Age of Heroes (41 page)

“The whole exercise seemed futile to me.”

“But you encouraged us to go anyway.”

“Chase needed to let off steam.”

“I did,” Chase said.

“You all did,” said Sasha. “Men are not the masters of their feelings. They need an outlet for all those emotions they cannot express. I judged that the three of you would benefit from getting out in the open air and hunting for a while. Whether you caught Chase’s beast or not, it would be cathartic. Of course I regret my decision now. With hindsight, I wish I’d been with you. It might have made a difference.”

“It might,” said Theo, “but probably not.”

“But you believe – what? I sent you with him and set the Myrmidons on your trail?”

“I’d be an idiot if it didn’t occur to me. They came right to where we were.”

“It could have been coincidence that I chose not to go.”

“Maybe, but I don’t like coincidences. I don’t believe in them.”

“
Was
it you, Sasha?” said Chase. “I mean, let’s be direct about this. Look us in the eye and tell us you weren’t involved?”

“I had nothing to do with it,” Sasha said. “Believe that or not, I don’t care. I know I am telling the truth. If I’m not on your side, how come I’m still with you? How come I have got you transportation and guns? Answer me that, either of you.”

Chase was silent. Theo deliberated. He wanted to think Sasha was being up-front with them, but her personality made it difficult. Someone as prickly and aloof as her always seemed to have a hidden agenda, even if they didn’t.

“You can’t,” she said. “Thought as much.” And she spun on her heel and disappeared into her cottage.

Chase looked at Theo. “Get some sleep, cuz. That’s the best remedy. You’re tired; so am I. We’ll start again in the morning, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

He clapped him on the shoulder and, somewhat drunkenly, ambled off.

T
HEO TRIED TO
sleep, but couldn’t. Frustration knotted his stomach. Thoughts whirled round in his head.

If it wasn’t Arlington or Gottlieb, then who? Who was sponsoring and masterminding the killings? How had they got hold of the artefacts’ locations? Why were they going to all this expense and trouble to exterminate demigods? What was the point?

He had been so close to a resolution, or so it had seemed. Kardionisi was where everything would be tied up, he’d been sure. But now, as Sasha had said, they were back to square one.

Eventually he did doze off.

Only to be woken sometime around 3AM by a beep from his phone.

A text message, from Roy Young.

Four short words.

Be ready. We’re coming.

THIRTY-FOUR

The Aegean, south of Kardionisi

A
TRIO OF
black Zodiacs scudded across the nighttime waves in triangle formation.

Roy was in the leading boat. With him were Gavin and Jeanne, the latter driving. The remaining eight Myrmidons were divided equally between the other two boats.

The Zodiacs – fast, low-profile inflatables – were a mile from their destination, a small island now rising on the horizon. Distant lights twinkled on its summit, outnumbered and outshone by the myriad of stars scintillating above.

Just as Roy downed the last two of his Russian painkillers, his phone vibrated. Theo Stannard had answered his text.

I’m the next target?

Quickly Roy tapped out a reply, gloved thumbs clumsy:

You and anyone who gets in our way.

Stannard came back with:

How many of you?

Roy:

The lot.

Stannard:

I should be flattered. How long do I have?

Roy:

Not long. We’re nearly there. I’ll do my best at this end. Haven’t been given much time to prepare. Just stay alive so you can keep your side of our bargain.

Stannard closed the exchange with:

You help keep me alive and I will.

Roy tucked his phone away and turned to Gavin and Jeanne.

“Stannard’s been alerted,” he said above the outboard’s rumble. “You two sure about this? You’re still with me?”

Gavin said, “I’m not happy about the money. In my head, all I can see is a bloody great big wedge of cash flapping away from me on wings. I had plans. That villa in Malaga...”

“It’s just money,” said Jeanne. “We can earn more another time, another way. Badenhorst is a son of a bitch. He crossed a line when he kidnapped Roy’s daughter. What kind of shitstain does that?”

“The kind we shouldn’t be working for. The same kind who’d bullshit us, holding back the full intel we needed. That’s just plain rude; the worst kind of unprofessional. I know people in our line of work are not always what you’d call honourable, but still, there’s a code of ethics. A rule book.”

“The whole project has been a fog of secrets and misinformation,” Roy said. “Kind of goes with the turf, I know, but this is on an altogether different scale.”

“The pay was too good,” Jeanne said. “Too good to be true.”

“Yeah, we were blinded by it. I know
I
was.”

“What I still can’t get my head around is that our targets have been actual Greek demigods,” Gavin said. “I used to love those creaky old movies as a kid, the ones with Ray Harryhausen animation,
Jason and the Argonauts
,
Clash of the Titans
, all that. And they were about actual living people? The same people we’ve been going after? It’s just plain bonkers.”

“It’s just a shame you’ve only got the two of us to back you up, Roy,” said Jeanne.

“You’re the only two I know I can trust,” said Roy. “Schutkeker, Laffoon, Blomgren – I just don’t think I can rely on them. Sean Wilson, maybe; I thought about it. But when it came down to it, you two were the only ones who seemed like you’d do the decent thing, once you knew about Josie. You’d put your consciences ahead of lining your wallets.”

“Too right,” said Gavin. “I’ve got kids. My boys. I like it that I can afford to give them a good life. My wife, too. Makes the job doable. But if I thought for one moment that there was going to be blowback, that I was going to put them in danger... Well, I don’t know what I’d do. Go ballistic, most like. I’m amazed you’re managing to hold it together, mate. Iron will.”

“Not so much that as the idea of nailing Badenhorst’s bollocks to a wall after this is over.”

“While they’re still attached to him or not?”

“No particular preference. Either’ll do.” Roy tapped the pressure button on the side of his helmet to activate the Myrmidons’ universal comms link. “Everyone, we’re half a klick out. Decelerate to dead slow. There’s enough chop in the water to mask the sound of our engines at low rev.”

Minutes later Jeanne was nosing the Zodiac into the island’s natural harbour. She cut the motor and the inflatable coasted up silently alongside the two boats moored at the jetty – a midsized launch and one of those floating gin palaces beloved of the global elite. Both were unlit and quiet. Anyone aboard was most likely asleep.

During the mission briefing Badenhorst had advised the Myrmidons that there were civilians on the island. Travis Laffoon had asked the inevitable question: “What do we do about them?” Badenhorst had said leave them alone unless they showed themselves to be hostile.

Roy felt the point was worth reiterating. “Target Alpha is Theo Stannard,” he said over the comms as the other two Zodiacs sidled up to the jetty. “We do not shoot at anybody who isn’t a direct threat. No collaterals on this one if we can avoid it.”

He leapt onto the jetty. Strapped to his back was the ancient double-bladed battle-axe he had used to slash open Isaac Merrison at Chapel Reef. As then, he seemed to feel the weapon vibrating where it touched him, trembling like a greyhound in the slips, eager for action. It was almost as though the axe was alive and thrilled at the prospect of bloodshed. Last time, he had dismissed it as nonsense, a figment of his imagination. Now, he was not so sure. In a world where demigods were real, all bets were off. Did the special weapons the Myrmidons were using have magical powers? It made a crazy kind of sense. Supernaturally boosted implements for killing immortals. Why the hell not?

The island’s sides were sheer. The only practical way to get to its summit was the funicular elevator, which currently stood at the top of its track. There was a button for summoning it, but the noise was liable to cause a disturbance and wake people. Fortunately, a set of concrete service steps ran parallel with the track.

“Gavin, Jeanne, with me,” he said. “The rest of you, stay put.”

“Uh, actually that’s a no-can-do, Roy boy,” said Laffoon, clambering onto the jetty.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I said that’s a no-can-do. We’re all of us going with you.”

“You are not. I’m team leader. I give the orders. And I’m telling you, this is just me, Gavin and Jeanne. The three of us will be enough. Everyone else, remain here on the jetty. Hunker down and wait ’til we return.”

“No, that ain’t how it’s gonna happen.”

“Yes, Roy,” said Hans Schutkeker. “You give us orders, but someone higher than you has also given us orders.”

“Badenhorst?”

“Yes.”

“We’re in the field,” Roy said. “In the field, I’m in charge, not him.”

“That is true in every respect but this one.”

“Shitkicker and I don’t see eye to eye on much,” said Laffoon, “but on this we’re simpatico. It’s not that we don’t respect you as a commander, Roy...”

“We just do not like you,” said Schutkeker. “Badenhorst thought you might try to go it alone. He has overruled you, and he has asked Laffoon and me to enforce his decision on behalf of the rest of us. It is something we are happy to do. Also he has told the two of us, Laffoon and me, to accompany you at all times on the island. ‘Do not let him out of your sight. Watch him like a hawk.’ His exact words.”

“So everybody’s coming,” said Laffoon. “All for one and one for all.”

Shit
.

Bloody Badenhorst. The Afrikaner had gone behind his back. It was something he should have foreseen. Their relationship had been rocky since Josie’s kidnapping, and events in Russia had done nothing to stabilise it. Roy had practically had to beg to be allowed on this new mission, and Badenhorst had agreed to let him lead it only after persistent lobbying.

“Maybe you’re not match fit, Roy,” Badenhorst had said. “All beaten-up like that. A spell on the benches might do you good.”

“Or maybe,” Roy had said, “I’ve got something to prove. The person who did this to me, kicked the shit out of me, he was one of these superhumans, right? And now it turns out that Theo Stannard is as well. But I think maybe you knew that about him all along. That’s why you gave me a funny look that time you caught me reading one of his books.”

“Very perceptive.”

“A mediocre thriller writer who happens also to be physically advanced, improved, whatever it is these people are. I owe him and his kind a bit of payback, and now I have a chance to take it. That makes me the ideal candidate to spearhead the mission. This is personal for me.”

“Too personal, perhaps.”

“Look, Badenhorst, you’re not going to find anyone here more dedicated, more focused. I’ll get Stannard for you. I want one of those fuckers’ heads on a platter. Might as well be his.”

The Afrikaner eyed him speculatively. “Well, I suppose I can understand that. Vindictiveness is a powerful motivator.”

“Vengeance, more like.”

“Tomayto, tomahto. Okay then. You’re still boss-man. Just don’t disappoint me, Roy. That’s all I ask. That’s all Josie would ask, too, don’t you think, if she were here?”

The words “thank you” had never been harder to say. Forcing them out of his mouth had felt like coughing up a lung.

But Badenhorst, it turned out, didn’t trust Roy at all, not any more. Laffoon and Schutkeker resented him; Badenhorst could not have chosen better.

Roy thought of the Afrikaner back there in Korissia, the small fishing port on Kea which the Myrmidons had set out from an hour ago in the Zodiacs. He imagined him right now, some ten kilometres across the water, sitting pretty in his hotel room, laughing smugly.

He managed to keep his face placid, his breathing steady.

Just.

“Come on,” said Laffoon. “We ain’t got all night. Let’s do this. Lead the way, limey.”

Roy turned and set off up the steps.

The other ten Myrmidons followed in a column, single file.

How was he going to help Stannard now? If it had been just him, Gavin and Jeanne, then no problem. Now, though, he had eight other people to factor into his calculations, and two of them were going to stick to him like glue throughout the mission.

How the hell was he going to salvage anything useful from this mess?