The Age of Odin - James Lovegrove [127]
"Personally, it makes me wish I could have another crack at killing him."
"That is not your role, Gid. You are a hero."
"Isn't it the hero's job to take down the archvillain?"
"Sometimes," said Odin. "But sometimes the hero is simply the man who makes the right decisions. He enables what should be to be."
The phony war lasted another four days or so. The guerrilla-style sorties became more frequent and nudged further and further into Asgardian turf. We were stretched thin trying to cover and defend so many of the intersections at once. Our troops were getting tired and discouraged, and the major assault hadn't even started yet. Loki had us chasing around all the time, shoring up our forces at each intersection, repelling attacks. Barely did we have a chance to catch our breath before we had to tackle the next incursion somewhere else along the borderlands.
Physically it was gruelling. Psychologically, too. Relationships within the ranks began to fragment. In my own squad, Paddy and Backdoor were getting on each other's nerves, and Cy and Backdoor as well. Backdoor, in fact, was pissing just about everybody off, even mild-mannered, affable Baz. A bit of needling and ribbing was par for the course in army life, but in Backdoor's case the name-calling had started to take on an edge. He flung "bog-trotter" at Paddy twice and got away with it the first time but not the second. It was the way he said it, more than anything, that put the Irishman's back up. The "fucking" he stuck in front of it the second time didn't help.
They'd have come to blows if I hadn't stepped in and managed to pacify them. I even persuaded them to shake hands manfully. This was for their benefit but also for the benefit of everyone else in our cabin. There was a score of spectators to this bedtime fracas, keen to see a punch-up. None of that shit, I was telling them. Not on my watch.
It happened again the very next morning during the wee small hours. Me and the team - minus Thor, who'd drunk too much the previous evening and couldn't be got out of his bed for love nor money - were yomping towards a Niflheim intersection. That was where, according to Heimdall's ultra-sharp ears, yet another raid was about to take place. It was our turn to take care of it.
Backdoor was whingeing about lack of sleep and the futility of seeing off one attack only to have to deal with another one a few hours later somewhere different. I was about to tell him to stow it but Cy got in before me.
"Will you just put a fucking sock in it, all right?" he hissed.
Backdoor retorted using the most unpardonable word for a black person there is. Cy, understandably, went ballistic and laid into him. I let him give Backdoor a pasting for a little while, because the fucker deserved it. But when I weighed in and hauled Cy off, what did the kid do but turn round and lamp me.
That could not stand. I lamped him back, then while he was reeling I grabbed him and put him into a compliance hold. Wristlock, twisting the hand round, followed by rotation of the entire arm. This forced him down onto his knees, head bent. I put a knee in the small of his back for good measure. He writhed but couldn't get free. All he could do in his helplessness was swear at me. I bellowed at him to shut the fuck up, then launched into a big long rant about everybody not arguing, not sniping at one another, not using racial slurs of any kind, just keeping all their shit in one bucket and pulling together and playing as a team, because if this was what we were like now, imagine how bad it could get when the proper fighting started.
"So stop bitching, start behaving like you were born with some balls, all of you," I finished off, "or else!"
We continued on our way in silence. I'd asserted my authority and felt I'd made my point, but I was still fuming inside. We shouldn't be in-fighting and falling to pieces. That was exactly what Loki wanted.
And once more, suspicion was flitting through my mind. We had an infiltrator, an agent-fucking-provocateur in our midst. And I was