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was a cattle farm carved out of the jungle at the end of a long, lonely road. Ray smelled it before he saw it, the scent of manure and mud and diesel. Ramón drove the van into a barn, and two
vaqueros
in broad-brimmed cowboy hats closed the door behind them.
    “Welcome to the Hotel Cowshit,” Mantu said. He opened the van door. “Let’s go inside and eat before I decide to rope me one of those steers for dinner.”
    Ray climbed out after him. The two cowboys were moving a stack of hay bales. Beneath the stacks, in the dirt, was a metal trapdoor surrounded by concrete.
    Ray shook his head. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
    “Trust me. This place is like the Trump Towers compared to that trailer-trash hellhole in Blackwater.”
    Mantu lifted the heavy door.
    “Down the hatch,
gringo,
” Ramón said. He gave Ray a thumbs-up.
    —
    It wasn’t so bad—tiny but clean, airy, and well-lit. Ray had his bug bites tended, then they had a dinner of
frijoles,
rice, and fried plantains delivered from the kitchen in the farmhouse above. Mantu closed himself in a tiny room full of computers while Ray sat digging through the backpack that had been prepared for him. A new set of clothes, pre-stained and distressed, along with a pair of knockoff Nikes. A water bottle with a built-in purifier. A new locator watch, which he immediately fastened onto his wrist. A new passport—same fake name and address as before—with a photo matching his fake face. If he flipped open his passport the right way the photo would change, showing him without the makeup. The Brotherhood had plenty of magicians on its payroll, and the wallet was something stage magicians had developed for switching playing cards. Another chintzy prepaid flip phone. And finally a wallet full of cash, and a credit card tied to a flimsy shell account that could never be traced.
    Mantu emerged a short while later. His mouth was drawn tight. “Okay. We’re good for tomorrow. You’ll finally get to see the place and meet the bosses. It’s gonna blow your mind, Ray. I’m talking a fortress full of genius scientists and crazy psychics and shamans. Like something out of a comic book. And the shit that goes on there…well, I still only half understand what those Brothers are up to.”
    “I’m sure it’s fascinating. Did you ask about Ellen and William?”
    “Yeah. Of course. They’re not one hundred percent certain yet, but it looks like Lily’s not involved. At least not her inner circle.”
    “Who is it, then?”
    “I don’t know. Jeremy thinks it was either a random kidnapping, or that Lily put out some kind of APB for the two of them and some jackass up and grabbed them. Or maybe they just missed you somehow.”
    Ray grimaced. “I was on that goddamned Ferris wheel. Trapped in it. Maybe they just didn’t see me.” Of course there was another possibility, but it was one he didn’t want to think about and certainly didn’t want to speak aloud. How Lily, once again, may have taken away those he loved simply to torture him. As some kind of sick game. Or perhaps she knew that he would come after them, and, in doing so, deliver himself to her.
    Mantu shrugged. “If we’re lucky one of them still has a transmitter. If not, we have other ways of finding them. They know the meditation.” Mantu had taught them all visualization and meditation techniques that were supposed to make them more visible to the Brotherhood’s remote viewer team. Ellen thought it was bullshit, but William liked that kind of thing.
    “Well, I’m going to help find them. I can’t just sit on my ass while your psychics are swinging pendulums over maps.”
    Mantu shook his head. “No way, Ray. You’ve been in danger for too long. My orders—orders right from the top, I should add—are to get you to Eleusis in one piece. You’re needed there.”
    “Well, Ellen and William
need me,
too
.
” This was déjà vu of the worst sort. “You might recall that you guys told me the same thing