Dahl lay back with his feet up on a table, impatiently flexing his arms and shoulders. As he laughed with Kinimaka, Drake became aware of another presence at his side.
“Yorgi.”
“I want thank you for keeping faith,” the small Russian said. “In me. You saved me long ago, but only now I start paying you back.”
Drake pulled out a chair. “Sit down, pal. And you owe me nothing. Never have. I’ll never promise to keep you safe, Yorgi, but I can promise you will always be part of our team. And what made you race straight back here — Alicia scare your pants off?”
“She is a little scary,” Yorgi admitted. “But I belong here. With you. And so does she.”
“You think?”
“Yes. Everybody finds their way in end. She no different. She will return to you.”
Drake struggled not to frown. “To me? You mean to us. To the team.”
“I know what I mean.” Yorgi reached for a biscuit. “Let us dunk together!”
Dahl closed his eyes in frustration.
Drake threw a biscuit at him. “Hey, it’s better than slugging vodka.”
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Alicia watched as Michael Crouch worked the problem from his own perspective. A respected and accomplished boss of more years than he cared to reveal, Crouch had more personal, influential contacts than a Saudi oil baron and more clout with the British authorities than the Treasury. But this setback was different; it required another skillset to solve. At heart the man had always been a treasure hunter, a mystery solver, and it was this flair and talent that he sought to utilize now.
With Caitlyn he spoke of the gods, the Pandora angle, and how the Pythians might be trying to fit ancient mysteries together with an old plague and a terrifyingly modern plan. With most of Pandora’s story already told, Crouch and Caitlyn focused on the narratives and chronicles that intertwined with it.
Alicia drifted over to what she thought of as the soldiers’ table. Healey and Russo were already there, sipping water and listening closely. Russo offered her a seat by kicking out a chair on the other side of the table.
Alicia didn’t argue. After everything that all three teams had accomplished the realization that they were still on the verge of facing a man-made super-plague hit them all like a lightning bolt.
“Heard from Lex?” Healey asked quietly.
Alicia shook her head, attention still claimed by Crouch. “Nope. I ain’t his mother, Zack. Let Lex do what the hell he wants. It’s up to Crouch if he gets back on the team.”
Back in Vegas, Laid Back Lex had taken a red Ducati and departed in a hurry, an undisclosed seething anger possessing him, barely able to explain his motives for leaving. Alicia took it to mean he was sorting some issues — maybe one day she would be able to do the same.
“So Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create Pandora and cast her upon the slopes of Mount Olympus. On her wedding day she was given a beautiful gift, a jar or box, and told never to open it. We all know what happened next. But later, even Homer made mention of Pandora in his famous Iliad, referencing Zeus’s palace where two urns stood, one filled with evil gifts and the other with good ones. Whomever received the mixed gifts would face both good and evil destinies, but whoever received only the evil gifts would be scorned, and quote: The hand of famine will pursue him to the ends of the world. That’s us. Mankind.”
“Homer?” Alicia said. “Can we trust a man named Homer?”
Crouch didn’t smile. “We owe Homer so much. It is through his poems that Mount Olympus was first identified as the seat of the gods. If you think about the effect that has had on all kinds of literature, interpretations, essays and theses ever since, you can begin to imagine the regard in which he is held.”
Caitlyn flicked through page after page of notes, referencing the Internet and comparing every snippet of information with what they knew of the Pythians. The look on her face was not uplifting.
Alicia turned her head to the laptop to watch the SPEAR team working over in London. Even now being apart from what she considered her key team, her family of actual friends, felt unreal, as if this new life were some kind of alternate dream. It was the most natural thing in the world to assume she would soon be back with them.
But then what of Crouch? What of Russo and Healey and Caitlyn? Were they just to be pit stops along the road? I have to find a home. Through the experience of all her travels she was only now starting to realize that someone got it wrong — the road does not go ever on. Somewhere in life, unless you want to die alone, it simply must stop.
Caitlyn turned to Crouch, a strange look on her face. “What if we’ve been going about this all wrong? I have an idea.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we’re coming at our problem through ancient mysteries when we could do the total opposite.”
“Which is?”
“Modern technology.”
Alicia saw Karin’s head swivel all the way across the English Channel. Komodo stood right behind her, blocking everyone else’s view. She couldn’t see Drake at all and missed the camaraderie they shared.
“The Pythians we know,” Caitlyn said. “General Bill Stone. Miranda Le Brun. Nicholas Bell. Army, heiress, developer.”
“We’re checking into them all,” Karin said. “Known associates, movements, that kind of thing. So far they’re nothing short of squeaky. Maybe Interpol will learn something more.”
Alicia found her thoughts returning to Beauregard. The man had raised her interest back in the UK, and not only for salacious reasons. A world-class assassin, he was an enigma. Who knew which side he was really on? Why does he help me? She had heard about men that could fight like him — as sinuous and deadly as toxic fog — but never come across one before. Indeed she had considered them an urban legend. Even Mai Kitano, herself a trained Ninja, taught by masters, could not move the way Beauregard moved. Where the hell do these people get their training?
Yet another mystery.
One that she’d like to uncover.
Alicia felt a spicy smile forming on her lips, noticed Russo staring at her in horror and realized she was staring at him. Shit! She was giving that man all the wrong signals and for once, felt apologetic. Russo had her back and there was nothing a soldier like Alicia prized more.
She switched her gaze. Caitlyn was still hypothesizing. The Pythians were public enemy number one and it surprised Alicia that the world’s security agencies hadn’t learned more by now. Then, of course, the Shadow Elite had operated quietly and with impunity for many years, pulling a string here and there when they had to. The Pythians were a different kettle of fish.
Purposely brutal. Egotistical. Inhuman.
Caitlyn tapped at her keyboard. “General Stone. The FBI had eyes on him until last night, DC time. Now, he’s vanished, but they’re positive he’s still in the States. No plane travel. Stone is the one we know is recognizable.”
“Are you saying the Pythian HQ — so to speak — is within America?” Crouch asked.
Caitlyn inclined her head. “I guess so. But that’s not where I’m heading.”
Crouch took a call from Interpol. Armand Argento was added to the video feed, the screen now split into three. Alicia saw the Italian — who his friends apparently called the Jabbering Venetian — for the first time. Swarthy and dark, he had that lived-in look that characterized older, fitter men who looked after themselves. Well-dressed, well-groomed and highly confident, Alicia could see why most people trusted him.