“We would also be dividing our forces,” Pierce said. “You’re the only one with any hostage rescue experience. I’ll provide the diversion. You lead the rescue.” As much as Pierce wanted to lead the charge, real leadership came from identifying your team’s various skill sets and using them for the best possible outcome. Personal feelings just got in the way. He’d learned that from Fiona’s father, though he doubted the man thought Pierce would ever have to put the lesson to use to save his daughter.
Before Lazarus could reply, Kenner spoke up. “There’s a better way.”
Pierce regarded him with open suspicion. Although the man had been nothing but cooperative since his capture, even more so since learning Tyndareus’s true identity, Pierce was a long way from trusting Kenner. He had considered leaving the paleopharmacologist in Rome, but he didn’t want to make him Dourado’s responsibility. “Let’s hear it.”
Kenner looked at Gallo for a moment, as if hoping to elicit her support, then turned to Pierce. “Let me go to them. I can tell Tyndareus that I escaped from you in Brazil. Or better yet, I’ll say you’re dead. Then, as soon as I get the chance, I’ll tell the girl…” He winced and glanced nervously at Lazarus. “Ah, Fiona. I’ll tell Fiona to run.”
Pierce did not know how to react. It was a good plan, maybe better than Lazarus’s desperate diversion, but it would require trusting Kenner, and that was something Pierce was not ready to do. Before he could articulate a response, Gallo spoke up. “It won’t work. Fiona would never trust you.”
Thank you, Augustina.
Then she added. “I’ll go with you.”
“What?”
Gallo pushed ahead, ignoring Pierce’s outburst. “We’ll pretend that you captured me before escaping from the sinkhole. You can say that we figured out the Yellowstone connection together. We might even be able to convince him that you turned me.”
Pierce managed a tight smile. “Augustina, may I speak with you privately?”
Gallo acceded without protest, allowing Pierce to guide her a few steps away from the others. If her determined bearing was any indication, she was not about to back down, but Pierce felt he had to try.
“This is a very bad idea.”
“Actually, it’s a very good idea,” she countered, speaking in an urgent whisper. “You’re right not to trust Liam. If we let him go alone, he’ll sell us out in a heartbeat. But he won’t put me at risk. He still has feelings for me, George.”
The rationale surprised Pierce. “If he realizes you’re playing him, he’ll turn on you.”
“I won’t be playing him. I will simply provide an implicit reminder for him to do the right thing.” She placed a hand on his forearm. “You and the others can follow at a discreet distance. Cintia can watch us from the drone. If I get in trouble, I’ll give the signal, and then you can go to Plan B.”
“Gus…”
“You risked your life to come get me. And I know you would do anything to get Fiona back. Let me take some of the risk for a change. I owe it to you, and I owe it to her. If I had done a better job of watching over her, none of this would have happened.”
Pierce started to protest but she silenced him with a quick kiss on the lips.
“So it’s settled,” she said, as she pulled back. “Liam, let’s get moving.”
48
In the course of her language studies, Fiona had become intimately familiar with the Land of the Dead, as imagined by countless Greek and Roman poets, and later figures such as Dante and Milton. There was a fantastical quality to each and every depiction. The poets were not trying to describe something real, but rather the stuff of nightmares. She never would have believed that a place like what was described in those works could actually exist on the surface of the Earth.
And this was only the doorstep of Hell.
Ignoring the warning signs — some of which were printed with the explicit message ‘Danger. Thermal Area. Boiling Water. Unstable Ground. Do Not Enter’ and others that simply depicted cartoon hikers being scalded alive in a steam eruption — Tyndareus, completely encased in his exosuit, led the small group out across the desolate hard pan. The servo motors in the exosuit made faint whirring noises as he moved, but the sound was mostly drowned out by the loud crunch of metal shod feet on the gritty earth. Each step stirred up a cloud of what looked like powdery snow but was actually sulfur dust.
After breaking through a thin crust of ground and sinking knee-deep into the boiling liquid concealed beneath, Tyndareus was a little more tentative about the path he chose, but at no time did he appear daunted by the hostile environment. Safe within the closed environment of the suit, breathing a self-contained air supply, there was not much for him to worry about. With Rohn dragging her along, Fiona had little choice about where to tread, but whenever possible, she tried to follow in Tyndareus’s actual footsteps. If the ground could support the weight of the exosuit, then it could hold her up.
The danger of the ground giving way, however, was only one example of the weird unearthliness of the place. Steam rose from holes and cracks in the ground, then settled to form an eerie fog. There were small pools of water — some clear and dangerously inviting, other exhibiting jeweled hues of red, blue, green and yellow — and lakes of bubbling mud.
The foul air and pervasive heat sapped her energy. Five minutes into the trek, she was ready for a break, but the only thing worse than walking through the hellscape was standing still in it. She looked over her shoulder and located Nurse Wretched. The sneering woman looked even less happy about the situation than Fiona felt, which actually made Fiona feel a little better.
“Hey,” she called out. “Got any water?”
The woman made a face that was even uglier than usual, and gestured to a nearby pool. “Drink up!”
Fiona was about to respond in kind when Rohn jerked her attention forward again. He held out a bottle of water and a Nature Valley granola bar. She muttered her thanks and stuffed the latter item into a back pocket. Then, with some difficulty, since Rohn had not released her left wrist, she got the bottle open and took a lukewarm sip.
Better, but not much.
They arrived at the rock with the Herculean symbol a few minutes later. At Tyndareus’s behest, Fiona examined the inscription, but there was not much to say about it. She stared up at the reflective visor of the exosuit and shrugged. “I told you what it means,” she said. “You won’t find anything.”
The mirrored visage stared back at her. “Your attempts to deceive me are ill-advised, child.”
“I’m not trying to deceive you,” she said, making no effort to hold back her growing frustration. “I just want to get out of here. I’m hot and thirsty, and I have to pee. This is a waste of time.”
Tyndareus continued to regard her for a few more seconds then turned away. “Keep looking. There will be more markers like this.”
He was not wrong. Two more stones with the Herculean mark were discovered, spaced out about half a mile apart in different directions. “I believe I understand the significance of the markers,” Tyndareus announced after surveying the third. “We have found three, each approximately corresponding to a cardinal direction. I believe there is a fourth to be found as well, but we do not need it now. Our destination lies where the lines connecting north and south, and east and west, converge.”
Fiona barely heard him. She was beyond thirst now. The constant heat was not only draining the moisture from her body but breaking down the insulin in her pump. She recognized the early symptoms of dehydration associated with diabetic ketoacidosis. The reek of sulfur had left her nose-blind, but her breath probably reeked of acetone. She needed to get somewhere cool, drink a couple of gallons of water, and change out the insulin in the reservoir, but that was not going to happen unless Tyndareus either found what he was looking for or admitted defeat, and since both seemed pretty unlikely, Fiona resigned herself to the alternative. She would eventually collapse. She might even die.