Fortune Favors (21 page)

Kismet nodded as he slid into the driver’s seat. He reached over the steering wheel and insinuated inserted the tip of his
kukri
into the gap between the wheel and the steering column. There was an audible click as the locking pin released, and the wheel moved in his hands. “Now we run the gauntlet.”

Higgins nodded weakly. There was no way this was going to work, but then there was also no reason for the Republican Guard to have abandoned their compound. Events were now so far beyond his control, the only reasonable course of action was to keep moving toward whatever was going to happen.

But nothing did happen.

Kismet wandered through the walled enclosure until he found an open gate leading out onto a paved road. The guardhouse beside the gate appeared empty as well, but beyond that, there was at least some evidence that the world had not come to an end without them. Kismet swung the Land Cruiser out onto the road and headed south, away from the city.

* * *

Much of what followed was a blur for Higgins. Several hours and perhaps hundreds of miles slipped by in a pain-induced fugue. He awakened from time to time, mostly when Kismet stopped to top off the petrol from the spare cans mounted to the vehicle’s bumper, but if anything more dramatic than that occurred, it escaped his notice.

In the years to come, Higgins would marvel at the miracle of their escape; it seemed like a religious mystery, something comforting that was meant to be accepted on faith, and which would only be diminished by too many questions.

It would be more than two decades before he would have reason to think about it differently.

PART THREE

Grave Secrets

NINE

The sun was just starting to brush the tops of the trees that lined the west fence as Joe King finished his last pass with the big riding mower, and steered the machine onto the gravel path leading back for the shed. No sooner had he dismounted to throw open the wooden doors when the automated sprinklers activated and droplets of water began falling on the immaculate—and freshly cut—emerald green turf.

Just made it
, he thought as he got back on the mower and coaxed it forward a few more feet, into its parking spot. It had been a busy day. His plan to get an early start on the north lawn had been derailed when, on his way out, he’d noticed some fresh graffiti—the third time in as many weeks. He’d spent the better part of the morning scouring paint off the weathered marble and picking up the litter—fast food wrappers and beer bottles—that had been left behind by the vandals. The first time it had happened, he had called the police, but aside from taking the report and suggesting that maybe some additional security measures were in order, the officer had been of little help. Joe understood. From their point of view, it must have seemed like a victimless crime. Indeed, aside from being put off his schedule a few hours, what harm had been done?

But it wasn’t so much the fact of the vandalism that concerned Joe, as the tone and message of the graffiti: swastikas, triple-Ks, and a variety of slurs ranging from the old classics to some Joe had never heard before and only barely grasped.

What did you expect
? He had thought to himself as he scrubbed the last bits of paint from a tombstone. K
eepin’ one of the oldest cemeteries for black folks in the county. ‘Course the rowdies are gonna make it all about color
.

In the end, he’d managed to get the north lawn cut before the sprinklers came on, and now the defaced graves were the furthest thing from his mind as he pulled the shed doors closed and shackled them with a padlock. He knew it had been a slow day up at the office—folks weren’t, contrary to the old joke, dying to get in, at least not into a plot at the Ashley Rest Memorial Gardens, which suited Joe just fine—and that meant plenty of time for Candace to whip up one of her spectacular suppers. He quickened his pace, skirting along the edge of the stately manor that now served as the chapel, and aimed for the adjoining building, a small but adequate single story house that he and Candace called home.

That was when he saw the visitors.

At first, he thought nothing of it. In an age where people could look up their ancestors on the Internet, it wasn’t unusual for folks to come by the house, asking for directions to the last resting place of a distant relation. But as he drew closer and got a better look at the pair standing on the porch, he felt a tingle of apprehension. A tall man with silver-white hair, dressed entirely in black, and a shapely, poised blonde woman.

White folks almost never came asking for directions.

As he got within earshot of the porch, he slowed to listen in on the exchange and heard the male visitor speaking.

“Good evening, ma’am.” Joe thought the man sounded rather abrupt, rude even, but it might have owed to the fact that there wasn’t the least trace of an accent in his voice. “I am looking for Mr. Joseph King.”

Joe could just see the top of Candace’s head, her wispy gray hair bobbing in the space between the two visitors. “Joe’s my son,” she answered. “Unless of course, you looking for Joe’s granpappy, Mr. King senior. You’ll find him out in the gardens, if you take my meaning.”

“He’s dead.”

Joe felt a chill at the way the man said it, and lurched forward again, gathering his courage to shoo this pair away before they could cause any real trouble.

“That’s right,” Candace continued smoothly, with a confidence and courage borne of her years. “So if your business is with him, then I’d say you came about ten years too late. Now, if they’s nothing else, I’ll bid you kind folks good evenin’.”

The tall man seemed to stiffen, and Joe saw him take a step forward. “Actually, ma’am. Maybe there’s something you can help us with.”

Joe broke into a sprint, bounding up the steps, but whatever demand he had been preparing died on his lips when he caught sight of the small automatic pistol the blonde woman now held pressed against Candace’s abdomen.

The silver-haired man half turned to acknowledge him. “Ah, this must be the junior Mr. King. Perhaps you can help as well.”

Joe drew up short and raised his hands in a gesture of supplication. “Don’t want no trouble now, sir.”

“Nor do I. I just have a few questions, and then I’ll be on my way.” The man offered an icy smile as he gestured for Joe to enter the house. “For your sake, I hope you know the answers.”

“What do you want to know?”

Even as he asked the question, Joe realized the answer, but he still did his best to look surprised when the silver-haired man said simply: “Tell me everything you know about Hernando Fontaneda.”

* * *

“Stop!”

Kismet immediately shifted his foot from the accelerator to the brake pedal, bringing the rented Ford Explorer to an abrupt but controlled stop. They had turned off the main road and onto a long graveled driveway only a few seconds earlier, so there wasn’t much risk of causing a collision, but Higgins’ sudden command nevertheless filled him with apprehension. “What’s wrong?”

Higgins, from the front passenger seat, pointed forward, down the length of the landscaped drive to a cluster of buildings dominated by an immaculate white antebellum manor house. “They’re here already.”

Kismet tried to sharpen his focus, scanning the foreground, perhaps a quarter of a mile distant. A silver sedan was parked in front of the manor—nothing too suspicious about that. Then he caught a glimpse of motion...a flash of golden hair, illuminated by the porch light, disappearing into the doorway of a smaller structure, just as old as the manor house but considerably less elegant, extending out from it like an architectural postscript.

Annie leaned over his shoulder, curious about the unexpected stop, and saw it too. “That bitch,” she snarled.

It was an opinion Kismet shared. He eased off the brake and guided the SUV off the road surface, then turned to his companions. “So, how do we play this?”

Higgins didn’t answer, but instead got out and circled around to open the Explorer’s rear hatch. A moment later, Kismet saw him peering through the scope affixed to a long, matte black bolt action rifle. The business end of the gun was pointed at the porch of the distant house.

“They’re inside,” Higgins announced after a few seconds, lowering the gun. The Kimber Model 8400 Advanced Tactical rifle, equipped with a Trijicon AccuPoint 2.5-10X56 30 millimeter scope, was the former Gurkha’s favorite new toy.

 “Why don’t you go conduct a little recce?” Higgins answered at length. “See what our friends are up to. We can cover you from here.”

“We?” Annie protested.

Higgins patted the polymer stock of the rifle. “Wasn’t talking about you, Annie girl.”

Kismet suppressed a laugh, but then addressed the young woman in a more serious tone. “Actually, I think I should go alone. Your father will watch my back, and you can watch his.”

Annie frowned, but nodded, grasping the tactical rationale behind the decision.

Kismet slid out of the Ford to retrieve his own combat gear—a MOLLE compatible shoulder holster rig which he’d adapted to hold his
kukri
sheath on the side opposite his Glock. He slipped the nylon web straps around his shoulders, checking one last time that everything was secure, and then covered it all up with a loose leather bomber jacket. He tossed a nod to the others, and then set off down the drive toward the house.

He didn’t know what sort of resources Leeds had at his disposal, but judging by the reception committee the occult scholar had arranged in Central Park, he thought it best to stay below the radar. It seemed well within Leeds’ ability to monitor the airports, so instead of a ninety minute flight he opted for the twelve-odd hour long overland route.

Despite the need for urgency, Kismet wasn’t going to let Leeds take him off guard again, so before leaving New York in the rented Ford, he had taken Higgins and Annie on a little shopping spree. He’d grimaced a little at the price tag of Higgins’ weapon of choice; even more costly had been the time spent finding a shooting range where the rifle could be properly zeroed.

“You have to let me zero it,” Higgins had persisted. “Otherwise, what’s the point of buying it?”

Kismet had wondered that very thing when the initial purchase was made, but he was pleased that Higgins seemed to finally be treating Leeds as a real threat. There had been more than a few times when he’d wondered where Higgins’ loyalties lay. He still didn’t know what to make of Higgins’ reaction to the statue of Prometheus at Rockefeller Plaza.

In all the time since that fateful night in Iraq, the one thing Kismet never had cause to question, was the role of the soldiers who had accompanied him. He had always just assumed them to be unwitting pawns in someone else’s game, but Higgins’ reappearance, so close to a trove of priceless artifacts...so close to what might be a connection to the secret of immortality itself...made him question all his assumptions.

His choice of Rockefeller Plaza as a rallying point had been deliberate.

In the early days of his quest to unmask the Prometheus conspiracy, he had quite naturally wound up there, staring at Paul Manship’s gilded bronze statue of the mythic Titan delivering his gift of fire to mankind, wondering if this place...this confluence of corporate power, the home of not one, but several television networks and twenty-four hour news agencies...might not be some kind of beacon for his newfound foe. Perhaps even their headquarters.

His investigations had yielded nothing, and not just at Rockefeller Center, but he had become quite familiar with the place, and had even started to think of the balcony over the ice rink as a sort of sanctuary.

He hadn’t failed to notice Higgins staring at the statue of Prometheus, but the old soldier’s reaction had been impossible to gauge. There was a look of recognition to be sure, but no different than what could be seen in the goggle-eyed gaze of hundreds, perhaps thousands of first time visitors. Prometheus wasn’t exactly the Statue of Liberty, but it wasn’t unreasonable to think that Higgins might have heard about it. What he didn’t question was the look of delight in the soldier’s eyes when he’d picked up the Kimber rifle.

Kismet reached the front porch of the house a few seconds later, but instead of climbing the steps, he crept around its perimeter to see if there was a back entrance that would permit him to go in unnoticed. As he ducked under the broad picture window at the front of the house, he could hear loud voices from within.

“Liar!” raged the occultist. “Fontaneda told your father, and your father told you. I know he did. Now you tell me, or I will cut your heart out.”

The threat was palpably real, even through the double-paned insulated window. It occurred to Kismet that, in all his encounters with Leeds, he had never witnessed the man losing his temper.

“Please sir,” came the hoarse reply, barely audible. “He didn't tell us anything.”

Kismet paused a beat. Had it been a woman’s voice? He started forward again, rounding the corner, and spied a back door to the house. He tried the knob; locked.

With a dismayed frown, he stole back to the front of the house. As he ducked under the window, he heard Leeds threaten again. “Do you love your son? If you don't tell me about Fontaneda, I'll cut his throat.”

“Please,” begged the weak voice. Leeds had used the word ‘father’...was this Joseph King’s daughter? “Please. I've told you what I know. There's nothing else.”

Kismet could sense that something terrible was about to occur inside. He crept onto the porch and touched the knob, turning the handle slowly so as not to betray himself with the click of the latch mechanism. Pistol in hand, he pushed open the door.

There was a short vestibule just beyond the door, and past that a right turn into the sitting room. Kismet could plainly see four figures. He immediately recognized Leeds and Elisabeth, even though their backs were turned. The blonde actress stood with a gun pressed against the temple of a young African American man, while the silver haired occult scholar menaced an older woman, presumably the young man’s mother...and evidently, Joseph King’s daughter. Something glinted in Leeds’ hand...a blade of some kind, a straight razor or a scalpel.