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“How did she know where we were?”

A scrub-topped sand dune launches us through the air.

“I’ve checked my body for microchips,” Ero shouts.

“Me too.” I adjust my goggles.

“Yours or mine?”

“Both!”

“So that’s what you were doing with the tweezers in Shanghai. I thought that was a dream.” He checks the GPS, swerving to correct our course. “I mean, she is well connected, but I don’t know. Seems like a coincidence.”

“Any way you look at it, I don’t like it.”

Remembering back to when we arrived at the scrapyard and I let Ananke’s call roll to voicemail, the two of us scrambled. Not knowing if she recorded a code phrase or order, we couldn’t risk listening to it.

We were almost shouting at each other when Gumbo sauntered up, snatched the smartphone, and flicked a few buttons.

“Visual voicemail. If she dun sed anythin’ it don’t understen’, it’ll show what it thinks it sed. Should be safe enough to read.”

“Would you mind?”

“If’n you still truss me. No reezun not to, but I’d git it.”

“I may not remember everything, but I’ll always trust you, Gum.”

“Shore ’nuf. Wouldn’t turn in the only remainin’ cousin.”

“You two are…cousins,” Ero forced out the words.

“He alright?”

“As safe as me.” I shrugged.

“Few times removed. I wuz born in Tarpon Springs, Flor’da. Big Greek community. Grew up in Nawlins. Creole chapter o’ the Lyras. Speshalize in traps and gear. They yoosta call me Hephaestus on accounts mah smarts.”

“How’d you wind up out here?” Ero muscled through, only his eyes twitching with barely contained laughter.

“Retirement. Look here. It sez: ‘I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re actually too busy to answer. Clearly New York led you where you needed to go. That said, I also discovered the news that the serpent is being moved. Stock up on what you need in Vegas. I’ll encode the coordinates for the caravan. Should save you the trouble of scouring the desert. Intercept. Eliminate at your discretion. We’ll discuss your liquidation packages when you return,’” Gumbo prattled off the communique in clear, unaccented English.

Ero scowled.

So we did part of what she said. We stocked up. Headed into the desert the next day. And now we’re following the coordinates.

“So how do you want to go about this?” Ero takes another dune, testing the limits of the side-by-side. Gumbo really souped this thing up.

“Incapacitate the caravan. Extract. Immobilize.”

“Tranqs?”

“We have enough to get him all the way to Canada before he wakes up.”

“Or at least to a safe location for questioning. Then we finish up and…”

“Yeah. No matter what, we can’t leave him alive.”

“Agreed. Still too easy.”