The silence continued, broken only by Annie’s whisper. “Dad?”
The betrayal stung, but somehow, it wasn’t a complete surprise. Kismet had always wondered where Higgins’ loyalties lay. “Why, Al? What did he promise you? Oh, let me guess…Elisabeth.”
“Shut it,” Higgins snarled. “You don’t even know what this is really about. They don’t even need to work for it anymore. They just turn you loose and you find whatever they want.”
Kismet was taken aback. “Okay. I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I rather think you do.”
Kismet looked up to the top of the mound, where his nemesis, Dr. John Leeds, dressed as always in black, stood like a triumphant general surveying a conquered kingdom. Elisabeth stood right behind him, and a dozen men, sporting an arsenal of rifles, shotguns and pistols — every one of which was aimed down at them — stood to either side.
Kismet put on his best defiant grin. “Left your sheets at home I see. Too bad. I’d prefer not to have to look at your ugly, inbred faces.” He ignored their muttered jibes and profanities, and turned to Leeds. “I like the hook. It suits you.”
Leeds cocked his head to one side, his icy expression cracking just a little. “One more debt I shall soon repay.”
He turned to Higgins. “Mr. Higgins, what makes you think my offer of a partnership — an offer you rejected — still stands?”
“You want the Fountain, right?” The former Gurkha was breathing rapidly; just getting the words out was an effort.
Leeds waved his hook in a dismissive gesture. “The Fountain is here. I don’t need your help to find it. So, my question stands?”
“You were right.” Higgins shook his head, as if embarrassed by the admission, but then looked up at the occultist, almost pleadingly. “Everything you told me…Prometheus…It’s happening again. They’ve been calling the shots all along. Helping him without his even realizing it. So you see, this is the only way I can make it right?”
Prometheus.
When Higgins had said it, Kismet felt his own breathing start to quicken. What the hell? “Al? What do you know about Prometheus?”
Higgins tore his gaze from Leeds. “I know everything, Nick. How they use you to find these treasures so they can hide them away or use them to rule the world. And then, when you get in the thick, they swoop in and pull you out at the last second, never mind who gets hurt along the way. Like me and the lads in Iraq. Sacrifices for Prometheus.”
The raw pain in Higgins’ words stunned Kismet. The Gurkha had been carrying this burden for twenty years; it was a festering wound, filled with anger for something that he could barely comprehend.
That was something Kismet understood intimately.
“Al, I don’t know what he told you, but I’m not working for Prometheus. I’m trying to stop them.”
“Bollocks. You’re helping them just by being here. By hunting these treasures and mysteries.” He glanced up at Leeds, perhaps looking for confirmation. “How else do you think you got the army on your side? Things like that don’t just happen, mate. Not unless there’s powerful people pulling the strings from offstage.”
Kismet found it hard to refute the accusation because the willingness of the army — or whoever it was that had given Russell his orders — had struck him as suspicious from the very beginning. He tried to change the topic. “Speaking of the army…” He looked past Higgins to lock stares with Leeds. “How did you get past them?”
“They didn’t have to,” announced another familiar voice; Russell stepped into view, taking a place alongside Elisabeth.
Higgins was visibly stunned by this revelation, the import of which seemed to undermine his accusation. “But…How?”
“You’ve just got your fingers—” Kismet put added emphasis on the word, “in everybody’s pies, Leeds. I hope you know what you’re doing, Al.”
“I wish I could take credit for this,” Leeds said. “Fate put you on that train. But it was my dear Elisabeth that took care of the rest.”
The former actress spoke up immediately, as if she had been waiting for that cue. “When we learned that you were in army custody, I made a call to an old friend who owed me a favor—” She flashed a mischievous smile. “And just like that, the major was working for us.”
Kismet shook his head in disbelief and fixed Russell with a withering stare. “And I suppose you’re going to tell me that you’re just following orders?”
The other man’s refusal to meet his gaze was the only thing about the situation that gave Kismet any cause to be optimistic. If Russell was as honorable as Kismet believed him to be, then he would surely recognize that, orders or not, he was on the wrong side. He only hoped the major would figure it out and call for his troops before it was too late. He decided not to press the point; if Leeds even caught a hint of dissent, he’d probably have his goons kill Russell without a second thought.
Instead, he turned to Higgins. Despite the betrayal, he got the sense that the old Gurkha sergeant actually believed he was doing the right thing. “Al, he’s lied to you. If anyone’s with Prometheus, it’s him.”
The occultist’s smile fell like the blade of a guillotine. “I most certainly am not. They are the very essence of evil; controlling the world like puppet masters, squandering the power of the ancients, hiding the truth about who we are and where we came from. They believe they are gods among men, and seek the power of the gods for themselves.”
“So, they wouldn’t let you join and you’re pissed off?”
Though at some level, he thought it must be true, Kismet had tossed the quip out as a defensive mechanism to hide the real impact of Leeds’ assertions. This man — this charlatan…this vile racist…this murderer — knew about Prometheus. He had the very answers Kismet had been seeking for more than half his life.
Leeds ignored the barb. “I am pleased that you’ve seen the light, Mr. Higgins. But I’m sure you understand that my trust is something you will have to earn, especially after refusing my earlier invitation. You may begin by surrendering your weapon.”
Higgins lowered the pistol, easing the hammer down and thumbed up the safety. He then took a cautious step up, onto the mound, and handed the pistol over to Leeds, who took it in his good hand and studied it with evident curiosity, as if he’d never before touched a gun. He turned it over several times then gestured to his men.
Several of them advanced and took physical control of Kismet and Annie, pushing them down, frisking them with perverse enthusiasm.
“Leave my daughter alone,” Higgins rasped. “That’s my price for helping you.”
“No deal, Mr. Higgins. You are also a prisoner.”
“Dad, why?” Annie’s voice was barely a whispered, and although he couldn’t see her face, Kismet knew she was weeping.
“Then let me prove it to you,” Higgins said. “Give me that gun and I’ll finish this. I’ll kill him.”
Someone let out a low gasp, but Kismet couldn’t tell who. A cold wave of adrenaline had washed over him and set his heart pounding in his ears like a jackhammer. He didn’t believe for a second that this was what Higgins wanted; it was a bluff, had to be. But he knew it was a bluff that Leeds would call.
He was surprised to hear Elisabeth Neuell speaking out in his defense. “John, we don’t need to do this.”
Leeds ignored her. “You would kill your friend?”
“Friend?” Higgins spat the word out like a curse.
The occultist smiled again, but this was his customary cool, insincere smile. “Very well. I accept your terms.”
The pronouncement left Kismet stunned, paralyzing him long enough that, by the time it occurred to him that there was nothing to lose by making a break for it, two of Leeds’ men had already seized his arms, bending them back so that any movement was impossible. He struggled anyway.