A Thousand Years of Darkness: a Thriller (20 page)

Wiedersham gave his barking laugh at Trout’s naïve observation. “What makes you think made to order?”

Trout blinked in surprise. “You mean they weren’t
our
people—?”

“Even chaos has to be organized or it never begins. You’re in the big leagues now, Trout.”

Trout swallowed any second thoughts he may have entertained. “I’d rather be on the wave of history than bucking it.”

“Pragmatic,” Wiedersham said. “I like pragmatic. You can trust that over ideology.”

There was a small pause while the Leader regarded his chief of staff. Trout guiltily concluded Wiedersham must know about Judy since he had provided two Broadway tickets and reservations for two at the Hilton in New York—and had known Marilyn was staying home. To Trout’s relief, however, Wiedersham avoided broaching the topic. Instead, he snatched a sheaf of documents from his
IN
box and thrust them at Trout.

“This came in last night while you were in New York,” he snapped. “Fuckheads. Do they really think they can get away with this shit?”

He savagely punched numbers into his phone. “Jackman, get your ass over here... I know it’s Sunday. Don’t give me any of your fucking lame lip. I want to talk to you and Hillard. If you can’t control your state legislators, we’ll get somebody who can.”

Jackman and Hillard were U.S. Senators from New Hampshire and not likely to challenge Wiedersham’s authority. Not only was Wiedersham Senate Majority Leader, he was also a member of the President’s circle of anointed insiders.

Trout understood his brother-in-law’s choler after he scanned the documents thrust at him. The New Hampshire State Legislature had passed a “nullification” resolution declaring “certain actions of the federal government totally void.” It seemed there were still a few politicians around who had a set of balls. Something in Trout admired their defiance.

The proclamation reminded Congress and the U.S. President, in much the same language as that issued by a band of colonials in Philadelphia two centuries ago, that:

Any act by the Congress of the United States or Executive Order by the Judicatories of the United States of America which assumes a power not delegated to the government by the Constitution and which serves to diminish the liberty of the any of the several States or their citizens shall constitute a nullification of the Constitution by the government of the United States of America...

That, therefore, all acts of Congress of the United States which do abridge the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, are not law, but are altogether void, and of no force...

Acts which could cause a nullification include, but are not limited to:

I. Establishing martial law or a state of emergency within one of the States without the consent of the legislature of that State;

II. Requiring involuntary servitude, or governmental service other than a draft during a declared war;

III. Surrendering any power delegated or not delegated to any corporation or foreign government;

IV. Any act regarding religion, further limitations on freedom of political speech, or further limitation on freedom of the press;

V. Further infringements on the right to keep and bear arms...

Any future government of the United States of America shall require ratification of three quarters of the States seeking to form a government of the United States of America and shall not be binding upon any State not seeking to form such a government...

That things in the country had sunk to this level left Trout stupefied. Nullification was paramount to a state of revolt against the federal government. If allowed to stand, it could inspire other disgruntled states to follow suit. Wasn’t that how the Civil War started?

Wiedersham hung up the phone in refueled rage. Apparently, he had been working himself up all weekend over this.

“Who’s the Regional Homeland Security Director in New Hampshire?” he demanded of Trout. “Find out and get him on the line. It’s time these cocksuckers understand where the power is. Knock a few of them in the dirt and they’ll come around. They’ll know better than to fuck with me next time.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Ozark Mountains

As soon as the cell door clanged behind him, Nail limped to the single barred window that looked out upon the parade field to see if he could tell where these people were taking Sharon. She and her escort were crossing the field toward buildings on the other side. Sharon walked with her head held high in defiance, as though she knew Nail watched and was sending a message that she believed in him. She soon disappeared behind a long, green barracks. There were three or four other structures beyond, one of which was likely the CQ where Sharon was to be confined.

Nail allowed himself a moment of despair. What made Sharon think he could save her when he hadn’t even been able to save his own daughter? He was no shining knight on a white horse out to slay dragons and rescue maidens. He was just an ordinary cop starting to comprehend that he may be involved in something way over his head.

But he was stubborn. Connie used to say he had a head as hard as an anvil.

He inspected his cell from wall to wall, corner to corner, limping from the old bullet wound. The walls were rough-hewn pine two-by-eights solidly attached to what he assumed to be standard two-by-four studs. The ceiling was likewise constructed. The floor was a concrete slab. There was one steel door, solid except for the barred window at the top and a small opening at the bottom for sliding in food and water. Inside, opposite the door, was the steel-barred window. The slops bucket offered the only prospect of a weapon. It was soft plastic.

Nail returned to the window and looked out through the bars. He watched Forbis and Henshaw cross the parade ground with several other Green Shirts and enter the long, green barracks. Revenge was not a laudable quality, as he had realized from investigating homicides. Yet, thoughts of revenge consumed him.

“Everything will be solved peacefully through God if you stand where you’re supposed to stand,” Sharon liked to preach, contending that everything went up for grabs when people resorted to violence and picked up guns.

Maybe God needed a little help sometimes. Those responsible for the deaths of Jamie, Jerry Baer and the others at ORU that fateful day were never going to be brought to justice in the traditional sense. Sharon would have to realize that. They seemed to be protected from high up the political chain. Cops liked to say that at times justice came only from the barrel of a cop’s gun.

Nail didn’t have a gun. He was locked in an escape-proof cell with his hands bound behind his back. Unless he found a way to escape, today would likely be the last he or Sharon ever saw.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Ozark Mountains

The problem with doing nothing was not knowing when you were done. Nail paced his cell and counted his paces: four one way, eight the other. He stared out the window toward the green barracks across the parade field where he last saw Forbis and Henshaw. Beyond were the smaller buildings where Sharon’s guards had taken her. He listened with his ear next to the steel door and heard a murmur of conversation and laughter coming from the stockade’s guard room.

To test the guards’ response, he called out to them through the tiny window in the door. “Hey, up there! I need a drink of water.”

Feedback was about what he expected from this bunch of young cutthroats. “Drink piss, pig!”

A half-hour passed. Then somebody slipped a tin cup of water through the slot at the bottom of the door. Nail peeped out the window in time to recognize the boyish Green Shirt whom Sharon had engaged about letting them escape. Apparently, he possessed a seed of conscience somewhere inside all that brainwashing.

“How am I going to drink with my hands tied?”

“Sorry. You’ll have to do the best you can. I’ll be back for the cup in a minute. Don’t let on to the others that I brought it.”

He walked away. Since his hands were tied behind his back, Nail lay belly down on the floor and used his chin and lips to tip the water into his mouth. He
was
thirsty. The sharp edge of the thin-rimmed cup nicked his lip. Quickly, he poured what was left of the water on the floor and turned around to pick up the cup with his hands.

Scrambling to his feet, he fumbled the cup and dropped it. It clanged on the cement floor. Nail froze, fearing he may have alerted his guards. His young benefactor had obviously gone against the others in bringing him water. He needed the kid to return for the cup rather than the others.

Loud laughter came from up front. The guards sounded too immersed in smoking and joking to pay much attention to a prisoner who, after all, was trussed up and safely locked in his cell.

Retrieving the cup, he backed up to a loose nail in the wall he had noticed earlier. The head of the nail barely protruded. It took him only a few minutes of feeling with his hands to insert the thin lip of the cup behind the nail head and pry it from the wall to a length of about an inch. Another few minutes of sawing the plastic tie-strip across the nail head and his hands broke free. Thank God for plastics.

He was unlikely to get another chance—if merely freeing his hands in a jail cell could be considered a chance—so he had better make this one good.

He placed the cup on the floor two paces inside where it could be seen by anyone looking through the door window. Then, pretending he was still bound, he sprawled with his back against the wall, closed his eyes, and feigned sleeping. Hey, it always worked for Humphrey Bogart and Clint Eastwood. He hoped Sharon had at least one more wish from the falling star in her bag.

“Psst! Hey! Wake up in there. I need the cup back.”

Nail snored deeply.

“Mister? Wake up.”

Nail snored. He heard the boy turn and walk away.

It hadn’t worked.

He was about to give up when he heard the rattle of a key in the door. The boy must have gone to retrieve it. The door opened. Through slitted eyelids, Nail watched the kid hesitate in the doorway as he glanced back toward the guardroom, then back at the tin cup only two steps away.

Damn!
The kid appeared unarmed. Nail needed a gun, but he had to play out the hand dealt him.

Come on in, said the spider to the fly.

The boy did. He bent over to pick up the cup. In that instant, while his attention was diverted, Nail sprang to his feet like a cat. The old bullet wound had never handicapped him. In a single bound he was on the Green Shirt, one hand muffling his mouth, the other arm around his neck to choke off his breathing. He shoved the door closed with his foot and frog-marched the kid to the far corner of the room to establish ground rules. Too bad there wasn’t a fence post available.

The Green Shirt was so damned skinny that Nail almost felt sorry for him as he applied pressure with his neck hold to stop the kid from fighting back. Lucky the kid wasn’t the size of Man Mountain Dean or that murdering piece of shit Forbis.

“I don’t want to kill you,” Nail said. “You might live if you do what I say.”

The boy relaxed, accepting the terms.

“How many guards up front? Use your fingers.”

The kid held up five fingers. Nail cut off his wind. “How many?”

Two fingers.

“That’s better. They armed? One finger for yes, two for no.”

One finger.

“How come you’re not packing? Never mind.”

Nail swept his captive’s feet out from underneath him and dropped him to a sitting position. The Green Shirt’s eyes wallowed about in terror. He seemed to understand that this hard, Indian-looking man would snap his neck like a twig if he had to.

With one hand, the other keeping his prisoner muzzled, Nail ripped off the boy’s AmeriCorps T-shirt and tore it into thick strips, using his knee and free hand. Soon, the boy was gagged and tied hand and foot with strips of his own T-shirt and his boot laces and belt.

The key was still in the door. Nail bent over the kid. “I expect you to wait here for me,” he quipped.

He locked the cell door behind him, pocketed the key, and slipped down the hallway toward the other door, a plan already formed in his mind. He listened with his ear close to the door. He heard the voices of two men.

The old trick of faking sleep had worked once. Why wouldn’t another old trick work just as well?

He flattened himself against the wall so that when the door opened inwardly he would be behind it. Turning his head away to project his voice down the hallway, he let out a low moan. Everything went quiet in the guardroom.

“Smitty?”

Nail waited a couple of heartbeats and groaned again.

“Stop fucking around, Smitty!”

A chair scraped across the floor. Footsteps approached. The door opened. A Green Shirt stepped tentatively into the hallway. Bigger and stronger-looking than Smitty, with his head shaved. He wore a Glock in a holster. Maybe Smitty was unarmed because they didn’t trust him to carry.

“What the fuck you doing, Smitty?”

He started down the hallway. Nail hesitated a moment to make sure the second guard wasn’t following. He pushed the door closed with his knee and pounced. The Green Shirt yelped in surprise. Nail threw him to the floor and ripped the pistol from its holster.

A chair in the other room crashed to the floor. Nail tapped his victim on the head with the butt of the gun. Well, maybe a bit more than a tap. Blood sprayed.

Nail snapped upright and pivoted toward the door, his thumb instinctively switching the Glock to safety
Off.
The door banged open. The other Green Shirt filled the doorway. Seeing Nail, his hand snaked toward the gun at his belt.

The sound of gunplay would bring others running. It had to be avoided. Nail greeted the Green Shirt with a cold grin, his gun leveled, steady and pointed at mid-mass.