The Alexander Cipher

Chapter Fourteen

It took Gaille a moment to assimilate fully what Knox was saying. Then her expression went cold. "Get out," she said.

"Please," he begged. "Just let me-"

"Get out. Get out now."

"Look. I know how you must feel, but-"

She went to her door and threw it open. "Out!" she said.

"Gaille," he pleaded. "Just let me explain."

"You had your chance. You sent me that letter, remember."

"It wasn't what you think. Please just let me-"

But the concierge had overheard the commotion. Now he arrived outside Gaille's room, grabbed Knox's arm, and dragged him out. "You leave," he said. "I call police." Knox tried to shake him off, but he had surprisingly strong fingers, which he dug vengefully into Knox's flesh, giving him no choice but to go with him or start a fight. They reached the lobby. The concierge bundled him into the elevator, punched the button for the ground floor, then slammed the mesh door closed. "No come back," he warned, wagging his finger.

The elevator juddered downward. Knox was still in a daze when he stepped out into the ground-floor lobby and down the front steps. The look of anger on Gaille's face had not only shocked him, it had made him realize just how hard he was falling for her. He turned right and right again, heading down the alley at the rear of her hotel, converted, like so many alleys in Alexandria, into an improvised parking lot, so that he had to wend his way between tightly packed cars.

He remembered, suddenly, the letter he'd sent her, all the deceits he'd filled it with. His face burned hot; he stopped dead in the alley so abruptly that a man walking behind him barged into his back. Knox held up his hand in apology, started to say sorry, but then he caught a whiff of something chemical, and suddenly a damp, burning cloth was clamped over his nose and mouth, and the darkness began closing in. Too late, he realized that he'd allowed himself to stop worrying about Sinai, about Hassan. He tried to fight, to pull away, but the chloroform was already in his system, and he collapsed tamely into the arms of his assailant.

tT was barely eleven thirty when Augustin brought Elena back to the Cecil Hotel. He had invited her on to a nightclub; she pleaded weight of work. He insisted on escorting her into the lobby all the same. "There's no need to come up," she said drily when they reached the elevators. "I'm sure I'll be safe from here."

"I see you to your room," he announced gallantly. "I would never forgive myself if anything happened."

She sighed and shook her head but didn't make a point of it. There was a mirror in the elevator. They each checked themselves out in it and then each other, their eyes meeting in the glass, smiling at their own vanity. She had to admit that they made a striking pair. He walked her right to her door. "Thank you," she said, shaking his hand. "I had fun."

"I'm glad."

Elena took her key from her purse. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"No doubt." But he made no move to leave.

"You haven't forgotten where the elevators are already?" she asked pointedly.

He smiled wryly. "I think you're the kind of woman not to be afraid of what she wants. I'm right about this, yes?"

"Yes."

"Good. Then let me make this clear. If you ask me to leave once more, I truly will leave."

There was silence for a few moments. Elena nodded thoughtfully to herself as she unlocked her door and went inside. "Well?" she asked, leaving the door open behind her. "Are you coming in or not?"

Knox slowly returned to consciousness, aware of his lips, nostrils, and throat burning, of nausea in his gut. He tried to open his eyes. They were glued shut. He tried to lift a hand to his face, but his wrists were bound behind his back. He tried to cry out, but his mouth was taped. When he recalled what had happened, his heart plunged into panicked tachycardia and his body shuddered in a great spasm, arching him off the floor. Something clumped him hard behind the ear, and he slumped back into darkness.

He was more circumspect when he came around again. He let his senses gather information. He was lying on his front. Some kind of soft carpet with a lump in the middle that pressed against his ribs. His ankles and wrists were so tightly bound that his fingers and toes tingled. His mouth was coppery and tacky from a cut on the inside of his cheek. The air smelled thickly of cigarette smoke and hair oil. He felt the soft vibration of an expensive engine. A vehicle passed at speed, its sound warped by Doppler. He was on the floor of a car, and he was probably being taken to Hassan. That lurch of panic. Vomit welled in his throat, stopping only at the back of his mouth. He inhaled deeply through his nose until the nausea subsided. He reached for a calm thought. It wasn't necessarily Hassan's men who had snatched him. Maybe it was freelancers after blood money. If he could just get them to talk, he could establish rapport, negotiate, outbid. He tried to sit up and was again thumped brutally on the back of his head.

They swung left and began to jolt over rough terrain. It was all Knox could do to buffer himself. His ribs were banged and bruised. They drove for what seemed an age, then stopped abruptly. Doors opened. Someone grabbed him beneath his arms and hauled him out, dumping him on sandy ground. He was kicked onto his back; fingernails picked at the tape on his cheek. It was ripped from his eyes, taking some lashes with it, leaving his skin tender. Three men stood above him, dressed in black sweaters and balaclavas, and the sight of them turned Knox's guts to water. He tried to tell himself they wouldn't be hiding their faces unless they thought he'd live. It didn't help. One of the men dragged Knox by the legs to a wooden post hammered into the ground. He gathered together several loose strands of barbed wire and wrapped them around Knox's ankles.

Though their car was parked obliquely, Knox could just make out its rear license plate. He burned it into his memory. A second man popped the trunk and pulled out a coil of rope, which he dumped on the sand. He tied a knot in one end, looped it around the tow bar, and tugged it hard to make sure it would hold. He made a hangman's noose in the other end, came over to Knox, slipped it around his neck, and tightened it until it bit into the soft skin of his throat.

Knox had lost sight of the third man. Now he saw him ten paces away, recording everything on the camera phone. It took Knox a moment to see the significance. He was filming a snuff movie to send to Hassan. That explained the balaclavas, too. They didn't want footage of themselves committing murder. It was then that Knox knew he was going to die. He kicked and struggled, but he was too tightly bound. The driver revved his engine like a young biker throwing down a challenge. Its back wheels spat sand. Then it began speeding away, rope hissing as it paid out. Knox braced himself; he screamed into his gag. The man with the camera phone moved closer to frame his climactic shot as the rope lifted, shivered and went taut.