Fortune Favors (33 page)

He also recalled watching gator wrestlers subdue the thickly muscled creatures, almost effortlessly holding those powerful jaws because while an alligator’s bite strength was almost unparalleled in the natural world, it had almost no muscles for opening its mouths.

As the scaly black monster thrashed deeper into the swamp, dragging him toward the deeper waters of the lake where the killing would surely occur, Kismet wondered if that bit of trivia would be enough to save his life.

* * *

Annie was still gaping in disbelief at the suddenness of the attack that had snatched Kismet away when more scaly shapes broke from the murk below them. Despite the bullets scorching the air overhead, she instinctively climbed higher, away from the reach of the slavering reptilian jaws. A pair of alligators waited below them, one still half submerged, but the creatures did not advance. The water was their element, and they were nothing if not patient.

Kismet’s pistol had slipped from his grasp during the attack and now lay a few feet away from Annie. She scooped it up and was about to fire down at the nearest gator, when the Kimber boomed in her ear and the top of the beast’s head exploded. It thrashed violently in its death throes, forcing the other alligator to retreat.

“Save your bullets,” her father admonished. “That pistol won’t even slow them down.”

 Helpless, Annie looked past the mortally wounded animal to where Kismet was locked in a struggle to the death with another, while dirt and debris stirred up by the constant barrage of gunfire continued to rain down around her.

* * *

Kismet felt the vise around his leg loosen almost imperceptibly, but enough. The blunt, peg-like teeth tore through the fabric of his trousers and the skin underneath as he wrenched free. Part of him desperately wanted to put as much distance between himself and the alligator as he could, but he resisted that urge; in the water, the alligator could move like lightning. Instead, he did the only thing he could think of to keep it from seizing him again: he wrapped his arms around its snout and hugged the beast to his chest.

The reptile was a writhing mass of power, stronger than any man he had ever fought. To make matters worse, he had no leverage in the water. It took all his strength to hang on as the animal thrashed, trying to dislodge him. The vestigial legs, which could propel the creature through the water with unbelievable speed, began clawing at him. The raised, scaly ridges on the alligator's back scraped against his chest as the beast twisted completely around in his grasp. It used its immensely powerful tail to throw itself, and its human attacker, from side to side, slamming Kismet against the lake’s marshy bottom. Kismet could do nothing but hold on.

Abruptly, the creature stopped fighting him and instead started swimming for open water. Before Kismet knew what was happening, the alligator rolled over and dove for the lake bottom. He struggled for several breathless seconds before realizing that the creature was deliberately trying to drown him.

He didn’t dare let go, but beyond that, he wasn’t sure what to do. He loosed one arm from around its neck and began pounding at its pale gullet and underbelly, trying to drive it back to the surface. His blows were slowed by the water and bounced ineffectively off the tough scales of the reptile. The alligator continued sweeping its tail, swimming further out into the lake where Kismet would have no chance at all. He felt a pressure change in his ears; the beast was diving, taking him deeper, away from life sustaining oxygen.

He kept hammering his fist against the creature’s scaly throat, while with his left arm he kept its mighty jaws pinned shut. The gator seemed impervious to his attack, and was patiently waiting for him to give up and die; it had the luxury of time on its side.

Kismet’s lungs were on fire. He shook with involuntary spasms as he fought the impulse to inhale. He had to let go...he had to get to the surface.

He loosed his left arm and felt the monster twist away, its mouth falling open. The creature, perhaps believing that its prey had at last succumbed, stopped thrashing and twisted around to take him in its deadly jaws.

But Kismet hadn’t given up. He found the hilt of his
kukri
, and despite the fact that water slowed his movements, thrust the boomerang-shaped blade into its pale belly. The thick hide nearly stopped the knife; only its tip penetrated, but then Kismet got his free hand on the hilt and jammed it deeper, twisting as it penetrated.

The alligator tried to squirm away, but succeeded only in disemboweling itself. Something blunt and hard—the mortally wounded creature’s thrashing tail—struck Kismet in the back, forcing the last breath from his agonized lungs. The primal need to breathe overruled all other concerns, and kicking his legs, he broke the surface an excruciating three seconds later, inhaling as much water spray as air.

The gator had dragged him about thirty feet from the shore. He could just make out Higgins and Annie, pinned down near the edge of the woods by the relentless gunfire. Wary of encountering more gators and fully aware that even if he reached his friends there wasn’t a hell of a lot he could do, Kismet stretched out his arms and started swimming back to shore.

As he reached the swamp at the edge of the lake, there was a pause in the fusillade. Several seconds passed without a shot being fired; it was as if the attacking gunmen had all emptied their guns at the same moment. In the midst of the eerie quiet, Kismet rose and scrambled toward his friends. He dropped to the ground when the barrage started up again and crawled the rest of the way to  Annie. He saw that she was still clutching the Beretta he had earlier dropped.

“Are you all right?” he rasped, his voice barely audible over the constant thunder of gunfire.

Annie nodded, but said nothing.

“Hope you’ve got a plan, mate!” Higgins shouted.

Kismet didn't.

“This is no good, Nick! We’ve been here before. You know how it ends.”

Higgins' defeatism fanned a spark of rage in Kismet, and before he even knew what he was doing, he ripped the gun from his companion's grasp. “If that's how you feel, then you might as well let me use this.”

Higgins gaped at him. Darkness clouded his face; a mixture of embarrassment and seething rage that had nothing to do with the danger they were facing.

Somehow, Kismet couldn’t bring himself to worry about the other man’s hurt feelings. If they survived the next five minutes, there’d be time to make nice. Shouldering the rifle, he crawled up the side of the mound and risked a quick peek into the woods beyond.

A round hit near his head, spitting a spray of dirt at him and forcing him back down, but in that moment, he glimpsed a target—a man wearing woodland camouflage pants and a gray T-shirt—resting in the lowest limbs of a tree, about two hundred feet away on the other side of the mound. He readied the rifle, and this time when he popped into view again, it took him less than a second to find the man in the reticle of the Kimber’s scope and pull the trigger. He was back down, behind cover, before the sniper’s lifeless body hit the ground.

He racked the bolt, ejecting the spent casing, and advancing another round into the firing chamber. The magazine held only five rounds, and he had no idea how many Higgins had already used. Annie had his Beretta, with a fifteen round magazine...maybe...if they made every shot count...

He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Higgins. “I've got an idea—”

“A little late for that!” growled Kismet, pushing him away. Higgins, thrown off balance by the push, nearly fell back down the slope. As he went down, he continued shouting for Kismet to listen, but Kismet paid no heed.

“When I give the word, we’re going to go right down the middle,” he said, directing his words mostly at Annie. “Right down their throats!”

Kismet didn’t wait for either of them to acknowledge. It was a desperate gamble, and survival was unlikely in any case, but their chances would only diminish with hesitation. “On three...

“One,” He took a breath, thinking about how he was going to do this.
Come up, take a shot, move
...”Two.”

Annie shouted something unintelligible but he was too focused on the task at hand to even notice. “Three!”

He started to rise, but then a firm hand clapped him on the shoulder, pulled him back and spun him around. It was Higgins.

His old mate’s face was twisted into a mask of bitter determination, but that was not what stoppered Kismet before he could give voice to his own ire. Rather, it was the Beretta in Higgins’ right hand, the business end pointing at a spot right between Kismet’s eyes, that stopped him cold. Instead of rage, Kismet’s tone was unnaturally subdued. “What the hell, Al?”

“Drop the gun,” Higgins ordered.

“Dad!” Annie gasped. “What are you doing?”

“Drop the gun,” he repeated, his voice almost quavering. “We're surrendering.”

“Like hell we are,” Kismet answered, his tone unchanged.

Higgins drew back a step, as if sensing that Kismet might try to make a grab for the pistol, and thumbed back the hammer. “I'm serious, Nick.”

As his initial ire cooled, Kismet realized that Higgins
was
serious. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill Kismet in order to save his daughter. With a bitter snarl, he lowered the rifle. “You don’t think they’ll just let us walk away, do you?”

Higgins took the Kimber from Kismet’s loose grip and tossed it to his daughter. “Annie girl, find a rag or something, and tie it the end of the barrel. Run up the white flag.”

 As if aware of the drama being played out by the three, the shooters in the forest ceased their assault. Higgins took the makeshift truce flag from his daughter and waved it in the air. “Leeds, are you listening?” he shouted in the sudden stillness. “You once asked me to work for you, help you find it before Kismet. Well, I’ll take that deal now.”

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.”