Kismet weighed this assertion carefully. He didn’t doubt that he was reading a contemporary account, written by someone living in the mid-seventeenth century. But it didn’t necessarily follow that the account was the whole truth. Fontaneda…or Fortunato…might have been a con man, just like many of the alchemists and mystics that roamed Europe, claiming to be immortal. Where was his proof?
He went back to reading, curious to see what Fontaneda had done next. Not surprisingly, after fleeing Saint Augustine, he returned once more to his refuge in the cavern where he had found the Fountain of Youth.
From that point forward, through the end of the volume, the entries were nothing more than the meandering thoughts of a fugitive living in self-imposed exile. Kismet closed the book and reached for another, but then hesitated. It would take weeks to read through them all. He needed to get this collection away, find somewhere safe, away from Leeds’ relentless machinations. Unless…
Kismet turned to his hosts. “You’ve read these?”
Joe shrugged noncommittally.
“You said you knew about the Fountain,” Kismet pressed.
“He told us about it,” Candace volunteered. “I mean, back before he…”
She trailed off, but her meaning was clear. Fontaneda, the man who had later reinvented himself as Henry Fortune, had told Candace and her father, Joseph King, about the Fountain. Why he had chosen to unburden himself remained as much a mystery as his death, and Kismet was burning with curiosity about both of those questions. There was something more to all of this, something he was missing, but it seemed unlikely that he would get answers from this pair. “Did he tell you where to find it? Is that information here?”
His hosts exchanged a meaningful glance, and then Joe spoke again. “No. But there is a map.”
Kismet felt a thrill of anticipation, coupled with frustration at the young man’s evasiveness. “Where is this map?”
Joe smiled cryptically. “Like that letter said, he took his secret to the grave.”
“The map is buried with him? In his coffin?”
“Well it ain't quite that simple—”
Before he could complete the thought, Annie burst into the room, visibly alarmed. “Someone’s coming!”
ELEVEN
Kismet gestured for the others to get down and then moved to the side of the big window and peered through the blinds. Headlights were visible, at least three different vehicles, rolling up the drive toward the house. If it had been only one car, he might have been inclined to disregard its significance; someone visiting the grave of a loved one perhaps, or coming to make arrangements for a funeral. Three vehicles though…definitely not a coincidence.
“Annie, get your dad back in here.” He turned to Joe and Candace, but before he could say another word, a loud crack reverberated through the house, followed by an equally loud report. More shots followed, and suddenly the window exploded inward in a spray of glass shards. Kismet hit the floor as bullets began tearing into the wallboard opposite the window and continued slamming into the exterior.
Higgins appeared from an interior doorway, having evidently broken in through the back door and made his way through the house. “We're surrounded.” He shouted. “A dozen or so men on foot flanked us before the trucks showed up.”
A dozen? Kismet wondered where Leeds had managed to pull together an army on such short notice.
The incoming fire slacked off momentarily, and almost too late, Kismet grasped the significance of this. He spun around to face the vestibule area, just as a pair of figures came through the front door, brandishing shot guns. Both were clad in long gown-like white garments that appeared to have been stitched together from bed sheets, replete with full-head masked cowls.
Kismet did not let his disbelief stop him. As the lead figure lowered the gaping muzzle of the shotgun, aiming it in his direction, Kismet squeezed off a controlled pair with the Glock.
The white robed figure staggered back into his trailing comrade, the second man’s shroud now spattered with fine droplets of red. Kismet brought the pistol up and triggered another round, but the second man was already scrambling back, out of the vestibule. A moment later, the fusillade resumed.
As he backed away, Kismet saw Joe staring in disbelief at the motionless form that lay sprawled across the entry, and he knew the young man wasn’t transfixed by the sight of a dead man, but rather by his distinctive apparel. There was a look of terror in the young man’s eyes. Like he’s seen a ghost, Kismet thought.
“We don’t know what this means,” he shouted, trying to break the spell. “Focus. We need to get out of here!”
The attack had come so swiftly that Kismet was only now beginning to think strategically. Leeds needed the information that these people possessed if he ever expected to locate the Fountain. The unrestrained fury of the assault had to be a ploy — a shock and awe tactic just like the white robes — designed to crush their morale and force a surrender…
Something crashed through the tattered remains of the blinds and hit the floor in the front room. The odor of gasoline filled the room and an instant later, the burning rag stuffed into the end of the Molotov cocktail ignited with a whoosh.
Okay, maybe not a ploy.
For a few seconds, the flames were concentrated in the area where the firebomb had landed, consuming the spilled fuel, but the blaze quickly spread, blossoming out in a circle from the point of ignition…a circle that blocked all access to the steamer trunk with Hernando Fontaneda’s diaries. Even as he started toward the chest, he saw that it was too late to retrieve them, and if they didn’t do something quickly, it would be too late to do much of anything.
“There's another way out,” Candace shouted over the din of gunfire, her voice stronger than Kismet would have thought possible given her years. She crawled to the hearth and then gripped the bricks. To Kismet’s surprise, the elevated platform rose a few inches, as if on a hinge. Joe reached her side a moment later, adding his strength to hers, and the hearth swung up to reveal an empty space, like a waiting sarcophagus.
“Here!” Joe shouted, waving to Kismet urgently. He then helped Candace climb into the newly created opening and disappeared into it after her.
Even from across the room, Kismet could see that the space was more than just a recess; the hole concealed by the hearth was a passage to…what exactly, he didn’t know, but it had to be a be better than the alternatives of being shot or burning up.
“Annie! Al!” He shouted, trying to locate them through the growing curtain of smoke. “Fire escape!”
Higgins emerged from the miasma, dragging Annie by the arm, and unceremoniously dropped her into the dark void.
A wall off flames rose up behind Kismet, blocking the path to the front door. The incoming gunfire ceased immediately, and over the roaring of the fire, Kismet could hear Leeds’ voice, stridently raging at the ineptitude of his accomplices. He knew what was coming next.
A white-robed shape appeared across the room, emerging from the interior of the house, evidently having entered through the back just as Higgins had done. The figure was hazy through the smoke, but he evidently saw Kismet and brought his gun around.
Kismet fired the Glock into the smoke cloud, driving the man back long enough to clear a path to the hearth, and then dove headlong into the dark unknown.
It was like falling into another world. The darkness was almost absolute; a square of dim light — fire partly obscured by smoke — from the opening directly over his head was the only illumination, and the only way for him to even begin judging the dimensions of his surroundings. He could tell that the opening was about eight feet overhead, though he could have guessed that from the plunge. As for the rest, it might have been a wide open cellar or a tunnel — there was no way to tell. In the faint orange glow, he could make out Higgins and Annie, no more than a few steps away. The old Gurkha seemed ready to face whatever fate threw at him next, but Annie looked visibly anxious, almost distraught.