Fortune Favors (22 page)

With a disdainful grunt, Leeds thrust the old woman away and wheeled on Elisabeth’s hostage. The blade came up in a glittering arc and then held there, poised above the young man’s neck like the Sword of Damocles.

Kismet threw caution to the wind and charged forward, brandishing his pistol. “Back off, Leeds!”

Elisabeth gasped in surprise, but recovered with unexpected speed. She brought her own pistol around, aimed at Kismet’s chest, and in the same fluid motion, stepped between him and Dr. Leeds, placing herself directly in his sights, and at the same time, spoiling his shot at the occultist.

Leeds seemed not to have notice the intrusion. There was a strange hunger in his eyes as he stared down at the captive, contemplating him like the victim in some bloody ritual sacrifice. In a rush of understanding, Kismet realized that was exactly what the young man was about to become. This wasn’t about torture or coercion any more.

He tightened his finger on the trigger, felt it start to move. He could see the hesitation in Elisabeth’s eyes. She wasn’t going to shoot, not intentionally at least, but she wasn’t going to move either. “If you think I won’t shoot you—”

Before he could finish the threat, Leeds’ blade hand began its final, horrible descent.

* * *

As soon as Kismet started down the drive, Annie and her father picked up and began moving as well. They didn’t approach the house; it was only about four hundred meters, and with Higgins’ scope and the pair of spotter’s binoculars Annie had grabbed from the back of the Ford, they didn’t need to be any closer to see what was going on. They just needed a better line of sight. They hiked across the road and out across the manicured cemetery lawn, careful not to trip on any of the low headstones—or step on any graves—and took a position facing the large front window of the house they’d seen Elisabeth Neuell enter.

Annie did a quick three-hundred-sixty degree scan, to ensure that none of Leeds’ hirelings were creeping up behind them, then turned back to the house and peered through the binoculars. The window was partly obscured by slat blinds, but when she moved her head sideways, ever so slightly, she found that she could see right through them.

She easily picked out the familiar figure of Elisabeth Neuell. Annie’s breath caught in her throat as she realized that the actress was holding a gun to someone’s head. The rest of the tableau resolved quickly. Dr. Leeds, tall and silver-haired, was menacing another captive...an old woman.

“Bollocks. Dad, they’re—”

“I see it,” Higgins cut her off. His voice was taut, and in the silence that followed, she could hear his breathing, deep and steady, just the way he’d taught her. Take a breath, let it out, find your target, take a breath, let it out...

She braced herself in anticipation of the shot, but it didn’t happen. Her father continued to breathe rhythmically, his right eye glued to the scope. In the interminable silence, Annie realized why he hadn’t yet pulled the trigger. He had been a soldier, a steely-eyed killer, but was he that person any more? Could he kill this way—not some enemy soldier on a foreign battlefield, but someone he knew?

She forced herself to do another quick sweep of their surroundings—still no sign of anyone else in the cemetery—then peered through the binoculars again.

Something had changed.

Elisabeth was now pointing her gun toward some unseen target...Kismet! And Dr. Leeds was now standing over her former hostage, his upraised hand gripping a blade.

“My God! He's going to cut him, Dad!”

The hand with the knife started to descend.

Higgins let out a breath...

And squeezed the trigger.

TEN

There was a loud crack as something punched through the window.

Just over Elisabeth’s shoulder, Kismet saw Leeds’ hand explode in a spray of red flesh and broken steel. Bits of the blade flew across the room, embedding in the wall in the same instant that the sound of the shot buffeted the fractured window pane.

Dr. Leeds stared down at the ravaged flesh where his right hand had been, a look of amazed detachment on his face. The bullet had blasted through the small bones of his hand, virtually severing the appendage through the middle of his palm. His fingers dangled uselessly from the bloody ribbons of flesh that had survived the trajectory of the thirty-caliber slug.

Elisabeth held her stance, blocking Kismet’s way, but looked back at her associate in mute horror, unsure of what to do.

Leeds just stood there for a moment, dumbfounded. Then, he began to laugh.

Kismet bolted forward, ducking under Elisabeth’s gun barrel, and snared her wrist, twisting it until the pistol fell from her nerveless fingers. She gave a yelp, then wrenched free of his grip, fleeing to take refuge behind the wounded occultist. Leeds continued laughing, seemingly oblivious to the pain.

Kismet advanced, holding the Glock trained on his adversary, but before he could close the distance, the occultist brought something from his pocket. Kismet pulled the trigger, but Leeds was already moving, and as the bullet flew harmlessly past his head, he hurled the object—a glass ampoule filled with some kind of gray powder—to the floor.

Brilliant white fire exploded in the center of the room, blinding Kismet momentarily. He triggered the pistol again into the expanding miasma of black smoke, then checked his fire; there were at least two people in this house he didn’t want to kill, and blinded by the flash and smoke, there was no way to tell the difference.

Holstering the pistol, he plunged forward to where he thought the young man was. His ears were ringing from the discharge of the pistol and the detonation of Leeds’ flash grenade, but he could hear shouting, the voice of the young man, calling out a name.

“Candace!”

“I’m here.”

As the fumes cleared, he saw the two now-freed captives huddled in front of a sofa, but there was no sign of Elisabeth or Leeds, save for a trail of blood leading outside. He knelt in front of them, and for just an instant, flashed back to a night more than twenty years earlier, when he had attempted to offer comfort to victims of violence. This time at least, he’d been able to do more than just ease their passage.

“It’s okay,” he said in his most soothing tone. “I’m here to help.”

“What do you want?” demanded the young man, his eyes fixed on the Glock in its holster, visible beneath Kismet’s open jacket. He didn’t sound nearly as distraught as Kismet would have expected.

“Well, I guess I want the same thing that other guy did,” he answered honestly, leaning back in an effort to hide the gun from view and look a little less intrusive. “But I’m not going to threaten you to get it.”

“Figures,” was the disdainful reply.

“Joe!” This sharp interjection came from the old woman. “You mind your manners, now. This man just came to our rescue. The least we can do is hear him out.”

Joe didn’t seem terribly impressed with the old woman’s exhortations. “Don’t take that tone.” He seemed poised to continue in that vein, but a noise in the vestibule instantly silenced him.

Kismet drew his pistol and spun on his heel, but before he could take aim, Higgins and Annie stepped into view. He eased the gun back into its sheath and glanced back at the householders. “It’s okay. They’re with me.”

The young man—Joe—gave a snort.

The old woman spoke again, with the same reproving tone. “Joe. These folks helped us.”

Kismet turned to Higgins. “Leeds?”

“Gone,” Annie announced with some satisfaction. “They made it to their car and took off out of here like they were on fire.”

Kismet shook his head ruefully as he turned again to the pair—mother and son, if he’d overheard correctly. “He’ll be back.”

Joe stood, raising the woman to her feet, and then sagged onto the sofa. “All right. Just who in the hell are you, anyway?”

Kismet paused a beat. Given the violence that had just occurred, the man’s distrust was warranted, and unless he did something to change the mood, it was unlikely that he’d get any kind of meaningful cooperation.
Start at the beginning
, he thought.

He looked intently at each of them in turn. “Joe, right? And Candace? I’m Nick Kismet. I work for a United Nations cultural agency. Several years ago, a man named Henry Fortune contacted my agency about...an unusual discovery.” He thought he detected just a hint of a reaction, but whether it was to the mention of Fortune’s name or the ‘discovery,’ he couldn’t say.

“When we attempted to follow up on it, we got another letter from a Joseph King.” He gestured toward Candace. “That would be your father?”

She nodded slowly.

“Mr. King indicated that Fortune had died, and that seemed to be the end of it.”

“Henry Fortune died in the 1960’s,” the woman said. “You’re chasing after something that happened fifty years ago?”

“Some new information has come up.” Kismet scrutinized the woman’s face. “Did you know him?”

“I remember Henry,” she said, her tone not quite wistful. She exchanged a knowing look with the young man, almost as if asking permission to elaborate.

Kismet thought he was gaining a measure of trust, and decided to give them a moment. He turned to Higgins. “Al, why don’t you try to establish some kind of secure perimeter?”

The former Gurkha seemed to understand what Kismet was really asking, and beckoned his daughter to follow him back outside. “Come on, Annie girl. Let’s go keep an eye out for unwanted visitors.”

When they had left, Kismet eased into an adjacent chair and turned to the old woman. “The man that assaulted you wants Fortune’s discovery. You’ve already seen what he’s willing to do to find it. Whether or not you actually know anything doesn’t matter to him right now; you’re in danger. You need to leave here. At the very least, you should call the police.”

Calling the police ought to have been their first reaction as soon as they had ascertained that the danger was past, and yet strangely, the pair hadn’t shown the slightest inclination to do that.

Joe glanced at the wall. The spatter of blood and metal fragments was the only real evidence that the whole thing hadn’t been just a bad dream. “Ain’t callin’ the police,” he said quietly after a moment. “Call them, an’ then we’d have to answer questions that I ain’t inclined to answer.”

He turned back to Kismet. “You saved us. I suppose that counts for something. So let’s just cut to the chase. We know what you’re lookin’ for.”

Candace gasped apprehensively. “Joe, you sure about this?”

The young man nodded. “It’s been a secret too long. Is it Henry Fortune you’re looking for? Or the Fountain of Youth?”

* * *

Elisabeth sucked greedily at the cigarette, holding the nicotine-laced smoke in her lungs for several seconds before exhaling out the open car window. The breeze of their passage down the Savannah Highway snatched the fumes away, but a lingering trace of the odor permeated the car. During their time together, Leeds had forbade her from smoking in his presence, but right now she didn’t give a damn what he thought, and besides, he seemed to have other things on his mind.

She’d only gotten a brief glimpse of the wound in the moments following their escape from the cemetery. Leeds had quickly wrapped his injured hand in a now thoroughly blood-soaked cloth, but she’d seen enough to know that the pain must have been debilitating. The unseen sniper’s bullet had torn off half his hand. Nevertheless, Leeds had calmly led her from the smoke filled house and back to their rented sedan where he’d gotten in the passenger’s side and instructed her to drive, supplying her with a destination as soon as they were outside the cemetery gates.. Except for the telltale beads of perspiration on his brow, Leeds seemed completely indifferent to the experience.

Maybe not completely indifferent
, she thought.
He’s not bitching about me smoking.

She tossed the cigarette butt out the window and took the exit Leeds had earlier indicated. As she negotiated the main streets, he spoke again, guiding her through turns and into a residential neighborhood like some kind of living GPS device.

“Stop here,” Leeds announced after directing her to turn into a typically nondescript suburban cul-de-sac.

Elisabeth eased the sedan to the curb and Leeds promptly got out, protectively cradling his injured right hand, but otherwise moving with his usual self-assuredness. She hastened after him, catching him just as he turned up a concrete path to the front door of a rambling ranch-style home that had seen better days. Without preamble, Leeds stabbed a finger at the doorbell, then impatiently rapped the knuckles of his left hand against the doorframe.

A dog began barking from somewhere inside the house, followed by gruff commands from its owner. The door swung open a moment later to reveal a stocky middle-aged man who studied them carefully through the screen-door—Elisabeth noted that his gaze lingered appreciatively on her—before speaking. “Can I help you folks?”

“I am Dr. John Leeds.” There was, at last, the barest hint of discomfort, or perhaps it was urgency, in his tone. “This is Elisabeth. I have been told that you are a physician. I have been injured...” He held up his right hand, and the movement caused a fat drop of blood to spatter on the concrete at his feet. “I require medical attention.”

The man’s eyes widened. “Well, goddamn...Why did you come here? You should get to the emergency room!”

Leeds pitched his voice low. “This is a bullet wound. I cannot seek treatment through the normal channels. I was assured that you could help me...Dr. Ayak.”

The man went instantly pale. For a moment, he appeared unable to do anything but stare at them, but then he furtively opened the screen and stepped out, pulling both doors shut behind him. When he spoke again, it was in a low hiss. “Now what the devil are you playing at, here? You folks reporters?”

For the first time since she’d been with him, Elisabeth saw Leeds taken aback. “I—we are not.”

“Read about ‘Ayak’ on the Internet, did you?”

Elisabeth couldn’t tell if the man was taunting them, or making a sincere inquiry.