Will Adams - The Alexander Cipher

They found available places in a hotel located in a date palm orchard. Their rooms were newly painted, clean, and polished, with sparkling windows and gleaming bathrooms. Gaille took a shower and put on some fresh clothes; then Elena knocked on her door, and they set off to visit Dr. Aly Sayed, Siwa's representative of the Supreme Council for Antiquities.

Knox and Rick ducked down in the front seats of the Subaru as one of the flatbed trucks left for the night, its headlights flickering over the grove of trees where they had hidden. A good day's sleep had recharged Knox's batteries, and his laptop's, too. He reopened it once the flatbed had driven off, resuming his study of the Mallawi papyri, fragments of ancient letters, and other documents.

"I reckon the other one must have already left," said Rick. "I mean, they can't excavate in the dark."

"Let's give it ten minutes, just to be safe."

Rick pulled a face but let it go. "How you getting on?" he asked.

"Not too bad." His laptop screen was old and fuzzy. The photographs had been taken for cataloging purposes, not for decipherment. The lighting was variable, to put it kindly. Most of the papyri were completely unreadable. Yet he could still make out occasional words and even phrases, many of them in a recognizable hand, so written by a single person. Often they were vague, almost deliberately so, such as "and then the thing happened that brought me to Mallawi." Elsewhere, the author referred again and again to "the enlightened," "the truth bearer," "the knowledgeable," "the holder of the secret." And in other places they were downright treasonous. "I don't know who wrote this," he told Rick, "but he wasn't very respectful."

"How do you mean?"

"Ptolemaic pharaohs were all called Ptolemy, so they distinguished themselves by their cult titles instead. For example, the first Ptolemy was known as Soter, the Greek word for 'savior.' But here he's referred to as Sotades."

"Sotades?"

"A scurrilous Alexandrian Greek poet and playwright. Wrote a lot of homoerotic verse, invented the palindrome, then got himself into trouble for mocking Ptolemy Two Philadelphos for marrying his sister. Speaking of which, Philadelphos actually means 'sister lover,' but he's referred to here as 'sin-lover.' Ptolemy Euergetes, 'the benefactor,' is 'the malefactor.' Philopator, 'the father loving,' is 'the lie-building.' Epiphanes, 'the manifest god,' is 'the manifest fraud.' You get the idea?"

"Not exactly the world's greatest satirist, was he?"

"No. But even referring to the Ptolemies like this…"

Rick leaned forward in his seat, squinting through his windshield into the moonlit night, impatient to get moving. "They must have left by now," he muttered, turning on his ignition. "Let's go in."

"Five more minutes."

"Okay," grumbled Rick, turning the engine off again. He leaned across to look at the laptop. "What else are you finding?"

"Lots of place names. Tanis, Buto, Busiris, Mendes. All important Delta towns. But the place that comes up by far the most is Lycopolis."

"Lycopolis. City of the Wolves, yeah?"

"It was the Greek name for ancient Asyut," nodded Knox. Asyut was some fifty miles south of Mallawi, where the papyri had been found, so it made some sense. But all the other place names were in the Nile Delta, well over a hundred miles north of Asyut. Besides, something was knocking at his memory, and it wasn't Asyut.

Another pair of headlights came down the farm track. They both ducked again. "Looks like you were right," grinned Rick, his teeth glowing white. The second flatbed came to a complete stop as it reached the road, waiting for a car to pass. They could hear its turn signal clicking, and the tired banter of laborers in the back, glad that a long day was over. Then it pulled out onto the Tanta road and was gone. "Right," said Rick, turning the ignition on once more. "Let's do it, yeah?"

"Yes."

The moon was bright enough for them to drive with only their sidelights on, not wanting to advertise their presence yet not wanting to look unduly stealthy, either. They reached the line of trees where the flatbed had parked earlier. A stake hammered into the ground declared in Arabic and English that this was a restricted area, reserved by the Supreme Council for Antiquities in partnership with the Macedonian Archaeological Foundation. They retreated a little way, concealed the Subaru in a small copse, then went searching. Rick had been out shopping while Knox had slept, and now he handed Knox a flashlight, though it was light enough not to need it. A cool breeze rustled and whispered in the branches. A bird hooted. They could see the static umber glow of a distant settlement, and yellow headlights crisscrossing on a road. Their boots balled up with soil as they crossed a field. In its far corner they found a site in midexcavation, a honeycomb of roped-off four-by-four-meter pits divided by balk walls, then a series of emptied graves, each a meter deep, their contents removed, their bases hidden in shadow from the slanting moonlight, freshly dug earth by their sides. It took them barely fifteen minutes to check it all out. "Not exactly the Valley of the Kings, is it?" muttered Rick.

"You can't expect them to-"

"Shhhh!" went Rick suddenly, crouching down, a finger to his lips. Knox turned to look at what had caught Rick's eye. Several seconds later, he saw it: a small orange glow moving between the trees. "Two people," whispered Rick. "Sharing a smoke." He motioned at an empty grave, its foot in darkness. Knox nodded. They climbed down inside, watching over the rim as two men in dark uniforms and caps advanced. Private security contractors, rather than army or police, but with black holsters on their belts. One of them was holding the leash of a huge German shepherd, growling and baring its fangs as if it had caught a scent but wasn't yet quite sure of what. His companion was curious enough to turn on his flashlight, which he shone around as they drew closer, discussing some TV movie they both had watched earlier. Rick smeared earth on his hands and the back of his neck and gestured for Knox to do likewise; then they lay motionless and facedown in the grave as the two guards walked right up to them, the German shepherd getting thoroughly excited but being hauled back and cursed at. A flare of light bloomed in the bottom of the grave, then was gone. A still lit cigarette butt landed by Knox's cheek. One of the men, while talking to his companion, unzipped his trousers and took a leak on the earth above, the splash-off spattering around Knox and Rick, while his companion made lewd comments about some actress he fancied. Then the two men turned and trudged away, dragging the agitated dog with them.

Rick was first to stir. "Fuck me, that was close," he muttered.

"We should get out of here," said Knox.

"Ballocks," said Rick. "Two men and a German shepherd guarding an empty field-I want to see what they're really protecting."

"They had guns, mate," said Knox.

"Exactly," grinned Rick. "This is getting interesting."

"I don't want you getting hurt," said Knox. "Not on my account."

"Fuck that; I haven't had this much fun in years." And he set off before Knox could argue further, keeping low to the ground, using his experience to find the stealthiest path. Knox followed, grateful to have such a friend. The moon made ghostly shadows through the trees as they mounted a gentle but lengthy rise. He glimpsed gray ahead and pointed it out. Rick nodded and motioned for Knox to stay where he was. He vanished for a minute before reappearing out of the shadows. "Two buildings," he whispered. "One large, one small. Made of concrete block. No windows. Steel doors. Padlocks. But both guards are outside the small one. That's the one we need to get inside."

"I thought you said it was a concrete-block building with no windows. How the fuck are we going to get inside?"