She watched as he exerted a little more pressure, breaking the wax seal. The lid popped open with a faint sucking noise, revealing what looked like a stack of dingy old papers covered with Greek script.
“Papyrus leaves,” Pierce said, shaking his head as the mystery grew.
“You seem frustrated, Doctor Pierce. Perhaps you don’t know Hercules as well as you think you do.”
Fiona whirled in the direction of the familiar but unexpected voice, and found Liam Kenner standing just inside the entrance to the room. He wore the same smug smile that Fiona remembered from their earlier encounter.
Before she or Pierce could say a word to challenge him, a faint rasping noise signaled the arrival of yet another unexpected guest on the magnetic elevator.
Fiona did not recognize the man that stepped out of the small room. He was tall, broadly built and so ugly that for a moment, she wondered if he was some humanoid monster out of mythology. But this wasn’t a bull-man standing before them. It was just a man. She could tell because he was pointing a gun at them.
8
Note to self, Pierce thought. Next time, bring a gun.
But a gun was only as good as the person holding it. His experience with firearms was mostly limited to plinking beer cans off a fence post with about fifty percent accuracy. The guy standing next to Kenner looked like someone who not only knew how to use his gun, but had every intention of doing so.
Pierce’s gaze flickered around the room, looking for something he might be able to use as a weapon, calculating the distance to the nearest exit passage. He and Fiona might be able to make a mad dash out of the room, but escaping into the uncharted Labyrinth created its own set of problems. He brought his stare back to Kenner.
“What are you doing here, Liam?” Pierce tried to inject a note of righteous indignation into his voice. It was not difficult. He was angry, though mostly it was self-directed. He had badly underestimated Kenner and allowed himself to be caught flat-footed.
“Why, the same thing as you, old chap. I’m looking for Hercules. I seem to recall a time when that’s what you wanted.” Kenner’s lips curled into a wry smile. “Not any more, though, right? Now you’re the inside man.”
Pierce answered him with silence. He was not about to confirm the man’s suspicions by volunteering information.
“How did you find us?” Fiona demanded. “You didn’t follow us. I made sure of that.”
Kenner regarded her with a mixture of curiosity and disdain. “I didn’t really need to, did I? It was obvious from the start why you had come to Crete. I knew you’d end up here, especially after that little caper at the museum.” He advanced until he was standing right in from of her. “But I had to be sure.”
He reached out a hand toward her, brushing lightly against her shoulder. She flinched a little, but her face remained defiant. Kenner drew back his hand with a flourish, like someone using sleight-of-hand to produce a coin from a child’s ear. However, what he held between his fingers was not a coin, but a tiny cylinder of plastic trailing a short length of wire.
“You bugged me?” Fiona was livid. “You son of a—”
“Enough,” the man with the gun growled. “You’re wasting time. Get what we came for.”
Kenner looked over his shoulder to his accomplice. “Tsk, Vigor. There’s no need to be rude. We can behave civilly.” He turned his gaze to Pierce. “I trust we can?”
“Putting that gun away would be a good start.”
Kenner ignored the comment. “The transmitter wasn’t much use once you went underground, but I took the open door as an invitation. After that, it was a simple matter of following the Phaistos symbols and trying not to give ourselves away too soon.” He looked around the room, as if noticing its contents for the first time. “I must say, this exceeds my expectations.”
He reached out for the chest containing the papyrus leaves. “The Heracleia.” His tone was reverent. “This is the book that guided Euripides and Apollodorus. The definitive source of information about Hercules in the ancient world. There are no known copies of it still in existence, aside from this one, of course. We only know of it from references in other historical sources.
“I’ve always thought it strange that such an important and well-regarded work should vanish so thoroughly from the Earth. It’s almost as if someone set out to erase it from existence.” He cast a knowing wink in Pierce’s direction, then grunted as he hefted the gold-plated chest into his arms. “Not exactly light reading, but it should prove very illuminating.”
“You’re not interested in the myth of Hercules, Liam.” Pierce crossed his arms. “What are you really after?”
“Myth? It’s the reality that fascinates me, just as it once did you.” As he spoke, Kenner commenced a circuit of the room. He produced a small penlight and shone it on the contents of each display table in turn. “I’m not blind, George. I’ve seen what’s been happening in the world these last few years. I’ve heard the whispers, the rumors. I’ve paid attention, and I’m not the only one who can see the pattern.”
The man with the gun let out a low, threatening growl, perhaps signaling his displeasure at Kenner for volunteering too much information, or simply as a way of expressing impatience.
Pierce nodded at the gunman. “You mean him?”
“Mr. Rohn? No, he’s just…what’s the term they use in the movies? The muscle? The man he works for, however, is very interested in the truth about Hercules. A truth that you have conspired to keep hidden.”
“Why on Earth would I want to do that?”
“Must we play this tiresome game? You have seen the monsters with your own eyes; I know this to be true. Real monsters.” Kenner turned and pointed to the lion skin. “There’s the proof. The Nemean Lion. The creatures that inhabited ancient stories weren’t fanciful daydreams. Some of them perhaps, but not all. Many were real, flesh and blood creatures. Impossible creatures. The product of recombinant DNA engineering produced thousands of years before the discovery of the DNA molecule. If we can unlock the secrets of their genetic code, figure out how to combine diverse genetic material with viable results, there’s nothing we won’t be able to accomplish.”
“It’s been tried,” Pierce said, unable to hide his disgust. “It never ends well.”
“The key to finding the source of those mutations is in this room.” Kenner picked up another item. He regarded it for a few moments before holding it up for inspection. “Do you know what this is?”
Pierce bit back an angry retort. The artifact was a wide band of what looked like leather, dyed black, at least eight inches wide and about two feet long. Kenner’s light revealed an intricate pattern of decorative tool work. Pierce couldn’t make out all the details, but he had quickly identified the object. His real effort was put into keeping that fact hidden from Kenner.
“Come, George, you’re the expert on Hercules. This is the girdle of Hippolyte, the Amazon Queen. Capturing it was his Ninth Labor.”
Pierce gave a noncommittal shrug.
After a few moments of studying the artifact, Kenner raised his eyes to Rohn. “This is it. This is what we came for.”
“Good,” Rohn declared. Then, without any hesitation, he aimed his pistol and fired.
9
Kenner jumped at the noise of the pistol discharging in the enclosed space. He had known it was coming, but the noise was much louder than he had expected.
At almost the same instant as the shot, the room went dark. Pierce’s light had gone out. Kenner dropped to the ground and caught a glimpse of movement in the paltry beam of his own light.