“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
Central Crete
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.