The Alexander Cipher Page 0,82
But I’m an early riser. You’re welcome here at any time from seven.”
“Thank you.”
RICK AND KNOX CIRCLED DOWNWIND so that the German shepherd wouldn’t catch their scent. It was another ninety minutes before the guards set off on their rounds once more. The moment they were gone, Rick hurried into the clearing and over to the smaller building. He examined its two hefty padlocks, produced a hooked length of thick steel wire from his pocket, then proceeded swiftly to unlock them both.
“Where in hell did you learn that?” murmured Knox.
“Australian Special Forces, mate,” grinned Rick, pocketing the padlocks and ushering him inside. “They don’t teach knitting.” There was a deep hole in the floor, a wooden ladder tied to one wall. “It’s sixteen minutes to the other site,” said Rick. “I timed it. Sixteen more back makes thirty-two. We need to be out of here in twenty-five tops. Okay?”
“We’d better hurry,” agreed Knox, adrenaline pumping as he led the way down. The ladder creaked but held, and he was soon crunching on stone chips. Rick joined him a moment later. They walked side by side down the narrow corridor, Rick picking out a wall painting with his flashlight. “Jesus!” he muttered. “I thought Wolf-man was out of the Marvel comics.”
“Not Wolf-man,” corrected Knox. “Wolf god. Wepwawet.”
Rick was looking at him strangely. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “You seen a ghost?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what? Have you worked out where we are or something?”
“I think so. Yes.”
“Come on, then, mate. Spill.”
Knox frowned. “What do you know about the Rosetta Stone?” he asked.
Chapter Twenty-six
BOSS! BOSS!”
Nessim glowered at Ratib. Since they offered their reward, their phones had been ringing constantly. Knox’s Jeep had been spotted everywhere from Marsa Matruh down to Aswan, as had Knox himself. Nessim was longing for a result, if only so they could call off this damned search and get some peace. But the more time that went by, the lower his hopes fell. “Yes?” he asked.
“It’s Abdullah, boss,” said Ratib. “You know, from Tanta. Says one of his crew has found the Jeep.”
“Where?”
Ratib shook his head. “Kid won’t say until he’s got his money. And he wants more. Kid’s demanding a thousand dollars just for himself. And Abdullah wants the same.”
Nessim scowled. The money itself didn’t bother him; it was Hassan’s, after all. But being held to ransom did. Yet, if this was for real… He checked his money belt to see how much he had on him. “Tell him we want proof,” he said. “Tell him to send photographs. If it is, they can each have seven fifty.”
Ratib shook his head. “The kid refuses to go back,” he said. “Reckons Abdullah will have him followed, and then he won’t get anything.”
Nessim barked out a laugh. He had met Abdullah twice himself, and both times he instinctively checked his pockets afterward to make sure he still had his wallet. “Ask him to describe exactly what he saw.”
Ratib nodded and complied. “He says it was covered with a green tarpaulin,” he reported back. “He says he took a peek inside. He says he saw a box of CDs and books.”
Nessim grabbed the phone from Ratib. “What books?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” answered the kid. He sounded terrified, way out of his depth. “They were in foreigner writing.”
A flashback of Knox’s hotel room and the archaeology books he had taken away. “Did they have pictures?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“Ruins,” said the kid. “You know. And those people who dig in the desert.”
Nessim clenched his fist. “You stay exactly where you are,” he told him. “We’re on our way.”
“THE ROSETTA STONE?” frowned Rick, snapping a couple of shots of the painting with his digital camera before moving on. “I know what you’d expect me to know. Why?”
“And that is?”
Rick shrugged. “It’s a large chunk of a monumental stela. Black basalt, something like that.”
“Quartz-bearing rock,” corrected Knox. “It should actually be sparkling gray with a pink vein. The black comes from too much wax and London dirt.”
“It’s inscribed in three languages,” said Rick. “Hieroglyphics, Demotic, and Greek. And it was found in Rosetta by Napoleon’s men. Seventeen ninety nine, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
They reached a second painting, similar to the first. Rick took two shots; the flash was blinding in the darkness. “They realized it might hold the key to deciphering hieroglyphics, so they hunted for other fragments. Worth their weight in diamonds, as someone put it.” He squinted at Knox. “Is that what we’re after? The lost pieces of the Rosetta Stone?”
“No.”
“They didn’t find anything; but then the