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Damnit. Where was Daire when she needed to kick him? Even outside his presence, she wanted to glare at him. They’d talked about One. She’d revealed what Hugo said about his conversations with One. Maybe it would’ve been slightly helpful for her Heart to mention that the man at the top of that particular tree also once ran the country.
“After my father’s passing,” Byron said. “I took over the mantle.”
If memory served, his father passed while he was in office… It could’ve been just after. The funeral was on the television, she couldn’t remember paying much attention at the time.
“You must have known about it before then. When it was created.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t. My father didn’t tell me anything about it until the campaign… My first for presidential office. He was getting older, frailer, and wanted me to understand its importance.”
“Did you send men into the field while you were in office?”
“Thousands of them,” he said. “In my official capacity. I kept my involvement in Olympus minimal until I was out of office. There’s too much oversight, too many people watching. Sending out a secret force isn’t possible with advisors buzzing around seeking involvement in everything.”
Should she believe that? The truth was it didn’t matter. Not for any professional reason. Her question was personal. She didn’t like to think that a man at the top,theman at the top, was sending kids into the field while he had actual military forces available to maneuver.
“No one in the upper echelons knows anything about Olympus,” Hugo said. “Directives come through back channels or inter-agency intelligence.”
Olympus had access to other agencies intelligence. They’d also know about agency and military failures. After the official forces had taken a shot and failed, or a mission was shelved for being too dangerous, Olympus could slip in and do what needed to be done. Did JARR make that decision and notify Minotaur?
“I understand how and why Olympus did what it did,” she said, despite being fuzzy on many of the details.
Daire believed Olympus’s work was important, so she believed it too. Though the cause they’d dedicated their lives to was headed by a man the agents seemed to dislike. Were Zeus’s objectives as wholesome as the agents might believe?
“What we want to do is take the past tense out of that sentence,” Byron said. “We can’t allow the organization to collapse because certain members can’t get along.”
“That’s not why you’re in this position,” she said, pulling no punches. “You can’t put this on Hades or any of the agents, none of them would’ve considered action if the Six hadn’t set the wheels in motion. You wanted Zeus out.”
“There were many reasons for Zulu,” Byron said, his smile a faded memory.
“Not least of which was someone developing a God complex.”
Hugo’s muttered comment drew a glare from Byron. “This is a precarious time,” the former president said. Hugo had said the same thing. “Years have gone into making the organization what it is. We can’t let that toil, that sacrifice, be for nothing.”
Laying eyes on Byron in the flesh had been awe-inspiring. The longer they talked, the more hypocritical he became. His sacrifice didn’t seem so great. In the private jet, revered, respected, his name would definitely make the history books.
“Is that opinion why Lowell is immune from consequences?” she asked, referencing Six by his real name.
In a plane, going God only knew where, it probably wasn’t a good idea to upset these men. Though if they were the types to get their hands dirty, they wouldn’t need the Olympus operatives to do the less than pleasant jobs. They’d order her murder, not commit it themselves.
Getting answers meant not pussyfooting around. Asking outright, she thought about Daire and what she’d do if Six was the cause of him getting into trouble… or worse.
“Six is important,” Byron said and took a deep breath. “I know that this is difficult for you… You’ve had a lifetime of running from Olympus. I understand your mother didn’t tell you much about it… about your father.”
Once, she’d told Harry that if Zeus killed him, his enemies would be her only source for answers. He wasn’t dead and there it was happening already.
“People like to tell me that I don’t know,” she said. “I think the time would be better spent filling in the blanks. From what I do know, Six, Lowell, is the reason Zeus learned about Zulu, your plot to have him murdered. That must mean he can’t be trusted any longer. It must mean the threat to the organization comes from within.”
“Yes,” Byron said. “But Lowell is the only original member of the Six left. He’s also the only one with Zeus’s trust. If we eliminate him, we have no link to a very dangerous variable.”
She’d never been the type to think about killing another person, hadn’t considered it could be part of her future. Still, in spite of that, and how he could cause issues for Daire, she understood what Byron was saying.
“Six is in contact with Zeus now?” she asked. “Are you in contact with Six?”
“I am,” Byron said.
The whole thing was one big game of Telephone. She just hoped the original words weren’t warped by the time they got to the end of the line.
“You want to keep him close,” she said. “How can you trust he’s telling you the truth of Zeus’s plans? I am right that Zeus hasn’t just given up and gone to ground?”
