‘That’s a real shame, son, a real shame. Say hello to your brother for me,’ the Greek said, taking a gun from his coat as he was speaking.
Merc screamed.
The Greek pointed the gun at the young boy’s head.
Merc passed out.
The fake Greek and his companion cut Merc down from the hook, and then spent the next hour rearranging the barn. They knew that the owner was miles away. In any case, not many people visited that isolated part of Virginia.
**
Fitted with the latest high-resolution video cameras and cell phone location and surveillance technology, one of the FBI’s many Cessna spy planes followed the Potomac River south into Maryland. Carl Rutter sat in the back of the cramped aircraft with his eyes glued to a screen. Next to him, a technician was similarly engrossed.
‘Why the hell is the White House so wound up about a missing van?’ Joe Faskind, the technician, asked.
‘I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you,’ Rutter replied, laughing. ‘Truth is, we haven’t a clue what the White House is up to.’
‘Yeah? That’d be right. So why are we searching the Potomac? It’s not deep enough in most places to lose a van in.’
‘Where we are headed, parts of the main channel can be eighty feet deep at high tide,’ Rutter explained. ‘But at low tide, it can drop to thirty feet.’
‘Gotcha! I was wondering why you insisted that we came at low tide. What made you think of it?’
‘That’s one of the problems with this job; you start thinking like the villains,’ Rutter replied.
‘Where are we?’ Rutter then yelled at the pilot through the microphone in his headgear. All he could see on the screen was the river beneath them.
‘We are just coming up to Fort Washington on the left,’ the pilot called back.
‘Hold it!’ Joe yelled.
‘What do you mean, “hold it”? This isn’t a ghetto-bird,’ the pilot called back and laughed. ‘I’ll go about.’
‘There!’ Joe said excitedly. ‘That shape could be a submerged van.’
‘Sure, could be, and they seem to have missed the deep part of the channel. Where the hell are we?’ Carl Rutter asked again.
‘Just off Mockley Point where Piscataway Creek flows into the Potomac,’ the pilot advised him. ‘I’ll call it in. How the hell did they get it there?’
Chapter 8
My center is giving way, my right is pushed back, my left is wavering. The situation is excellent. I shall attack!
Marshall Ferdinand Jean Marie Foch:
French WWI Supreme Allied Commander.
I had to go and find him, of course. If Poseidon was on the mountain, I simply had to talk to him. I needed to find out what he was up to, and whose side he really was on.
I left KK to guard the girls because I was secretly afraid that the stories of Posey being on the mountain might be a ploy to separate me from Demeter and Persephone. Unfortunately, my search turned out to be a complete waste of time. Nobody I spoke to had laid eyes on him, or, if they had, they were keeping it to themselves. Fearing that it was a ploy after all, I raced back to the apartment.
The place was deserted, or so I thought until I saw KK lying in a dark corner. On a side table lay an opened, bright-red box of chocolates; only four had been eaten. I resisted the temptation.
‘Here, KK,’ I called out, clicking my fingers.
Unusually, there was no response from the giant dog. I walked over to him; he still didn’t stir. I was worried now. Normally, KK would have heard my footsteps, felt tiny vibrations of the floor caused by my body weight, or picked up my scent, yet he seemed to be in a very deep, hypnotic sleep. I bent down to pat him, and only then did I realize what was wrong: KK had been turned back into stone – or Candia Red Greek marble, to be precise. There were not too many gods or goddesses on the mountain who were capable, or even daring enough, to pull off such a stunt on my dog – the dog of the god of gods! I made a mental list of the possibilities.
If anything had happened to Demeter or Persephone, I would never forgive myself. Never! My revenge would be cataclysmic. And somebody, or some group, would discover to their cost just what the wrath of old Zeus could do.
I was fed up with talking; that was Demeter’s way. Mine was action.
I began to caress KK as I had done when I first arrived on Olympus and found him guarding the gates of the Pantheon. Under my touch, the marble slowly turned to gold. I continued caressing him until the gold slowly reverted to his natural golden colored fur, and the dog morphed back to life.
Most dogs in the mortal world have a sense of smell that, depending on the breed, can be between 10,000 to 100,000 times more sensitive than that of humans. For KK, you could multiply that by at least a factor of ten.
I walked him up and down the apartment to make sure he was fully recovered. He soon seemed perfectly normal. We stopped next to the table with the open box of chocolates. They looked so tempting. I reached for one and KK suddenly started barking furiously. I have rarely heard him so excited. I stroked his ears to calm him down. When KK was completely relaxed again, I stretched my arm towards the chocolates to see how he would react. KK went berserk. He threw his enormous frame at the table smashing it to smithereens and scattering the chocolates across the room. Nobody would want to eat them now, or so I thought.
‘Okay, KK, I get it; I get it,’ I said and fondled his ears again until he was calm.
‘Where are they, KK? Where are Demeter and Persephone?’
This time, KK went straight to the door. I waved it open and followed the dog outside. As usual, an MHP was waiting for us. Its doors silently slid open as we approached. KK stuck his nose inside, sniffed and backed away. I waved the MHP away, and it was immediately replaced by another. KK sniffed and backed away. This was repeated four more times before I realized the problem: all MHPs are automatically sanitized after every journey. Not even KK with his amazing senses could detect a scent that was no longer there. I was getting frustrated now and very, very angry. How dare they treat me like this on my mountain! Someone was going to pay and pay big time!
How badly I missed Demeter’s calming influence.
In front of us, an MHP was waiting with its doors open. I got in, and KK jumped in after me.
‘Take me to the Lady Athena,’ I said to the Pod.
There is no sensation of movement or speed in a Mobile Hermes Pod. The General Theory of Relativity is completely voided because there are no windows or clocks to compare time and space relatively; thus, there is no indication of the passing of time or distance. You get in; you go; you arrive. If you were to wear a mortal’s watch, it would stop until you arrived, and then start again. No point in looking at it.
Nothing is barred to me on Mount Olympus; I am the god of gods, which can be very useful. Thus, when the doors of the MHP opened, I was able to walk straight into Athena’s apartment. She was just coming out of her bedroom and initially seemed completely flustered by my presence, or maybe it was the sight of KK, or possibly because she was naked.
Athena, known as Minerva to the Romans, was every bit as beautiful as I remembered her. Indeed, she lacked nothing in comparison with Hera or even Aphrodite. In fact, many years ago, those three were responsible for the Trojan War. Well, it was really my fault in the first place, I suppose.
Just so you understand, it happened like this: A goddess called Eris, who was every bit as mischievous as the goddess Até, said she would give a golden apple