When he put it to his ear, a mechanical voice was repeating: “To hear your saved message, press ‘one’ now.” He did.
The words that next issued from the tiny speaker sounded even more robotic, electronically distorted to mask the identity of the speaker. “I know about the book you’re writing; secret societies and such. But there’s one you don’t know about. No one knows about it. Prometheus, the oldest of them all. Ask Nick Kismet at the Global Heritage Commission. He’ll tell you all about it. But be careful so no one knows what you’re up to.”
Kismet frowned as the terse message ended and at a prompt from the automated system, he played it again. Despite the altered modulation, there was something familiar about the speaker’s idiom. Yet, it was the content of the message that he found most troubling.
“That’s all I’ve got,” said Capri in a low voice. “Listen, I’ve done research on dozens of groups: the Bavarian Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Carbonari, even the Hong Kong triads. On a fundamental level, they’re carbon copies. In a way, they’re like locks. Each one has its own identity, a key if you will, usually manifest in a complex arrangement of rituals. But what if there is a master key? A society that spawned all the others and can still control them: Prometheus. Am I right?”
Kismet stared off into the distance. His eyes saw that the strange formation of helicopters was closer, much closer, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Whoever made that message has the answers. He’s got to be on the inside; it’s the only explanation. But why use Capri as an intermediary?
“It’s a good theory.” He handed the phone back. “I’m sorry, but your informant was wrong. I don’t know anything about it.”
Though it pained him to do so, he turned his back to her once more and moved toward the exit. Her voice-imploring him to wait, accusing him of falsehood-followed after, but she did not move to physically prevent his departure as before. Perhaps she sensed that this time he would not be swayed.
Part of him wanted to tell her; to trust, or perhaps burden, her with the knowledge he had carried for so long. His considerations weren’t solely motivated by the fact that she was very attractive-there might have been a very good reason why the anonymous message had been channeled through a journalist with an interest in secret societies-but he couldn’t deny that it was a compelling factor. Ultimately however, he decided not to dance to the tune called by the unknown piper. If the informant wanted to make contact, he obviously knew where to call.
A squeal jarred Kismet from his thoughts. Before his eyes could make sense of the sudden mayhem, moving like a wave across the observation deck, another of his senses detected a clue that instantly alerted him to danger. It was an odor he had not smelled since leaving the military: the acrid fumes of a smoke grenade.
He whirled, flexing his knees like a linebacker preparing to meet a rush, and was immediately caught in the onslaught of panicked tourists stampeding toward the elevator lobby. As he struggled to stand his ground, he could see three separate yellow plumes positioned decisively throughout the area. The fierce wind instantly snatched them away, scattering the smoke before it could form a thick covering cloud, but the hissing pyrotechnic canisters had been more than sufficient to trigger pandemonium.
“Capri!”
As he pushed against the human tide, he could see the two men in suits similarly struggling to reach her position. He still didn’t know whether to count them as friend or foe, but their pained expressions gave evidence that they were not the instigators of the minor riot. Kismet didn’t believe in coincidences. Whoever had done this was either after him or Capri, or both, and the common thread was Prometheus.
The two watchers had almost reached her when abruptly they were intercepted. Four figures-young men with dark complexions-broke from the outer edge of the horde and formed a ring around Capri. The group looked ridiculous in baggy jeans and t-shirts bearing familiar slogans, but underneath those innocuous trappings, they were tough as nails. The suited pair immediately assumed bellicose stances, but the quartet around Capri appeared unimpressed.
It was over in an instant. The two burly men, relying on their superior size and strength, plunged headlong into the fray only to be overwhelmed by a lightning quick defense. The four young men employed a combination of martial arts and basic street-fighting techniques to put the suited pair on the ground, stunned or unconscious, in the time it took Kismet to break through the crowd.
From the moment the smoke grenades had ignited chaos on the observation deck, Capri had stood motionless near the place where Kismet had first seen her. But the approach of the watchers and the subsequent combat had produced an expression of shocked familiarity. She knew the two men, recognized them on sight, but had not expected them to be here, at the site of her covert meeting with Kismet. When they went down under a flurry of punches and kicks, her mask changed to one of horror. That was all Kismet needed to know.
Two of the young men abruptly turned and seized Capri, each grasping an arm and lifting her off her feet. A third brought out a small syringe and quickly pressed it to her upper arm. Capri struggled against her captors, but it was clear that the contents of the hypodermic were having a soporific effect.
“Let her go!”
The four men regarded Kismet with fierce countenances, but showed no special recognition. To them, he was nothing more than a meddlesome bystander, rushing to the rescue of a damsel in distress. The two holding Capri continued to do so, while their comrades closed with Kismet, eager to dispatch him as they had the earlier pair.
Remembering the failure of Capri’s would-be protectors, Kismet feinted toward the nearest attacker then pulled back as the young man committed to a counter-assault in the form of a roundhouse kick aimed at the space where he expected his foe’s head to be. Kismet caught the man’s foot out of the air and whipped his opponent around, slamming him face first into the iron barrier. Even as the bloodied attacker tumbled unconscious to the deck, Kismet ducked under the fists of a second assailant and launched into the man’s mid-section with an old-fashioned football tackle that drove him back into his other companions. Capri slumped to the deck as one of her captors was caught in the collision and the other simply abandoned her in order to join the fight.
Kismet rolled away from the tangle of limbs and squared off against the remaining faux-tourist. The young man tried to retreat, but his back was already against the barrier. Kismet edged closer and raised his fists warily. Although he outweighed the youth by a good twenty points, he did not succumb to overconfidence; the four young men were clearly trained in ground fighting techniques, the same techniques he had learned in the army. But while size wasn’t always the determining factor in a close quarters battle, if the combatants were of equal skill, it might make all the difference. He moved in.
The olive-skinned youth threw the first punch. Kismet made no attempt to block or dodge, but instead tightened the muscles of his abdomen and simply grunted as the blow struck home. Before his attacker could recover, Kismet clapped his hands against the man’s head, stunning him with a minimum of effort, and then rammed a knee into his midriff. The youth threw a wild swing that glanced off Kismet’s temple and for a moment Kismet saw stars but another knee to the gut left the assailant breathless in a fetal curl on the deck.