The Age Of Zeus (46 page)

51. WELL AND TRULY SNOOKERED

I
t was a question Sam had done some considerable soul-searching over.

"I know what I personally am going to do," she told Landesman. "But I think that needn't concern you so much as the rest of the Titans and what
they're
going to do."

"I was rather hoping they might not have to find out about any of this," Landesman said. "I was counting on you agreeing to be discreet."

"Discreet? You mean keep the others in the dark. Lie to them."

"If that's how you want to put it. It could be a secret between the two of us."

"The three of us."

"The Minotaur?" said Landesman, eyeing the monster sceptically. "I don't believe
it
can -"

"Not the Minotaur. Jolyon out there in the corridor. Who's been listening in all this time."

"And who knows the truth anyway."

"Of course he does. He accidentally let slip that he does, too, not so long ago. But," Sam went on, "I really can't let it stay our secret. Couldn't even if I wanted to."

"I'll up your pay."

"It's always about money with you, Mr Landesman! Not everyone can be bought."

"They can't?"

"No, and what I'm trying to tell you is that the other Titans already know by now."

"Oh really?"

"Look over there. On that shelf. Among the stacked dishes. Do you see?"

Landesman squinted, frowned uncomprehendingly, then did see.

A battlesuit helmet lay half-hidden among the crockery, visor facing out.

"That helmet," Sam said, "has been transmitting a feed back to the command centre, and that feed is being relayed to a laptop which the others are gathered around watching somewhere up on the surface. You've had an audience, Mr Landesman. I don't think you're completely in shot, but even if they can't see you they've been able to hear every word you've said. Why not lean forward and give them all a wave!"

Landesman smiled serenely but deep down - Sam could tell because she knew him well enough by now - the man was fuming. He did as bidden, offering the visor-cam a sardonic, somewhat chagrined salute.

"I've been well and truly snookered, haven't I?" he said.

"Perhaps if you'd been honest with us from the start, all of this malarkey wouldn't have been necessary."

"Honesty would not have been effective. The truth would not have endeared you to me."

"Oh, but catching you out in a lie has?"

"I never lied, Sam! All I did was keep one or two salient facts from you."

"Which is lying."

"If you insist. Fine, I am a liar. But does it really change anything? The cause is still there. Our goal is a common one, even if our motives for achieving it differ."

"It doesn't bother you that killing the entire Pantheon will mean killing your own son?"

"If that's what it takes to liberate humankind. Anyway, I've long since ceased to regard Xander as a son."

"He's just the enemy now. The man who metaphorically castrated you, like Cronus castrating Uranus."

"Why can't you see that we can still be allies, in spite of all this?"

"Why can't you see that we can't?" said Sam. "It's simple, Mr Landesman. I can't work with you any longer. I can't go on with this."

His face fell. "You're serious?"

"As cancer. I'm quitting. Count me out."

"Now, come along. We can discuss this, surely."

"Over cognac and cigars, like you did with Nigel? No thanks. Not the gentlemen's club type."

"Then perhaps if I could raise the subject of money again without you leaping down my throat..."

"Money doesn't matter to me!" Sam exclaimed hotly. "How can I get that through your head? Not everyone in the world has a price. I know. Astonishing. But it's true. You could offer me my own weight in gold, but I'm not staying."

"I believe you're already getting paid a lot more than that. How heavy are you? Gold's at around a thousand dollars per troy ounce, so if we multiply that by -"

"Funny," Sam cut in. "My point is, I can't be a part of this, now that I know what 'this' really is. Up 'til now I was glad to be a Titan because I felt we were better than the Olympians. We were everything they weren't - united, noble, morally superior. Turns out that we're not, though. Turns out our boss is as venal and corrupt as any of them."

"Harsh."

"A user. An exploiter. Self-interested. Prepared to say anything to get his way. Stop me when the description doesn't fit."

"Self-interested? And there's no self-interest for
you
in being a Titan, Sam? Not even punishing the Olympians for the death of your beloved Adrian?"

A low blow, mentioning Ade, as Landesman well knew. Sam was incensed enough, however, not to feel it strike home. She had a battlesuit of emotion on.

"Maybe revenge isn't a worthwhile reason after all," she said. "For doing anything. I could lose more chasing after it than I could ever hope to gain. I already feel I'm missing a lot of what used to make me me. I'd like to leave before I completely lose sight of who I am."

"But who were you, Sam, before? Be honest. Until you came here, you were nobody. Nothing. You were adrift, an empty lifeboat. Being Tethys has given you strength and purpose like you've not known in a long time, and perhaps like you've never known. I've seen that. I look at how you are, and I think back to the woman who came to this island at the beginning of this year, and there's no comparison. It's a tiger next to a cat, a shark next to a minnow. You have become...
incredible
. No other word for it. And now you just want to pack it all in? Now, when we - when you - have come so far?"

Oh, it was silver-tongued stuff, but she was not going to be swayed. She was immune to smarm. Impervious to charm.

"My mind's made up," she said.

"What about the others?"

"They're grown-ups. They can make their own decisions. Stay, leave - whatever they choose is up to them and fine by me."

"But surely they won't want you to go."

"They can manage without. It's not like I'm team leader now or anything. Cronus runs the ops." She nearly added, "Runs
from
the ops," but unlike Landesman she wasn't going to stoop to taking cheap shots.

"Everything may fall apart without you," Landesman pleaded.

"If it does, it does. Not my responsibility. I'm done."

She headed for the door.

"Sam!"

The Minotaur lowed, echoing the tone of Landesman's cry.

Outside the refectory she shoulder-butted past Lillicrap and kept on walking.

PART 2

ONE MONTH LATER

52. COLD TURKEY IN KENSAL RISE

I
t seemed that she had had a family for a while, briefly. A man who'd shared her bed, a childlike thing that had been dependent on her, partners who'd been like brothers and sisters, even a father figure, self-serving and untrustworthy though he'd turned out to be. It seemed that she had been happy in her life with these quasi-kin, although some of them had died and that had brought a measure of sadness.

Their home had been an underground warren, the polar opposite of the Olympians' mountaintop eyrie. From the darkness they had emerged to scrap with that other ersatz family and had shown them they were not the apex predators they thought they were. Those weeks of that existence, it had been a grand time. Often terrifying, just as often exhilarating. There had been laughter and despair.

It had been like living.

But now it was all over.

It was definitely all over.

Kensal Rise was grey and stagnant. Summer kept not quite coming to London. Every day began with a warm morning which never managed to catch alight and blaze. Noon clouds would gather, the sunshine would fade, the air would cool. The Met Office put on a brave face, cheerily promising better weather ahead, but it didn't come and behind the forecasters' grins there was desperation and disappointment. They took it personally. They wished they could do better. Like the national cricket team, currently getting trounced in the Ashes. Like Catesby Bartlett's government, already starting to renege on last year's election promises. Letting the country down.

As if any of these things were surprises.

Sam, in a desultory fashion, busied herself. The house, neglected and unoccupied since January, needed spring cleaning and sprucing up. The neighbours hadn't kept an eye on the back garden as they'd agreed to, so it was now a mass of weeds and parched unwatered plants and the shaggy lawn was dotted with half a ton, give or take, of fox excrement. She was out there every morning with hoe and rake and rubber gloves, restoring life and order and hygiene. She read books. She watched too much daytime TV, "too much" meaning "any." She trudged along to the shops on Chamberlayne Road and trudged back again with just enough groceries for today and tomorrow. On several occasions she picked up her mobile and speed-dialled DI Prothero's private line, only to stop before the number reached its last digit. Once, she got as far as listening to the dial tone trill twice, before hitting Disconnect. She wouldn't have minded hearing his voice, even if it had only been his voicemail message. Those roundly singsong Swansea syllables that conveyed a lilt of warmth, however chilly the message of the words they comprised. She missed it. Missed him. Prothero, however, she was sure, had moved on. She doubted he ever even thought about his one-time protégée now. He had a new DS, someone else to chide and coax and mould. She was on her own. As she had been before. As, perhaps, she had always been.

She watched the news. Of course she did. Assiduously, religiously. BBC Breakfast, the ITN lunchtime bulletin, Channel 4 News in the evening. Like a monk observing matins, sext and vespers.

Nothing.

Nothing about the Titans.

The Olympians were keeping quiet too. There would the odd sighting of one of them every now and then. Hephaestus, say, visiting an Athens scrapheap to gather car parts and other metal detritus, for reasons he wouldn't divulge; Artemis fulfilling a longstanding commitment to attend the ceremony announcing the winner of the bid to hold the next Olympic Games (this time round, as it happened, the lucky bidder was the New Democratic People's Republic of North Korea). Other than that, they maintained a low profile, and some observers commented and other commentators observed that with Hermes still missing in action the Olympians were getting out and about much less. Not for them any more the luxury of instantaneous teleportational travel to any point on the globe. Instead, the slight indignity of flights on private chartered aircraft, although at least they were always waved straight through at customs and never asked to present passports or visas. They were Olympians. Who was going to query
their
travel credentials?

The Japanese navy, such as it was, completed its exercises in the Med. As Landesman had predicted, all five ships travelled far up into the Aegean to the Thermaikos Gulf, bringing them within spitting distance of Olympus. A well-aimed missile from the
Takanami
-class destroyer the JDS
Inazuma Maru
could have reached the Pantheonic stronghold some 20-odd kilometres inland, not that the weapon would have been permitted to complete its journey had it been fired. After sailing in circles for several days without getting sunk, the fleet turned for home with everyone on board, from admiral to lowliest rating, astonished and delighted to still be alive. The Greek navy - one frigate, the HS
Plataia
- played escort down through the Cyclades, politely but pointedly showing the Japanese the way out.