The Alexander Cipher Page 0,24

flashlights sweeping through the trees. The sweat on his shirt cooled; he shivered as he caught the scent of himself. This was bad. This was truly fucking awful. If the police got to him, it wouldn’t matter that he could prove his case—Hassan would already have him by the balls. He thought through his options. The air- and seaports were clearly on alert. Border crossings would have his photo. You could get any document in the world forged in Cairo, but Hassan’s reach was long. He’d soon know Knox was in Cairo, and he’d put out the word. No. He needed to get away as quickly as possible. He could flag down a taxi or a bus, but the drivers would remember him. Trains were often packed with soldiers and police. Better to risk going back for his Jeep.

There was shouting from his left, a single gunshot. Knox flinched and ducked. It took him a moment to realize they were shooting at shadows. He had his breath back now, and his bearings. He crouched and kept moving until he reached the perimeter wire fence of long-term parking—high but not barbed. He climbed it by a concrete post and dropped down the other side, the joints of his fingers raw from the thin mesh. He ran low between the pools of light and the ranks of parked cars. The place was deserted. Departing passengers were already in the terminal; arrivals had long since driven off. Once back in his Jeep, he drove up to the booth and handed money to a sleepy attendant. The barrier lifted.

Blue police lights flashed away to his left as he pulled out onto the main road. He turned right instead, heading toward Cairo. The lights shrank and then disappeared from his mirror. Police cars with flashing lights hurtled past on the other side of the highway. He found that he was holding his breath, had to make himself start again. Where the fuck was he going to go now? He couldn’t stay in Cairo, but he needed to avoid checkpoints, too. That cut out Sinai, the Western Desert, and the south. Alexandria, then. It was just three hours north, and of all Egypt’s cities, he liked it most. He had friends there, too, so he could avoid hotels. But he was a fugitive; he couldn’t inflict himself on just anyone. He needed someone who’d believe in him, someone with strong nerves who relished a little transgression from time to time, just to keep the blood pumping. Put like that, there was only one contender. Knox felt his spirits lifting for the first time in hours. He stamped down on the accelerator and roared north.

Chapter Six

MAIS ATTENDS!” yelled Augustin Pascal at whatever bastard was pounding at his door. “J’arrive! J’arrive!” He clambered across the naked girl lying with her face down between his pillows. With that long, wavy, tawny hair, it looked like Sophia. He lifted her mane to make sure. Shit! Shit! He’d been excited for a week at the prospect of nailing her, and now he’d gone and wasted it while too drunk to remember.

A terrible thing, growing old.

The pounding on the door began again, resonating with the demolition works inside his skull. He checked his alarm clock. Five thirty! Five fucking thirty! But this was unbelievable! “Mais attends!” he yelled again. He kept emergency bottles of water and pure oxygen on his bedside table. He alternated long swallows from one with deep breaths from the other, until he felt able to stand without keeling over. He wrapped a ragged towel around his waist, lit a cigarette, and went to open his front door. Knox was standing there. “The fuck do you want?” demanded Augustin. “You know what fucking time this is?”

“I’m in trouble,” said Knox simply. “I need help.”

IBRAHIM BEYUMI, Head of the SCA in Alexandria, felt in high spirits as he drove through his beloved city. The sun had only just risen, but he’d been too excited to stay in bed. He’d had a dream during the night. No, that wasn’t quite right. He’d been lying there half awake, waiting for his alarm to sound, when he was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of exquisite and intense well-being. He couldn’t shake off the idea that he was on the verge of something momentous, and not even the occasional twinge of anxiety about taking Nicolas Dragoumis’s money could touch his mood.

He pulled up outside the apartment block that Mohammed, the man who had reported