Read A Thousand Years of Darkness: a Thriller Online

Authors: Charles W. Sasser

Tags: #Homeland security, #political corruption, #One World, #Conspiracy, #Glenn Beck, #Conservative talk show host, #Rush Limbaugh

A Thousand Years of Darkness: a Thriller

BOOK: A Thousand Years of Darkness: a Thriller
6.64Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

The chopper came in full throttle and air skidded to a halt above Baer's stopped vehicles. Two men wearing ski masks, sleeveless bullet-proof vests, and harnesses to keep them from falling out were crouched in the chopper's open door. Both were armed with squad automatic weapons… SAWs like those carried by troops in Iraq.

Oh, God! Jamie!

Nail charged down the granite steps, his hand darting for the Glock at his belt, ignoring the helicopter as his eyes searched for his daughter. Let the bodyguards protect Baer.

The scumbags in the chopper opened fire, the sound of their weapons like the magnified ripping of sailcloth. Stunned silence in the crowd for two or three heartbeats, people trying to digest what was happening. Then panic set in. Hellish screams of terror and tramping feet as people ran over each other in sudden blind flight…

 

From the author of previous military and action adventure novels like THE 100TH KILL, DETACHMENT DELTA series and THE RETURN comes Charles W. Sasser's latest speculative political action-adventure thriller ripped from today's headlines and based on actual current events. Police Detective James Nail is wounded and his daughter murdered in an attack that also kills "right-wing" TV personality Jerry Baer. As Nail and Baer's producer, Sharon Lowenthal, team up to track down the shooters, they discover a conspiracy that leads to an international cartel of "One Worlders" and may implicate the President of the United States. Falsely accused of terrorism, they must keep one step ahead of Homeland Security to stay alive, bring down the traitors, and save the nation.

 

What they’re saying about Charles W. Sasser

 

"As for the writing, it's near perfect, flows smoothly and has that certain flair that all of us who type for a living seek to achieve..."
PACIFIC FLYER
on
Predator: The Remote-Control Air War over Iraq and Afghanistan
.

"The most gripping scenes in the book document...emotion in the seconds just before the Hellfire missile arrives on target..."
THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS (NEW YORK TIMES)
on
Predator: The Remote-Control Air War over Iraq and Afghanistan.

"A gripping combat memoir…honest and exciting…a roving tale, full of sharp detail and told in the harsh language of soldiers baptized in fire..."
KIRKUS REVIEWS
on
Taking Fire

"Bustles with danger, intrigue, and surprise. Rapid-fire action from beginning to end." Clive Cussler on
First Seal

"Tough, raunchy, gritty, but surprisingly tender... If you never made it to 'Nam,this book will take you there... unbeatable!"
MILITARY HISTORY Magazine
on
The 100th Kill

"Outstanding! Exciting! Gut-grabbing...!"
LEATHERNECK Magazine
on
One Shot—One Kill
.

"A grim, authentic window to a world of horrors only hinted at in the tabloid headlines..."
PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY
on
Homicide!

"A powerful emotion-packed mystery..."
CONCISE BOOK REVIEWS
on
No Gentle Streets

"A model of good historical writing…”
LEATHERNECK
on
Hill 488

"Abundant action, a fast pace and an unusual ethical dilemma..."
PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY
on
Dark Planet
.

 

Books by Charles W. Sasser

 

Fiction:

A Thousand Years of Darkness

Sanctuary

The 100
th
Kill

No Gentle Streets

Liberty City

Dark Planet

The Return

The War Chaser

Operation No Man’s Land
(as Mike Martell)

Detachment Delta: Punitive Strike

Detachment Delta: Operation Iron Weed

Detachment Delta: Operation Deep Steel

Detachment Delta: Operation Aces Wild

Detachment Delta: Operation Cold Dawn

OSS Commando: Final Option

OSS Commando: Hitler’s A-Bomb

No Longer Lost

   
(Novella, in
The Foxy Hens Meet a Romantic Adventurer
)

 

Nonfiction:

None Left Behind

God in the Foxhole

Homicide!

Shoot to Kill

Always A Warrior

Smoke Jumpers

Raider

Sniper Anthology (contributor)

Patton’s Panthers

At Large

Warriors
(contributor)

My Mom is My Hero
(contributor)

First SEAL
(w/Roy Boehm)

Hill 488
(w/Ray Hildreth)

Fire Cops
(w/Michael Sasser)

Encyclopedia of Navy SEALs

Magic Steps to Writing Success

Taking Fire
(w/Ron Alexander)

The Soldier of Fortune
(contributor)

The Walking Dead
(w/Craig Roberts)

One Shot—One Kill
(w/Craig Roberts)

In Cold Blood: Oklahoma’s Most Notorious Murders

Last American Heroes
(w/Michael Sasser)

Doc: Platoon Medic
(w/Daniel E. Evans)

Arctic Homestead
(w/Norma Cobb)

Crosshairs on the Kill Zone
(w/Craig Roberts)

Going Bonkers: The Wacky World of Cultural Madness

The Shoebox: Letters for the Seasons

   
(by Nancy Shoemaker, edited by CWS)

Devoted to Fishing; Devotionals for Fishermen

Predator: The Remote-Control Air War over Iraq and Afghanistan

    (w/Matt J. Martin)

The New Face of War
(Time/Life series contributor)

True Detective
(Pinnacle true crime series contributor)

 

A Thousand Years of Darkness

What if the President of the United States was trying to topple the nation—and you found out about it?

Charles W. Sasser

  

For all Americans: May we learn to live free

  

 

Denton, Texas

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  

Deadly Niche Press

An imprint of AWOC.COM Publishing

P.O. Box 2819

Denton, TX 76202

  

Copyright 2011 by Charles W. Sasser

All Rights Reserved.

  

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  

ISBN: 978-0-937660-74-4

  

Author’s website: www.charlessasser.com

 

 

PART I

 

“If the lights that guide us ever go out, they will fade little by little, as if on their own accord... We therefore should not console ourselves by thinking that the barbarians are still a long way off. Some peoples merely let the torch be snatched from their hands, but others stamp it out themselves.”

Alexis de Tocqueville

 

Census Worker Murdered in Cemetery

 

(Tulsa)
—Ron Sparks, 41, a federal census official in Oklahoma, was found stripped naked hanging from a tree this morning in a rural cemetery in northeastern Oklahoma with the word “Fed” scrawled on his chest with a felt tip pen. The witness who found the body at the Akins Cemetery told reporters that Sparks was naked, bound head and foot with duct tape, blindfolded with more duct tape, and gagged with a red rag. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are investigating whether anti-government elements may have committed the homicide...

A statement issued by Homeland Security blamed “Southern populist terrorism whipped up by such as Zenergy News Cable and talk show personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Jerry Baer for fomenting anger, fear and vitriol.” In Washington, Senate Majority Leader Joe Wiedersham (D-Ill) expressed concern that conservative talk show hosts like Baer might be contributing to a poisonous anti-government sentiment.

“I think people in positions of power or influence inciting hate and violence need to be held accountable,” he said. “Political hate speech is just as dangerous as any other form of hate speech...”

 

Chapter One

 

Tulsa, Oklahoma

 

A raw-boned laborer in his thirties, out of work during the deepening recession, grabbed a coffee and a muffin at McDonald’s and found an empty booth at the back where he could keep an eye on the parking lot. Joshua Logan wore frayed jeans, steel-toed boots, a blue chambray shirt and a
Tulsa Oilers’
baseball cap.

Outside, some kid with a ring through his lip, green-spiked hair and baggy convict jeans was “loose changing” customers. A woman who looked faded and tired led her little boy by the hand around the young beggar and climbed into a pickup truck. Logan was pretty sure neither of them was a Fed.

He craved a cigarette to go with his coffee and muffin, but he had quit cold turkey after a pack went up to seven dollars. He sipped coffee until he spotted Morris’ old blue Ford follow a tan Toyota onto the parking lot. A black woman in a red hat got out of the Toyota and came into Mickey D’s. Morris sat in his car looking nervous.

Morris had awakened Logan at five a.m.

“Things are about to get hotter than an Arkansas bitch in August,” Morris warned when Logan answered his bedside phone. “Meet me. You know where.”

Morris and Logan often had coffee at Mickey D’s when they worked construction together. The urgency in Morris’ voice told Logan this might have something to do with Ron Sparks’ hanging.

As Logan watched, Morris got out of his Ford and looked around some more. He was a short man as thin and nervous as a starving squirrel. He wore threadbare jeans like Logan’s and a T-shirt that proclaimed
God and Guns for America
. He was still standing by the open door of his Ford when two plain black SUVs whipped in through the
Out
drive. Logan recognized them immediately. All Federal Home Security vehicles were painted black.

Tires squalling, the SUVs sent the dude with the lip ring and spiked hair scrambling out of the way. Morris dived for his Ford. Not quickly enough. The SUVs disgorged beefy plainclothesmen armed with M4 assault rifles. The parking lot erupted in rifle fire. The black woman in the red hat screamed as she waited for her breakfast wrap at the McDonald’s counter.

The takedown was accomplished so quickly and with such cold efficiency that Logan’s mouth was still agape when a couple of the Homies broke away and stormed the Golden Arches, rifles ready at port arms. They meant business. Like they knew Morris came here to meet someone.

The Mickey D’s breakfast trade worked in Logan’s favor. He ducked through the lines and reached the opposite door by the time the Homies burst in and splayed themselves to either side of the doorway, eyes sweeping.

“Everybody stay put!” barked a command. “Don’t anybody try to leave!”

Logan ducked out the door without being spotted and fled down the back side of the building. At the corner, he flattened himself against the wall and chanced a quick peek around it. Homies were bunched up at Morris’ Ford, looking down at Morris lying on the pavement in a spreading pool of blood. Logan heard one of them laugh.

BOOK: A Thousand Years of Darkness: a Thriller
6.64Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Undercover by Vanessa Kier
Hush Hush by Steven Barthelme
Seven Years by Dannika Dark
Everybody Had A Gun by Richard Prather
Defending Irene by Nitz, Kristin Wolden;
A Family Name by Liz Botts