“Do it,” said the Brigadier, putting his Browning in the compartment where the whisky had sat. “I have the feeling we’re outgunned tonight.”

The driver left his gun in the glove compartment and stepped out of the vehicle.

“Who else is here?” asked the Brigadier.

“Other people in masks,” replied their guide as he patted them down. “Should be a lark. Gentlemen, please follow me.”

Torgos’s car arrived shortly thereafter. He and Tadeo looked at the ski masks dubiously when they stepped out.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because that’s how the ladies wanted it,” said the spiv. “And leave your weapons in the car.”

“And if we choose to keep them?”

The spiv whistled sharply through his teeth, and a dozen masked men appeared out of a dozen locations, guns out.

“I don’t see as you have any choice on that,” said the spiv, backing out of the line of fire. “Remove them ’olding the butts between your thumbs and forefingers. Toss them in the car. Lovely. Masks on, then follow me.”

Torgos and Tadeo followed as the rest of the men took up positions around the warehouse.

It was almost pitch black inside once the doors were closed. Torgos sensed others nearby, but couldn’t count how many.

“You stand ’ere,” said the spiv, bringing Torgos and Tadeo forwards. “Team three in position. Take it away, ladies.”

A pair of matches were struck in the middle of the space, revealing Sparks and Mrs. Bainbridge, standing ten feet apart. They dropped the lit matches into a pair of oil drums filled with scrap lumber. The wood must have been soaked in paraffin, for it immediately caught fire, shooting flames several feet up in the air, illuminating a small table holding a pair of shoeboxes and a bit of the area around it.

Others stood at the perimeters of the room, barely visible. All were masked. Most were men, but Torgos glimpsed a pair of women on the other edge of the light cast by the fires.

Sparks and Mrs. Bainbridge stepped between the fires, arms raised to the ceiling.

“Given the Greek aspects of this matter, we thought it would be appropriate to invoke the rituals of Delphi,” said Sparks. “It was there, at the Omphalos, the navel of the world, that both the mighty and the small would come to seek the higher truth. It was recorded by Plato that carved into the temple walls were three phrases: gnōthi seautón, or ‘Know thyself,’ a worthy admonition that nevertheless scares the hell out of me; mēdén ágan, or ‘Nothing in excess,’ another useful piece of advice that I routinely ignore; and my personal favourite, engýa pára d’atē, which translates roughly as ‘Make a pledge and mischief is nigh,’ which anyone who has ever tried to marry me would know is certainly the case.”

“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen,” intoned Mrs. Bainbridge. “You are now in the Temple of Delphi, and we are your Oracles.”

CHAPTER 15

The space was huge, with rusting beams crossing high overhead, unlit lamps dangling from them like jellyfish floating in the night seas. The corrugated metal roof met the irregular walls at odd angles, so sound was reflected strangely, sending footsteps from locations that were empty, while silence surrounded whoever lurked in the darkness pervading the room’s outer reaches.