The Alexander Cipher Page 0,70

in his hotel room, willing his phone to ring, for one of his sentinels to spot Knox before he could drop out of sight once more. There had to be a good chance. The simple fact that Knox had broken cover to get his belongings back suggested he was after something, that he had a purpose and was prepared to take risks in its pursuit. Yet, for all that, there was something about Knox that made Nessim feel inadequate, almost fatalistic.

He stopped in mid pace, daunted suddenly by the prospect of confessing another failure to Hassan. He needed to show he was doing something. He needed to demonstrate that he was active. He had kept the hunt largely in-house up till now, but the time for discretion had passed. He unzipped his money belt, checked his cash, and turned to Hosni, Ratib, and Sami. “Get on your phones,” he told them. “A thousand dollars to whoever finds Knox’s Jeep. Two if he’s in it.”

Ratib pulled a face. “But everyone will know it was us,” he protested. “When Knox turns up dead, I mean.”

“Do you have a better suggestion?” snapped Nessim. “Or perhaps you’d like to tell Hassan yourself this time why we haven’t found Knox yet.”

Ratib dropped his gaze. “No.”

Nessim sighed. The stress was getting to him. And Ratib had a point. “Okay,” he said. “Only people you trust. One in each town. And tell them not to blab, or they’ll be answering to Hassan themselves.”

His men nodded and reached for their cell phones.

BY THE TIME the Dragoumis Group’s Lear jet touched down in Thessalonike that night, Gaille had decided that she could get used to traveling like this, despite the twinge of guilt she felt at all these carbon emissions for so whimsical a trip. White leather seats so comfortable they made her groan with pleasure, a window the size of a widescreen TV, a butler on hand to prepare meals and drinks, the copilot coming back to talk her through her preferred arrangements for flying back in the morning. An immigration officer came out to greet her with cloying politeness (“any friend of Mr. Dragoumis, Ms. Bonnard . . .”), and a chauffeur-driven blue Bentley that whisked her away up into the hills above Thessalonike just so she could sit back and admire the night sky.

They reached a walled estate patrolled by guards. They were waved through, down to a whitewashed palace lit up like son et lumiere. And then, to cap it all, Dragoumis himself emerged from his front door to meet her, his hands clasped behind his back, a vivid birthmark near his left eye. After all she had imagined of him on her journey, it was a surprise and relief to her to see how short and slight he was. He hadn’t shaved; he looked rustic and very Greek. Just for a moment, she thought she would be able to handle him easily, that he was nothing to fear. Then she drew closer and realized she had been wrong.

Chapter Twenty-three

KNOX CUT CROSS-COUNTRY to get to Ras el-Sudr, his route taking him through Tanta, the largest town of the Delta. Something about Tanta niggled in his brain; someone had mentioned it to him recently, but he couldn’t think who. Then he remembered Gaille’s offhand remark about her Tanta concierge, and he pulled the Jeep to the side to think. He hadn’t given much thought to Elena’s Delta excavation; too much else had been going on. But maybe that had been a mistake. Especially now that Nicolas Dragoumis had appeared on the scene.

It was no secret that Elena’s Macedonian Archaeological Foundation was sponsored by the Dragoumis Group. And the Dragoumises had no interest in Egypt, Knox knew—only in Macedonia. If they were financing an excavation in the Delta, therefore, they were after something Macedonian. And just maybe it was connected with that site they had just found in Alexandria. It certainly couldn’t hurt to find out more.

He found a Tanta bar with a phone directory, then rang local hotels asking for Elena. He got a hit on his fifth attempt. “She not here,” the night clerk told him. “Alexandria.”

“What about her team?”

“Who you want to speak to?”

Knox ended the call, jotted down the hotel’s address, and hurried back to his Jeep.

PHILIP DRAGOUMIS LED GAILLE through arches and across polished mosaic floors to a drawing room with gorgeous oils and tapestries on the walls. “A drink,” he said. “Then we eat. Red wine? It’s from my estate.”

“Thank you.”