Fortune Favors (29 page)

On hands and knees, he groped for his knife, found it, and was about to stand up when he became aware of another white-robed figure looming over him. The man that had reached the cab first, the one he’d cold-cocked with the
kukri
, had evidently recovered from the blow...and recovered his pistol as well. The gaping barrel of the Magnum was pointing straight at Kismet’s face, and as the latter stared back, helpless in defeat, the shrouded man thumbed back the action and tightened his finger on the trigger.

A shot, then several more...too many too count...thundered in Kismet’s ears.

But the revolver hadn’t discharged.

The man with the big gun flinched as bullets ripped into him and then fell against the guard rail.

In disbelief, Kismet turned toward the source of the shots. Brilliant white light, the beams of a half-dozen or more high intensity LED flashlights, left him nearly blind, but he could just make out the shapes of the advancing group. The men were poised for action, carbines held at the high, ready and trained on him, but they weren’t wearing the makeshift disguises of the bunch that had attacked them at the cemetery. This group wore a different uniform; helmets and body armor, tactical vests with spare magazines and other equipment, all in the distinctive gray and off-white digital camouflage pattern of the United States army’s advanced combat uniform.

THIRTEEN

For the next two hours, Kismet barely moved.

Most of the soldiers had swarmed over the locomotive, ensuring that there were no other hostile elements lurking nearby, but two of their number had remained with him, keeping their M4 carbines raised and ready the whole time. He stayed quiet, and except for a few terse commands, so did they.

Once the security sweep was complete, an army medic in full battle-rattle arrived on the scene to begin assessing casualties. Ignoring Kismet, he went first to the man that had been carrying the revolver. He used a pair of trauma shears to cut away the man’s disguise, revealing the bland face of a younger than middle-aged man with unkempt hair and a short beard. Kismet surreptitiously watched as the medic checked for a pulse, listened for breath sounds, and then repeated the process twice more before glancing up to the stone-faced riflemen and shaking his head.

The man that Kismet had choked out was luckier. Once again, the mask was stripped away, this time to reveal a much younger man, and the medic successfully found a pulse after a few seconds. He moved to the man’s side, giving his security element a better line of fire in case the man came to, and went to work checking for other injuries.

“Broken jaw,” he mumbled, as if dictating to an unseen secretary. He probed some more, repositioning the kid and mopping up blood to see if minor wounds concealed more severe injuries. “Superficial laceration to the upper chest...a lot of bruising...” He looked up again, addressing one of the other soldiers. “He’ll live, but we should evac him to a local facility.”

The soldier nodded and, still keeping his carbine raised with one hand, keyed a radio clipped to his vest and relayed the message.

The medic regarded Kismet with evident apprehension. “I need to check you over.”

Kismet nodded, but said nothing. As far as the medic and the soldiers were concerned, he was a potentially hostile combatant; any attempt to put them at ease would probably just make them even more suspicious.

The medic ticked off the list of Kismet’s injuries, mostly bruises and abrasions. He daubed Betadine onto a few of the deeper cuts and used butterfly sutures to close the wound on Kismet’s shoulder. When he was finished, the medic addressed Kismet with a little less reservation. “You should probably get checked out in the ER as well, but Major Russell wants to talk to you first. You okay with that?”

Kismet nodded again. “I’ll live. And the sooner I get to tell my side of this, the better.”

The medic cocked his head sideways in a knowing gesture, and then went to work preparing the unconscious man for transport. Once the patient was borne away on a field litter, the long silence resumed, and Kismet waited some more.

The night air was just starting to get uncomfortably chilly when another soldier climbed up onto the walkway. This man had removed his battle armor but still wore a holstered semi-automatic pistol on his hip. There was a gold oak leaf badge on his patrol cap and the name tape on the front pocket of his uniform blouse read “Russell.”

Despite being sore, tired and frustrated by the long period of inactivity, Kismet did his best to present a cooperative demeanor. “Major Russell.”

The officer cut him off with a brusque wave. “It’s Kismet, right?” He spoke with a clipped but precise style, accentuating his faint southern drawl. “Do you have any idea what you have done here? I have got a ten mile section of railroad that’s now a crime scene, and now all train traffic on the eastern seaboard is at a dead stop.”

Kismet bit back an equally rancorous reply and focused on what the major had, perhaps unintentionally, revealed. “I hope the fact that you know my name means that you’ve talked to my friends already. Are they okay?”

Russell’s mouth twitched a little, as if fighting away a smile. “They’re fine and in a lot better shape than you.”

“So I assume they’ve already told you that we aren’t the bad guys. The only reason we were even on this train is because we were being chased by the guys in white sheets. We were just lucky that this train happened to be transporting military equipment.”

“
You
were lucky,” Russell scoffed. “Regulations require an escort when our equipment is transported by civilian carriers, but it’s just a preventative measure. If the crazies know that there are soldiers guarding the trucks, they’ll think twice about hijacking them. Never in my wildest dreams did I believe someone would actually try.”

Kismet thought the officer’s manner seemed more irritated than confrontational. “I don’t think your cargo had anything to do with this.”

“No, I suppose not.” Russell put his hands on his hips and sighed. “That bunch in the pickup lighted off like jack rabbits when they got a look at us. Local law enforcement is tracking them down now. Probably not part of any organized group—the local Klan chapter was quick to deny any involvement and I am inclined to believe them.”

“Does it matter?”

Russell actually laughed. “More than you might think. If this was an organized attack, and not a bunch of rowdies jacked up on meth and moonshine, then it’s domestic terrorism, and that means we break out a can of bureaucratic alphabet soup.”

“It wasn’t just ‘rowdies.’”

“That’s what your friends said.”

Kismet tried unsuccessfully not to frown. What exactly had Higgins and Annie told this man? Had they mentioned the goal of their quest? Their protestations of innocence would surely be undermined by the revelation that they were really nothing more than treasure hunters. He tried changing the subject. “Can I see them?”

Russell crossed his arms over his chest, his expression at once perturbed and thoughtful. “I guess that depends on whether you can give me one good reason not to simply turn you over to Homeland Security. I’d just as soon do that, and let them sort this mess out.”

“I don’t know what more I can add.” Kismet was choosing his words carefully, but at the same time trying to avoid sounding evasive. “My friends and I are looking for something...call it a historical research project. There’s a man out there named John Leeds who wants to beat us to it. We were in the middle of an interview with someone when Leeds and this bunch of ‘rowdies’ drove up and tried to kill us. We ran into the woods and saw the train. They followed. End of story.”

Russell didn’t seem remotely convinced, but he didn’t turn away. “Tell me more about this project you’re working on. If this Leeds fellow is willing to kill, it must be...what, worth a lot of money? Or is it something else?”

Kismet couldn’t tell if Russell was sincere. As both a former army intelligence officer and an attorney, he knew a little about interrogations and leading questions. But it wasn’t like there was any trap to fall into; Leeds was the bad guy, they’d done nothing wrong, and if push came to shove, he’d argue that in court, never mind how preposterous it sounded. But Kismet didn’t really get the sense that the major was trying to trick him. Maybe he really didn’t know; perhaps Higgins and Annie had discreetly stayed mum regarding the more fantastic aspects of their mission. He was still trying to figure out how to explain it when Russell’s expression abruptly hardened.

The officer frowned as he took a mobile phone from his pocket and glanced at the illuminated display. “Excuse me,” he said, and then stepped down from the locomotive and retreated several paces away before taking the call.

Kismet could hear the major’s voice and make out a few words—he distinctly heard the man say “yes sir” several times—but the topic of the conversation remained a mystery.

At length, Russell lowered the phone and dropped it back in his pocket with an almost quizzical expression. He addressed the soldiers who had been holding Kismet at gun point, ordering them to stand down then he turned to Kismet. “Let’s go find your friends.”

* * *

Alex Higgins was still trying to process the abrupt change in the demeanor of the soldiers who had been guarding them when he saw Kismet and Major Russell enter the car.

For two hours, he and Annie had been held at gunpoint, separated at different ends of the decades old steerage class passenger coach. Russell had interrogated them each in turn, relentlessly asking the same questions over and over again. For his part, Higgins had kept his answers short, cautious about revealing too much information, and resisting the impulse to ask about Kismet. He knew his daughter well enough to believe that she would do the same. Though obviously dissatisfied with their answers, the officer had eventually left the car, with he and Annie still sequestered.

Then, in response to a radioed message, everything had changed. The soldiers had relaxed their guard and allowed them to sit together, and a few moments later, Kismet appeared looking considerably worse for wear, but moving freely, without any sign of duress.

Annie burst from her seat and threw her arms around him. Kismet winced but gamely returned the embrace. Higgins too rose to greet him, but felt a surge of anxiety at the sudden shift in mood. Something about the whole situation bothered him.

Kismet looked to Russell. “Are you letting us go?”

The major turned away for a moment to converse with another soldier, but then gestured for the three to sit. “You’re not in custody,” he began. “Of course there are still a lot of questions to be answered, but no one thinks you’ve done anything wrong.”

A long line of soldiers began filing into the car.

“Are we leaving?” Higgins asked.

Russell nodded. “I’ve been ordered to get this train to its destination, ASAP.”

“So much for a ten-mile long crime scene,” Kismet muttered. “By the way, I lost my Glock somewhere between here and where we got on. Might be...ah, something else on the tracks too.”

“Something else?”

“Something or someone.”

“Shit.” Russell rubbed the bridge of his nose as if trying to ward off a migraine, then shook his head. “Someone else’s problem now.”

“But you’re taking us along?” Annie said.

 Russell’s stare remained fixed on Kismet. “It seems this man, Leeds, has attracted some attention at the highest levels. He’s a person of interest in a crime spree that occurred in New York’s Central Part a couple days ago...”

Annie broke into a coughing fit.

“And there are a few other red flags associated with him. He’s got indirect ties to a number of hate groups. Homeland believes he might be involved in some kind of terror plot. And obviously, he’s targeted the three of you.”

“So when we get where we’re going, you’ll hand us off to Homeland Security?” Kismet asked.

Russell drummed his fingers on his knee. “You work for the United Nations, right? It would appear that affords you a rather unique status. A sort of diplomatic immunity.”

Kismet frowned suspiciously. “I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

“Be that as it may, someone above my pay grade has made it clear that I am not to interfere with you, or whatever it is you are doing, in any way. You are, to put it simply, free to go. In fact, if you really want to, you can hop right off this train and go on your merry way.”

“Leeds is still out there,” Annie intoned. “Still after us.”

“Is that the plan?” Kismet pressed. “Cut us loose in order to draw Leeds into the open?”

Russell managed a wry grin. “That possibility was discussed. However, my orders are to give you safe escort...to wherever it is you are going, and for as long as you need it.”

Higgins kept a stony expression and watched carefully as Kismet digested the major’s statement. Did Russell know what they were looking for? Did the offer hide some ulterior motive—an attempt by the government to seize control of the Fountain of Youth, if it existed to be found? Or was there some other player at work?

It was just like Iraq; one minute they were up shit creek, and the next...?

Kismet shook his head. “Let me get this straight. You’ve been ordered to provide a military security escort for us? I think the Posse Comitatus Act makes that illegal.”

“Ordinarily, it would require special circumstances—a declared state of emergency, for example—for regular army troops to be deployed domestically. We, however, are a Georgia National Guard Unit, which means we can also be activated by the governor. There’s a reciprocity agreement that allows us to operate most anywhere in the US. I don’t pretend to completely understand the finer points, but my orders are clear.” He paused a beat, and nodded meaningfully. “Whatever you need.”

Higgins thought again about what Leeds had told him in Central Park.

Prometheus
...

Kismet has become their bloodhound, tracking down the world’s mysteries so that Prometheus can hide them away.