Age of Heroes (32 page)

On his own, it would have been a suicide run. Had Chase been with him, he might have given it serious consideration. They would, at worst, give the the killers something to think about. At best, they’d wipe the floor with the lot of them.

Damn his cousin, wandering off like that when he did. Talk about irresponsible.

As he prepared to set off again alongside the river, Theo spied movement at the periphery of his vision.

He wheeled round.

There was someone lurking amid the trees, in a patch of shadow.

“Chase?”

The dim, silhouetted figure moved out into the light: one of the paramilitaries.

Without hesitating, without even thinking, Theo charged at him.

The man raised both hands above his head.

“Stop,” he said.

Theo skidded to a halt, inches from the man. He could, if he wanted to, smash his fist into his face, shatter his skull like an eggshell. He wouldn’t even see the blow coming.

“You’re Theo Stannard,” the paramilitary said. He had an English accent. Not a Londoner’s, but close to it. Estuary English, was it called?

“So what if I am?”

“You’re the author.”

“And you, pal, are a dead man. You and your cronies just killed one of my oldest friends back there, so you’d better give me a damn good reason why I shouldn’t rip your head off and –”

“I surrender.”

Theo frowned. “Say again?”

“I surrender. Take me prisoner. But do it quick. The others know I’m on your tail, but I’m maintaining radio silence. They don’t know I’ve caught up with you and they’re not worried about me yet. Not if their comms chatter’s anything to go by. They’re busy setting up a perimeter around your friend’s body. As far as they’re concerned, I’ve gone ahead solo to scout for you, see if I can’t flush you back towards them. You’re a loose end. If they don’t hear from me in five minutes or thereabouts, they’re going to start wondering whether I’m okay. At least two of them will come looking for me. I am no threat to you. I just want to talk. I want some answers.”

Theo studied the Englishman’s face. The guy was sincere; every instinct he had was telling him that. It wasn’t a trick. The Englishman really was surrendering. He really did want to talk.

Still, Theo’s desire to kill him was almost unendurable, a primal urge. Blood called for blood. It had been that way back in the Age of Heroes. You killed those who killed your kin, to restore the balance, to right the injustice. Theo could snuff out the Englishman’s life and feel not so much as a twinge of conscience. The cold-blooded murder of Heracles demanded nothing less.

On the other hand...

Theo wanted some answers too.

Tamping down the white-hot loathing that seethed inside him, he said, “Okay. You’ve got five minutes. Talk.”

TWENTY-SIX

Banks of the Bazhaika River

“O
KAY.
Y
OU’VE GOT
five minutes. Talk.”

Roy lowered his hands a fraction.

“No,” said Theo Stannard. “Keep those up high. The further they are from your sidearm, the better – for you.”

Solemnly, obediently, Roy lifted his hands back where they had been.

He still could not quite believe what he was doing, the risk he was taking. Had the man before him been anyone but Theo Stannard, he wouldn’t even have contemplated approaching him. When he’d caught sight of Stannard’s face as the Myrmidons were homing in on their target, he had been stunned. He had recognised him from the publicity headshot on his Amazon author page. Why was Stannard, of all people, accompanying the target, Salvador Vega? What connection did he have to the big bearded
luchador
? Roy had to find out. There was, he felt, something about this situation that he might be able to use to his advantage.

“I’ve read one of your Jake Killian books,” Roy said.

“So? You a fan?”

“That’s irrelevant.”

“Not a fan, then.”

“My point being, I reckon you’re someone I can reach out to, maybe even trust. You’re also someone who may well be able to explain what’s going on here.”

“You got that from reading my novel?”

“Writers reveal a lot about themselves in their writing, without always meaning to. The author of the Jake Killian series strikes me as a moral person.”

Stannard looked at him askance. “Which one?”

“Huh?”

“Which Jake Killian?”

“
Killian’s Rage
. Third in the series, I think. Does it matter?”

“Just curious. Asking myself if there’s anything special about that one, anything that particularly screams ‘trustworthy’. Can’t think of anything.”

“It’s the main character. The protagonist. A bad man trying to do good. A black knight turned white. I suppose, in a way, I identify with that.”

“You’re part of a paramilitary unit that’s going around killing people.”

“It’s complicated,” said Roy.

“I’ll bet it is. So is this a book club? Are we spending this truce discussing my fiction, or are we using it to get some shit sorted out? Who are you, anyway? Give me a name.”

“Roy Young.”

“From the UK?”

“Yes. And who are you?”

“You know that.”

“No.” Roy put some force into his voice, as much as he dared. “Who are you really? Who is the Theo Stannard who I’ve just watched run three times faster than an Olympic sprinter? Who
are
these people, who have such speed and strength and endurance? In fact, the question I should be asking is
what
are you?”

“And maybe the question
I
should be asking,” Stannard retorted, “is who’s sent you after us? And where did you get those weapons you’re using? Not the guns, the other ones. The old-fashioned ones.”

“Who’s sent us? I can honestly say I don’t know.”

“That’s convenient.”

“I mean it. I know who I answer to, but he’s just a middle man. He answers to someone else, and who
that
is I have no clue. As for the weapons” – Roy shrugged – “we’ve been given them, instructed to kill our targets with them. Don’t know why; no one’s told us. Above my pay grade, as they say. I have some theories, but they’re vague.”

“Go on.”

“At first I thought the weapons were symbolic,” said Roy, “although I couldn’t figure out what of. Now I reckon they have some direct relevance to you and your kind. They’re the only things that can really hurt you. They’re your – at the risk of sounding daft – kryptonite. Like stakes and crucifixes to vampires. Which leads me to wonder...”

Roy was almost embarrassed to carry on. If he hadn’t seen the things he’d seen, the things that Daniel Munro had been capable of, the things Vega and Stannard had shown they could do ...

“
Are
you vampires?”

Stannard snorted a laugh. “Yeah, no.”

“Standing out in broad daylight like this,” Roy said. “Obviously you’re not. I just thought maybe the legends didn’t tell the whole story, or else you’re a new breed of vampire, resistant to the sun, or...”

Stannard stared at him.

“Forget it. Forget I said anything at all. But you definitely have this whole superhuman aspect to you. I’m not wrong about that, am I?”

“We’re... different,” said Stannard. “It’s complicated.”

“Government experiment? Advanced black-budget military programme? Genetically enhanced super-soldiers? Am I even in the right ballpark?”

“Why does it matter to you?”

“Normally it wouldn’t. Normally this would just be a job to me and I couldn’t give two shits who my targets were or what sort of people, or why I’m being paid to kill them. Now, though, I’m feeling used and manipulated. The contract doesn’t sit right with me at all. It’s not my habit to worry about this sort of thing: don’t judge, don’t question, just do. But I can’t help thinking I’m somehow on the wrong side of this fight. For the first time in my career I have the impression that whoever I’m working for is someone I really shouldn’t be. As if to prove it, they’ve started blackmailing me in order to keep me under their thumb.”

“My heart bleeds.”

“I’m not asking for sympathy. In my line of work you do deals with wankers all the time. Goes with the territory. You should expect the occasional back-stab. But there’s more. I’ve never before been made to feel that I’m a henchman. That grates. Like I’m one of those disposable goons in a James Bond movie whose sole purpose is to throw themselves at the hero and get mown down.”

“Still not exactly tugging at my heartstrings, Mr Young. Mowing you down is something I would deeply love to do right this minute.”

“Hear me out, Stannard,” Roy said. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m not innocent, God knows, but nor am I the villain of the piece. My boss’s boss is. He or she is sending us Myrmidons against a group of people whose have exceptional abilities or powers or I don’t know what, and it strikes me that we’re going after an endangered species. White tigers, snow leopards, mountain gorillas, that sort of thing. Rare creatures on the brink of extinction.”

“No one’s ever described me as rare before,” said Stannard. “Or endangered.”

“Far as I’m concerned, you’re both. Someone really seems to have it in for you and your kind. They’re throwing a ton of money at eradicating you.”

“To the extent of having bespoke Hellenic-style helmets made for their private army of assassins. And is that what the ‘M’ on the arm is for – Myrmidons?”

“Yes. Ant soldiers. So’s we know just where we sit on the scale of importance.”

“Myrmidons were well-respected, back in ancient times. Brave, feared in battle. I’m not saying that to boost your ego, just stating a fact.”

“Do you have any idea who you might have pissed off so badly that they want you dead?”

“Me personally? I could name a couple of people, perhaps. But us as a group? My ‘kind,’ as you put it? Who would want us
all
dead?” Stannard rubbed the back of his neck. “Again, I could name a couple of people, but it’s still a puzzler. I just can’t see what the benefit is.
Cui bono
, as the lawyers say. It means –”

“I know what it means. ‘Who benefits?’”

Stannard eyed him with surprise and a glimmer of curiosity.

“I may be a henchman,” said Roy, “but I’m not brainless.”

“So I see. Are you the only one among you Myrmidons who’s uneasy like this? Are you the sole bearer of a conscience?”

“So far, none of the others seems bothered. If they’ve realised we’re up against superhumans, they don’t care. I haven’t canvassed opinions, but the general mood is that as long as we’re getting paid in the end, you lot could be green tentacled Martians and it wouldn’t matter.”

“Your colleagues aren’t as smart as you.”

“Oh, they’re all pretty smart.” Roy thought of Travis Laffoon. “Almost all.”

“Then they’re less observant.”

“Or can compartmentalise better. But I think it’s beginning to dawn on them, even so, that there’s something unusual going on.”

“Do you think you can use that to your advantage?”

“In what way?”

“Well...” Stannard took a step back, so that he was no longer in Roy’s face. “Let’s say you and I may be able to find some sort of common interest.”

“You mean apart from me having read one of your novels?”

“Was that a joke?”

“It was trying to be.”

“Then don’t do it again. I am still only an inch away from ending you. But if we can both agree that we aren’t actually enemies, then perhaps we can be useful to each other.”

“I like the sound of this,” Roy said. He was thinking of Josie. Since her kidnapping, he had been preoccupied with his daughter. Barely anything else mattered. Theo Stannard might prove a valuable ally; certainly a powerful one. With his help, his knowledge, there might be a way for Roy to apply leverage on Badenhorst and get the Afrikaner to reveal where Josie was. That or he could enlist Stannard himself to look for and rescue her. This – something like this – was why Roy had thrown himself on Stannard’s mercy in the first place. It had been a desperate measure, but these were desperate times. “Go on.”

“What if,” Stannard said, “you could turn the other Myrmidons? Bring them round to your way of thinking?”

“Tall order.”

“But...?”

“Doable. I can think of at least two of them I could make headway with. Get them on side, and the rest might fall in line. You want me to start a revolution within the team?”

“It would degrade the Myrmidons’ effectiveness and give us an edge.”

“If I were to do that...” Roy began.

“You’d expect something in return. Of course. Such as?”

Roy was about to answer when he felt something snaking around his neck: an arm, heavily muscled. But the crazy thing was he could see nothing there. There was fabric pressing against his skin, warmth from another’s flesh, and his clawing hands found solid flesh to grab onto – but whoever had seized hold of him from behind was invisible. Was
not there
.

Even as his mind attempted to fathom the anomaly, the arm applied pressure. Intolerable, choking pressure. Roy had already had Daniel Munro try to strangle him once recently. Now someone was doing it again.