Singha Pitiya, Sri Lanka, 10 December
And of course he had lied. He had always intended to lie.
War was now beside his pool, an enormous rip in the earth the shape of a Mickey Mouse head filled with crystal clear water. It was one of War’s little jokes – he liked jokes, the more puerile the better.
It was hot, very hot. An hour earlier, the mercury had hit 40 degrees and it was humid. War looked like a beached walrus on the lounger; his gut, a dead-ringer for Brunelleschi’s Dome, had been smothered in suntan oil. By his side on a low table stood his favourite drink, a mint julep made from 60-year-old Kentucky bourbon.
War was the richest of the Four Horsemen. He controlled vast swaths of the global media network and had invested heavily in arms, drugs, pornography and high-tech innovation. He knew the other Horsemen loathed him and he loathed them back, in spades. But he had to admit that together they made a killer team. In the relatively short time they had known each other, the four men had earned in the region of 10 billion dollars and that had required very little effort on their part. It was merely a question of playing the right sector of the market here, manipulating a corrupt African government there. They had each embraced each other’s strengths and although they all hated one another, the numbers spoke for themselves.
Because of this, none of the Horsemen wanted to destroy the four-way relationship. They understood instinctively that their rapid success was down to the symbiosis between them. For together they controlled all the key areas of human society – finance, politics, the media, communications and energy. It was this, combined with their phenomenal wealth, that made them unassailable, a law unto themselves. Or so they had begun to believe.
War had rested his iPad on the slope of his hairy, oiled belly. The screen lit up as a call came in. War could see a figure seated at a table. He was wearing a hat, sunglasses and a scarf covering the lower half of his face.
‘Good morning,’ War said and then giggled. ‘My, my, we are a proper terrorist, aren’t we?’
The man said nothing.
‘Sorry, yes, of course you are.’ War let out an irritating little burst of laughter. ‘And it is quite proper you should disguise yourself . . . Hah!’ He convulsed again.
‘You wished me to call at this time,’ the man said. War could just see a few wisps of curly hair protruding from beneath his woollen hat.
‘Yes, indeed I did.’ War finally controlled himself. ‘I assume everything is ready.’
‘It is,’ the man said. ‘I informed your colleague of this the day before yesterday. I’ve been working under the assumption that this was discussed at your meeting in New York.’
War looked genuinely surprised the man knew of such details. He smiled, lifted his cocktail glass and drained it. Clicking his fingers, two young men – super-fit, sporting sixpacks and tight speedos – ran forwards. One took the empty glass, the other placed a fresh cocktail on the table. As one of the young servants bent down with the drink, War made an obscene groaning sound in the back of his throat.
‘Apologies,’ he said to the man on the phone. ‘So many distractions.’ Then War seemed to gather his thoughts. ‘I wanted you to call because I have a little extra work for you.’
‘Please elaborate.’
‘Well,’ War responded, ‘my three friends and I are of one mind. We’re closer than brothers, you understand. But we each cherish efficiency and I have concluded that your brief mission could be, well, let us say . . . extended.’
‘Extended?’
‘Yes, you see, while you’re there I want you to eliminate E-Force.’