The Alexander Cipher Page 0,102
and forth between them. “How do you guys know about that?”
Knox shrugged and smiled. “You’re not the only one who’s been behaving badly.”
“How do you mean?”
“Remember when you got lowered beneath the plinth?” He pulled a face and mimicked her voice outrageously: “There’s someone there!” he cried.
Her eyes went wide. “That was you!” she laughed. “Daniel, that’s awful!”
“I know,” he grinned. “So have you had any luck?”
“I can’t talk about it. I gave my word.”
“Who to?” scoffed Knox. “Elena? Nicolas Dragoumis?”
“No. Yusuf Abbas.”
Knox laughed out loud. “That crook? The man’s corrupt, Gaille.”
“He’s the head of the SCA.”
“He destroyed your father.”
“I don’t know,” sighed Gaille, putting her hands on her head. “I don’t know who to trust anymore.”
“You can trust me,” said Knox. “Your father did. Or if you want to talk to someone in authority, try Dr. Sayed. You can trust him with your life.”
“Are you sure?”
“How do you mean?”
She hesitated, then said, “He saw something in my photographs of the lower chamber. I’ll swear he did. And then some books went missing from his shelves.”
Knox frowned. “And you think he took them to stop you making some kind of connection?”
“Maybe.”
“Believe me, Gaille, if that’s the case, it wouldn’t have been to stop you. It would have been to stop Yusuf. Let’s go see him.”
She shook her head. “He’s not here. He’s been called to Cairo. And his house is locked.”
“Then it’s just as well we’ve got Rick,” grinned Knox. “He’s got a talent we can use.”
Chapter Thirty-three
IBRAHIM’S NERVE, never particularly strong, had completely failed him since Nicolas pressed that sharp blade against his throat. Courage was easier in daydreams. He had let himself be bullied into calling in sick, then writing out and signing multiple authorizations on SCA paper for an excavation in the Western Desert, even though the Western Desert was completely outside his jurisdiction. Since then, he had been forced to stay by his phone in case Nicolas was challenged and he was called to verify his signature.
He hadn’t been left alone. Manolis and Sofronio, Nicolas’s pilot and copilot, were with him. They had locked all the exterior doors and windows, pocketed the keys, and confiscated his cell phone. Now they followed him everywhere: to his bedroom, even to the bathroom. And Sofronio spoke enough Arabic to listen in on his conversations whenever the telephone rang, his finger poised to disconnect should Ibrahim try anything.
Nicolas and his men were clearly intent on looting a priceless historical treasure from Siwa. Ibrahim had dedicated his life to Egypt’s heritage, yet now he was helping these gangsters pillage it. He turned abruptly and walked toward his office. Manolis followed. “I’m only fetching my work,” he sighed. Manolis came with him all the same. Ibrahim pulled some papers from his top drawer and glanced at the lock as he left. The key was on the inside, as he had thought. He walked back out with Manolis, then tutted at himself. “My pen,” he said.
Manolis waited while Ibrahim returned into his office, picked up a bulbous red fountain pen from his desk, and held it up for Manolis to see. His heart began pounding unhealthily fast, and his mouth went dry. He regretted his sedentary life, which had rendered him hopelessly unfit for heroics. Still, he put his hand on his office door and told himself this was the moment. His mind urged his hand to slam the door and twist the key, buy himself some time, allow him to redeem himself… but his hand didn’t obey. Then he lost his nerve and walked on out. His heart rate slowed. The adrenaline ebbed, and he felt an urgent need to urinate. He bowed his head in shame at the truth of himself: a coward, a failure, a nothing. A man’s life was the gift of Allah; what a waste he had made of his.
BIR AL-HAMMAM PROVED to be twin peaks of rock connected by a low ridge, with steep slopes of sand that fell away like a pyramid on every side. There was a freshwater lake at its southern foot, bounded by reeds and vegetation, and the moonlight shimmered off its waters, rippled by the skipping of insects and the fish that hunted them. Fruit bats shrieked as they left their caves in the worn limestone to gorge themselves on the nearby orchards.
In order to hide their activity, Nicolas arranged all the vehicles in a semicircle around the precise spot at the base of the hill where he intended to dig, where