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.