Pulse

TWO

On the previous Monday, George Pierce had begun his workweek as usual. At eight a.m. he lectured to his ancient history undergrad class at the University of Athens. The subject had been the rise of Athenian influence. Lecturing never thrilled him and the subject was bland; the real interesting work usually happened postlunch, when he oversaw the archaeological efforts on a recently discovered shipwreck off the island of Antikythera, where a fortress had also been discovered. They had found evidence of repeated attacks on the citadel, with perpetrators and defenders being identified as Rhodians, Spartans, Macedonians, and Romans going back to the time period Pierce most loved, 2000 B.C. and earlier — the time of myth and legend — which is why the shipwreck fascinated and excited him.

He had yet to voice his theory on the ship's identity, as it would be extremely controversial. He had evidence that supported his ideas, but nothing concrete. For that he would need the ship's nameplate or, even more unlikely, a log book. But three months of recovering artifacts and cataloging them at the university had yielded little. His single most compelling piece of evidence, an iron medallion, was being kept safe and secret by his colleague Agustina Gallo, one of the few people he trusted in all of Greece.

As was now usual, his Monday came and went with no further discovery of any great importance. Pierce returned home to his university campus apartment, sat down, and opened his e-mail. After reading the single e-mail in his i n-box, he canceled the ancient history class three weeks from the semester's end and put Agustina in charge of the Antikythera excavations.

Less than a week and more than eight thousand miles later, he arrived in Nazca, Peru, where he stared at crude Greek letters carved into a stone, stunned and silent. Slowly, he reached out and felt the symbol scratched into the stone above the inscriptions. He'd seen it before, but would keep its meaning to himself, for now. He moved on to the letters, tracing them with his fingertips, convincing himself that what he saw really existed. He'd been searching for signs of the great ancient civilizations completing the journey to the Americas long before Columbus — the Vikings and Romans in the northeast United States were nearly common knowledge among his peers — but the Greeks in South America…in Peru, now that would rewrite history.

The e-mail he received disclosed a report about a new nine-headed geoglyph, a massive drawing in the earth created thousands of years ago, from a friend in the U.N. who oversaw worldwide heritage sites. The 175-square-mile region in which the famous Nazca lines were found had been declared a world heritage site in 1994. The very first Nazca drawings, discovered in 1929, didn't reach true worldwide fame until planes began flying over the desolate region and people began spotting more geoglyphs — a lot more. From the air, massive line drawings in the desert floor emerged that could not be discerned from the ground. Some, reaching lengths of a thousand feet, could not be seen in their entirety below an altitude of fifteen hundred feet. The geoglyphs came in all shapes and sizes, from spiders to monkeys to men and deities. The discovery of any new geoglyph in the region was immediately reported to the U.N., not because important information might have been gleaned, but because even though the region was officially "protected," looters still pillaged most finds long before researchers set foot in the country.

As a precaution, all archaeological finds had to be cata l oged, researched, and removed to secure locations before news of a new find reached the looters, who would descend like vultures. The geoglyphs rarely held anything more interesting than potsherds and crude digging tools, but surveying and photographing the ancient drawing before the image was marred by the looters' tire tracks was equally important.

During the initial aerial photography session, a large stone that looked like half an egg rising from the desert at the end of the odd creature's central neck leaped out at the photographer. A geoglyph with a three dimensional feature had never been found before. The following day, a team hurried to the site, inspecting the stone and the area around it. All were amazed when they found an inscription on the stone, but no one could read it, though one young college intern recognized the language — Greek.

The discovery had been made one day before Pierce received the e-mail. Given his previous work with the U.N. World-Heritage Commission and his expertise on ancient civilizations, Pierce had been called to the scene. After three plane flights and a long, bumpy, and dusty jeep ride, he arrived on site, where a small base camp had been set up on the hill that overlooked the glyph. He'd exited the jeep only ten minutes ago and, upon seeing the nine-headed glyph, had run down the hill to where he now stood. He stared at the Greek inscription on a stone that couldn't possibly have come from Greece, which meant that someone from Greece had been to Peru, to this very spot, more than two thousand years ago.

He turned to Molly McCabe, the U.N. heritage commission archaeologist who'd first documented the site from the sky. The Irish woman had been researching the glyphs since the late eighties and had spent more time in the desert than anywhere else. Generally, the Nazcan geoglyphs were her area of expertise, but she couldn't even recognize Greek, let alone read it.

"You're sure the site was untouched? This has to be a hoax," he said.

"No tire tracks for miles around," she said. "You can't hide those here. No wind. No rain. No erosion. Once something scratches the surface it stays scratched. That's why the geoglyphs have lasted for thousands of years. If someone had been out here in the past two thousand years with a vehicle or so much as a donkey, the evidence would still be plain to see. I suppose someone could have walked here, but only a fool would do that."

"Why's that?" he asked, as he gently brushed the inscription clean.

"It'd be a death sentence. You couldn't carry enough water to get you here and back to the world without dehydrating. You'd be a dried-out husk within a month." McCabe huffed and ran a hand through her long, gray ponytailed hair. "So?"

"So…" he said. "What?"

"What the hell does it say?" she said, throwing her hands up.

"Right. Sorry." Pierce usually took his time with new discoveries. If he had things his way the whole glyph would be fenced off then segmented into a grid of strings so the location of any discovery could be marked and later scrutinized. He preferred to work slowly and methodically, but he also understood that time was an issue. With each passing day they risked word reaching looters, who had perfected the art of the nighttime raid, focusing on expensive research equipment as much as ancient relics.

He looked at the inscription again, marveling at the text.

The carving was crude, but the stone, like the surrounding desert, hadn't been weathered in two thousand years. The inscription was still as legible as it had been when it was first inscribed.

He translated the lines of text, writing down letters in his small notepad without reading the results in full. McCabe bounced a nervous leg next to his face as he crouched to translate the lowest line. He glanced at her leg and noticed it was quite fit for a woman in her fifties.

"Twenty years ago, George, you might have had a chance," she said with a grin. "Now I prefer men my own age."

Pierce smiled and made a final note. "You can't make an exception for me, Molly?"

"George," she said, leaning close to his face.

"Yeah?"

"Read the damn inscription."

Pierce chuckled and read through the inscription that he'd translated. His face fell flat. "It's a hoax."

"George, I guarantee you, this is not a hoax. What does it say?" Her voice was a barely contained shout.

Pierce read from the small notepad. "Here is buried the beast most foul…Fire and sword did sever the head immortal, forever entombed beneath sand and stone. Be warned all who read these words. Heed the screaming guards within and keep dry the earth lest you wake the monster and taste its mighty… vengeance."

McCabe's brow furrowed. "It's a grave?"

Pierce rubbed his eyebrow while he thought. Then, like a horse at the races, he bolted back up the incline. McCabe chased after him. Gasping at the hot, dry air, they stopped at the top of the hill where the U.N. World-Heritage base camp had been set up — a small village of tents and trucks. He turned around and looked at the geoglyph with new eyes, which quickly widened. "It's the Hydra."

She squinted. "Hydra?"

Pierce looked at her, his orange-tinged brown eyes blazing. "The Lernaian Serpent. The nine-headed swamp-dragon. Child of Typhon and Echidna."

She shook her head. It was all gobbledy-gook to her.

He took her by the shoulders and spoke quickly. "Herakles—"

"Who?"

Pierce sighed. No one knew the man's real name anymore. "Hercules. He was the bastard son of Zeus and Alcmene, a human woman. Because of this, he suffered the wrath of Hera, Zeus's jealous wife, who eventually made him go insane. He killed his wife and children. To overcome the madness he stayed at the court of King Eurystheus, seeking purification. He remained there for twelve years and during that time faced twelve trials, or labors. His second trial pitted him against a nine-headed creature called the Hydra He killed it by—"

He froze like an ice cube defying the intense heat of the Nazca plains.

"What is it?" she asked.

"He killed it by severing its central head — its immortal head — andcauterizing it before it could grow a new body." The possibilities spunt hrough Pierce's mind as he continued speaking in a monotone trancelike voice. "Most legends say that he buried the head under a large stone. How old is this site?"

"Carbon dating came back at four hundred to five hundred B.C., why?"

"Some scholars, including me, believe Hercules was a real person who lived around four hundred fifty B.C." His eyes widened. "The time fits. Boating in Greece became very important during that time period. Their victory at the battle of Salamis against the Persians was primarily because of their naval might. It might actually be possible that an expedition lead by Hercules reached the shores of Peru."

"The ancient Greeks had sailboats?" she asked.

"Yes," Pierce said, rubbing his eyebrow. "Cargo ships. They weighed up to one hundred fifty tons and made the Greek empire very rich from trade. But it may not have been a cargo ship. There was one ship at the time, renowned for its crew and vast explorations. You may have heard of it. The Argo."

She stifled a chuckle. "As in Jason and the Argonauts? I saw the movie, George. Ray Harryhausen may have been a genius with clay, but it's just a story."

Pierce looked at her, grinning. "You should do some research on scientists the U.N. sends to help you, Molly." McCabe's smile vanished. "What…?"

"A year ago I discovered an ancient Greek crew manifest for a ship named the Argo in a tomb dated to four hundred B.C. Looters had taken the major artifacts, but the manifest, along with other rotting documents, remained hidden in a crevice. Forty men were listed on the manifest. One of them was Hercules."

"Why didn't I read about this?" she asked. "Didn't you publish?"

"The manifest was stolen."

"By who?"

He shrugged casually, not wanting to retell the story about the two cloaked men who broke into his lab, knocked him unconscious, and stole the manifest, or explain who he thought they were. Nor did he want to tell her about the Antikythera excavation and the sunken ship they'd found, despite it's bearing on this conversation. His trust took time to earn. "Who knows? But I promise you, it was real. Hercules existed. He wasn't the son of Zeus, but he lived and breathed… and maybe, just maybe, visited Peru. The proof could be down there." Pierce pointed to the stone.

McCabe grabbed his shoulder. "George." He met her eyes, which were squinting as she smiled. "We need to get under that rock."

He nodded slowly, still stunned.

"And George," she said. "We're going to need security. If word of this gets out there will be no stopping the looters. They'll come in numbers a U.N. badge can't repel."

Pierce snapped out of his haze. "If you have a satellite phone, I know just the man."