A Thousand Years of Darkness: a Thriller

by Charles W. Sasser

  Congress Approves Strict Handgun Law

  (Washington)—In response to waves of Rightwing violence, Congress approved what lawmakers say is the strictest gun law ever passed in the United States. The new law bans sale of all firearms for a period of one year. It also prohibits current gun owners from stepping outside their house with a weapon, even onto their porches or into their garages.

  The law furthermore mandates that police departments register every gun owner and every weapon he possesses. Guns not registered will be confiscated...

  “There’s just too much potential for violence by Right-wingers such as the Tea Parties and the militias who have declared their hostility against government,” said Speaker of the House Barbara Teague. “We need protection for the people...”

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  New York

  Nail left his Toyota parked in a Guest spot at The Hampton Arms where it probably wouldn’t be noticed and walked to Central Park. He heard clamor coming from the park when he was three blocks away. He took a breather against a lamp post before he entered off East 59th, past two New York cops in riot gear. Several thousand people were gathered in raucous disarray around a hastily-constructed stage at the Duck Pond where speakers were apparently taking turns haranguing/entertaining them.

  Radicals in beads, ragged jeans, red bandanas, face tats and piercings dominated the turnout, reminiscent of the 1960s Days of Rage. Protesters wearing hammers and sickles on their Tees chanted and thrust at the overcast sky various placards proclaiming the inevitable ascendency of Social Justice and A Workers’ Paradise. Acrid clouds of marijuana smoke made Nail cough. A banner stretched above the stage proclaimed National Socialist Forum: Transforming The USA. Apparently, the law against demonstrations still applied only to Tea Parties and conservatives.

  In order to blend in, Nail picked up a discarded sign that read Yes We Can. It made him cringe, but he waved it enthusiastically as he headed toward the stage, where he expected to find Patton and his Zenergy camera crew. Provided they hadn’t already been mugged by this bunch or thrown out of the park by Homies and Green Shirts.

  The guy currently addressing the crowd from the stage looked like some crackhead throwback with a gray ponytail, earrings and beard.

  “We want to thank, like, the AF of L/CIO and PEIU for working hand in hand with CPUSA to make this event a happening. They helped organize buses from schools and passed out antiwar, antiracist, anti-capitalist literature...

  “We must realize that, like, the Tea Party Movement and its auxiliaries is a white supremacist mob. And this mob is coming for you. We all want to raise people’s consciousness, but, like, we also want to fight these people. Right? So I think it’s like both things. We want to fight people who are on the other side of the barricade who are fighting us. We have to fight them. This is, like, we’re a militant organization when it comes to the fight against gay bigotry, the fight against racism and sexism. The labor movement has this old saying—like, if you can’t open their minds, open their heads...”

  These people made Nail’s skin crawl. He had caught glimpses of the future they pledged through the AmeriCorps in the Ozarks and the assassinations of Jerry Baer, Joshua Logan, Ron Sparks... Only the Lord knew how many others may have gotten in their way.

  Sharon was in their way.

  Nail pushed on through the raucous throng as he anxiously scanned for Patton and the Zenergy News’ crew. He kept his head lowered to avoid any chance recognition, although these people seemed too whipped up to pay attention to anything except their inane chanted slogans. A great claw of lightning crashed through the darkening overcast, followed by a rumble of thunder that sounded like an angry crowd above shouting back at the angry crowd below in a lost language.

  The crowd parted up front long enough to reveal the Zenergy logo on a shoulder camera. Nail recognized Carl Patton from his self-description: “Skinny dude in front of the camera.” Nail made his way toward him. Patton was attempting to interview a Rupert look-alike carrying an Execute War Criminals sign.

  “Sir, what war crimes are you protesting today?” Patton asked his victim, who looked as though he had been caught stealing watermelons.

  “Racist fucking... You know. Like... racists!”

  “Sir, sir. What war crimes are you protesting today?”

  “You know. Like, war crimes. All war crimes... The Jews...”

  “Do you know who organized this event today and who gave you that sign?”

  “Ummm... I don’t know...”

  A second man slapped the microphone away from the watermelon thief’s face.

  “I did,” he snapped.

  “You did? What organization are you with?”

  “We have no interest in talking with you.”

  “Moveon.org? The Institute for Open Societies? PEIU? Communist Party of the USA...?”

  “We have no interest in talking with Rightwing media.”

  “Why did you give this man a sign to stand out here and protest today and he doesn’t even know what he’s protesting? He’s not able to answer.”

  “We have no interest—”

  “He’s not able to answer for himself?”

  “We—”

  “He’s holding a sign at a protest...”

  Nail caught Patton’s eye. Immediately, Patton gave up his non-interview and shuffled toward Nail with his cameraman in tow. He glanced at Nail’s sign, smiled wryly, and thrust his microphone in Nail’s face, as though to interview him.

  “Nice touch,” he said. “Mr. Harker, I presume? I recognize you from your picture on the news.”

  Nail looked at the microphone.

  “It’s turned off,” Patton said. He was about thirty-five with sandy hair, sunken cheeks and a haggard brow.

  Nail got right to the point. “Where’s Sharon?”

  Two armed youth in AmeriCorps combat regalia swaggered toward them. Patton shifted tones, saying, “Keep the mike to your lips, sir, while you’re being interviewed. Sir, what are you protesting?”

  The Green Shirts glared at Patton but barely noticed Nail. They moved on.

  “These are some spooky people,” Patton said.

  “You have no idea.”

  When all was clear again, Patton said, “Sharon left the studio yesterday with her bodyguards to follow up a lead for her next program. She ditched her bodyguards, however, telling them she had to do this alone—”

  “Did the lead have something to do with George Zuniga?” Nail demanded.

  “She was working on a secret international summit called The Sustainable World Conference. George Zuniga is behind it. She was trying to get inside and obtain video to expose what these people are up to.”

  “She knows where it’s being held?”

  “I can’t be sure.”

  “She hasn’t checked in?”

  “Not a word.”

  Nail was about to explode. “That’s all you know? How could you let her do this?”

  “I’m sorry—but you know how stubborn she can be.”

  Nail knew that well enough. He took a deep breath. The pain in his side ricocheted up through his chest and head.

  “Are you all right?” Patton asked.

  “Yeh.” Nail had to move fast, but in which direction?

  “Another thing you ought to know,” Patton recalled. He briefly recapped his “Lonesome Rhodes” visit with Zuniga’s henchman, John. “From the way he talked, Sharon may be on the President’s Suppression list. No doubt you are too.”

  “Any idea how we can get hold of ‘John?’” Nail asked, grasping for straws.

  Patton shook his head. He thought a minute, frowning. “There was something else. A woman named Judy called the studio early yesterday morning asking for Sharon. A secretary took the message. When Sharon came off the set, she took a look at the message and hightailed it out. An hour later, Mitch and Roger—her security—came back in saying she had ditched them—”

  The look on Nail’s face stopped him
. “Do you know Judy?” he asked.

  “What did the phone message say?” Nail asked. He hadn’t found anything from Judy on Sharon’s answering machine. Sharon didn’t trust her enough to give out those numbers.

  “Pretty cryptic,” Patton replied. “Something about chickens coming home to roost and she knew where they were roosting.”

  Nail cast aside his sign, wheeled and bolted toward the park exit, leaving Patton standing befuddled with his microphone and cameraman. The abruptness and ferocity of the downpour that caught Nail before he escaped Central Park, that drenched the socialist masses and sent them fleeing for cover, possessed the urgent quality of a perilous storm in a dream, unleashing terror from heaven that could not be tamed.

  Banker Pay to be Cut

  (Washington)—As police clashed with protesters in the streets of Europe and America, UN world leaders preparing for the forthcoming G-20 meeting closed ranks to limit pay for bankers worldwide and to initiate action to bring world banks under UN control. Risky behavior by banks has contributed to the global financial meltdown...

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Washington, D.C.

  It was after midnight when Nail arrived at Judy Sparks-Taylor’s apartment near George Washington University. The air smelled freshly scrubbed in D.C. and there were puddles of water on the streets. Nail was taking a chance showing up at Judy’s apartment; there was no way to determine how much the Feds might know about her connections to Sharon, Big C and him. Still, it was a risk he had to take. Time might be running out for Sharon.

  He circled the block twice while he looked for suspicious parked cars or other signs that hostile eyes might be watching her apartment. The neighborhood was mainly a college residential area, with stately old homes gone to seed and turned into apartments for let. The second floor light in the window of the address Judy supplied him on the phone was burning. He parked at the curb down the block and walked to the common door for the four or so apartments in the old house. It was unlocked; Judy said it would be. He stepped into the foyer and waited a few minutes to make sure he wasn’t observed before he climbed the stairs to Judy’s apartment.

  She had sounded bad when he telephoned her before driving from New York. “I come back as soon as I heard about Dennis on the news,” she explained. “I found somebody done broke in my apartment and trashed the place like they turned a sow loose in it.”

  “Stay put where you are, Judy, until you hear from me,” he commanded.

  Before leaving the Big Apple, he tossed his TracPhone into the bed of a wrecker stopped to haul away what was left of a car crash. Let the feds follow that. He had used the throwaway enough by this time that the NSA might have latched onto his signal.

  He knuckled Judy’s door and stood to one side out of the line of fire. She opened almost immediately; she must have been waiting up for him. She wore a long cotton robe and no makeup. Her Lady Clairol blond hair hung in wilted strings down to her shoulders. She looked as though she hadn’t slept. She pulled him inside and bolted the door.

  “It’s all my fault Dennis got hisself kilt,” she wailed. “If I hadn’t gone gallivanting off to Oklahoma with Corey...”

  It was news to Nail that Big C had taken her with him, but he didn’t inquire into it. There were more pressing matters.

  “Whatever happened to Dennis, it wasn’t your fault, Judy. He brought it on himself.”

  Judy led him to the sofa. The cushions looked to have been knifed. “Whoever broke in did it,” she explained, sitting on one end of the couch and rubbing her face wearily with both hands. “They pulled up the carpet and threw stuff out of the closet all over the floor. I ain’t got it all cleaned up even yet.”

  “Any idea what they were looking for?” Nail asked her.

  “It’s been all over TV about me and Dennis,” she snuffled. “Calling me a whore and all. It wasn’t like that. They said Dennis shot his wife and then shot hisself. I don’t believe none of it, James. They kilt him. As sure as God made little green apples, they did it. Listen to the message he left on my answering machine. I saved it.”

  She got up and turned it on to release a thin voice sounding highly stressed or drunk, possibly both: “Judy, this is Dennis. I took your pistol. They’re going to kill me.”

  “Did you call the police?” Nail asked.

  She nodded. “Neighbors told me there was an OK Corral out front. Somebody was shooting. It had to be Dennis.”

  She opened her hand to display a broken necklace and gold locket.

  “The burglars didn’t break in to steal,” she said, staring at the locket with clouded eyes. “This is all I own worth much. Dennis gave it to me.”

  “You made a call to Sharon’s studio,” Nail reminded her. “What did you mean about the chickens coming home to roost?”

  “You remember I told ya’all about Dennis’ notebook? He wrote down stuff in it about them secret meetings she was talking about.”

  “They were looking for the notebook?”

  “Some of these old houses has got secret places in the walls. Dennis knew about it. I guess he hid his notebook in it for safekeeping when he took my pistol. That’s where I found it.”

  She got up and started toward the dinette table. Nail followed, struggling to rise from the sofa. He felt leakage from his wounds. Judy looked back.

  “You’re still hurting, James.”

  “A little stiff.” A thick spiral notebook lay on the table. It looked well-used. “Is this it?”

  He sat down at the table.

  “This is the page about the secret meeting,” Judy said, turning the pages for him toward the end of the notebook.

  Joe thinks I’m drinking too much. He’s becoming a bigger nag than his sister. My stomach is upset all the time and I chunk up from stress when I get up in the morning. That’s what’s wrong with my eye too. I could say I had no idea what I was doing when I let brother-in-law draw me into all this, but I’d be lying to myself. I made a pact with Satan and now Satan demands his pound of flesh.

  These people are as serious as a dead baby. Millions of people will be killed before this is all over. Next Monday, Joe and others like him are gathering with George Zuniga at Lake Ontario for The Sustainable World Conference to “establish new rules of international law and to rearrange the entire financial order.” They’re making plans to collapse the U.S. economy and implement martial law to install Anastos as the puppet in a communist regime...

  Trout had been conscientious in dating his entries. “Next Monday” was two days away.

  “Did Sharon call you back?” Nail asked.

  “She got all excited when I read the part in the notebook about Lake Ontario. Like she knew exactly where it was. I tried to warn her, what with Dennis being murdered and all. I don’t think she was listening, James. That girl is done about to become a chicken in a house full of coyotes.”

  Rage From The Right: A Report

  (Washington)—A report issued by the “Countering Violent Extremism Working Group” warned that so-called “patriot cartels” like the Tea Party Movement that see the Federal Government as part of a plot to impose one-world government on America have come roaring back after years out of the limelight. The report defines Rightwing extremists as “divided into those groups, movements and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religions, racial or ethnic groups) and those that are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely.”

  “The Tea Parties and other such groups are shot through with veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism,” said Senate Majority Leader Joe Wiedersham (D-Ill).

  “They caught fire after the election of President Anastos,” said Speaker of the House Barbara Teague (D-CA). “There is little difference between them and mass murderer Timothy McVeigh who bombed the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. They are all terrorists or potential terrorists one match away from lighting the f
use...”

  The report suggests worsening economic woes, potential new international restrictions on firearms, and the recruiting and radicalizing of returning military veterans are leading to the emergence of terrorist groups with violent potential. The report also warns law enforcement agencies and citizens to watch out for and report anything suspicious, such as: vehicles with anti-government bumper stickers; large secret meetings; Constitutionalists; individuals with radical ideologies based on Christian views; and individuals who oppose illegal immigration, increased federal powers, restrictions on firearms, abortion, taxes, and who express conspiracy theories about the loss of U.S. sovereignty...

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Colorado

  An Apache gunship flew over on two separate occasions while Big C maintained surveillance on the detention camp and waited for Tom Fullbright to return with the militias. He rooted into dense brush not yet denuded by approaching autumn to hide while the chopper patrolled the surrounding mountains and forests before it returned north toward the Air Force base at Colorado Springs. Big C guessed he would have no more than an hour tops to pull off an operation against the hospital before air cover responded with missiles and Gatling guns.

  Militiamen were going to die here in Colorado. The “mental health facility” was so well-armed and well-defended that a bunch of common Americans could never hope to overcome it by direct force. Victory depended on stealth and cunning. Even so, the inevitable price the militia must pay was worth it if enough prisoners could be liberated so that Americans saw what was happening and began to react.

  If the country hadn’t become so cowed-down that it was incapable of acting. Newsweek and others in the mainstream media were already declaring the U.S. a socialist state. Now, aren’t you much better off for it?