Page 73 of Deathless
He wore white. The rest of us had crawled through a collapsed mine, and Nevada looked like he'd just come from a bath, which he probably had. A folded fan rested against his thigh in a grip that had nothing to do with fashion. He carried a leather folio under his other arm and scanned the room the way I did when I entered one: corners first, exits second, weapons third. He just made it look like he was choosing a seat.
He bypassed the head of the table. Bypassed Luka and sat down next to Rhadamanthys. "They’ve taken Hades to one of three possible locations," he said. "Pokhara is abandoned. My people confirmed it two days ago. That leaves Thessaloniki and Kiev."
"Kiev," I said.
Luka frowned. "Based on what?"
"Based on the fact that Achilles is irrational. He’s grieving.” I pushed away from the wall and paced toward the center of the room. “All his life he’s only ever wanted one thing: his father’s approval. So that’s where he’ll go with his prize, to present it to Zeus, and we know Zeus is in Kiev.”
"That's not intelligence," Rafael said. "That's a guess."
"It's a profile." I kept my voice flat. "I know Achilles. I know Zeus. And I know what a broken, desperate man in their shoes would do."
Nevada tapped the fan against his knee once. "I don’t doubt that… Jasper, was it?"
I grunted an affirmative.
Nevada snapped out his fan and began fanning himself. “Let’s say you’re right. What happens then?”
The room went quiet.
"Achilles presents Hades to Zeus," Nevada continued. "As his captive, which he stormed the resistance to take. Hades is the director of African operations, mind you. A respected and long-serving director." He let that sit for a second. "You know, there's a story about Caesar arriving in Egypt. He'd been chasing Pompey across the Mediterranean. Years of war between them. Real hatred, real blood. And when Caesar finally arrived, the Egyptians presented him with Pompey's head on a plate, thinking they'd done him a favor."
Nevada closed the fan and pointed it at the center of the table.
"Caesar wept. Then he had the men who killed Pompey executed." He looked around the room. "Zeus doesn't want Hades. Zeus respects Hades. They've been enemies for decades, and that kind of enemy is the only thing Zeus treats as an equal. Achilles just dragged that man out of a tunnel in chains."
The logic landed in my chest before my brain caught up. Achilles thought he was bringing his father a victory. He was bringing him an insult.
"Zeus wanted me," I said. "That's what this was about. Achilles came here for me, and he left with the wrong prize."
"Worse than the wrong prize." Nevada fanned himself once, slow. "He left with someone Zeus will want intact. The only way Zeus’s new directors have any legitimacy at all is if some of the old guard stays in play. He needs Hades to be Hades. Why do you think he’s avoided taking him out after all this time? When Achilles arrives in Kiev with Hades in chains, he won't get the reception he's expecting."
Diego leaned forward. "You're saying they'll be fighting each other when we get there."
"Perhaps," Nevada said. "We don’t know the situation. What we do know is that Achilles and Zeus are unlikely to be a united front. That is information you can use to your advantage."
Diego smiled at Nevada. "Then we'll try not to waste it."
Nevada's fan stopped mid-stroke.
Rhadamanthys spoke for the first time. "I'm going."
"So are we," Diego said.
Luka leaned on the table with his good arm. "Three people against Zeus's compound."
"Three people who know what they're walking into," I said. "A larger force gets spotted. We go quiet, we go fast, we use Nevada's eyes on the ground."
"If Achilles comes back or Zeus sends a second wave, we need everyone we have," Rafael said.
"Which is why the rest of you stay." Diego straightened beside Luka. His voice shifted the way it always did when he stopped talking to me and started talking to his people. It got lower, steadier, and it left no room for uncertainty. "Alonzo holds the north approach. Valentina takes the east tunnels. Beni manages logistics and civilians. Carmen keeps the children."
He went through each name the way he'd gone through the casualty list on my shoulder. Same weight. Same cost. He was giving his people away. Every name cost him something. It showed in the set of his shoulders, in the way his hand pressed flat on the table after the last one and stayed there.
"Lorenzo," Diego said. Lorenzo straightened against the wall. "You stay. Help Rafael coordinate communications with Nevada's network."
Lorenzo's jaw worked. He looked at Diego, then at Rafael, and his hand unclenched from the phone long enough to gripRafael's shoulder. Rafael leaned into it, just barely, and Lorenzo nodded once.
