A Thousand Years of Darkness: a Thriller (2 page)

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 193
^rd
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.

Black-and-white city cop cars prowled the streets in the aftermath of the shooting. The Homies had apparently somehow identified Logan as Greg Morris’ intended contact and were determined to chase him down. The ambush had gone down too smoothly for the Homies not to have had sources. Who had Morris told about their unscheduled emergency meeting this morning?

A police cruiser stopped on a viaduct that spanned the creek, waiting in a line of rush hour traffic for the light at the intersection to turn green. Logan ducked underneath the span and crouched in the dark. After the traffic started moving again, he climbed the concrete bank and peeked over the top. The cruiser turned left at the light and headed back toward McDonald’s.

Logan was wet and muddy. Water sloshed in his shoes. He was sweating. He reached for his cell phone, thought better of it. Asking other Defenders to come to his rescue would only place them in jeopardy. Homies would be monitoring electronic signals in the area. Logan was on his own.

He hadn’t so much as a Saturday Night Special with which to defend himself.

He slid back down the bank into the water and hurriedly made his way downstream, intent on getting out of the area as fast as he could. The creek cut from the housing addition toward East Admiral Boulevard, a busy street this time of morning. Dogs barked from some of the houses. They could smell fear.

The creek flowed into an older working class neighborhood where Logan felt more comfortable in his soiled and wet laborer’s clothing. He was approaching another viaduct punched underneath Admiral when blue lights lit up as a cruiser pulled a vehicle to the side of the road. Cops were stopping anyone in the vicinity who looked suspicious.

Logan cowered in the viaduct directly underneath the traffic stop. He heard a car door open and the sounds of a police radio. Policemen often turned up the volume when they got out of their cars in traffic. Logan realized the dispatcher was talking about him.

“
...white male thirty-five to forty years old, wearing old jeans, a blue shirt and an
Oilers
baseball cap... Subject belongs to a militia organization called the Defenders... Consider armed and dangerous. Wanted by Homeland Security for the murder of Ron Sparks...”

Traffic passing over his head did not quite drown out the thumping of his heart in the confined space. A semi-truck rattled the bridge. The angry honk of a horn... Somewhere a factory whistle... Normal sounds on a morning not so normal.

The cruiser’s flashing blue lights reflected in the dirty water of the shallow stream. Logan craved a cigarette. His hands trembled. He felt trapped in the sewer, like a ’coon in a creek with hounds baying on its trail. He resisted the urge to break and make a run for it.

Mustn’t do anything stupid.

After a tension-filled two or three minutes during which Logan was certain the cop must overhear his ragged breathing, he heard a car door slam. The blue lights went off. Logan thought the cop was leaving. He crept to the opposite opening of the viaduct and peered out.

He was unable to get a look at the roadbed above. Three kids playing hooky from school were skipping stones on the creek about a block away. Logan heard them laughing and shouting.

One of the boys looked up and noticed Logan hiding in the viaduct. He pointed excitedly; the other two honored his point. All three began waving their arms, pointing and jumping up and down to attract the attention of the cop, who apparently hadn’t driven on after all. Logan had no choice but to run for it.

He bunched his legs and charged from the viaduct, like a cottontail punched out of a hollow log. He hadn’t taken more than a half-dozen steps before the mechanical
Kraa-a-a-ck
of a pump shotgun being charged stopped him in his tracks.

“Freeze, asshole, or you’re dead meat!”

Bill Will Ban Violent Words, Symbols

(Washington)—
In the aftermath of a federal official being hung in Oklahoma, a crime blamed on violent anti-government rhetoric, Congress is calling for a return to civility by passing a law that will ban the use of violent words and symbols from national discourse. Pointing a finger as though it were a gun or telling a rival sports team “we’re going to kill you” could become criminal offenses...

“Violence caused by reckless and irresponsible speech is a major alarm going off,” said Speaker of the House Barbara Teague (D-CA). “We need to tone down the rhetoric. If the people won’t do it themselves, then government must do it...”

Chapter Four

Washington, D.C.

Dennis Trout occupied his post as Senate Majority Leader Joe Wiedersham’s Chief of Staff mainly because he happened to be Wiedersham’s brother-in-law. While he waited for Wiedersham to get off the phone, he cracked an office window blind to look out over the Capitol grounds and the Washington Mall. He had hardly had coffee yet and these damn Tea Baggers were already marching up Constitution Avenue toward the Capitol. Their homemade signs buffeted the morning air.

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue

Anastos’ is a Commie, Wiedersham is Too

America’s Greatest Threat is Congress

I Love My Country; It’s Government I’m Afraid Of

Senator Wiedersham sat with his expensive Balmorals oxfords propped on his Louis XIV oak desk, cell phone pressed to his ear. His twelve hundred dollar Brooks Bros. suit and two hundred dollar haircut never fit just right on his corpulent frame. He was about fifty. Trout had taken perverse pleasure in a description of the Majority Leader broadcast by a commentator on Zenergy News Channel. He had copied it word for word in his notebook: “...
an obsequious weasel with all the moral core of a cheap streetwalker and the philosophical understanding of a ventriloquist’s dummy. He makes ‘greasy politician’ sound almost flattering in comparison…”

The shadow of the Capitol dome stretched all the way out to Third Street where a line of helmeted SWAT-type Homeland Security police were lined up to block the Tea Partiers. They were armed with automatic weapons. Armored riot vans sat parked in the traffic circle.

From what Trout had seen so far of the Tea Party Movement, it was composed mostly of grandpas and grandmas and hicks from the sticks who brought their kids and grandkids with them. They came to Washington with their crude signs and listened to speeches by Right-wingers such as Jerry Baer or Congresswoman Michele Bachman, afterwards breaking up to feed their kids ice cream and catch buses to see the sights. If they only knew what was
really
going on in government, they’d come armed with pitchforks and torches.

The official line in Washington was that the Tea Partiers were “violent” and “traitorous” bottom suckers feeding on “a virulent strain of anti-Americanism.” It always astonished Trout at the contempt the average politician in Washington harbored for the common people. But, of course, Trout kept such thoughts to himself. He was a pragmatic man who knew which side his toast was buttered on. Marilyn was always there to remind him of how much he owed her brother; Joe was going to take him all the way to the top.