Age of Heroes (13 page)

“So, if I’m following your logic,” Theo said, “being concerned about Aeneas and Orion, which you seem to think may be unnecessary, is a good thing?”

“I’m saying it’s bringing your mojo back. Whether it turns out to be for no good reason doesn’t matter. Could be this is the long-awaited spark that reignites the purifying fire that is Theo Stannard.”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty happy with the way things are.” Even as he said it, it didn’t ring true to Theo’s ears. “I’ve got my literary career. I’ve got a comfortable daily routine. I’ve got life pretty much how I could want it. If I start back down the road of crimefighting, wouldn’t that jeopardise everything I’ve...?”

He realised Chase wasn’t listening.

“Chase? Chase?”

“Shhh.” Chase’s attention was on the TV. Rapt.

Theo tuned in to the morning show’s burble. It was the top of the hour. The anchorman had reached the overseas segment of the round-up. In other news...

“British police still aren’t saying if the fire was set deliberately or an accident,” the immaculately coiffed man said. “All that’s known, as this helicopter footage shows, is that the building was entirely engulfed in flames and has been gutted. So far, the death toll stands at seven. Controversial ’eighties pop star Karno had house guests staying, although the exact number is unclear, but it has been officially confirmed that he himself is among the victims. Meanwhile, over in China...”

The topic switched to the cloud of severe toxic smog in Beijing which had claimed several lives.

“Why did we have to listen to that?” Theo asked.

“Karno,” said Chase. “Del Karno. He’s dead.”

“I have no idea who...” The penny dropped. “Damn. One of us?”

“Orpheus. Del Karno is – was – Orpheus.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Come on, you must have known that was him. You must have seen him on TV back in the ’eighties. You’d have recognised him as Orpheus even with the guyliner and the Flock-of-Seagulls ’do.”

“I was... elsewhere in the ’eighties.”

“You’d have to have been hiding under a rock not to have heard of Del Karno.”

“I was. Well, Ayers Rock. Near there, in the middle of the Australian Outback. No phone. No TV. Not even a radio.”

“Oh, yeah. Your post-vigilantism drying-out hermit period. I forgot. But he was everywhere for about three, four years, was Orpheus. Hit the big time. Had a meteoric rise-and-fall pop career. Went out there after a lifetime of seclusion and just had a blast. You’d have disapproved, but he seemed to be enjoying himself while it lasted.”

“He’s not enjoying himself anymore,” said Theo, stolidly. He clenched a fist on the tabletop. “Okay, so that makes three now. Three of us in a matter of days, either dead or apparently so. Don’t you tell me not to worry any more, Chase. Something is going on. This isn’t coincidence.”

Chase sighed heavily. “I can’t disagree. I wish I could, but I can’t, not now. But what? What’s going on?”

“We’re being picked off, one by one. Targeted and assassinated.”

“Yeah, and whoever it is, they’re going for the big dogs too, aren’t they? Aeneas, Orion, Orpheus. The names. Not any of the small fry like, I don’t know, Asopos.”

“Who?”

“Exactly. One of Poseidon’s other kids, conceived with that nymph he couldn’t keep his hands off, what’s her name – Pero. Or my half-brother Zagreus, another of Zeus’s spawn.
There’s
a demigod languishing in the where-are-they-now file. Even I don’t know what’s become of Zagreus. But it doesn’t seem as though he should be looking over his shoulder right now. It’s only the likes of you and me who should be nervous. The ones with constellations named after them. Oh wait, that’s not you.”

“Ha-ha.”

Chase set his mouth firmly. “You know who I think we should go and talk with, cuz?”

“No.”

“Odysseus.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“He’s connected. He’s smart – smarter than either of us. He has channels.”

“He’s also a class-A prick.”

“Leaving that aside, if anyone can dig around and rustle up intel, it’s Odysseus. He is the ‘resourceful one’, after all. The ‘great tactician’. The ‘man of twists and turns’.”

“Don’t come at me with your Homeric epithets. He’s also ‘hot-headed’, ‘the sacker of cities’ and ‘the man of pain’.” Theo drew a deep breath. “But I accept he could be useful to turn to in an emergency. Where does he call home these days?”

“Where do you think?” Chase grinned. “Where all the conceited, conniving creeps hang out. Washington, D.C.”

TEN

Aylesbury, England

A
S HE HAD
every single day for the past few years, without fail, Roy Young performed a half-hour exercise routine designed to keep him in shape and to quieten his inner demons. It was a mixture of Pilates and isometrics, using his own bodyweight for resistance and requiring an area of floorspace only one metre by two metres. It could be carried out anywhere: in a tent, on a balcony, in a ship’s cabin, even in a prison cell, should that eventuality arise.

He finished off with a few rounds of
nadi shodhana pranayama
, a yoga breathing technique involving pinching off the nostrils alternately. This aligned and synchronised the two hemispheres of the brain and calmed the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Roy had perfected it to the stage where even just five minutes spent sitting cross-legged, focusing on his inhalations and exhalations and nothing else, left him with a clearer mind and a strengthened sense of self-confidence. The doubts that plagued him and threatened to undermine him were, for the time being, held at bay.

When he was done, he showered, dressed and headed out.

Currently the Myrmidons were holed up in a pricey but nondescript chain hotel on the outskirts of Aylesbury, some forty-odd miles northwest of London. The three-person team, chosen by Badenhorst, had been scheduled to return from their mission sometime during the small hours, but Roy had had no contact with them since their departure at nightfall. In the meantime he had stayed in his room, keeping himself to himself. He assumed the operation had been a success. He would surely have been apprised if it had not.

The strike team had consisted of Sean Wilson, Hans Schutkeker and the only other female Myrmidon apart from Jeanne, a brusque Scandinavian called Gunnvor Blomgren. Roy was not disappointed not to have been included. He had taken point on the first two executions; let someone else do the dirty work for a change.

The hotel had a central lounge, a kind of hub from which three two-storey room blocks branched out. A bar and a restaurant abutted the lounge, with the reception lobby perched in front. The hotel was busy at present. A midsized firm of medical equipment suppliers was using it for its annual conference. The corridors teemed with suited men and women who seemed to be competing as to which of them could act the most businesslike and efficient. If they weren’t bent over their phones and tablets, they were huddled together discussing marketing strategies and sales targets. The Myrmidons, in their smart-casual civvies, didn’t quite blend in, but they too conducted themselves with an air of quiet professional competence. They might not have had seminars and presentations to attend, but they nonetheless looked as though they, like the white-collar brigade around them, were staying at the hotel for business. Last night Roy had overheard a middle-management type from the medical equipment company air the opinion that they were either international lawyers or members of an investment consortium, here for a team-building retreat. Miles wide of the mark, but as long as that was the impression the Myrmidons gave, they would pass unnoticed and remain forgettable.

Gavin Martin and Jeanne Chevrier both happened to be in the lounge, taking tea together. Gavin shunted out a spare chair at the table with his foot, and Roy took it. He ordered a pot of Earl Grey and a toasted muffin.

“Any word about the job?” Roy enquired.

“Not seen Badenhorst all day,” Gavin replied, “but we’d know if it had gone tits up, wouldn’t we? We’d be on the plane and in the air pronto if it had. Safe to say that Sean and co. pulled it off and are in their rooms catching up on sleep.”

“I’m surprised old biltong breath didn’t pick you this time,” said Gavin. “You’re his golden boy.”

“I think he wants to keep us fresh. Rotating the squads helps with that. And we’re all getting paid the same, regardless of how many jobs we go on. As long as the bank transfer comes through at the end, I don’t care how much or how little I have to do to earn it.”

“Wise words, mate.” Gavin was a stocky Midlander with a gregarious nature and an easygoing smile. To look at him you might never have suspected that he had once been a sergeant in the UK’s elite commando force, the SAS. He seemed the kind of bloke who’d be at his happiest fly-fishing, or sinking a pint with his mates down the pub, not parachuting behind enemy lines to gather recon data and slit throats.

“Did you hear about the fire, Roy?” Jeanne said.

“What fire?”

“It was on the lunchtime news. The hotel staff are all talking about it. Some place nearby burned down last night. Stately home belonging to this musician guy.”

“Del Karno,” said Gavin.

“Name rings a bell.” Roy searched his memory. “Yeah. I remember seeing him on
Top of the Pops
a couple of times when I was a kid. He wore terrible baggy silk pantaloons and a button-down tunic. Played one of those guitar keyboard things. Lots of dry ice and lasers. ‘Visions of You’, wasn’t that one of his? Catchy little ditty. Is he dead, then?”

“Looks that way,” said Jeanne. “Him and at least six others. All women. He had this kind of harem thing going on.”

“All right for some,” Gavin said.

“Is that your dream? Sharing a house with six women?”

“Isn’t it everyone’s?”

“Not mine.” She chucked a sugar sachet at him.

Gavin deflected it with a laugh. “What about six men, then?”

“One would be more than enough.” The French Canadian aimed a swift glance at Roy as she said this. It was scarcely more than a sideways flick of the eyes. He almost missed it. He was glad he didn’t. Jeanne was lean and elfin, with a lively face and a bawdy sense of humour. Exactly his type. Maybe when all this was over...

“So it was an accident, this fire?” he said.

“No one’s sure yet,” said Gavin. “Might have been faulty wiring. That’s one theory. It was an old building. A stray spark could have set the whole blaze off. They’re going to investigate as soon as it’s safe. But Karno was a bit of a naughty boy by all accounts, fond of the narcotics, and he may have caused it himself. Like he knocked over a candle or something by mistake and was so out of it he didn’t realise.”

“Sounds plausible. How far is his house from here?”

“A few miles. One of the waiters said Karno used to visit the hotel sometimes to pick up girls.”

“Do you think...?” Roy began.

“Do I think what?”

Roy grimaced. “I’m wondering if Del Karno was the job.”

Gavin frowned. “One of our targets was an ’eighties pop star?”

“Seems unlikely, I know, but he lived up the road, and a house fire is an excellent way of erasing evidence.”

“I guess it’s a possibility,” said Jeanne.

“But that would make the others who died in the fire collateral damage,” said Gavin.

“Unless they were targets as well,” said Roy. “Which doesn’t fit the pattern of the jobs so far.”

“You seem pissed off,” Jeanne observed.

“Not as such. But I think I’m going to go and have words with Badenhorst.”

R
OY HAMMERED on
the door to Badenhorst’s room. The Afrikaner opened it wearing nothing but one of the hotel bathrobes, securing the draw cord under his barrel-like belly. His cheeks were flushed and he was evidently annoyed to have a visitor, although he tried to mask it. Roy had interrupted something.

“Afternoon, Roy. Not being rude or anything, but there’s a Do Not Disturb sign hanging on the door handle. Did you not see it?”

“You got a moment?”

Badenhorst glanced back over his shoulder into the room.

So he had company. Probably the kind of company you paid for. By the hour.

“Can it wait?”

“I suppose. How long?”

“Give me thirty minutes.”

Roy returned half an hour later. In the corridor leading to the room he passed a woman coming the other way. She was heavily made-up and wearing stiletto heels and a leather micro-skirt, with a shiny ash-blonde wig that contrasted sharply with her dark skin. Her perfume was pungent, strong enough to disguise much worse smells. Badenhorst’s “company”, had to be. Roy watched her totter along to the stairs and click-clack down them. From the way she held herself, a slight stiffness in her gait, she looked to be in some discomfort. He imagined Badenhorst had purchased extras.

The Afrikaner, this time, gave a better rendition of someone who was pleased to see Roy.

“Come in, come in. Something from the minibar? It’s on me. Well, on our employer. No? I’m going to have a whisky myself. Sure you won’t join me?
Ach
, never mind.”