The Furies (32 page)

The Chief Elder tilted her head. Now her expression was skeptical. “You think your ragtag soldiers can defeat the American government?”

“We don't have to win this battle. All we need to do is hold them off until you've escaped. Then my men will retreat and melt away in the darkness, dispersing into the countryside like all the other Furies. And we can take steps to discourage the authorities from pursuing us. The most important step is killing Rogers and leaving his body behind at the farm. He's the only one the federal agents are truly interested in finding. They've already identified him as the primary suspect in their criminal investigations, and once they have his body they'll be largely satisfied.”

John felt the eyes of everyone in the room fall on him. Margaret Fury stared at him the hardest. If it were up to her, they'd probably murder him on the spot. Elizabeth stared at him too, but not for very long. She kept her focus on Sullivan. “So you're proposing to extricate us from a perilous trap that your own actions have pushed us into. This makes no sense, from a logical standpoint, unless you're going to demand something in return for your help.”

Sullivan smiled again. “You're correct, Mother. Luckily for you, our demand is quite reasonable. We want the catalyst. Tell Lily to send the formula to me in an e-mail. And please don't attempt to trick me. As you know, several of my men learned biochemistry from working in Lily's laboratory, and they'll know if she tries to send us an inauthentic formula. As soon as we determine that you've given us the proper catalyst, I'll order my Riflemen to attack the federal agents.”

“And how do I know you'll live up to your end of the bargain? After we give you the catalyst, what's your incentive for helping us?”

“Once we receive what we need, the rebellion will be over. We can be allies instead of enemies. After the escape from Haven, we can assist in the relocation of our family. Our great hope is to reconcile with our mothers and sisters and join the new community you establish, wherever it may be.”

He tried his best to look sincere, opening his eyes wide and holding out his hands. But Elizabeth frowned at the screen. “That's a wonderful sentiment, but not very convincing.”

“Then think about this. If we allow you to be captured, you might feel inclined to tell the authorities everything you know about me and my men. That could make things very difficult for us. Helping you escape serves our own interests.”

Elizabeth nodded, still frowning. She stared at the screen for a few more seconds, deep in thought. Then she turned to her sisters, first glancing at Margaret and then at Cordelia. “I believe we'll need some time to discuss the matter.”

Sullivan frowned, too. His face reverted to its natural condition, a dark, hateful glare. He seemed relieved that he didn't have to smile anymore. “I'll give you two hours. Either send me the formula by four o'clock this afternoon, or face the Burning Times once more.” Then he disconnected the wireless video link and the screen went black.

The silence that followed was so complete that John could hear himself breathing. Ariel bit her lip and muttered, “Bastard.” Conroy went to the lectern and closed the laptop, and Old Sam stepped behind the Elders and righted Elizabeth's fallen chair. Then the bailiff shuffled back to his post beside their table.

Elizabeth sat down with a tired sigh. “You were right, Delia,” she said, glancing at her sister. “It happened exactly as you said it would.”

“Nay, not exactly.” Cordelia shook her head. “Your son's crimes have surpassed even my direst predictions.”

Margaret leaned across the table. She seemed confused. “How now, what's this? What predictions are you speaking of?”

“Sixty years ago Delia warned me that our men would rise against us. She said it would lead to the destruction of Haven.”

“Nay, nay.” Cordelia waved her wooden hand in a dismissive gesture. “I merely predicted that the coming advances in genetics and biochemistry would reveal the secret of our everlasting youth. And I surmised that our men would be the first to covet it.”

Margaret turned to Elizabeth and gave her an aggrieved look. “You never told me this. Why wasn't this matter brought before the full council?”

“My apologies, sister.” The Chief Elder looked down at the table and raised her hands to her forehead. She began massaging her temples. “I saw only one way to forestall Delia's prophecy, and that was to order our women to slay their baby boys. We couldn't do that, of course, so I let the matter drop.” Without looking up, she pointed at the closed laptop that had displayed Sullivan's face a minute ago. “And just seven years later I gave birth to that monster.”

Neither Margaret nor Cordelia had anything to say in response. Taking advantage of the lull, Ariel approached the Elders' table. She looked directly at her mother. “I won't do it. I won't give Sullivan the formula. And I certainly won't let you murder John.” She glanced at him over her shoulder, then turned back to Elizabeth. “Did you know how he got those burns on his arms? He almost killed himself trying to save Octavia.”

Elizabeth still didn't look up. She kept rubbing her temples. “Lily, how well do you know your half brother?”

She scowled. “Too well.”

“He fell in love with you, did he not? When he was in his twenties?”

Ariel nodded. “And I told him in no uncertain terms never to come near me. Even back then he was a base creature.”

“So would you ever trust him? On any matter, large or small?”

“Never.” She shook her head firmly. “I'd sooner trust a cobra.”

“Then why do you imagine I would feel differently?” Elizabeth stopped massaging her forehead and looked up at her daughter. “I know he's lying. Whether or not we give him the formula for the catalyst, he won't help us. He wouldn't dare attack the federal agents. He was simply hoping we'd be desperate enough to believe him.” She curled her lip, disgusted. “But we're not that desperate. We have another option.”

Ariel looked at her in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Sullivan was right. I have a contingency plan. But he didn't guess the extent of it.”

Margaret seemed confused again. “Sister! Is there something else you haven't told us?”

“I told no one. I assigned a team of men to do the work a hundred years ago, and I swore them to secrecy.”

“What work? What on earth are you talking about?”

Elizabeth leaned back in her chair, and then she did something remarkable. For the first time, John saw the Chief Elder smile. “I ordered them to dig a tunnel.”

TWENTY-FOUR

John and Ariel returned to her laboratory as soon as the air in the cavern was breathable, but there was no time to do any more research on the Fountain protein. Although John desperately wanted to know what Fountain was doing to his biochemistry, he'd have to wait for an answer. Ariel was busy downloading the data from her computers and choosing which of her precious chemicals and tissue samples could be saved. John helped her put the selected flasks and petri dishes in sealed cases and miniature battery-operated freezers. In less than an hour they were going to abandon her lab and everything else in Haven.

The researchers in the other laboratories were doing the same thing, packing up the records from centuries of scientific study. In Haven's vaults the workers stacked gold bars onto pallets and stuffed wads of currency into canvas bags. In the arsenal Conroy's guardsmen loaded ammunition into rucksacks. But the most frenzied activity took place on the second floor of the Pyramid, where Haven's library was located. Women in sweat-stained dresses pulled hundreds of Treasures from the shelves and carefully slipped them into fireproof boxes. Other women removed their Treasures from locked drawers in their desks and clutched the leather-bound notebooks to their chests as they fled their offices and apartments. From inside the laboratory John could hear the footsteps of dozens of people running down the corridor, heading for the assembly point that Elizabeth Fury had designated, at the far end of the cavern. He noticed that Ariel kept her own Treasure tucked under her arm as she sat in front of the computer, transferring millions of gigabytes of data to a handful of flash drives.

By eight o'clock John and Ariel had packed all the cases and freezers into a big black storage trunk, about four feet long and two feet wide, like the trunks that kids bring to summer camp. It was ridiculously heavy, over a hundred pounds, but the trunk had handles at both ends, making it possible for them to carry the thing. Because the geothermal plant was inoperative and the elevator had no power, they had to haul the trunk up the same stairway they'd climbed a few hours ago, after the explosion. John held the back end of the trunk, bearing most of its weight as they ascended. The Fountain protein was still flowing through his bloodstream, stimulating the cells in his muscles and brain, so he had no trouble going up the steps. Ariel, though, was sweating and struggling. In addition to the trunk, she carried a backpack that held her most valuable possessions: her Treasure, her flash drives and a black, foot-long medicine case containing a syringe and nine vials of yellowish fluid. This was the Fountain protein she'd extracted from the blood of Haven's women. Each vial was identical to the one she'd pumped into John.

After they reached the top of the stairway they joined hundreds of Furies rushing across the floor of the cavern. Women poured out of the Pyramid, some pushing dollies loaded with boxes, others carrying paintings and sculptures hastily swathed in bubble wrap. A team of guardsmen huddled at the base of the Pyramid and used jackhammers to gouge holes into the structure's stone blocks. Another team drilled holes into the cavern's rocky walls, and a third group unspooled enormous lengths of orange cable, which snaked between the cavern's buildings. The men inserted a small gray package into each hole, and then connected the packages with the cable. After a couple of seconds John figured it out: the guardsmen were rigging the cavern with explosives. As soon as Haven was empty, they were going to blow the place sky-high.

The Furies converged at a gap in the cavern's wall, not far from the asylum. This gap had previously been hidden by a ten-foot-high frieze with stone carvings of bears and wolves and deer, but an hour ago the guardsmen had smashed the relief sculpture with pickaxes, revealing a stone archway behind it. John and Ariel lugged their trunk through the archway and entered a long tunnel dimly illuminated by emergency lights. As John moved deeper inside and his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw a line of metallic rectangles stretching into the distance. It was a freight train with a dozen open-top railroad cars and an old-fashioned steam engine at the far end. The train sat on a pair of steel rails that extended as far as the eye could see.

John whistled. “Unbelievable. And no one but your mother knew that this train was parked here?”

“Almost no one.” With a groan, Ariel stopped and rested her end of the trunk on the ground. She stretched and shook her right arm, working the kinks out of the muscles. “Mother ordered some work done in this section in the early 1900s, but she told everyone it was a mining operation. And all the men who worked on the tunnel kept it secret until they died.”

“How the hell did she get a train in here without anyone noticing?”

“Back in the logging days, there used to be railroad lines all over the Upper Peninsula. Mother must've purchased the engine and freight cars from the Lake Superior line and had them delivered to the other end of the tunnel. Then someone backed the train up until it reached this end.”

“How far does the tunnel go?”

“Mother says it ends at the Rudyard Trucking warehouse, which is ten miles west of here. Our family owns the trucking firm, and all the employees are Rangers. They have a fleet of thirty trucks, which the Rangers use for various purposes all over the country. But even they didn't realize there was a train stop below their warehouse.” She shook her head as she stared at the railroad cars. “Only Conroy and his chief deputy, Bardolph, were trusted with the secret. They're the ones who kept the train in working order. And Bardolph knows how to drive it.”

“So the plan is to shuttle everyone from Haven to the truck warehouse? Then they'll crowd into the trucks, and the Rangers will drive them across the country?”

Ariel nodded. “The trucking company is near an exit on I-75, and the Canadian border is just twenty miles to the north. If the Rangers driving the trucks have the proper paperwork, they can be in Canada in half an hour.”

“And where will they go from there?”

“The Elders haven't revealed that information yet. They worry that Sullivan has more spies among our men, and one of them may devise a way to contact the Riflemen.”

John peered down the track. The Furies were loading their prize possessions onto the hundred-year-old train, filling the open-top railroad cars with gold and artworks and Treasures. People were climbing into the cars too and finding places to sit next to the trunks and boxes. About fifty feet ahead he spotted a half-empty car that seemed to have room for Ariel's trunk. “Let's put your stuff over there,” he said, pointing at the railroad car.

Ariel grasped the handle at her end of the trunk. After a few more seconds of heavy lifting they reached the half-empty train car and passed the trunk to a pair of men standing inside. Then someone shouted, “Lily!” and the name echoed in the dark tunnel. A moment later they saw Conroy running toward them.

The Master of the Guardsmen had an olive-green duffel bag slung over his left shoulder and an assault rifle over his right. Two older guardsmen struggled behind him, weighed down by duffel bags of their own. Both men were panting and red-faced and at least sixty years old. Conroy was panting, too.

“Milady … we need … your help,” he gasped.

“What's wrong, cuz?”