by Dave Freer
"I'm sorry you have been put on this dull duty, while your fellow nobles are out raiding and warring," she said. "Priones. Stop that, or there will be trouble."
Priones looked at her darkly, and pointed at the agent. "Mummy doesn't like him here. I hope she chops him up and boils him in a pot."
"She probably will, dear," said Arachne, urbanely. "Later. Now go and play with your toy soldiers, if any of them still have heads."
He showed no sign of moving, but just went back to: "Mummy doesn't like him here."
Arachne licked her lips. "I haven't eaten a little boy for weeks."
"You wouldn't dare," he said, but he backed off. Medea called from the bedroom, which provided him the chance to stick out his tongue and run.
"He needs a good hiding," said the agent, taking a mouthful of coffee. He was lucky that Medea hadn't made it. Medea's coffee pot hadn't been any more obedient for being given less grounds, but the sorceress believed that she had to persevere with disciplining it.
"Probably," agreed Arachne, "but I wouldn't try it. Medea really did chop up her half brother. Anyway, Priones is as good as gold with Cruz. But you have sent his new daddy away, so he's cross. He doesn't want you here. He'll probably be a monster until our husbands get back. Will they be away long?"
"As long as it takes to find Harkness and—" said the agent, before suddenly breaking off. "As long as it takes, Miz. I can't and won't talk about it, so stop trying to pump me. And keep that kid away from me."
Arachne smiled sweetly. "I'll do my best." She wondered if it would be easier to bribe Priones to drive him mad or to sic Neoptolemeus onto him. Neoptolemeus had decided he liked her. A seven-year-old can be a very deadly weapon, or at least a pretty annoying one.
And now all she needed was to establish who this "Harkness" was, and why her husband and Cruz were needed to find him. She'd have to find a time to talk to Medea, privately. Maybe she'd know. Mac had certainly never mentioned the name, and they'd talked about pretty much everything.
Chapter 2
James Horton apparently enjoyed the august title of Assistant Director, Operations, of the Pyramid Security Agency. Jim McKenna hadn't been aware that the PSA even had an "operations directorate." Until the Pissants showed up at Fort Campbell, he'd been under the impression that the PSA was an information gathering outfit, like the National Security Agency. A pure intelligence agency, so to speak, not one that actually did rough-and-ready field work.
He wasn't sure, but Mac had a growing suspicion that this "Operations Directorate" was even more brand spanking new than the PSA itself. That would help to explain the bizarre combination of agents throwing their weight around even with army colonels on an army base—yet seeming to have not a clue about what they were supposedly doing.
If Horton here was their boss, Mac didn't have any trouble understanding the reason. Fortunately, being paratroopers and an elite unit, the 101st generally got good officers assigned to it. But Mac had been in the U.S. Army plenty long enough to know that some officers were pure and simple goofballs. And Horton reminded him of several such goofballs he'd known in times past. Especially a certain Captain Worthington—and how the hell the man had risen beyond second lieutenant remained a mystery to the sergeant—who'd combined incompetence with a "gung ho" attitude that would have been funny except for the misery it put the grunts through.
For starters, Mac was pretty sure that Horton was the origin of this silly habit of PSA agents wearing sunglasses. The screwball was wearing them here—inside a room with no windows and only fluorescent lighting. The other agents had at least had the sense to take them off when they came indoors. Did these guys know just how much they looked like cheap movie government agents? Did they try and look like them?
Most likely, Horton had been inspired by watching the Men in Black movies—and hadn't noticed that they were comedies. And wasn't that a scary thought?
The building they were in lent credence to that theory, now that Mac thought about. He'd noticed on the way in that it looked like some sort of power plant, located in a rural area not too far from Clarksville.
"I hear you've been treating my operatives with some disrespect," Assistant Director Horton said to the two paratroopers, in a tone of voice he apparently thought was arctic but fell a good hundred and fifty degrees short of any competent drill sergeant.
So they'd been tattling to mummy, probably about being called Pissants. Mac flicked a glance at Cruz. The sergeant had his poker face on. Well, Cruz was a lot more experienced at dealing with trouble than he was, even if McKenna was better at getting into it.
"No, sir, not yet," said Cruz. His own tone of voice made it clear that serious disrespect could start very easily. "Your operatives have obviously not been taught military protocols, and they have disgraced both you and their organization. If you want to confirm that you could try asking my commanding officer. They treated him with disrespect, in the presence of his men and their dependents. We in the military don't like that. I'd like to you to censure them, sir. Then I'd feel that mutual respect could be established."
Mac had to restrain a grin.
Horton's eyes widened. "Do you know who I am, Sergeant Cruz?" He was now striving for a voice the temperature of liquid nitrogen. It was pretty pathetic. "I answer directly to Director Garnett herself."
He said that last the way a man might say "me and Moses consult daily on such matters as parting the Red Sea."
Cruz looked at him with a completely blank expression, as if he'd never heard her name at all. Which would be quite a feat, since Helen Garnett was nothing if not a public recognition addict. Ever since she'd been put in charge of the PSA, her face had been on enough screens for everyone to know it.
"No, sir. These men are from the PSA, so I'd guess that you are also from the PSA. I'd like to know why we've been brought here, and why our families are being held hostage."
Horton slithered away from a direct answer. "You'll be told presently what your mission is—and the term 'hostage' is ridiculous, sergeant. Your people are simply under protective custody." He leaned forward a bit, apparently striving for a menacing aura. "I just want to clarify one thing before I send you off to be briefed. Even the lowest agent here outranks you. If I hear of any more problems, or disrespect, you could just be spending several years in the stockade at Ft. Leavenworth. Do you understand me?"
Cruz didn't reply. His muscles just tensed. For the first time in his military career Mac decided that it was time to bail his senior buddy out. Deflect fire. "Yes, sir. Can we send a message to our families?"
"No. You're strictly incommunicado." He waved a hand at one of the suits. "Take them to Agent Supervisor Megane."
* * *
Agent Supervisor Megane looked like a dodgy used car-salesman. In a suit, rubbing his hands as he talked. Still, it was an improvement on being in the same room as Horton. At least Megane wasn't wearing sunglasses indoors.
"Our mission is one of utmost gravity and sensitivity," he said. "You're probably not aware of it, but a senior government man from the National Security Council was snatched in the early phase of the alien pyramid attack. A man by the name of Tom Harkness."
Mac remembered the name. That cop, Salinas, had wanted to tell Major Gervase about it. And Professor Tremelo had said he'd seen him get snatched. "Yeah, I heard it reported," he said.
"In the press?" demanded Megane. "That would be a serious breach of—"
"To my field commander. Major Gervase."
The agent looked taken aback. "Oh."
"We were there, remember?" said Cruz. "We were there just after it happened."
"Oh, yes," said the agent, again. "I was told you that would be our military advisors on... on matters inside the pyramid. Gentlemen, this is a Matter of National Security."
He looked like he'd been waiting to say that line for a long time, capital letters and all.
"Yeah?" said Mac, because Megane seemed to expect some sort of response.
Meg
ane nodded gravely. "Mr. Harkness has not returned. He is too valuable a man to be left in enemy hands. Dead or alive, we need him back. He knows far too much to be left there to be interrogated."
Mac looked at Cruz. Cruz looked back at him. Cruz took a deep breath. "I don't want to rain on your parade, Mr. Megane. But the Krim never showed the least inclination to interrogate any of us. I don't think it cares."
"How the alien treats ordinary soldiers, and how it deals with a high-ranking official, is logically going to be different," said the agent condescendingly. "Your knowledge and importance in the scheme of things is pretty unimportant compared to a man like Tom Harkness."
Cruz shrugged. "I don't think that this is the sort of military-type problem you guys think it is. But I don't suppose you're listening."
"Anyway," said Mac, "I hate to break this to you, Agent Megane—"
"Agent Supervisor Megane," the PSA man said brusquely.
"Ah, right. Agent Supervisor Megane. But my point is that if your Harkness person is still inside there... well, that's just too bad. There is no way to get to him. He'll be spat out old and dead soon enough. Even if nothing in the mythworlds kills him, time moves about five times as fast in there."
Megane blinked at him. "It just seemed that way to you, soldier. Anyway, the point is that we actually do have a way in to the pyramid. And we're arranging transport back. We need you to help us brief the snatch team, and then to guide us."
Mac looked down at his feet. The floor hadn't suddenly turned to quicksand and wasn't swallowing him up. But it felt like it.
Cruz spoke first. "With respect, Agent Supervisor Megane, I don't think you guys have done your homework. Time really does move at a different rate inside the Mythworlds, for starters. Ask the scientists."
It looked like with or without respect, this was the first time that Megane had been told that he hadn't done his homework. Mac fended off the explosion with a calming gesture. "If you read the debriefing reports, you'd know that we had to be guided around there ourselves. And if we hadn't had an expert and local help and lot more luck on our side, we'd have got ourselves killed, PDQ."
"Expert?" asked Megane.
"Dr. Lukacs," said Cruz. "He's an expert in mythology."
Megane raised his eyebrows. "He's also a civilian with a dubious security record."
Mac wondered how Jerry Lukacs had managed to get a "dubious" security record. He'd probably made a pun in the presence of an overly serious FBI agent. Or simply used too many multi-syllable words in front of a PSA agent. "He's still the guy who kept us alive and beat the Krim."
"He hasn't been cleared by the PSA. He's also currently consorting with a citizen of a country which cannot be considered wholly friendly." If reading up on the technical reports was too much for this Megane fellow, checking out on people's private lives was apparently right up his alley. "You will have a team of skilled professional to back you up this time, boys."
"Swordsmen and expert survivalists who can do magic?" rumbled Cruz. "The sort of people who can out-think gods by knowing a lot about them?"
Megane gave a lopsided smile, intended to tell them how tough he was. He slapped his chest. "Top agents. Profiled to be selected by the pyramid. I think we better go through and meet them. Then you can be properly briefed and equipped. Follow me."
He led them out of his office. Mac had a chance to say, quietly, "We're up shit-creek, Sarge."
* * *
Cruz hadn't needed Mac tell him that. It was more than obvious that these spooks had two things. The first was delusions and the second was no fricking idea what the hell they were heading for. Besides, if Cruz understood it right, then what they planned to do to get the Krim to take them, was to select the sort of guys that that Chicago police lieutenant Salinas had been. People who were credulous, among other things. Salinas himself who was still somewhere in Mythological Greece, as happy as a pig in shit, because Circe had turn him into one.
But Cruz wasn't particularly worried. The trick was simply not to be in physical contact with these losers when it all happened. He just had to get the word through to Mac. He wasn't keen on explaining to the spider-girl that he'd lost the kid.
When he met the "team" and saw their equipment he began to realize that Mac hadn't even started to guess just how far up the creek they were.
Megane held up the horse-hair plumed helmets. "The radio units are hidden inside the helmet crest. They have a transmission radius of about eight miles and we've got you about sixty hours battery life. The breastplate is high-density kevlar. Now, handguns. We're issuing you with .40 caliber pistols. The agents carry various other weapons, but there is no time to train you to proficiency in them.
"Like what?" said Cruz, who was curious about weapons of any description.
"Well, the spear disassembles into a hollow shaft—that's the rifle barrel—and the sword hilt covers and hides the trigger mechanism, revealed by twisting the pommel. It also holds the magazine. The block is the upper section of the blade. The stock is a folding one, fitted inside the shield as a brace. Fortunately, these Greek swords are chunky—apparently they had to be to stop them bending—but it still puts some limits on caliber. We're using the new .177 HM rounds. Ammunition is the biggest problem, of course. So we've settled on these authentic looking packs, which have the actual fabric lined with loose rounds."
Cruz snorted.
"You guys just don't really understand what you'll be dealing with, do you?" said Mac. The boy was still trying to get through to them. Maybe he just didn't want to wear that kilt-skirt thing that the PSA had decided was the right outfit for this lot.
Agent Bott just looked offended. Agent Sternal at least tried to explain. He looked like a lot of people had explained things to him. Mostly jokes. "We've had the best historical research teams working on this, and based on what you and others have reported, we should be nicely inconspicuous."
"Let's start with getting this clear to you," said Mac. "When you get over there, none of this gear is gonna work. Our M16s didn't. And all the modern stuff that did work had converted itself into Greek era goods. Only things which would have worked then, worked. Our water bottles became leather. A lighter became mothball-stuff."
"Your gear was examined, microscopically, when you got back," said Agent Bott, with a sniff. "It was some kind of hallucination, or maybe a switch. But we should deceive the aliens with the correct gear."
Mac sighed. "Listen—to—me. It isn't gonna work. This isn't some covert op where you have to sneak things past the locals. Things change. They. Actually. Change."
"And trust me," said Cruz, leaning against the wall. "None of us could pass for locals anyway."
That got their attention. "So the kit is not quite authentic? What's wrong with it?" asked Megane.
"You guys are," said Cruz. "However, if you like we can fix it." He smiled nastily.
"Talk. ETD is set for the day after tomorrow, at eleven hundred hours."
"Well, you better get yourselves hair jobs. And beards. And fleas. And you need at least a week of no baths, and local food, to smell right. Then you get rubbed with olive oil and scraped with, what was that thing called, Mac? Oh yeah, a strigil. You've got to smell of old sweat and rancid olive oil."
"You're kidding, right?" demanded Bott.
Cruz shrugged. "Check it out with your pet historians."
"Get onto Maritz," said Megane. "The hair and beards will have to be glued on."
Mac shook his head. "You guys won't pass anyway. You're all too tall. And too pale."
"Skin dye. Anything else?"
Cruz took a deep breath. "Good knives. Whetstones. Fire-making stuff. A good tent, a decent sleeping bag. Maybe some decent composite bows and the skill to use them. A sword that doesn't have a detachable handle and a shield that isn't made of aluminum. A crash course in how to speak Greek. Unless you end up like we did for a bit, in Egypt."
"Megane and Bott speak Greek. I speak Arabic," said Sternal.
; Cruz shook his head. "That's not the same as ancient Egyptian, or, from what Jerry said, classical Greek."
Megane bit his lip. "Well, I guess our cover just can't be perfect then. This mission had to put together in a hurry. I gather that not all the locals are hostile."
"Nope," said Mac, cheerfully. "What do you reckon, Sarge? Seventy-five percent hostile?"
"Yeah. And most of the other twenty five will kill you for the loot you're carrying." Cruz sighed. If he and Mac ended up going, despite his best intentions, they might as well be kitted out as well as possible. "Look. If you can't look perfect, why not settle for camo? If you won't, and want to go along with all this stuff, well, we're paratroopers, not experts in covert ops. We don't know how to pass ourselves off as anything else. You guys do. Do you mind if the two of us choose our own gear? We'll pretend to be foreigners or something."
"Cruz and I could pretend to be prisoners, groaning under the weight of our stuff," put in Mac, brightly. "It'd make you guys look really tough."
Cruz wished that Mac would ease off a bit. They weren't that dumb, surely.
"I'll ask," said Megane proving, like the man said, that you can never overestimate the power of human stupidity.
"There is just one question I really have to ask," said Cruz, mentally compiling a list of things he'd love to have had with him the last time. "Just how do you plan to get back?"
"We've arranged to take along the mutant animal that you brought back with you. By all reports that's how you got home."
Mac gaped. "Throttler? The Greek sphinx?"
