Sam couldn't keep a straight face, and didn't think she was meant to. "That is so a Rick Ramsay thing to do, go off the idea of suicide for your stomach's sake."
"Hey, never underestimate the power of the stomach. Or the tastebuds."
Their laughter dwindled into silence. The fire embered, the cicadas shook their maracas.
"See?" Ramsay said. "You've talked, and it hasn't made your head fall off or anything."
"And you haven't hit on me, either."
"So the worst didn't happen."
"Halleluiah."
Some time later, she stood up. "I'm going to turn in."
"I'm going to stay here a little longer. It's a nice night. The stars are pretty."
She touched his shoulder. "Thanks, Rick."
"All part of the service, ma'am."
She knew then that, at some point, she was going to sleep with this man.
But not tonight. That would be like giving the dog a treat as a reward for having nipped her finger.
33. HAUT-PIETRA
Another day was spent looking, in vain, for the Minotaur. The monster was proving more elusive than any they'd hunted so far.
A third day passed, with a similar lack of results, and at the end of it, as the Titans were trudging back to camp, Hyperion said, "Base, we're wasting time here. Time and power cells. The forests round here are as dense as Daffy Duck, and the damn monster seems to know how to make itself scarce if it wants to. Is there any way you guys can help?"
"How do you mean?" said Landesman.
"You've got computer geeks there. Couldn't you get them to, I don't know, take over a spy satellite and try and pinpoint the Minotaur from space by its heat signature or some such?"
"Speaking as one of those computer geeks," said Patanjali, "I have mad skills, but I'm still not that good. No way could I infiltrate anybody's defence surveillance system without Argus noticing and tracing the hack back to here."
"Sorry, Hyperion," said Landesman, "but you're just going to have to keep doing it the hard way."
"All right then, how about this? In the Gulf, when our side needed to track down a bunch of insurgents, often as not we'd draft in some local help. Nobody knows the lay of the land better than the folks who live there. And there's guys here who'd be willing, I reckon, to work with us."
"You're suggesting we contact the Resistenza?"
"Contact 'em, draft 'em in. That way we could double, maybe even triple the number of pairs of eyes we've got on the ground. And it's not as if we're needing to keep ourselves so much of a secret now, not since Bruges."
"I'm with Hyperion," said Crius. "I can't see the harm in bringing the RCDC in on this."
"If you want my opinion, not that anyone does," said Iapetus, "it's got to beat fossicking through this fucking bush all day long."
"Tethys?" said Landesman.
"I've got nothing against the idea, in principle," Sam said. "We just have to be careful. We give our presence away to the wrong person, a Pantheonic sympathiser, say, or just someone with a computer who thinks it'd be cool to tell the world that those monster hunters from Bruges are here, and we're screwed. The Olympians'll come down on this island like a ton of bricks, with us right underneath. And while I'm not scared of facing them, I want it to be on our terms, when we're the ones with the element of surprise, not them."
"Let me think about it," said Landesman. "I'll get back to you with an answer as soon as I can."
An hour later, he did.
"Right, I've done some homework. There's a town roughly twenty miles from your current position. Haut-Pietra. It's reputed to be a hotbed of RCDC activity. Go there in civvies and see if you can't rustle up interest among the indigenes. But, as Tethys said, be sure you choose people you think can be trusted."
Haut-Pietra perched on a hilltop. Its focus, and highest point, was a church, with a hundred or so houses shelving away around it on all sides, many looking as though they were clinging onto the steep slopes for dear life. Vineyards and groves of fig and mulberry lined the one and only approach road. So did a parade of telegraph poles, to each of which someone had tacked a photocopied sheet of A4 showing the face of the little girl killed by Apollo, Ghjuvanna Venturini, with the slogan "Giammai dimenticà!" - "Never forget!."
The town square, in the lee of the church, was dusty and shaded by a couple of plane trees. A game of pétanque was under way in the middle of it, while outside two cafés, at opposite corners of the square, townspeople sat at tin tables and imbibed aperitifs along with the cooling evening air.
Sam and Ramsay had come alone. There was no point in all the Titans turning up mob-handed. Two of them could nose out the RCDC as effectively as five, without arousing as much curiosity.
They drew stares nonetheless.
"It's you," Ramsay told Sam as they took a seat at one of the cafés, the Bar Galetti. "Everyone's dark and Italian-looking. They can't have seen many pale redheads before."
"Oh yeah? And how many black men do you think drop by every day?"
"Well, if it is me they're so fascinated by, it's only because they ain't ever laid eyes on a brother this handsome. Or else they're mistaking me for Denzel Washington. I often get taken for Denzel, and him for me."
For all the interest the other patrons of the café were showing in them, it took a while to attract the waiter's attention. He spoke to them in Corsu, confident they wouldn't have a clue what he was saying. Sam responded in her best GCSE French, and the waiter, evidently a proud nationalist, pretended this was a language unknown to him. In the end, however, he took pity and grudgingly acknowledged her order of "un vin maison et une bière" with a curt "d'accord."
When he returned with the drinks, Sam tipped him generously. Then, as there was nothing to be lost by taking the direct approach, she asked him if he knew of anyone in the Resistenza Contru-Diu Corsu.
Silence fell over the café, a hush so complete that the metallic click of the pétanque balls out in the square sounded like planets colliding.
"Uh oh, tumbleweed moment," Ramsay murmured.
The waiter shrugged, circling a finger at his ear as if he'd misheard or else had not recognised those particular words with his oh-so-severely limited French.
Sam shrugged too, as if it was of no consequence; her enquiry had been a casual one, nothing more.
Conversation slowly resumed in the café like a flock of birds settling after a gunshot. Moments later it scattered to the winds again as a round-bodied, bullet-headed little man emerged from the café interior. He made straight for Sam and Ramsay, moving unhurriedly but with a dead-eyed purposefulness. Sam could sense Ramsay tensing up beside her, ready to meet violence with reciprocal or, if need be, greater force.
"Wait," she hissed out of the side of her mouth. "I think we've flushed out our RCDC member already."
The man halted at their table and said, in guttural English, "Please finish your drinks and leave."
"Of course," Sam said. "But first, we'd like to talk to you. In private."
"Drink," said the man, "then go."
"I believe you are an important person here. You have an enemy on this island. I believe you, or people you know, would like to remove that enemy. We do too." She felt safe saying this. She doubted any of the Corsicans within earshot knew English as well as this man did, if at all. The exchange, in that sense, was already a private one.
The man's eyes were coal. "Enemy? Corsicans have no enemies. We have been invaded by Greeks, Romans, Genovese, French. They are all gone. Only Corsicans are here now."
"Bull." Sam was unable to resist the pun. "We have experience in dealing with the kind of enemy I'm referring to. We want to make you an offer. We want to join forces with you. Do you understand what I'm saying? Do you know who we are?"
The man gave a slow nod, and something occurred briefly with his lips, a twitch that could have been a smile had the stony seriousness of his face allowed it. He appraised Sam and Ramsay for a moment or two longer, then beckoned them w
ith a flick of his fingers. "Come this way."
In a back room that was part office and part stock-room, he introduced himself as Paulu Galetti, the café's owner, and confirmed that he did belong to the RCDC. He was, in fact, commandant of the Haut-Pietra arm of the Resistenza and a member of the movement's supreme body, its five-man ruling committee.
"And you," he said, "you are the ones in Brussels, and in Singapore, and in Syria." It wasn't a huge room, but Galetti had a presence that seemed to fill it - though perhaps that was just his abysmal underarm odour.
"We get around," said Ramsay.
"You are brave. To kill the monsters. To make the Olympians angry. Very brave. Crazy also. The Olympians will tear you to confetti if they get their hands on you."
"Don't we know it."
"They might try," Sam said. "And they might just be in for a surprise. But let's not worry about that now. Our aim, for now, is to deal with the Minotaur, Mr Galetti. We have the means. We have the weapons. What we don't have is the manpower. Put simply, we've been looking and we can't find the monster. And we were thinking the Resistenza might be able to help out with that."
"Might be keen to, too," Ramsay added.
Galetti canted his head to one side. "Hmm. Interesting. I am tempted. The Minotaur has been a curse on Corsica for so long. But if we help you, and you kill it, what then? Maybe the Olympians get angry with us. Maybe they do to Corsica the same as to San Francisco and Paris, but worse. When they finish with us, there could be no Corsica left."
"Would they, though?" Sam said. "After all, when I last looked, Bruges was still standing. It hasn't been attacked. Neither has Singapore or any of those other places we hit."
"True," said Galetti. "But who is to say they won't change their tactics, if they decide to set an example again?"
"It's a possibility, I agree. But Mr Galetti, your Resistenza hasn't been afraid to shoot at the Minotaur. I don't think you are afraid of the Olympians either. You said it yourself. Corsica has been conquered time after time, but still remains the home of Corsicans."
"You appeal to my patriotism."
"Of course."
"And to my male pride. If I refuse to help you, it will look as if I'm a coward. You seem wise to the nature of the Corsican man."
Or just men, Sam thought.
Galetti grinned. A sudden softening of those impenetrably hard features of his, as startling and remarkable as a thaw in permafrost. An upper premolar was missing, but that didn't lessen the effect.
"The offer is appealing," he said, leaning towards Sam in a way which implied that part of its appeal lay with her. "The RCDC will be only too glad to join you. You have my assurance of twenty men, perhaps more."
"Twenty would be plenty."
"It will be a pleasure working with you, Miss...?"
"Tethys. It's best if you know me only as Tethys. And this is Hyperion."
Galetti took the callsigns in his stride. "Miss Tethys, Mr Hyperion, together we are going to do a great thing."
Seemingly from nowhere he rustled up a bottle of myrtle liquor and three shot glasses.
"A drink to celebrate? Seal the deal?"
The liquor was both sickeningly sweet and chokingly raw, fiery enough to seal a weld, not just a deal. Potent too. Even though Sam and Ramsay both stopped after three glasses, they left the Bar Galetti extremely drunk.
Drunk enough to find themselves sharing a tent later.
And a sleeping bag.
And each other.
But not so drunk that they regretted it afterwards.
34. LAKESIDE ENCOUNTER
Sam uncoupled her helmet from her gorget and took it off. Then she knelt down by the lake's edge and splashed a handful of water onto her face. The water was alpine-cold, icily invigorating. She scooped up some more to dampen her head with. Suit microclimate notwithstanding, it got hot inside the helmet and her scalp itched with sweat. Having long hair didn't help. The other female Titans had taken to cutting theirs short - Hamel's was so close-cropped now it was more pelt than hair - but Sam had always liked the feel of her own locks brushing her shoulders. Always liked how long hair looked on her, too. Vain, but there you go. Ade had dubbed her his "Pre-Raphaelite angel" and she wasn't sure he'd known precisely what he was talking about - she herself thought that, being auburn, she was more a "Titian" than anything - but he'd meant it as the highest of compliments and he would usually say it while stroking her head lovingly, in a voice husky with postcoital contentment, and the aftermath of a bout of vigorous sex was not the moment to start challenging a man on his grasp of art history terminology.
The lake was near the top of the tree line, a slender finger of water whose surface mirrored the oaks and pines around it and the snowy peaks above. On the advice of the Resistenza, the Titans were venturing up into the mountains in their search for the Minotaur. Galetti had said the monster often retreated to the higher altitudes between attacks. Why? How should he know? To get away from people, was his guess. People seemed to plague it as much as it plagued them. Maybe even monsters needed to be on their own from time to time.
The op, in its present incarnation, was pure reconnaissance. The Titans and twenty-plus RCDC members were combing the area singly, spaced out at one-kilometre intervals in order to cover as much ground as possible. Once the Minotaur was located, all forces would reconvene and an attempt would be made to herd the beast downhill. So far the Corsicans had been diligent collaborators and Sam had had little reason to worry about them. They were a taciturn lot, surly their default setting, all of them fond of a cigarette and a good throaty expectoration and all of them sporting a motley selection of bad heavy metal band T-shirts and even worse moustaches. But their hatred of the Minotaur was palpable, as was their enthralment with the Titans and their battlesuits. Furthermore, Galetti appeared to have them fully under his control and would keep them honest, and his obvious infatuation with Sam herself would, she thought, keep him honest.
She drenched her head a final time, then settled back against a rock, lifted her face to the sun, and closed her eyes. Just a few moments' rest. She deserved it. Needed it, too. Last night had been her and Ramsay's second night together. Sober this time, they had been less rushed, nowhere near as frantic as before. They had taken longer, savouring the intimacy, and it had been good. Very good. And afterwards Sam had returned to her tent, because they were agreed that no one should know, they were going to be professional about this; and she'd lain in the chilly cocoon of her own sleeping bag, awake into the small hours, wondering why she felt so guilty. Was it because she felt she was betraying Ade? But how could you betray a lover who'd been dead nearly three years? He was a memory, that was all, and you couldn't cheat on a memory. Unless the memory was as vivid as hers was of Ade. Then perhaps you could.
The solution had come to her at three in the morning, just as she was lapsing into an uneasy sleep.
You have to start forgetting about him.
With the sun making dazzle-patterns behind her eyelids and her skin warming as the water evaporated, she pondered this. Forgetting about Ade - it seemed like another kind of betrayal. Realistically, though, how long could she keep on mourning him and missing him? Hadn't she done so enough?
Besides, Ramsay was no Ade. He was about as far from Ade as you could get. Where Ade had been thoughtful and consistently self-effacing, Ramsay was impulsive and at times insufferably smug. So it wasn't as if she could be said to be replacing Ade with another version of him, upgrading to Ade 2.0, as it were. Perhaps that was Ramsay's great attraction to her, that he wasn't a substitute or a surrogate, he was something else. Perhaps she liked him, and had chosen to sleep with him, because he was far outside her zone of -
A sound.
A heavy footfall.
And then... a snort of breath?
Sam's eyes snapped open.
Across the lake, some 20 metres further along its opposite bank, the Minotaur stepped out from the forest.
Sam found that all at onc
e she couldn't inhale. Her heart seemed to be obstructing her windpipe.
The Minotaur didn't look in her direction. It didn't appear to realise she was there... yet. It halted beside the lake, then squatted on its massive haunches, reached down with cupped hands, lifted water to its bovine maw and lapped with a long, slurping, bright pink tongue.
The breeze changed direction slightly, and Sam, downwind, caught a whiff of a powerful musk coming from the creature. She couldn't help noticing, too, even as she stared in horror, that the Minotaur was prodigiously well-endowed. What looked like a black butternut squash and a pair of oranges in a black sac hung between its legs.
The Minotaur drank for several minutes, using its hands as a bowl, till its thirst was slaked. Then it gave a deep, satisfied grunt and shook its head so that droplets flew from its floppy lips and whiskery chin.
By that point Sam had recovered her wits. Her right hand was edging towards her submachine gun while her left was busy stealthily unclipping a grenade from her hip. She had no wish to tackle the Minotaur on her own, but if she had to, she had to. Everything depended on what the Minotaur itself did next.
Behind her a bird shot abruptly from the treetops with a raucous clapping of wings. The Minotaur started in surprise. It swivelled its head, scanning the other side of the lake. Its gaze roved to and fro. Sam froze. Those eyes - black pupils swimming in pools of red -swept straight over her, twice, without stopping. Had it seen her? Sam hoped not, and the hope became a conviction. A thought had occurred to her. Cattle had poor vision. Ade's father, a large-animal vet, had told her that. Cattle were near-sighted, with a huge blindspot for middle-distance objects dead ahead. That was why you approached a bull slowly and from an angle, so as not to startle it. And maybe a man-bull's vision wasn't much better.
The monster bowed its head, seeming to have found nothing to trouble it. Keeping stock-still, Sam watched as it began peering intently into the lake. She couldn't fathom what it was so fascinated by all at once. A fish? Then the penny dropped.
The Minotaur was studying its own reflection.
The Age Of Zeus Page 21