More important even than that, it was she that knew where Kismet and his military escort were going next. “I’ve got a few secrets of my own,” she’d told Leeds. “People in high places who are willing to do whatever I ask.”
That explanation wasn’t strictly speaking the truth in this case, but it was close enough.
Elisabeth envied Leeds’ power, but she too had power, the power to control men — to command them with nothing more than a subtle promise of sexual reward. She rarely fulfilled that promise; to do so would break the puppet strings from which her servants dangled.
But her particular brand of power was a slippery thing. This adventure was proof of that. Dressed in jeans and a man's t-shirt, unable to regularly bathe, check her makeup or keep her hair under control, her visual appeal was diminishing.
There were ways to mitigate that, but it made her think about the real enemy, the irreversible hand of time. Her natural beauty had launched a successful movie career and attracted the notice of one of the wealthiest men on earth, but all of that had been years ago. Botox injections, collagen treatments, even human growth hormones and cosmetic surgery…none of these extraordinary measures could sustain her beauty…her power…more than a few years, a decade at most. The Fountain of Youth would change all of that. It would sustain her power indefinitely.
She hadn’t believed in the Fountain at first; she had other reasons for aligning herself with Leeds. It was not Leeds’ persuasive certitude that had eventually convinced her that it might be real, but rather the fact that Nick Kismet was looking for it too…and seemed poised to find it first.
She found Leeds, dressed as always in black and seemingly impervious to the oppressive humidity, standing at the edge of the camp, gazing south in the direction of the other expedition. His arms were folded across his chest, but she could see a steel hook, barely visible beneath his left elbow, where his right hand had once been.
Leeds had been disdainful of his doctor’s attempt to save his maimed extremity, and as soon as the wound had been stitched, he had asked to be fitted with an artificial hand. The doctor had tried to explain patiently that the injury would have to heal completely — a period of several weeks if there were no complications — before they could begin the equally lengthy process of crafting a custom prosthetic and teaching him how to use it. Leeds rejected the advice, and in the end, the doctor had fitted a simple cuff with a fixed hook over the swollen stump.
Even his disfigurement, and the lethal hardware, Elisabeth found strangely appealing.
Noting her approach, he turned to face her. “Everything is in place,” he observed, a tight smile visible on his face. “You know, my dear, I do believe we would have saved ourselves a good deal of effort by simply leaving Kismet alone, and letting him lead us to the Fountain.”
“Are you admitting to a mistake?” she asked, incredulous. Could it be that the ever implacable and well-rehearsed Dr. Leeds, was cognizant of his human fallibility. If so, perhaps he had other human weaknesses and appetites to which, despite all evidence to the contrary, he was vulnerable.
Leeds’ smile frosted over, but did not vanish. “All things considered, no. He is an unpredictable, dangerous variable. As long as he lives, he threatens the success of our venture. Yet, as fate seems to have given him the lead, I am content to wait.”
“And if he finds it first?”
“My dear, why do you suppose I have been so diligent in trying to exterminate him? At every step he has proven more resourceful than I would have believed.” His voice dropped to a murmur. “It’s enough to make me believe the things they say about him are true.”
Then he shook his head as if the thought irritated him. “It does not matter. I am everywhere. Kismet cannot find the Fountain unless I permit him to, and when he does, I shall be there to take it away.”
The next morning, the search began in earnest.
Fontaneda's map gave Kismet a good approximation of where the cavern lay, but even if it was precisely accurate, there was a lot of ground to cover, and no indication at all what they should be looking for. The entire region was little more than a thick layer of limestone known as karst, shot through with innumerable wormholes, most of them flooded sinkholes and cenotes. Did the Fountain lie in one of them? Fontaneda’s diary seemed to indicate a dry cavern, but that account had been written more than three hundred years earlier; who could say how the topography had changed. To find it, they would have to employ a brute force approach.
They organized in the fashion of a military patrol. The platoon deployed in an echelon formation, spread out in a line that ran north-south, while cutting across the area described by the map from west to east, and then back again in overlapping search lanes. The soldiers carried their M4 carbines, but on Russell’s orders, the weapons weren’t loaded. They were in a national recreation area, and while they could explain away their presence, even equipped for battle as they were, as a training exercise, live ammunition would raise suspicions and draw unwanted attention to their presence. If they ran into trouble, the weapons could be loaded in a few seconds. Kismet hadn’t been able to replace his Glock, but Russell had provided him with an army-issued M9 Beretta. His kukri had also been returned.
The first pass followed the edge of Lake George, from the point where it began to curve north and ended at the St. Johns River. The ground was saturated and in some places, they had to wade through knee deep brackish water. Enormous waterlogged cypress trees blocked their path at every turn, throwing the carefully organized search into disarray. To make matters worse, because Kismet had no idea what exactly they were looking for, it was necessary to stop and investigate every sinkhole or depression or unusual lump in the ground to see if it was a clue left by Fontaneda. By the third pass, they were unable to see the lake and the only way to stay on course was by constantly consulting a GPS device.
With the sun settling in the west, they finished their last pass of the day and hiked back to the campsite, tired and dispirited. Russell dispatched two of his men to make the drive into town and bring back pizzas, while Kismet laid out a topographical map of the area and used a highlighter pen to record their progress.
“Doesn’t look like we’ve accomplished much,” Annie observed, looking over his shoulder.
Kismet regarded her thoughtfully. She seemed a very different person than the wisp of a girl he’d wrestled with back on The Star of Muara. He knew that her bout of claustrophobia in the tunnel under the cemetery had left her feeling embarrassed and vulnerable, but there was something else. She seemed to be clinging to her father, as if afraid to let him out of her sight. Though Kismet was only now realizing it, she had been like that since the incident in Central Park, and he wondered again what had happened to them that day.
“You’re right,” Kismet admitted. “I think all we did today was eliminate the most unlikely location.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Look at where the lines cross.” The previous night, he had transferred the information from the highway map to this smaller scale map, doing his best to accurately pinpoint the trajectories Fontaneda had used. The result had been a diamond shaped area, the northern tip of which lay out in the midst of the lake. Most of the diamond covered the inflow of the St. Johns River and its maze of tributaries. Only a very small portion of the diamond fell within the search grid they had employed. “We should have been looking here: in the serpent’s mouth.”