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.
As disconcerting as the environment was, it was the enormity of the task set before him that was truly staggering. He wondered if Alexander had felt this way before setting out on his Labors.
Pierce, Gallo, Lazarus and Carter — Kenner, too, though as far as Pierce was concerned, he didn’t count — had left Rome shortly after determining Tyndareus’s likely destination. Dourado remained behind in Rome, ensconced in the computer room of the Cerberus Headquarters beneath Castel Sant’Angelo, under the protection of Aegis operatives brought in by Pierce. When Pierce had asked her if she was ready to go back into the field, the resulting look of horror had prompted him to laugh it off. “Just kidding. I’ll let you get back to your new toys.”
It had taken her about an hour to crack the security on the mainframe, at which point she had informed Pierce that they ‘powned Cerberus.’ Maybe Dourado’s grasp of English was not quite as firm as she believed, but her statement was more than just trash talk. The secret base and everything in it, as well as the not inconsiderable assets stashed in tax shelters and banks around the world, were spoils of war, transferred to the Society with a keystroke. Just as ancient Herakles had subdued but not killed the three-headed hellhound guarding the gates of the Underworld, the Herculean Society had captured the modern Cerberus largely intact. The entity was theirs now, to do with as they pleased.
But it was a hollow victory. Fiona was still a captive and Tyndareus was closing in on his goal — Echinda, the Well of Monsters.
Even before she succeeded in taking over the Cerberus computer, Dourado was able to confirm their deductions about Yellowstone by tracing the movements of the Cerberus Learjet. It had departed from Belem shortly before their own rescue helicopter had arrived, presumably carrying Rohn and anyone else from his team that might have survived the expedition to the Amazon city. The jet had not returned to Rome as expected, but rather had made a short hop to São Paulo for a layover, before heading north again, hopscotching across two continents but headed for Billings, Montana, the closest major airport to Yellowstone.
Dourado then identified a chartered flight from Rome to the same airport, and several vehicle rentals, all of which traced to Cerberus fronts. All of the vehicles were equipped with GPS locators, which she promptly hacked and tracked to a spot in the park at the edge of the Norris Basin geothermal area, just a few miles north of Old Faithful, where they had been sitting idle ever since. Unfortunately, the data could not reveal anything about the passengers, particularly whether Fiona was with them.
Upon their arrival, Dourado had guided Pierce and the others right to the vehicles, but just like Cerberus Headquarters, the vans appeared to have been abandoned. Tyndareus and his men had set out on foot to explore the alien-looking landscape. But Dourado had anticipated that possibility.
There had been a package waiting for them when they arrived in Billings. In addition to the computer and Bluetooth-enabled smartphones, all of which were networked through an accompanying high-speed satellite data modem, Dourado had supplied them with a DJI Phantom 3 quad-copter camera drone. With a line-of-sight range of just over a mile and a 1080p digital video camera, the little remote aircraft gave them a bird’s eye view that extended several miles in all directions. Dourado talked Pierce through the process of slaving the drone controller to the computer, and then took over, flying the Phantom from the other side of the world. It took only a few minutes for her to spot the large group of hikers, about two miles southwest of the parked cars. They were moving slowly as they blazed a trail through a part of Yellowstone that was not only off-limits but generally hostile to living creatures.
“Stop!” Pierce said as something on the screen caught his eye. “Cintia, go back. Rewind a couple of frames, or whatever it is you do.”
“What did you see?” Gallo asked, looking over his shoulder.
The perspective zoomed out to a wide-angle shot, and Pierce now saw a little yellow box displayed above each vaguely human figure. Forget chess, Pierce decided. This is more like watching Monday Night Football. “Number eleven,” he said. “What is that?”
“I set this up to be completely interactive,” Dourado said. “The computer has a touch screen. You can just tap on whatever—”
“Cintia, please. Just do it.”
There was an irritated “humph” from the speaker, then the shot zoomed in on Pierce’s selection. At a casual glance, it looked like a man, but a closer look revealed something else.
“What the hell is that?”
“It looks like RoboCop,” Dourado said, with just a trace of awe.
Pierce turned to Kenner. “Liam, do you know what that is?”
Kenner shook his head, but Dourado jumped in with the answer. “It’s Talos.”
Pierce wondered if he had heard her correctly. In Greek mythology, Talos was a giant living statue, made of bronze and powered by ichor, the magical blood of the gods. He had seen too much to dismiss the possibility that the myth might have some foundation in reality. Had Tyndareus located an ancient automaton — perhaps one of Alexander’s early experimental creations — and restored it to working order?
“The name is an acronym for Tactical Light Operator Suit,” Lazarus said. “It’s an armored, powered exoskeleton designed for use by the U.S. military. I thought they were still on the drawing board.”
“It is like Iron Man’s armor,” Dourado added. “There’s a whole section of the Cerberus mainframe dedicated to it. They stole the specs from Lockheed Martin. It uses a FORTIS load-bearing wearable exoskeleton, but the exterior shell is made of hollow titanium panels, filled with Kevlar fibers suspended in a non-Newtonian shearing fluid.”
Pierce understood about half of what she said. “Fine. They’ve got a TALOS suit. Good to know. Any sign of Fiona?”
The camera view pulled back, and Dourado resumed the process of scanning and tagging each member of Tyndareus’s group. The display tightened on a pair of walking figures that appeared to be holding hands, and Pierce felt his heart skip a beat as he recognized not only Fiona’s dark hair and slim build, but also the man who held onto her wrist.
“Rohn.” He spat the name out like a mouthful of bile.
“And the man in the suit must be Tyndareus,” Kenner said in a flat voice. Pierce regarded their prisoner for a moment, then turned to Lazarus who was staring at the computer screen, which had reverted back to a wide-angle view. “Any tactical suggestions?”
There was a long delay before the answer. “We have to get her away from the main group.” Another pause. “We’ll need a diversion, something to divide their forces. I’ll take care of that. A hit and run attack on their rear should draw some of them off. The rest of you can then move in and get Fiona out.”