The Alexander Cipher Page 0,128

would wait. They each had too much to lose.

Knox stood, helped Gaille to her feet, and put his arm around her. They walked together to the door, held open for them by Nessim. Knox nodded slightly at him as they passed, and Nessim nodded back—an acknowledgment of debts settled, perhaps even of mutual respect. Then he and Gaille passed through the door and into a whole new life.

Epilogue

SO THIS IS WHAT FAME FEELS LIKE, thought Knox, roasting beneath the arc lights as he gazed out over the bank of microphones to the squatted rows of photographers and the TV crews and the press journalists perching forward on their chairs, taking notes with one hand while straining to be noticed with the other, eager to pose their questions, if only to show their bosses they were doing their jobs, because they must realize by now that they wouldn’t get any answers worth a damn.

“I’m sorry,” declared Yusuf Abbas for the umpteenth time. “It’s far too early to know exactly what we’ve found. Archaeology doesn’t work that way. We need time to secure and examine the sites. We need time to retrieve and study what we find. In a year or two, perhaps, we’ll know a little more. Now, just three more questions, I think. Who wants to—”

“Daniel!” shouted out a young redheaded woman. “Daniel! Over here!” Knox turned toward her and was momentarily dazzled by the flash of a camera bulb. “How can you be sure it was Alexander?” she yelled.

“Is it true there’s more gold?” called out a Japanese journalist.

“Gaille! Gaille!” cried a gray-haired man. “Did you think you were going to die?”

“Please,” begged Yusuf, holding up both hands, loving every moment. “One at a time.”

Knox scratched his cheek, itching with fatigue and several days’ stubble. How bizarre this all was. To think that at this very moment, people around the world were watching him on TV. A few would almost certainly be old acquaintances. They’d squint at the screen in disbelief, maybe mutter an obscenity beneath their breath, or hoot with laughter and pick up the phone to alert mutual friends. Have you seen the TV? Remember that guy Knox? I swear to God, it’s him!

He glanced across at Gaille. She smiled and raised an eyebrow back at him, as though she understood exactly what was going through his mind. The past twenty-four hours had been bewildering. Their police debriefing in Suez had initially been conducted in a jubilant, self-congratulatory mood: jokes cracked, hands shaken, him and Gaille treated as heroes. Mohammed’s story seemed to have captured the popular imagination. And to make things even sweeter, they had watched Yusuf Abbas on live TV struggling haplessly to explain his relationship with the Dragoumises, and why he had given the MAF permission to excavate in the Delta and conduct a survey in Siwa, and why Elena Koloktronis had visited him in Cairo.

But then, suddenly, the tone had changed. A new investigator, called Umar, had arrived at the police station. His first act had been to have Knox and Gaille locked up in separate cells; then he proceeded to interrogate them unrelentingly. He had scimitar sideburns and sharp eyes, and he seemed absurdly suspicious of their story. He had tried to trick Knox into contradicting himself, and to twist his words against him, and he had shown no interest at all in Nicolas Dragoumis and his men, as though robbery and multiple murder were unimportant to him. He had focused on Knox’s own movements, pressing him particularly on the SCA sites in Alexandria and the Delta, trying to force him to admit that he had broken into them.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Knox had insisted. “I know nothing about those sites.”

“Really,” Umar had said, frowning theatrically. “Then perhaps you can explain how photographs of them were found on a laptop and a digital camera in your Jeep.” Knox’s heart had plummeted. He had forgotten completely about those. To clam up now or ask for a lawyer would be tantamount to admitting he had something to hide. To lie to a man like this would be madness, but so would coming clean. And he had Rick’s reputation to worry about, too. In no way could he allow his friend’s good name to be tarnished as a tomb robber, not after the sacrifice he had made. Umar had smiled with infuriating smugness. “I’m waiting,” he said.

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Knox had protested.

“That may be your opinion. In my country, we consider