The Alexander Cipher

by Will Adams

  Up ahead, at a level crossing, a passenger train crawled into view on his side of the road. Traffic slowed to allow it past, but Knox stamped his foot down and swerved into oncoming traffic, honking furiously to move others aside. The train was still coming. There was almost no room, but he kept his foot to the floor and charged across the tracks, the train’s engine flicking his rear bumper and nudging him against a wooden gatepost, but then he was through and swerving back into his own lane with nothing but clear road ahead, ignoring the fists being shaken and horns angrily honking. A glance in his mirror. The train had come to a complete halt across the road. He’d have at least a minute, probably two. He turned a corner and parked. No way had Nessim picked up his trail just like that, not in a maze like Alexandria. If Augustin’s place had been under surveillance, maybe they’d found his Jeep, too. He got down on all fours to search and found the transmitter taped to his undercarriage. He pulled it free and ran back to the street, flagged down a taxi, and paid the driver to deliver it to the Sheraton in Montazah Bay. Then he jogged back to his Jeep and drove off in the opposite direction.

  Nessim wasn’t a fool. He’d soon realize he’d been tricked. Knox had to make the most of this short window. But Alexandria wasn’t like other cities, with a hundred escape points. His choices were essentially to head south to Cairo, east to Port Said, or west to El Alamein. But Nessim would have backups, that was for sure. Hassan didn’t operate on the cheap; he’d have those routes watched for an old green Jeep. So maybe he should lie low until they dropped their guard. But where? He was toxic; he dare not inflict himself on any more friends. Nessim would certainly check all of Alexandria’s hotels. And he couldn’t stay on the street. Anyone could spot him. He needed to get underground.

  The idea, when it came to him, was both so outrageous and so fitting that he gave a snort of laughter and almost rear-ended the van in front of him.

  AN UNWELCOME SURPRISE awaited Nicolas Dragoumis when he and his bodyguard, Bastiaan, drove in from Alexandria Airport to the necropolis site. He wanted to get right to raising the plinth to find out what lay beneath, but Ibrahim had evidently decided to make an event of these proceedings. All the excavators were lined up in a greeting party to shake his hand, and there were tables set up, their white cloths laden with cups of tea and disgusting-looking cream cakes. Clearly, he was expected to exchange small talk with these people. It wasn’t something he was skilled at, being polite to nonentities. But he was playing for high stakes, so he gritted his teeth and hid his scowl and did his best.

  KNOX STOPPED AT THE FIRST ATM he saw and pillaged it for money. Hassan knew he was in Alexandria anyway; there was no point keeping a low profile. Then he went shopping for supplies: a bulky waterproof bag, food, water, an underwater flashlight, a battery lamp, spare batteries, books to read. From an automotive store he bought a green tarpaulin. Then he drove off to the forbidding residential district south of the main train station, parked, and hid his Jeep beneath it.

  He packed all his other supplies into the waterproof bag and strapped it tight around his waist, placing the bulk over his stomach so that, beneath his robes, he simply looked overweight. Then he hurried to the site, flashing his SCA pass at the security guard on the stairwell, who nodded him through without a murmur. Down in the rotunda, two laborers were fixing a steel gate over the entrance to the Macedonian tomb, being supervised by Mohammed and Mansoor, who glanced up as Knox passed. Mansoor frowned in half recognition. “You!” he called out. “Come here.” Knox ducked his head and hurried deeper into the necropolis. “Hey!” cried out Mansoor. “Stop!”

  But Knox kept going, pushing his way past excavators bringing baskets of human remains to the rotunda. Footsteps behind only made him go faster. Several of the chambers had already been completely cleared of artifacts, the lights taken from them and redeployed where they were needed. He had intended to slip into one and hide in an empty loculus until nightfall. Now there was no chance of that.

  “Hey!” cried Mansoor behind him. “Stop that man! I want to talk to him.” Knox hurried on down the steps until he reached the water table and could go no farther. Since they removed the pump, the level had risen again, so that it was now as it had been, with all the air expelled. He had no time. He walked slowly into the water, so as not to disturb it too much. Bubbles escaped from his robes; the waterproof bag around his waist bellied and tried to float. The search drew closer behind him; they were checking each of the chambers in turn. He filled his lungs with air, pressed his left hand against the wall, then ducked his head beneath the black water and propelled himself along the corridor, navigating by memory. His hunger for breath built steadily. He reached the third chamber and swam to its top corner and was relieved to find that his internal compass hadn’t let him down. He kicked up out of the water and hauled himself up into the chamber beneath the rotunda, the waterproof bag of supplies still around his waist. He took off his soaking robes, untied the bag, dried himself, and put on trousers and a T-shirt. It wasn’t the Ritz exactly, but it would keep him safe for a while, at least. A cubic meter of air would last him the better part of an hour if he didn’t exert himself. There were about forty-eight cubic meters in this place, which meant he could stay here tonight and tomorrow. Then he would head back after the excavators had left and hide overnight in an empty loculus before leaving with the others at lunch—as long as no one figured out where he’d vanished to, of course.

  He tried to get comfortable, but it wasn’t easy. Alone and in darkness, surrounded by underwater tombs filled with mortal remains, half expecting someone to pop up at any moment, it wasn’t surprising he felt anxious. But as time passed, he felt other emotions, too. Envy. Anger. He was the one who had realized there was something beneath the plinth. Yet here he was, a fugitive, while others got to open it. And he was so close to it! After all, the necropolis came around in a great spiral, so that the Macedonian tomb was just a few meters away from where he was now.

  Yes, he frowned. Just a few meters away.

  Quarrying stone was brutal work under the best of conditions. It was twice as difficult if your only access was via a narrow shaft. Electricity made it easy to forget how difficult a problem lighting had been for the ancients. Candles and fat-burning lamps had eaten up oxygen, so that rudimentary ventilation systems had been invaluable. Two access points were far better than one, allowing both laborers and air to circulate. And once the quarrying had been completed and secrecy became paramount, it would have made sense to seal up for good the larger means of access, maybe by laying stone over it and covering it with a mosaic.

  He set down his lamp on the floor, then began a diligent survey of the walls, tapping them with the base of his flashlight, listening to the echo, hoping to hear a slightly higher pitch that might indicate a cavity behind. He worked from base to apex, then shuffled half a meter to his left and began again. Nothing. He checked the floors and ceilings, then the staircase. Still nothing. He bit his teeth in frustration. It had made such good sense. Yet it seemed he’d been wrong.

  NICOLAS HAD HAD AS MUCH OF BEING POLITE as he could take. He grabbed Ibrahim by the arm and dragged him to one side. “Perhaps we could get started,” he said tightly. “I need to get back to Thessalonike tonight.”

  “Of course. Yes. But there’s just one more person I’d like you to meet.”

  “Who?” sighed Nicolas.

  “Mohammed el-Dahab,” said Ibrahim, pointing to a mountain of a man. “He’s site manager for the construction company.”

  “And then we can start?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” They walked across. “Salaam alekum,” said Nicolas curtly.

  “Wa alekum es salaam,” replied Mohammed. “And thank you. Thank you.”

  Nicolas frowned. “What for?”

  “The sick girl I told you about,” beamed Ibrahim. “She’s Mohammed’s daughter.”

  Nicolas looked back and forth in surprise between the two men. “You mean there really is a sick girl?”r />
  “Of course,” frowned Ibrahim. “What did you think?”

  “Forgive me,” laughed Nicolas. “I’ve been dealing too much with your compatriots in Cairo. I assumed baksheesh.”

  “No,” said Mohammed emphatically. “This money makes all the difference to us. Your money gives my daughter a chance. We’ll hear our results tonight. But whatever the outcome, my family is forever in your debt.”

  “It was nothing,” said Nicolas. “Really.” He turned back to Ibrahim, glanced at his watch. “Now, really, we must get started,” he said.

  KNOX SAT IN THE DARKNESS with his back against one of the support walls, biting the knuckle of his thumb in frustration. It just made too much sense for this place to be connected to the lower chamber. Yet he’d checked every square inch of the chamber’s exterior he could get at, everything except for those areas blocked by the support walls.

  He frowned. There had to be at least two feet of limestone above his head, and yet there were support walls. He pushed himself up onto his knees, placed his palms flat against one of them, and rested his cheek against it, as though to listen to its secrets. Why on earth would anyone have bothered? This chamber was excavated out of solid rock. The ceiling didn’t need props. There were dozens of chambers in this necropolis, and dozens of necropolises in Alexandria. In none of them had Knox ever seen support walls like this. So maybe they weren’t support walls at all. Maybe they had another purpose. Maybe they were hiding something.

  He walked up and down, inspecting them closely. They were each made up of six columns of six blocks. Each block was a little more than a foot high and wide, and about three feet long, stacked sideways, with the old mortar between them crumbled into dust. He went to where the support wall abutted the exterior wall, and pushed hard against the top block. It grated but slowly gave, revealing a glimpse of solid limestone behind. He left it for the time being and went to the second support wall. This time, when he pushed back the top block, he exposed the edge of a hole in the exterior wall. He tried to push the top two blocks back together, but they were too heavy for him, so he climbed up between the walls like a climber in a rock chimney, then pushed the blocks back with his feet until they were pinned precariously between the remaining blocks beneath and the ceiling above. He dropped down again and went to inspect what he had revealed. A tight hole into a compact space the size of a broom closet, another wall at its far end. He filled his pockets with everything he might need, then squeezed through headfirst, falling hard on his hands and landing with a grunt.

  He turned on the flashlight, brushed off his palms, and went to inspect the far wall. It was built of bricks rather than blocks, small enough for one person to manage with relative ease. Knox felt his breath coming faster as he spread his palm out on it. Whatever lay on the other side had to be connected with the plinth, which Ibrahim was due to raise at any moment. He cupped an ear against it but could hear nothing. It was crazy even to consider going on. If he were found, he’d be looking at serious jail time. But he was so close. Surely one brick couldn’t do any harm. Not if he was careful.

  He scratched away the dead mortar, then pulled out a single brick and rested it ever so gently on the floor. He listened intently for half a minute. There was complete silence. He tried to peer through, but the hole was too small for both his eyes and his flashlight together. He reached the flashlight through the gap instead, then squinted as best he could along the line of his arm. But the flashlight was now pointed in the wrong direction, so he couldn’t make out a thing. Trying to twist his hand around, his fingers involuntarily opened a fraction and the flashlight slipped agonizingly from his grasp. He tried to grab it back but it fell in spirals and landed with a splashy thump in shallow water, its beam making ghostly white ripples on the facing wall.

  Chapter Seventeen

  KNOX HAD NO CHOICE but to retrieve the flashlight. Ibrahim, Mansoor, and others were about to raise the plinth, and if they found it, he was certain to be discovered. Besides, he had time. The place was still quiet. He began dismantling the wall, brick by brick, placing them precisely on the ground, the old mortar still resting on them, so that he would be able to rebuild the wall exactly as he’d found it. When he had created enough space, he poked his head through, catching a pungent whiff of ammonia. It was a low, arched corridor with a watery floor, like some Victorian sewer. Its walls were even scratched with lines to make it look as though it had been built of bricks rather than excavated, perhaps to disguise the passage he had just broken through, but possibly because the ancients had simply considered construction more prestigious than excavation.

  He stretched down for his flashlight but couldn’t quite reach it, not without leaning on the wall, which he didn’t trust to hold his weight. He removed another two rows of bricks, then straddled what remained. The water felt sharp on his bare foot as he stooped to retrieve the light. He listened intently. Nothing but silence. He was here now. It would be criminal not to take a quick look.

  He splashed along the corridor, brushing aside cobwebs, his imagination sensing eels and nocturnal creatures around his bare ankles. He came to a compact chamber beneath a chimney shaft, its mouth blocked by some kind of slab. The plinth, no doubt. He went back the other way and came to a marble portal with an Ancient Greek inscription cut into its architrave:

  Together in life; together in death. Kelonymus.

  Kelonymus. The name was familiar, as Akylos had been. But the memory wouldn’t come and time was short, so he passed beneath it, reaching the foot of a broad flight of stone steps that spread out like a fan as it rose. And at the top . . .

  “Jesus Christ!” muttered Knox.

  “WHAT’S GOING ON?” demanded Nicolas, as a large crowd of senior excavators and other guests descended the stairwell to the rotunda.

  “How do you mean?” frowned Ibrahim.

  “All these people?” said Nicolas. “You can’t seriously be inviting them all.”

  “Just to watch. From the antechamber. This is a big moment for us.”

  “No,” said Nicolas. “You, me, your archaeologist, Elena. That’s all.”

  “But I’ve already—”

  “I mean it. If you want the remainder of your Dragoumis sponsorship money, you’ll kick these people out now.”

  “It’s not that simple,” protested Ibrahim. “We need Mohammed to lift the plinth. We need the girl to take photographs. Moments like these don’t come often, you know.”

  “Fine. Those two. No others.”

  “But I—”

  “No others,” said Nicolas emphatically. “This isn’t a circus. This is supposed to be a serious excavation.”

  “Fine,” sighed Ibrahim. And he turned with a sagging heart to disappoint the crowd of excited excavators.

  KNOX’S MOUTH HUNG OPEN as he played his flashlight over the chamber like a searchlight over a bombarded city. He struggled to believe his eyes. To his right, a terrace had been hewn in the limestone. Sixteen golden larnaxes, or burial caskets, stood on each of two shelves, making thirty-two in all. Glass bowls had toppled and fallen both over the shelves and the floor, scattering their contents of precious and semiprecious stones. Also on the floor were countless precious artifacts: swords and spears and shields and amphorae of silver and clay. White marble had been inlaid into the far wall, a lengthy inscription carved into it, though too distant for him to make out what it said.

  But it was the left-hand wall that mesmerized Knox. It was a huge mosaic, framed at the top by turquoise-painted plaster that represented the sky, and which contoured the main subject matter like a chalk mark around a corpse. Thirty-three men, clearly soldiers, though not all armed, were gathered into two overlapping clusters, one in the foreground, the other farther back. They looked remarkably relaxed and cheerful. Some talked among themselves, arms around each other’s shoulders. Others wrestled on the sand or played dice. But kneeling at the center was the mosaic’s focal point and the group’s clear leader: a slight, handsome man with russet h
air, who looked out of the wall with a purposeful gaze. Both his hands were clasped on the hilt of his sword, plunged deep into the sand. Knox blinked. No one could study Greco-Roman history without developing a knowledge of mosaic. Yet he’d never seen anything like this.

  He had no camera with him except for the one in his mobile phone. He hadn’t even turned it on since Sinai, worried that it would lead Hassan straight to him, but there was no chance of it transmitting a signal this deep underground. He tiptoed carefully into the chamber, photographing the mosaic, the burial caskets, the grave goods scattered on the floor, the inscription. He became so completely absorbed in this work that it was only when he heard a grinding, ripping noise from way behind him that he belatedly remembered the raising of the plinth.

  Chapter Eighteen

  BASTIAAN AND THREE burly Egyptian security guards kept the disgruntled excavators out of the Macedonian tomb while Mohammed and Mansoor attacked the plinth as they had on the day before, working the tips of their crowbars beneath one end and levering it up. It came more easily this time. They raised it a few inches, just enough for Ibrahim to slide in a hydraulic jack, which they pumped high enough to slide a pallet-trolley beneath. Then they repeated the process at the other end and simply wheeled the plinth back against the wall.