The Alexander Cipher. Will Adams

completely wrong.’

      Mohammed laughed. ‘You’re sure?’

      ‘I’ve searched the vaults myself,’ nodded 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 ancient Alexandria marks the mausoleum very near the mosque.’

      ‘There you are, then!’

      ‘It was made for Napoleon the Third,’ said Ibrahim. ‘He needed information on ancient Alexandria for his biography of Julius Caesar, so he asked his friend Khedive Ismail. But there was no reliable map at the time, 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 work. But not perfect, I’m afraid. He fell for the old legends too, because he marked Alexander’s tomb near the mosque, and all the modern guide books and histories now reprint it, keeping the myth alive. The poor imam 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 north-east side of the old crossroads, like I said. Near the Terra Santa cemetery, probably. A little north-west 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 rumours to start, you know. And you mustn’t get your hopes up. You really mustn’t.’

      ‘Tell me.’

      ‘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 in around 215 BC by Ptolemy Philopater, the fourth of the Ptolemaic kings. But, before that, he had a different tomb, more in the traditional Macedonian style. More, as it were, like the one you and your men found yesterday.’

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

      ‘No,’ said Ibrahim gently. ‘I really don’t. 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 here from Memphis. 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. ‘We believe that his body would have been on display, so it’s unlikely we’ll find it deep underground. Besides, Alexander was worshipped as a god for centuries. The city authorities would never have tolerated even his former tomb being turned into a common necropolis.’

      Mohammed looked crestfallen. ‘Then why did you say that it might be?’

      ‘Because this is archaeology,’ grinned Ibrahim. ‘You never know for sure.’

      And there was something else too, though nothing he felt like sharing. It was that ever since he’d been a small boy, listening to his father murmur him to sleep with tall stories about the founder of this great city, he’d had a sense of destiny: one day he’d play his part in the rediscovery of the tomb of Alexander. This morning, as he’d lain awake in bed, he’d 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.

      III

      Nessim had been on the go all night, working furiously to catch Knox before Hassan woke. But he’d failed. He’d received his summons fifteen minutes ago, and now here he was, clenching a fist to steel himself before knocking on his boss’s bedroom door at Sharm’s medical centre.

      Nessim had joined the Egyptian Army at the age of seventeen. He’d become a paratrooper, one of the elite. But a twisted knee had put an end to hopes of active service, so he’d resigned his commission through boredom and had become a mercenary in the endless African wars. A mortar round had landed fizzing in his lap, yet hadn’t exploded; instead, it had convinced him that it was time for a change of pace. Back in Egypt, he’d made a name for himself as a bodyguard before being recruited by Hassan as his head of security. If he’d scared easily, Nessim would never have survived such a life. But there was something about Hassan that 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 had suffered severe bruising of his ribs too, making 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. Yelling evidently 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 holiday-maker?’

      ‘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 favours 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 but that 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 rumours. I picked your medical team myself. 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 you have to ask yourself 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