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.’”
“Was it true?”
“I don’t know. As near as I can tell, no one ever looked into it.”
“That’s fifty years ago. What’s changed? What made you decide to go looking for a cave in America, while sitting here on a cruise ship in the South China Sea?”
Kismet drew a breath. The more he talked about it, the more he wondered about that himself. Earlier, in the privacy of his own thoughts, the idea of beating Dr. Leeds to the prize, or maybe finding something that might draw Prometheus out of the shadows seemed so much more desirable. But really, what was he looking for? The secret of eternal life? Yet, as preposterous as that sounded, there was no denying the eerie similarity between the cavern Fortunato had described to Rodriguez, and the one Henry Fortune had written of more than 300 years later.
The letter was addressed with an anonymous: