The Alexander Cipher Page 0,97
to make it out clearly. There was a low darkness on the horizon, like rain, except that there were no clouds in the sky, and rain was the least of one’s worries out here in the Western Desert. “Trouble,” muttered Knox.
ELENA WAS IN A FIERY MOOD when she reached Ibrahim’s villa, fresh from her trip to Cairo.
“You’re late,” said Nicolas angrily, leading her into the kitchen, where Philip Dragoumis was at the table discussing plans with Costis, his longtime head of security, and several of his team, battle-hardened veterans of the various Balkan conflicts. “I told you to be here at nine.”
Just the sight of Dragoumis made Elena’s bag weigh heavier on her shoulder, but this wasn’t the moment. “I had something to do,” she said. “What’s the rush, anyway?”
“We need to be in Siwa by nightfall.”
“Siwa!” she protested. “You made me drive all the way up here just to drive straight back down again.”
“It’s for your own good,” said Nicolas, nodding at the security monitor. “You’ve been recorded arriving. Tomorrow evening you’ll be recorded leaving. And Ibrahim will swear you’ve stayed here all the time in between.”
“Then how—”
“There’s a back gate,” said Nicolas. “We’ve rigged the camera on it to show nothing.” He glanced at his watch. “But we need to get moving. Can I have your cell phone, please?”
“Why?”
“Because if you use it while we’re traveling, you can be traced,” he said with exaggerated patience. “There’s not much point in having an alibi if you’re going to blow it with a phone call.”
“Then how will we communicate?”
“We have phones in the cars,” said Nicolas. “Now, please just give it to me.”
“I don’t have it,” admitted Elena, a little sheepishly. “I threw it away.”
He frowned. “You threw it away? Why?”
“Does it matter? Now, what’s this about? It had better be good.”
“I think you’ll find it good,” growled Dragoumis. She frowned at him. He beckoned for her to join him at the table. He opened the two books of Siwa for her to see and laid them alongside a photograph of the mosaic from the Alexandrian tomb.
“Christ!” murmured Elena.
“Yes. We’ve found it at last. Now all we have to do is bring it home.”
She looked at him in horror. For all that she sympathized wholeheartedly with the Macedonian cause, she was an archaeologist, too. Sites and artifacts were sacred to her. “Bring it home?”
“Of course. What else do you think we’ve been working for?”
“But… this is crazy. You’ll never get away with it.”
“Why not?”
“For one thing, it may not be there.”
“If it isn’t, it isn’t,” shrugged Dragoumis. “But it is.” He put his hand over his heart. “I know it in here.”
“But an excavation like this can take months. Years.”
“We have one night,” grinned Nicolas. “Tonight. A mechanical digger will meet us there. Eneas and Vasileios are bringing other equipment and a container truck. One of our ships is headed to Alexandria. It’ll be docked by morning, in plenty of time to load whatever we find. Believe me, our captains are skilled at playing the three-card trick with sealed containers. Within days it will be back in Thessalonike, and then we can make the announcement.”
“Announcement? But you can’t! Everyone will know we stole it.”
“So? They won’t be able to prove it. Especially when you say that the Macedonian Archaeological Foundation made this discovery in the mountains of Macedonia. As a respected archaeologist, people will accept your word.”
“I don’t believe this!” protested Elena. “I’ll be an international joke.”
“I don’t see why,” said Nicolas. “If it’s possible Alexander had a tomb prepared for him in Siwa, why not in Macedonia?”
“We have an explanation for Siwa: the Alexander Cipher.”
“Yes,” said Dragoumis. “And what does it say, exactly? That the shield bearers prepared a tomb for Alexander in the place of his father and that they crossed the desert to take him there. That applies to Siwa, certainly. Ammon was Alexander’s divine father, and Siwa lay across the Western Desert. But it applies to Macedonia, too. Philip was Alexander’s mortal father. And the shield bearers would have had to cross the Sinai desert to reach it.”
Elena’s mouth fell open. She couldn’t refute the logic, yet still she felt appalled. “But people would still know,” she said weakly.
“We certainly hope so,” grinned Nicolas.
“How do you mean?”
“What do you imagine the reaction will be when Athens tries to wrest it off us, as international pressure will force them to do? Can you imagine the outcry? Macedonia will never stand for it.”
“There’ll be war,” said Elena numbly.
“Yes,”