“Hello?” Her voice was a hoarse croak. “Anybody here?”
For several seconds, the silence persisted. Then, a faint whine drew her attention to the television screen, which was now displaying the image of a room very much like the one she was in, with one notable difference. Stretched out on the bed was the motionless form of Fiona.
“Fi!” Gallo managed to shout this time, and strangely, the sleeping figure began to stir.
“Aunt Gus?”
Gallo heard the mumbled words as clearly as if Fiona were in the bed next to her, and although she loathed Fiona’s pet name for her, she promised never to disparage it again. “Easy darlin’,” she warned. “Waking up from this is like getting kicked by a mule.”
Despite the warning, Fiona sat up and then swung her legs around to meet the floor. She was visibly woozy but not to the same extent Gallo had been. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know yet.” She was tempted to say more, but as the pieces came together in her head, she recognized what this place truly was: a prison. “Just hush now. Take your time waking up.”
“Your apprehension is unnecessary,” came a voice, high-pitched and asthmatic, much louder than Fiona’s soft murmurings, but it was almost certainly due to electronic amplification. “Let us speak plainly. You are my hostages.”
The fact that their captor made no attempt to soften the blow did not bode well. In response, Fiona unleashed an almost incoherent torrent of accusations, demands and colorful insults. She abruptly went silent a few seconds later, but Gallo could still see the girl raging at the screen in her own room. The feed had been muted.
The elderly man spoke again. “Dr. Gallo, I have brought you both here for one reason. I want you to translate a historical document.”
“Can’t Liam Kenner do that for you?” It was a guess, but Gallo felt certain that the man now addressing her was part of the mysterious Cerberus organization, with which Kenner was aligned.
“Dr. Kenner is not up to the task. Understand that the terms of his employment are very similar to the terms I am offering you. If you cooperate, you buy freedom and safety for yourself and the girl.”
The man’s enunciation was clipped, his accent almost certainly Germanic, which made him seem all the more like a cliché villain from a bad spy movie. But there was nothing amusing about the consequences of refusal.
Gallo took a deep breath and considered her options. It was a very short list.
I have to protect Fiona.
“I’ll do it,” she said, making no effort to hide just how pathetic she felt about the surrender. Perhaps if her captor thought she was truly broken, his vigilance would lapse and an opportunity for escape would present itself.
The disembodied voice did not acknowledge her statement, but a moment later the door swung open. A hulking figure strode into the room. Gallo immediately pegged him as Rohn, the brute who had accompanied Kenner to terrorize Fiona and Pierce in the Labyrinth. He said nothing, merely seized hold of her right biceps, and hauled her to her feet.
Gallo gasped as pain wracked her body once more. She fought through it and stood on her own. “Let go of me,” she said, defiant. “I said I’d help. You don’t need to manhandle me.”
Rohn grunted, his grip tightening even more as he dragged her toward the door. Gallo had to struggle to keep up, as they moved down a nondescript hallway. There were several doors on either side, all plain wood and unmarked. Gallo guessed that Fiona was behind one of them, and she wondered if the rest were occupied with other people being held against their will.
What is this place?
A blank metal door at the end of the corridor slid back as they approached, revealing a waiting elevator car. Rohn ushered Gallo inside, but took no other action. There were no control buttons to push and nothing to indicate which floor they were on or what direction they would be traveling. The interior door closed, and the car ascended so slowly and smoothly that Gallo had difficulty detecting any motion. The brief ride ended at a hallway indistinguishable from the one they had left. Rohn guided her out. His manner was less brusque, indifferent. Gallo kept pace with him lest he remember his role as her tormentor.
He delivered her to a windowless room, far larger than her prison cell, though no less spartan in décor. With row after row of lab tables sporting some microscopes, racks of test tubes and other apparatus, it reminded her of a high school science classroom sans students. But the room was not empty. As they entered, a seated figure hunched over a computer monitor turned to greet them. Although she had not seen him in several years, Gallo recognized him immediately.
“Augustina.” Kenner managed a wan smile and a half-hearted nod, as if embarrassed by the circumstances of the reunion. “They got you, too. I’m so very sorry.”
The lie caught Gallo off guard, and a flicker of disgust crossed her face before she could rein in her emotions. “Spare me the act, Liam. You don’t have the talent for it. Why am I here?”
Kenner seemed faintly disappointed by her refusal to embrace his pretense. She imagined he had constructed an elaborate ruse to win her over in spite of what he must have known Pierce had told her. After an awkward pause, he gestured to his computer screen. “I’m attempting to translate this document, but it’s slow-going.”
Gallo looked past him to study the displayed image, a page of text written in the archaic style of Ancient Greek. She spotted familiar words and names, most notably the subject of the text, the hero Herakles. The dialect was a bit challenging, but the differences from Ancient Greek were comparable to the difference between modern English and the language used by Shakespeare, with a few antiquated words and expressions easily understood in context. She was fairly certain that this was not the Heracleia of Peisander of Rhodes, the seventh century BC poet most often associated with the work, but rather an older version of the tale, one that had perhaps informed Peisander. There was, in fact, something very familiar about the style. If it was not the work of Homer, then it was a near perfect imitation.
With his Classical background, Kenner ought to have been able to read the document as easily as a Sunday newspaper.
Another lie? She wondered whether to challenge him openly, but decided against it. Rohn lurked in a corner of the room, and there were probably other eyes watching as well.
“Mr. Tyndareus is not a patient man,” Kenner continued. “I imagine that’s why he decided to bring you in.”
“Tyndareus?”
Kenner made a sweeping gesture. “Our host.”
Gallo thought about the wheezy, disembodied voice that had greeted her. In Greek mythology, Tyndareus was a king of the Spartans. He was also the stepfather to Helen of Troy, as well as to the demigod Pollux. The name was too distinct to be a coincidence.
“And what exactly is it that Mr. Tyndareus wants? I mean aside from the translation of a three thousand year old poem.”
Kenner frowned. “I suppose there’s no point in being coy about it.” He crossed his arms as if preparing to give a lecture. “Mr. Tyndareus is a believer, and what he believes is that there is more than a shred of truth in the myths and legends of the ancient world. He approached me several years ago, not long after George discovered the Argo manifest, and he commissioned me to find the underlying truth about those myths. Specifically, the stories about Herakles.”
“That hardly constitutes a rationale for kidnapping,” Gallo retorted.
“If his motives were academic, that would be true. However, his reasons for wanting to know are purely self-serving. He is quite advanced in years. He wishes to find the means to delay or perhaps even avert his own death.”