The Alexander Cipher Page 0,121

and admit that this was bullshit. A woman picked up and tried to fob him off with the practiced spiel about Hassan being in a meeting, and could she please take a message that she would make sure he received at the very first—

“I need to speak to him now,” said Nicolas. “Tell him it’s Daniel Knox.”

“Daniel Knox?” She was clearly taken aback. “Oh. Yes. Right. I… I’ll put you straight through.”

Nicolas couldn’t hide his astonishment. He held the phone in such a way that Knox could talk, but so that he could listen in as well. Hassan came on. “Knox?” he demanded. “Is that really you?”

“That’s right,” said Knox quickly. “Listen, I want to come see you.”

There was a pause. Then Hassan asked incredulously: “You want to come to see me?”

“That’s right. I need something shipped out of Egypt. If I come to see you, will you take care of it for me?”

There was silence. “You’ll come yourself? In person?”

“If you agree to help me get this shipment out.”

“What kind of shipment? Where headed?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you.”

“Very well. Can you get to Suez?”

“Sure. Give me six hours.”

“Six hours, then. At my container terminal.” He snapped off directions, which Nicolas jotted down. The line went dead. Nicolas closed his phone.

“Well?” asked Leonidas.

“He agreed to help,” admitted Nicolas reluctantly. Something stank, though he wasn’t sure what. Still, it was a lifeline, and he had no option but to grab it. “You’ll stay in the container until Suez,” he told Knox. “One sound and you’re dead. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Get us out of Egypt and you and the girl can go. You have my word.” He looked directly into Knox’s eyes. Nicolas couldn’t afford to have him realize there was no way on earth he would let two witnesses to all this mayhem simply walk away.

Chapter Forty-one

KNOX AND GAILLE were gagged and tied to the handrail at the cab end of the container. One of the Greeks, a burly man they called Eneas, was handed a flashlight and ordered to watch over them. Knox’s thigh throbbed from the gunshot wound, but from the quick examination he had been allowed, it looked worse than it was, plowing a furrow along his skin, but missing the muscle and bone.

The container was stiflingly hot once the rear doors were closed, and stuffy, too, particularly when Eneas lit a cigarette. After he finished and stubbed it out, he drank great gulps from a water bottle, then splashed it prodigally over his hair and forehead. Just the sound of it was torment. Knox closed his eyes and dreamed of waterfalls and crushed ice.

The coffin and lid were so heavy that the container truck’s brakes shrieked when they slowed to refuel. Eneas stood above Knox, menacing him with the butt of the rifle until they rumbled off again, so that he rocked back ever so slightly on his heels. Gears crunched, and the engine whined as they struggled to pick up speed. Just as well that Egypt was so flat.

Gaille began sobbing behind her gag. She had had two or three such bouts already, interspersed with long periods of calm. Terror was too intense to sustain. Knox, too, had had two periods of icy shudders when his shirt became saturated with sweat, worsening his dehydration. In between, however, his mind felt clear as he sought a way to get himself and Gaille out of their dire predicament. So far, nothing came to mind.

He stopped trying to force it. Experience had taught him that answers often appeared when he focused on something else. Their guard lit another cigarette, the flame of his lighter glowing orange off all the gold, and Knox found himself staring at Alexander’s coffin. What an end for such a man, a pawn in the never-ending game of politics and personal advancement. But there was a certain appropriateness, too. Alexander’s life itself had ended in anticlimax in Babylon, triggered perhaps by the horrors of the Gedrosian Desert, into which he had led forty thousand men, and out of which he had brought just fifteen thousand. Death had been in the air for months. An elderly Indian philosopher called Calanus had joined Alexander on his campaigns but had fallen sick. Unwilling to rot away, he burned himself alive instead, assuring Alexander that they would meet again soon. In a drinking contest to celebrate Calanus’s life, forty-one Macedonians had died, including the winner. Then Alexander’s closest friend, Hephaiston, had died, too—perhaps the greatest blow of all. But there