by Sean Ellis
She knew why of course. He was with Elisabeth now, Annie was almost certain of it. She had seen them together once or twice, walking across a courtyard or examining the magnificent arabesque and arches that seemed to be everywhere, and it hadn’t been too hard to draw that conclusion. Elisabeth might have been faking it; she was a professional actor after all, but Annie could read her dad like a book.
She wanted to scream at him—Finally got what you wanted, did you? Hope it’s worth the price you paid—but she didn’t. It hurt too much to think about his betrayal and just how costly the journey had been.
Her minder this morning was Karl, but that was the extent of her knowledge about the burly man who walked a few steps behind her. They passed through the Puerta de las Granadas and made the climb up to the Puerta de la Justicia, the original 14th century entrance to the palace.
Hauser was there already, addressing a group of searchers that included her father and Elisabeth Neuell. “Today we’re going to have to expand the search into the Alcazaba. We’ll start with radar and acoustic imaging. We’ve got to think like this Spaniard, put ourselves in his shoes. When was he here? What places would he have had access to? Was he the kind of person who would hide it in a place of importance, or in the most inconspicuous location he could find?”
Annie tuned him out. She didn’t know whether to hope for their success or continued failure. How long would they keep looking? How long would they keep her hostage? She wondered what Alex’s defection would mean for her when the search ended, successfully or otherwise? What had Hauser said back in the Fountain cavern? Something about loose ends; was that all she was?
A sudden murmur from the group brought her attention back to Hauser, who now stood in silent consternation as one of his men whispered in his ear. His blond head came up suddenly, and his one good eye focused directly on her. Then, without another word, he strode over to her, grabbed her arm possessively, and began dragging her along as he strode into the heart of the complex.
Something was happening, something big. Annie didn’t get the sense that Hauser was angry, but he was definitely anxious about something. She offered no resistance, quickening her steps to keep up with him as they entered the Charles V palace, which housed the museum, but as they moved briskly through a maze of interior halls and corridors, some of which were an unpleasant reminder of the caverns in Florida, she felt her own anxiety mounting. Then, she saw daylight again, streaming through the arched colonnade leading to the Patio de los Leones—the Court of the Lions.
Another of Hauser’s men—not a technician, but one of the security team that had been with them since Florida—approached and quickly briefed him, using the same strange language that she had first heard in the Fountain cavern, and many times since, whenever they wanted to keep a secret from her.
Hauser nodded, and then pulled Annie around in front of himself, positioning her like a human shield. “Move. But don’t do anything stupid.”
She complied, letting him guide her through the colonnade and out into the open courtyard, with its majestic centerpiece, an alabaster fountain resting on the back of twelve white marble lions. The fountain had been the very first place Hauser had looked for the Seed.
Several members of the security team were deployed throughout the plaza. Their guns were drawn, but pointed at the ground in anticipation of further orders.
Then Annie’s heart lurched in her chest and she almost stumbled. In the center of the courtyard, standing patiently right in front of lions was Nick Kismet.
He looked consider better than he had when she’d last seen him. His wild hair was shorter now, though very full and falling over his ears, and he still wore a beard that looked just a little on the scraggly side, but he was otherwise the very picture of health. Annie actually thought he looked about ten years younger.
Of course he does.
Kismet smiled at her then turned his stare to Hauser. “Hiding behind a woman, Ulrich?” He made a clucking noise of disapproval. “But I suppose that’s always been your style. Let others do the work, take the risks—I think that’s called ‘cowardice.’”
Hauser tightened his grip on Annie’s arm, evoking a low whimper, but he ignored the taunt. “It’s not here, is it? It was never here. You lied to me.”
Kismet grinned. “Everything was so crazy—lights were flashing, the world was ending—I just said the first thing that popped into my head.”
His expression became more serious. “I needed to keep you busy for a while, somewhere I could find you when I was ready, when I finally had something to bargain with.”
“And you have it now?”
Kismet didn’t answer immediately, but looked past him as Higgins and Elisabeth stepped past the pillars at the edge of the courtyard, the latter holding her semi-automatic pistol aimed at Kismet. “Well, well, the gang’s all here.”
“Where is it?” Hauser pressed, jerking Annie’s arm again.
Kismet gave a deep sigh. “You know, I’ve been looking for you for a really long time. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, you really messed up my life.”
To Annie’s surprise, Hauser laughed. “You were never meant for normal things, Kismet.”
“See, that’s what I’m talking about. You seem to know all about me, and I know...well, nothing about me.”
The one-eyed man shook his head ruefully. “And you never will.”
“Not even if I give you what you want? The Seed of the Tree of Life?”
“Not even for that. It is important to us, but not that important. And in the end, we will have it anyway. The question you should be asking is: how much is it worth to you?” He shook Annie meaningfully.
Kismet’s eyes flitted to hers, and then to Higgins, before coming back to Hauser. “I figured you’d say something like that. Fine. Let her go and I’ll give it to you.”
“You first. Where is it?”
Kismet shrugged then took something from his back pocket and held it out on his open palm. It was a small heart-shaped silver box. He flipped it open and tilted it down to show the contents. Annie saw what looked like a large unshelled almond or maybe the stone from a peach. A faint blue light seemed to be oozing from the tiny pores that perforated its outer surface. Then Kismet snapped the lid shut on it.
“That’s a fake. You aren’t stupid enough to bring it here.”
Kismet ducked his head in feigned embarrassment. “That’s mean.”
“Where was it?” Despite the intensity of her captors hold, Annie turned in surprise, not because of the question, but rather the person who had asked it: her father.
“It’s quite a story really. You see, four hundred and fifty years ago, when Hernando Fontaneda found the Fountain of Youth, he wasn’t alone. He had with him several companions, including freed slaves who signed on as mercenaries. Fontaneda wrote that most of them died during the search. Only a few survived long enough to reach the Fountain, and only he survived to return to civilization. Turns out, that wasn’t exactly true. There was one other. You’ve already met him, Al. In fact, you saved his life back in Charleston.”
“Joe?”
Kismet nodded. “King and Fontaneda didn’t dare share their secret within anyone else. There was no telling what might happen if they did. They tried to integrate themselves into the colonies in the New World; Fontaneda established himself as a wealthy gentleman, and King was his slave. There were some hiccups at first; they nearly got caught in Saint Augustine, and had to completely start over. Over the next three hundred years they managed to work out a system that allowed them to live among the rest of us poor fragile mortals for a while without attracting too much attention. The Fountain regenerates—regenerated rather, but then after a while, the natural aging process resumes. They would stay in one place for twenty or thirty years, and then pop back down to Florida, take a sip, and start all over again somewhere else with a new name. Fortunato, Fortune, Fontaine, and always accompanied by his faithful manservant Joseph.”
“T
he Spaniard hated slavery,” Higgins countered. “He was an Abolitionist.”
Kismet nodded. “It was a different world. They had to stay close to the Fountain, so it was necessary to live a lie. Fontaneda never mistreated King, or if he did, it was just for appearance’s sake. I think his decision to help fugitive slaves was, in part, to soothe his sense of guilt about the situation. They were equal sharers in the secret of the Fountain’s existence, but Fontaneda lived the good life, while King was relegated to the slave house.
“Then the world changed. The Civil War ended slavery and they could no longer maintain the old lie. And King wasn’t under Fontaneda’s thumb anymore. Not that things were much better for King, but he was finally able to stop pretending to be a slave.
“He married and started a family. Not his first of course. Both men had married, fathered children, and then watched them grow old and die, never daring to reveal their secret or use it to save their loved ones. But that had always been Fontaneda’s decision. Now that King was a free man, he could do as he pleased. His wife died in childbirth—no chance to save her—but King vowed that he would not lose his daughter, Candace, I believe you met her, Elisabeth, though I doubt you’d recognize her now.”
The actress glowered but said nothing.
“Fontaneda tried to prevent King, and when that failed, he decided to take the Seed for himself—he’d figured out its importance long before that—and reveal the existence of the cavern to the world through the United Nations. I’m not sure if he meant it to be an act of altruism, or just a way to put King in his place one final time. In the end, King got the last laugh. They fought and King killed Fontaneda in self-defense—well, he says it was self-defense. Remember that strange mark on the map? Like a scar? King cut out Fontaneda’s heart, just to make sure he wouldn’t get back up again.”
Annie shuddered a little at the mental image. It was hard to reconcile Kismet’s description of King with the youthful man they had met in the Charleston cemetery, and even harder to picture Joe cold-bloodedly murdering a man and desecrating his corpse.
“How do you know all this?” asked Hauser, evidently curious in spite of himself.
“King told me the whole story, right after he and Candace pulled me out of that cave. I had figured out a lot of the ‘what’ already; King just supplied the ‘why.’” Kismet now focused his stare like a laser on the one-eyed man. “And of course, he gave me the Seed.”
“Because you asked so nicely?” Hauser scoffed.
“Because I threatened to expose their secret. When we showed up, asking about the Fountain, they knew the jig was finally up. They just wanted a chance to start over one last time, so after we left, they headed down to Florida ahead of us, used a back door—which would have been really nice to know about ahead of time—and took the Seed. Lucky for me, they decided to hang around a while longer to see how it all played out, and were there to rescue me.”
Hauser shook his head. “How nice for you. What an entertaining story. And you expect me to believe that’s really the Seed? That you just brought it here, knowing that I could just take it from you.”
“You could try. But really, why make it so difficult?” He waggled the heart-shaped box. “You want it, I want her.”
“No!” protested Annie. “Nick, you can't give it to him. You've no idea what he'll do with it.”
“I know exactly what he has planned.” He glanced at Hauser then at Higgins. “What he always does. He’ll hide it away forever. I can live with that. But I promise you this, you won’t get a thing if you don’t let her go. It’s that simple.”
“I’ll make it even simpler,” Hauser threatened. He held up his semi-automatic. “I’ll just kill you and take it.”
“Not a good idea. For starters, while I’m holding this, I’m not sure it’s possible to kill me. I can feel it working on me right now. Hell, my fingernails have grown while I’ve been standing here.”
Annie thought his hair and beard looked like they’d grown as well.
“You could probably knock me down with a bullet,” he continued. “Put me out for the count long enough to take this. But before you do, there’s something you should know.
“In addition to the Seed, this little box also contains twenty grams of C4. Not a lot, I grant you, but then that’s the idea. When I closed it just now, I armed the trigger. Open it again, and it will blow up. If you shoot me and I drop it...” he shrugged. “It might not blow up. And I’m sure you could probably bring in someone to try to defuse it—he might even succeed. But it’s just as likely that, if you try to take it by force, I’ll open it and blow it to hell.
“So, were back to the easy way. Let Annie go, and I’ll give it to you, simple as that.”
Hauser cocked his head sideways and squinted with his good eye. “You’re bluffing. You wouldn’t destroy it. And I don’t think you’d part with it either.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Kismet said, without a trace of his earlier flippancy. “I never cared about any of this. Legendary relics, mythical powers—I only ever started looking for these things because I hoped it would lead me to you.”
He spread his hands. “And here we are. I want to be done with you, Hauser. If you aren’t going to tell me what you know, then leave me the hell alone.”
Hauser regarded him a moment longer, and then broke into a wolfish grin. “Mother will be so disappointed to hear that.”
Kismet’s confident expression slipped a little. Annie thought he looked like he’d been sucker-punched. In a low voice he said: “Whose mother?”
Hauser threw back his head and laughed. “Very well, I accept your terms.”
Throughout the conversation, Annie had kept waiting for Kismet to do something, pull a rabbit out of the hat, rescue her and keep the Seed out of Hauser’s hands. Now, she saw that he was serious; he was going to give Hauser and Prometheus exactly what they wanted, and he was going to do it in order to save her.
That was unacceptable.
“Nick, don’t.” She wasn’t sure anymore what she could say or do to stop him, but she had to try. “You can’t let them have this. They might hide it away, or they might do something much worse. Power like that...I don’t know what they’ll do with it, but you can’t give it to them, no matter what they do to me.”
Kismet offered a rueful smile, but Annie saw his gaze move slowly toward...her father? “It doesn’t matter, Annie. If it’s not the Seed, it will be something else. If it’s not Prometheus, then someone else. But I can do something good, right now. I can get you out of here, and that’s all that matters to me.”
He turned to Hauser. “Just let her go. I’ll put the Seed on the ground and walk away.”
“And your explosive device?”
“Like I said, you should be able to figure out how to bypass the trigger. I’d promise to send you the code to disarm it once Annie and I are safely out of here, but you probably wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
Hauser considered this a moment longer, then shook his head. “No. It’s a fake. Has to be.”
Kismet held the box up. “Elisabeth, do you think I’m lying?”
The actress gazed back at him, almost defiantly at first, but then softened. “No. Subtlety isn’t your style.”
He nodded. “Here’s how this can work. Elisabeth comes and gets the Seed from me. One touch, and she’ll know it’s the real deal. At the same time, Al walks Annie over to me.”
Hauser nodded his assent, and Elisabeth immediately strode across the courtyard, tucking her gun in her waistband as she moved. She reached Kismet a few seconds later and placed a tentative finger on the box.
“Oh.” Her eyes rolled back in undisguised ecstasy. She stood up a little straighter, as if playing to a hidden camera. “Yes, it’s real. I can feel the energy flowing into me.”
Higgins reached Annie’s side, but she resisted him. “Damn it, Nick. You can’t do this.”
“Come on, Annie girl,” Higgins urged. His voice was strained,
like a piano string tuned so tight it was about to snap. “It’s going to be over soon.”
“Is that good enough for you, Hauser?” Kismet called, his fingers tight on the box, resisting Elisabeth’s stolid efforts to take it away. “Now, let her go.”
In the same way that Annie had believed, right up to that moment, that Kismet would play some unexpected wild card to save the day and keep the prize away from Prometheus, she expected Hauser to somehow play false at the end. She was wrong on both counts.
The one-eyed man relaxed his grip on her, and her father reached out to draw her into his embrace. She was too dumbfounded to even resist.
Kismet uncurled his fingers, and surrendered the Seed of the Tree of Life to Elisabeth Neuell.
She almost ran back toward Hauser, holding the box before her with equal parts fear and awe. Higgins, half-dragging Annie, had barely gotten a few steps away when Elisabeth raced past, holding the Seed out to Hauser.
That was when everything started to happen.
Higgins, with preternatural calm, reached out and snatched the pistol from Elisabeth’s waistband. She felt it, and started to turn, but her momentum had already brought her within reach of Hauser, who was unaware of what Higgins had done and too caught up in his imminent victory.
Hauser greedily snatched the box from Elisabeth and hugged it to his chest.
Higgins spun Annie toward Kismet and gave her a shove, propelling her across the courtyard, into his arms. Then, the old Gurkha raised the pistol and aimed it at Kismet.
The rest of the Prometheus security team had instantly come alert and brought their weapons up, but none of them could seem to decide where to aim.
Hauser suddenly gave a low cry and doubled over. Then, as he straightened, he reached up with his free hand and tore the eye patch away. He winced as light flooded into the restored orb, and covered it again with his hand. That was when he caught a glimpse of Higgins, aiming a gun at Kismet.