Private Games (Private 3)

Finch nodded and said, ‘I’ll do it. You’ve got an hour to deadline.’

Pope hesitated. Then she got angry and opened the attachment.

Cronus had expected Mundaho to die on the track.

His letter justified the ‘killing’ as ‘just retribution for the crime of hubris’, the greatest of all the sins in the era of myth. Arrogance, vanity, in all things prideful and a challenger to the gods, these were the accusations that Cronus threw at Mundaho.

He attached copies of e-mails, texts and Facebook messages between Mundaho and his Los Angeles-based sports agent, Matthew Hitchens. According to Cronus, the discussions between the men were not about competing for greatness for the sake of greatness and for the approval of the gods, as was the case during the ancient Olympics.

Instead, Cronus depicted the correspondence as grossly focused on money and material gain, with lengthy discussions over how winning the sprint jackpot at the London Olympics could increase Mundaho’s global value by several hundred million dollars over a twenty-year endorsement career.

‘Mundaho put up for sale the gift that the gods gave him,’ Cronus concluded. ‘He saw no glory in the simple idea of being the fastest man. He saw only gain, and therefore his arrogance towards the gods shone ever more brilliantly. In effect, Mundaho thought of himself as a god, entitled to great riches and to immortality. For the crime of hubris, retribution must always be swift and certain.’

But Mundaho’s not dead, Pope thought with satisfaction.

She yelled to Finch: ‘Do we have a number for Mundaho’s sports agent?’

Her editor thought a moment and then nodded. ‘It’s here in a master list we compiled for the Games.’

He gave the number to Pope, who texted a message to the sports agent: KNOW U R WITH MUNDAHO. CRONUS MAKES CLAIMS AGAINST HIM AND U. CALL ME.

Pope sent the text, put the phone down and started framing the story on her computer, all the while telling herself that she wasn’t helping Cronus. She was fighting him by exposing him.

To her surprise her phone rang within five minutes. It was an audibly distraught Matthew Hitchens en route to the hospital where they’d taken Mundaho. She expressed her condolences and then hit the sports agent with Cronus’s charges.

‘Cronus isn’t giving you the whole story,’ Hitchens complained bitterly when she’d finished. ‘He doesn’t say why Filatri wanted that kind of money.’

‘Tell me,’ Pope said.

‘His plan was to use the money to help children who’ve survived war zones, especially those who’ve been kidnapped and forced to fight and die as soldiers in conflicts they don’t understand or believe in. We’ve already set up the Mundaho Foundation for Orphaned Children of War, which was supposed to help Filatri achieve his dream beyond the Olympics. I can show you the formation documents. He signed them long before Berlin, long before there was any talk of him winning three gold medals.’

Hearing that, Pope saw how she could fight back. ‘So you’re saying that, in addition to ruining the dreams and life of one ex-boy soldier, Cronus’s acts may have destroyed the hopes and chances of war-scarred children all over the world?’

Hitchens got choked up, saying: ‘I think that just about sums up this tragedy.’

Pope thought of Mundaho, squeezed her free hand into a fist, and said, ‘Then that is what my story will say, Mr Hitchens.’

Chapter 80

Monday, 6 August 2012

A FORCE FIVE typhoon rampages through my brain, throwing daggers of lightning brighter than burning magnesium, and everything around me seems saturated with electric blues and reds that don’t shimmer or sparkle so much as sear and bleed.

That stupid bitch. She betrayed us. And Mundaho escaped a just vengeance. I feel like annihilating every monster in London.

But I’ll settle for one.

I’m more than aware that this move could upset a careful balance I’ve struck for more than fifteen years. If I handle this wrong, it could come back to haunt me.

The storm in my skull, however, won’t let me consider these ramifications for very long. Instead, like watching a flickering old movie, I see myself stick a knife in my mother’s thigh, again and again; and I remember in a cascade of raw emotion how good, how right it felt to have been wronged, and then avenged.

Petra is waiting for me when I reach my home at around four in the morning. Her eyes are sunken, fearful, and red. We are alone. The other sisters have gone on to new tasks.

‘Please, Cronus,’ she begins. ‘The fingerprint was a mistake.’

The typhoon spins furiously again in my mind, and it’s as though I’m looking at her down this whirling crackling funnel.

‘A mistake?’ I say in a soft voice. ‘Do you realise what you’ve done? You’ve called the dogs in around us. They can smell you, Andjela. They can smell your sisters. They can smell me. They’ve got a cage and gallows waiting.’