Age of Heroes (34 page)

The truth was, no parent could ever wholly keep secrets from their child. Everything came out in the end. Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy, where babies came from, the cracks in a marriage, problems with domestic finances – parents could lie about these to their kids, but the kids would figure it out for themselves sooner or later. They picked up the clues, put them together, made sense of them, drew conclusions. It was inevitable.

Josie knew there was more to her dad than met the eye. She knew there was something dark and dangerous about him, a side to him that he did his best to disguise. She colluded in the deception. She didn’t want him to know that she knew. He pretended he was an IT specialist, and she pretended to believe him.

“H
E WAS IN
the Army,” she said to Benedikt. “He served overseas. Afghanistan. I guess he must have killed people there. But that was when I was tiny, a baby. After he re-trained, he became a civilian. No more killing. Or so I thought.”

“But these arguments you have just told me about,” said Benedikt, “they took place after he was not in the Army any more.”

“Exactly. Mum was talking about his work in the present, not the past. When she was referring to how the mortgage was paid for, she meant right then. Besides, she’s never described Dad’s military life in negative terms. She was always proud of him being a soldier, serving Queen and country. What she hated – still hates – is whatever he’s been doing since. That’s where all the ‘tainted,’ ‘polluted’ stuff comes in.”

“Unless she has a real loathing of computers.”

Josie laughed, perhaps louder than the quip deserved. Benedikt ought to be rewarded for trying to joke, under the circumstances.

“It’s obvious my dad is no saint,” she said. “I can only assume that that’s what’s got me into this mess and, I’m sorry to say, you too.”

Benedikt gave a little bow, both acknowledgement and absolution.

“But,” she went on, “you can bet your arse that if he knew where I am, he’d come and get me. He’s not one of those dads who stop caring about their kids. He’d do anything for me. Hence him paying an arm and a leg to keep me at the clinic. I’m still his princess. And if he’s even half what I think he is, he’ll stop at nothing until I’m safe. Whoever’s behind this knows that too. Why else are those men out there, those brick-shithouse doormen types? Why else are there so many of them on call?”

“They have guns, too. I’ve seen them. In holsters under their armpits.”

“Tranquilliser-dart guns? Like the ones they knocked us out with?”

“The other kind.”

Josie suppressed a shiver of dread, although she was not wholly surprised. “There you go,” she said. “They don’t need those for you and me. I’m just a girl and you, no offence, aren’t Arnold Schwarzenegger. You’re lovely but I don’t see you kicking their butts all over the place.”

“You are harsh but unfortunately accurate.” Benedikt held up a slender hand. “I once punched a boy at school. He was a bully and he called me
Schwuler
. It means ‘faggot’. I broke my finger on his jaw. See?” The top joint of his index finger was slightly crooked. “It did not set straight. Also, he then beat the hell out of me. That was the first and the last time I ever hit anyone. I learned my lesson.”

She took the finger and kissed it, as though a kiss might retroactively heal the injury.

He smiled. “I suppose we are past the clinic’s rules about no physical contact between patients and staff.”

“We are. And if the guys out there have no reason to feel threatened by you and me, which they don’t, then what are the guns for? More to the point, who?”

“You think your father.”

“I think it’s the only explanation.”

“Josie, do you have a plan?” He sounded heartbreakingly hopeful. “Do you believe you can get us out of this?”

“I believe my dad can. We just have to get a message out to him somehow. Give him our location. He’ll do the rest.”

“But how to do that? They have confiscated my phone.”

“Mine too.”

“And we don’t know where this place is, this building.”

“It’s in a major European city.”

“That does not narrow it down.”

“One where German’s the main language, judging by the shop signs out there.”

“Still not much help. It could be Germany, the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, Austria...”

“Trams.”

“I am no expert on European cities, but many of them have tram systems.”

“Do you think you’d recognise it if you saw it?”

“You are asking me to look out of the window.”

“Quick peek.”

“But they have told us never to open the curtains.”

“Technically it’s not opening them.”

“All the same...”

“There are offices opposite. They don’t want us standing at the windows trying to signal someone over there for help. That’s all. They can’t really expect us not to at least get a little curious about where we are.”

“Did I not mention the guns?”

“If we’re not meant to look out, they’d have stuck newspaper over the panes or something.”

“They have not done that because it might alert people that something strange was going on in here.”

“I still reckon the curtain thing is more a guideline than a rule.”

Benedikt sighed. “Josie, I don’t know that I would be able to tell what city it is, just by looking.”

“You stand a better chance than me. You’re from round these parts.”

“Even if I
can
tell, how does it make any difference?”

“Just trust me,” she said. “I’ll be standing guard by the doors, listening. If I hear anyone coming, I’ll warn you. Five seconds. That’s all I’m asking. Please, Benedikt?”

She wore him down, stubborner than he was circumspect. He gave in eventually. He snatched a look outside, and they reconvened on the four-poster.

“Well?”

“Let me catch my breath. My heart is beating so fast.”

“Mine too.”

“I do not like fear.”

“I’m so used to it, I’m beginning to get sick and tired of it. All my life I’ve been scared of something. My parents splitting up, not meeting up to people’s expectations, my reflection in the mirror. Now, when I’ve got a genuine reason to be frightened, all I am is pissed off. I want to do something about it.”

“Being kidnapped is a form of therapy?” Benedikt said. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it as a treatment,” she said, “but it does sort of put things into perspective.”

“Well, for what it is worth, I believe we are in Vienna.”

“Vienna?”

“Capital of Austria.”

“I know what Vienna is. How can you tell?”

“Not far from here I saw a...
Kirchturm
, in German. What is the English word for the tower on top of a church?”

“Steeple?”

“Yes. Steeple. I also saw some of the roof of this church. It has very colourful tiles which form a pattern – diamond shapes and zigzags, green, gold and purple. I may be mistaken, but there is only one church with a roof like that. St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. And did you not see the flag flying on a building not far from there?”

“A red and white one with an eagle in the middle?”

“That is the Austrian flag. Ninety-nine per cent, I am sure this is Vienna.”

“Vienna,” Josie said. “Is Vienna a big city?”

“Not so big, I think. Not on the scale of London or Paris. Why?”

“There can’t be many smart districts in it like this one.”

“Probably not. Maybe no others apart from this.”

“Good. That narrows it down.”

“You hope that your father will be able to find this place somehow? This building we’re in? This room?”

“If we give him all the clues we can.”

“And then he will come for us, and fight his way through those men next door, and rescue us?”

“He’ll do something, that’s for sure.”

“Josie, believe me, I want to be out of here as much as you do. I want your father to be some one-man army who can save the day, like Bruce Willis or Liam Neeson. But we must be practical. We must not dream. We must face facts. This is real life. We should just leave our captors to go through the process of ransoming you, if that is the point of all this. We should sit tight and behave and wait for money to change hands or your father to do whatever these people demand. Let it play out. That, for sure, is better.”

Josie gnawed her lip. “I’m not prepared to do nothing. For so long I’ve done nothing, except feel sorry for myself. Enough’s enough.”

“Fine,” said Benedikt. “But we still have the same problem. No phones. Even if your father can do all you think he can, it’s no good when we have no way of contacting him.”

“There is a way.”

“How?”

“You’ve been in that other room.”

“I have. So?”

“Am I right in thinking there’s a phone in there?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m sure I saw one, through the doorway. Over in the corner on a sideboard.”

“A sideboard is...?”

“A table against the wall. You know the one I’m talking about. It’s wooden, varnished. Has curved legs and clawed feet.”

“Okay, I know the table. A phone?”

“A landline. Handset, base unit, maybe with an answering machine. Old-fashioned setup.”

“We call your father with it?”

“One of us does.”

“And the men stand aside and permit this?”

“Of course not,” said Josie. “The other of us gives them something else to think about. A distraction.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“You’re not going to like it. Professionally, personally, on every level.”

“This does not surprise me,” said Benedikt, resigned. “The new Josie Young I am seeing appears to be a crazy woman.”

“Wasn’t I always crazy? Isn’t that why I was at the Gesundheitsklinik?”

“I apologise.” He shot her a look of contrition. “It was a wrong thing to say.”

“I’m only teasing,” Josie said. “There’s bad crazy and there’s good crazy. I’ve done the first. Been there, got the T-shirt. It’s about time I tried the second.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Central Krasnoyarsk

“H
E SHOULD BE
dead. Why isn’t he dead?”

These were the first words Roy heard as he came to. The voice was a woman’s, unfamiliar, dripping with disgust.

“Good question,” said a man’s voice, also unfamiliar. “If I’d had my way, he would be. But old Peter Purepants here stopped me before I could finish him off.”

“With justification,” said a third voice: Theo Stannard. “He’s not our enemy.”

“Could have fooled me,” said the woman. “There were a dozen of them, you said. All dressed like him, all armed like him. They murdered Heracles. How is he
not
our enemy?”

Heracles?

“Because,” said Stannard, “before Chase so rudely interrupted, Mr Young and I were establishing a rapprochement.”

“Big word,” said the other man, presumably Chase. “Is that a fancy way of saying you were going to let the bastard go?”

“It’s a fancy way of saying he could be useful to us. Isn’t that right, Mr Young? I know you’re conscious. Your breathing has changed.”

Slowly Roy raised his head. His thoughts were sluggish.

He was in what appeared to be a hotel room – functionally furnished, décor making a stab at tasteful. He was tied with strips of torn-up towel to a tubular-steel chair. Stannard was perched opposite him on the end of the bed, elbows on knees, chin on fists. The woman, austerely beautiful, leaned against the windowsill, arms folded below her breasts. The third – Chase – was pacing agitatedly to and fro. Roy had the nagging feeling he knew his face from somewhere.

Heracles, though. Unless he had misheard, the woman had said,
They murdered Heracles.

The big man with the beard; the target. Salvador Vega, also known as the
luchador
El León.

Heracles?

“Shit,” said Roy thickly, croakily. “Is that who you people are? It can’t be. You can’t be. That’s just not...”

“Not what?” said Stannard. “Who are we, Young?”

“It’s insane. It’s impossible.”

“What’s he yammering on about?” said Chase.

“I believe he overheard Sasha referring to Salvador by his original name just now. I believe the penny is dropping.”

“He knows? About us?”

“Sure. Why not?” said the woman called Sasha. “He must do, or why would they have the artefacts?”

“No,” said Stannard. “Remember what I told you? Young and his fellow Myrmidons are pawns. They’ve been kept in the dark about the true nature of their victims. Only now, right now, is he putting it all together.”

“And you’re cool with this?” said Chase. “That he’s rumbled us?”

“I would be concerned had he not shown himself to be an intelligent, reasonable man, someone who’s willing to listen and compromise.”

“I still say we should kill him.” Chase took a step towards Roy, and Stannard restrained him with a hand.

“I say we should interrogate him first,” Sasha chimed in. “Pump him for information – don’t have to be nice about it.
Then
kill him. There was little love lost between Heracles and me, but still he was one of us. This man should be held to account for his death. An example should be set.”