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.
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.