Chapter 98
KNIGHT SURFACED FROM oblivion slowly, starting deep in the reptilian part of his brain with a sense of the smell of meat frying. At first he had no notion of who he was, or where he was, just that odour of meat frying.
Then he understood that he was lying prone on something hard. His hearing returned next, like pounding surf that cleared to static and then to voices, television voices. Knight knew who he was then, and dimly recalled being in the bedroom with his children, Marta, and Daring before it had all gone blank. He tried to move. He couldn’t. His wrists and hands were bound.
The flute began, airy and trilling, and Knight forced his eyes open, seeing blurrily that he was not in that bedroom in the white flat any more. The floor below him was hardwood, not carpeted. And the walls around him were dark-panelled and heaved to and fro like the sea churning.
Knight felt nauseated and shut his eyes, still hearing the flute music, and the broadcast announcers arguing before he moved his head and felt a terrible throbbing at the back of his skull. After several seconds he opened his eyes a second time, finding that his focus was now better. He spotted Isabel and Luke unconscious on the floor not far away, still bound and gagged.
Then he twisted his head, trying to locate the source of the music, seeing the side of a four-poster bed at the centre of the room and, on it, James Daring.
Dazed as he was, Knight understood Daring’s predicament at a glance. It was the same predicament in which he’d seen the museum curator before it had all gone to blackness: the television star lay spread-eagle on the mattress, lashed to the bedposts and wearing a hospital gown. His mouth was taped shut. An IV line ran into his wrist from a bag hanging on a rack by the bed.
The flute music stopped and Knight saw someone backlit by brilliant sunlight coming towards him across the room.
Mike Lancer carried a black combat shotgun loosely in his left hand, and a glass of orange juice in his right. He set the juice down on a table and squatted down near Knight, gazed at him in amusement, and said, ‘Awake at last. Feel like things got rearranged upstairs, did you?’ He laughed and displayed the weapon. ‘Brilliant, these old riot guns. Even air-driven, the beanbags really pack a wallop, especially if delivered to the head at close range.’
‘Cronus?’ Knight said, still hazy. He could smell alcohol on Lancer’s breath.
Lancer said, ‘You know, I had a feeling about you right from the beginning, Knight, or at least since Dan Carter’s untimely death: a premonition that you would come closest to figuring me out. But I took the necessary precautions, and here we are.’
Deeply confused, Knight said: ‘The Olympics were your life. Why?’
Lancer rested the riot gun against the inside of his knee and reached back to scratch the side of his head. As he did, Knight saw his face flush with anger. He stood up, grabbed the juice glass, and drank from it before saying, ‘The modern Games have been corrupt since the beginning. Bribed judges. Genetic freaks. Drug-fuelled monsters. It needed to be cleaned up, and I was the one to …’
Even in Knight’s blurry state, it didn’t sound right, and he said, ‘Bullshit. I don’t believe you.’
Lancer glared at him before whipping the glass at Knight. It missed and shattered against the wall behind him. ‘Who are you to question my motives?’ Lancer roared.
Concussion or not, threat or not, things were becoming clearer to Knight, who said, ‘You didn’t do this just to expose the Games. You sacrificed them in front of a world audience. There has to be a warped sense of rage behind that.’
Lancer got angrier. ‘I am an emanation of the Lord of Time.’ He looked over at the twins. ‘Cronus. Devourer of children.’
The implied threat terrified Knight. How far gone was the man?
‘No,’ Knight said, following his foggy instincts. ‘Something happened to you. Something that filled you with hatred and made you want to do all this.’
Lancer’s voice rose. ‘The Olympics are supposed to be a religious festival, one where honourable men and women compete in the eyes of heaven. The modern Games are its exact opposite. The gods were offended by the arrogance of men, the hubris of mankind.’
Knight’s vision blurred slightly, and he felt sickened again, but his brain was working better with each passing second. He shook his head. ‘The gods weren’t offended. You were offended. Who were they? The arrogant men?’
‘The ones that have died in the last two weeks,’ Lancer retorted hotly. Then he smiled. ‘Including Dan Carter and your other dear colleagues.’
Knight stared at him, unable to comprehend the depths of the man’s depravity. ‘You bombed that plane?’
‘Carter was getting a little too close,’ Lancer replied. ‘The others were collateral damage.’
‘Collateral damage!’ Knight shouted, feeling like he wanted to kill the man standing before him, ripping him limb from limb. But then his head began to throb again and he lay there panting, looking at Lancer.
After several moments he said, ‘Who offended you?’
Lancer’s expression went hard as he stared off into the past.
‘Who?’ Knight demanded again.
The former decathlon champion glared at Knight in utter fury, and said, ‘Doctors.’