The two goons looked at each other and shrugged.
Inside, Kobey squared his shoulders, took a deep breath and headed for the conference room. With a flourish, he flung open the double oak doors and strode into the room. "Hi everyone. Am I late?"
Puzzlement appeared on the faces of the assembled criminals. Who is this guy? Kobey knew they were thinking. Then, stepping out from behind one of the hoodlums, was a short, wiry man wearing a polyester green suit, gray Gucci loafers, and a gold-colored cravat. His expression of puzzlement faded away and a sinister smile, starting on the left side of the pockmarked face, and sliding over to the right side took shape. "Well, well, the famous Kobey Karp. The agency's top nuisance. I'll give you credit. You got you know what. And a lot of them."
"Oh, yeah," Kobey snarled back softly.
"Yeah." Around the room hands reached inside jackets, clutched ankles, went behind backs and grabbed crotches.
"Tell your street crawlers to relax, Kenko. I'm not packing."
"Oh yeah."
"Yeah. Who you torturing on the floor?"
"What?" Kenko laughed. "Torturing? You government hack. I've got a special guest. Let him see boys." The collection of mud worms stepped back. On the floor quietly munching his sushi was the giant sea turtle.
"So, what are you doing with a turtle, Kenko? That's a little weird."
"Turtle? You two-bit government lifer. You know what this creature is?"
"You going to tell me?"
"This is a giant, sacred sea turtle and the spiritual symbol of the Shobashi clan. It just appeared in my swimming pool. It set off no alarms and my men never discovered it. It's an omen government man."
"Yeah. So what? It's still a turtle."
"The so what is that it's a sign, only given to the few who are chosen to lead the rest along the path of true enlightenment, pushing on to a higher stage of knowing. I've been given a new path to follow and take my flock with me."
"Oh yeah."
"Yeah."
"Hm. So the turtle talks to you?"
"Yeah, that's right." Kenko looked down at Henry with a reverential smile. "You are surely the one prophesied to come before us," Kenko said. "To absorb our sins."
"Absorb?" said Kobey.
Kenko glared at Kobey and then said to Henry, "Do you have a sign for us?" Henry snapped up a small piece of raw fish and blinked. Kenko made a solemn bow. "Ah, of course." The rest of the Shobashi gang nodded in unison.
Unbelievable Kobey thought at that moment. "You know, Kenko, you've been sanctioned. There's no way out for you."
"Sanctioned?" He cackled. "What do I care about your meaningless sanctions now that the sacred sea turtle has given me the blessed sign." Kobey glanced down at Henry who blinked again. "See that you public sector flunky."
At that moment the conference room door burst open and Karen and Leonard rushed in. Karen deliberately moved her glistening twelve-gauge from one side of the room to the other. Dressed in black leather pants, matching boots and holding her shotgun, Kobey had to admit she was a darn impressive woman. "The SWAT team is on its way, Kobey," said Karen lightly stroking the trigger of her sawed-off. Throughout the room lips smacked, and one or two of Shobashi's goons groaned as they stared at Karen.
"What about the two freaks on the patio?" Kobey said.
Leonard chuckled. "You wouldn't believe it. The two of them were ... er, standing at the edge of the patio. You know, going to the—"
"The bathroom, Leonard," said Karen.
"Right. So we pushed them over the edge," Leonard explained.
"Well, Kenko," said Kobey, " it looks like you and your bunch of retards are finished. And I don't really have any desire to sanction you at this point."
"You can't do a thing to me," Kenko said with a smug grin.
A rustling noise behind Kenko's collection of knuckle draggers distracted everyone in the room. A moment later Henry appeared from behind some legs and slowly lumbered across the highly polished marble floor. "Where you going big fella?" Kobey said. Henry blinked and continued toward the door.
"A sign, a sign," Kenko called out. Henry appeared to hesitate, his head swiveled toward Kenko, and he blinked. "Ahhh," said Kenko. "He wants us to follow him."
Karen and Leonard glanced at their boss. "Sure, why not," Kobey said. They all followed Henry out the conference room door.
Perhaps fifteen minutes later Henry eased his way down the front steps and came to a halt in the middle of the patio. Everyone formed a large circle around the giant sea turtle.
"A sign, a sign," Kenko moaned.
"Yes, a sign, a sign," from Kenko's misfits.
"Kob, what do you think will happen?" Leonard said.
"There's no script for this," Kobey said quietly.
At that moment Henry raised his head toward the sky. "Be silent, be silent," Kenko said.
The entire patio became quiet. No one moved. "Kob, maybe something is really going to happen," Leonard whispered.
"Hm-m."
Henry suddenly turned to one of Kenko's men and blinked. A two-hundred pound bald brute who was the recipient of the sea turtle's blink, sank to his knees and sobbed. "Where are those SWAT guys?" Karen said massaging the barrel of the gun.
"This is incredible," Leonard said.
Then Henry's head and neck extended farther out of his shell, his eyes closed and his mouth opened. "Yes, yes," Kenko moaned, now swaying trance like from side to side.
A sound like an exploding mortar shell erupted in the center of the patio. Everyone jumped backward. "What was that?" Karen exclaimed, her shotgun moving quickly from one side of the patio to the other.
"Stay calm, Karen. Take deep breaths," Kobey said.
Immediately an overwhelming stench of rancid fish enveloped the entire patio. "Geez," Leonard said clamping his hand over his nose and mouth. Karen staggered back and nearly dropped her shotgun. Everyone, including Kobey, stumbled away from the center of the patio.
Except for Kenko. He sank to his knees. "A sign, a sign. Yes. He is with us." Kenko Shobashi then expired on the stone patio.
"Henry?" said Kobey. The giant sea turtle turned toward Kobey, opened his eyes, closed his mouth, and blinked. Henry then lumbered slowly to the edge of the patio, blinked one more time, tipped over the edge of the patio and disappeared from sight.
Leonard started for the patio edge but Kobey grabbed his arm. "Leave it be, buddy," said Kobey. "Let it end like this. A far better place goes our friend."
Police sirens wailed in the distance.
Dark Times
"Were you at the demonstration that George Gapon led last year?"
"You know I wasn't," Alex Kovalevsky said."
"You had planned on being there," Count Nicholas Herzen said harshly.
"I don't remember what I'd planned a year ago."
"January 22, 1905. Don't your friends refer to it as 'Bloody Sunday'?"
"Two-hundred people were killed that day by government soldiers. Most people would consider it a, 'bloody' Sunday. Don't you think?"
"The government estimates one-hundred-and-thirty deaths."
"It wasn't bloody?" said Alex.
"You true sympathies are with the Bolsheviks."
"What?"
The older man paused and watched Alex for a minute. "Maybe you're not a coward. Not a bomb thrower who murders women and children."
"Are you a member of the Black Hundreds?" The expression on Herzen's face remained unchanged. "You don't like beating up and killing Jews, liberals, and intellectuals?"
"I'm not a member of the Black Hundreds." The older man got out of his chair. "Are you certain you won't have some wine?" Alex started to say something but shook his head. Count Herzen refilled his wine glass, sat back down and picked up a folder from the table beside his chair. Alex sat across from him. "You police dossier," he said opening the gray folder. "Alex Kovalevsky," he pronounced in a slow, deliberate manner. "Born April 27, 1881 in Moscow to Fedor and Maria Kovalevsky." Herzen glanced up and then
resumed reading from the police file. "Your father, a surgeon, was at one time a physician to the late Grand Duke Serge, the Tsar's second-cousin. Graduated with honors from the University, went to law school but dropped out at the end of your first year." Here he paused. "It says here you attended your first anti-government demonstration in 1904, arrested twice."
He suddenly stopped and slammed the folder on the table.. "Kovalevsky, you dirty little nobody, you're one of the Maximalists who blew up Stolypin's residence."
Alex was taken completely by surprise. "What are you saying?"
"Don't lie to me."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I could have you shot this afternoon. For a terrorist like you, your body would be thrown into a ditch, and lime tossed on top of it. Your mother would never be told where you are. Your name never mentioned again. Do you understand how it will be if I order it?"
Alex felt his bottom lip quiver, and he suddenly found it difficult to form the words. "I didn't blow up anything."
"Those cowards you call comrades injured both the Prime Minister's son and daughter."
"What? I didn't—"
"You're a Maximalist."
Alex now felt the fear rising in the back of his throat. "I'm not."
"You know all about them."
"No. I mean, of course I know about—"
"Because you're one of them," the older man said, an uncompromising expression etched on his face.
"I'm not one of them. I know about them. Everyone does."
"You're an enemy of the state."
"No. I'm ... against injustice in this country."
"You have friends in the Battle Organization."
"The Battle Organization?"
"More than fourteen-hundred deaths have been directly attributed to those terrorists scum. You're one of