“In a secure place,” Tyndareus said, without looking at her. “Safe, as long as you continue to behave.”
The door opened and Rohn climbed in, taking a seat alongside Fiona. She shied away, as if his mere proximity was revolting to her, but he remained indifferent to her. Tyndareus did not overtly acknowledge Rohn’s presence, nor did Rohn seem to expect any greeting.
Only now did Fiona see the cuts on his face and hands, swollen flesh, exposed sutures stained with antiseptic, crusted with dried blood and oozing fluid. He looked like he’d gone toe-to-toe with a weed whacker and lost.
Did Aunt Gus do that? If so, good for her. No wonder Tyndareus is pissed.
As the initial shock of Rohn’s arrival wore off, she resumed plotting her escape. It would be harder with the big man right beside her, but she would have to find a way. If she did not make her move soon…
The electronic trilling of a cell phone broke her train of thought.
“Ah, good,” Tyndareus said. “We’ve found something.”
Damn.
The old man stared at the phone for several seconds, his eyes widening with undisguised excitement as he studied the image. “It would seem that we have found one of your road signs. I don’t believe it will need any translation however.”
He turned the phone, showing her the displayed image, a lump of sandstone jutting above the flat brown earth with a single glyph etched into its surface. Though the passage of time and centuries of wind and rain had worn away at it, the sign remained legible.
A circle crossed by two vertical lines. The sign of the Herculean Society.
She tore her gaze away from the image. “You know what that means, don’t you? The Society was already here. You won’t find anything.”
“Is that what it means? I think it is meant as a warning. ‘Keep out. No Trespassing.’” Tyndareus chuckled. “It is a warning I have no intention of heeding. I think we should see for ourselves what the Herculean Society has been protecting. Vigor, keep an eye on the child. Do not underestimate her. She is quite remarkable.”
Rohn grunted in assent, and then he took her wrist in his hand. She tried to pull free, but his grip was as unyielding as an iron manacle. He got out, dragging her with him, but was careful to keep her behind the van, shielded from the view of any passing cars. The other Cerberus men got out as well, and then proceeded to lift Tyndareus, wheelchair and all, out of the van.
“You’re going, too?” she said, making no real effort to hide her contempt. “I don’t think the trails around here are ADA approved. Or are you going to be carried the whole way like Yoda?”
Tyndareus returned a cryptic smile, then he tapped the joystick control and began rolling along the gravel shoulder until he reached the truck’s rear end. Rohn followed, pulling Fiona along. The other men had already rushed ahead to deploy the hydraulic liftgate and open the rollup door. Fiona did a double-take when she saw what was inside.
A familiar gray figure—man-shaped, but not a man—stood in the center of the cargo bay like a guardian statue.
It was the exosuit.
Tyndareus chuckled again. “It won’t be a problem.”
47
The men moved across the landscape like pawns on a chessboard, guided by an invisible hand. That’s probably exactly how Tyndareus sees them, Pierce thought. Disposable soldiers, sacrificed without a second thought. Why would anyone want to work for a guy like that?
“Cintia, can you get a head count? How many are we dealing with?”
“Eighteen,” Lazarus said. “One of them might be Fiona.”
“Yes, eighteen,” Dourado said, her tone faintly irritated. “Fortunately, I can do a lot better than just counting.”
A moment later, Pierce saw what she meant. The image displayed on the LCD computer screen zoomed in on one of them, close enough for Pierce to distinguish the gun—Lazarus identified it as an AR15—slung across the man’s back. A yellow rectangle appeared, superimposed on the man, and then the perspective pulled back momentarily to acquire another target in the same fashion.
“Keep going,” Pierce said. “Tag them all.”
He looked away from the screen and let his eyes drift across the strange landscape of the Norris Basin geothermal area of Yellowstone National Park. The terrain was an assault on the senses. Thin, high-altitude mountain air that could make people feel giddy. The sky was wide and open, no shelter from the sun. Then there was the pervasive stench of sulfur. The worst part was the intense heat rising up from the ground, which could burn right through the shoe soles if someone stood in one place too long. Norris Basin was one of the hottest spots in the park, the temperature often high enough to liquefy the asphalt on the roads.