A Thousand Years of Darkness: a Thriller (19 page)

“Them sons of bitches will pay for this,” Fullbright muttered as he stared down at his dead friend. Some of the others glared balefully at Big C’s prisoner lying in the grass with his hands and feet tied with pieces of electrical cord.

Colonel Mosby, who stood next to Big C, looked paler than normal and stood with his lean frame hunched at the shoulders. His head looked small and his nose huge in the light from the schoolhouse embers.

“The sheriff’s department will have to be notified,” he decided. “What about him?”

He indicated Big C’s prisoner.

“Leave him here tied up for deputies to find.”

Big C stood looking at the dead bodies of his fellow militiamen.

“Not a pretty sight, is it, Colonel?” he said.

Mosby seemed to choke on words lodged unspoken in his throat.

“How’s Alice and the kids?” Big C inquired softly. “They getting over Ol’ Ranger dying?”

“They’ll be all right,” Mosby finally replied in a small voice.

“You a cold liar, Colonel.”

There was no reaction from the militia leader.

“Walk over here with me,” Big C ordered.

Mosby followed dutifully, anguish written all over his narrow face. They stopped out of earshot of the others.

“
They
shot Ol’ Ranger, didn’t they?” Big C said, his dark eyes boring into the commander’s. “It was a warning the same could happen to your wife and kids.”

Mosby almost passed out on his feet. He licked his dry lips.

“I—”

“It wasn’t Tom Fullbright or Luther Hawkins set the trap,” Big C said, his voice low so that nearby militia wouldn’t overhear. If they knew the situation with Mosby, they would likely execute their own leader. “You the one played us, Colonel. You the only one know I bringing James and Sharon to the meeting.”

Mosby still couldn’t find his voice. Big C lowered his own voice to a threatening growl.

“Colonel, you the one also set up Ron Sparks. You and I are going to have a little back to Jesus session.”

Mosby stared at Hawkins’ and Calhoun’s corpses lying obscenely in the firelight, blood drenching Hawkins’ shirt and part of Calhoun’s skull blown away.

“He promised,” Mosby blurted out suddenly. “He promised nobody’d get hurt. He just wanted to arrest that rogue cop and the girl. That’s all, I swear.”

Big C likewise looked at the corpses. “Kimbrell? I see he kept his word as usual.”

“I had to do it,” Mosby wailed in a thin, wavering voice. “You seen how Alice and the kids were. They’re scared to death. Hell, man,
I’m
scared to death. These people are serious.”

Big C took the Colonel’s arm and guided him away from the fire-lit clearing toward the darkness of the elm groves.

“Now, Colonel, you going to tell me all about it...”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Ozark Mountains, Arkansas

Coming face to face with his daughter’s killer so unexpectedly stunned Nail that he neglected to resist when the young AmeriCorps men pulled Sharon and him out the back of the van and dropped them on the ground. Sharon cried out and gasped to catch her breath.

“Put this on your lying show, bitch,” someone taunted.

Nail’s eyes fixed on the Green Shirt with the tattoo. The hate and fury he felt was enough to peel paint off a new barn. Only through arrogance or incompetence would the man have allowed his dragon to show from the helicopter when he and his still-unknown accomplice opened fire at ORU.

He seemed to know who Nail was. He kicked the cop in the ribs with a steel-toed combat boot. “Wha’ the fuck you staring at, asshole?”

Pain shot through Nail’s body, but he refused to give his tormenter any satisfaction by reacting to the kick. He suffered through. His eyes bored into the killer’s.
My time will come,
was their unspoken message.

“That’s enough, Forbis,” crackled the voice of a squat, bulldog-shaped man who pushed his way through the gathered Green Shirts. He was an older man with ruthless eyes set deep into a broad face. He stared at Nail on the ground, then looked at Forbis in disgust.

“You’re the real asshole, Forbis,” he growled. “He knows who you are. You might as well have been wearing neon on that fucking tattoo.”

Forbis stiffened, but held his tongue. The bulldog seemed to be his superior.

“Get these prisoners out of here,” he barked.

“Where do you want them?” Forbis asked with open resentment.

Bulldog bristled. “Forbis, I don’t care who you think you are, you ain’t shit to me. Separate ’em. Throw one in the stockade and put the other in the CQ building until I get word from Tulsa about what they want done. Did we lose anybody?”

A man who seemed to be the commander of the raid stepped forward hesitatingly. “We can’t account for Carlisle.”

Bulldog glared. “Fuck!” he said.

That these people were not attempting to conceal their identities or their participation in the ORU massacre reinforced in Nail’s mind the inescapable conclusion that Sharon and he were not meant to leave here alive. Bulldog stalked away. Several young men, not much out of their teens if at all, freed the prisoners’ legs and lifted them to their feet while Forbis watched.

“You’re going to die, Forbis,” Nail promised. “Then I’ll kill your partner.”

It was an old cop’s ruse intended to trick a suspect into thinking the cop knew it all. It worked. Forbis reflexively exchanged looks with another Green Shirt, this one thinner and likewise in his thirties, with eyes as cold and inexpressive as a snake’s.

“What’s your name?” Nail asked him. “I want to know who I’m killing.”

This individual returned Nail’s hard gaze with one of his own. “Henshaw,” he scoffed. “I want
you
to know who puts the bullet through
your
head.”

Forbis and Henshaw remained behind while some of the younger Green Shirts hustled the prisoners toward a military-style cantonment area. Nail took in his surroundings for future references. The van had dropped them off at an unpaved parking lot where a number of other vehicles were parked. Vans, SUVs, off-road four-wheel-drive Broncos and Safaris, a couple of military-style Humvees, all painted black with the AmeriCorp logo of crossed shovels on their doors.

The sun was rising red and inflamed as they crossed a manicured parade field where platoons of Green Shirts armed with the latest version of the M16 main battle rifle were already conducting close order drill. Other formations sweating at PT double-timed among the spread of long, low buildings as they chanted revised Jodie calls:

I wanna be a Green Shirt Ranger.

I wanna live a life of danger.

One-two-three-four...

Sing it some more.

Anastos! Anastos! Anastos!

This was a paramilitary boot camp, pure and simple, and heavily armed. It occurred to Nail that government was about to turn a corner—or had already turned the corner—into a chilling new realm that would have been unimaginable only a few years earlier. Sharon shuddered and looked at Nail. They were being escorted side by side.

“Are you all right?” Nail asked her.

“It’s according to how you define
all right
,” she whispered bravely.

“Sharon, I’m sorry I got you into this,” he apologized. “I should have sent you back to New York.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered where I was. Do you see what’s going on here? We’ve got to somehow get the word out.”

Two of the five guards in the escort meandered off toward what was obviously a chow hall, judging from the odors of coffee, bacon and eggs that wafted from it. The three remaining were equipped with holstered sidearms. Sharon lowered her voice.

“You recognized the tattoo?”

“Forbis and Henshaw. Don’t forget those names.” What he meant was,
Don’t forget them in case I don’t make it and you do.

Their guards were watching activities on the parade field as they walked rather than paying strict attention to their duties.

“In police work,” Nail whispered, “we say it’s important to know who fired the bullet, but it’s more important to know who paid for the bullet.”

“Kimbrell?”

“He’s part of the chain, but I’m not sure he paid for the bullet.”

It gave Nail a headache trying to picture the complicated monster behind all the grasping tentacles that seemed to reach out from everywhere. There was nothing either of them could do as long as they were prisoners.

“Where’s your ball cap?” Nail noticed. She was squinting against the bright rising sun.

“I suppose I lost it at the school.”

“The first thing I give you—and you lose it.”

She gave him a wan smile. “It wasn’t the first thing.”

“And that would be—?”

“I’ll let you figure that out.”

She was one plucky lady.

“That’s enough talking,” a guard commanded in a surprisingly boyish voice.

They approached a one-story green-painted building that reminded Nail of a company HQ at Fort Polk or Fort Benning. A sign over the door read
Stockade
. The sun felt warm on Nail’s face. He didn’t want to go inside. He thought he might never see another sunrise. Even more agonizing was knowing that what happened to him likewise happened to Sharon. One of the guards rapped on the door.

“You do realize what they’re going to do to us?” Sharon asked him.

The boyish Green Shirt refused to make eye contact. He looked over her head. His face drained of color.

“You will be an accessory to murder,” Sharon reminded him bluntly.

He licked his lips and looked at his partners when he replied, “Ma’am, it’s necessary that some obstructionists be eliminated in order to build a society that is equitable and just for all.”

Like he was reciting it by rote.

“You could let us escape,” Sharon suggested.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry. I have my orders.”

The door opened and the prisoners were marched into an office occupied by three other Green Shirt cadets. Two of them escorted Nail down a narrow hallway to a barred cell furnished only with a toilet bucket in the corner. Nail stopped and looked back. The hall door into the office was still open. He saw Sharon being dragged off. He tried to break past his guards to get to her, but he was no match for them with his hands tied behind his back. The Green Shirts shoved him stumbling into the cell and slammed the heavy door. He heard it lock.

“James, I’ll be waiting!” Sharon shouted, and then she was gone.

Government Revises School Breakfast

(Minneapolis)—
Thanks to the intervention of the First Lady and President Anastos’ Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, students like Mickey Rodriguez no longer have to go without breakfast because of late buses or overslept alarm clocks.

Starting this week, high schools will serve free breakfast in the classrooms. Teachers say this will ensure student do not miss breakfast...

“I was always missing breakfast because I have to get up really early and I didn’t get here in time for me to eat in the cafeteria,” said Rodriguez, a senior.

Every student, regardless of family income, is welcome to eat free breakfast through the program, funded by the federal government. Currently, 88.4 percent of students receive free lunches and breakfasts. That percentage is expected to grow...

Chapter Thirty-Four

Washington D. C.

It was Sunday and normally Dennis Trout’s day off. He and Judy had just flown back from New York on the seven a.m. shuttle when his cell rang. Wiedersham asked him to stop by the office on a couple of matters. Trout supposed overtime went with his new status.

Everything was good between Judy and him again. They had had a nice dinner in Times Square—
not
The Pig Out Café—and attended
Phantom of The Opera
. They had remained in their hotel room all day Saturday. Judy was bubbling again. Or
babbling.
Whatever. His announcement that Wiedersham wanted him to work Sunday instead of touring the Smithsonian as they originally planned failed to dampen her revived spirits.

“I’m seeing you tonight?” she asked with a suggestive smile.

“Marilyn has plans,” he apologized.

If anything put the damper on her, that would. She shrugged. Puzzled, Trout reflected on how well both his women seemed to be taking disappointment. When he walked into Wiedersham’s office, the Majority Leader handed him a memo distributed on State Department letterhead. It began with the Subject line:
International Small Arms Destruction Day.

The United States is joining the UN effort to curtail ownership of and trade in small arms and light weapons...

President Anastos was asking Congress to allocate one hundred thirty million dollars to buy back an estimated million-and-a-half guns off American streets and destroy them. Every cokehead in the nation’s ghettos, barrios and cracker neighborhoods would be bringing in their stolen Saturday Night Specials and, no questions asked, selling them to the government in order to use the cash to buy other, better weapons off the streets. With enough dough left over for a good hit of crack or crystal meth. It was insane, but Trout kept his mouth shut.

“Get with Gubbins and prepare a press announcement before Zenergy gets all over it with their Second Amendment bullshit,” he instructed. “You know what to say.”

Trout could spin with the best of them. “That it’ll make America safe...?”

“
Safer
,” the Leader corrected. As was his habit, he changed topics abruptly. “So how did your meeting go yesterday in New York?”

Trout thought of John’s comment about chaos and about how rioting and violence in the streets were a necessary ingredient to “fundamentally transform the United States.” He remarked on how the protests against financial institutions going on in New York seemed made to order as part of the expanding chaos.