The Alexander Cipher Page 0,124
bullshit?” protested Nicolas shrilly.
“Elena went to Costis,” asserted Knox. “She hired him to kill Pavlos.”
“Stop this!”
“And that’s why Elena shot him. Not because he was standing next to your father, but because he was the one who actually arranged the crash.”
“I said stop it!”
“And Costis was on your payroll.”
“I’m telling you, this is your last warning.”
“He would never have accepted a job like that without clearing it with you first.”
Nicolas smacked Knox on the head with the barrel of the Walther. “I warned you!” he yelled.
“Did you know my family would be in that car?” demanded Knox.
“For fuck’s sake! Shut up, will you!”
“Did you know my sister would be in it?”
“Just fucking shut up!”
“She was sixteen years old,” said Knox. “She was sixteen fucking years old.”
“This is war!” shrieked Nicolas. “Don’t you understand? War! Sacrifices have to be made.”
There was a moment of shocked silence, as though neither man could quite believe the confession. Nicolas pointed the Walther at Knox’s brow, his hand trembling with shame and fear, his finger on the trigger, ready to murder him merely to avoid his reproach. But then the truck’s brakes began to sing again as Bastiaan pulled up outside the office building, and a man pushed through the darkened double doors ahead, letting them swing shut behind him.
“Who’s that?” muttered Nicolas. “Is that Hassan?”
Knox shook his head. “Nessim.”
“Nessim?”
“Hassan’s head of security.”
“Security?” Nicolas’s voice went flat, deadened by presentiment.
Nessim waited until all the vehicles had come to a halt. Then he gave a signal, and all around them, on the roofs of containers, men armed with automatic weapons stood up, aiming down, poised to fire. Sash windows were raised in all the offices, and more gun barrels slithered out. “You’re completely surrounded,” shouted Nessim, hands cupped around his mouth. “Turn off your engines. Put away your weapons. Place your hands on your heads. Open your doors slowly. Then come out one by one. No one needs to die.”
Nicolas glared at Knox with utter loathing. He raised his cell phone. “It’s a trap,” he snarled. “Kill the—”
Knox smashed the phone from Nicolas’s hand before he could finish his command, but Nicolas still had the Walther, and he turned it on Knox as he pulled the trigger. Knox flung back his head so that the bullet only scorched his cheek before shattering the driver’s-side window. It was like a starter’s pistol, setting everyone off. Bursts of gunfire flashed orange from the SUV to their left. Nessim flung himself down. A countering firestorm erupted from on top of the containers and the office windows, turning the vehicle instantly into a sieve, bullets clanging and whistling and shrieking through the metal and off the asphalt. Knox grabbed Nicolas’s wrist and twisted it until he dropped the Walther, while Bastiaan crunched the truck into reverse, gunning the engine in a desperate effort to pick up speed. There was yelling all around, cries of pain, people running, constant gunfire, but somehow the truck remained unscathed. The second four-by-four turned in a circle, automatic weapons blazing from its window. The firestorm turned its wrath onto the four-by-four, glass and metal puncturing and shattering. A back door opened, and a man jumped out. He ran five paces, firing blindly behind him before being cut down by a barrage of bullets.
The truck was finally picking up speed. Nicolas and Knox fought for the Walther as it slid around the floor beneath the cab’s seats. A single bullet put a cobweb in the windshield, and Bastiaan grunted and was thrown back, a small hole in the front of his forehead. Then he slumped forward, revealing a great red crater in the back of his skull. They began at once to lose speed. Nicolas seized the Walther and turned it on Knox, but Knox butted him on the bridge of the nose, then grabbed his wrist and slammed it repeatedly against the dashboard until he dropped the gun. Knox pushed Bastiaan’s body aside and reached his foot across to hit the gas, causing them to accelerate once more. He wrenched the steering wheel around, reversing them toward the canal. Nicolas picked up the Walther again and aimed it at Knox just as the rear wheels dropped off the jetty’s edge, and the undercarriage scraped and screeched on the canal wall. The weight of gold in the container used the jetty’s edge as a fulcrum to hurl the cab into the air. Nicolas shrieked as they were flung upright, then plunged down into the water. The