The Age Of Zeus (34 page)

"But training..."

"I've trained long and hard in the TITAN suit. I was proficient in one long before you lot arrived."

"Cronus," Sam said, a lightbulb popping on in her head. "Of course.
You're
Cronus. That's why no one else has been found to wear that suit. You've been keeping it back for yourself."

"Spot-on. And now seems the opportune moment to make the move - to join the ranks. It always was my intention to. I've simply been waiting for the rest of you to gel as a unit, so that I could feel safe fitting in. And my presence on missions might have had an inhibiting effect before now. As things stand, I'm confident the Titans can accommodate me in their midst without it upsetting the balance of their functioning."

"Even though you've had no field experience?"

"I'll pick it up as I go. I'm a quick study."

"Will the Titans take orders from you, though?"

"They do already, to some extent. The only difference now will be I'll be right there beside them, not miles away. Sam, you can raise all the objections you like, but this isn't negotiable. This is just how it's going to be."

"And when I come back after a week, what then?"

"We shall figure out a way of meshing together seamlessly, you and I."

"I've been doing OK on my own so far."

"There's absolutely no slight intended here on your leadership qualities. Those have been all but impeccable. This is about taking the Titans to the next level. Our biggest battles lie ahead. I like to think that the addition of me to your number will strengthen your - our - effectiveness."

"Well," said Sam frostily, "you're the boss."

"Indeed I am."

"And Darren Pugh," she said. "Would I be wrong in thinking he was never going to be Cronus? It was never likely?"

"Ah, Pugh. Yes. He was more of a... Do you know the word libation?"

"Long word for a drink. Popular with pompous pub landlords and real-ale bores."

"Bit more than that. It's an offering. In classical times, before wine was served at a feast some of it would be poured out onto the ground, to appease the gods. The same at sacrifices, so that the gods would be propitiated and whatever the sacrifice was being made in aid of would be granted. Now I of course don't believe in any of that nonsense literally, but I thought it would be a nice idea - appropriate - if in this classically-based enterprise of mine I followed the precedent. Instead of a wine libation for good luck, a human libation. One of you. One I could afford to lose, even wanted to lose. I selected Pugh as the twelfth invitee secure in the knowledge, or let's at least say ninety-nine per cent certain, that he would back out before we'd even got going. He didn't have the incentive or the temperament to commit to the cause. And sure enough, he did exactly as anticipated. In addition, I'd been havering somewhat over whether I ought to enrol myself as a Titan. I was treating Pugh as a kind of test of fate. If he baulked, that would confirm that I was meant to be Cronus. And so he did, and so I was."

"A rigged test. You chose him mainly because you knew he
wouldn't
sign up."

"A test weighted in my favour, perhaps. But then it never hurts to give fate a little helping hand every now and then. That's something I've learned in business over the years. Good fortune is a case of playing the odds, and only an idiot plays poor odds."

"And Pugh was also there to consolidate the rest of us," Sam said. "He helped us make up our minds, by being such a wanker. We thought,
Let's not be like him. Let's do the opposite of what he's done
."

Landesman raised a sage eyebrow. "Such an accusation! Now would I do a thing like that? Deliberately expose you all to someone whose actions would, through contrasting example, lend impetus and validity to
your
actions?"

Sam stood. "All right, Mr Landesman. This is your show. You can run it however you like. I
will
prove you wrong about the Minotaur, though. And I'll do it within a week easily.

"And don't think I don't realise that taking away my prefect's badge is just another way of playing me. Now the pressure's on and I'll be twice as determined to get the Minotaur onside. You're an arch manipulator, and that's fine. I just want you to know I
know
I'm being manipulated, and I'm only going along with it because it serves my purpose."

Landesman acknowledged this. "For what it's worth," he said, "I'd never make anyone do anything they didn't already -"

He broke off. Sam was half out the door and, he could tell by the tension in her upper body, poised to bang it shut behind her as hard as she could.

"Please!" he cried. Then, more softly, and imploringly: "Please. Don't."

"Don't...?"

"Slam it. There's nothing I can't abide more than a door being slammed. Alexander, my son... Towards the end, that was all he ever seemed to do - slam doors on me. It was the soundtrack to the latter years of our relationship, like drumbeats getting faster and faster, until one day the front door slammed, loudest of all, and that was that. He left, never to return. So I... I have a thing about it. It's painful not only on the ears, and I'd appreciate it if you... well, didn't."

Sam was tempted.

But then she wasn't some stroppy, spoiled rich kid with parental-neglect issues, was she?

She departed quietly; closed the door gently.

From the other side came a "Thank you!" and there was something about it that made Sam pause. The tone was ever so slightly smug.

She couldn't help wondering: had she just been manipulated again?

37. UNARMED

S
uited up, Sam prepared to enter the pen. In one hand she held an enamel pail full of pieces of raw chicken; in the other, one full of corncobs. Nobody had any idea what the Minotaur ate, so she was hedging her bets. The Minotaur might be a ruminant, in common with all bovines, but its aggressive nature suggested carnivorousness. One thing she was sure of: she wasn't going to offer it beefsteak, as Barrington had proposed. That would be too close to cannibalism for comfort.

Mahmoud, also battlesuited, stood by the wheel handle that operated the door.

"There was quite a bit of mooing and thumping around in there just before you turned up," she told Sam. "Things have quietened down, but still, you should be careful."

"I will be," Sam replied. "And so should you. Close that door on me the second I'm in, and then get well clear. I may have to come back out in a hurry."

"Got you. Best of luck, duck."

McCann had fitted the door with a disabling system, to prevent it being opened by means of the matching wheel handle on the inside. Whether the Minotaur was intelligent and dextrous enough to work the handle was unclear, but no chances were being taken. Mahmoud hit the lever that re-engaged the lock mechanism, then grasped the wheel and began rotating. The door groaned open. Sam heard the Minotaur grunt and stir inside the pen.

She stepped through. The door whumped shut behind her.

Smells hit her: Minotaur musk, urine, dung.

The monster itself was crouched in a corner, surveying her intently. It rose to its feet. A full height, its horns scraped the ceiling. It lowed with unmistakable hostility. It knew this human. Remembered her.

"Food," Sam said in as soothing a voice as she could muster. "Here. I've brought you food."

The Minotaur eyed the pails as she set them down on the floor. She searched for a flash of recognition, comprehension, on its face. Saw none.

"Eat." She mimed lifting food to her mouth. "Mmmm. Tastes good." She smacked her lips. "Yummy."

Performing this babytalk act made her feel an idiot. The Minotaur's blank look made the feeling worse.

The monster shook its head, as though pestered by a gnat.

Then it lowered its horns.

Oh shit
.

It came, at speed, across the floor.

Sam, at greater speed, feinted one way, then jinked the other.

The Minotaur collided full-tilt, head-first, with the wall where she had been standing a split second earlier. It reeled backwards, crashing over onto the pails and scattering chicken meat and corncobs.

While the monster lay stunned, Sam made her exit.

She gave the Minotaur an hour to calm down. Then she nerved herself to re-enter the pen. She would be presenting Landesman with a tame beast even if it killed her.

"Here we go again," said Mahmoud. "Don't forget your matador cape."

This time the Minotaur was lying in wait. It sprang as soon as Sam crossed the threshold, ramming her sidelong, sending her sprawling. She scrambled to her feet and met the monster with a reciprocal attack, thrusting it backward with her shoulder until it struck a wall. She left the Minotaur winded, heaving for breath, as she hurried out the door a second time.

"This is not working," she confessed to Mahmoud, peeling off a slab of chicken breast that had got stuck to her arm.

"You don't say."

"The Minotaur associates me with hurting it. I can't win its trust as long as it looks at me and thinks of pain."

"Why don't I try going in? It mightn't remember me."

"You sure? You'd be prepared to do that?"

Mahmoud went in. There was a scuffle. She came out again, Sam swinging the door shut just in time before the Minotaur could follow. The Minotaur hammered on the inside of the door, making it boom like a gong.

"OK, well, we're definitely not at home to Mr Happy this afternoon," Mahmoud said. "And, by the way, you didn't tell me that room's minging in there. Little warning please, next time I'm about to walk straight into a farmyard."

Sam gave the Minotaur another couple of hours to settle itself. Then she said to Mahmoud, "It's the suits."

"What about the suits?"

"The Minotaur sees them and knows we're the enemy."

"So?"

"So I have to go in without my suit on."

"D'you know, I knew you were going to say that, and then I thought,
No, she'd never. Nobody would be that daft
."

"It's the only way. In my suit, I'm the bad guy."

"And without your suit, you're toast," Mahmoud said. "You're not doing this, Sam. I won't let you. Talk about suicidal!"

"If it sees me as a person, it might just hold off from attacking."

"Why? Persons are what it attacks. That's what it does."

"Not if I make it clear I don't pose a threat."

"Your mind's made up, isn't it? OK, what if I go in with you then, with the coilgun, just in case."

"A gun's as bad as a battlesuit," said Sam. "This needs to be me, alone, suitless, unarmed."

"Unarmed as in the Minotaur's going to rip your ruddy arms out of their sockets."

"I don't think so. I think I'll be all right."

"Weren't those Julius Caesar's famous last words as he set off for the Forum? 'I'll be all right'?"

"Can you trust me on this?"

"No. But yes. If you say I must."

"I do."

Sam felt naked, not simply suitless, as she approached the pen for the third time. She felt as terrified as - no, more than terrified than - she'd felt when setting out on her first op, against the Hydra. Ramsay would pitch a fit if he knew what she was up to. She had absolutely no protection here. The Minotaur could finish her off in a heartbeat. Standing before the door she experienced a moment of wooziness followed by a moment of sheer wanton panic.
What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?
It was a supreme effort to turn to Mahmoud and give her the nod to open the door. It was an even greater effort to make her feet move one in front of the other and walk into the pen. And when the door closed behind her, her fear became a visceral thing, a cold relentess clenching of the gut.

The Minotaur fixed its crimson gaze on her, and Sam knew she was dead.