The Alexander Cipher Page 0,11

its coffin. The second is the funeral carriage and all the rest of the gold. Okay?”

“Yes.”

“Now, we know pretty much what happened to Alexander’s body and coffin. Ptolemy hijacked it and took it to Memphis, probably with the collaboration of the escort commander. But we don’t know what happened to the rest of the catafalque. Diodorus says that Alexander’s body was eventually taken to Alexandria in it, but his story is confused, and it seems clear he’s actually talking about the coffin, not the catafalque. And the most vivid description comes from a guy called Aelian. He says that Ptolemy was so fearful that Perdiccas would try to seize Alexander back that he dressed a likeness of his body in royal robes and a shroud, then laid it on a carriage of silver, gold, and ivory, so that Perdiccas would charge off in pursuit of this decoy while Ptolemy took Alexander’s body on into Egypt by another route.”

Rick squinted. “You mean Ptolemy left the catafalque behind?”

“That’s what Aelian suggests,” said Knox. “You’ve got to remember, the main prize was Alexander. Ptolemy needed to get him back to Egypt quick, and you couldn’t travel quickly with the catafalque. Estimates suggest that it moved a maximum of six miles a day, and that was with a large team of sappers preparing the road. It would have taken months to reach Memphis. And it couldn’t exactly have traveled discreetly, either. Yet I’ve never come across any account of it being seen traveling the obvious route south from Syria through Lebanon and Israel to Sinai and the Nile; and surely someone would have seen it.”

“So he left it behind, like I said?”

“Possibly. But the catafalque represented an enormous amount of raw wealth. I mean, put yourself in Ptolemy’s shoes. What would you have done?”

Rick considered a few moments. “I’d have split up,” he said. “One lot scoots ahead with the body. The other takes a different route with the catafalque.”

Knox grinned. “That’s what I’d have done, too. There’s no proof, of course. But it makes sense. The next question is how. Syria’s on the Mediterranean, so he might have sailed down. But the Med was notoriously infested with pirates, and he’d have needed ships on hand; and if he felt it was possible, he’d surely have taken Alexander’s body that way—and we’re pretty certain he didn’t.”

“What were his alternatives?”

“Well, assuming that he couldn’t move the catafalque as it was, he could have had it chopped up into manageable pieces and taken southwest along the coast through Israel to Sinai; but that was the route he almost certainly took himself with Alexander’s body, and there’s not much point splitting up if you’re going to go the same way. So there’s a third possibility: that he sent it due south to the Gulf of Aqaba, then by boat around the Sinai Peninsula to the Red Sea coast.”

“The Sinai Peninsula,” grinned Rick. “You mean past these reefs here?”

“These very dangerous reefs,” agreed Knox.

Rick laughed and raised his glass in a toast toward the sea. “So all that gold might just be sitting out there waiting for us?” he said. “What say we go find it, eh?”

And that was exactly what they had been trying to do ever since, though without success. On the other hand, the more they searched, the more Rick had learned, and the more he had caught the archaeological bug. He had originally been a Clearance Diver in the Australian Navy—the closest they had to Special Forces—and working in Sharm had allowed him to keep diving, though he missed that sense of mission. Their quest had restored it to him, so much so that he determined to make a new career in underwater archaeology. So he was studying hard, borrowing Knox’s books and other materials, pestering him with questions.

Roland’s booties were now on. Knox stood and helped strap him into his buoyancy control device, then ran through his safety checks. He heard footsteps on the bridge above him and glanced up as Hassan sauntered into view, leaning on the railing and looking down. “You guys have fun, now,” he said.

“Oh, yes,” enthused Roland, giving the thumbs-up. “We have great fun.”

“And don’t hurry back.” He beckoned behind him, and Fiona came reluctantly into view. She had put on long cotton trousers and a thin white T-shirt, as though more modest clothing could somehow protect her, yet still she was shivering visibly. When Hassan caught Knox staring at her, he grinned wolfishly and put his arm