Age of Heroes (37 page)

“I know. The others said.”

“The second bloke – I went after him. Tried to head him off. He got the drop on me.”

“Yes?”

“And he was... Well, whatever the other targets are, he was one too. You know, strong, fast, all that. He disarmed me. Just tore off my belts, helmet, everything, then started to give me the kicking of my life. I got in a few licks myself, but really, it was like Mike Tyson versus, I don’t know, Bambi.”

“But he let you live.”

“I wouldn’t say that exactly. When I realised how deeply I was in the shit, how badly it was going for me, I broke free and ran. Ran and hid. No helmet, no comms, so I’d no way of contacting the rest of the team. It’s taken me all this time to find my way out of the nature reserve and hitch a ride back to town.”

“And you couldn’t have rung earlier to let us know you were okay?”

“No signal out there in the forest. Here is the first place I’ve been able to get any bars.”

Badenhorst weighed this up and nodded.

“You might not think it,” he said, “but you should count your blessings, Roy. You could have come off a lot worse from that encounter. A
lot
worse.”

“Don’t I know it. I hate to run away from a fight, but frankly it was that or get beaten to a pulp.”

“I have to say, though, it was rash of you to go after him alone.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“And without one of the artefacts, either, which would at least have given you a sporting chance. I’ve never pegged you as rash before, my friend.”

“Maybe I’m not thinking straight,” said Roy, inserting a slight edge into his voice. “Maybe when someone is dangling my daughter’s life over my head, the old rationality isn’t what it ought to be.”

“The ever unflappable Roy Young, feeling the pressure?” Badenhorst’s upper lip curled sceptically.

“You should be proud. There aren’t many people who’ve managed to get under my skin. Just you and my ex.”

“I can’t have you anywhere except at the top of your game, Roy. If this business with your daughter is becoming a distraction...”

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you snatched her.”

“Don’t get snitty with me, my friend.” The object hidden under Badenhorst’s jacket twitched; the Afrikaner wanted Roy to see that he had it and was ready to use it if need be. “Don’t forget who’s in charge.”

“I’m committed,” Roy insisted. “I’m here to see this thing through to the end. You know that. For the money, of course, but more than that, for Josie. You’ve got me exactly where you want me. I’ve accepted that.”

Badenhorst fixed him with an appraising look. Roy returned it with a stare that contained both compliance and defiance, a mixture gauged to show the Afrikaner that he was acquiescent but no pushover. If he gave in too easily, the other man might suspect something; but if he was too insubordinate, Badenhorst might elect to terminate his contract – and perhaps him as well.

The taxi wormed through Krasnoyarsk’s outskirts – crumbling concrete low-rises, patches of tangled waste ground, dense webs of overhead cable.

Badenhorst broke into a sudden grin.

“Very well, then. You’re still on the team. Just don’t let anything like this happen again,
nè
? I need my Roy Young. I need him clear-headed and in full working order.”

“You’ve got him.”

“Good.”

Badenhorst withdrew his hand from inside his jacket. He was clutching, not a snub-nose automatic, but a phone. There was a brief text message on the screen and his thumb was crooked over the Send icon.

“If our conversation had gone in a direction I didn’t like,” he said, “or you’d tried something foolhardy, all I would have had to do was press. The tiniest motion, but it would have had huge consequences. Instead...”

With a couple of keystrokes, he erased the message.

“As if it never was,” he said.

“A kill order,” said Roy.

“Correct.”

“To the people who’ve got Josie.”

“You thought maybe I had a gun aimed at you? No. Just my phone – a far more effective deterrent, I’d say, in the circumstances.”

Roy bit his tongue. Fought down the urge to turn the heel of his hand into a battering ram and drive Badenhorst’s nasal bone up into his brain.

He forced himself to think of Theo Stannard. Theseus, and his allies Perseus and Hippolyta. Greek demigods. If he helped them, they would help him. That was the deal.

Just a little longer. He could stick this out. He could hold on.

Just a little longer, and then...

Then there would be a reckoning.

When Josie was no longer in danger, Holger Badenhorst would get what was coming to him. Everything he deserved, and more.

THIRTY-ONE

The Aegean Sea, southeast of Athens

T
HE BOAT POUNDED
across an Aegean as blue as a kingfisher’s wing: a 25-foot Sea Fox Walkaround, propelled by a pair of 150-horsepower Yamaha outboards. At the helm was Rosalind, one of Sasha Grace’s Wonder Women. Another, Melina, was below decks in the compact forward cabin.

Theo sat at the stern, feeling the drumming of the engines through his buttocks and thighs. Sasha occupied the passenger seat next to Rosalind, beneath the boat’s sunshade. Chase perched at the bow, legs dangling overboard, like a living figurehead. He was wearing a pair of Aviators and had both hands braced on the guardrail to steady him against the leap of the waves.

The wind that tore at Theo’s hair was humid and salty, and carried scents that were achingly familiar. The vista, likewise, was achingly familiar: azure water, horizon speckled with islands, sky a cloudless blue firmament, sun flaring magnesium-white. He had not visited Greece – mainland or islands – for many years. Greece was home, and there were memories associated with the place, and the majority of them were good, but were outweighed by the minority that were painful.

Hippolytus, for one. His first, last and only child, taken from him while still in the bloom of youth.

His wives, dead too.

And then there was the general deep-seated pang which most people felt for their distant past, for an era that was innocent and irrecoverable, a simpler time.

The Age of Heroes was gone. Theo was feeling it more acutely than ever now that Heracles was dead. That great, garrulous man, a slave to his appetites, voracious in every respect, had been the holdout, the one who had kept the spirit of their generation alive, the one who had modernised least. Theo was close to Chase, but in many ways he had felt closer to Heracles, for all that the two of them had had little contact over the centuries. The great warrior had steadfastly continued to embody the image of who he was, while other demigods shifted with the flow of history, matching their colours to the times, like chameleons. Theo had done his best to emulate Heracles’s example, staying true to himself, and had succeeded, so he thought, right up until the late 1970s. Only then – after what Chase liked to refer to as his “midlife crisis” – had he at last admitted defeat and become something other than a crime solver and justice upholder. Only then had he remoulded himself to fit the world, rather than try to force the world to suit him.

Now he was feeling something of the old fire in his belly. A glowing ember rather than a full blaze, but it was good to have it there again. Not since his “retirement” forty-odd years ago had a sense of righteousness sung quite so loudly in his ears. There were deaths to be avenged, punishments to mete out. Villains to vanquish.

Life was beginning to make sense once more.

I
T WAS FORTY-EIGHT
hours since he had given Roy Young a beating and turned him loose.

The first twenty-four of those were spent in a kind of limbo. There was no reply from Hélène Arlington. Nor was there any word from Young. Theo, Chase and Sasha passed the time in Krasnoyarsk with nothing better to do than drink, eat, sleep, and wait. Theo juggled with ideas for the next Jake Killian, made some notes, but couldn’t really concentrate. An email from Cynthia – “
Just your agent checking in, wanting to know why her favourite author hasn’t been in touch lately
” – went unanswered. He had nothing to tell her that wouldn’t sound vainglorious or dismissive. The whole notion of writing a novel seemed cheap and trivial just then, like taking a photo of life and pretending it was the real thing.

Then wheels began turning.

Hélène Arlington texted. Her husband would see them. He and she were staying at their island home in the northern Cyclades. How soon could they get there?

Theo checked airline schedules. Aeroflot could fly them overnight to Athens via Moscow, a thirteen-hour trip including the stopover, arriving midday the next day.

That was acceptable to Evander, Hélène replied. Did they require picking up from Athens? She could send the helicopter.

Theo told Sasha to say thanks, but no. They would make their way to the island under their own steam.

“We climb aboard the Arlingtons’ helicopter,” he said to her and Chase, “and from that moment on we’d be effectively prisoners. We’ll hire our own helicopter instead. No, better yet, a boat. That way we’ve always got an easy escape route off the island.”

“I can help there,” said Sasha. “Two of my Wonder Women call Athens home. I’ll get them to make the arrangements.”

“Can you also ask them to source some weapons for us?”

Chase cocked his head. “Guns?”

“What else? I’m not going to go into this half-assed. In the event that the Myrmidons are there waiting for us at
Casa
Arlington, I’m sure as hell not taking them on unarmed. I want the odds to be as even as possible.”

“I believe I can do guns,” Sasha said with a tiny, feral smile. “Any particular preference? Make, model, calibre?”

“I’m no expert. Whatever’s easy to use. If there’s such a thing as an idiot-proof gun, that.”

“Semiauto pistols, then. Glock or Ruger. Virtually point-and-shoot. Nine millimetre for stopping power, so even if you miss central body mass or the head you’re likely to incapacitate your target. I’m fairly certain my ladies could get their hands on some Uzis, if a rapid-fire alternative is what you’re after.”

“Let’s have those too. The more the merrier.”

“Theo, this isn’t like you,” said Chase. “Getting all NRA all of a sudden.”

“This isn’t like any situation I’ve had to deal with before,” Theo said. “Up until now, being a demigod has always been enough. I haven’t had an adversary I wasn’t the better of. This time is different. You didn’t see the Myrmidons taking down Salvador.”

“No,” said Chase. “No, I did not.”

“I did. Heracles, the strongest of us. The one who most loved a good scrap. And they mopped the floor with him. They got Achilles, too. The greatest warrior who ever lived. Next to either of them, I’m small potatoes. At least with a gun in my hand I stand a chance.”

“You won’t be alone either,” said Sasha. “I’m coming with you.”

“I see.”

“You don’t sound enthusiastic.”

“Just surprised. Didn’t think you cared enough.”

“About Heracles or any of the others, not so much. But as a point of principle, this matters to me. And really, you need me. It isn’t open for negotiation.”

“Okay,” Theo said, thinking that at least he could keep an eye on Sasha if she was close by. “I didn’t want to presume, but if you’re in, you’re in. Great.”

“I’m in also,” said Chase. “I’ve had your back this far. It’d be rude not to see it all the way through.”

“Thanks. I hoped you’d say that.”

“Besides,” Chase added, “you know you can’t do shit without me. I’m the wind beneath your wings, cuz.”

“And now I’m feeling just a little bit nauseous.”

Chase grinned. “Mic drop. Chance out.”

T
WO FLIGHTS AND
a taxi ride later, they were boarding the rented Sea Fox at Piraeus. Athens simmered in the noonday heat, loud and crowded and a far cry from the city Theo once knew. The symphony of temples and palaces he had presided over had become a cacophony of apartment blocks and traffic-clogged streets, gross and clanking. He was repelled by it, yet couldn’t help feeling a perverse pride too. A sapling he had nurtured and cultivated had grown into
this
. Sprawling, unruly, smog-shrouded, but still alive, still vibrant, still important. Athens remained a player on the world stage even after three millennia. How many other ancient cities could you say that about?

Melina, the shorter and darker of the two Wonder Women, was a native Athenian. Rosalind, her taller, paler-skinned girlfriend, was Scottish by birth but lived here now. Both were accomplished martial artists, specialising in krav maga and jeet kune do respectively, and proficient in the use of firearms.

After they had hugged Sasha warmly, Rosalind apologised that they’d been able to gather together “only a few wee weapons” in the time available.

This proved to be British understatement. Down in the cabin there were two large canvas duffel bags crammed with ordnance and ammunition. Theo estimated there to be thirty guns all told; pistols mainly, but a half-dozen stubby submachine-guns as well, the Uzis that Sasha had mentioned. He noted, too, the presence of black military-grade ballistic vests.