Scene 2

«Why as Heracles?», barked Maille into the telephone, blocking his left ear in order to understand Marie better. The decibel level was high in the great hall of the fish market in Sydney, where hundreds of restaurateurs shopped for their yellow-finned tuna, and where retailers made offers for barramundi or seabass, and where lobsters, shrimps, black-lipped abalones and shimmering red rock oysters were busily carted around from one place to another.

Maille would have liked dearly to have had a few days in this city. The denizens of Sydney seemed to view sport as entertainment and relaxation – as though life were one great skiing holiday. The high-rises glimmered benignly in the sun, flying foxes crowded the parks, and smart, sparkling-clean harbour zones bore impressive names such as Woolloomooloo – and, above all, there were restaurants offering delicacies from around the world: from Scottish highland meat-pies to Taiwanese soya cakes, from Malaysian rendang to Tibetan momos. You could take your pick. Ah, how very much the agent would have liked to have researched what the master chefs from Japan or the street cooks from Singapore knew about preparing the fish that was available in masses in that market!

But already his mission had him again by the short hairs and he was hurled back again into his story.

«Why as Heracles?» he asked again, attempting not to shout at Marie. Most probably the secretary of the Lemusan Secret Service was sitting in her usual relaxed fashion behind her desk, her feet sticking out of the window next to it, spreading her toes to feel the sun rays that cleaved their way trough the leafy boughs of the big old trees in the English Park next door towards her office window.
«Heracles, too, had 12 labours to complete for some king, as far as I know.»
«For his brother Eurystheus,» Maille corrected her, immediately proceeding to feel a bit ashamed about his condescending behaviour – a sentiment that provoked him to ask her brusquely: «Who came up with this shitty idea?»
Marie was not the sort of woman to be cowed down by boorish behaviour. «I have my instructions from Mercier. But as far as I know, our president has begun negotiations with Hing – via a middleman, or more precisely, a woman named Lara. It's about the 50 million, and above all, the recipe for tomato sauce with broccoli – you already know that, and about the girlfriend's role. Godet remains firm about that. So Hing demands as a sign of progress that you deal with 12 tasks in Australia.»
«Isn't that totally absurd?»
«I believe that it's somewhat symbolic. It has to do with the 12 Zodiac signs. Hing has a Chinese background.»
«And what does Mercier have to say about all this?»
«Mercier? Mercier is on holiday – in Sweden.»
«In Sweden?»
«He's gone angling. You will get your instructions from V-man Aral. He will deposit them for you.»
«Is our dear Aral playing something of a double game?»
«Listen to me, he is V-man. He must be able to turn himself inside out.»

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