Andy Mcdermott - Temple of the Gods

‘And unarmed,’ said Nina.

Another muted pause. ‘Agreed.’

‘If we see anyone else on the way to you, I’ll shoot your friend and blow up the engines,’ Eddie told him. ‘So get everyone to lock themselves in the galley or wherever.’

‘It will be done,’ said Glas. The intercom fell silent.

‘You trust him?’ Nina asked Eddie, before answering her own question. ‘Of course not.’

‘Go upstairs and wait in the airlock. If anything happens, get back into the sub and take off.’

‘I don’t know how to drive the thing,’ she told him as she ascended. ‘I don’t even know how to detach it from this sub.’

‘Bash every button until something happens, that’s my usual trick.’

‘Yeah, that’s why I don’t let you use my laptop.’ She pushed the hatch until it was slightly ajar and she could see out through the narrow gap.

Before long, someone knocked on the door. Eddie looked up at Nina. ‘Well, here we go,’ he said, freeing the crowbar from the handle before returning to cover. ‘Okay, open it. Slowly!’

He held his finger tightly on the trigger as the door eased open; if he saw a weapon, he was ready to fire instantly. But instead a pair of slender black-gloved hands came into view, fingers spread wide to show they were not carrying anything. ‘Well?’ said a familiar aristocratic voice, filled with irritation. ‘May I come in?’

Eddie could hardly believe it. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’

‘Charming as ever, Eddie.’ Sophia Blackwood leaned through the opening, taking in the rifle pointed at her. ‘You can put that down; I’m not armed.’

‘I’ll check that for myself. Shut the door, then put your hands against it.’

Sophia impatiently complied. Eddie pushed the ASM-DT’s muzzle against her back and performed a one-handed pat-down. He knew his ex-wife well enough to be unsurprised to find she had lied. ‘Not armed, eh?’ he said as he pulled a compact Glock 36 pistol from the waistband of her black leather trousers beneath her blouse. ‘I should just shoot you on fucking principle. Glas thought he could use you to kill us, did he?’

‘Actually, Harald doesn’t even know I have that gun,’ she said as he finished his search. She looked up at Nina, who had cautiously emerged from the docking chamber. ‘It’s got quite an interesting story, actually.’

‘Really,’ said Eddie, not caring. ‘You should send it to a publisher — maybe it’ll outsell Dan Brown.’

‘I’m sure Nina will want to hear it. Part of it takes place in Rome.’

Eddie stepped back, keeping the rifle fixed on Sophia. ‘Nina, take this,’ he said, holding out the Glock.

His wife quickly descended the stairs. ‘What about Rome?’ she demanded. ‘What the hell was going on there? Your buddy killed Agnelli, and was about to kill me when—’

‘When I shot him. Yes, I do remember — I was there,’ Sophia snarked.

Nina took the gun from Eddie. Checking, she found that it was fully loaded with a round already chambered. ‘And why were you there?’

Sophia gave her a patronising look. ‘It’s all rather complicated.’

‘Well gee, if only I were a PhD so I could understand. Wait, whaddya know!’ She put the magazine back into the weapon, making sure Sophia heard the click as it seated. ‘You can explain on the way to Glas.’

‘Oh, very well. If Eddie will let me take my hands off this door.’

‘Go ahead,’ he told her. ‘By the way, what’s with the gloves? The air in a submarine bad for your cuticles?’

Her expression became considerably more hostile. ‘Actually, I have you to thank for that. And this.’ She brought up her left hand to point with her index finger at the scar running down her face; her ring and little fingers remained strangely rigid beneath the expensive black leather. ‘When you threw me off that cliff in Switzerland—’

‘When he tackled you over it to stop you from shooting me,’ Nina reminded her.

‘Whatever. The point remains that my dear ex-husband used me to cushion himself on the way down.’ Acid on her tongue, Sophia opened the door. Eddie glanced through. The corridor was clear. ‘I came out of the experience rather worse off than he did.’

‘I broke a rib and punctured a lung!’ Eddie objected.

‘And I lost half my fucking hand !’ With a genuine flare of anger, she tugged off her left glove — revealing that a chunk the size of a large bite was missing from the edge of her palm, replaced, along with the two fingers above it, by a waxy prosthesis attached with an elastic strap. ‘It got torn off on a rock, and before I even had time to realise what had happened I hit another one — face-first.’ She turned the injured side of her face to them. Even after surgery to repair it, the scar was still ragged and deep. Despite her loathing for Sophia, Nina couldn’t help feeling a pang of sympathy.

But only a pang. The Englishwoman was a ruthless multiple murderer, killing without a qualm anyone who threatened to obstruct her goals. Both Nina and Eddie had been in her sights on more than one occasion. ‘Well, sorry to hear that,’ she said lamely. ‘Okay, let’s go.’

Eddie was tempted to make some tasteless hand-themed joke, but restrained himself. Like Nina he had found the sight shocking, though for different reasons. Sophia had been his wife, after all, and to see the face he had known so well ravaged by injury was unsettling.

Scar aside, though, it was not quite as he remembered. ‘Who arranged for the plastic surgery?’ he asked as Sophia put the glove back on and went through the door. He followed, keeping the gun fixed on her back; Nina cautiously took up the rear with the Glock at the ready. ‘Glas, I’m assuming.’

‘Yes,’ said Sophia, hands raised as she led them down the passage. ‘I knew him before I met you again in New York.’

‘When you say you “knew” him…’ said Nina suspiciously.

Sophia blew out an exasperated breath. ‘I seem to have acquired a reputation as a woman who sleeps with every wealthy and powerful man she meets.’

‘Oh, I wonder why?’ Eddie muttered.

‘But yes, I did.’

‘I might have bloody known!’

‘It was after my father died, and the jackals in the City stripped every last morsel of flesh from his company’s bones to leave me with nothing. I still had my title, so — to be bluntly mercenary about it — I was looking for a man with resources I could use to get my revenge. Harald was one potential suitor, as it were.’

Eddie made a disgusted sound. ‘Along with René Corvus, Richard Yuen, Victor Dalton…’

‘He wasn’t the best choice at the time, I’ll be frank. But he was still infatuated with me.’

‘What man wouldn’t be?’ Nina said sarcastically. ‘I mean, on average there’s only a fifty per cent chance that you’ll kill them.’

‘It’s not even close to fifty per cent,’ Sophia replied, irked at the accusation. ‘I didn’t kill Gabriel Ribbsley. Or Joe Komosa, or—’

‘Enough, Jesus!’ Eddie cut in. ‘I don’t need to hear the fucking list. The literal fucking list.’

She gave him a small cat-like smile, pleased to have needled him once more. ‘But anyway, I managed to drag myself out of the lake not far from the waterfall and broke into a nearby house. I didn’t know whom to call at first, but then I remembered that Harald had a residence in Switzerland for tax reasons. I had no idea whether or not he would actually be there, but as it turned out, he was.’

‘So he came and rescued you,’ said Nina. ‘Even knowing what you’d done — that you tried to nuke New York?’

‘The human heart is a very forgiving thing.’

‘Like you’d know,’ Eddie scoffed.