Free City of the Lost by Will Adams Page A

in a nearby café. The next day too. On both occasions, she’d mentioned her surgeon boyfriend about once every minute, in that half-conscious way people touch a lucky charm in times of stress. But it had done her little good. ‘You must have some idea,’ he said. ‘I mean, didn’t the Greeks invent history? Surely they had something to say about it?’
    ‘Not as much as you’d think,’ said Karin. ‘They kind of glossed over it, skipping straight from the age of heroes to the archaic age, despite the centuries in between. But then they weren’t very good with chronology. There are hints of a mysterious tribe called the Dorians invading from the north of Greece, setting off a cascade of displaced people in which each went pillaging the next. A lot of people think that the Trojan War was part of it. And maybe the
Odyssey
too. There’s a bit in there that seems to describe a famous battle fought by the Egyptians against invaders known as the Sea Peoples. Trouble is, there’s no real evidence of these Dorians, or of any new arrivals. The opposite, if anything.’
    Their marriage had lasted three wonderful years. He’d become a father, which had changed him in ways he’d never have imagined possible. He’d been inside Iran when this idyll had abruptly ended, courtesy of an overworked truck driver on a damp and foggy night. The importance of his mission and the difficulty of exfiltration had persuaded his handler neither to inform him nor to pull him out early. It had been the correct tactical decision, the decision he’d probably have made himself had the roles been switched, yet it had been a betrayal all the same. And though he’d returned to active service afterwards, in an effort to slough off his encasing grief, his heart had never again been in it. He’d begun to cast a jaundiced eye not merely at the fine expressions of intent behind his missions, but at the consequences of them too. And he’d grown to hate the things he’d seen. His own bereavement, to put it crudely, had sapped his will to maim and kill. And so he’d quit.
    ‘You see, what’s so remarkable is how little changed. Three to four hundred years of absolute turmoil, yet the Greek world emerged from it still recognizably Greek. The Hittites were succeeded by neo-Hittites, the Phoenicians by more Phoenicians, the New Kingdom Pharaohs by Late Period Pharaohs, the Assyrians by neo-Assyrians. All still in the same places, worshipping the same gods, speaking much the same languages, crafting the same kinds of goods with the same materials and techniques. So maybe a terrible region-wide famine caused a bunch of local resource wars; except we can find precious little evidence for that either. Earthquakes, then, except that earthquakes simply don’t happen on that scale. They may take out an island or a province, but not the whole Mediterranean.’
    Life after the army had proved hard for Iain. Without Tisha and Robbie to give him purpose, a dreadful lassitude had set in. He’d lain on his sofa, drinking beer, watching daytime TV, loathing himself for not having been there when his family had most needed him, sinking into the downward spiral that had claimed so many of his former comrades, half of whom now seemed to be Born Again, while the other half were drunks. A long, hard look in the mirror one hung-over morning had finally jolted him into action. He’d cut out the booze, got himself fit, sent his CV to anyone in the market for his particular skills, eventually joining Global Analysis. And time had done its usual healing. These past few months, in fact, he’d finally begun to feel better about the world. Like glimpses of blue sky on a dull day, an unfamiliar sensation would sometimes spread right through him, and he’d realize to his mild surprise that it was happiness. Yet, in one way, he hadn’t moved on at all. Despite the efforts of well-meaning friends to fix him up, the few dates he’d been on since Tisha had had all the spark of