"The Alexander Cipher" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Will)

Chapter Three

Knox reached the dive boat quickly. He took off his fins, tossed them aboard, and climbed up. He could see no sign of Fiona or Hassan. Now that he was here, he wasn't certain what to do. He felt conspicuous and rather foolish. He unbuckled and slipped off his BCD and tank, carrying them with him as he walked quietly across the deck to the port-side cabins. He tested the doors one by one, looking inside. He finally came to one that was locked. He rattled it. There was a muffled cry inside, then silence.

Some people enjoyed and sought out violence. Not Knox. He had a sudden vision of himself standing there, and it unnerved him badly. He turned and walked away, but then the door opened behind him. "Yes?" demanded Hassan.

"I'm sorry," said Knox, without looking around. "I made a mistake."

"Come back!" said Hassan irritably. "Yes, you. Max's boy. I'm talking to you. Come here now."

Knox turned reluctantly, walked back toward Hassan, eyes submissively lowered. Hassan didn't even bother to block his view, so that Knox could see Fiona lying on the bed, forearms crossed over her exposed breasts, cotton trousers half pulled down around her clenched and lifted knees. There was a cut above her right eye; her upper lip was bleeding. A torn white T-shirt lay discarded on the floor.

"Well?" demanded Hassan. "What did you want?"

Knox glanced again at Fiona. She shook her head at him, to say it was all right, she could cope with this, he shouldn't get involved. The selfless gesture triggered a protective urge in Knox that in turn suffused him with rage. He swung his scuba tank like a wrecking ball into Hassan's solar plexus, doubling him over. Then he clubbed him on the side of his jaw, which sent him reeling backward. Now that he'd started, he couldn't help himself. He hit Hassan again and again until the man collapsed on the floor. It was only when Fiona pulled him away that his mind cleared.

Hassan was unconscious, his face and chest painted with blood. He looked so badly beaten that Knox knelt and was relieved to find a pulse in his throat.

"Quick," said Fiona, tugging his hand. "The others will be coming back."

They ran together out of the cabin. Max and Nessim were indeed swimming back toward the boat, while Roland and the two women watched from farther off. Knox ran to the bridge, where he ripped wiring from beneath the two-way radio and ignition. All the keys were kept in a plastic tub on the floor, and he grabbed the lot. The speedboat was tied by a single rope to their stern. He hurried down the ladder, hauled the speedboat toward them, helped Fiona into its bow, and followed her. Untying the towrope, he then jumped into the driver's seat and slipped the key into the ignition just as Max and Nessim reached them and started to climb aboard. When Knox spun the boat in a tight circle and roared away, the wash of water ripped Max free, but the burly security man, Nessim, held on, pulled himself aboard, and stood up. He was a tough bastard and angry as hell, but he was hampered by his wet suit and tank. Knox threw the boat into another tight spin, this time sending him flailing over the side.

Knox straightened out and roared off toward Sharm. He shook his head at himself. He'd done it now. He'd fucking done it. He needed to reach his Jeep before Hassan or Nessim could put the word out. If they caught him… Christ! He felt sick at the prospect of what they would do. He needed out of Sharm, out of Sinai, out of Egypt altogether-and he needed out tonight. He glanced around and saw Fiona sitting on the bench seat at the back, head bowed, teeth chattering, a blue towel wrapped tight around her trembling shoulders. For the life of him, he couldn't think how she had reminded him of Bee. He slammed the heel of his hand against the control panel in anger at himself. If there was one thing he hated, it was memory. You worked your balls off to build a life in a place like this that had no links whatever with your past-no friends, no family, nothing to weigh you down. But it wasn't enough. You took your memory with you wherever you went, and it would fuck you up in a heartbeat. IBRAHIM BEYUMI walked Mohammed down to the street to wish him farewell, then thanked him for reporting his find at the building site and watched him disappear around the corner of the street.

Maha, his assistant, started to rise when he returned upstairs, but he settled her with a palm, then went to consult the vast street map of Alexandria pinned to the wall behind her. As ever, it filled him with wistful pride, marked as it was with every antiquity in his beloved city, including Pompey's Pillar, Ras el-Tin, the Latin Cemeteries, the Roman theater, Fort Qait Bey. There were some fine sites among them, and he boasted vigorously about them to anyone who would listen, but he knew in his heart that none of them were in the first rank of Egyptian antiquities. Alexandria boasted no pyramids, no Karnak or Abu Simbel, no Valley of the Kings, despite the fact that two thousand years ago its buildings had been something to marvel at. The Pharos lighthouse had been one of the Seven Wonders. The Mouseion had led the world in learning and culture. The Temple of Serapis had awed worshippers with its splendor and the trickery of its flying statues. The Royal Palaces of Cleopatra were imbued with extraordinary romance. And most of all, the city had boasted the mausoleum of the city's patriarch, Alexander the Great himself. If just one of these great marvels had survived, Alexandria would surely now rival Luxor or Giza on the tourist trail. But none had.

"That man," said Ibrahim.

"Yes?"

"He's found a necropolis."

Maha looked around. "Did he say where?"

"In the old Royal Quarter." Ibrahim traced out the approximate area with his finger, then tapped its heart. Remarkably, it was impossible to be sure of the outlines of the ancient city, let alone the position of a particular street or building. Alexandria was virtually surrounded by water, with the Mediterranean to the north, Lake Mariut to the south and west, and the marshy Nile Delta to the east, limiting its room for growth. When new buildings had been needed, therefore, old ones had simply been torn down to make way for them. Fort Qait Bey was built on the ruined foundations of the Pharos lighthouse. And the limestone blocks of Ptolemaic palaces had been reused for Roman temples, Christian churches, and then Islamic mosques, mirroring the various ages of the city.

He turned to Maha with a storyteller's smile. "Did you know that Alexander marked out our city's walls himself?"

"Yes, sir," she replied dutifully but without looking up.

"He leaked a trail of flour from a sack, only to have birds of all colors and sizes come feast upon it. Some people might have been put off by such an omen. Not Alexander."

"No, sir."

"He knew that it meant our city would provide shelter and sustenance for people from all nations. And he was right. Yes, he was right."

"Yes, sir."

"I'm boring you."

"You said you wanted these letters out today, sir."

"I do, Maha. Indeed I do."

Alexander hadn't lived to see his city built. It had been Ptolemy and his progeny who benefited, ruling Egypt with gradually diminishing authority until the Romans took over, themselves displaced by the Arab conquest of AD 641. The administrative capital had been transferred south, first to Fustat, then to Cairo. Trade with Europe had fallen off; there was no longer such need for a Mediterranean port. The Nile Delta had silted up; the freshwater canals had fallen into disuse. Alexandria's decline had continued inexorably after the Turks took control, and by the time Napoleon invaded at the turn of the nineteenth century, barely six thousand people lived here. But the city had since proved its resilience, and its harbors had come back to life, thanks to a boom in Mediterranean trade, so that today some four million souls were packed together into high-density housing that rendered systematic excavation impossible. Archaeologists like Ibrahim, therefore, were at the mercy of developers, who were still tearing down old buildings to erect new ones in their place-and every time they did so, there was a glimmer of a chance that they would uncover something extraordinary.

"He did describe one area in great detail," he said. "A forecourt with bronze doors leading to an antechamber and main chamber. What do you make of that?"

"A tomb?" hazarded Maha. "Ptolemaic?"

Ibrahim nodded. "Early Ptolemaic-very early." He took a deep breath. "Indeed, it sounded to me like the tomb of a Macedonian king."

Maha stood and turned, her fingers splayed on her desk. "You can't mean…," she began. "But I thought Alexander was buried in a great mausoleum, not an underground necropolis."

Ibrahim remained silent for several seconds, vicariously enjoying her excitement, wondering whether to deflate her gently now or risk sharing his wilder hopes. He decided to let her down. "He was, yes. It was called the Sema; the Greek word for 'tomb,' you know. Or perhaps Soma, their word for 'body.' "

"Oh," said Maha. "So this won't be Alexander's tomb, then?"

"No."

"What is it?"

Ibrahim shrugged. "We'll need to excavate to find that out."

"How? I thought we'd spent all our money."

And that was the nub. Ibrahim's entire budget for the year was already allocated, and he'd begged as much from the French and the Americans as they could give. It happened like that here, precisely because excavation was such an opportunistic affair. If too many interesting sites were found in the same financial period, he simply couldn't handle them all. It became a matter of triage. At this precise moment, all his field archaeologists were involved, directly or indirectly, in projects across the old city. Excavating this new site would demand new money, specialists, and crew. And it wasn't as if he could put it on hold until the next financial year. The stairwell was slap in the middle of the new hotel's prospective parking lot; Mohammed could accommodate a couple of weeks of excavation, but any more would ruin his schedule. That was a real concern to Ibrahim. In uncovering ancient Alexandria, he depended almost entirely on property developers and construction companies to report significant finds. If ever he got a reputation for causing excessive delays or being difficult to work with, they'd simply stop notifying him, regardless of their legal obligations. In many ways, this latest site was a headache he didn't need. But it was also an early Macedonian tomb, quite possibly a very significant find indeed, so he couldn't let it slide by.

There was one possible source of funds, he knew. His mouth felt tacky and dry just thinking of it, not least because it would mean contravening all kinds of SCA protocols. Yet he could see no alternative. He forced a smile. "There's that Greek businessman who keeps offering to sponsor us," he said.

Maha raised her eyebrows. "You can't mean Nicolas Dragoumis!"

"Yes," he said. "That's the one."

"But I thought you said he was…" She caught his eye and trailed off.

"I did," he acknowledged. "But do you have a better suggestion?"

"No, sir."

Ibrahim had been delighted when Nicolas Dragoumis first contacted him, for sponsors were always welcome. Yet something about his manner had made Ibrahim apprehensive. After finishing that first phone call, he had immediately checked the Dragoumis Group's corporate Web site, with all its links to subsidiaries in shipping, insurance, construction, media, import-export, electronics, aerospace, property, tourism, security, and more. He had found a sponsorship section explaining that the Dragoumis Group supported only those projects that helped demonstrate the historical greatness of Macedonia or worked to restore the independence of Aegean Macedonia from the rest of Greece. Ibrahim didn't know much about Greek politics, but he knew enough not to want to get involved with Macedonian separatists.

Elsewhere on the site, he'd found a page with a group photograph of the company's directors. Nicolas Dragoumis was tall, lanky, handsome, and well dressed. But it had been the man standing front and center who unnerved Ibrahim. Philip Dragoumis, the Group's founder and chief executive, fearsome-looking, swarthy, lightly bearded, with a large plum-colored birthmark above his left cheekbone, and a disturbingly potent gaze, even in a photograph. He seemed like a man to steer clear of. But at this point Ibrahim had no choice. His heart beat a little faster, a little louder, as though he were standing on the very edge of a high cliff. "Good. Then, could you find me his telephone number, please?"

Knox beached the speedboat near his Jeep and waded ashore. Fiona had pulled herself together and was now insisting on returning to her hotel. From the way she wouldn't meet his gaze, it seemed she'd figured out that Hassan's wrath would be at Knox, not her, and that therefore the safest place was anywhere away from him. Not so dumb after all. Knox revved the Jeep furiously as she hurried off along the seafront. He was glad not to have her to worry about, but it pissed him off anyway. His passport, cash, and plastic were in his money belt. His laptop, clothes, books, and all his research were in his hotel room, but he dare not go back for them.

At the main road, he faced his first major decision: northeast to the Israeli border or up the west coast highway toward the main landmass of Egypt. Israel was safety, but the road was in bad repair, slow, and choked with army checkpoints. West, then. He'd arrived here nine years ago on a boat into Port Said; it seemed a fitting way to leave. But Port Said was on the Suez, and the Suez belonged to Hassan. No. He needed out of Sinai altogether. He needed an international airport-Cairo, Alexandria, or Luxor.

He jammed his cell phone against his ear as he drove, warning Rick and his other friends to watch out for Hassan. Then he turned it off altogether, lest they use the signal to trace him. He pushed the old Jeep as fast as it would go, engine roaring. Blue oil fires flickered ahead on the Gulf of Suez, like some distant hell. They matched his mood. He'd been driving for less than an hour when he saw an army checkpoint up ahead, a chicane of concrete blocks between two wooden cabins. He stifled the sudden urge to swing around and flee. Such checkpoints were routine in Sinai; there was nothing sinister about this. Waved to the side of the road, he felt the bump as he left the road, then cloying soft sand beneath his wheels. An officer swaggered across, a short, broad-shouldered man with hooded, arrogant eyes. He held out his hand for Knox's passport, then took it away with him. There was little traffic; the other soldiers were chatting around a radio, automatic rifles slung nonchalantly over their shoulders. Knox kept his head down. There was always one who wanted to show off his English.

A long, green insect was walking slowly along the rim of his lowered window. A caterpillar-no, a centipede. He put his finger in its way. It climbed unhesitatingly onto it, its feet tickling his skin. He brought it up to eye-level to inspect it as it continued on its way, unaware of just having been hijacked, of the precariousness of its situation. He watched it move up and around his wrist with a sense of fellow feeling. Centipedes had held great significance for the ancient Egyptians. They'd been closely connected with death, but in a welcome way, because they fed on the numerous insects that themselves feasted on corpses, and so had been seen as protectors of the human body, guarding against decomposition, and thus an aspect of Osiris himself. He gently tapped his hand against the outside of the Jeep's door until it fell off and tumbled to the ground. Then he leaned out the window and watched it creep away until he lost it in the darkness.

Inside the cabin, the officer was reading details from his passport into the telephone. He replaced the handset and sat perched on the edge of his desk, waiting to be called back. Minutes passed. Knox looked around, noting that no one else was being kept-just cursory inspections and then a wave through. The phone in the cabin finally rang, and Knox watched apprehensively as the officer reached out to answer it.