She dug her phone from a pocket, checking for messages from Pierce. Nothing. She started to tap out a text message to him, but stopped short of sending it. If he had been caught or arrested, then the police would be monitoring his phone. They might be able to use it to track her down.
Even if he had not been captured, he would be observing the ‘no contact’ rule that had been part of the plan.
She left the message unsent.
The designated rendezvous was about two miles away, at the Heraklion Airport. Her arrival at such a late hour would be less likely to attract unwanted attention than anywhere else, even at a hotel, but she knew the real reason he had chosen the airport for a fallback position. If he was not there waiting, she would board a waiting jet, which would take her to a destination known only to the pilots. The Gulfstream G550 was owned and operated by one of the Herculean Society’s many shadow enterprises — legitimate corporations that facilitated operations in every part of the globe, not to mention providing a steady source of revenue. The flight crew, like most of the people employed by the Society’s subsidiary ventures, were unaware of the role they played in protecting the world from history, and history from the world. They did not even know the Herculean Society existed, much less that they were a part of it. But they would follow Pierce’s instructions to the letter.
That might have been Pierce’s plan, but there was no way she was going to leave him behind. Still, maybe there was another way she could make use of the Society’s resources.
She opened the Internet browser on her phone and found the contact information for the company that managed logistics for the Society. She called the international number, and then identified herself as a passenger on the Gulfstream. She hoped that would accord her VIP status, but the operator promptly put her on hold.
A moment later, the canned music was silenced as someone picked up the line. “Fiona? Are you safe?” It was Pierce.
She heaved a sigh of relief. “I’m safe, Uncle George.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the old fort.”
“What are you doing there?”
“After I left the museum, an old friend of yours offered me a ride. I think the actual word he used was ‘colleague.’ Liam Kenner.”
There was a long silence over the line.
“Uncle George?”
“Kenner,” Pierce said in a low, almost menacing voice. “Son of a bitch.”
5
“Colleague? That’s what he said?”
Fiona sank into the passenger seat of the rental car and gazed over at Pierce. “Happy to see you, too,” she remarked, more amused than sarcastic. She had not been waiting long, less than ten minutes, though it had seemed a lot longer.
Pierce looked mildly embarrassed. “Sorry. I’m still trying to process this.” He took a breath. “It was clever of you to draw him off like that.”
“Thanks. So what’s the story with you and Kenner? He seemed to know an awful lot about your search for Hercules.”
Pierce stared straight ahead, as if driving the deserted streets required his full attention. “Several years ago, when I first came across some documents that mentioned Hercules in a historic context, I made the mistake of sharing that information with some other members of the archaeological community. At the time, I was merely looking for more of the same, inquiring to see if anyone else had found similar evidence.”
“Then Kenner is a colleague? An archaeologist?”
“His specialty is paleopharmacology, a multi-disciplinary field that focuses on the medical treatments used by ancient cultures. When I originally proposed the idea that Hercules might have been an ancient scientist, Kenner was intrigued by the possibility of an elixir to explain Hercules’s strength and invincibility. Evidently, he was more interested than I realized at the time.”
“Interested enough to stalk you for the last seven years?”
Pierce shook his head. “It’s possible that he was here conducting research of his own, and noticed us touring the museum earlier.”
Fiona raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You don’t actually believe that, do you?”
Pierce checked the rearview, prompting Fiona to look over her shoulder, but there was no one following them. “I wish I did,” Pierce replied. “But no. It’s probably not a coincidence.”
“So what do we do about it? About him?”
Pierce sighed. “He’s just fishing.”
“He knew that we broke into the museum. What if he goes to the police?”
“He won’t. Not right away. He’ll want to talk to me first. Maybe try to blackmail me, but it won’t do him any good. He can’t prove anything.” Pierce drove in silence for a few minutes. “This isn’t the first time someone has gotten close, you know. There are protocols for dealing with situations like this.”
“Protocols?” Fiona did not like the sound of that. “Like making him disappear?”
“Nothing so dramatic. At the very worst, we might have to destroy him professionally. Discredit him, so that no one takes him seriously ever again. But I doubt it will come to that. He has other…pressure points.”
Fiona sensed that Pierce did not want to elaborate further, so she changed the subject. “So we’re still going to do this?”
“I don’t think we have a choice. Especially not now, with Kenner sniffing around. He probably heard about the discovery at Ideon Andron. That would explain why he’s here in Heraklion. We need to move now, before anyone else figures this out.”
Fiona nodded in acceptance. Pierce was right, of course. This, too, was all part of the plan.
6
According to Greek mythology, Zeus, the ruler of the gods of Olympus and father to numerous divine and semi-divine offspring, including the legendary Herakles, was born on the island of Crete. He was the child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. Cronus, fearing a prophecy that his own offspring would destroy him, had already devoured Zeus’s elder siblings. Zeus would have suffered the same fate if his mother had not hidden him away in a cave beneath Mount Psiloritis.
Like all such myths, a thread of truth ran through the tale. There was indeed a cave. Ideon Andros, the Cave of Zeus. It had been revered by the ancient Mycenaeans — the civilization that had arisen on Crete after the fall of the Minoans, and which ultimately became the Greek civilization. For centuries, long after the center of the world shifted to Athens, Ideon Andros was believed to be the actual birthplace of the king of the Olympian gods. Archaeological excavations had revealed a long tradition of votive offerings at the cave, but Pierce knew that such evidence confused cause and effect. There were many caves all across the island, but the ancients had chosen to venerate this particular cave as the birthplace of their faith. There had to be a very good reason for that.
Although just twenty linear miles from Heraklion, it took Pierce nearly two hours to make the drive, the last five miles of the trip on a dusty road that wound up the mountainside. Ideon Andros was yet one more tourist destination on an island that was renowned for places of historic interest, but what Pierce and Fiona sought was not in any of the guidebooks.
They left the car near the small museum and gift shop that serviced visitors. Then they hiked in the darkness to the mouth of the cave, checking frequently to ensure that they had not been followed. The mountain air was chilly, and Fiona hugged her arms close, but did not complain as they slipped through a small fence that kept local goats out of the cave. Pierce kept the red filter on his MagTac until they finished descending the stairs that led down into the enormous opening beneath the mountain. Once they reached the main gallery, Pierce removed the cover and played his light on the high walls, which were rippling with stalactite growth. He quickly located a shadowy recess at the rear of the cavern. The surrounding area was cordoned off with wooden barricades and caution tape, indicating that an excavation was currently in progress, but Pierce had learned through the grapevine of the archaeological community that the dig had hit a wall. Literally.