The Alexander Cipher dk-1 Page 7

  "No? Anyway, the city fell into ruin and all the great sites became lost, even Alexander's mausoleum. And we've never found it since, though we've tried, believe me." Countless excavators had tried, including Heinrich Schliemann, fresh from his triumphs at Troy and Mycenae. All had come up empty.

  "You must have some idea."

  "All the sources agree that it was on the northeast of the ancient crossroads," said Ibrahim. "The trouble is, we're not sure where that was. All these new buildings, you see. Two hundred years ago, yes. A thousand years ago, easy. But now…"

  "People say Alexander is buried beneath the Mosque of the Prophet Daniel. They say he's in a golden casket."

  "They're wrong, I'm afraid."

  "Then why do they say this?"

  Ibrahim was quiet for a moment, collecting his thoughts. "You know that Alexander appears in the Qur'an?" he asked. "Yes, as the prophet Zulkarnein, the two-horned one. Leo the African, a sixteenth-century Arab writer, talked of pious Muslims making pilgrimages to Alexander's tomb, and he said it was near the church of Saint Mark, as the Mosque of the Prophet Daniel also is. And Arab legends talk of a prophet Daniel who conquered all Asia, founded Alexandria, and was buried here in a golden coffin. Who else could that be but Alexander? You can certainly see why people might confuse the mosque with Alexander's tomb. And then, oh, about a hundred and sixty years ago now, a Greek man claimed he'd glimpsed a body wearing a diadem on a throne in the mosque's vaults. It's a very seductive idea. There's only one problem with it."

  "Yes?"

  "It's completely wrong."

  Mohammed laughed. "You're sure?"

  "I've searched the vaults myself," said Ibrahim. "Believe me, they're Roman, not Ptolemaic. Five or six hundred years too late. But the idea has stuck, not least because our best map of the ancient city marks Alexander's mausoleum very near the mosque."

  "There you are, then!"

  "The map was made for Napoleon the Third," said Ibrahim. "A nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte who became emperor of France. Anyway, he was writing a biography of Julius Caesar, and he needed information on ancient Alexandria, so he asked his friend Khedive Ismail for a map of it. But there wasn't one at the time, not a reliable one at least, so Khedive Ismail commissioned a man called Mahmoud el-Falaki to make it."

  "Research is certainly easier if you're an emperor."

  "Quite," agreed Ibrahim. "And it's a really fine piece of cartography, too. But not perfect, I'm afraid. He fell for the old legends, too. He marked Alexander's tomb near the mosque, and all the modern guidebooks and histories now reprint it, keeping the myth alive. The poor imam of the Nabi Daniel Mosque is constantly being pestered by tourists hoping to find Alexander, but they won't find him there, believe me."

  "Where should they be looking?"

  "On the northeast side of the old crossroads, as I said. Near the Terra Santa cemetery, probably. A little northwest of the Shallalat Gardens."

  Mohammed was looking downcast. Ibrahim patted his forearm. "Don't give up hope just yet," he said. "There's something I haven't told you."

  "What?"

  "I haven't told anyone. I don't want rumors to start, you know."

  "Tell me."

  "The thing is, Alexander didn't have just one tomb in Alexandria. He had two."

  "Two?"

  "Yes. The Soma, the great mausoleum I told you about, was built around 215 BC by Ptolemy Philopater, the fourth of the Ptolemaic kings. But, before that, he had a different tomb, almost certainly more in the traditional Macedonian style. More, as it happens, like the one you and your men found yesterday."

  Mohammed looked wonderingly at him. "You think this is what we have found?"

  "We won't know until we see it," said Ibrahim. "But don't get too excited. This was Alexander, remember; the Ptolemies would surely have built something spectacular for him." Not that they knew what. They didn't even know when Alexander's body had been brought up here from Memphis, where it had been held while his mausoleum was being built. The modern consensus was 285 BC, nearly forty years after his death, though no one had satisfactorily explained why the transfer should have taken so long. "Apart from anything else, we believe that they would have wanted to keep his body on display, so it's unlikely he'd have been kept deep underground. But that's the wonderful thing about archaeology," grinned Ibrahim. "You never know for sure."

  There was something else, too, though nothing he felt like sharing with Mohammed. It was that ever since he'd been a small boy, listening to his father murmur him to sleep with tales of the founder of this great city, he'd had a sense of destiny. One day, he would play his part in the rediscovery of the tomb of Alexander. And this morning, as he lay awake in bed, he had a reprise of that feeling, a conviction that the time was upon him. And for all his intellectual misgivings, he was sure in his heart that it had something to do with the tomb they were on their way to inspect.

  Nessim had been on the go all night, working furiously to catch Knox before Hassan woke. But he had failed. Fifteen minutes ago he received his summons, and now here he was, steeling himself with a clenched fist before knocking on his boss's bedroom door at Sharm's medical center.

  Nessim had joined the Egyptian Army at the age of seventeen and had become a paratrooper, one of the elite. But a twisted knee put an end to his hopes of active service, so he resigned his commission out of boredom to become a mercenary in the endless African wars. When a mortar round had landed fizzing practically in his lap yet hadn't exploded, it convinced him that it was time for another change of pace. Back in Egypt, he had made a name for himself as a bodyguard before being recruited by Hassan as his head of security. Nessim didn't scare easily; if he did, he would never have survived such a life. But Hassan scared him. Having to report bad news scared him.

  "Come in," muttered Hassan. His voice was softer than usual, and a little wheezy. He'd lost a tooth and suffered severe bruising of his ribs, too, which evidently made breathing painful. "Well?" he asked.

  "Would you please excuse us?" Nessim asked the doctor sitting beside his bed.

  "With pleasure," said the doctor, a shade too emphatically for his own good.

  Nessim closed the door behind him. "We've got the girl," he told Hassan. "She was going for a bus."

  "And Knox?"

  "We almost had him. At Cairo Airport. He got away."

  "Almost?" said Hassan. "What good is almost?"

  "I'm sorry, sir."

  Hassan closed his eyes. Evidently, yelling hurt too much. "You call yourself my head of security?" he said. "Look at me! And you let the man who did this wander around Egypt like some kind of tourist?"

  "You'll have my resignation as soon as-"

  "I don't want your resignation," said Hassan. "I want Knox. I want him here. Do you understand? I want you to bring him to me. I want to see his face. I want him to know what he's done and what's going to happen to him because of it."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I don't care what it takes. I don't care how much you spend. I don't care what favors you have to call in. Use the army. Use the police. Whatever is necessary. Am I clear?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well?" asked Hassan. "Why are you still here?"

  "With respect, sir, there are different ways to catch him. One, as you rightly suggest, is by using our contacts in the police and the army."

  Hassan squinted. He was a shrewd man, for all his wrath. "But?"

  "It was easy enough to secure their help last night. We simply told them that Knox had caused a serious incident on a boat though the details were still unclear. But tomorrow and the day after, if we still want their active help, they'll want evidence of this serious incident."

  Hassan looked at Nessim in disbelief. "Are you saying what he did to me isn't sufficient evidence?"

  "Of course not, sir."

  "Then what are you saying?"

  "So far, very few people know anything more than rumors. I picked your medical team myself, and they know better than to talk. I've had
my own people guarding your door; no one has been allowed in without my explicit permission. But if we involve the police, they'll want to investigate for themselves. They'll send officers to interview you and take photographs and talk to the other guests on the boat, including your Stuttgart friend and the girl. And I wonder if that would be helpful at this particular moment-or, indeed, whether it would be good for your reputation to have photographs of your injuries reaching the newspapers or the Internet alongside exaggerated reports of how they were incurred, which could easily happen, because we both know you have enemies as well as friends in the police. And you should ask yourself what it would do for your personal authority if people got to see what a mere dive instructor had done to you-and that he'd managed to escape, too, even if only for a little while."

  Hassan frowned. He knew the value of being feared. "What's our alternative?"

  "We drop the charges. We say it was all a misunderstanding, and we put the fear of god into the girl and then get her out of the country. You lie low until you've recovered. Meanwhile, we go after Knox ourselves."

  There was a long silence. "Very well," said Hassan finally. "But you're to take personal charge. And I expect results. Understand?"

  "Yes, sir. I understand entirely."

  Chapter Seven

  It was Gaille's first visit to Alexandria, and it didn't make much of a first impression, with traffic barely moving along the Corniche, the city's famous seafront. The masts of fishing boats and yachts in the Eastern Harbor jangled in a light breeze that brought with it a faint acidic tang. She rested her head back, shielding her eyes from the early morning sun as it flickered between tall, rectangular, sun-bleached hotels, apartment blocks, and offices, all pocked with satellite dishes. The place was coming to life like a gigantic yawn. Alexandria had always been the late riser of Egyptian cities. Shops were raising steel shutters, lowering canopies. Groups of portly men sipped coffees at pastry cafes and watched benignly as ragged boys and girls wended through the traffic selling packs of napkins and cigarettes. The alleys leading away from the harbor front were tight, dark, and faintly menacing. A tram already crammed with passengers paused to take on more. A policeman in a dazzling white uniform and flat cap held up his hand to divert them right. An ancient commuter train clanked and rattled with taunting slowness through a crossing. Young boys played chase in its open cattle cars.

  Elena glanced pointedly at her watch. "You're sure this is the right way?"

  Gaille shrugged helplessly. Her only map was a crude photocopy from an outdated backpacker guidebook. She had a nagging suspicion that she had already gone badly wrong, though she had learned enough about her new boss not to admit it. "I think so," she equivocated.

  Elena sighed loudly. "At least you could make an effort."

  "I'm doing my best." Gaille couldn't shake off the suspicion that she was being punished for her intrusion into the site yesterday or was at least being opportunistically expelled from the Delta dig because of it. They were approaching a large intersection. Elena looked at her expectantly for directions. "Turn right," said Gaille.

  "Are you sure?"

  "It should be somewhere along here on the left or right."

  "Somewhere along here on the left or right?" snorted Elena. "That's really helpful."

  Gaille leaned forward, staring through the windshield, her brain aching from lack of sleep and too much coffee. There was a construction site ahead, a huge concrete high-rise with steel rebar waggling like spider legs from the top. She said in desperation, "I think this must be it."

  "You think this must be it; or this is actually it?"

  "I've never been to Alexandria before," protested Gaille. "How should I know?"

  Elena huffed noisily and shook her head, but she signaled and swung through double gates, then bumped along a rutted track. Three Egyptian men were conferring animatedly at the far end. "That's Ibrahim," muttered Elena, with such obvious chagrin that Gaille had to fight back a smile. If Elena thought she was gloating… They parked. Gaille quickly opened her door and jumped down, suffering a momentary, debilitating flutter of shyness. Normally she was confident in professional situations, but she had no faith in her skills as a photographer and consequently felt like a fraud. She went around to the back of the flatbed, ostensibly to check her belongings and equipment, but in truth to hide.

  Elena yelled out for her. She took a deep breath to compose herself, fixed a smile to her lips, then walked around to meet them. "Ibrahim," said Elena, indicating the elegant man in the center of the group, "I'd like you to meet Gaille."

  "Our esteemed photographer! We are truly grateful."

  "I'm not really a-"

  "Gaille's an excellent photographer," said Elena, with a sharp glance. "What's more, she's an ancient-languages expert, too."

  "Splendid! Splendid!" He gestured to his two companions, who were spreading out a site map on the ground. "Mansoor and Mohammed," he said. "Mansoor is my right hand. He runs all our excavations in Alexandria. I couldn't survive without him. And Mohammed is the construction manager for this hotel."

  "Pleased to meet you both," said Gaille.

  They glanced up from their map and nodded politely. Ibrahim smiled distractedly, glanced at his watch. "Just one more to come. You know Augustin Pascal?"

  Elena snorted. "Only by reputation."

  "Yes," nodded Ibrahim seriously. "He's a fine underwater archaeologist."

  "That wasn't what I meant," said Elena.

  "Oh."

  An awkward silence followed, broken only when an engine roared at the mouth of the site. "Ah!" said Ibrahim. "Here he is."

  A thirty-something man cruised up the approach on a gleaming black-and-chrome chopper, wending around potholes, bare-headed, allowing his long dark hair to flow free. He was wearing mirror shades, two days' worth of stubble, a leather jacket, jeans, calf-high black biker boots. He rode the chopper up onto its kickstand, stepped off, and fished a cigarette and a brass Zippo from his shirt pocket.

  "You're late," said Ibrahim.

  "Desole," he grunted, shielding the flame. "Something came up."

  Mansoor asked wryly, "Sophia, I suppose?"

  Augustin grinned wolfishly. "You know I'd never take advantage of my students like that." Elena clucked her tongue and muttered a Greek obscenity beneath her breath. Augustin grinned and turned to her, spreading his hands. "Yes?" he asked. "You see something you like, perhaps?"

  "How could I?" retorted Elena. "You're standing in the way."

  Mansoor laughed and slapped Augustin on the shoulder, but Augustin looked unruffled. He looked Elena up and down, then gave her a grin of frank approval, perhaps even of intent, for she was a striking woman, and anger added a certain something to her coloring. Gaille winced and took half a step back, waiting for the inevitable eruption, but Ibrahim stepped between them just in time.

  "Well," he said, with nervous jauntiness. "Let's start, shall we?"

  The ancient spiral steps looked precarious, and Gaille descended warily, but they reached the bottom without alarm and gathered in the rotunda. The corner of a black-and-white pebble mosaic showed beneath the rubble. Gaille pointed it out in a murmur to Elena. "Ptolemaic," declared Elena loudly, going down on her haunches to brush away the dust. "Two-fifty BC, give or take."

  Augustin pointed to the sculpted walls. "Those are Roman," he said.

  "Are you suggesting I can't tell a Macedonian mosaic when I see one?"

  "I'm suggesting that the carvings are Roman."

  Ibrahim held up his palms. "How about this?" he suggested. "Perhaps this site started out as a private tomb for some wealthy Macedonian, which would explain the mosaic. Then, when the Romans came three hundred years later, they decided to turn it into a necropolis."

  "That would explain the staircase," admitted Elena grudgingly. "Macedonians didn't usually build in spirals. Only straight lines or squares."

  "And they'd have needed to widen the shaft when they expanded it into a necropolis," agreed A
ugustin. "For light and ventilation, and to lower corpses, and to take out quarried stone. They used to sell it to builders, you know."

  "Yes," said Elena scathingly. "I did know, thank you."

  Gaille was barely listening. She was staring dizzily up at the circle of sky high above her head. Christ, but she was out of her depth. An emergency excavation offered no second chances, so within the next two weeks, the mosaic and all these exquisite carvings and everything else in this place would need to be photographed. After that, the place would probably be sealed forever. Artifacts like these deserved a professional photographer, someone with an eye for the work, experience, sophisticated equipment, lighting. She plucked anxiously at Elena's sleeve, but Elena brushed her off, following Mohammed down the steps into the forecourt of the Macedonian tomb. They paused to admire the shining white marble blocks of the facade and entablature, then pressed on through the half-open bronze door into the tomb's antechamber.

  "Look!" said Mansoor, pointing his flashlight at the side walls. They went closer to inspect them. There was paint on the plaster, though terribly faded. It had been common practice in antiquity for important scenes from the dead person's life to be painted in or around the tomb. "You can photograph these?" asked Mansoor.

  "I'm not sure how well they'll come out," said Gaille wretchedly.

  "You must wash them first," said Augustin. "Lots and lots of water. The pigment may look dead now, but give them some water and they will spring back to life like beautiful flowers. Trust me."

  "Not too much water," warned Mansoor. "And don't set up your lights too close. The heat will crack the plaster."

  Gaille looked around desperately at Elena, who studiously refused to meet her eye. Instead, she shone her flashlight at the inscription above the portal into the main chamber. "Akylos of the thirty-three," said Augustin, translating from the Ancient Greek. Elena fumbled and dropped her flashlight at that moment, cursing violently, so Ibrahim turned his light on the inscription instead, allowing Augustin to complete his translation. "Akylos of the thirty-three. To be the best and to be honored above the rest."