The Devil You Know

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.

As he stepped from the high-speed express elevator, surrounded by people who were easily distinguishable as visitors to the Big Apple rather than residents, it occurred to him that he had never before made this vertical journey. In the descending twilight, the skyline of New York City, as seen from the windswept, open-air observatory on the eighty-sixth floor of the Empire State Building, was an awe-inspiring sight. Despite the urgency of his purpose, Kismet flowed with the human current toward the iron bars that lined the edge of the observation deck and let his eyes rove over the cityscape. Only then did he turn away to see if anyone in the crowd found him more interesting than the view.

Two people immediately caught his attention. They were not standing together but curiously enough seemed to have the same tailor. Both were burly men, looking like nightclub bouncers in sport coats and conspicuous in their choice of semi-formal clothing in such a casual environment. Kismet self-consciously realized that he too looked rather out of place in his charcoal gray two-piece suit. Despite their incongruous appearance, neither of the men were doing anything particularly suspicious. Their eyes periodically wandered from the skyline to glance at the crowd but their curious appraisal fell short of scrutiny.

After a few minutes the tide of spectators began to ebb and most of the tourists lined up to catch the next elevator down. When Kismet looked again, he found that the two men had moved, changed position, but were still there, still making unobtrusive surveys of the group.

They’re not interested in me. Who are they watching?

He looked more closely, following their line of sight to determine what the men were really doing. When he finally spied her, Kismet wondered why he hadn’t noticed the woman earlier. Like the two watchers, her choice of attire was at odds with the standard uniform of most visitors to the landmark edifice but that was by no means her most noteworthy attribute. A shapely form in a maroon Armani suit, with glistening black ringlets that would have stretched down to the middle of her back if not for the constant winds that buffeted the eighty-sixth floor, she stood peering through one of the coin-operated stationary binoculars positioned at intervals along the edge of the observation area. Below the hem of her dark, mid-thigh length skirt, her sculpted legs were clad in matching fishnet stockings that eventually disappeared into pumps with impossibly thin leather bands and three-inch stiletto heels. Yet it wasn’t until she straightened, then turned to look in his direction, that Kismet knew he was looking at the author of the anonymous invitation.

With a wry smile he walked toward her. “I hope you won’t think this too forward, miss, but that’s an extraordinary shade of lipstick you’re wearing.”

Up close, the woman who introduced herself as Capri Martelli, was no less a feast for the eyes. Kismet found himself regretting the circumstances that had brought them together; now that the meeting had commenced, he would have to maintain a wary posture.

“You chose an interesting place for this little meeting,” he commented after halting pleasantries were exchanged. “Very melodramatic. As was your invitation.”

If she took offense at the veiled jab, Capri gave no indication. “Given the sensitivity of the subject at hand, I thought a clandestine approach was called for. I hope I didn’t inconvenience you.”

“Not yet.” He smiled humorlessly and waited for her to make the first move. The silence that followed was almost uncomfortable, but Kismet did not relent.

Her crimson smile finally faltered and she pursed her lips briefly before speaking again. “I know you must eager to hear what I have to say about Prometheus.”

He shrugged. “Like I said, your invitation was hard to resist. I’ll reserve judgment on everything else.”

“Where should I start?”

She’s fishing. “Maybe you should start by telling me who you really are.”

“I told you my name, Mr. Kismet. But I don’t think that’s what you meant. The truth is, I’m a journalist.” She grimaced, as if the admission was a source of shame.

Sure you are. Kismet thought about the two men now unobtrusively observing them from a distance. “And why did you contact me?”

“I thought that was obvious. Prometheus.”

He folded his arms and leaned against the upright bars, which bordered the perimeter. “Pretend I don’t know what that means.”

For the first time, her eyes betrayed her. The surprise evident in her expression confirmed that she had expected a very different progression of events. After another awkward silence, Kismet decided to put her out of her misery. “Let me tell you what I think. You heard somebody mention my name and something called ‘Prometheus’ in the same sentence and thought I’d be eager to tell all. That’s not going to happen, Capri.”

His decision to use her first name was methodical; it would either put her at ease, as with a familiar, or elevate his status in her eyes to that of an authority figure, a parent or teacher. It was an old interrogator’s trick; a skill he had first learned in Army Intelligence. He wasn’t completely sure of his stated conclusions but knew that the accusation would force her hand. To reinforce his position, he pushed away from the barrier and began walking toward the elevator lobby.

“Wait!”

The panic in her voice told Kismet he had won. He paused but did not turn to face her. “I’m listening.”

She hastened to stand in front of him, and kept her voice low. “I got a tip…an anonymous tip…that said you knew something about Prometheus. I was warned to be very discreet.”

“This is your idea of discreet?”

“I didn’t think I should just walk into you office. And the phones could be tapped.”

He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “So you don’t really know anything about this… this Prometheus, whatever that is?”

“I know a little.” Her eyes darted past him, then swept suspiciously around the observation deck. “Enough to know that Prometheus makes the Illuminati sound like the Boy Scouts.”

“A secret society?” Kismet affected skepticism. “Conspiracy theories? What news service did you say you work for?”

“I didn’t, Mr. Kismet. I’m employed at the Clarion—”

He stiffened apprehensively. The Clarion was a daily tabloid, owned by a media mega-corporations, that catered to the lowest of lowbrow readers with sensational stories, lurid photographs and inflammatory editorials. Reporters for the Clarion were often accused of impersonating journalists.

Capri cringed at his obvious reaction. “This isn’t for the paper. I’m doing a… a research project on secret fraternities. It’s a family matter.”

Something about the way she had used the word led him to believe that Capri’s ‘family’ was more than just her close blood relatives. He glanced involuntarily at the two suited men; they had changed positions again but remained at a distance, still futilely attempting to blend in with the diminishing crowd. Kismet felt a chill creep over his back that had nothing to do with the relentless wind. A connection between the mysterious group he sought and organized crime was something he had never considered.

“Okay. So how did that lead you to this Prometheus? I’ve heard about some of these secret societies, but I’ve never seen a Prometheus mentioned anywhere.” It wasn’t a lie. More than a decade of searching libraries and archived documents had not yielded a single mention of the organization.

She looked around, as if expecting to find someone eavesdropping, then reached out to take his arm. He did not resist as she guided him back to the perimeter of the observatory and turned him so that they were both facing out into the night. The sky had darkened considerably in stark contrast to the illuminated forest of skyscrapers all around. Three distinct dots of light-helicopters-were moving in a tight formation out over the East River. Kismet almost commented on this, but a moment later Capri surreptitiously pressed something into his hands. It was a cell phone. “Listen to it,” she implored.

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.

Kismet was still seeing double, but he could approximate Capri’s location. As he took an unsteady step in her direction however, everything changed. His senses were abruptly assaulted by a deep bass rhythm, a noise that rang in his ears and resonated in his chest cavity. Suddenly, three distinct shapes rose up beyond the limits of the barrier, blasting the deck with the artificial tempest that could only be caused by the rotor wash of a helicopter.

Faster than the eye could follow, three Bell Jet Rangers rose above the level of the barrier and hung in the air, their noses point toward the aerial tower that sprouted from the stout base of the eighty-sixth floor to give the skyscraper its legendary and one-time record breaking altitude. The choppers moved closer, their rotor blades invisibly carving the air dangerously close to the tower. The pilots were hotdoggers; only someone with the skills of an expert and the ego of a daredevil would attempt what they were now doing. It would take only a sudden crosswind to nudge the choppers into the aerial, shattering their rotor vanes and unleashing an unimaginable catastrophe on the unprotected occupants of the observation deck and countless more oblivious souls on the street below.

Spotlights stabbed down from the helicopters, blinding the onlookers, and ropes unspooled from the side doors to dangle at arm’s length from the outside of the palisade. It was as close as the pilots dared get. As soon as the thick lines were deployed, a pair of dark-clad figures quickly abseiled down until they were level with the top of the iron barrier. The metal bars, which rose high above the heads of visitors to the observatory, were bent inward at a forty-five degree angle and ended in sharp points to discourage jumpers. The two men fast-roping from the helicopters had little difficulty pulling themselves over to perch atop the barrier, where they brandished stubby machine pistols. One of them spied Kismet and brought his firearm around intently.

Kismet spun away from Capri’s supine form, seeking cover in the huddle of terrified onlookers. A short burst escaped from the automatic weapon and a scattering of rounds chewed up the area where he had been standing, but the airborne commando did not direct his fire into the innocent crowd; it was enough that Kismet had been driven away. A moment later, that same man dropped down onto the deck.

The gunman moved toward the dazed quartet that had first attacked Capri, and began rousing them. The implication was all too clear; the helicopters and their deadly passengers were working in tandem with the youths who had been impersonating tourists. As the men regained their senses, another object descended from the center helicopter and was guided down into the observation area by the man atop the palisade.

Kismet instantly recognized the aluminum-framed wire contraption — search and rescue teams called it a ‘Stokes basket’-and just as quickly divined its purpose. In a matter of seconds, the men bundled Capri into the mesh stretcher and secured her with heavy nylon straps. At a signal from the ground force, the litter was drawn back up into the aircraft.

With the gunmen providing cover, the four ersatz tourists moved to the ropes that still dangled from the helicopters on either side and were draped over the spiked barrier. Although only two commandos had rappelled down, a total of six heavy-duty lines had been thrown out, doubtless to facilitate the team’s extraction. The men tore off their slogan t-shirts to reveal climbing harnesses outfitted with Jumar ascenders which they hastily secured to the ropes.

On a rational level, Kismet was overwhelmed by the complexity of the two-pronged assault. It was unthinkable that Capri’s abductors might have had advanced knowledge of her intention to visit the skyscraper. That meant the operation had been conceived on the fly and executed by a highly trained and well-financed paramilitary team. Kismet knew from experience that the even the famed US Army Delta Force couldn’t-or rather wouldn’t-attempt such an outrageous undertaking; their unparalleled training notwithstanding, Delta force operators were still limited by political and logistical considerations. He knew of only one group that might be gutsy enough to pull off such an exploit.

But what on earth could Prometheus want with Capri, that would justify such a profligate expenditure of effort and resources?

With the help of the ascender devices, the four men scurried up the ropes and into the middle and right hand copters. Kismet felt his bile rise as the remaining members of the team, still clipped to their ropes, started working their way back up. He could feel adrenaline coursing through his veins, impelling him to take action, but there was nothing he could do to stop them. The ease with which the commandos had carried out their audacious mission felt like a contemptuous slap and all he could do was clench his fists as he cowered with the rest of the frightened tourists.

I don’t think so.

He was moving before he knew why, and certainly before he knew what he was going to do. The gunmen noticed him right away, but were too focused on the task at hand to shoot at him; besides, what could he hope to accomplish? As soon as the second man was clear of the palisade, the pilot of the Jet Ranger eased away from the danger zone, pulling the heavy ropes away from the observatory. The other helicopters had already moved back, but were remaining on station until the last two members of the team were aboard. Kismet made a desperate and ultimately futile grab for one of the ropes as it slipped through the bars and dangled free in the night a thousand feet above the street.

He stood there, the sound of his own heartbeat roaring in his ears louder than the thumping rotor blades, and stared at the retreating ropes. They remained tantalizingly close, swaying gently as the commandos ratcheted the cam-locks higher, one step at a time.

“Close enough,” he muttered.

The adrenaline gave him just the boost he needed. With near superhuman alacrity, he scrambled up the bars and swung his leg high enough to hook a foot between the needlepoints atop the barrier. The sharp tips snagged his suit jacket, but the wool fabric prevented them from piercing his flesh as he hauled himself onto the angled barricade. He crouched there; his fingers tightly gripping the bars as he flexed his legs like coiled springs, and gathered his courage. His gaze was locked on the quivering rope but he could not completely ignore seductive lure of the void. The emptiness yawned below him, so much air, and below that pinpoints of light marked the movement of motor vehicles on the streets of Manhattan.

Are you gonna do this?

With the endorphin surge momentarily sublimating his most basic primal fear, Nick Kismet drew in a deep breath and jumped off the Empire State Building.