'Try to ignore the hair.' Sam paused the clip. 'There. That's a good shot. You really can't see it?'
Mahmoud placed her hands on the screen, cupping out Zeus's snowy-white locks. She squinted. 'Nope, not ringing any bells.'
'OK, let's try another tack.' Sam opened up a new tab and input a name into Google Images.
'Who's he?' Mahmoud asked. 'That surname. Is he anything to do with…?'
'You'll see. Or rather…' The search, somewhat to Sam's surprise, returned no worthwhile hits. 'You won't. Damn. He must be out there. He can't have absolutely no internet presence. That would be…' She thought about it. 'Well, it wouldn't be inconceivable, I suppose. Not if you happen to know someone who could eradicate every trace of you online if you wanted it.'
'You're being very enigmatic here, duck. Or is it me? Am I being slow? Is there something glaringly obvious I'm missing?'
'If there is, it's something we've all been missing. Right, how about this?' Sam inputted another similar name, and this rustled up dozens of valid results. She selected one. 'That's a good shot of him. Now, compare that face to this one.' She clicked between tabs: first Zeus, still paused on the YouTube clip, then the image she had just Googled. Back and forth. Click, click. 'See it?'
'Am I looking for a resemblance?'
'You are.'
'I really don't — ' Mahmoud stopped herself. Her mouth formed itself into a perfect O. 'Or perhaps I do,' she said slowly. 'The noses. The noses are almost identical. The shape of the eyebrows too. They're like those French accents, whatchemacalls, circumflexes.'
'Something about the jawlines as well.'
'Yes. Sort of.'
'And then there's the body language,' Sam said. 'My DI always used to tell me to watch out for that. Study faces, he said, but study posture and gesture as well. People give away so much about themselves unconsciously, and I'm still in the habit of noticing those little tics and giveaway cues.' She un-paused the clip. 'Zeus has this sturdy self-assurance about him.'
'As well he might.'
'As well he might. But it's so like someone else we know, isn't it? Also, he holds himself very erect. See? Even when sitting. He's not quite as tall as he'd like to be, but he keeps his back straight. Tall people have a tendency to stoop. Small people are the opposite. They have a tendency to keep their backs straight in order to try and make themselves look taller.'
'And he's not tall,' Mahmoud said, referring to the other man.
'Correct. What does it for me most, though, is Zeus's eyes. You may not have, but I've seen a photo of someone with big dark eyes like that. Two people, in fact.'
Mahmoud sat back in her chair. 'So let me get this straight. You're saying they're related? Him and him?'
'I'm saying I think there's a strong likelihood of that being the case.'
'Ruddy Nora. It can't be — can it?'
'In context, it makes sense. I know for a fact that they have history. There's no love lost between them.'
'But to take it this far…?'
'No one can hate quite like family can hate.'
'But…' Mahmoud could think of a whole host of further objections, and wished that any of them was strong enough to withstand the weight of Sam's evidence. If what her friend and colleague was saying was true, then the Titans had been very much misled.
'I am,' said Sam, 'so much less quick on the uptake than I should be. This has been staring me in the face for weeks.'
She gestured at Zeus onscreen.
'Staring me in his face.'
49. MINOTAUR
'M r Landesman! Mr Landesman!' Lillicrap hammered on the door, sounding frantic. 'It's broken free. It's smashing up the refectory.'
'It? What it?'
'The Minotaur, sir.'
Landesman came out of his office. 'Well, where the bloody hell's Sam? It's her pet. She should be dealing with this.'
'I've no idea where she is. I've no idea where any of the Titans are. The techs are running around like headless chickens. So's the chef. Nobody knows how the Minotaur escaped, but it's complete chaos downstairs. Panic stations.'
'The other Titans — they're all missing?'
Lillicrap shrugged so hard his shoulders touched his earlobes. 'I've looked all over. I thought if they could suit up, they could contain the monster, maybe kill it. But they're nowhere to be found. That's why I came to you.'
'Right. Then I should go down and get my Cronus gear on, shouldn't I? Or…' Landesman paused, pondering.
Lillicrap said, 'Don't you think it would be better to abandon the bunker, get to the surface, call Captain Fuller to come and fetch us?' It was clear he favoured this alternative. His beloved boss's personal safety, and his own, were priority one for Jolyon Lillicrap.
'No,' said Landesman, with a calm, slow-spreading smile.
'No?'
'Clever girl, Sam.' Gritted-teeth admiration. 'Very well, let's get this over with.'
'Sir?'
Landesman strode off down the corridor. 'Follow me, Jolyon.'
'Where to?'
'The refectory.'
'Sir! The Minotaur — '
'— is no danger to us.'
'With all due respect, sir, I beg to differ.'
'This is Sam's doing. She let it out. She controls it. She wants a confrontation with me, and this is her rather dramatic way of engineering one.'
'Are you positive about that?'
'It's what I would do, were I in her position and had I the tools at my disposal that she has.' Landesman sighed elaborately. 'Serves me right for hiring smart people, Jolyon.'
Lillicrap chose to interpret that as a compliment. 'Er, quite, Mr Landesman.'
The crashing of crockery resounded along the corridor that led to the refectory. Landesman couldn't suppress another smile as he neared the source of the ruckus, with Lillicrap tagging along reluctantly behind. If the Minotaur laying waste to the flatware was Sam's idea of a joke, it wasn't a bad one. Bull in a china shop.
'All right!' he called out. 'All right, I'm coming in. Don't let that thing attack me. I come in peace.'
As he entered the refectory he felt a twinge of misgiving. What if he was wrong? What if he'd entirely misread the situation and the Minotaur was on the loose, unrestrained by its mistress?
Debris lay everywhere. Tables had been overturned. Chairs were scattered about, lying on their backs with their legs in the air like dead animals. Shards of glass and crockery littered the floor, forming a crazy mosaic along with pieces of cutlery and condiment containers. And in the thick of it all the Minotaur was stomping to and fro, snorting furiously as it crushed fragments to smaller fragments underfoot.
Landesman couldn't see Sam anywhere, and then the Minotaur rounded on him, fixing him with its crimson
