The Age of Zeus

53. DRIFTING SHIPS

S he was making lunch — chicken salad — when they appeared on her doorstep.

"Dead posh round here, isn't it?" was the first thing Mahmoud said when Sam opened the door.

Sam immediately went on the defensive. "Didn't use to be. Past ten years, we've been getting the overspill from Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove. People priced out of the market there but still wanting to be close to all the trendiness. All the bloody celebs as well. When I was young, Kensal Rise was famous for was murders and Irish navvies. Now it's all gastropubs and organic greengrocers. I keep meaning to sell up and move." She avoided meeting Ramsay's gaze. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Oh come on," said Mahmoud. "Isn't it nice to see us? It's nice to see you."

"Did Landesman send you?"

Ramsay snorted. "Nope."

Sam relented, a little. "Then it is nice to see you. Come on in."

She made lunch for them too. Mahmoud explained that they had come entirely off their own bat. Landesman didn't even know they were here. In fact, not having Sam's address, and not wanting to ask Landesman or Lillicrap for it, Mahmoud had had to ring an old friend on the force and ask him to look it up for her on the internal police database.

"Mr Landesman thinks I'm just taking Rick sightseeing for a couple of days."

"Shucks, I just lurve your quaint li'l ole country, ma'am," said Ramsay.

"He must suspect something, though," Sam said.

"Well, if he does, so?" said Mahmoud. "Sam, I won't beat around the bush. We want you back. Please. It's not been going all that brilliantly without you, duck. Not to put any pressure on you or anything, but… No, I will put pressure on you. Frankly, it's been crap at Bleaney lately."

"What's happened? What have you been up to, mission-wise?"

"Zip," said Ramsay. "And that's just the problem. We've been sitting spinning our wheels. Getting on one another's nerves, and worse. Kayla and Therese — Christ, we've had to separate those two a coupla times. Going at it like cat and dog. Once they nearly came to blows, and believe me, angry like they were, I did not much want to have to step between them and break it up."

"Kayla's been starting it," said Mahmoud.

"Yeah, but Therese ain't exactly been turning the other cheek. The least thing can set them off. And then there's Dez."

"Dez has been…" Mahmoud mimed tipping a bottle to her lips. "A lot. Upset about Anders, but also just bored. We've been hiding the booze, and confiscating his own stash of it when he's not looking, but he always seems to be able to get his paws on more. Cadges off the techs, we think, or maybe bribes Captain Fuller to bring him some over from the mainland. Every night he's sloshed, every morning he's in agony from a hangover. Neither's pretty."

"Why no ops?" Sam asked.

"Landesman," said Ramsay. "Says leave it be for now."

"But he was all about keeping the momentum going."

"Was. Now? My guess is he's lost his nerve. New York, then you, and all that stuff about his son. Not that he shows it, but he's rattled as all hell."

"And the Minotaur? Is it OK?"

"Pining," said Mahmoud. "Sits in his pen, eats just enough to keep going, but he looks so sad all the time. Bereft. He tolerates me feeding him, but he'd rather it was you."

"It's a he now?"

"I'm kind of fond of him. And with privates like those — I mean, how can he not be a he?"

"Ah, they're not so impressive," Ramsay quipped. "I've seen bigger. In the shower this morning, as a matter of fact."

"Oh?" said Sam. "So who were you sharing the shower cubicle with?"

"Oof! The Akehurst slam dunks another one!"

Sam did not smile. "Nobody else quit? It was just me?"

"You upset about that?"

"No. I just thought, once you all knew who Zeus really is and why Landesman wants to topple the Olympians so badly…"

"…we'd turn our noses up and walk away?" said Mahmoud. "I can't say the idea never crossed my mind. But having sat and thought about it, I decided Landesman's motives aren't so different from my own. It'd be hypocritical for me to pull out just because he turns out to have a personal involvement in the campaign too."

"Also, he upped our pay," Ramsay said, "and I'm sorry but I don't have your high standards when it comes to money, Sam." His quick glance round her modest but well-fitted kitchen was a kind of footnote: We don't all have terraced houses in central London with no mortgage.

"Fred did almost bail," Mahmoud added. "He was in two minds for a while, but then he said something like, 'Leaving won't change anything. Staying, I can still do some good.' I think, like the rest of us, he hasn't got a lot to go back to. Bleaney's as much home to him as anywhere."

"Landesman hired himself a bunch of drifting ships," said Ramsay, "and gave us fuel for our tanks. Whatever his flaws, whatever kind of a man he really is, we owe him for that. Myself, I still want to see this thing through to the end. I couldn't stand to leave the job half finished. That'd be harder for me than pulling out. I respect what you did, Sam, and I know you did it 'cause you felt you had to. But I'm here — we're both here — to ask you to reconsider. As a friend," he said, "and I think we are friends if nothing else, I'm asking you to get back with us and give Titanomachy II a kick-start to get it going again."

"You seriously think Landesman will have me back?" Sam said. "After the way I dealt with him?"

"I seriously think he doesn't have a choice. He's waiting for you. That's why nothing's happening. He knows the Titans aren't half as good without you. We could try but it wouldn't be the same, and it'd probably only lead to another New York. He'll swallow his pride if you come back, I know he will. He's a pragmatic man. One eye on the bigger picture and all that."

"What if I can't swallow my pride?"

"You don't have to. Just come waltzing in to base, swagger around a bit, make as if you own the place — you'll get a hero's welcome, and no one'll even mention about you being gone, they'll just be so damn glad to have you there again and to have things return to normal."

"No."

"That's it? Your final answer?"

"You wouldn't like to phone a friend?" said Mahmoud. "Ask the audience?"

"Zaina, I can't carry on working for a man without conscience or scruples — a man who's planning on killing his own son, for God's sake!"

Ramsay had had enough. "This is not the time to come over all pious!" he snapped. "We Titans are the best — the only — chance mankind has got against the Olympians. And thanks to you, we're about to blow that chance for good."

Mahmoud shot him a look. "What Rick is trying to say is we appear to have them on the back foot still. Plus, we've got global goodwill behind us. Everyone wants us to win, and we can, the eight of us, still. Especially with Hermes out of the running, no pun intended. The eight of us, including you. It's still not too late."

Sam knew what lay behind Ramsay's outburst. He was hurt by how easily she'd been able to leave Bleaney, how casually she'd been able to turn her back on them, the two of them, as an item. It was clear he hadn't managed to compartmentalise the way she had. She felt sorry. Guilty, too, which suggested that her own compartmentalisation hadn't been entirely successful.

"Look," she said, "I've no wish to fall out over this. I just don't believe in Titanomachy II any more. I don't believe in what we were doing, because we were doing it for all the wrong reasons. We were misled from the start. We were even misled into thinking that revenge would make us feel better. Does it? Has it, Rick? Now that the Lamia is dead, is your life complete? Are you calm at heart? Has your pain over Ethan gone?"

"It ain't any worse," he mumbled.

"If we've managed to give the Olympians a bloody nose," Sam went on, "and if, as a result, they're going to behave more leniently, as they seem to be doing right now, then maybe we've done all we can and all we needed to. We've restrained them. Under the circumstances, I'd call that a win."

"I can't believe you're saying that. You're no better than your prime minister."

"There's no call for insults. I'm only making the point, Rick, that killing all the Olympians, even if we could, isn't going to help us and might not help anyone else either."

"All right then," said Mahmoud, nodding. "We go to Plan B."

"And what's Plan B? Clonk me on the head and drag me back to Bleaney kicking and screaming?"

"Nope," said Ramsay. "From what you've just been saying, I reckon Plan B might be right up your alley."