A Thousand Years of Darkness: a Thriller (12 page)

“She’s not going to let Baer die quietly,” Wiedersham was saying to someone on the phone. “There’s speculation that she’s taking up Baer’s mantel. We can’t afford to take shit from her any more than we could from Baer. They created the fucking Tea Baggers and now they have people organizing all over the country to make a run for the mid-term elections. That can really gum up the machinery. Do you know where she is?”

Trout overheard only one side of the conversation, but he assumed Wiedersham was laying into Vladimir Gonzalez, head of Homeland Security.

“How do you know she’s still in Oklahoma? Who the fuck is Kimbrell...? Yeah? What cop...? We don’t give a rat’s ass about some Podunk cop or his dead daughter. You tell Kimbrell what the President wants is for him to find that woman.”

One Year Ago

by Sharon Lowenthal

(
Truth
Magazine)

Jerry Baer was savagely murdered this week. He was not “collateral damage” in a Rightwing attack on innocent ACOA and PEIU demonstrators, as the mainstream media claims. He was a deliberate target by entities determined to silence the Thomas Paine of our generation. His was undoubtedly the most influential voice in America in the resistance to One World Government. The Tea Party and other similar grass roots movements were largely mentored, inspired and created by Jerry Baer. He predicted his own death just days before he died in a hail of rifle fire in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He had too much influence and had to be stopped.

One year ago, Jerry said you would not recognize this country by now. Can you believe what has happened in this single year?

•         That government has taken over our automobile manufacturers and many of our banks and financial institutions?

•         That government through the oil spill crisis is moving to nationalize the energy industry and enact a massive Cap and Trade climate bill that will destroy the economy?

•         That top-level advisors in the White House are avowed communists?

•         That the White House’s most frequent visitor is a labor union president who has repeatedly exhorted, “Workers of the world unite?”

•         That the U.S. President himself said that now is the time to establish a One World Government?

•         That there is a movement led by our own government to end the dollar as the world’s reserve currency?

•         That, through expanded eminent domain laws, government can seize your house and business in the public interest and give them to private entities?

•         That the President’s science czar has called for sterilization of people through drinking water and forced abortions?

•         That there is a proposed FAD bill for government to take over journalism?

•         That a multi-trillion dollar stimulus spending bill written by community organizers and union bosses instead of Congress will put the country into such debt that it may go bankrupt?

•         That Americans peaceably assembled in Washington, D.C. to exercise their First Amendment rights were deemed terrorists and fired upon?

•         That government would establish a private army along the lines of Adolf Hitler’s Brown Shirts?

•         That private citizens like Jerry Baer can be assassinated when they became a threat to government takeover of our country...?

Chapter Twenty-One

Tulsa

After Ron Sparks’ funeral ceremony ended, Big C Brown expressed reservations about driving in his condition, saying he was still dizzy. Judy offered to drive his car for him to the downtown precinct station. It would provide him the opportunity to subtly interrogate her on what she might know about her cousin and his activities in Oklahoma that led to his gruesome death.

She found and applied a band aid to his self-inflicted scratch. He told her he felt much better and offered to buy lunch to thank her for her kindness. They ended up in a little open-air taco place on the west side of the Arkansas River opposite Tulsa River Parks. Big C was a charming man with a dry sense of humor. Although she seemed sad at first because of the funeral, batting back tears, she was soon giggling and chatting with the big cop. Small talk mostly. Big C didn’t want to press her too soon too hard and have her clam up on him.

Afterwards, they took a walk across the pedestrian bridge that spanned the river. It was covered to protect strollers from the weather. They stopped halfway across and leaned elbow to elbow on the railing to watch brown water cataract across the low water dam. They made a curious pair, the bald black giant and the tiny bleach-blonde who wasn’t much taller than past his elbow.

“How you ever go from Oklahoma to Washington, D.C.?” Big C asked casually in their get-acquainted conversation.

“I married this soldier named Sam Taylor stationed with the Arlington Honor Guard,” she replied. “I stayed in Washington when he took off with some bitch prettier and younger than me. I danced for a spell. I tended bar. I waited tables. A girl on her own has to get by.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

Once she got going, she was like the Energizer Bunny and just kept going on and on. Completely guileless. A quality Big C found oddly attractive. They walked to the River Park end of the bridge and bought Sno Cones. He had strawberry, she lime. She linked her arm through his elbow as they retraced their way back across the bridge.

“I suppose I might have done come back to Oklahoma,” she explained, “except I got myself tied up with a married man. Dennis is an important man in politics. Sometimes he thinks I’m stupid, which I ain’t. I’m just not quick and ain’t had that much education. Truth is, Corey...”

They walked some more while she searched for the right words, both of them gazing upriver toward Sand Springs.

“Truth is, I’ve done fell in love with Dennis,” she finally continued with obvious pride that a poor country girl like her could hook up with a man like that. “I miss him already. Do you care if I smoke?”

She extracted a pack from her purse. Big C didn’t smoke, but he carried a lighter with the inscription
2
^nd
Cav
on it from when he and Nail went to the first war in Iraq. He lighted her cigarette. She blew smoke and smiled at him as smoke threaded from her nostrils.

“It’s a nasty habit,” she admitted.

“We all got our habit, Judy. What do Dennis do in Washington? A congressman or something?”

“He’s Chief of Staff for Senator Joe Wiedersham. Do you know who he is?

“Senate Majority Leader.”

Wiedersham had been ubiquitous on all channels pushing the FAD Bill and speaking up on behalf of the President about the oil spill crisis. Cousin Judy, Big C realized, must have been Ron Sparks’ inside Washington contact, whether she was aware of it or not.

“Dennis wants to be a congressman,” Judy said, searching Big C’s expression to see if he believed her.

Big C made no comment. As far as he was concerned, ninety-nine percent of politicians gave the other one percent a bad name.

“Dennis ain’t like them others,” Judy went on, as though reading his thoughts. “He says sometimes you got to do things that ain’t so good so you can do good for the most folks. I done got a real education on politicians since I been in Washington. Dennis likes to talk to me about things. Sometimes it can be real scary. Nobody there trusts anybody else. Dennis says they’d rather screw you than say howdy-do. But Dennis is smart too. He keeps notes and stuff and writes them down in his notebook. He takes it with him almost everywhere. One time he told me he knows too much about what’s going on, so he keeps the notebook as insurance in case they try to screw him over.”

“Sounds like smart thing to do. You ever read anything in it?”

“Huh-uh. No, sir!” She shook her head vigorously. “I beg him to get out of politics so we can move someplace else.”

“But he stay.”

“It’s just temporary,” she said too quickly. “One term in Congress, then he’s getting out and divorcing Marilyn.”

She sucked on her cigarette, her cheeks caving in and her lips puckering around the cylinder. She left lipstick on the filter. She looked troubled.

“You talk to your cousin Ron often, did you?” Big C asked.

“Ron and me was always calling each other on the telephone,” she said, brightening and then growing sad in almost the same instant. “We grew up together and was real close. Like brother and sister.”

“Did you ever meet any of Ron’s friends, people he worked with or anything?”

She squeezed his arm. “Just you.”

“When was the last time you talk to Ron?”

She answered immediately. “Like two days before it happened, you know. Ron called me and said he was scared. I knew he was doing something with some militia people. Working undercover, I think.”

“He scared of the militia?”

“I guess so. There was something about this guy who was on to him and would cause trouble.”

“Did he say who?”

“It was something like Kimbrough. Maybe Kimble.”

“Kimbrell?”

“That’s it.”

She stamped out her cigarette butt and took his arm again. “My flight to Washington leaves in three hours. You want to walk some more first?”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Keystone Lake, Oklahoma

The fishing cabin Nail and Big C called the “Safe House” dwelt in timber on the banks of Cottonwood Creek that flowed into Keystone Lake west of Tulsa. The rutted road that cut down to it was so overgrown that Nail missed the turnoff on the first pass and had to turn around and go back. The ruts snaked across a field and through a stand of elm and a persimmon thicket. Shade from old growth oak surrounding the cabin prevented weeds and grass from overpowering it. Entwined branches made the cabin almost invisible from the air, especially during the summer. A couple of window shutters rattled in the breeze that crept up the narrow creek from the open lake. The cabin looked neglected. It needed paint and maintenance. No one had come fishing here much lately.

Nail and Sharon got out of the Saturn. “We need to return it to Avis,” he said.

Sharon looked around. “What will we do without a car? Ride mules?”

“This
is
Oklahoma,” he teased. He pointed to a rickety shed off to the right of the cabin. “I have an old pickup truck stored. Big C and I use it to run errands and pull stumps. It’ll get us around and the Homies won’t have it on their radar.”

She took a few steps to the side and made a face as she looked around. “Where’s the outhouse?”

He laughed. “There’s plumbing. And electricity.”

“People in New York and Washington think everybody lives like this between the Mississippi River and the Rockies. It reminds me of
The Shack.”

He didn’t understand. They walked to the cabin and Nail dug the key from underneath the door stone.

“
The Shack
by William Young,” Sharon explained. “It’s a Christian book. A man’s daughter is murdered in an old shack in the woods. He returns to the scene years later, where he meets God—”

She caught herself. Dismay swept her features. She touched Nail’s cheek with her fingertips.

“James...I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

He shook her off. “We both have our wounds,” he said.

The interior of the cabin was almost as rustic as the exterior. It had two bedrooms, each equipped with a bunk bed. There was also a small toilet and a shower. The living room with its worn sofa and a couple of ratty easy chairs merged with a kitchen that consisted only of a table and a stove fueled by a propane tank. Canned goods were stacked against one wall. Sharon looked them over.

“Have you always been a gourmet chef?” she asked.

“Wait until you taste the crappie.”

She took another look at the cans. “What’s a crappie?”

“A fish.”

“Will we catch fish?”

He straightened from inspecting the TV-DVD player. A picture came on the screen. “We may not have time,” he said.

He walked out the back door and down a steep path to the creek. She followed. The creek ran slow and deep and dark with mud flats on either side. Doves cooed. Cicadas burred. The air was rich and thick and earthy with scents.

“You
never
smell anything this wonderful in New York!” she exclaimed.

“We used to bring Jamie and Charlie fishing here when they were kids,” he said, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets while he gazed downstream as though he half-expected to see them canoeing toward him. “Charlie is Big C’s son, a couple or three years older than Jamie. He just went on the Dallas Police Department.”

Sharon walked up and stood next to him. He took her hand absently, as if it were the natural thing to do, and led her to a big fallen log in the grass overlooking the water. They sat together on the log in a long silence. A beaver slapped its tail upstream. He opened his fingers to release her hand, but she left it where it was. Simple human contact sometimes made things better.

“This is a good place to fish or just sit and not think about the world,” he said.

They felt comfortable with each other. Conversation was not necessary when two people were linked by shared tragedy. The sun was getting low and resting on treetops to the west. A whippoorwill questioned the approach of nightfall.

“Big C said you took a bullet for him,” Sharon said after awhile. “Was that how you got the limp?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“When you were a sniper?”