A Thousand Years of Darkness: a Thriller (31 page)

* * *

Justin Cobb, Wiedersham’s chief of staff, was present when Trout arrived at Wiedersham’s office. He wore Kenneth Cole shoes that matched his boss’s. Trout’s lip curled at sight of the mustache Cobb was growing. It would never be much to look at; he kept it rubbed off kissing Wiedersham’s ass.

When Trout walked in past Liz, Wiedersham and Cobb were speculating about the murder of the Homeland agent in New York. Both seemed to think the killer had to be the Okie cop who had already killed Kimbrell in Tulsa and the AmeriCorps kids in Arkansas. Rumor going around had him a trained sniper seeking revenge for the death of his daughter.

“Gonzalez thinks the Homeland agent wounded his shooter before he died,” Wiedersham pointed out. “If that’s true, he must still be in New York. Gonzalez needs to catch the son of a bitch before he does real damage.”

“Maybe we can tie that cunt Lowenthal into a conspiracy with the cop,” Cobb suggested.

“Uh,” Wiedersham grunted. He motioned Trout to have a seat.

He looked harried, his eyes red-rimmed and his heavy jowls sagging. He rose from his magnificent desk and strode over to the wide window that overlooked Constitution Avenue and the Washington Mall, the same window through which Trout had watched Homeland Security gun down Tea Party protesters only a few weeks ago. When he turned back again, he seemed revitalized.

“Fuck the cop,” he said. “What is occurring around the world is bigger than him, bigger than all of us. Politicians are cheap. They come and go and are useful for making things happen—”

It was a statement Trout couldn’t deny. He
had
been bought. So had Wiedersham, for that matter. So had Anastos. Wiedersham had referred to Judy as a whore. Was he—was any of them—so much different or better?

“But
we
,” Wiedersham amended, the emphasis excluding himself from both categories of
politician
and
whore,
“are here forever in the shadows, working and waiting. Once the United States falls, the new global government will eliminate wars and poverty and disease...”

That didn’t sound like Senate Majority Leader Joe Wiedersham. “Do you really believe that?” Trout challenged.

Wiedersham shrugged, the old pragmatic politician returning. “What difference does it make? We’ll be a part of it. The next months leading up to mid-term elections are the most critical period in our history. Candidates like you, Dennis, will pack Congress prepared to carry The Plan forward. From now until the elections, insiders will be attending a series of seminars and summits to prepare us to take over and govern the United States as part of a coalition with the rest of the world. We all must make tough decisions and act decisively in the days and weeks ahead.”

This was sounding more and more like the plot from a James Bond movie.

Wiedersham paused. His narrow, dark eyes bore into Trout’s. “Dennis, certain people are beginning to have doubts about you. We have to know we can depend on you.”

Chapter Fifty-Five

New York

James Nail opened his eyes to the view of a muddy-colored ceiling with a cobweb in the nearest corner and a housefly trapped in it. His ribs were wrapped so tightly he could barely breathe. A faded green bedspread was pulled up to his chin. An IV on a stand fed nutrients into his arm. He struggled to throw off the spread and sit up.

“He’s awake,” a voice said.

Pain wracked his ribs. A gentle hand on his chest forced him back onto his pillow. A small hand touched his face. He looked up into dark eyes soft with concern and compassion.

“Sh—Sharon?”

“I’m here, darling.”

“It’s not safe.”

Wherever
here
was.

“You almost lost your life for me—again,” she said. Tears streaked her lovely cheeks. She gripped his hand in both of hers. “James, I should have known. Sometimes I could almost feel you nearby. You don’t have to keep getting shot to attract my attention.”

She bent over and kissed him tenderly on the mouth. It was the best medicine he could have received. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She wore a dark green turtleneck sweater, black jeans and a red ribbon to hold her ponytail.

“Where am I?” he asked.

“You’re safe—at least for now,” she assured him. “I prayed every night that God would look over you. He answered my prayers through Judy Taylor. She brought you here.”

Big C stood behind Sharon with a bright grin that seemed to consume his dark face. He looked different with all that kinky hair he had grown since Oklahoma. The big man knelt at bedside and crushed Nail’s other hand in his.

Judy Sparks-Taylor leaned toward the bed from a cheap “Naugahyde” chair on the opposite side of the bed. Gone was the Uncle Sam costume she wore the last time he saw her, in its place faded fishermen’s jeans, cowboy boots, a low-cut blouse with lace around the neck and at the cuffs, and a gold locket chain around her neck. Nail smiled at her.

“Thank you, Uncle Sam,” he whispered.

“Are you hungry?” Sharon asked.

Surprisingly, he was. He took that as a good sign.

“I get it,” Big C offered.

“You’d better start with chicken soup,” Sharon proposed.

Big C opened a can, poured the contents into a bowl and put the bowl in a microwave.

“We cooking again, bro’,” Big C said, grinning, referring to the recent can opening days of their bachelorhood.

While the soup warmed, he opened a slit in the window blinds to take a look outside, letting in some of the night diluted by the flashing red and green sign outside:
MOTEL
. Sharon explained they were in a cheap motel room off I-95 where, Nail suspected, rooms went for the day or night or
part
of either, no questions asked. The door displayed various pry bar marks around the lock, mute testimony to the type of neighborhood it was.

In answering his other unspoken questions, Sharon explained that it was Monday evening and that he had been sleeping for the past two days. An emergency room doctor she knew who would keep his mouth shut had come and gone. Nail had lost a lot of blood but he would survive with rest and nourishment.

Nail’s mouth watered from the aroma of the heated soup when Big C removed it from the microwave. Although the IV had kept him fed and hydrated, it wasn’t the same as real food. Big C brought the bowl and a cup of steaming coffee to bedside. Sharon fed him with a spoon since he was too weak to do it for himself. While he ate, savoring the renewed strength forging through his body, Sharon coyly revealed that she had bathed him. He blushed.

“Shaving was kind of tricky,” she said. “I kind of liked the mustache, so I left it.”

Big C pulled up another chair and sat next to Judy to share his coffee with her. She took a pack of
Winstons
from her purse, but returned them. None of the others smoked.

Nail’s wallet lay open on the lamp table. Sharon glanced at his fake driver’s license and smiled. “
Jonathan Harker?”

The others laughed with her.

“Why would you choose the name of Dracula’s nemesis?”

“Isn’t that who we are?” Nail replied. “Vampire hunters?”

“Do I recall,” Big C said, “they were four friends like us went hunting Dracula. In the end, only one survives.”

White House Announces Suppression Program

(Washington)—
White House spokesman Dewey Gubbins announced today that President Patrick Anastos is rescinding the long-standing prohibition against targeting for assassination foreign heads of state. President Ronald Reagan initiated the executive order against such actions over thirty years ago.

The new Anastos Doctrine also allows targeting persons either on the battlefield or off the battlefield, including U.S. citizens at home or abroad, if they are considered terrorists or are involved in terrorist activities.

Speaker of the House Barbara Teague and Senate Majority Leader Joe Wiedersham held a press conference following the President’s signing of the executive order.

“There are dozens of persons who are U.S. citizens that are very disconcerting to us,” Speaker Teague said. “This option allows government to better secure the safety of citizens in a world growing increasingly dangerous...”

Chapter Fifty-Six

New York

Nail suspected “evidence” would soon surface to establish Sharon’s involvement in crimes attributed to Big C and him. Already, headlines on government-influenced newspapers and tabloids strewn at the foot of his bed were screaming the connection:

Jerry Baer Paramour Takes Murderous Lover

Militia Terrorist Ties to Sharon Lowenthal

Killer of Homeland Agent Linked to Rightwing Talk Hostess

Judging from the headlines, someone was trying awfully hard to collect the one hundred grand offered by an anonymous underwriter to anyone who provided scandal to discredit Sharon. Was this how government worked “for the people” in these dangerous times?

The gravity of the situation settled around the four people isolated in the seedy motel room. Rather than vampire hunters, they had become the intended prey of a goliath Dracula who threatened to gobble them up in one bite and the free world in the next. Still, they had little choice but to fight on—until they either slew Dracula or Dracula repopulated the world with bloodsuckers.

Nail basked in Sharon’s presence and attention, although he accepted that it was temporary and that he would soon have to send her away for her own good. After all that had transpired, Nail suspected their names had been promptly added to a secret “hit list” in the bureaucracy. Once again, they would all have to move on to more secure locations. Being constantly on the move was the nature of people running from the law.

In the meantime, feeling like the conspirators they indeed were, they gathered around Nail’s bed in order to fill each other in on what had transpired since they were last together. Sharon still didn’t completely trust Judy, even though the blonde had apparently funneled inside information to her cousin and put her skin on the line to save Nail. She was nonetheless linked through Dennis Trout to big time globalist political players like Senate Majority Leader Wiedersham.

“I’m grateful for what she did for James,” Sharon had conceded to Nail and Big C when Judy walked to a nearby convenience store for cigarettes. “It’s just that I’m concerned that she may be too naïve to maintain security.”

Nail took Big C’s side. “I don’t think we can be certain of
anything
anymore,” he said. “I know one thing: I might not be here if it weren’t for her.”

Sharon sighed. “Our lives seem to be inextricably entangled one with the other.”

One of the little group’s major concerns was rightly the President’s Suppression Program in which the feds apparently targeted suspected terrorists for assassination. Nail and Big C were being painted as domestic terrorists.

“Zenergy tried to look into it through the Freedom of Information Act,” Sharon explained. “I’m naïve enough to believe the Constitution still means something. Homeland Security responded to our FOI by saying their records system wasn’t configured in a way that allowed them to perform a search. Therefore, they declined the request.”

“Who would have thunk it?” Big C said sarcastically.

“Two of our investigators involved in the FOI resigned after receiving threats,” Sharon went on. “They were literally frightened of their lives and immediately left the state. I’ve been doing some research on my own. What I’ve discovered is a series of suspicious deaths. People who go against the administration end up dead—the Louisiana judge who ruled against Anastos on the oil drilling ban; the New Hampshire legislator who had the gall to try to limit federal authority over his state; Jerry Baer... Only God knows how many others.”

“Josh Logan, Greg Morris...,” Big C said. “Ron Sparks...”

Judy blanched and stared at her new friends as if they had all gone insane.

Sharon said, “It seems even petty bureaucrats may have the authority to order assassinations. Kimbrell in Tulsa likely ordered Ron Sparks killed.”

“He was the go-between for what happened at ORU,” Nail speculated grimly. “All this is reason enough that we get you somewhere safe.”

“’All that is required for evil to prevail is that good men do nothing,’” Sharon quoted, paraphrasing. “None of us will ever be safe again if we run. Only the truth will set us free. It’s in God’s hands.”

“We got to help the Big Man,” C said. “They coming hard after the militias. Confiscating guns and putting pressure on local radio and TV that don’t go along. We been hearing rumors of concentration camps.”

“Something is coming down,” Nail agreed.

“And soon,” Sharon added. “Weekend after next, the
One Nation
rally is bringing a million radicals to the National Mall in D.C., the intent being to intimidate and overwhelm the American public with the power and scope of Anastos’ ‘hope ’n change.’ They want to make the rest of us feel alone and discouraged and therefore more submissive.

“Look at the sponsors and you know what it is. Communists, National Socialists, radical Islamists...
The Communist Party of the United States; La Raza; PEIU; Center for Community Change;
George Zuniga’s
World Alliance
and
The Institute for Open Societies; American Progressive Center; Democratic Socialists of America...
Card-carrying, diehard, I-love-Stalin Marxist communists. They don’t even try to hide it anymore. President Anastos is endorsing the rally. It’s on the White House website. They’re busing people in, paying union workers and members of more than thirty radical organizations to appear. I keep appealing to the President on the air: ‘Mr. President, denounce these Marxists and socialists who have contributed ultimately to one thing—mass graves.’”