The Age Of Zeus (4 page)

He rolled up one shirtsleeve to show an arm sheathed in warped, waxy skin from wrist to elbow - scar tissue from second-degree burns.

"And believe me, that's not the worst of it," he added, re-buttoning his cuff. "To say I hate the Olympians would be an understatement. I despise them."

The admissions continued. A Cameroonian by the name of Soleil Eto'o - moon-face, tight short cornrows, her skin so black it had a bluish tinge - had watched her parents burn to death in her home village, victims of a reprisal attack by the Olympians during their efforts to stamp out the resistance movement in that country. Soleil had immediately joined the resistance herself and ever since had been helping to conduct a guerrilla campaign against the Olympians all across Africa.

A Muslim woman from Manchester, Zaina Mahmoud, had lost her two brothers while they were on
hajj
to Mecca. Several Olympians had laid into the crowd of pilgrims circling round the Kaaba, simply in order to prove that there were no deities worth worshipping but them. The irony was, neither Hamid nor Aasif, her brothers, was particularly devout. They'd just fancied making the trip and seeing what all the fuss was about.

A handsome, tough-looking Québécoise, Thérèse Hamel, had had a dear friend taken from her, the Olympians' fault of course. She didn't divulge details, but by that point didn't need to. The tales of tragedy were becoming banal; the bereavements, by accumulation, almost routine.

Of the twelve, only two remained who hadn't told their stories yet. One was Sam. The other was a pale-complexioned, ferrety-faced man who had so far shown very little in the way of emotion. He had an air about him that Sam recognised: enclosed and self-contained, as if he were someone who had learned to keep his mouth shut and his innermost thoughts private, someone who knew the value of silence. In her former life - back when she had
had
a life - she'd met countless people like this. Everything about him said to her that he had not walked the straight and narrow and had more than likely served a stretch or two at Her Majesty's pleasure.

Ramsay now addressed him. "And you, sir?"

The man glanced up, seemingly surprised, as though he'd been paying attention to none of the preceding conversation. "Me?"

"Yeah, you," said Ramsay. "How do fit in with us?"

"To be honest, I don't. 'Cause unlike you lot, I've got nothing to blub and whinge about. It was my missus they got. Ex-missus, sort of. We were separated. Separat
ing
. And I'll tell you what, they did me a favour and all. That fucking cow - she got what she deserved, and the world's better off without her."

That brought a pause to the proceedings. Eyebrows were raised. Awkward glances were exchanged across the table.

Barrington broke the silence. "I'll say this for you, mate. You speak your mind, and for a Pom that's as rare as washing. You have a name?"

"Darren."

"Darren...?"

"Darren'll do for now."

"Well, Darren'll Do For Now, put her there." Barrington held out a hand.

The other man just stared at it.

"Or don't," said Barrington, withdrawing. "See if I care."

"Eleven down, one to go," said Ramsay. "Sam. You're up."

Sam shot him a pleading look.

"Come on," he chided. "It's not so hard. You've just heard everyone. We've all been there - with the possible exception of Darren. Bring it out. Share."

"I don't -"

Sam was saved by the sound of the door opening. All heads turned as a man entered the room. He was slim, dapper, silver-haired, none too tall, with sharply pointed eyebrows and a trim goatee. He wore a tailored charcoal-grey suit, and overall had the sleek, distinguished look of somebody who possessed a great deal of money and was in no way ashamed of the fact. Wealth fitted him much like the suit, lightly and neatly.

"I do apologise for keeping you," said the man, who could only be the instigator of the invitations, the reason they were all there. "Some last-minute details that demanded my attention. I trust you've taken the opportunity to get to know one another. My name is Regis Landesman. You're wondering who I am, why I've asked you to come to this place, and what I have to offer you. In truth, what really counts is what you have to offer me. I will show you what I mean in a moment or so. But first, if you'll indulge me, I have a few words to say."

4. REGIS LANDESMAN

"D
oubtless," said Regis Landesman, "none of you will have heard of me. That's the way I prefer it. Unlike many who have achieved a comparable level of worldly success, I shun the limelight. I have never had any interest in publicising myself. I refuse to espouse charitable causes the way others of my kind do so as to make themselves seem philanthropic or caring - a time-consuming and hypocritical exercise, if you ask me.

"I have for the majority of my fifty-odd years on this planet been a pure businessman, a capitalist of the old school, interested solely in profit, driven by the bottom line, motivated by the margin. I make no bones about it. It has served me well. I have amassed a fortune, some might say several fortunes, through a trade that most would consider abhorrent. My line of work is not for those troubled by an excess of conscience. Plainly put, I am an arms manufacturer. My company, Daedalus Industries, has supplied everything from bullets to jet fighters, landmines to armoured personnel carriers, to any country prepared to pay for them, meaning of course every country.

"Fully one tenth of the world's existing stockpile of munitions and ordnance originated in a Daedalus-subsidiary factory. You can regard me as a merchant of death, a creator of misery, a mass murderer even. I've been called all of those things in my time, and worse. Doesn't bother me in the slightest. Somebody has to make weapons. If I didn't do it, someone else would. To me, it's that straightforward."

"Business must have dropped off lately, though," said Ramsay. "Since the Olympians came on the scene."

"Quite so, Mr Ramsay. Or may I call you Rick?"

Ramsay shrugged.

"In the past few years I've been obliged to close down nearly half of my plants," Landesman said. "Laid off many thousands of workers. There are still deals to be done these days, but far fewer than before, and often with clients of the less desirable kind. Now that every national standing army has been reduced to a rump, government contracts are less forthcoming and are hotly contested by my rivals, with the result that severe undercutting has to go on and any revenue one makes scarcely covers one's overheads. It is not a happy situation. Our share price is a shadow of its former self, and some of the wittier stockbrokers have taken to calling the company 'Dead Loss Industries.' Although you might be relieved to hear that income-wise I personally, through judicious husbanding and prudent investment, am unaffected."

"Strike me blind, are you for real?" asked Barrington. "Way you talk, it's like something out of flaming Jane Austen."

"I shall take that as a compliment, Mr Barrington."

"You can take it however you like, mate."

"I could," Landesman resumed, "resent the Olympians, the entire Pantheon as a whole, for causing the severe contraction of what was once an expansive and lucrative business empire. I should. In a sense, I do. They are the ones who, by taking it upon themselves to establish and enforce a regime of peace all across the world, have knocked the bottom out of the war market.

"But it would be churlish of me to deny that their rise to prominence has brought with it a global stability the like of which has never been known. We all must acknowledge this as a fact. Your faces disagree, but you nevertheless must concede that over the past decade and more the world has experienced no major conflicts, not one, nor any minor ones. For the first time in history there is no region where the human race is engaged in factional in-fighting, civil war, religion-based strife, a battle for resources, any kind of large-scale violence. Power blocs are no longer flexing their muscles. Terrorists are no longer targeting civilians with bombs, suicide and otherwise. Territorial tussles are a thing of the past. And who do we have to thank for that? Zeus and co. You may not like it but you know that it is so."

"But they are murderers," said Anders Søndergaard. "They have killed to further their aims, and continue to kill, recklessly, sometimes deliberately."

"Wouldn't you rather have that, the odd death here and there as the price for overall peace? Isn't that, in the broad scheme of things, a fair exchange?"

"No," said Søndergaard, and the sentiment was echoed round the table.

"But think about it," said Landesman. "The Olympians have picked off every dangerous religious-fundamentalist leader there is. They've eliminated every single tyrant and tinpot dictator, not least the ones with nuclear ambitions. Warmongers, oppressors, right-wing extremist cells, despots, jumped-up paramilitary lunatics everywhere - all gone. Assassinated. Eradicated. Only democratically elected politicians remain in power, and they're all too cowed to start any kind of trouble, knowing it would bring the wrath of the Pantheon down on their heads. They've even handed over the keys to the world's nuclear arsenals to the Olympians, so the spectre of Mutually Assured Destruction, or of even a limited nuclear skirmish, no longer hovers over us.

"And the funds originally earmarked for war budgets have been diverted to schools, hospitals, care homes, civil engineering projects, research into renewable energy, just as the greens and the peacenik brigade have been campaigning for for ages. Isn't this the kind of society we're supposed to have been working towards? The end-point of the human narrative? Every nation in harmony. Rogue states under control. Planet-wide détente. Better use of natural resources. Isn't this paradise? Utopia? We have
gods
in charge of us now. Surely that's desirable, preferable to being at the whim and mercy of mere, fallible men?"

"They ain't gods," said Sparks with a vehement nod.

"Are they not, Miss Sparks?" said Landesman. "They certainly look that way to me. The Ancient Greek pantheon, in the flesh."

"I read somewhere they're aliens," said Mahmoud.

"Do you believe that?"

"That's what some people say. Not just the barmpots, some scientists even. They've come from outer space and taken on a recognisable humanoid shape and are using their powers to save us from ourselves."

"Only they don't have powers," Harryhausen chimed in. "Just incredibly advanced technology made to look like godlike powers."

"And there's another theory," said Tsang. "It goes that the Olympians are creations of Mother Earth. They have sprung up from the collective consciousness. I can't remember it but there's a specific word for them."

"Avatars," said Chisholm.

"That's the one. Avatars of nature. You've heard that one too?"

"Oh yes," said Chisholm. "I've studied the Olympians in great depth. They've become quite a little hobby of mine. I've scoured the internet, read the books and newspaper articles, watched the documentaries. The Gaia Self-Defence Mechanism Hypothesis, that's the name for what you're talking about. Essentially, the Olympians are the planetary ecosystem's response to our species' rapacity and destructiveness, a kind of environmental failsafe. They've manifested from the pool of our dreams, conforming to a pre-existing set of archetypes, and the purpose of their presence is to curb our violent tendencies and steer us off the path of self-annihilation that we're on." Chisholm laughed hollowly. "I think it's a load of tosh, myself. But this kind of wild supposition is only to be expected. In the absence of any hard facts about the Olympians, there'll inevitably be crackpots coming out with harebrained ideas."

"You have your own theory about them, then?" asked Barrington. "All that research you've done, you've got to."

"Sorry to disappoint, but no. Frankly I have no idea who or what they are. Nor do I think it matters. Knowing the truth of the Olympians' origins wouldn't lessen my contempt for them one little bit. Yours either, I'd imagine."

"So it seems we all hate the Olympians, Mr Landesman," said Thérèse Hamel, "apart from you. Are you here to try and convert us? Is that what all this is about? You're some kind of emissary? An evangelist? You want to help us, cure us of our loathing somehow?"

"Did I say I approved of the Olympians, Miss Hamel?"

"You appear to."