The Few (The Abductions of Langley Garret Book 2) (8 page)

'I don't blame you for being cynical about it. It was my fault, well, and your mother too, for making a mess of your life for so long. No excuses though, it's just the way things happened and once mistakes are made, there's no undoing them.'

'And what if I don't believe you're my father.'

'Doesn't really matter what you believe now, it won't make a shred of difference.'

'To what?'

'Whether you live or die.'

'That sounds familiar,' I said, with probably too much sarcasm.

He waited for some moments. 'Why didn't you call the number you were given when you got back to Switzerland?'

'How do you know about that?'

'Just answer me,' he said, with the first hint of authority and impatience in his voice.

'I wanted an end to everything that had happened and wanted to be me again. It was all just a mistake and whoever took me, finally realised they had the wrong man.'

'It wasn't a mistake and you weren't the wrong man. You're my son, and if it weren't for that fact, you would've rotted to death in Turkey.'

'At least I know where I was now.'

'About all you know. You really are bit pig-headed, like your mother.'

I was about to answer, but saw Giovanna at the door bringing the beer. She waddled over slowly and placed the tray on the table. He sat silently as she poured both glasses, and she seemed to understand intuitively that it wasn't the time to make small talk. She smiled at me before turning to leave. He waited for some time, studying the glass of beer in his hand.

'Good health,' he said, quietly, before taking a sip of his beer. I only lifted my glass to him in response. He nodded, and waited. 'My name is Nelson Garrett.'

'Not Kratos?'

'As much as yours is Soter.'

'So what do I call you?'

'Anything you like, it doesn't matter. It's only who I am and who you are that does.'

'And, who are we?'

'Puppets. Just puppets. Everyone has someone or something that controls them, and we're no different. If you do as you're expected to do, all is well.'

'So I didn't?'

'It wasn't your fault. You had no idea of what was expected of you, where you came from or who you were. Then when it was time for you to find out all of this, well, there were complications.'

'Can I have a guess at this point? Leda?'

'One of the complications, yes.'

'And another guess. You had me taken in the first place by a hazel-eyed bitch and a monster in a bad suit. Then had me drugged, tied up, flown to god knows where and dropped on an island in the middle of nowhere.'

'It was time.'

'Fuck!'

'If I hadn't, you would've been dead within two days. Possibly sooner.'

'Why should I believe any of this? You know, it's not as if it's the first fucking fairytale I've been told just recently.'

'I can understand that a lot of what you've been through is difficult for you to understand and that you feel angry about it.'

'Angry? Why should I be angry? My wife's dead, my life's been taken away from me and thugs in crappy suits keep pestering me. And not to mention that my apartment's blown to hell!'

'Yet somehow you're still alive and sitting here drinking beer, looking out over Lake Como. I'd say you're quite fortunate.'

'So I'm only here because you've been protecting me? Is this what you call protecting me?' I asked, as I showed him my next to useless left hand.

'Yes.'

'For fuck's sake,' I spat, then calmed just a little. 'I'm just your fucking puppet, aren't I?'

He took a long gulp of his beer. 'You really are like your mother, but she didn't used to swear as much. Just as hot headed though,' he said and laughed. I sipped my beer and waited. I'm not sure what for, but I was angry and feeling used, as the man opposite me, as old and innocent as he looked, played me for a fool. Or at least I thought that's what he was doing. I looked at him, and his eyes took mine in a long stare, as if challenging me to a duel of wills.

'There's no possible way that you can prove you're my father.'

He sipped his beer then slowly topped up his glass from the can sitting beside his glass. 'When you were ten days old, it was my sworn duty to mark you with the Ten Sons. The mark of the fourth son on the right side of your neck is not straight and its formed incorrectly because the needle I was using broke. I had to ask your mother to find a pair of tweezers to remove the snapped needle from your neck. I held you until she returned, but by the time I finally removed it, you had bled quite badly and you were screaming and wriggling in your mother's arms as I tried to finish the fourth line. When I cleaned the wound, the ash die had spread through the wound created by the broken needle and spoilt the line and it blackened into a round ball at the end of it. You were in such pain that I gave in to Andrea's pleading and finished your marks the next day.'

'My mother's name was Andrea? I thought she was called Melinoë.'

'As you're Soter. Her name was Andrea Lloyd, and she was given to me by the Sons of Cleito. I'm sure you're aware now of how this tradition works.'

Giovanna appeared at the door to the terrace, and before I could answer, he seemed to sense her behind him. 'More beer please,' he said, without moving his eyes from me. When he had sensed she had turned and returned inside he continued. 'When I was finally able to finish the last of your ten lines the next day, I had to make a new mix of dye, so the fifth line on your right side is lighter than the others.'

My hand went to my neck, and I pulled it away quickly, not wanting yet to admit that what he had said was probably true, but knowing that how he had described the marks on the right side of my neck was very accurate.

'Your mother never adapted to being within, and fought the traditions that were a necessary part of our existence. Call her a rebel if you will, but she fought every inch of the way. Not just me, but everything that was expected from her. In the end, it was my father who accepted her pleadings to leave.'

'By boat as Leda showed me?'

'Yes, it was from the island. I can't recall exactly, maybe sixty-eight or nine but we were spending the summer on the island. I think you were three, so it must've been sixty-eight. We lived in Athens the rest of the year and, well, I don't know, but Andrea must've found the life more to her liking in Athens, or she had a lover. I never really knew. Anyway, she got very upset as the summer passed and pleaded to leave the island prison as she called it.'

'Decem Filios?'

'Yes. But she wasn't simply complaining about it. She'd tried to commit suicide once that summer, and made a bloody mess of it too by slashing her wrists, but missing any main veins luckily. My father finally decided that it would be best for her to leave and that she would hopefully settle down in time.'

'And did she?'

'I returned to Athens in September that year and she had disappeared. I have to tell you, that was not easy for anyone connected to the Sons of Cleito, but somehow she did. It took three years to finally locate where she'd ended up, and also to discover that she was dead.'

'How did she die?'

'Suicide.'

'How?'

'She jumped from a five storey window as best we could discover. After an argument with the man she was living with.'

'In Athens?'

'No, in London. That's how you ended up there and after her death you were handed off to some distant relatives of the man Andrea was with.'

'So why didn't you just come and get me? I mean, if you were my father, you would've done that.'

'I would have. But even with our network looking for you, tracking you down wasn't that easy. It took some years until we finally did.'

'When?'

'When you were at university.'

'Don't tell me. Helen.'

He didn't reply, as he heard Giovanna arriving with more beer. She took her time placing the tray on the table and topping up our glasses. 'Anything else?' she asked.

'I think we'll have lunch inside. It's a bit warm out here,' Nelson said.

'At around one?'

'Yes, that'll be fine.'

Giovanna nodded and turned to go back inside. I waited until she had disappeared from view.

'Helen?' I repeated.

'My father was still alive back then and he made the decision to assign her to you. She was his niece by marriage on his wife's side and very loyal to the family and the Sons. It was her task to keep you safe, while at the same time fulfilling her role within the Sons.'

'Which was?'

'To gather information from The Few.'

'And did she?'

'Yes. She performed both of her tasks exceptionally well, in most respects.'

'Most?'

'It took some time before we discovered that she had been convinced, by who or what we never knew, that your mother was a traitor, which as you can imagine rather complicated things and caused us great concern for a number of years. With her working so closely within The Few, we weren’t absolutely sure of her motivations. Perhaps it was her way of trying to protect you at that time, or she thought that your mother had been giving information to someone. I asked my father to bring you back then, but he decided to leave you with her. Maybe it was because she was family, but he refused to believe that she was not doing anything other than working diligently for the Sons and protecting you.'

'But why was she working with The Few anyway? That doesn't make sense.'

'We're in a very strange business Langley. So strange in fact that after all these years, I still sometimes struggle to understand it. But to answer your question, I received a copy of your mother's letter – from within The Few. It was accompanied by a copy of a short memo outlining the significance of it and signed by Helen. But before and after receiving it, I got classified information from her that she obtained from her role with The Few. I imagine she may have used the letter as leverage, or to prove her worth to them.'

'Hold on. You got a copy of her letter from The Few, and not from Helen?'

'That's right.'

'I'm lost. But Helen was a spy.'

'Too simplistic, but it will do.'

'That damn letter has caused me a lot of trouble.'

'Perhaps.'

'Look, I'll be straight with you. Even if you are my father, which I'm still not convinced about, I have to ask why I shouldn't just walk out the door and forget all about the Sons of Cleito, Helen, my mother and all the mumbo jumbo I have been fed in the last few months? I'm sorry if I offend you by saying this, but I just don't believe all this crap.'

'Or don't want to?' He didn't let me answer his question. 'It's a bit like royalty. When you're the heir, you do as you are told until it's time to take the throne. But the royals are lucky; they can choose to abdicate if they wish. A bit messy legally, but they can, and then go off and have a nice life in Monaco or somewhere just as warm. But for you and I Langley, we don't have that luxury. I am just, as you will be, a figurehead of something you don't understand yet. The Sons of Cleito are the balance on one end of a nonsensical seesaw that it at the essence of civilised human society. No one knows of us, but everyone needs us. It's the same for The Few. Unknown to most, yet necessary to all. And it is due to our struggles with each other that sanity exists in our world, for if one became totally dominant our societies would perish. We need night and day, black and white, good and evil, heaven and hell, man and woman, right and wrong. A single defining force would destroy us all.'

'But if I say I will walk away, you tell me I will die. Is that just another one of your simplistic balances? Life and death?'

'Killing has, and always will be a means of keeping the balance,' he said, and I very much noted the look in his eyes – razor sharp and intense. He meant every single word. 'In fact, to keep the balance, I would kill you myself if it were absolutely necessary.'

'What the fuck am I involved in here? First you tell me it was you who had me sent off to ten weeks of hell. Then you say you saved me from it. And now you're going to kill me?'

'Yes, yes and if I have to, yes.'

'This is insanity.'

He smiled. Not a happy smile, more an ironic one. 'Yes, it is, isn't it? But it's my reality and very soon it will be yours. Now drink up. Warm beer is not good for the stomach.'

I took a good mouthful.

'Not many people have a fourth toe smaller than their little toe. Only the one on your left foot though. Nature isn't always totally symmetrical, is it?'

'No, it's not.'

Dictum

We sat at a small dining table in an alcove adjacent to the kitchen. I presumed from the size of the house that there was a grand dining room, or perhaps two, somewhere else. Giovanna fussed about serving our lunch, as she first dressed and tossed the green salad with great gusto, then served Nelson and myself before proudly taking off the lid covering a bowl of Osso Bucco. She scurried off and returned with a bowl of piping hot polenta to accompany the veal.