The Alexander Cipher dk-1

by Will Adams

  "This is how it's going to work," said Nicolas. "You and Leonidas will go to see al-Assyuti. You'll negotiate our safe passage back to Greece. When Leonidas is satisfied, he'll call me and-"

  "Fuck that," said Knox. "I do nothing until Gaille is safe."

  Nicolas gave a tight smile. "When Leonidas is satisfied, he'll call me, and both you and the girl can go free."

  "Forget it. Let Gaille go now, and I'll do my best for you. You have my word."

  Nicolas sighed. "The girl's our leverage. You can't expect us to release her."

  "And Hassan's my leverage," replied Knox. "I'm not going to deal with him for you until the girl's safe."

  A siren wailed out on the main road. Flashing blue and red lights. They all turned as casually as they could, competing to show the least alarm. It was only an ambulance. They waited until it was out of sight.

  "We keep the girl," said Nicolas. "That's not up for discussion."

  Knox shrugged. "Then how about this," he suggested. "I go see Hassan, like you want. And I take your man with me. But Gaille comes, too."

  Nicolas snorted. "What kind of fool do you take me for?"

  "You want to get out of Egypt, don't you? All I want is this over and done with. We'll all go in together, if you don't trust me."

  "Sure!" mocked Nicolas. "Straight into your trap."

  "What trap? How on earth could I have arranged a trap? Besides, you're going to have to entrust yourself to al-Assyuti at some point."

  Nicolas glared at him for a few moments, trying to read what he was up to. But then he shook his head and beckoned for Leonidas and Bastiaan to come with him. The three of them walked off a few paces, conferring urgently but quietly. When they were done, Nicolas came back. "We'll all go in together," he said, as though it had been his idea. "But the girl will stay in the container with Eneas." He held up his cell phone. "Try anything, and if I even sniff a trap, it'll be the end of her. Understand?"

  Knox looked into his eyes. The devil and the deep blue sea, rocks and hard places, Scylla and Charybdis. Hurling nitro at glycerine in hopes of crawling out of the resulting crater wasn't much of a strategy, but he had no alternative. "Yes," he said.

  Nicolas gestured at the nearer SUV. "Good. Then, come with me."

  "If Gaille's in the truck, I'm in the truck."

  "Very well," scowled Nicolas. "We'll ride up front with Bastiaan."

  Oncoming headlights spiked into Knox's eyes as he sat between the two Greeks in the container truck's high cab. Adrenaline added luster to the ink-blue night sky, and his mind felt almost unnaturally sharp. Bastiaan drove anxiously, grinding the gears, muttering and cursing, uncomfortable, perhaps, with such a heavy load and-no doubt-with the situation he found himself in. Nicolas kept the muzzle of his Walther pressed unnecessarily hard into Knox's ribs while giving Bastiaan directions at the same time.

  They turned off the main road into an industrial park of low warehouses and cracked concrete. There was no other traffic. All the offices were closed. Every twenty meters or so, streetlights made yellow pools in the sea of black. A line of tall cranes marked the waterfront. A series of PRIVATE: KEEP OUT signs bearing the logo of Al-Assyuti Trading ran along a high chain-link fence. Bastiaan checked his side mirrors and slowed as they neared the entrance. The brakes began to sing, so he released them. He turned to make the approach, then pulled up at a wooden barrier and lowered his window to attract the attention of the elderly security guard playing checkers against himself in a glass-walled booth, watched by a Doberman on a leash. The old man sighed, hobbled across, squinted up at Bastiaan, and asked in Arabic what he wanted. Bastiaan shrugged and looked at Knox and Nicolas for assistance.

  "I'm Daniel Knox," said Knox. "Mr. al-Assyuti is expecting me."

  "All of you?" asked the man.

  "Yes."

  A ship's horn sounded in the distance. The guard shrugged and shook his head, then returned to his booth and made a call. With the window open, cool night air flooded in, bringing the smells of diesel, salt, and rotting fish. A security camera whirred and focused; then the barrier lifted. Bastiaan drove on through, struggling to pick up speed. The office buildings were at the far end of the terminal. Stacks of colored containers were everywhere, like a gigantic set of child's building blocks. There was no one in sight, no laborers, no forklift drivers, no truckers, no crane operators. Emptiness and silence. The four-by-fours fanned out like wingmen on either side of the truck. A huge ship lumbered along the canal, the lights of its bridge and deck doubling in the water, and Knox had a disembodied yet overpowering sensation that the past decade of his life was now reaching its climax. The deaths of his parents and his sister, his conflict with the Dragoumises, his years with Richard, the quest for Alexander. And Gaille, too-Gaille most of all.

  As if reading his mind, Nicolas punched a number into his cell phone. A moment later, Knox heard it ringing in the container behind them. When Eneas answered, Nicolas held it up for Knox to see. "I'll do it," he warned. "I'll have her killed if you try anything. I swear I will."

  Something about his choice of words made Knox frown. A memory of Elena came unexpectedly to his mind-of her standing before Dragoumis in the moment before she shot him, and the words she had used to explain herself. "Elena didn't kill Pavlos," he muttered. "She had him killed. That's what she told your father."

  Nicolas scowled. "So?"

  "Elena was an archaeologist, not a mafia wife. How would she have someone killed?"

  "How the fuck should I know?" But there was an edge of anxiety in Nicolas's voice.

  "How long has Costis worked for you?" demanded Knox, certain he was onto something.

  "Shut up!"

  "I bet he was working for you back then, wasn't he? Did Elena know him?"

  "Where do you get this bullshit?" protested Nicolas shrilly.

  "Elena went to Costis," asserted Knox. "She hired him to kill Pavlos."

  "Stop this!"

  "And that's why Elena shot him. Not because he was standing next to your father, but because he was the one who actually arranged the crash."

  "I said stop it!"

  "And Costis was on your payroll."

  "I'm telling you, this is your last warning."

  "He would never have accepted a job like that without clearing it with you first."

  Nicolas smacked Knox on the head with the barrel of the Walther. "I warned you!" he yelled.

  "Did you know my family would be in that car?" demanded Knox.

  "For fuck's sake! Shut up, will you!"

  "Did you know my sister would be in it?"

  "Just fucking shut up!"

  "She was sixteen years old," said Knox. "She was sixteen fucking years old."

  "This is war!" shrieked Nicolas. "Don't you understand? War! Sacrifices have to be made."

  There was a moment of shocked silence, as though neither man could quite believe the confession. Nicolas pointed the Walther at Knox's brow, his hand trembling with shame and fear, his finger on the trigger, ready to murder him merely to avoid his reproach. But then the truck's brakes began to sing again as Bastiaan pulled up outside the office building, and a man pushed through the darkened double doors ahead, letting them swing shut behind him.

  "Who's that?" muttered Nicolas. "Is that Hassan?"

  Knox shook his head. "Nessim."

  "Nessim?"

  "Hassan's head of security."

  "Security?" Nicolas's voice went flat, deadened by presentiment.

  Nessim waited until all the vehicles had come to a halt. Then he gave a signal, and all around them, on the roofs of containers, men armed with automatic weapons stood up, aiming down, poised to fire. Sash windows were raised in all the offices, and more gun barrels slithered out. "You're completely surrounded," shouted Nessim, hands cupped around his mouth. "Turn off your engines. Put away your weapons. Place your hands on your heads. Open your doors slowly. Then come out one by one. No one needs to die."

  Nicolas glared at Knox with utter loathin
g. He raised his cell phone. "It's a trap," he snarled. "Kill the-"

  Knox smashed the phone from Nicolas's hand before he could finish his command, but Nicolas still had the Walther, and he turned it on Knox as he pulled the trigger. Knox flung back his head so that the bullet only scorched his cheek before shattering the driver's-side window. It was like a starter's pistol, setting everyone off. Bursts of gunfire flashed orange from the SUV to their left. Nessim flung himself down. A countering firestorm erupted from on top of the containers and the office windows, turning the vehicle instantly into a sieve, bullets clanging and whistling and shrieking through the metal and off the asphalt. Knox grabbed Nicolas's wrist and twisted it until he dropped the Walther, while Bastiaan crunched the truck into reverse, gunning the engine in a desperate effort to pick up speed. There was yelling all around, cries of pain, people running, constant gunfire, but somehow the truck remained unscathed. The second four-by-four turned in a circle, automatic weapons blazing from its window. The firestorm turned its wrath onto the four-by-four, glass and metal puncturing and shattering. A back door opened, and a man jumped out. He ran five paces, firing blindly behind him before being cut down by a barrage of bullets.

  The truck was finally picking up speed. Nicolas and Knox fought for the Walther as it slid around the floor beneath the cab's seats. A single bullet put a cobweb in the windshield, and Bastiaan grunted and was thrown back, a small hole in the front of his forehead. Then he slumped forward, revealing a great red crater in the back of his skull. They began at once to lose speed. Nicolas seized the Walther and turned it on Knox, but Knox butted him on the bridge of the nose, then grabbed his wrist and slammed it repeatedly against the dashboard until he dropped the gun. Knox pushed Bastiaan's body aside and reached his foot across to hit the gas, causing them to accelerate once more. He wrenched the steering wheel around, reversing them toward the canal. Nicolas picked up the Walther again and aimed it at Knox just as the rear wheels dropped off the jetty's edge, and the undercarriage scraped and screeched on the canal wall. The weight of gold in the container used the jetty's edge as a fulcrum to hurl the cab into the air. Nicolas shrieked as they were flung upright, then plunged down into the water. The truck shuddered as it hit, then again as gravity threw Alexander's golden coffin and lid like twin battering rams into the rear doors, tearing them off their hinges, then spilling out into the canal, plunging down through the water.

  The truck bobbed twice, then flopped onto its belly. Without the golden coffin weighing it down, there was enough trapped air to keep it afloat for now. Nicolas tried to wrest open the passenger door to get out, but the weight of water wouldn't allow it. He rolled down the window instead, letting the canal gush in, frothing silver. He tried to climb out, but Knox grabbed his ankle and rolled the window back up, pinning his waist. The cab tipped onto its side, trapping Nicolas underwater. He kicked and kicked in an effort to break free, but Knox, his own head still above water, hardened his heart by reminding himself of his sister, his parents, and Rick. It seemed an age before Nicolas finally went still, then Knox climbed out the other window, keeping the container between himself and the gunmen now lining the jetty. His eyes were soon on fire from the polluted water, so that he had to feel his way around, but when he opened them in a blurry squint, he was sure for a moment that he could see the twin eye sockets of a skull staring back at him before it fell on its side, releasing bubbles like a dying breath, and swirling away down into the deeps.

  He shook his head to clear it. Let the dead bury the dead. He had Gaille to save. The container's rear doors had been ripped off, so he was able to pull himself inside. The heavy steel box was already two-thirds underwater and filling fast. Everything had tipped out during the plunge-everything but Gaille, saved by her rope cuffs around the handrail, as he had prayed she would be. But the water was already up to her throat, and she had her head tilted back, straining upward for air. Knox ducked underwater to find and then untie her bonds, but the wet knots had pulled tight, and the water level was rising all the time, over her chin now, her mouth, her nostrils. He kept on at the rope until he felt at last a little give in it, enough to work in a nail and then a fingertip, and suddenly the knots were loose. Gaille slipped her wrists free, and they both turned and swam for the mouth of the container, emerging from it together, gasping for breath, turning around to watch it vanish underwater with a final belch of released air.

  A line of men stood along the waterfront, rifles raised and aimed. Nessim, standing out front, pointed them to a flight of steps that led up out of the water. The fight that had kept Knox going finally deserted him. He knew that it was all up for himself, and all he could hope for now was to give Gaille a chance. He swam tiredly across, then helped her out by her elbow. She took his hand. He tried to pull free, to put distance between them, but she realized what he was up to, and refused to let go. They climbed the steps silently together, still holding hands, giving each other courage.

  "Follow me," ordered Nessim.

  Knox's leg had started bleeding again. It pulsed with pain, so that his limp was no longer an act. Hassan's men were pulling bodies out of the SUVs. A rear door fell open, and Vasileios's head flopped out, his Kalashnikov rattling onto the concourse. Weapons immediately turned toward the noise, safety catches off. Then they realized there was no danger, and someone cracked a joke and everybody laughed-relief from the nervous tension of combat. Knox's sodden clothes grew increasingly chilled. He put his arm around Gaille, squeezed her shoulder, kissed her temple. She smiled bravely at him. The polluted water burned tears from his eyes, which ran freely down his cheeks. Wiping them away, he kept thinking about the moment Nicolas had shuddered and died, the door between life and death, where they themselves were now standing. Despite his fear, he had no urge to run. It was out of his hands; the jury had retired. Nessim showed them into a drab office with a huge stuffed fish in a glass case, and tattered charts of freshwater and marine species on the wall. He left for a moment, returned with two dirty hand towels, and tossed them one each. They wiped dry their faces and arms. Knox sat down and clamped his towel over his leg. "What happens now?" he asked.

  "We wait," said Nessim.

  "For what?"

  "Mr. al-Assyuti was in Sharm when you called. He'll be here any minute."

  "This has nothing to do with the girl," said Knox. "Let her go."

  "We wait for Mr. al-Assyuti," said Nessim.

  "Please," begged Knox. "I let you and your men go in Tanta. You owe me. Let her go."

  But Nessim only shook his head. Knox closed his eyes, weary, frightened and dismayed. It galled him that al-Assyuti, of all men, would be the one to benefit. He would have no trouble hauling up the sarcophagus and lid from the mud and murk of the canal bed, and once he did, he would pry out the gemstones and melt down the gold, destroying forever one of the great finds of modern archaeology. And who could say that he wouldn't get his hands on the rest of the Siwa treasure, too-him or Yusuf Abbas or the two of them together? The thought of such corrupt men turning so glorious a find to their own benefit made him feel physically ill. His whole life, Knox had searched for such objects-not for their intrinsic value but for the knowledge they brought with them. And yet, first by cutting the Gordian Knot, then by reversing the container truck into the canal, he had willfully played a part, just to give himself and Gaille a chance of life where there had seemed no chance at all. And it hadn't even worked. Then he looked sideways at her sitting beside him, and he felt a certain peace, because he knew absolutely that if he had it to do over again, even knowing what he knew now, he wouldn't hesitate. He took her hand again, interlaced fingers, and gave her a little squeeze of reassurance. She smiled and reciprocated, caressing his skin with her thumb.

  Fifteen minutes passed before headlights sprang through the window. Knox's heart accelerated. He glanced again at Gaille, who was looking as frightened as he felt. Footsteps grew loud; then Nessim opened the door, and Hassan al-Assyuti walked through, hands clasped behind his
back. He looked bigger than Knox remembered. His eye and jaw were both puffy, and he grimaced as he moved, as though still feeling the beating he had taken.

  "Let the girl go," said Knox at once. "She knows nothing about this."

  Hassan smiled wolfishly, showing a flash of gold where previously there had only been white. "You're a hard man to find, Mr. Knox. My men have been scouring all Egypt."

  "We had a deal," said Knox. "I said I'd come to see you. You said you'd get a shipment out for me. I'm here. She's the shipment. Keep your word. Get her out."

  "You don't think you've breached the terms of that particular contract? You don't think three vehicles filled with armed and hostile men allows me to-"

  "Please," said Knox. "I'm begging you. Do what you want with me, but let the girl go."

  "What? So she can walk straight out of here and sell her story to the press?"

  "She won't do that. Tell him, Gaille. Give him your word."

  "Fuck him," said Gaille through chattering teeth. "I'm staying with you."

  Hassan barked out a laugh of mixed amusement and admiration. "You prefer looks to intelligence in your women, I see."

  "You won't get away with this."

  "Get away with what?" shrugged Hassan. "All I've done so far is rescue you from a situation of extreme jeopardy. You should be thanking me. As for what I'm going to do next…"

  "Yes?" asked Knox.

  "You humiliated me in Sharm, Mr. Knox," said Hassan, the tendons taut in his neck. "People have been laughing at me. At me, Mr. Knox. At me. I'm sure you appreciate that I can't allow such things to go… unremedied." He came a step closer, leaning down so that the tip of his nose was almost touching Knox's, his breath sour in Knox's nostrils. "It's a simple matter of respect."