrorist activity. It had since gobbled up the FBI, CIA, the National Guard, Border Patrol, Coast Guard, Secret Service, Immigration, FEMA, and several other agencies to become the Big Dog in the nation when it came to law enforcement and intelligence gathering.

  Nail resisted an urge to plant a fist square in the middle of Kimbrell’s smirk. Instead, he splayed one big-knuckled hand against the Homie’s chest, pushed him aside, and walked up to look at the dead man. The stench of urine and fresh blood saturated the air. The guy must have pissed himself when he died.

  “Nail, this is a crime scene,” Kimbrell protested. “I could charge you with obstruction of justice.”

  “Who is he?” Nail asked, indicating the body.

  Kimbrell stood silently fuming. Then, grudgingly, “Fucker’s name was Greg Morris. He’s one of the organizers of that underground bunch of peckerwoods called The
Defenders who strung up the census worker in the cemetery over in Sequoyah County.”

  Nail nodded. “Bit of an overkill, wouldn’t you say?”

  The body was nearly ripped in two. Bullet holes riddled the Ford’s open door and windows. Nail observed an AR-15 rifle with clip inserted lying inside on the front passenger’s seat.

  “Did he return fire?” he asked.

  Kimbrell stepped in front of Nail and thrust a cell phone at the detective. “I have your lieutenant on the phone.”

  Nail ignored him. “Were you one of the shooters, Kimbrell?”

  “We’ll send the city copies of our reports.”

  “Kind of irregular, isn’t it? Investigating your own shooting?”

  “Fuck you.”

  Nail moved around him again. No spent cartridge casings from the AR-15. It hadn’t been fired.

  “Why do you suppose a Defender would drive around with an illegal firearm in plain sight when he knows the Feds are on their asses?” Nail wondered.

  “Because they’re a bunch of stupid anti-government crackers? Take the fucking phone, Nail, and get off my scene before I have you arrested.”

  Nail took the phone. “Nail here,” he said.

  Lieutenant Jack Ross’s voice: “James, let them have their scene.”

  Nail looked squarely at Kimbrell. “Lieutenant, they assassinated this poor bastard in cold blood.”

  “James, you’re butting a stone wall. It’s both our asses, so leave it alone. That’s an order, Detective.”

  Chapter Three

  Tulsa

  Foliage rimming the little creek that ran behind McDonald’s turned into concrete for flood and erosion control as the stream wound around the base of a hill into a housing addition. It became a large, open aqueduct. A sewer these days, what with city budget cuts to accommodate the tanking economy. Joshua Logan waded filthy water up to his knees. Plastic Coke bottles and beer cans banged against his shins. Twinkie wrappers and Burger King bags resembled jellyfish.