"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."
54. THE LOTUS EATERS
T he black cab dropped them off in the southern part of Mayfair, between Piccadilly and Pall Mall, outside a Georgian building with a discreet brass plaque that read The Hellenium — Members Only. A white-gloved doorman greeted them with a tip of his top hat, polite because they looked the part. Ramsay wore a Savile Row suit and hand-stitched shoes. Sam and Mahmoud were in Donna Karan evening gowns cut in the fashionable Doric chiton style and accessorised with Louboutin ribbon sandals and Givenchy clutch bags. To the casual passer-by they certainly were dressed like people who would belong to a club like the Hellenium, or at any rate be friends with someone who did.
"We're guests of Mr D and Miss A," Ramsay said.
The doorman's expression altered a fraction, just perceptibly hardening. "Welcome," he said, part opening the door for them, but not all the way.
A clerk at a desk in the foyer likewise stiffened as Ramsay repeated the code phrase. "This way," the clerk said, leading them a private lift which he summoned by turning a key chained to his belt. "The basement."
Creaking downwards in the elderly lift, the three Titans exchanged apprehensive glances.
"Into the lion's den," said Sam. "They could kill us at any moment."
"I don't think so," Ramsay replied. "My gut says they're on the level. The offer's genuine."
"In any case, we're carrying protection," Mahmoud said, tapping her clutch bag. "We just have to be quick enough with it. By the way, Sam, rocking that dress."
"True that," said Ramsay appreciatively.
A bell dinged. The lift halted. The cage-like metal doors concertinaed open.
Another doorman waited to check them over. This wasn't a courteous old retainer like the one upstairs. This was a thick-necked bouncer type, ex-military to judge by his razor-edged crew cut, who made little effort to hide the shoulder holster he wore beneath his jacket. He frisked them from top to toe and rummaged through the women's bags. Both bags contained, among other requisites, plastic tampon holders. Sam and Mahmoud exchanged a quick glance of concern, but the man could barely bring himself to touch the tampon holders, let alone open them to check inside.
"Right," he said, jerking a thumb. "I don't recognise you, so that means you must be them. The special visitors. Go on in."
Above street level the Hellenium was an entirely respectable establishment. Judges, civil servants, politicians, captains of industry, bankers, and others of the British upper crust drank in its bars, dined in its restaurant, and dozed in its wingback armchairs before blazing fireplaces with glasses of port wilting in their hands. The Hellenium had its own club tie, an exorbitant membership fee, and a ten-year waiting list. To join, you had to be recommended by no fewer than seven current members, and a single word of dissent from any other member would instantly and indelibly scupper your chances. Only the most stainless and well connected could get in.
Downstairs, however, was another story. For nigh on a decade the Hellenium's basement had played host to an event whose existence was a secret even to many of the club regulars. Down there, perhaps once every four months, perhaps less frequently than that, the Lotus Eaters congregated.
They didn't necessarily have to be members of the Hellenium. They didn't necessarily have to be British or even European. The criteria for being a Lotus Eater were simple. You must be powerful, not just influential, not just some elected official, truly powerful, which in almost every instance equated to being rich. And not just the ordinary kind of rich — fabulously, insanely rich. The kind of rich that rich people dreamed of being. Rich enough to have the ear of statesmen, the attention of generals, the adoration of supermodels, and the fawning respect of luxury yacht salesmen and high-end real estate brokers everywhere. You also had to have no shame. Shame was a commodity that ill befit a Lotus Eater. Shame, if you carried any about your person, had to be left at the entrance with the thick-necked doorman, along with firearms, knives, any other weapons, sharp implements, and narcotic substances.
Beyond the entrance, in the basement's many chambers and partitioned-off subchambers, you became someone else. You shrugged off care and inhibition. You slipped out of the skin of your life and surrendered yourself to euphoria and carnal indulgence the likes of which could be found nowhere else on the planet.
As Sam, Ramsay and Mahmoud moved through the basement they saw, through open doorways, sights that would have had the editors of downmarket tabloids wetting themselves with glee. Here was the most successful director in Hollywood history lolling languidly on a divan with his flies open, fondling his tumescent (if still rather unimpressive) cock while a pair of prostitutes cavorted in front of him, pouring honey over each other's immaculately depilated bodies. Here was a billionaire Russian oligarch letting himself be rigorously penetrated with a gold-plated dildo strapped to a gimp-masked dominatrix. Here was the lead singer of the top-selling rock act of all time happily fellating a man who closely resembled, but surely could not be, the present incumbent of the Throne of St Peter. Here was a diva-esque fashion house owner who, having just had three young men ejaculate on her suspiciously smooth face, was now inviting them to rinse their semen off with their urine.