David Golemon - Primeval

The sky outside the Rainier Building was splitting open on this early Tuesday morning. The thunderclap woke the old man and he rolled over to look at the clock on his nightstand. Six thirty. He knew that sleep would not come again once it was so rudely interrupted, so he slowly threw his covers back and sat up. He yawned and felt around in the semidarkness. His thin, liver-spotted hand hit the glass of water and then he cursed in English as some of it splashed onto the expensive wood. He shook his head and reached for the dentures that he had deposited in the glass the night before. Once that was done, he slowly placed his feet into the slippers that had been perfectly placed by his maids the night before.

As he stood and placed a silken robe over his thinning frame, he stopped and listened; more important, he smelled. Sniffing the air he knew something was amiss. Every morning of his life he started the day with a pot of coffee, six eggs, potatoes, sausage, and toast. However, today there was none of those smells coming from the kitchen, which was situated on the open floor plan just below him on the first floor. He shook his head, angry that his most simple routine of the day was being usurped by people that worked for him. He angrily tied his robe and walked to the door and threw it open. As he approached the railing of the upper floor, he saw that the house was completely silent. The shades were open in the living room and the dull, cloud-laden day filtered in, letting in just enough light that he could see things lying on the floor beneath him.

"What is going on down there?" he asked as he grabbed the railing and tried to focus on the floor below.

Suddenly, a streak of lightning flashed through the twenty-foot-by-ten-foot plate-glass window that looked out over old Downtown Seattle. In that brief flash of illumination, he saw the bodies. Each of the twelve had been tied up and shot in their heads. He instantly saw his two female maids in the center of what could only be described as an execution circle with his employees' feet facing outward. With a yelp of terror, Valery Serta placed his hand over his mouth to keep the scream inside. As he started to back away, the words from the darkness, spoken in Russian, made his hand fall and the scream escaped anyway.

"We figured the view from up here into your living room would allow us to dispense with the threats of violence against you. This way you know we mean business — as your adoptive Americans would say—'from the get-go.' " The last was said in heavily accented English.

Serta turned and saw the man who had spoken was standing in his bedroom doorway. He almost went into shock when he thought that the man must have been in his room the whole time he was sleeping.

"As my partner says, we are here for answers, and we will only ask you one time," said a smaller man who stepped from the large bathroom across the hallway. He was wiping his hands on a towel, which, when finished, he turned and tossed it on the floor. "As you can see, we will not be disturbed for the time being."

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"Now, you see, you are asking questions and wasting our valuable time. Did we not say we killed your staff so you would know we were serious men?"

The old man started shaking.

"Relax, comrade. You have to answer one question and one only, before you join your employees. Until that moment, you have no need of being afraid — you will not be mistreated — unless your answer calls for it." The smaller of the two men stepped closer to Serta. "Why should you answer, you ask?" The small man with the ponytail tied by a leather strip, nodded at the taller man who produced a cell phone and opened it, and then he pushed a single button and then listened. He handed the phone to the old man.

Serta heard a boy crying on the other end of the line. He started shaking even harder than before, enough so that the tall man held the phone for him.

The small man nodded once more. His companion holding the phone spoke a few words in Russian and then closed the cell.

"You recognized the sound of your grandson's voice, Mr. Serta? He sounds as if he is having a hard time at Harvard University. Now, it is totally up to you on how much of a hard time he has in the next few moments. If you refuse to answer our single question correctly, and on the first attempt, we will cut the young man's head off."

Serta looked horrified as the small man pursed his lips, as if the statement he had just made was just as distasteful to say as it was to hear.

The larger man, his hair cut short to this side of cruel, moved Serta into the bedroom and sat him at the foot of the large, ornate bed. The smaller man turned back to the bathroom and emerged a moment later with a glass of water. He offered it to Serta and then sat beside him. The old man shook as he raised the glass to his mouth. He hesitated, and then drank deeply. When he lowered the glass, the smaller man removed the water from his shaking hand. He handed the glass to the large short-haired man.

"There, you have sated your thirst, and I can see you have calmed to an acceptable degree. I believe we are ready to proceed."

The old man looked at the Slavic faces of the men looking at him. They were Russians, not others from the satellite states or provinces — they were Moscow-bred, just as his own father had been.

"Before I ask, I must warn you, so you don't waste time thinking about how we gained our fantastic knowledge. We have several people on our payroll who reside at Lloyd's of London. To be more precise, Lloyd's — North America, based in New York." The man smiled when he saw the face of the old man go slack. "Ah, I can see you have realized your mistake."

"I don't have—"

The small Russian held up his hand so fast that the old man flinched as he thought he was about to be struck. Then he watched as the man's eyes once more went to his friend, who remained standing over Serta. He nodded and once more removed the cell phone and then looked at the withered face of the old man.

"If he has to open that receiver, Mr. Serta, your grandson will have a brief moment of pain and then his head will be removed. Now, as I will state the question, your answer should already be formed in your mind. We know you have one half of the Twins of Peter the Great. Where is it? You became paranoid in your old age and requested an insurance quote on a diamond of rather amazing proportions, one pound eight ounces to be exact. That information was forwarded to our offices. So, we have dispensed with the details and now the question has been asked." The small man slowly removed a large caliber automatic from his coat and then reached into his pocket and removed a short stubby cylinder and started screwing the silencer onto the pistol.

Valery Serta lowered his head and then with a stronger than normal voice, started talking.

"Since 1919, my family has not had to use the diamond for anything other than collateral. It fed my father's ambition without losing the stone. Yes, over the years I knew that men such as you may track the Twin to my family, so I wanted insurance against that eventuality."

"After today, you will have no such worry. Now, answer the question."

"Floor safe in the shower stall — combination is 18-34-17."

"You have done well. You have followed our instructions, and thus you have saved the life of your grandson — a very noble thing. A thing that people with your family history did not have an abundance of in the early days of the Soviet Union." The small man stood and then placed the silencer up to Serta's temple.

"May I ask a question?" the taller and much more muscular man asked as he replaced the cell phone into his jacket.

"Yes, of course," came the polite answer from his partner.

"Mr. Serta, you wouldn't possibly know the whereabouts of a certain diary belonging to a former associate of your father's, would you?"