Without another word, he calmly stepped past me and into the helicopter. Bast gave me a self-satisfied smile as she boarded. I exchanged a last look with Karthik, one marked by embarrassment from him, before I stood to get into my seat. The helicopter’s blades were already spinning as I fastened myself in. I didn’t look in at the three of them as we began to take off, as though by looking away, I could forget that I was in a foreign land, with people I couldn’t trust, whose aims I didn’t truly know.
As we lifted off, it occurred to me that that was exactly where I stood with the entire rest of the world as well. I didn’t know whether to be upset at the thought or not, so I just ignored it and held on, letting the rattle of the flight settle into my uneasy bones, and I tried to remember that, if I were to be honest about it, this was as close to feeling normal as I could expect at this point in my life.
Chapter 14
There was someone waiting on the roof of Omega’s headquarters as we touched down, a familiar figure in a suit. For the briefest of moments I wondered if they’d somehow dragged Ariadne in to work with them, but as we began to descend I realized the woman’s hair was shorter and not red. The door swung open after we touched down and I recognized her as she gestured for me to get out. “Eleanor Madigan,” I said with a nod as I walked past her. “I almost didn’t recognize you without lightning spitting from your hands.”
“Based on what I’ve heard of your visit thus far, I’m certain you’ll be seeing that side of me before we’re all done,” she said in even tones, her light British accent reminding me of a flying nanny I’d seen in a movie a long time ago. “Sir,” she said to Janus with utmost respect.
“Eleanor,” Janus said as he stepped out of the helicopter. “We missed you on our excursion.”
“Ah,” Madigan said with a curt nod. “I’m afraid I was handling some business south of the Thames this morning and couldn’t get it concluded in time to reach you before you left. I do have a message from the Primus, however.”
“Oh?” Janus said, a thick, grey eyebrow raised in slight surprise. “Go on.”
“He requests the presence of your company immediately,” Madigan said, nodding sharply, almost as if she was bowing in deference to him. “He says the local police at the incident site have already had a preliminary finding from a local pathologist.”
“Indeed?” Janus said. “Well, then, without further ado, I suppose.” He turned to me. “Sienna, if you’d care to wait, you may, or if you’d prefer to go back to your hotel—”
“No, sir,” Madigan said. “The Primus requests her presence as well.”
“Requests it, does he?” I asked, feeling cheeky, as they’d say locally. “Well, in that case, let’s not disappoint your King Douche by keeping him waiting.”
Janus sighed audibly over the sound of the rotors finishing their last few turns. “I would ask you to try to be polite, but I know that would be fruitless, so I merely ask you try to restrain your desire to do violence until you may visit it upon someone who is fully deserving of your wrath—such as, say, Erich Winter.”
“You don’t want me getting into a rumble with your Big Cheese?” I asked, watching Janus register extreme discomfort and Bast’s face lock into irritation. “Fair enough. I’ll try not to needle him if he doesn’t needle me.”
“Dear God,” Janus said in seriousness as he turned away from me, “this will be the shortest meeting in the history of Omega.”
I didn’t ask what he meant as we descended back to the main floor, emerging from the same elevator bank as last time. There was a door on the wood-paneled far wall, the only one that wasn’t open to a glass-windowed room. I followed Janus through the quiet of the work floor, the cubicle dwellers keeping to themselves, heads down.
Janus paused and opened one of the double doors for me. With a last look that suggested something along the lines of Play nice, I stepped inside. Part of me wanted to ask Wolfe, Bjorn and Gavrikov what I should be expecting, but I didn’t want to have a conversation with myself as I was walking in to meet the man. Or woman. Not like I hadn’t met women who were totally psychotic beasts who ran over people with nary a thought. One of them was even in my head.
I was disabused of the notion that the Primus was a woman as soon as I walked in the door. The office was in a state of renovation. Half of it was covered in wood paneling reminiscent of everything I’ve ever imagined a country club would look like in the olden days. There were blank spaces on the walls where paintings had until recently been hanging, dirty outlines marking their removal. There were countless bookshelves as well, some of them emptied. From the accumulation of dust, I guessed that the cleanup had been recent.