The Alexander Cipher
‘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.’
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 isn’t Alexander, 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. He’d begged as much from the French and 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 right 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 new financial year. The stairwell was slap in the middle of the hotel’s prospective car park; 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 upon property developers and construction companies to report significant finds. If ever he got a reputation for being difficult to work with, they’d simply stop notifying him, whatever 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. He couldn’t let it slide by. He just couldn’t.
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 conjured up some saliva to help him speak, forced a smile. ‘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 had first contacted him. Sponsors were always welcome. Yet something about his manner had made Ibrahim apprehensive. After putting down the phone, he’d gone directly to the Dragoumis Group’s corporate website, with all its links to subsidiaries in shipping, insurance, construction, media, import-export, electronics, aerospace, property, tourism, security and more. He’d found a sponsorship section explaining that the Dragoumis Group only supported projects that helped demonstrate the historical greatness of Macedonia, or which 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 directors. Nicolas Dragoumis was tall, stringy, handsome and well-dressed. But it had been the man standing front centre who’d unnerved Ibrahim. Philip Dragoumis, group founder and chief executive, fearsome-looking, swarthy, lightly bearded, with a large, plum-coloured birthmark above his left cheekbone, and an incredibly potent gaze, even in a photograph. A man to steer clear of. But 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?’
III
Knox beached the speedboat near his Jeep and waded ashore. Fiona had pulled herself together, 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 therefore the safest place was anywhere away from him. Not so dumb after all. Knox revved his Jeep furiously. 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 dared not go back for them.
At the main road, he faced his first major decision. North-east to the Israeli border or up the west coast highway towards the main body of Egypt? Israel was safety, but the road was in bad repair, slow and choking 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, Luxor.
He jammed his mobile 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 his 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 choked a sudden urge to swing round and flee. Such checkpoints were routine in Sinai; there was nothing sinister about this. He was waved to the side of the road, 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; the kind who’d enjoy taunting weaker men until they broke and attacked him, before battering them to pulp and protesting innocently that they had started it. He held out his hand for Knox’s passport, 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 upon it, its feet tickling his skin. He brought it up to eye-level to inspect as it continued on its way, unaware of just having been hijacked, the precariousness of its situation. He watched it up and around his wrist with a sense of fellow feeling. Centipedes had had great resonance for the ancient Egyptians. They’d been closely connected with death, but in a welcome way, because they’d fed upon the numerous microscopic insects that themselves feasted upon 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 his Jeep’s door until the centipede 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, perched on the edge of his desk, waiting to be called back. Minutes passed. Knox looked around. No one else was being kept: cursory inspections and then a wave through. The phone in the cabin finally rang. Knox watched apprehensively as the officer reached out to answer it.
FOUR
I
A church outside Thessalonike, Northern Greece ‘The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia,’ intoned the old preacher, reading aloud from the open Bible upon his pulpit. ‘And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.’ He paused and looked around the packed church. ‘Every bible scholar will tell you the same thing,’ he said, leaning forward a little, lowering his voice, confiding to his audience. ‘The ram Daniel speaks of represents the Persian king Darius. The king of Grecia represents Alexander the Great. These verses are talking about Alexander’s defeat of the Persians. And do you know when Daniel wrote them? Six hundred years before the birth of Christ, two hundred and fifty years before Alexander was even born. Two hundred and fifty years! Can you even begin to imagine what will be happening in the world two hundred and fifty years from now? But Daniel did it.’
Nicolas Dragoumis nodded as he listened. He knew the old preacher’s text word for word. He’d written much of it himself, and then they’d worked together in rehearsals until every word was perfect. But you could never really tell with something like this until you took it to the people. This was their first night, and it was going well so far. Atmosphere; that was the key. That was why they’d chosen this old church, though it wasn’t an official service. The moon showed through the stained-glass windows. A bird hooted in the rafters. Thick doors excluded the outside world. Incense caught in nostrils, covering the smell of honest sweat. The only lighting came from lines of fat white candles, just bright enough for the congregation to be able to check in their own bibles that these verses were truly from Chapter 8 of the Book of Daniel, as the preacher had assured them, but dark enough to retain a sense of the numinous, the unknown. People knew, in this part of the world, that things were stranger and more complex than modern science tried to paint them. They understood, as Nicolas did, the concept of mysteries.
He looked around the pews. These haggard people. People with compacted lives, old before their time, taking on backbreaking work at fourteen, becoming parents at sixteen, grandparents at thirty-five, few of them making it past fifty; unshaven faces gaunt from stress, sour from disappointment, skin leathery and dark from too much sun, hands callused from their endless struggle against hunger. And angry too, simmering with resentment at their poverty and the punitive taxation they paid on what little they earned. Anger was good. It made them receptive to angry ideas.
The preacher stood up straighter, relaxed his shoulders, continued his reading. ‘Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power.’ He gazed out into his congregation with the slightly manic blue eyes of a madman and a prophet. Nicolas had chosen well. ‘“Now that being broken”,’ he repeated. ‘That phrase refers to the death of Alexander. “Four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation”. And that refers to the break-up of the Macedonian Empire. As you all know, it was broken into four parts by four successors: Ptolemy, Antigonus, Kassandros and Seleucus. And, remember, this was written by Daniel nearly three hundred years earlier.’
But unrest and anger weren’t enough, reflected Nicolas. Where there was poverty, there was always unrest and anger; but there wasn’t always revolution. There’d been unrest and anger in Macedonia for two millennia, as first the Romans, then the Byzantines and Ottomans had oppressed his people. And every time they’d struggled free from one yoke, another had been placed upon them. A hundred years ago, prospects had at last looked bright. The 1903 Ilinden Uprising had been brutally crushed, but then in 1912, 100,000 Macedonians had fought side-by-side with Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs finally to expel the Turks. It should by rights have been the birth date of an independent Macedonia. But they’d been betrayed. Their former allies had turned upon them, the so-called Great Powers had collaborated in the infamy, and Macedonia had been cut up into three parts under the wretched Treaty of Bucharest. Aegean Macedonia had been awarded to Greece, Serbian Macedonia to Serbia, and Pirin Macedonia to Bulgaria.
‘And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. The little horn is Demetrios,’ asserted the preacher. ‘For those of you who may not remember, Demetrios was the son of Antigonus, and he had himself acclaimed king of Macedonia, even though he was not of Alexander’s blood.’
The Treaty of Bucharest! Just the name had the power to twist and torture Nicolas’ heart. For nearly one hundred years, the borders the Treaty had laid down had remained largely unchanged. And the loathsome Greeks, Serbs and Bulgars had done everything they could to eradicate Macedonian history, language and culture. They’d shut down free speech, imprisoned anyone who showed the slightest defiance. They’d appropriated the land of Macedonian farmers and resettled outsiders on it. They’d razed villages, orchestrated mass murders and rapes, turned Macedonians into slaves whom they’d then worked to death. They’d committed ethnic cleansing on a grand scale, without a peep of protest from the wider world. But it hadn’t worked. That was the thing. The spirit of Macedonian nationhood still burned strong. Their language survived, as did their culture and Church, in pockets across this ancient region. They lived on in these simple yet proud people, in the glorious sacrifices they’d already made and would soon be prepared to make once more for the greater good. And then his beloved country would finally be free.
‘And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. “And the place of his sanctuary was cast down”,’ repeated the preacher. ‘That’s this place. That’s Macedonia. The land of your birth. It was Demetrios, you see, who began the chaos that has engulfed Macedonia ever since. Demetrios. In 292 BC. Mark that date. Mark it well: 292 BC.’
In Nicolas’ pocket, his mobile began to buzz. Few people had this number, and he’d given his assistant, Katerina, strict instructions not to put any calls through tonight except in an emergency. He stood and walked to the back doors.
‘Yes?’ he asked.
‘Ibrahim Beyumi for you, sir,’ said Katerina.
‘Ibrahim who?’
‘The archaeologist from Alexandria. I wouldn’t have bothered you but he says it’s urgent. They’ve found something. They need a decision at once.’
‘Very well. Put him through.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The line switched. Another voice came on. ‘Mr Dragoumis. This is Ibrahim Beyumi here. From the Supreme Council in—’
‘I know who you are. What do you want?’
‘You’ve been generous enough to offer sponsorship in certain—’
‘You’ve found something?’
‘A necropolis. A tomb. A Macedonian tomb.’ He took a deep breath. ‘From the description I was given, it sounds just like the Royal Tombs at Aigai.’
Nicolas clutched his phone tight and turned his back on the church. ‘You’ve found a Macedonian royal tomb?’
‘No,’ said Ibrahim hurriedly. ‘All I have so far is a description from a builder. I won’t know what it really is until I’ve inspected it myself.’
‘And when will you do that?’
‘First thing tomorrow. Providing I can arrange finance, at least.’
In the background, the preacher was still talking. ‘Then I heard one saint speaking,’ he intoned, squeezing every sonorous drop from the biblical prose, ‘and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? How long shall Macedonia and the Macedonians be trampled underfoot? How long shall we pay the price for Demetrios’ sin? Remember, this was written three hundred years before the sin of Demetrios, which took place in 292 BC!’
Nicolas clamped a hand over his ear, the better to concentrate. ‘You need finance before you inspect?’ he asked sardonically.
‘We have a peculiar situation,’ said Ibrahim. ‘The man who reported the find has a very sick daughter. He wants funds before he’ll talk.’
‘Ah.’ The inevitable baksheesh. ‘How much? For everything.’
‘In money terms?’
Nicolas clenched his toes in frustration. These people! ‘Yes,’ he said, with exaggerated patience. ‘In money terms.’
‘That depends on how big the site proves to be, how much time we have, what kind of artefacts—’
‘In US dollars. Thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands?’
‘Oh. It typically costs six or seven thousand American dollars a week for an emergency excavation like this.’
‘How many weeks?’
‘That would depend on—’
‘One? Five? Ten?’
‘Two. Three if we’re lucky.’
‘Fine. Do you know Elena Koloktronis?’
‘The archaeologist? I’ve met her once or twice. Why?’
‘She’s on a dig in the Delta. Katerina will give you her contact number. Invite her tomorrow. If she vouches for this tomb of yours, the Dragoumis Group will give you twenty thousand dollars. I trust that will meet all your excavation costs, plus any more sick children who turn up.’
‘Thank you,’ said Ibrahim. ‘That’s most generous.’
‘Talk to Katerina. She’ll talk you through our terms.’
‘Terms?’
‘You don’t think we’d provide funds on this scale without terms, do you?’
‘But—’
‘Like I say, talk to Katerina.’ And he snapped closed his phone.
‘And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. Two thousand and three hundred days!’ cried the preacher exultantly. ‘Two thousand and three hundred days! But that’s not the original text. The original text talks about the “evenings and mornings of sacrifices”. And those sacrifices took place once each year. Two thousand three hundred days therefore doesn’t mean two thousand three hundred days at all. No. It means two thousand three hundred years. And who can tell me what date is two thousand three hundred years on from the sin of Demetrios? No? Then let me tell you. It is the year of Our Lord 2008. It is now. It is today. Today, our sanctuary is finally to be cleansed. It says so in the Bible, and the Bible never lies. And remember, this was all predicted exactly by Daniel, six hundred years before the birth of Christ.’ He wagged a finger in both admonition and exhortation. ‘It is written, people. It is written. This is our time. This is your time. You are the chosen generation, chosen by God to fulfil His command. Which of you dare refuse His call?’
Nicolas watched with gratification people turning to look at each other, murmuring in astonishment. This was indeed their time, he reflected, and it wasn’t a fluke. His father had been working towards it for forty years now, and he for fifteen. They had operatives in every hamlet, town and village. Vast caches of weapons, food and drink were waiting in the mountains. Veterans of the Yugoslavian wars had trained them in ordnance and guerrilla campaigns. They had sleepers in local and national government, spies in the armed services, friends in the international community and among the Macedonian Diaspora.
The propaganda war was in full swing too. The schedules of Dragoumis TV and radio were crammed with programmes designed to stir Macedonian fervour, their newspapers filled with stories of Macedonian heroism and sacrifice, alongside tales of the opulent lifestyles and unthinking cruelty of their Athenian overlords. And it was working. Anger and hatred was building across northern Greece, even among those who had little sympathy with the separatist cause. Civil disturbance, riots, increasing incidents of ethnic assaults. All the telltale trembling of an imminent earthquake. But they weren’t there yet. Much as Nicolas craved it, they weren’t quite there. A revolution needed people so worked up they wanted martyrdom. Break out the guns now, it would look promising for a while, but then everything would fizzle out. The reaction would come. The Greek army would deploy upon the streets, families would be menaced and businesses investigated. There’d be arbitrary arrests, beatings and counterpropaganda. Their cause would be set back years, might even be irreversibly crippled. No. They still needed something more before it could begin. Something very particular. A symbol that the Macedonian people would be prepared to fight to the death for.
And it was just possible that his recent phone call from Egypt might provide it.
II
The Egyptian army officer was still speaking on the phone. He seemed to be talking for a very long time. He came out with a pen and a pad of paper, crouched to jot down the licence plate of Knox’s Jeep. Then he went back inside and read it out to whoever was at the other end of the phone.
The Jeep’s keys were in the ignition. For a crazy moment, Knox contemplated driving for it. If Hassan caught him, he was finished anyway. But though the Egyptian soldiers looked cheerful and relaxed enough, that would change in a heartbeat if he fled. The threat of suicide bombers was simply too high around here for them to take risks. He’d be shot dead before he made it fifty yards. So he forced himself to relax, to accept that his fate was out of his hands.
The officer replaced the handset carefully, composed himself, walked across. He wasn’t swaggering any more. He looked thoughtful, even apprehensive. He gestured to his men. Immediately, they became alert. He stooped a little to talk through the Jeep’s open window, tapping the spine of Knox’s passport against the knuckles of his left hand as he did so.
He said: ‘I am hearing whispers of a most remarkable story.’
Knox’s stomach squeezed. ‘What whispers?’
‘Of an incident involving Hassan al-Assyuti and some young foreigner.’
‘I know nothing about that,’ said Knox.
‘I’m glad,’ said the officer, squinting down the road to Sharm, as though expecting a vehicle to appear at any moment. ‘Because, if the rumours are true, the young foreigner in question has a very bleak future.’
Knox swallowed. ‘He was raping a girl,’ he blurted out. ‘What was I supposed to do?’
‘Contact the authorities.’
‘We were in the middle of the fucking sea.’
‘I’m sure you’ll have your chance to tell your side.’
‘Bollocks,’ said Knox. ‘I’ll be dead within an hour.’
The officer flushed. ‘You should have thought of that before, shouldn’t you?’
‘I should have covered my arse, you mean? Like you’re doing now?’
‘This isn’t my fight,’ scowled the officer.
Knox nodded. ‘People in my country, they think that all Egyptian men are cowards and thieves. I tell them they’re wrong. I tell them that Egyptian men are honourable and brave. But maybe I’ve been wrong.’
There was an angry muttering. One of the soldiers reached in the open window. The officer clamped his hand around his wrist. ‘No,’ he said.
‘But he—’
‘No.’
The soldier retreated, a little shamefaced, while the officer looked down thoughtfully at Knox, clearly uncertain what to do. A pair of headlights crested a hill behind. ‘Please,’ begged Knox. ‘Just give me a chance.’