Sean Ellis
The Devil You Know
Prologue
She looked, at that moment, more lovely than he remembered, and it occurred to him that if her face should be the last sight his eyes beheld, then he would die a lucky man. Then dark spots swam in front of his eyes, eclipsing her beauty and underscoring the simple fact that, lucky or not, he was about to die.
His gaze swung back to the other face-the shadowed, barely glimpsed visage of his assailant-and he redoubled his efforts to break free. He clawed at the fingers which were clamped vise-like around his neck and which had already dammed the flow of life-sustaining blood to his brain. The fingers were thin, with gnarled knuckles like the branches of a willow tree, and gave no impression of inherent power, yet no amount of prying could loosen the killing grip. He changed tactics, directing his ever-waning strength into punches and kicks, but the dark garments of his assailant seemed to absorb the energy as if he were fighting his own shadow. Panic quickly gained a foothold and his actions, though already ineffectual, became increasingly frantic and all the more futile.
A final rational impulse prompted him to go limp, sagging in his captor’s grip as if unconsciousness or death had at last claimed him. But his bluff was as useless as his struggle; the fingers did not relax their grip, even for the measure of a heartbeat. The black spots grew together, completely occluding his vision, and the capitulation of his flesh was no longer an act. Even the noise of his struggle grew indistinct, lost behind a haze of white static that gradually resolved into a sound like the ringing of a….
1
…telephone.
Nick Kismet gazed in faint surprise at the white plastic receiver on his desktop, as if the mere fact of its presence might explain this unexpected interruption. The phone trilled again insistently, but offered no further enlightenment.
He did not get many telephone calls on the office line. Almost everyone who might possibly want to contact him knew his cellular number; in fact, the office number didn’t even appear on his business card.
Business card. Who would have ever imagined that? The thought brought a rare smile to his lips, cracking a normally intense, almost brooding expression. A tall man with broad shoulders and an athletic build, Kismet’s few acquaintances knew him to be reserved, some would even say anti-social. His dark hair was clipped short, as it had been nearly two decades before when he had begun serving as an ROTC cadet. While his military career had stalled and ultimately transformed into something entirely more individualized in nature, his sense of discipline had never been fully retired.
As the phone commenced another cycle of electronic chirps, he relented and lifted the handset to his ear. “Global Heritage Commission, Nick Kismet speaking.”
“Did you get my message?” The voice was feminine, faintly muffled as if the person speaking was attempting to disguise her identity by wrapping a handkerchief around the mouthpiece.
“What mess-” He broke off when the irritating blare of the dial tone began screaming into his ear. When he spoke again, it was solely for his own consideration. “Well, that was useful.”
He almost put the matter out of his mind. It was late, already six in the evening, and while he had never really kept any sort of traditional schedule, there was certainly no reason for him to be in his office in the lowest level of the American Museum of Natural History at this hour. Whoever had made the mysterious call had been lucky to actually reach him; by all rights he should have been en route to his Brooklyn Heights brownstone residence, if not absent from the United States altogether on some far-flung assignment. That the caller hadn’t seen fit to actually say anything relevant was barely a cause for concern.
Probably a wrong number.
He logged off his computer and rose to his feet, intent on leaving behind the cryptic communiqué along with all other matters relating to his position as American liaison to the Global Heritage Commission of the United Nations Education, Science, and Cultural Organization. But as he reached for the door handle, his gaze fell upon an object protruding from his threshold. With a perturbed frown, he knelt to pick it up.
It was a glossy tri-fold pamphlet of the kind often found in hotel lobbies touting various tourist destinations. The cover bore the unmistakable outline of the tallest building in New York City. He drew back his hand to toss it away.
What message?
For a moment he did not move; only stared at the paper in his hand, replaying the abrupt monologue of the female caller. At length, he unfolded the tract and was not at all surprised to find written on the shiny paper, in what looked like red grease pencil, a series of numbers: “8:00.”
“Eight o’clock at the Empire State Building,” he murmured, shaking his head. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
He then folded back the remaining leaf to expose yet more writing-letters this time-and as the single word written there penetrated his conscious mind, Kismet would have sworn his heart skipped a beat.
Prometheus!
It took every ounce of self-control he could muster for Kismet to refrain from urging the taxi driver to go faster. There was no particular need to rush. He would be arriving at his destination well ahead of the implicit deadline, but he could barely contain his eagerness.
At some level, he regarded the assignation with suspicion. In almost twenty years of searching he had not heard so much as a whisper about the mysterious secret society named for the Titan of Greek mythology. His only knowledge of that group-if indeed it was an organized body-stemmed from a violent encounter with an assassin who had spared his life after massacring an entire family. Yet it was neither that horrific incident nor the unexpected stay of execution that had made the search for the Prometheus group his purpose in life, but rather the strange parting message of the killer:
Kismet, if I killed you, your mother would have my head.
A foundling, Kismet had no idea who his mother was, nor any clue concerning her involvement with the murderers associated with Prometheus.
He gazed at the pamphlet again, examining the scrawled letters in the glow of passing street lamps. Further experimentation, in tandem with his knowledge of the gender of his mysterious contact, had led to the conclusion that the ‘ink’ was actually a bright crimson shade of lipstick. This revelation did not however relieve him of his anxiety regarding the approaching meeting. There was still every reason to believe that he was walking into a trap.
His singular experience with Prometheus had been deadly and there was no way of knowing if the moratorium on his own death sentence had expired. He had always been circumspect in his search and to the best of his knowledge only a handful of people living, most of them members of the US military, sworn to secrecy, knew of the incident and Kismet’s interest in the secret society. Of course, that didn’t include the members of Prometheus itself, and therein lay the reason for Kismet’s apprehension. Then again, if they wanted him dead, they could have accomplished that goal at any time, and without heralding their intentions.
He gave the cab driver a twenty-dollar bill and hastened toward the Thirty-fourth street entrance. As he passed into the lobby however, he slowed, studying the faces of its occupants for some sign of recognition. Most were obviously tourists; adventurous young couples making a nighttime sojourn to one of the city’s most famous landmarks. No one offered more than a cursory glance. He kept walking. Although the message had not indicated a specific place within the massive edifice for the rendezvous, Kismet felt an inexorable pull in defiance of gravity.