Herculean (Cerberus Group Book 1) (8 page)

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.

The gun thundered again, and again, as Rohn pumped shot after shot into the darkness, where Pierce had stood. Kenner waited until the noise stopped, and then a few seconds more before raising his head and playing his light around the room. The air was filled with smoke and the stink of sulfur, but through the haze, he saw the big man heading for one of the exit openings.

“Stop!”

Rohn turned, his already unbearable visage twisted with disgust. “They’re getting away.”

“You missed?”

“No.” The reply was immediate, defensive. “I don’t think so. But a wounded animal can run for many miles before dying.”

Kenner felt an unexpected surge of emotion. He had known all along that Rohn intended to kill Pierce and the girl, and while he found the prospect distasteful, he had come to terms with it. Sacrifices had to be made sometimes. Now, he felt a measure of relief. This was a better outcome. Not as cold-blooded. “Let them go. They’ll never make it out of here.”

“How do you know that? They know how to read the signs.”

Kenner frowned. Rohn was right. The connection between the Disc and the correct path through the Labyrinth had been easy enough to figure out, and he had pictures of the Disc to help him navigate. “Which way?”

Rohn pointed to one of the exits. Kenner swept the floor with his light, hoping to see tell-tale drops of blood—there were none. Then he moved the beam up to shine on the walls beside the passage. As expected, there was a Phaistos glyph, but it did not match any of the combinations on the Disc. “This is not the right way,” he said, then he moved quickly around the perimeter, checking the other exits until he found one that matched the character stamped in the center of the reverse-side of the artifact.

“Here. This way will take us out.”

Rohn jabbed his gun into the passage Pierce and Fiona had used. “What about them?”

“Forget them. The Labyrinth will take care of them. And we’ll close the door on the way out. Even if they find their way back here, they’ll never be able to leave.”

The big man growled his displeasure but complied. Kenner suspected his reluctance had less to do with uncertainty about Pierce’s fate and more to do with Rohn’s belief that he had failed. Missing his targets at such close range must have been a bitter pill. Kenner wanted only to be done with it all: out of the bizarre iron maze and back to civilization, where he could exploit what he had just discovered.

He allowed himself a satisfied grin as he trekked down the passage to the next junction. Pierce had no idea how significant the Labyrinth’s treasures were. He had not even recognized Queen Hippolyte’s belt, much less studied the image engraved upon it.

Pierce had always been a dreamer, an idealist. For him, archaeology was some kind of game, an intellectual puzzle. The man had no sense of how to leverage his discoveries into something more meaningful—wealth, influence, power. Pierce could have written his ticket seven years earlier when he had found the
Argo
manifest, but he had chosen to share it with only a few colleagues, instead of telling the world and launching his career as a celebrity archaeologist and TV star. And that was only the tip of an iceberg of opportunities that he could have seized.

Kenner had parlayed the mere knowledge of the document’s existence into a more discreet kind of success. He had been paid a hefty finder’s fee and a lucrative annual retainer simply to keep an eye on Pierce, in hopes that the archaeologist might stumble upon something even more impressive. For six years, Kenner had done just that, watching Pierce from a distance, following his movements, reporting everything back to his benefactor, the same man who had sent Rohn to join him on Crete.

From the outset, it had been clear that Pierce was continuing his search for the historic Hercules. Equally obvious, the investigation was connected to a series of global upheavals and natural disasters, though Kenner could not tell to what extent Pierce had been involved in some of those situations.

One clear picture that had emerged was that the Herculean Society, the faceless conspiracy about which Pierce had once speculated, was very real. Moreover, Kenner was now certain that Pierce was working for them. Pierce’s decision to visit Crete after the strange discovery in the Cave of Zeus was the opportunity Kenner had been waiting for. He could expose both Pierce and the Society, and cash in on the subsequent revelations.

What he had found in the Labyrinth had surpassed his wildest expectations. Rohn’s employer would be very pleased, and the man’s gratitude was not something Kenner regarded lightly.

He was barely conscious of the journey out of the maze. The only time he paid any attention to their route was at the various crossroads, where he had to select the correct passage onward. It was only near the end that anxiety crept in to darken his mood. In his eagerness to follow Pierce, it had not occurred to him to think about the possibility that the exit from the Labyrinth might be buried, just as the entrance had been until recently. He did not share this thought with Rohn, who trudged along behind him, watching to see if Pierce was following them.

Ultimately, neither man had cause to worry. The sequence of turns indicated by the Disc brought them to another stairwell like the one that had brought them to the trophy room. As before, a magnetically regulated descent delivered them into a new chamber facing the maze entrance. They had come full circle.

After they emerged into the cave, Kenner reached for the Phaistos Disc, intending to seal the passage, but Rohn stopped him.

“Not yet,” the big man said. He pressed his pistol into Kenner’s hands. “Wait here. If they come out, shoot them.”

Kenner blanched. “Where are you going?”

Rohn did not answer. Instead, he jogged away, leaving the uncomprehending Kenner to stand vigil at the open door. A few minutes later, Rohn returned bearing a canvas satchel. He went directly to the opening and re-entered the maze, but quickly came back out without the bag.

“Now we go,” he told Kenner, extending an open hand to reclaim his sidearm.

Kenner parted with it happily. “What did you leave in there?” he asked, as he pried the Phaistos Disc loose from the rolling door.

“Semtex. We have ten minutes.”

Kenner did not need to ask for an explanation. The Phaistos Disc was the only key to the Labyrinth, but there were other ways to get through locked doors, and Pierce was certainly resourceful enough to figure something out. At the very least, Rohn’s bomb would cave in the entrance, blocking the way to the door, but there was a very good chance that the entire maze of passages worming back and forth under the mountain would be collapsed by the blast, pulverizing anyone still inside.

“Tough break,” Kenner muttered with a shrug, and then he followed Rohn out of the cave.