The Alexander Cipher Page 0,100

from which she couldn’t possibly fall. She turned onto her back, covering her eyes with her hand while wiping away the tickle of tears from her cheeks. Her father’s life insurance policy had included a handsome bonus for accidental death, enough for Gaille to buy herself an apartment. An apartment! She felt wretched. She struggled to her feet and, with weak, rubbery legs, followed Mustafa on the long, silent walk down to the truck.

Chapter Thirty-two

KNOX AND RICK drove through the sandstorm for what seemed like hour after hour. The whine and screech and roar got to them both, like furious harpies clawing at the Jeep’s metalwork, trying to get at them. The engine was increasingly strained, too, with unsettling glugs and belches coming from the radiator. But finally the storm began to abate; and then, in what seemed little more than a moment, the wind died away altogether and they were through, with nothing but open desert around them.

They had driven off the track some time before, and there was no sign of it, either, or any landmarks to give them guidance. They had neither GPS nor a decent map against which to plot it.

“You know where we are?” asked Rick.

“No.”

“Then what the fuck do we do now?”

“Don’t worry,” said Knox. He climbed up onto the Jeep’s hood and scoured the horizon through binoculars. People thought of the desert as a single flat landscape, bereft of personality and recognizable features, but it wasn’t like that at all, not once you had been out here a few times. Every region had its own personality and look. Some parts were like those Utah salt flats where the land speed records were set. Others were like raging high seas frozen into dunes, and though the sands shifted, the underlying shapes themselves were immortal and unchanging. And there were numerous cliffs and ridges, too, many of which Knox had climbed.

The air was still hazy, but away to the north he spotted a familiar escarpment. Half an hour’s drive, and they’d be back in business. “We should eat,” he told Rick. “Give the engine a rest.”

They sat in the shade of the Jeep and washed cold rice and vegetables down with water, the engine creaking and groaning as it cooled. When they were done, they topped up the water in the radiator and set off again, reaching the track right where Knox had thought they would, then drove on through the seemingly endless desert. Yet it wasn’t endless. In fact, it was only a little after dusk that they reached a sealed track, and then progress was even swifter. Within another hour, they pulled into Siwa’s main square.

“I could kill a cold drink,” muttered Rick.

“Not if I see it first,” answered Knox.

MOHAMMED REFUELED FIFTY KILOMETERS north of Siwa, then drove for half an hour with his phone on the seat next to him, waiting for it to pick up a signal. When finally it did, he pulled off the road to call Nur. It did him good just to hear her voice. His premonitions of his own doom had been growing stronger with every passing minute, but then Nur mentioned Layla’s name and Mohammed blurted out suddenly how much he loved them both, that if something went wrong and she shouldn’t see him again—

“Don’t talk like that!” The distress in Nur’s voice shocked him.

He breathed in to calm himself and assured her that he was fine; he’d see her tomorrow evening. He hung up, switched off the cell phone before she could call back, and checked his watch. He had made excellent time. He jumped down and walked back along the side of the road, crouched. He scooped up a handful of sand, let it trickle away, and watched the peaks that remained on his fingers, the valleys between them. The sand was so hot from a day of baking in the sun that it left his skin reddened. He scooped up another handful, as though he believed that by punishing himself now, he might avoid more grievous punishment later.

A Bedouin in a dusty white truck honked his horn and leaned out of his window to ask cheerfully if he needed help. Mohammed thanked him but waved him on. He was so tired, time seemed to move at half its usual speed. The sun lowered to the horizon and finally set, and it quickly grew dark. He kept glancing up and along the road to the coast, which was so straight and flat, it would