The Alexander Cipher Page 0,76
to his kitchen, discarding his condom into an overflowing wastebasket. A pearly strand depended from his penis, so he wiped it dry with a paper towel, then checked his fridge. “Merde!” He scowled. “No milk.”
“Come back to bed,” she complained. “I have to go collect Gaille from the airport soon.”
“I need coffee,” he protested. “I need croissants.” He pulled on yesterday’s trousers and shirt. “One minute only, I promise.”
She watched him walk out the front door. Something like happiness swelled in her chest. All these years of sating her desires with milksops and fops. Christ, but it felt good to have a real man in her life again.
IT WAS HARD WORK STAYING AWAKE, so Knox bought two cups of sludge coffee for Rick and himself from the first café to lift its shutters. Four men and three women in work clothes came down the hotel steps, where they joined a number of Egyptians who had been loitering outside. They all climbed aboard two flatbed trucks, squeezing up front or stretching out in the back. One of the men did a quick head count; then they lumbered away along the road toward the town of Zagazig.
Rick gave them twenty seconds’ head start, then followed. Tailing people was easy in Egypt. There were so few roads, you could afford to hang well back. The trucks turned toward Zifta, then down a farm road. Rick waited until they were nothing but a cloud of dust, then headed after them. They drove for another two or three kilometers before they saw one of the trucks parked, and no one in sight.
“Let’s get out of here before we’re spotted,” suggested Knox.
Rick wheeled around and they headed off. “Where now?”
“I don’t know about you,” yawned Knox, “but I haven’t slept in two days. I vote we find ourselves a hotel.”
THE DAY HAD PASSED with wretched slowness for Mohammed el-Dahab, but now it was late afternoon, and time was almost up. He paced back and forth outside the cancer ward of Alexandria’s Medical Research Institute. At times he sucked great heaves of air into his lungs; at others his breathing became so short and shallow he thought he would faint. Waiting for the phone call with the test results had been grueling enough, but nothing like this. He walked to the window, stared blindly out over the night-lit city, the harbor. So many millions of people, none of whom he cared one jot for. Let Allah take them all but leave him Layla.
Dr. Serag-Al-Din had given them good news. He had found an HLA match: Basheer, a third cousin of Nur’s mother, who herself had come close to death when her Cairo apartment block collapsed years ago. Mohammed had thought nothing of it at the time, had been completely indifferent to her life or death. But if she had died… He closed his eyes and brought a fist up to his mouth. It didn’t bear thinking about.
But the HLA match meant nothing in itself. It mattered only if Professor Rafai now granted Layla a berth for a bone marrow transplant. Mohammed was here to learn of his decision.
“Insha’ Allah, insha’ Allah,” muttered Mohammed again and again. The mantra did him little good. If only Nur were here—someone who understood. But Nur hadn’t been able to face it. She was at home nursing Layla, more terrified even than he. “Insha’ Allah,” he muttered. “Insha’ Allah.”
The door of the oncology ward swung open. A plump young nurse with huge brown eyes came out. Mohammed tried to read her expression, but it was beyond him. “Will you come with me, please,” she said.
Chapter Twenty-five
KAREEM BARAK’S FEET WERE RAW AND ACHING. Too much tramping these wretched roads in tight boots with leaky soles. He cursed himself for having answered Abdullah’s summons and for agreeing to his terms. One hundred dollars to whoever found this one wretched Jeep! It had seemed too good to be true. But when Abdullah had assigned districts to search, he received this godforsaken stretch of farmland. How the others had sniggered! As if anyone would park out here! He ought just to give up, but those dollars had him by the throat. For Abdullah to offer a one-hundred-dollar reward, he had to be looking to make five or ten times that himself, which meant opportunities for a smart young man like Kareem to exploit. But first he needed some luck.
It was dusk when he saw the farm track and the ramshackle buildings some two hundred meters along