Chapter Twenty-four
KNOX WAS KEEN to stash his Jeep somewhere Nessim wouldn’t easily find it. He turned down a narrow country lane just south of Tanta, Rick following in his Subaru. Then they drove in convoy for fifteen minutes or so, until he saw in the moonlight a line of derelict farm buildings in an overgrown field used as a makeshift dump site. Perfect. He lurched his way down a rutted earth track to a yard of broken concrete. A row of barns stood along the opposite side, open to the elements, their floors muddy, their corners filled with windblown litter, their mouths blocked by a line of drinking troughs partially filled with rainwater. To his left was a low, ugly concrete-block outbuilding with a wide steel door that screeched on the concrete when they swung it open on its hinges. The building was empty inside except for the pungent smell of spilled diesel and urine, and white splashes of bat and bird droppings on the floor. Knox parked inside, took everything he might need to the Subaru, then covered the Jeep with his tarpaulin.
“You ready to explain now?” prompted Rick as they started for Tanta.
“Sure,” said Knox. “Did I ever tell you about my Mallawi excavation?”
Rick snorted. “Did you ever stop?”
“Then you’ll remember the basics,” said Knox, opening his laptop and checking the CDs Rick had brought. “Richard Mitchell and I found an archive of Ptolemaic papyri. We passed them for safekeeping to Yusuf Abbas, now secretary general of the SCA. He liked what he saw so much, he took over the whole excavation.”
“And then you spotted some of the papyri on the black market.”
“Exactly. Now, there isn’t a wide market for Ptolemaic papyri, even with good provenance. But stolen papyri? I mean, most of the usual buyers are academic institutions, and they won’t touch anything hot. But Philip Dragoumis is interested in anything Macedonian, particularly if it’s got a connection with Alexander.”
“And you think these papyri do?”
“I think there’s a good chance. The names Kelonymos and Akylos cropped up in a lot of the Mallawi papyri. Look.” He turned the laptop around so that Rick could see the list of file names, dominated by “Akylos” and “Kelonymus.” “And we found these same two names in a necropolis in Alexandria, and there’s no doubt that they’re related to Alexander. Akylos was one of Alexander’s shield bearers, and Kelonymus was his brother. And Nicolas and Elena recognized the name Kelonymus yesterday. I’ll swear to that.”
“Okay. So there’s a link between the Mallawi papyri and this Alexandrian tomb of yours. But that doesn’t explain what we’re doing in Tanta.”
“The Dragoumis Group is funding an excavation near here. They’re not people to sponsor just any dig, not in a foreign country. They’re looking for something specific.” They reached the hotel that had acknowledged Elena as a guest, then parked across the street to monitor its front door. “I think it’s all part of why Nicolas came personally to see the tomb in Alexandria, which means it has to be important. I want to know what it is. But I can’t exactly just ring up and ask. All the excavation crew have signed confidentiality agreements, so no one’s going to talk, particularly not to me.”
“Ah,” said Rick, nodding at the hotel. “But they’re staying there, are they?”
“Exactly. And in an hour or two, they’ll set off for their day’s work, so we’re going to follow.”
art
ELENA WOKE EARLY, sunlight streaming in the open window of Augustin’s apartment, noises reaching them from below: cars starting, doors slamming, families bickering. She had had every intention of breaking it off with Augustin when she returned to Alexandria late last night, before their fling could grow serious. But then he had appeared at her hotel room to take her out to dinner, and he smiled that smile at her, and she suffered an exquisite cramp in her stomach, and she knew that she’d been fooling herself.
She lay there, staring fondly at him. It was strange—and utterly unfair—how men could look beautiful even when a complete mess. His hair was a medusa of lank snakes all over his face, and a thin trail of saliva leaked from the corner of his mouth to darken the pillow. Yet still she desired him. For the first time in a decade, she found herself helpless with lust. And to think, she and Gaille were off to Siwa later this morning! She needed to make the most of their remaining time together.
She drew back the cotton sheet, the better to look at him. She reached down and began to tickle softly the inside of his thigh from just above his knee rising all the way up to his scrotum. He swelled, unpeeled, and flopped upward onto his belly. A wicked grin spread across his face, though his eyes were still closed, and not a word was said. She kissed him on his brow, his nose, his cheek, his mouth. His breath tasted sour but not at all unpleasant. Gradually their embraces grew more intimate, both too eager to wait. He turned onto his side and fumbled in his bedside table for a condom, which he tore open with his teeth and unrolled deftly with one hand. He grimaced as he forced himself inside her, resting his weight on both hands, holding himself up high. He half withdrew, jiggled and teased, so that she ached for him and pulled him back in. She craned up her neck so that she could look down at the point of junction between them, the long, hard, dark shadow of him drawing out of her, pushing slowly back in. She’d forgotten what a mesmerizing sight f*cking could be—so ruthlessly animal, so distinct from all the effete ritual of romance that surrounded it. He pushed her back down and they stared hard into each other’s eyes until it was too much for her, and she twisted and cried out as she came, and they spilled together onto the floor. They lay there for half a minute or so, wrapped together, grinning, gathering breath. He jumped up easily to his feet. “Coffee?” he asked.
“Chocolate.”
He padded naked to his kitchen, discarding his condom into an overflowing wastebasket. A pearly strand depended from his penis, so he wiped it dry with a paper towel, then checked his fridge. “Merde!” He scowled. “No milk.”
“Come back to bed,” she complained. “I have to go collect Gaille from the airport soon.”
“I need coffee,” he protested. “I need croissants.” He pulled on yesterday’s trousers and shirt. “One minute only, I promise.”
She watched him walk out the front door. Something like happiness swelled in her chest. All these years of sating her desires with milksops and fops. Christ, but it felt good to have a real man in her life again.
art
IT WAS HARD WORK STAYING AWAKE, so Knox bought two cups of sludge coffee for Rick and himself from the first café to lift its shutters. Four men and three women in work clothes came down the hotel steps, where they joined a number of Egyptians who had been loitering outside. They all climbed aboard two flatbed trucks, squeezing up front or stretching out in the back. One of the men did a quick head count; then they lumbered away along the road toward the town of Zagazig.
Rick gave them twenty seconds’ head start, then followed. Tailing people was easy in Egypt. There were so few roads, you could afford to hang well back. The trucks turned toward Zifta, then down a farm road. Rick waited until they were nothing but a cloud of dust, then headed after them. They drove for another two or three kilometers before they saw one of the trucks parked, and no one in sight.
“Let’s get out of here before we’re spotted,” suggested Knox.
Rick wheeled around and they headed off. “Where now?”
“I don’t know about you,” yawned Knox, “but I haven’t slept in two days. I vote we find ourselves a hotel.”
art
THE DAY HAD PASSED with wretched slowness for Mohammed el-Dahab, but now it was late afternoon, and time was almost up. He paced back and forth outside the cancer ward of Alexandria’s Medical Research Institute. At times he sucked great heaves of air into his lungs; at others his breathing became so short and shallow he thought he would faint. Waiting for the phone call with the test results had been grueling enough, but nothing like this. He walked to the window, stared blindly out over the night-lit city, the harbor. So many millions of people, none of whom he cared one jot for. Let Allah take them all but leave him Layla.
Dr. Serag-Al-Din had given them good news. He had found an HLA match: Basheer, a third cousin of Nur’s mother, who herself had come close to death when her Cairo apartment block collapsed years ago. Mohammed had thought nothing of it at the time, had been completely indifferent to her life or death. But if she had died… He closed his eyes and brought a fist up to his mouth. It didn’t bear thinking about.
But the HLA match meant nothing in itself. It mattered only if Professor Rafai now granted Layla a berth for a bone marrow transplant. Mohammed was here to learn of his decision.
“Insha’ Allah, insha’ Allah,” muttered Mohammed again and again. The mantra did him little good. If only Nur were here—someone who understood. But Nur hadn’t been able to face it. She was at home nursing Layla, more terrified even than he. “Insha’ Allah,” he muttered. “Insha’ Allah.”
The door of the oncology ward swung open. A plump young nurse with huge brown eyes came out. Mohammed tried to read her expression, but it was beyond him. “Will you come with me, please,” she said.