The blond man stared back at, turning his head a little as if to bring something distant into focus, and for good reason — his left eye was covered by a square of black cloth.
Well that’s new.
He started running, only peripherally aware of the tongues of fire scorching the air above him, licking the cave walls, shattering the limestone with their kiss. Hauser lurched into motion, turning back to his goal.
Kismet knew he wasn’t going to make it time, but he tried anyway.
Elisabeth stepped into his path, aiming a compact semi-automatic at his forehead. “Don’t,” she warned. “I don’t know if a bullet will even kill you now, but I’ll pull the trigger if I have to.”
There was just enough hesitancy in her voice that he believed her. “What about your experiment? What would my mother say?”
She cocked her head sideways. “You really have no idea what’s going on, do you?”
A retort was on his lips when Hauser erupted in a string of curses. His rage was so palpable that even Elisabeth winced, dropping her guard for just a moment. Kismet took the chance and brushed past her, vaulting up the steps. He ascended the dais just as Hauser wrapped his arms around the base of the altar, picked it up, and hurled it into the pool.
It took Kismet a moment to understand the reason for the other man’s rage.
It’s not there. The Seed is gone. Did Leeds…? No, someone else.
His mind turned the possibilities like the pages of a flipbook.
“Where is it?” Hauser raged. “Where in the hell is it?”
“Looks like you were late to this party,” Kismet remarked. “No Seed. The Fountain of Youth…” He glanced back at the pool and the storm; the cavern was about to implode, and when it went, that would be the end of the Fountain of Youth. “You lose. I imagine that’s a new experience for you.”
Hauser wheeled on him. “Where is it, Kismet?”
“Why should I tell you?”
For a moment, the other man just glowered at him. Then his lips pulled back in that Big Bad Wolf smile that Kismet remembered so well. “You know where it is, don’t you? What say we make a deal? You tell me where it is, and I let the girl keep on breathing.”
Kismet glanced over a shoulder and saw Elisabeth moving toward Annie, the pistol already trained on her. Higgins just stood there, rooted in place.
Kismet wanted to scream at the man. Damn it, Al. Stand up to them; she’s your daughter for God’s sake!
He turned away. “You were probably going to kill us all anyway, right? Oh, maybe you’d let me live for the sake of your great experiment, but as I recall, you have no qualms about leaving me in a room full of dead people. So why should I tell you anything?”
Hauser leaned close, nostrils flaring. “Because there are worse fates in the world than death.”
Kismet matched his stare for a moment. “Promise me that you’ll leave her alone, and I’ll tell you.”
The lupine lips curled ever so slightly. “I swear on my mother’s life.”
“Is that some kind of joke?”
Lightning crackled between the stalactites and a chunk of stone the size of Smart Car crashed down and obliterated a section of the walkway on the far side of the pool. The impact sent a tremor through the entire cavern, opening gaping fissures in the walls, from which water began to pour.
He didn’t trust Hauser, but in a few minutes, it wouldn’t matter. “Fontaneda took it back to Spain with him.”
“How do you know?” Hauser pressed.
“He wrote that he planned to hide it in the Alhambra Palace in Granada.”
Hauser fixed him with a single-eyed stare, looking for any hint of duplicity. Then, without another word he turned and fled down the stairs.
Kismet started after him, but Elisabeth warned him off. “Not another step.”
“You promised, Hauser. No harm.”
“A promise I intend to keep,” the one-eyed man assured him. “As long as you stay the hell away from me.”
He bent down and seized Annie’s arm, pulling her erect.
Kismet took another step forward, but Elisabeth waggled the gun meaningfully.
Another thunderous discharge shuddered through the cavern. The pool was boiling now, and at its center, a hideous mass of wriggling flesh continued to grow.
“Then go!” Kismet shouted. “Get the hell out of here before we all die.”
Hauser pulled Annie after him and headed for the exit where the last remnants of his commando force waited. Elisabeth however lingered. “Alex? Are you with us?”
The question seemed to perplex the former Gurkha. He stared back at her, and then turned his desolate gaze on Kismet. His lips formed words: I’m sorry.
There was only one thing left to say. “Take care of her, Al. Keep her safe.”
Higgins nodded and moved to follow Elisabeth.
“Hey, Al.”
Higgins paused but didn’t look back.
“See you in the next life.”
NINETEEN
As soon as Higgins and Elisabeth passed through the exit, Kismet started a mental ten count. He only got as far as three, when Hauser reappeared in the doorway, holding what looked like a woman’s shoulder bag, sewn of olive drab fabric.
“You probably won't die right away,” Hauser shouted. “In fact, you might not die for several years. Enjoy your stay!”
With that, he dropped the bag and took off running.
Kismet ran too, back toward the relative safety of the cairn. He threw himself flat behind the piled rocks an instant before the satchel charge detonated.
The explosion was tremendous. Kismet felt the concussion ripple through his body. He’d kept his mouth open slightly the whole time so that the overpressure wouldn’t rupture the membranes of his inner ear, but the blast left him stunned.
Because the bomb had gone off almost exactly in the entrance, fully half of the explosive energy had been directed away from the cavern. Nevertheless, the half that had blasted inward was more than enough to finish what had already begun. The already gaping cracks widened, and between them, huge sections of the wall began moving independently, undulating — collapsing.
Suddenly, Kismet’s wildly long hair bristled up on end, surrounding his head like a halo, alive with a crackle of building static. Something big was about to happen.
He threw himself flat on the shattered floor.
A bolt of pure blue-white lightning arced between the ceiling and the center of the Fountain. Overhead, the few remaining stalactites began to vibrate violently and explode in a spray of deadly fragments.
In the pool, the thing that had once been Dr. John Leeds exploded in a geyser of blood and tissue.
Annie followed unwillingly but without resistance as the one-eyed man — the man Kismet had called Hauser — led her through the cave with the bats.
Most of the winged creatures were gone, frightened from their dwelling by the release of energies from the nearby cavern, though a few still flitted about overhead. The fleeing group barely took notice.
As they passed beneath it, Annie saw that the opening overhead was larger now, giving her a much-needed view of the sky above the surface world, where she desperately longed to be.
Like the other chamber, the bat den was being reshaped by the cataclysm. The walls, riddled with fissures, were groaning, shifting back and forth like earthquake fault lines. But even more ominous was the sound of rushing waters.”
“Hurry!” Hauser urged. “The entire cavern is flooding.”
Water began to pour in; just a trickle at first, like a leak in an old roof. The tremors had uncovered ancient reservoirs — pockets of groundwater that would have naturally seeped through the rock and into the nearby lake — and was diverting them into the hollow channels of the cave network. The limestone walls were but a thin membrane, holding back a tremendous underground deluge, and as those walls fractured, an irreversible chain of geological events would transform the labyrinth into a sinkhole, ultimately expanding the boundaries of Lake George.