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  “I tried to counsel you against such—“

  “Just shut up! He’s on the island. He could be watching me right now through the scope of a sniper’s rifle. He’ll send me to the devil!” Maroz cursed a string of profanities. “I am not ready. I have not achieved my destiny.” He pulled out his sat phone and dialed up Kielce. “What the hell are you doing?...What do you mean taking shelter? Get your ass out of there or I’ll have you shot. Brandt is on the island. He was just seen approaching the asylum. Get your men outside. Find him!”

  CHAPTER 6

  Near the Asylum

  To get a break from the wind and rain, Chuck entered a building that was full of birds, but there was something wrong. The birds were all housed in a glass-walled room with stacked rocks inside. They were not acting like typical birds, chirping and hopping around. Rather, they were behaving in bizarre ways. A Puerto Rican screech owl was feeding on a parakeet.

  A mockingbird was pecking its own bloody leg. It took a break from this activity to peck at the carcass of a dead mockingbird. Four more dead mockingbirds lay nearby and also a half-eaten sandpiper.

  Magnolia warblers were flying at the window, knocking themselves out, literally. Those that stayed conscious after a head blow, once again hurled themselves at the glass. In a pile of guano, a red-billed tropicbird was lying on its side and seemingly gazing at nothing. Its beak was slowly opening and closing. A one-eyed black-crowned night heron was manically pacing back and forth in dry pool. As it turned, another heron tried to peck at its lone eye. One cage featured boney flamingoes whose wings had been cut off and whose beaks were held shut with rubber bands.

  “What’s going on here?” Chuck said.

  “It’s tradition,” Erica said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “To manipulate the birds.”

  “Manipulate them?”

  “Experiment on them. It’s sick entertainment. It’s a symptom of everything I left behind when I went to Venezuela. I left the darkness to spread love and help the poor.”

  Chuck opened the glass door and held it open with the holdback hook. He then went in the bird room and scared the birds outside. They scattered into bushes. A few were unable or unwilling to escape, so Chuck carried them outside and freed them among rocks and foliage where they had refuge from the storm. Then he saw several gunmen in the distance heading his way.

  CHAPTER 7

  Stepping back into the bird building, Chuck locked the door.

  “What are you doing?” Erica said.

  Chuck patted her shoulder. “Let’s go. We got trouble.”

  “What is it?”

  “Gunmen. Let’s go out the back door.” Once outside, they ran through the forest of whipping branches and wind-thrashed trees. Falling branches and palm fronds blew down all around them.

  One tree broke overhead.

  “Take cover!” Chuck yelled. Grabbing Erica, he pulled her behind a large stone. The tree hit the rock and shattered. Wood fragments exploded outward like shrapnel. Luckily, they were protected by the rock.

  They moved on, but came to a barbed-wire fence.

  As rain lashed the trees and splashed into long puddles, Chuck held up a barbed strand and let Erica slip through the gap. He followed then led her through an orchard with shaking banana fig and mango trees, genips and papayas. Branches whipped around. Fruit was scattered all over the ground. They took cover behind a grape arbor and Chuck got out his binoculars. The strange sight before him was dominated by a massive two-story building that might have been a hotel behind a high stone wall except that the sprawling gardens in the back yard, which covered twenty acres and were fenced with barbed-wire. With his mini binoculars, Chuck spied three patients wearing white hospital gowns. Never mind that a hurricane was pounding the island, these patients were taking recreation in the gardens. One sat on a bench in the gardens and watched the wild play of the dancing bushes and trees. One was standing and trying to paint a picture, but the wind kept blowing down his easel. He kept trying to balance it against a tree that was itself being savaged by the gale. Another patient was sitting on a bench and trying to play with a yo-yo, an impossible chore given that the yo-yo was thrashing around in as wildly as his long hair, which was flowing sideways like a storm flag.

  Chuck watched the yard for a minute. Then he noticed a path through the gardens, where he could enter the asylum without being seen.

  “Come on,” he told Erica.

  With Erica following him, he cut behind a maze of hedges, flitted under beech trees, behind a line of ten-foot high storm-thrashed hydrangeas and yellow forsythias. He ducked down behind a stone wall by a pagoda then darted over to an open door, stepping into a dark hallway. A ferocious gust slammed the door behind them.

  Chuck opened and closed several doors inside the asylum. Some were locked, but these were just rooms for the patients. He was looking for Maroz. At the entrance to a restricted area, he looked through the glass panel in the door. A gunman was sitting at a receptionist’s station, but he was distracted by an electronic device. “Wait here,” Chuck said, pointing into a nook with candy machines.

  Then he walked into the restricted area. Approaching the gunman, he said, “Maroz needs you now. I’ll cover for you until you get back.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Delivery man.” Chuck delivered a brutal hit to the base of his neck, rendering him unconscious. The gunman collapsed to the floor.

  Chuck passed several offices and stopped at the door to a large glass-walled hexagon-shaped room—a room like few he’d ever seen.

  Display tables and shelves featured shells and sea fans. Chuck beheld literally thousands of shells—China clams, spindles, muscles, spider conches, scallops, molluscs, red nose cockles, and Argonauts. Every table top was covered. Every shelf was carpeted in shells. These display shelves covered the walls, to which they clung like limpets. Chuck stopped and glanced close up at one shelf. A few shells caught his glance.

  The inner nacreous layers of a mother of pearl shell lay smooth under a layer of dust. The surface of a white cowrie shell rippled like the frosting of wedding cake. The stripes on a brown-and-tan colored nautili shell were patterned like the pelts of zebras.

  In the back he found the warden—a shell of a human with a slack face and vacant eyes. He sat in a Lazy Boy recliner, holding a skull in his lap, his thumbs pressed in the eye sockets. His own eyes were open, but he seemed unaware that Chuck was standing in the doorway. His lips moved but no sounds came forth. Sweat rolled down his forehead.

  Chuck ran up to him and grabbed him. The man came out of some trance and tried to fight, so Chuck pummeled him back down into the Lazy Boy. After an uppercut chin thrash, the warden went limp in the chair. He was conscious but hurt. He was scared to move lest he provoke Chuck again.

  “Where is Maroz?”

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “Tell me where Maroz is now.”

  “The cafeteria. They’re holding court.”

  “Court? Here?”

  “He’s a judge. They had to evacuate the village, including the court.”

  “They’re having a trial in the middle of a hurricane?”

  “They were forced up here. Maroz insisted that they proceed.”

  Chuck hit hard and knocked him out. He hurried back to where he’d left Erica, but she was not there.

  CHAPTER 8

  The members of the Lancastria Court sat at a dozen tables in the cafeteria, awaiting the judge. The ghostly howling sounds had some members watching the ceiling. A few members of the court appeared stricken, fear having evidently drained half the blood out of their faces. When the walls of the building shuddered, a gray-haired man wearing a suit with a bow tie shrieked with terror. He was one of the most successful hedge fund managers ever.

  “It’ll rip the damn roof off,” he shouted. “When will it stop?”

  “Shut up, you coward,” pharmaceutical billionaire Peyton Price growled at him. “Brandt is on the
island. The storm is the least of our problems.”

  Hollywood financier Henry Gray frowned and said, “I was assured that CERBERUS had this island locked down.” His voice was unsteady. “I was assured that they are the best. I want assurances now.”

  “They are the best,” Price said.

  “Can they stop Brandt? Can you guarantee it?”

  “All rise,” said the clerk.

  Peyton Price obeyed the clerk and didn’t answer Gray’s question.

  Fourteen members stood although the hedge fund manager looked as pale death. He was stooped forward, and his teeth chattered from shaking. He looked at the armed CERBERUS guards as if for reassurance.

  Dressed in his black robe, Judge Maroz entered. He sat at a table in the front of the cafeteria, facing his makeshift courtroom. His coal black eyes flashed with anger when he saw Hackworth at the defendant’s table.

  Maroz took a seat and slammed his gavel down on the wooden plaque. Lights flickered on and off. He inhaled deeply and took in the scene. It was nothing like the premises of the Lancastria Court, which were now flooded. But the building really didn’t matter, he thought. After all, the court was no more or less than its members and traditions. For his decisions to carry the force of law, eleven members were required by the articles to witness the proceedings, and in cases like this, serve as a jury. Fourteen were now seated at the tables. Maroz’s decisions would carry the full force of the law, enforced if necessary by grim-faced, fanatical CERBERUS agents.

  He heard the sound of shattering glass as the storm blasted out a window down the hall. He almost smiled at the circumstances. He was going to change history right now, right here in the asylum’s cafeteria. The requirements of the articles were all met.

  He was endowed with the power of the court, regardless of the building. Just as before, he wielded law above law, power above power, and authority over authority.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I have called this emergency meeting of the court due to extraordinary circumstances. Let me start off by reminding you of the rules. The Lancastria Court does not require appellate jurisdiction because it has legislative power to issue edicts, and enact laws as well as prosecute laws on her books. Today, in the case of Lancastria vs. Hackworth, the court will sentence Percy Hackworth, who has been charged with contempt of court.

  “As you know, the court has found that Hackworth violated our rules and defied the court, inciting a revolution and orchestrating a coup in Venezuela. A CERBERUS force was sent in to assassinate the president and seize the government.

  “In our last session, number 395, Hackworth displayed gross contempt of the Lancastria Court, of which he is a member, having agreed to subject himself to the binding decisions of the court on behalf of its members. His actions as a member will be recorded in the Book of Deeds regardless of whether such actions are loyal to our traditions or otherwise. I have ordered that Hackworth be in attendance for sentencing for contempt of court—first defying the orders of the court then showing utter disrespect for the judge and disruption of official proceedings. I will add that by disrespecting the court, he disrespected all of you and all our members who could not be here today, disrespected our institutions, and worst of all, he disrespected our traditions, which is unforgivable.”

  The court reporter tapped away on her machine. Her black hair shook. Her fingers and black-painted fingernails, danced on the keys.

  Maroz continued, “As always, we exert executive privilege requiring the proceedings and all matters handled herein to remain confidential. For our only order of business for this evening’s emergency session, we will handle Lancastria Court versus Hackworth sentencing for contempt of court.

  “Finally, make sure that all of your electronic devices are turned off. If you must take a call, remove yourself to the hallway. You may be seated.”

  The illustrious members of the court sank into their hard seats.

  While the clerk called the calendar, Judge Maroz sat in silence. After the clerk finished taking attendance, she closed her leather-bound guest book and sat down.

  At the defendant’s table, Hackworth scowled. His long face and chin drooped down like a big old lump of sagging bread dough. From this lump peered shark-like eyes.

  Maroz looked at his adversary. “Hackworth, please stand.”

  The wind outside was howling around the building.

  Judge Maroz frowned at Hackworth then looked out at the members of the court. He saw one of the largest merchant bankers in New York, a billionaire industrialist, a US secretary of state from a previous administration…. Maroz scowled and said, “Hackworth, you were ordered here today for sentencing in the case of Lancastria vs. Hackworth. Is there anything the defense would like to say before I announce sentence?”

  Bakker, the defense attorney, stood up and said, “Yes, there is, Your Honor.”

  “You may begin your statement.”

  Bakker nodded. “This is a very simple case, judge, and it comes down to this. Leniency is the precedent in situations like this. The general rule is that when you have a high-level player implicated in a revolution or a coup, the court will offer lenience. Naturally, this is even more essential when the player is one of the Immortals.”

  The judge frowned. “The court does not like where you’re going with this, sir. Are you suggesting that a member of the court may disregard the authority of the court?”

  “No, your honor. We’re just looking for a compassionate response.”

  “Compassion? Really?”

  “Yes, your honor. May I proceed?”

  Maroz scowled but nodded. “Yes, by all means.”

  “Would the court like to hear the authorities?” Bakker said.

  “The court would like to hear the authorities. Proceed.”

  Bakker nodded. He paced in front of the jurors. “I would like to begin by referencing the Jiang Qing and the Gang of Four Trial.”

  Judge Maroz said, “I’ve had a chance to review your authorities, Bakker. However, provide a little context for the witnesses.”

  Bakker faced the jury. “The Jiang Qing and the Gang of Four Trial ended the Cultural Revolution in China. The Cultural Revolution was the communist solution to eliminating the ruling class. Mao was the leader. Keep in mind, that somewhere in the area of twenty million people died as a result of these policies and persecutions. Mao’s fourth wife, Jiang Qing was working toward seizing control of the country from her aging husband. They attempted to seize power in a rebellion in Shainghai just after Mao’s death. In court, Jiang Qing was sentenced to death, but notice two pertinent factors. First, her sentence was suspended for two years, and she was ultimately sentenced to life in prison. Obviously, that is a harsh punishment at face value, but look at her crime. She and the Gang of Four were charged with “persecuting to death” more than 34,000 people as well as abusing over 730,000 more. Given vast number of dead and inconceivable number of those tortured and abused, a life sentence is a monument of lenience. It turned out to be a mere seventeen years. In Venezuela, the casualties ran in the hundreds. On a proportionate basis, the punishment would be almost nothing.”

  “I object,” the prosecutor said. “It is not the role of the defense to prejudice and mislead the jury.”

  “Objection sustained,” said Mortimer. “The jury will ignore that statement. This is a grave issue. You may proceed, Bakker, but do not try my patience.”

  “I will not,” Bakker said. “I would just ask that the jury take notice of the position of the accused in the Gang of Four Trial. Jiang Qing was one of the elite. That is why she received preferential treatment. We all know that low-level actors in coups pay harsher penalties—as they should. My authorities feature elite defendants on par with a member of the Immortals.”

  The judge said, “Point taken, Bakker. Please proceed.”

  Bakker paced then faced the jury again. “My second authority is the Leon Trotsky Assassin Trial. I’ll keep this brief. We all know that Trotsky was a rival of Stalin
for leadership of the Communist Revolution. Stalin inspired a low-level communist to assassinate Trotsky. The assassin was sentenced to nineteen years, six months for the murder. Take note gentleman, the killer was a useful idiot, a fall guy for Stalin, who actually inspired the crime. Stalin was not convicted of anything. Not only did Stalin go untouched, but he honored the killer. For stabbing Trotsky to death with an ice-axe in Mexico, the assassin was awarded the Order of the Hero of the Soviet Union. We see in this case, the leader was given a pass and the assassin was made a Hero of the Soviet Union. This case supports my contention that the perpetrators were shown leniency if not honored for their actions.

  “The court should also consider the aftermath of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. His death, of course, led to World War One. After the trail of the low-level killers, the police arrested the Black Hand leader called Apis. The Black Hand is, of course, a Serbian nationalist group. As its leader, Apis was captured and ultimately confessed to his role in the assassination—he supplied guns and bombs to the killers, plus encouragement. His confession was given in exchange for—for what?—for promises that he would go free. Take note of that gentleman: that is leniency. Thirty-seven million died in World War One. The Black Hand leader who started the war was promised he would walk with barely a slap on the hand.”

  “Wait just a minute,” the judge said.

  “I’m not finished, Your Honor. As I briefed you earlier, Apis was ultimately executed, but that is immaterial to this case because history has shown that the trial was rigged. It was corrupt and not part of the great tradition of leniency and compassion that we are discussing here. The precedent was mirrored in the deal that was struck between Apis and the prosecutors. Apis was promised that he would walk free. That is the precedent. That has nothing to do with any skullduggery behind closed doors. The tradition, the precedent of compassion for those responsible for the over-steps is what I present to the court as part of the international tradition and as part of our own tradition.”