by Sean Ellis
ELEVEN
Kismet gestured for the others to get down and then moved to the side of the big window and peered through the blinds. Headlights were visible, at least three different vehicles, rolling up the drive toward the house. If it had been only one car, he might have been inclined to disregard its significance; someone visiting the grave of a loved one perhaps, or coming to make arrangements for a funeral. Three vehicles though...definitely not a coincidence.
“Annie, get your dad back in here.” He turned to Joe and Candace, but before he could say another word, a loud crack reverberated through the house, followed by an equally loud report. More shots followed, and suddenly the window exploded inward in a spray of glass shards. Kismet hit the floor as bullets began tearing into the wallboard opposite the window and continued slamming into the exterior.
Higgins appeared from an interior doorway, having evidently broken in through the back door and made his way through the house. “We're surrounded.” He shouted. “A dozen or so men on foot flanked us before the trucks showed up.”
A dozen? Kismet wondered where Leeds had managed to pull together an army on such short notice.
The incoming fire slacked off momentarily, and almost too late, Kismet grasped the significance of this. He spun around to face the vestibule area, just as a pair of figures came through the front door, brandishing shot guns. Both were clad in long gown-like white garments that appeared to have been stitched together from bed sheets, replete with full-head masked cowls.
Kismet did not let his disbelief stop him. As the lead figure lowered the gaping muzzle of the shotgun, aiming it in his direction, Kismet squeezed off a controlled pair with the Glock.
The white robed figure staggered back into his trailing comrade, the second man’s shroud now spattered with fine droplets of red. Kismet brought the pistol up and triggered another round, but the second man was already scrambling back, out of the vestibule. A moment later, the fusillade resumed.
As he backed away, Kismet saw Joe staring in disbelief at the motionless form that lay sprawled across the entry, and he knew the young man wasn’t transfixed by the sight of a dead man, but rather by his distinctive apparel. There was a look of terror in the young man’s eyes. Like he’s seen a ghost, Kismet thought.
“We don’t know what this means,” he shouted, trying to break the spell. “Focus. We need to get out of here!”
The attack had come so swiftly that Kismet was only now beginning to think strategically. Leeds needed the information that these people possessed if he ever expected to locate the Fountain. The unrestrained fury of the assault had to be a ploy—a shock and awe tactic just like the white robes—designed to crush their morale and force a surrender...
Something crashed through the tattered remains of the blinds and hit the floor in the front room. The odor of gasoline filled the room and an instant later, the burning rag stuffed into the end of the Molotov cocktail ignited with a whoosh.
Okay, maybe not a ploy.
For a few seconds, the flames were concentrated in the area where the firebomb had landed, consuming the spilled fuel, but the blaze quickly spread, blossoming out in a circle from the point of ignition...a circle that blocked all access to the steamer trunk with Hernando Fontaneda’s diaries. Even as he started toward the chest, he saw that it was too late to retrieve them, and if they didn’t do something quickly, it would be too late to do much of anything.
“There's another way out,” Candace shouted over the din of gunfire, her voice stronger than Kismet would have thought possible given her years. She crawled to the hearth and then gripped the bricks. To Kismet’s surprise, the elevated platform rose a few inches, as if on a hinge. Joe reached her side a moment later, adding his strength to hers, and the hearth swung up to reveal an empty space, like a waiting sarcophagus.
“Here!” Joe shouted, waving to Kismet urgently. He then helped Candace climb into the newly created opening and disappeared into it after her.
Even from across the room, Kismet could see that the space was more than just a recess; the hole concealed by the hearth was a passage to...what exactly, he didn’t know, but it had to be a be better than the alternatives of being shot or burning up.
“Annie! Al!” He shouted, trying to locate them through the growing curtain of smoke. “Fire escape!”
Higgins emerged from the miasma, dragging Annie by the arm, and unceremoniously dropped her into the dark void.
A wall off flames rose up behind Kismet, blocking the path to the front door. The incoming gunfire ceased immediately, and over the roaring of the fire, Kismet could hear Leeds’ voice, stridently raging at the ineptitude of his accomplices. He knew what was coming next.
A white-robed shape appeared across the room, emerging from the interior of the house, evidently having entered through the back just as Higgins had done. The figure was hazy through the smoke, but he evidently saw Kismet and brought his gun around.
Kismet fired the Glock into the smoke cloud, driving the man back long enough to clear a path to the hearth, and then dove headlong into the dark unknown.
It was like falling into another world. The darkness was almost absolute; a square of dim light—fire partly obscured by smoke—from the opening directly over his head was the only illumination, and the only way for him to even begin judging the dimensions of his surroundings. He could tell that the opening was about eight feet overhead, though he could have guessed that from the plunge. As for the rest, it might have been a wide open cellar or a tunnel—there was no way to tell. In the faint orange glow, he could make out Higgins and Annie, no more than a few steps away. The old Gurkha seemed ready to face whatever fate threw at him next, but Annie looked visibly anxious, almost distraught.
“Come on!” Joe shouted from the darkness. “Get away from the opening.”
There was a flicker of light from the direction of his voice, as a battery operated fluorescent lamp warmed up, and Kismet finally got a look at their refuge.
The space was cramped, the rough-cut dirt walls only about six feet apart. Upright beams stretched from concrete footings up a to wood-slat ceiling that sagged in the middle as if holding back a tremendous weight, and barely allowed six inches of clearance. The one dimension that didn’t seem to be closing in on them was its depth; beyond where Joe and Candace stood, holding matching electric lanterns, the underground space was indeed a tunnel, stretching away into the impenetrable darkness for at least fifty feet, and probably more.
Joe continued urging them deeper into the passage but Annie hesitated, clutching at her father’s arm as if unable to breathe. “I can't,” she whispered, turning involuntarily back toward the entrance.
Kismet shook his head and tried to turn her back into the tunnel. Even though she didn’t fight him, he could feel the resistance in her muscles as he grasped her arm. She was clearly in the grip of some irrational panic.
Claustrophobia. Hell of a time to learn about that.
When they were about ten feet down the passage, Joe turned called for Kismet to stop.
“They can still follow us. Here.” He pointed to a thick rope, which ran vertically from the floor alongside one of the support pillars. The rope was anchored to an eyebolt set in one of the footings, and ran up to the ceiling, where it functioned as part of the support system for the wooden slats. Kismet noticed a second line on the opposite side, and realized that these two ropes were holding back the collapse of the entryway.
“Cut the rope,” Joe urged.
Kismet felt a moment of hesitancy. The ropes were the only thing restraining uncountable tons of earth; if they cut them, the ceiling would cave in and their way out would be blocked permanently.
No, not the way out. The way for their enemies to come in, to follow them.
Kismet drew his kukri and hacked at the rope. The dry old fibers parted with an audible twang and the slats on that side dropped partway down, allowing a torrent of dirt and gravel to spill forth into the tunnel behind them. The ceiling beyond that poi
nt remained intact. He darted across to where Joe waited, and with another sweep of the blade, sliced the anchor rope in two.
The ceiling fell hard, as if in a single mass, and hit the ground with such violence that Kismet was nearly knocked down. The tremor shook the rest of the tunnel, forcing Kismet and Joe to scramble away lest more of the ceiling come crashing down.
An eerie silence flooded the tunnel as the collapse sealed them off from the noise of the attack and the fire. The only audible sound was of Annie gasping for breath.
“My God!” she whispered, on the verge of fainting. “We're buried alive.”
* * *
The loose cluster of white robed figures scattered like pigeons as Dr. John Leeds strode fearlessly through the smoke filled house. Leeds, looked like a raven in his black cassock, a stark contrast to the soot-stained white garments favored by their new accomplices, or for that matter, to the thick mitten of gauze wrapped around his maimed hand.
He picked his way through the charred timbers and found a group of men deploying a battery of small fire extinguishers to battle back the blaze that one of their number had recklessly started. The small extinguishers were designed to combat small fires, and even in concert, there simply wasn’t enough of them to completely snuff out the spreading fire. At the perimeter of the room, the fire continued to spread, licking at the walls.
Elisabeth, following cautiously behind him, knew that the only reason Leeds hadn’t flown into a rage was that doing so would have been an admission that he had erred in enlisting this bunch of good ol’ boys. In New York, such arrangements had been handled by Leeds’ aide, Ian MacKay, but the Scotsman with the silver tooth had not been heard from since the abortive attempt on Kismet’s life in Central Park, and they could only assume that he had not survived the encounter.
Given that Nick Kismet was involved, that outcome was not altogether surprising.
Leeds may have been a genius when it came to mysticism and the occult, and as adept at manipulating people in face-to-face encounters as any carnival fortune teller, but he had zero organizational skills. In Hollywood, he would have been a great executive producer but a complete failure as a director.
The men with the extinguishers stood in loose formation around the hearth of a brick fireplace in the front room. The top of the platform had been lifted out of the way revealing a dark opening with a heap of freshly turned dirt a few feet down.
“Some kinda escape tunnel,” growled one of the hooded men, nodding to the fireplace. “Completely caved in. They got away.”
“Then all is not lost,” growled Leeds. “In spite of your failure.”
“Two of my friends are dead,” hissed the man, incredulous. “And you’re happy ‘cause those niggers survived?”
“Your attack was poorly engineered. You relied far too much on your ability to frighten them into submission.”
The man tried to respond, but his words were lost in a fit of smoke induced coughing. A section of the rear wall collapsed inward, releasing a fiery cloud of sparks. Even Leeds was forced to take a step back.
“We have to get out of here,” insisted one of the men. “This whole place is coming down.”
Without waiting for a reply he started for the door. Elisabeth felt an overpowering urge to follow, but Leeds stood his ground a moment longer. “A tunnel has two ends. This is one; find the other.”
* * *
In the settling dust of the cave-in, Kismet finally took a moment to survey their refuge.
The tunnel had been dug through dense clay soil, a task that had surely taken several years, especially since it seemed unlikely that powered digging equipment could have been employed. . The walls remained bare dirt, but the ceiling had been shored up by beams and posts, placed every ten feet of so. The ceiling was low enough that he actually had to duck to pass under the beams, but the tunnel was almost wide enough in some places for two people to walk abreast.
Annie was huddled into a ball, sitting with her back to the dirt wall. Her father knelt beside her, one arm around her shoulders, but his attempts to offer comfort did not seem to be meeting with success. Kismet took a knee as well.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I think we’re safe for the moment.”
“Safe?” gasped Annie. She seemed to be fighting to get the words out, as if in the grip of an asthma attack. “We're trapped. Buried alive.”
“We’re not trapped,” Kismet insisted. “This is a tunnel. King dug it, it must lead somewhere.”
“I can't breathe.”
“That's just in your head. There's plenty of air down here.” Despite his assurance, Kismet was suddenly very conscious of the close quarters and the fact that the air did seem to be getting a little stale. He shook his head to clear away the rising paranoia. “Look Annie. The tunnel does end, but we have to get moving if we're ever going to get out.”
That seemed to motivate her. Annie looked up, a single mote of hope floating in her pool of misery. He offered her a sip from his flask, and she gratefully downed it.
“Did you dig this tunnel?” Kismet asked when they caught up to Joe and Candace.
Joe shook his head, his eyes, and perhaps his thoughts, unfocused. “The tunnel was dug back before the War...the Civil War, that is.”
Then the young man straightened perceptibly. “Actually, it was Fontaneda that dug it, way back when. He was an Abolitionist. He’d give runaway slaves a place to hide until they could catch a ride on the Underground Railroad. Dug this tunnel so they could come and go.”
The idea of the Spanish Conquistador as a Southern gentleman in the years before the Civil War, and an Abolitionist no less, was mind-boggling. If everything he thought he knew about the man was true—including the claim that he had discovered the Fountain of Youth—then Fontaneda would have been about three hundred and fifty years old at the time of the Civil War. It was difficult to conceive of how four or five lifetimes of experience might have changed the man. Had his decision to support the anti-slavery movement been a way of atoning for past misdeeds...like the slaughter of the native village that had protected the Fountain in the first place?
Kismet thought about the dead fall that had blocked the entrance and wondered if that had been Fontaneda’s doing as well.
The tunnel followed a straight line for at least fifty yards before coming to an abrupt and unexpected end. The walls were hidden behind stacks of mildewed cardboard boxes and old splintered wooden crates. If not for the secret entrance under the hearth and the long separating distance, it might have seemed like nothing more than a storage cellar, but in light of those two details, Kismet was inclined to believe that boxes were nothing more than window dressing. His suspicion was confirmed when Joe started shifting some of the boxes out of the way to reveal an eight-foot folding ladder, resting on its side.
Joe wrestled the ladder out of its hiding place and then propped it up in the center of the tunnel. Kismet realized that the ceiling was higher here, and as Joe extended the legs of the ladder, Kismet saw a dark opening directly above where the ladder had been positioned. Joe rocked the ladder a couple times to ensure that it was stable, then retrieved his lantern and climbed up until his upper body was above the top step and mostly inside the opening. After a few moments of fumbling with something overhead, he resumed his ascent and disappeared completely through the hole in the ceiling. Kismet approached the ladder, and saw Joe staring down out of a well-lit open space high overhead.
“It’s a little cramped up here. Mister...Kismet, was it? I think you should come up first. There’s something I want to show you.”
Kismet glanced at the others. Annie was still on the verge of hysteria. Higgins offering his daughter what comfort he could, simply shrugged. The old woman, Candace, gave him an encouraging nod and gestured for him to go up the ladder. He did.
The overhead space was much smaller than the confines of the tunnel; it was about the size of a walk in closet, but part of the space was dominated by what looked like an enor
mous chest. It was a crypt, he realized, and the chest was a sealed casket.
Joe gestured to the funerary container. “There it is. What you came for is in there.”
It took Kismet a moment to realize what Joe was saying. “This is Fontaneda’s tomb?”
“He built an empty vault to hide the tunnel exit. When he died, it seemed like the best place to lay him to rest. No one else was using it.” Joe laid his palms flat on the top of the casket, staring at the smooth surface with an almost wistful expression. “So, you want me to open it?”
Kismet swallowed. “How do you even know what’s in there?”
“I know,” Joe said, as if that was the final word on the subject. “He took his secret to the grave. That’s what Joseph King told you in the letter, right?”
Shoving aside a final hesitant attack of conscience, Kismet nodded. There was a faint hiss as Joe broke the seal. Kismet felt a stir of expectation and dread as the cover was thrown back. A mixture of strange smells wafted from the casket; some kind of perfume fragrance—sandalwood, perhaps—that couldn’t quite mask the odor of embalming fluid. But there was no smell of rot or decay; if there was a body in the casket then it had remained perfectly preserved. Kismet picked up Joe’s lantern and held it above the shrouded figure that lay in repose within.
There was indeed a body, a man, with a thick unkempt mane of black hair and a bushy beard that could not quite hide his youthful features. His skin had the pallor of death, but looked firm, with no hint of decomposition. The motionless figure in the casket could have merely been sleeping, or just recently deceased, instead of having been dead and buried for more than fifty years. In fact, he looked a little too good.
If the Spaniard’s youthful features were a testament to the power of the Fountain, if his life and health and vigor had been preserved for nearly four hundred years beyond its normal span, then what had happened at the end? He clearly had not died of old age.
Kismet saw Joe staring at the face of the cadaver with a mystified expression. “What’s the matter?”
