Fortune Favors (11 page)

Kismet heard Elisabeth scream beside him, and his gaze flickered toward her. A second figure was moving toward them, a second curved blade reflecting silver light. Above him, the sour-breathed laughter of the assassin beat at his face like a physical assault.

Unable to force back the knife-wielder, Kismet changed tactics. He contorted his body in order to get a leg up around the man's neck. Catching the killer's throat in the crook of his knee, he drew back, pulling the attacker into a scissors hold. As his left leg came up, trapping the surprised assailant behind the shoulders, Kismet heard the dreadful sound of snapping vertebrae and knew instantly that he had broken the man's neck.

The curved knife fell from the man's lifeless fingers and dropped directly toward Kismet’s heart. He twisted, trying to avoid its downward plunge, and felt the sharp tip score his flesh before falling away.

There was an intense flare of pain, but Kismet ignored it, kicking the limp corpse away, even as he reached out to deflect the attack of the fallen man's accomplice. He grasped the second man's wrists, arresting his double-fisted stab, and redirected the man’s momentum so that he fell forward, onto the bed and atop its occupants. Kismet drove his right elbow into the man's face, and twisted his wrists, forcing him to drop his knife.

The assassin fell from the bed, rolling onto the floor and howling in pain as he cradled his injured forearms. Kismet sprang over Elisabeth and launched himself at the man who looked up in time to see Kismet looming over him. He rolled away and Kismet fell flat on the floor.

The attacker was up in an instant, racing for the doorway. Kismet rose to hands and knees, but immediately realized that the assailant was beyond his grasp. He grabbed the wooden chair tucked under the writing desk, and pitched it across the room to strike the retreating assassin legs. The man fell backward, his weight snapping the chair like matchwood. Kismet leapt after him, intent on catching the man—maybe for questioning, maybe not; he hadn’t decided yet—but the man recovered too quickly, extracting himself from the wreckage of the chair and throwing the door open. Light from the corridor spilled into the room, momentarily blinding Kismet, and in that split second, the intruder escaped.

Kismet took a step out the door, but went no further. He stood in the corridor, stark naked, feeling vaguely foolish. There was no sign of the attacker.

As he stepped back inside the stateroom, Kismet flipped on the overhead light. Elisabeth was sitting up in bed, the sheet pulled up around her breasts. She seemed to have regained her composure and was taking a cigarette from a metal case. Kismet walked around the bed to where the body of the first assassin lay. He knelt beside the fallen man and began searching the body for some clue as to what precipitated the attack.

“How did they get in?” asked Elisabeth, exhaling a stream of smoke.

“They must have been in here before we came in. Probably hiding under the bed.”

“You mean they were here while we—” She didn't have to finish the question, or wait for his reply before grimacing.

“I thought I had managed to sneak on board without anyone noticing,” continued Kismet, rolling the body onto its side to examine the man's back pockets. The search proved fruitless. He leaned back on his haunches and sighed. Then, his expression darkened as a new thought occurred to him. “Unless they weren't after me.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Elisabeth took another drag on the cigarette. For the first time, Kismet wondered how much of her cool demeanor was merely the result of her professional skills.

“Think about it.” Before she could defend herself from the oblique accusation, Kismet rose and dug a fresh ExOficio shirt and a pair of cargo pants from his duffel bag. He also took out his Glock, loaded a magazine and chambered a round, and tucked it into his waistband at the small of back.

“Going somewhere?” asked Elisabeth.

“Our friend here is getting off before the next port.” He lifted the assassin's corpse, looping the man's stiffening arm across his shoulders. As an afterthought, he picked up the curved daggers the attackers had wielded. A cursory inspection revealed them to be crudely made and not worth keeping. He tucked them both into the dead man's belt. The body hung awkwardly against him, sagging dead weight, but Kismet managed to shuffle him toward the door. As he did, he felt a flare of pain in his chest. Blood was welling up from the stab wound, and though it was barely larger than a pinprick, an area the size of his fist was aching just to the right of his heart. He didn’t want to think about what sort of germs might be starting to colonize there, but disinfecting the cut would have to wait until he got back. “Be sure to lock the door.”

* * *

Elisabeth watched him leave without saying a word. When he was gone she lowered her head to her knees and began shaking uncontrollably, but managed to pull herself together a few moments later, and finished the cigarette.

Nevertheless, she almost screamed when an unexpected knock came at the door.

* * *

As Kismet dragged the lifeless form through the halls, careful to avoid attracting attention, he wrestled with the puzzle of the attack. He knew that, at least throughout Southeast Asia, he was probably a wanted man, but he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more to the situation. If the two assassins had followed him, why had they waited so long to show themselves? Had they simply been waiting aboard the ship, expecting him to reunite with Higgins? If that was the case, they would also have known that Elisabeth was using his stateroom. The more he pondered it, the more convinced he was that Elisabeth herself was the target of the attack. Remembering that a second assassin still roamed the decks lent urgency to his errand.

His feelings for Elisabeth remained problematic. The unquestionable physical attraction he felt for her was undiminished, yet he was certain that she was once again using him, or worse, setting him up for another betrayal.

He felt a pang of concern also for Higgins. Perhaps in helping the actress escape, his old comrade in arms had also earned a death mark. He had no doubt the big Kiwi could take care of himself in a fight, but the assassins had struck from out of nowhere. Kismet recognized that he owed his own escape, more than anything else, to sheer luck; if he had not glimpsed the movement of shadow in the stateroom, both he and Elisabeth would now be as dead as the man whom he was dragging toward the aft deck.

Leaning the assassin's body against the railing, he made a careful visual sweep of the deck and the portholes of the next deck up. No one seemed to be up and about on the ship. Kismet casually removed the chains that blocked the disembarkation gate and helped the assassin on the next step of his journey. The limp shaped was instantly swallowed by the dark water.

When he got back to the stateroom, he knocked, hoping that Elisabeth had followed his parting advice to lock the door. When she did not reply, he tried the latch. The portal swung open, revealing a vacant room.

Wisps of smoke hung in the air, drifting from a nearly extinguished cigarette in an ashtray on the nightstand beside the bed. The sheets curled around the memory of a female body, still warm from her presence, but Elisabeth was gone.

* * *

Despite his vigilance, Kismet’s labors had not gone completely unnoticed. The second assassin, still gingerly holding his broken wrist, watched with growing anger as his brother’s lifeless body was unceremoniously dropped into the sea.

He had no idea who the man—the former Sultana’s lover—was. He and his brother had only been interested in collecting the bounty on Elisabeth Neuell, but right now the blood price was the last thing on his mind. Revenge was the first.

Injured and disarmed, he knew that a frontal assault was out of the question. His new target had already demonstrated unusual skill in hand-to-hand combat. No, he would have to take the man completely by surprise.

With his good hand, he removed his belt and fashioned a slipknot. He would drop the loop over the man’s head and then pull the noose tight. Strangling was one of the easiest ways to kill an opponent with superior size and skill, provided of course the loop could be tightened before the victim had time to react. Once the garrote was set, he would just hold on for about thirty seconds until unconsciousness claimed his victim. He knew this from experience; he had killed this way before.

He shrank back into the shadows as his brother’s killer passed by, and waited a few seconds more, gathering his courage, before emerging from his hiding place. With the garrote in his good hand, he took a deep breath and started forward.

Suddenly, everything in his world spun around crazily. Instead of his target’s retreating back, he found himself almost nose to nose with another man—a man who now tightly held the assassin’s head between his hands. It took a moment for his eyes to focus, a moment in which his head was filled with a sound like pieces of glass being crushed underfoot. Darkness began to swell at the periphery of his vision, eclipsing the features of the man who held him...the man who had twisted his head completely around, snapping his neck at the third cervical vertebrae.

“Sorry, chum.” The killer’s whispered voice was as harsh as the sound of breaking bones. “That one’s mine.”

If the assassin recognized his killer in that last fleeting second, the knowledge died with him. Less than a minute later, he joined his brother in an unmarked watery grave.

FIVE

Kismet awoke to an insistent knocking. His chest was still smarting from the stab wound, but only a crust of dried blood remained to mark the spot. It took him a few moments to recall where he was or how that injury had occurred, but he rolled out of the bed, slipped into his trousers and stood up. All the while, the knocking did not abate.

With his gun in his right hand behind his back, he opened the door.

Alex Higgins stood at the threshold. His eyes registered only the slightest flicker of surprise upon seeing someone other than the woman he believed to be occupying the stateroom. “Morning, mate.”

“Al.” Kismet covertly tucked the gun into his waistband. “Come in.”

Higgins stepped inside and looked around. Kismet saw him staring at the ashtray on the nightstand. Red lipstick painted the end of a single cigarette remnant. “Where’s she gone off to?”

Kismet was awake enough to realize that Higgins must have had some clue as to what had transpired. Nevertheless, he could not tell from the former Gurkha’s demeanor, just how he felt about it.

“She's gone. I don't know where she went.”

“What did you...what did you say to her?” Higgins's voice was suddenly hard, with a bitter accusatory edge.

“It was nothing like that.” Kismet picked his shirt off the floor and slipped it on. “We actually...Well, I'll just say that we came to an understanding. Then things got interesting.” He briefly related the details of the attack, along with his suspicions about the motive behind it. “When I got back she was gone. There was no sign of a struggle. Her clothes and all her luggage were gone, too. If I had to guess, I'd say she left voluntarily.”

“Why would she do that?” complained Higgins. “Especially if these bastards are after her. Doesn't she know we can protect her?”

Kismet shrugged. “I guess she got what she wanted from us.”

“Why are you so quick to judge her?”

Kismet mentally threw up his hands. Higgins had a blind spot for the actress and couldn’t see reason. Admittedly, Kismet too had been enticed by her charms, but the difference was that he had never quite been able to let go of his suspicions about the actress, and so had little difficulty getting over how she had used him. “It doesn't matter now. She's made her choice. And you know as well as I do, that she knows how to take care of herself.”

Higgins frowned but said nothing.

Kismet pulled on his shoes. “Is it too late to get some breakfast?”

Higgins surprised him by chuckling. “Finally, something we can agree on.”

* * *

Kismet had not slept well. He had spent nearly an hour looking for Elisabeth, fearing the worst. Only later did he recognize all the signs that pointed to her leaving on her own. After that, he had tried to sleep, but was haunted by the echo of her presence. He could still smell her on the sheets, and the arousing scent triggered vivid, disquieting memories of their lovemaking, and the brutal aftermath. Eventually, overcome by sheer exhaustion, he had succumbed to sleep. Now, all he really wanted was to leave the Malaysian misadventure behind and get started on the new endeavor which occupied his thoughts, something he intended to do just as soon as the beast in his belly was quieted.

After his third trip to the breakfast buffet, Kismet's mood improved dramatically.
The Star of Muara
hired only the best classically trained chefs, and the coffee, grown in Indonesia, was fabulous. Kismet downed several mugs full, savoring the full-bodied, faintly sweet flavor. With the caffeine coursing through his veins, he felt ready to tackle his new project. He opened his laptop computer and enabled a secure connection to the GHC server.

“Checking with your stock broker?” Higgins quipped.

Kismet smiled and gave a vague nod, but said nothing as he typed the words “Henry Fortune” into the search engine. A few seconds later, he had his answer.

Higgins voice intruded again. “Seriously, mate, what are you looking at? Internet porn?”

Kismet realized that almost ten minutes had passed. “Sorry, it’s a work thing.”

“You’re here because of all these relics, right?”

“Right. I work for the UN. We’re trying to help get everything back where it belongs.” He knew, even as he said it, that his answer sounded evasive. Worse, he felt a pang of guilt at deceiving the man who had once faced certain death at his side. Maybe it was time for a leap of faith. “This is something different though. Sometime in the 1960’s a man named Henry Fortune reported the discovery of a new cave system somewhere in the southern United States. His letter attributed some unique properties to the cavern; in his words: ‘Flames dance on the surface of the water’ of a ‘pool possessed of magnificent properties.’”