everything down further and further until only the finest-graded stuff remained — the credible threats to Pantheonic control, the most insulting or seditious opinions given voice to, the matters that demanded immediate action. He would then inform Zeus, leaving it to the king of the Olympians to determine the appropriate response.
The email in question read:
DEAR MR CATSBEY BARTLET
It was the tone of it more than anything that temporarily arrested the billion-baud flow of Argus's thoughts — the certainty, the crude confidence, the cool sincerity. The sender of the email was either a fraudster with nerves of steel or someone with genuine insider intel.
Argus elected to take matters into his own hands, to a degree. Zeus was absent from Olympus at present. A face-to-face consultation would not be possible until his return, and the email merited, Argus felt, face-to-face. In the interim, he had authorisation to let the sender know that the Olympians themselves were taking an interest. It was standard procedure with potential informants. He despatched a peacock icon back along the filepath of the email. It pinged up in the sender's inbox.
Sitting at a terminal in an internet cafe in south-east London, Darren Pugh at first frowned. Then, as the full implications of the peacock icon dawned on him, his face broke into a broad, feral grin.
48. DETECTIVE WORK
A t another terminal, underground on Bleaney, Sam sat. Mahmoud sat beside her.
'You're sure about this?' Mahmoud said.
'I'm not sure about anything, Zaina,' Sam replied. 'All I know is, there's something Landesman's not been telling us. It's been nagging at me for a while. Little things here and there. Like when I was talking to Lillicrap and he used the word 'vendetta.' He tried to make out it was a slip of the tongue, but I don't think it was. And Landesman's behaviour on the whole. I don't buy the whole 'billionaire on a mission to save the world' bit, not any more.'
'And this isn't just because you're pissed off with him, after New York?'
'Not just because of that, although I swear to God he knew Kerstin was in trouble and he didn't even think about turning back to go and help her. I'm also pissed off with him because he's been busy avoiding me ever since.'
'Due to 'work commitments'?'
'What bloody work commitments? Being a Titan is his job now. What else does he have to do?'
'He still has a business to run. Daedalus Industries is still a going concern.'
'Nothing he can't delegate,' Sam said. 'It's been three days. He's hiding from me. He knows it. I know it. And he knows I know.'
'Maybe he's embarrassed. His first op as leader wasn't exactly a roaring success.'
'Whatever. The point is, I'm convinced he's been holding out on us. It was watching Zeus on that programme with the chubby woman that clinched it for me.'
'Paulita, chubby?'
'Don't you think so?'
'I'd describe her as healthy-looking. Latinas are always quite rounded anyway. Bit like Arab-ethnic women.'
'You've got a great figure, Zaina. I'd kill to have boobs like yours.'
'Bless you, duck.'
'But, if I can get back to my argument…'
'Of course.'
'I've lost my thread, actually.'
'Zeus on Paulita.'
'Oh yeah. You see, it set my cop instinct tingling.'
'Cop instinct? Is that like Spider-Man's spider sense?'
'Almost identical.'
'I'm not certain I ever had one. Don't you have to get bitten by a radioactive policeman?'
'Are you going to let me explain?'
'Sorry. This is making me nervous, and I gabble when I'm nervous.' Mahmoud mimed buttoning her lip.
'Now, is that door locked?' They were in one of the facility's R and D labs, surrounded by electronics equipment, tools, components, and steel-frame shelves bearing mounds of microchips and snaky nests of fibre optic cable.
'No one's unlocked it since you asked me the same thing five minutes ago,' Mahmoud said. 'But I still don't see why all the secrecy. And why do you need me here?'
'For a second opinion. To confirm my hunch or else tell me I'm being a paranoid loon. And as for the secrecy, if I'm wrong then I'm wrong, and no harm done. But if I'm right, I don't want anyone else knowing yet. Not 'til I've decided what to do with the information. The Paulita clip, that'll be on YouTube, right?'
'I should imagine so.'
Sam tapped keys. Broadband access was fast on Bleaney, for all the island's isolation. Patanjali had devised dozens of methods for boosting bandwidth and download speeds, such as installing powerful swap memory caches and ultrafast glass-based photonic circuits in most of the bunker's computers. Within seconds Sam was rerunning the moment at the end of the chatshow when Zeus had looked into the camera and rumbled his threat in Ancient Greek. She played that segment of the clip a couple more times, studying it hard.
Then she said, 'How old do you reckon Zeus is?'
'Some would say ancient. Thousands of years old.'
Patiently: 'How old would you say that man there on the screen is? How old does he look?'
'I don't know. Forties? Fifties?'
'It's the hair. It ages him. Silver hair like that — it can add at least a decade. A bushy white beard too. Look at his face. Look at it closely. His skin. No way is that the skin of a middle-aged man. That's the skin of someone in his thirties, I'd say.'
'Maybe he has a good grooming regime. Moisturiser and that. Some men do, you know.'
'Or maybe being an Olympian, having all that power, somehow keeps you looking young,' said Sam. 'But let's assume it doesn't. Let's assume Zeus isn't some perpetually ageless immortal. He's a bloke in his thirties whose style makes him look much older and who also acts like a much older person.'
'So? Where are you going with this?'
'I'm going where my suspicions are dragging me. Now, next question. Does he remind you of anyone?'
'Who, Zeus?'
'Yes. Keep an open mind. Look at him talking there. His features. The way he holds himself. His mannerisms. Anyone at all?'
Mahmoud was nonplussed. 'Er, no one as such. Who's that American actor, the one who always plays cowboys and bar owners and the like? Never without a cheroot. Name's on the tip of my tongue.'
'I know the one you mean.'
'Younger version of him. But it could be the hair again. They both have the same hair.'
