A Thousand Years of Darkness: a Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

do-rag tied around long, scraggly hair, red placard bearing a yellow hammer and sickle with President Anastos’ picture underneath it and the inscription HOPE ’N CHANGE . Nail could never understand what Jamie saw in this piece of garbage.
    He was starting to feel relieved that he didn’t see Jamie when he spotted her in the middle of the protestors. He turned his head away. Her mother Connie had been a “progressive” rabble rouser in college. Jamie had taken after Connie in politics as well as in good looks.
    * * *
    Lieutenant Ross ducked into the ORU Center to check on inside security, leaving Nail to man the supervisory post outside the big double doors. Since the auditorium was already filled to capacity, the overflow waited merely to catch a glimpse of “the Thomas Paine of this generation” when he arrived. Police had stretched rope barricades the entire length of the drive to the stadium door.
    The fifth graders and their teacher continued to chant “ Umm-Umm-Umm Patrick Wayne Anastos .” Rupert and his bunch grew louder and more obnoxious. Jamie, though somewhat more subdued than her fellow demonstrators, still seemed to be having a serious good time shouting and stamping her feet.
    The sudden surge and roar of the crowds at the turnoff onto the campus from Lewis Avenue announced the arrival of Baer’s cavalcade. A pair of black Suburbans with tinted windows appeared, moving slowly along the opened corridor toward the stadium’s back doors. People cheered and waved every time a smiling Jerry Baer stuck his head out the back window of the lead vehicle and waved.
    Nail had never watched the guy on TV. He was therefore surprised to discover that the hero of America’s Tea Party Movement was a rather round-faced doughboy in his forties with unruly hair sticking out like bristles all over his pale scalp. He more resembled a baker or a used car salesman than the phenomenon that had the political community’s underwear caught in the cracks of their asses.
    Things seemed to be under control so far. The demonstrators were louder than ever, but appeared content to play to the Six O’clock news channels. The twin Suburbans stopped at the bottom of the broad granite stairway. Nail’s narrowed eyes scanned the crowd for trouble. Anything could happen these crazy days in America.
    A brace of tough-looking bodyguards with pistols on their hips jumped out of the trail car and stationed themselves fore and aft of Baer’s vehicle. A cheer went up from Baer supporters while protesters went into a frenzy, yelling obscenities and threats and jabbing their placards and signs in Baer’s direction. Baer alighted from his car wearing blue jeans, a white dress shirt, gray sports jacket and his trademark white sneakers. Waving and laughing with his people.
    A well-built young woman who appeared to be in her early thirties got out of the car behind Baer. She wore navy blue form-fitting slacks, a white blouse, and a blue ribbon that set off her curly black hair and olive complexion. Pretty girl. Nail assumed she was Baer’s wife.
    Cops expected any threat to Baer would most likely originate from the protestors. Nail noticed Baer’s head suddenly tilting toward the sky. A look of horror traced his smile into a death rictus. The detective snapped his eyes skyward in time to see a medium-sized Bell helicopter sweep in low above the domed roof of the ORU Convention Center. It bore the Channel 6 News bird on its fuselage. Nail hadn’t heard it because of the constant roar of the crowd.
    The chopper came in at 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 doorway. Both were armed with squad automatic weapons instead of TV cameras, SAWs like those carried by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The jailhouse tat of a dragon on a bare arm from shoulder to wrist seared itself