The House of Crow

Chapter 4

The heavy armor of the black limousine muffled the sounds of the outside world to its four occupants. The driver and a bodyguard rode up front, separated from their two charges seated in the back, by a sliding glass partition. In the back of the limousine, Sixty-year-old William Crow looked over at his nephew, Marine Captain Charles Crow. At twenty-five, Charles was an athletic six feet tall. His thick black hair was clipped high and tight in Marine fashion. Though handsome, the most noticeable feature one noticed was his intense blue eyes, a family trait. Charles was gifted, as most of his ancestors had been, with a high degree of intelligence and near perfect hand-eye coordination. Charles had graduated in the top five percentile of his class at Annapolis. The Marine Corps" upper echelon had their eyes on him.

Charles" mother, Jennifer, had just died after a long illness. They had attended her funeral that very morning. William silently gazed out the dark-tinted window, watching the traffic and buildings of San Francisco pass by. It was his duty to inform Charles that he was now a major stockholder of Corvidae Enterprises. One of those enterprises was Corvidae Security, or as one son-of-a-b***h had dubbed them, “The w****s of War.” William thought of Corvidae as peacekeepers for hire. They often protected heads of state in war zones and had stood guard when a new nation"s populous went to the ballot box for the first time. At this moment, they were providing protection for American convoys, freeing the US military to fight in Iraq, where Captain Crow had just finished his second tour.

The limo slowed, and then pulled into a long, brick-paved driveway leading to a nineteenth-century Victorian home. Two men, appearing to be gardeners, lay down their tools and moved parallel with the car. Stopping at the front entrance, the limo driver got out and moved back to William"s door to open it. One of the gardeners opened the opposite side door for Charles. William spoke to the bodyguard, gave a wave to the gardeners, and stepped around to Charles. “It"s been a long day. Let"s get you settled, and then we"ll have something to eat.

Inside the house, Charles followed his Uncle to a door at the end of a long, wide hallway. William turned the knob, and the heavy door opened smoothly into a suite of three furnished rooms. “This is yours for as long as you wish to use it, Charles. At one time, this was your great grandfather"s office. It"s gone through many changes since then, but I think you"ll find it comfortable.”

Charles walked to the green marble fireplace where a sword with an ivory hilt and matching scabbard hung above the mantel. Above the sword hung a double-barreled shotgun with large hammers. The short ten gauge barrels looked like dual cannons. A piece of black ebony, carved into the image of a crow in flight, was inlaid into the stock.

“Where did you get these Uncle Bill? That"s a real Mameluke sword! I have a similar one, issued to me by the Marine Corps, for parades.”

“They belonged to your Great Grandpa, Jedadiah Crow. The sword is an original Mameluke given to him by a Marine, and the shotgun belonged to an outlaw.”

Charles turned to his Uncle, “An outlaw?”

“Your Great Grandpa Jed was a lawman back in the 1800s. That shotgun wounded him twice and saved his life a couple of times. Now let"s get you settled. Supper is at six. We can talk later.”

Later, after supper, they moved to the living room. Uncle Bill lit his pipe and offered Charles a brandy.

“Do you have a beer? I have a real taste for a cold one.”

Bill pressed a button near the fireplace, and a manservant came into the room. “Sir?”

“Bring Charles a glass of Heineken.”

The beer arrived in a frosted glass with a thick head of foam. Charles took an appreciative swallow and then saluted his uncle with the glass as he wiped the foam from his upper lip.

“Charles, I have some things to tell you that will surprise you, and may even make you angry. However, I want you to know that what we did, right or wrong, was done out of love for you.”

Charles" blue eyes became serious as he settled back in his seat.

“Charles, you are now a wealthy man. When your mother died, you inherited immense wealth; and with that, responsibility, should you choose to accept it. As you know, your father died when you were just a baby.”

“Yes, he died at sea,” responded Charles. “Mom told me.”

“Charles, your father, was killed while leading an attack on pirates.”

Charles mulled it over in his mind quietly, trying to absorb what he had just heard.

“When your father was killed, your mother asked me not to discuss your father or the family with you. Her fear was that you would follow in his footsteps and get yourself killed. Her wish was for you to go to college and become your own man.”

“What was my father involved in that frightened my mother so much that she would lie to me? I grew up thinking he was an executive for a shipping company.”

“Your father and I owned, and now, you and I own that shipping corporation. It"s been in the family for over 120 years. We also own several other enterprises. We"ve had a business presence in China since before the Boxer Rebellion. Corvidae Enterprises has branches around the world. We"ve developed great influence here in the States and with several foreign governments over the years. It"s time you learned who you are. Then you can make your own decision as to what you want to do.”

“Tell me about my father and why my mother was so afraid of him.”

“First of all, your mother had no fear of your father. She loved him with all her heart. She fell in love with him thinking she could deal with who and what he was, but she found she couldn"t. She was afraid of what he was, not who he was. That"s why she left him. I think for you to understand, I need to start at the beginning. Through word of mouth and a great deal of research, we think it all began in Ireland in the early 1800s with a man named Brian Pringle.”