Having learned that—in anticipation of Sphinx succeeding inside the Supreme Labyrinth—the members of the secret royal world were rushing to three secure rendezvous points in Europe, China and America, Stretch and Pooh Bear had decided to head for the most important rendezvous point, the one in America: Raven Rock, outside Washington, D.C.

But if they were going to do that and stop Sphinx’s plan, they needed to do it in another ride.

The Egyptian president’s plane was both way too visible and way too trackable. Figuring it was only a matter of time until Marren’s people came after them, they’d dumped the plane in Lyon—the city and its airport silent thanks to a Siren bell—parking it inside a hangar at the airport there.

Then they’d stolen an abandoned police van from the airport and begun the journey for Marseille where they planned to acquire another, less conspicuous plane and start their journey across the Atlantic, heading for the eastern seaboard of the United States. It was a circuitous route, but they had no other choice; they needed to stay out of sight for a while.

They also needed to know more about what Sphinx’s plan actually was, which was why they had kidnapped the royal banker so brazenly.

Stretch said to Marren, ‘On some of the phone intercepts we heard, your royal friends mentioned something called “the transition”. What is that?’

Marren smirked. ‘What the fuck do you think it is? The transition to a new ordering of this world. An entirely new system of rule, one without governments or dictators or puny little kings. A system with one man at its head, Sphinx, and a ruling class of royals working as his governors, and all the populations of the world brought to heel.’

Pooh Bear said, ‘That’s why he needed the Siren bells. He puts entire populations to sleep and only wakes those he wants.’

Marren shrugged. ‘The bells are the ultimate tool for enforcing obedience. Problems in the Middle East? Put everyone there to sleep and never wake them again. Need a new slave class of workers? Put an entire workforce to sleep, transport them to some new country—I don’t know, say, the Philippines—and wake them up chained inside a factory.’

Sister Lynda shook her head. ‘You’re monsters.’

‘We’re rulers,’ Marren shot back. ‘The world’s become a shithole. Too many people, taking up too much space. It’s time to fix it, to restart things. We begin that by culling the weak: put a couple of billion souls to sleep and let them fucking die. Everybody else serves us, the ruling elite.’

‘“You will wake as slaves,”’ Tracy Smith quoted from the driver’s seat. ‘You honestly believe that.’