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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.
Chapter Forty
THE MOMENT BASTIAAN and his crew rejoined the convoy after their Alexandria sortie, Nicolas ordered everyone off