The Alexander Cipher

Chapter Thirty

Mohammed was still in a daze from his good fortune when his phone rang. "Yes?" he asked.

"This is Nicolas Dragoumis. You remember, I helped finance the tests for-"

"Of course I remember, Mr. Dragoumis. What can I do for you?"

"I believe you should have heard some good news."

"That was you? You are my friend in Cairo?"

"Yes."

"Thank you! Thank you! I am in your debt, Mr. Dragoumis. I am forever in your debt. I swear, anything you ever want…"

"Anything?" asked Nicolas dryly. "Do you really mean that?"

"On my life."

"I hope it won't come to that," said Nicolas. "But tell me: do you have a mechanical digger on your site?"

There had been little for Gaille to do that afternoon. Although they had recruited Mustafa and Zayn for the next fortnight, she gave them the day off, then went to Aly's house, hoping to do some more research, only to find it locked, and a note on his door saying he'd been summoned to Cairo. She went back to her hotel and lazed away the afternoon in a hammock before reviving herself beneath a cold shower and hiring a rickety bicycle that she was now pedaling down to a local freshwater spring. Coasting along one short stretch, she passed a donkey cart carrying three Siwan wives enshrouded in their dark blue embroidered cotton tarfottet. One lifted her cowl and gave Gaille a shy yet radiant smile. She couldn't have been more than fourteen.

Her bicycle tires were soft, and pedaling was hard work on the road, whose surface was sticky from the sun. She was relieved when she saw the spring ahead, a small, deep pool bounded by stone, the water clear down to grayish rocks, with floating clumps of lurid green algae. Several zaggalah sat around, their work on the date palms finished for the day, eyeing her with obvious interest. She'd been looking forward to a swim, but she couldn't face their stares, so she went instead into the orchard to share a cup of bitter Siwan tea with the young custodian.

The sun sank behind the great salt lake and the hills beyond, the horizon blazed orange and purple before the colors faded, and another day was gone. She thought of the young Siwan girl on the donkey cart, married at the onset of puberty to spend the rest of her life hidden from the world, her vision reduced to the narrowest of eye slits, and Gaille had an epiphany-a vivid understanding of the change wrought in herself by the past few weeks. She knew in that moment that she could never again take refuge from life in the physical and intellectual comfort of the Sorbonne, compiling arcane dictionaries of dead languages. Such work was immensely valuable, but it was a step removed from reality, shadows on the wall. She wasn't an academic. She was an archaeologist, her father's daughter.

It was time to make her peace.

Rick and Knox found a hotel with a modem jack so they could download the photographs of the lower chamber and the inscription. But deciphering wasn't Knox's strength, and progress was slow. Meanwhile, Rick looked through the other photographs of the lower chamber. When he came to the mosaic, he frowned and said, "Haven't we seen this before?"

"How do you mean?"

He fetched out his own digital camera and scrolled through to the painting of Wepwawet holding the banner of Alexander. Knox saw it at once. The skyline in the mosaic and in the painting were identical. In the mosaic, it silhouetted the two groups of soldiers. In the painting, it contoured Wepwawet and his banner. And it was seeing Alexander's face on the banner that gave Knox the inspiration he needed to find a keyword and so crack the cipher. When he was done, he scrawled out the text, then translated it for Rick.

"A tomb filled with goods fit for Alexander," murmured Rick. "Jesus!"

"No wonder the Dragoumises are after it," said Knox. "And they've got a head start, too. We need to move."

"Where?"

"The place of Ammon, Alexander's father. Siwa."

They consulted a guidebook. Siwa wasn't that far away, not as the crow flies, but reaching it on proper roads meant driving all the way up to Alexandria, then along the coast to Marsa Matruh and south again. Three sides of a square, perhaps fourteen hundred kilometers in all. Alternatively, they could take the old caravan route, which would save them the best part of a thousand kilometers, but it meant crossing a fierce and unforgiving desert. "What do you reckon?" asked Rick.

"The desert," said Knox unhesitatingly. "At least Nessim and his men won't be able to find us."

Rick grinned. "I was hoping you'd say that."

First task was getting permission. There were army posts dotted across the desert with nothing to do but hassle the few hardy tourists who ventured through. Setting off without proper authorization was asking for grief. But now that Knox's passport had been cleared at the checkpoint, that was only a matter of baksheesh and time.

The local army commander begged a couple of hours to arrange the paperwork. Knox and Rick used it to buy supplies: crates of water and baskets of food, an extra spare tire, cans of oil and petrol. Then they set off, making the most of the cool of the night while it lasted.

Augustin answered his front door with a stained white sheet wrapped like a sarong around his waist. The way his face fell, Elena knew at once. She felt an exquisite calm as she pushed past him into his bedroom. The girl had spiked blond hair, and a brass ring through her lower lip. She had flat breasts with big nipples, and a shaved pubic mound. "You his wife, then?" she asked, reaching down for a soft pack of Marlboro Lights and a plastic lighter.

Elena turned. Augustin was about to say something, but when he saw her expression he seemed to think better of it. She exited, hurried down the stairs, and walked briskly to her car. She felt no regret at not warning him of her visit; between ignorance and knowledge, she'd choose knowledge every time. But she grew angrier with every step. At a traffic light, her cell phone started to ring. She recognized Augustin's number. She rolled down her window, hurled it out, and watched it spark and skitter on the road. Traffic was thick. She clenched the steering wheel and yelled, drawing concerned looks from pedestrians. She cut in front a truck and roared out of the city on the Cairo road. She had no destination in mind. She just wanted to push the car until it fell apart.

This was not about Augustin. Augustin was nothing, she realized now, merely a screen onto which she had projected memories of Pavlos. Pavlos was her man, the only man she had ever truly loved. For ten years, she had craved to be with him. For ten years, her life had been shit.

A semi approached fast on the other side of the highway. Her hands twitched almost unconsciously on the steering wheel; she veered toward it, almost able to taste the sweet release of oblivion. The truck driver blared his horn in warning, startling her from her reverie, and at the very last moment she wrenched the wheel and swung back safely onto her side of the highway.

Not now. Not yet.

She had lost more than a husband when she lost Pavlos. She had lost honor. Dragoumis was flying in. He would be away from home soil. He'd be vulnerable. They said you could buy anything in the back streets of Cairo, and Cairo was just two hours' drive south. It was time to put that old maxim to the test.

Elena had a blood debt to settle.