The Age of Zeus

13. MISTAKES

Chisholm wanted to quit after that. "Damn near scuppered your ship," he said to Landesman, "before she'd even set out on her maiden voyage." He had his bag packed and was preparing to leave.

Landesman, however, over several balloons of Chivas Regal and a couple of plump Cohiba cigars, convinced him to unpack his bag and stay.

"I'm all for giving a fellow a second chance," Landesman told Sam privately in his office later. One of the bunker's larger rooms, the office was decked out like a clubland snug, with thick Axminster on the floor, oak panelling and reproduction Old Masters on the walls, and shelfloads of gilt-titled antique books. A sleek Apple PowerBook was its sole concession to the 21st century.

"But what if he does it again?" Sam said. "Goes off the rails at a crucial moment?"

"He won't. Man's learned his lesson."

"I'm not so sure. I don't know if I can trust him now."

"Nigel Chisholm was a captain in the RAF's Number 32 Squadron," Landesman said. "Meaning, among other things, he's piloted Tristars with members of government and the royal family on board. They don't let just anyone fly VIPs of that calibre around the world."

"That was then. Nigel's not the person he used to be. None of us is."

"Even so, it was an aberration, Sam. It won't happen again."

"I have responsibility for this team. I need to know that — "

"Sam, Sam," Landesman interrupted, wafting a hand. "Nigel will be fine, I guarantee it. He's got something out of his system, and he's duly embarrassed about what he did and is busy eating more humble pie than is good for the digestion. He won't be any more trouble. In fact, I suspect that from now on he'll be eager to prove just what an asset he can be."

"That might not be such a good thing, either. Someone who's trying too hard is as much of a loose cannon as someone who's unreliable. But" — she let out a theatrical sigh — "I can see I don't have any choice in this."

"As it happens, you don't," Landesman said genially. "That we're discussing the matter at all should be taken as a mark of the high esteem in which I hold you. Now, if there's anything else…?"

Sam knew that she had just, ever so politely, been dismissed. As she rose from her chair, her eye fell on a photograph sitting on Landesman's desk in a silver frame. It was a studio portrait of a woman and a small boy, taken some thirty years ago to judge by the woman's clothes and hairstyle. She was sharply, aristocratically beautiful, with eyes that were strikingly large, dark and limpid. The boy was cute and had the same eyes, but his blazed with an extraordinarily intense and challenging light, as if everything, even posing for a photo, was a source of great puzzlement and irritation to him. He was, she guessed, three, four years old. Maybe the photographer had caught him on a bad day.

"Your wife and son?" she asked.

Landesman nodded. "Arianna. Alexander."

Something about the way he said it prompted her next question. "Are they…?"

Her implication was clear. Were they dead? Had they been killed by Olympians? If so, it would explain a lot.

Landesman certainly understood what she was getting at. He shook his head.

"Arianna," he said, following a long intake of breath, "died shortly after that picture was taken, long before the Olympians were around. Natural causes. An unusually aggressive form of lymphatic cancer, and all the money in the world couldn't save her — it could only make her descent a little slower and her landing a little softer than it might otherwise have been. As for Xander, he's still with us, though not with me. By which I mean, he and I aren't in touch any more. We were always combative during his childhood, and had a terrible falling-out when he was in his early twenties. I'd tried my best to raise him on my own, using as little hired help as possible, but it wasn't easy. I was a busy man, not often home. He needed a stability in his life that I couldn't give him, so it was inevitable, I suppose, that we should come to a parting of the ways. I wish it hadn't been quite so terminal, though. I don't think he could forgive me for not having been a good enough father."

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you, but I'm reconciled to it. Some mistakes cannot be rectified. They can only be lived with, or erased."

"As in forgotten."

"Perhaps," said Landesman.

As Sam turned to go, Landesman said, "Our pasts shape us, Sam. None of us is the person he or she used to be, it's true, but what we are still contains a great proportion of what we once were. Nothing, not even suffering the worst kind of tragedy, alters us completely. At core, we are set in stone."

For some time afterward Sam debated whether he'd been referring to Chisholm, to her, or to himself. It very possibly could have been all three.