Back in the operations room, I gazed up at one of the enormous screens, watching a satellite map blip into view, showing a swath of dusty brown, with patches of green interspersed throughout. Mist stood beside me, also watching the screen, while the two human workers sat at their keyboards, typing furiously.

“This,” Mist explained, leaning back against a desk, “is the eastern Mojave Desert, close to the Arizona/Utah line. When you told us to look for the Order’s western chapterhouse, we began directing our satellite feeds to the areas close to and around Crescent Beach.”

“Hold on,” I said, holding up a hand. “We have satellites?”

Mist gave a short nod. “We own one of the largest satellite communication networks in the world,” she said coolly. “It isn’t difficult to put in a few extras.

“Regardless,” she continued, as if that was unimportant, “when we started searching, we found…this.”

The feed zoomed in, focused and showed a bird’s-eye view of a facility smack in the middle of nowhere. Even from this height, it didn’t look very impressive. I could see a fence with two gates, several long rectangular buildings and the road that cut through the vast, empty desert surrounding it.

“That,” Mist announced, as if she could feel my skepticism, “is St. George’s western chapterhouse.”

I frowned. “Are you sure? It doesn’t look like much. Certainly not a heavily armed military base.”

She gave me a look of veiled annoyance. “That’s what they want you to see, Mr. Hill,” she said. “The Order uses a combination of security and complete isolation to hide their chapterhouses. Some of them, like the main headquarters in London, are too heavily armed for us to do anything about. Some of them, like this one, rely on isolation to keep them secure. Talon knows of several large Order facilities around the world, but the smaller chapterhouses are good at concealing themselves and hiding in plain sight. The only reason we found this one was because we were actively searching for St. George movement in the region. At your request, Mr. Hill, and this took us all night.”

I held up my hands. “Point taken. No need to bite my head off. I believe you.” She sniffed, looking mollified, and I glanced back at the screen. “So, this is their western chapterhouse,” I mused, crossing my arms. “I’m sure Talon will want to know about this. Have you informed Mr. Roth?”

“No,” Mist replied gravely. “I figured you deserved that honor. After all, you were the one who pointed us in the right direction. But that’s not all we found,” she continued, before I could feel smug that I had been right. “Look at this.”