The Alexander Cipher

Chapter Thirty-nine

Nicolas leaned out his window to wave the container truck to the side of the road. He needed to refuel and make phone calls, but he couldn't exactly pull into a service station with Gaille lying across his backseats. His men opened the back doors of the container. The sun was still low enough that it hadn't heated up inside yet.

They waited until the road was clear in both directions, then dragged Gaille inside, gagged her, and tied her to the steel handrail at the front end. Then he ordered Eneas to stay inside with her to make sure she didn't try anything.

Back in the four-by-four, they raced on ahead. The road was straight and true and untroubled by uniforms. Vasileios turned on the radio and searched for music; Nicolas turned it off again. They finally reached a service station, where a couple of trucks were parked outside, on their way to or from Siwa. Vasileios refueled while Nicolas made calls. There was still no answer from Ibrahim, Sofronio, or Manolis. What the hell was going on? He called his office in Thessalonike and ordered Katerina to look into it. But his apprehension was growing worse all the time as he climbed back into the SUV.

Knox's jeep was lying at an angle on its roof, a third of the way up a dune. He pushed and pushed, achieving a little back-and-forth resonance, but not quite enough to take it to its tipping point. He dug sand from beneath the roof with his bare hands to increase the angle of tilt, then tried again. Finally, with a great crash, it fell onto its side and then almost onto its wheels, teetering there for a moment before threatening to fall back. Knox hurled himself against it, and though his feet were slipping and slithering in the soft sand, he refused to give way, and finally the Jeep clattered upright, throwing up clouds of sand and dust.

The key was still in the ignition. He turned it with trepidation, but it caught the first time. Tears of gratitude moistened his eyes. What a beautiful, wonderful fucking car. He raced back to the lake, where Mohammed was breathing shallowly but regularly, though he hadn't regained consciousness. Even with Gaille to worry about, Knox couldn't just leave him. The man weighed at least 250, and it was all Knox could do to heave him into the back. Then he set off back to Siwa and its general hospital, devising plans as he went.

It was late morning when Nicolas drew close enough to the coast to pick up a cell signal. He called Ibrahim's home number at once, then Manolis and Sofronio. Still nothing. He called Thessalonike, but now Katerina wasn't answering, either. Fear was a pool of acid in his gut. Manolis and Sofronio were his pilot and copilot, so without them he'd be stuck in this shit-hole of a country. Alexandria was still a six hours' drive away, but he had to know what was going on, so that he could make contingency plans. He glanced around at the other SUV directly behind him, and then the container truck, weighted by all that gold, slowing them all down.

He called the second SUV on the cell phone; Bastiaan answered. Nicolas ordered him to drive on ahead, to find out what had happened in Alexandria. Bastiaan gave him the thumbs-up; they pulled out to pass, then speeded on ahead and soon had vanished out of sight.

Knox pulled up outside SIWA general hospital, tooting his horn frantically. A nurse came out, shielding his eyes from the morning sun, and Knox flung open the rear door to show him Mohammed, who still had a handcuff locked around his wrist.

"What happened?" asked the nurse, moving already into diagnosis.

"His heart stopped," replied Knox. "He almost drowned."

The nurse ran back inside, reappearing a few moments later with a doctor and a gurney. "The police will want to talk to you," said the doctor.

"Of course."

They loaded Mohammed gently and wheeled him inside. "Come with us," said the doctor. "You'd better wait inside."

"In a moment," said Knox. "I need something from my Jeep." He went back out. Police be damned. It wasn't just Nicolas's warning about what he would do to Gaille if he encountered trouble; it was that the Egyptians were notoriously trigger-happy in hostage situations, and there was no way he would entrust Gaille to their care. Anywhere else in the world, he wouldn't have had a hope of catching Nicolas after the head start he had. But this wasn't anywhere else. This was Siwa, and Siwa was unique. There was no way the container truck could cross the desert, which meant it had only one possible route out: north to the coast, then east to Alexandria. Once they were in Alexandria, all Egypt would open up, but that was still many hours away.

He put his hand on the dashboard. "Just one more trip," he pleaded. "Just one more." Then he roared away.

The hours passed with grinding slowness for Nicolas as his four-by-four and the container truck crawled east along the Mediterranean coast. He kept thinking that Bastiaan and his crew must have reached Alexandria by now, but it wasn't until they neared El Alamein that his phone finally rang. "Yes?"

"Bastiaan here. We're at the villa."

"And?"

"It's burned out. No sign of the guys. But there are uniforms everywhere-fire, police, medical."

Nicolas fell silent as he realized the extent of this disaster. The alibis that had been meant to protect them were now going to hang them. They had all been filmed entering the villa on the security cameras. Even if the fire had by some miracle destroyed the tape, the rental cars outside would still lead the police inexorably to the airport, to their immigration details, to their plane. Going for it now would be like salmon leaping for the net. He ordered Bastiaan to head back and meet them outside Alexandria. Then he called Katerina in Thessalonike again. She answered this time, but he had barely said a word when she cut in and told him primly that she wasn't at liberty to discuss company policy on that matter, but she could get someone to-

"There are people with you?"

"Yes."

"Police?"

"Yes."

"They're listening in?"

"No."

"Recording calls?"

"Not yet."

"You can get somewhere and call back?"

"Not immediately."

"As soon as you can."

Nicolas chewed his knuckles while he waited. Twenty minutes passed before she rang back. "I'm sorry, sir," she said breathlessly. "There are police everywhere. They have warrants. Apparently, the Egyptians asked them to-"

"You've heard from Manolis and Sofronio?"

"Not directly, sir, but I overheard a policeman. I think there's been a fight with the Egyptian police, and I think Manolis is hurt. He had to go to the hospital. Sir, they're saying he killed a man. What's going on? They're accusing us all of terrible things. Everything's going crazy. People are terrified. They're searching our files. They're freezing our accounts. I heard two of them talking about ordering our ships back to port."

"They can't do that," protested Nicolas. "Put Mando on it."

"I already have. He says it's going to take him a couple of days to-"

"I don't have two days!" yelled Nicolas. "Sort it out now."

"Yes, sir."

"And call me the moment you learn anything."

"Yes, sir."

"And I need Gabbar Mounim's phone number again. Quick as you can."

"Yes, sir."

The dread was building in Knox. He had been pounding the poor Jeep for seven hours and still hadn't caught up with the truck, and Alexandria was now only thirty kilometers ahead. Was it possible he had miscalculated? Was it possible Nicolas had got here already, or found another route out? A plane from Marsa Matruh? Across the border into Libya? No. Both of those would be madness, let alone impossible to organize on such short notice. This had to be their route. He just had to keep on going.

Five kilometers shy of the first main road junction, he glimpsed a container truck ahead. He speeded up. Yes. And one of the SUVs in front of it. He took his foot off the gas at once, dropped back to a discreet distance, and followed.