Will Adams: The Alexander Cipher

Their beers arrived and they clinked them in a toast. "Go on," said Rick.

"It wasn't easy for Ptolemy, making himself pharaoh," said Knox. "Egyptians wouldn't recognize just anyone. Legitimacy was very important to them. Alexander was different, a living god of unquestioned royal blood, who'd driven out the hated Persians-there was no shame in being ruled by such a man. But Ptolemy was a nobody as far as the Egyptians were concerned. So one of the things he needed was a symbol of kingship."

"Ah," said Rick, wiping froth from his upper lip. "Alexander's body."

"Ten out of ten," grinned Knox. "Ptolemy wanted Alexander's body. But he wasn't the only one. The head of the Macedonian triumvirate was called Perdiccas, and he had ambitions of his own. He wanted to bring Alexander's body back to Macedonia for burial alongside his father, Philip, in the royal tombs of Aigai in Northern Greece. But getting him from Babylon to Macedonia wasn't easy; you couldn't just load him on the first boat. He had to travel in a certain style."

Rick nodded. "I'm the same way, myself."

"A historian called Diodorus of Sicily gave a very detailed description of all this. Alexander's body was embalmed and laid in a coffin of beaten gold, covered by expensive, sweet-smelling spices. And a catafalque- that's a funeral carriage to you and me-was commissioned. It was essentially a giant golden temple on wheels, so spectacular that it took over a year to get ready. It was six meters long, four meters wide, and it had a high vaulted roof of gold scales set with jewels that was supported by gold ionic columns twined with acanthus. A golden mast rose from the top, flashing like lightning in the sun, and at each of its corners there was a golden statue of Nike, the ancient goddess of victory, holding out a trophy. The gold cornice was embossed with ibex heads, from which hung gold rings supporting a bright, multicolored garland. The spaces between the columns were filled with a golden net, protecting the coffin from the scorching sun and the occasional rain. Its front entrance was guarded by golden lions."

"That's a whole lot of gold," said Rick skeptically.

"Alexander was seriously rich," replied Knox. "He had over seven thousand tons of gold and silver in his Persian treasuries alone. It took twenty thousand mules and five thousand camels just to shift it all around. You know how they used to store it?"

"How?"

"They used to melt it and pour it into jars and then simply smash off the earthenware."

"Holy shit," laughed Rick. "I could do with finding one of those."

"Exactly. Anyway, the generals didn't dare stint on the funerary carriage. Alexander was a god to the Macedonian troops, and skimping would have been the quickest way to lose their loyalty. But it was eventually completed, though it was so heavy that the builders had to invent shock-absorbing wheels and axles for it, and even then the route had to be specially prepared by a crew of road builders, and it took sixty-four mules to draw it along." He paused to take another sip of his beer. "Sixty-four mules," he nodded. "And each of them wore a gilded crown and a gem-encrusted collar. And each of them had a golden bell hanging on either cheek. And each of these bells would have had inside it a golden pendant tongue just exactly like the one you've got in your matchbox."

"You're fucking with me," said Rick, the shock legible on his face.

"And, more to the point," grinned Knox, "this entire catafalque-all this gold-simply vanished from history without a trace."

A hotel construction site, Alexandria

Mohammed El-Dahab kept a framed photograph of his daughter Layla on his desk. It was taken two years ago, just before she fell sick. He had developed the habit, while he worked, of glancing at it every few moments. Sometimes it gladdened him to see her face, but mostly these days it made his heart sink. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger and muttered a short but heartfelt prayer. He prayed for her like this perhaps thirty times each day, as well as during his formal rek'ahs. His prayers had done little good so far, but faith was like that-without testing it was nothing.

There were incongruous noises outside: shouting, jubilant laughing. He glanced irritably through his office window. Work on the building site had come to a halt while his crew congregated in a corner, and Ahmed was dancing like a dervish at a moulid. Mohammed hurried out angrily. Allah had cursed him with the laziest crew in all Egypt. Any excuse! He scowled to put himself in the right frame of mind for delivering a proper tongue-lashing, but when he saw what had caused the commotion, he forgot about it. The mechanical digger had ripped a great, gaping hole in the ground, exposing a spiral staircase that wound around a deep, black shaft, still thick with settling dust. It looked yellow, dark, and old-old as the city itself.

Mohammed and his men all gazed at each other with the same thought. Who knew how long this had lain hidden? Who could guess what riches might lie at its base? Alexandria was not only one of the great cities of antiquity, it boasted a lost treasure of world renown. Was there a man among them who hadn't dreamed of discovering the golden sarcophagus of the city's founder, Iskandar al-Akbar, Alexander the Great? Young boys dug holes in public gardens; women confided in their friends the strange echoes they heard when they tapped the walls of their cellars; robbers broke into ancient cisterns and the forbidden cellars of temples and mosques. But if it was anywhere, it was here, right in the heart of the city's ancient Royal Quarter. Mohammed was not given to idle dreams, but gazing down into this deep shaft, his gut clenched tight as a fist.

Could this be his miracle at last?

He beckoned for Fahd's flashlight, then lowered his left foot slowly onto the top step. He was a big man, Mohammed, and his heart was in his mouth as he rested his considerable weight upon the rutted stone, but it bore him without protest. He tested more steps, his back turned to the rough limestone of the outer wall. The inner wall that separated the spiral staircase from the great central shaft was built of crumbled bricks, many of which had fallen away, leaving jagged black gaps. Mohammed tossed a pebble through a gap and waited, breathless, until it clattered four heartbeats later at the foot. The spiral closed above him, and he saw that the entire staircase was carved from the rock-a sculpture rather than a construction! It gave him confidence. He continued his descent, around and around. The spiral at last straightened out, doubled back through an arched portal into a large, circular room, calf deep with sand, rock, and fallen bricks. At the center, four sturdy pillars surrounded the open base of the central shaft. The thin reflected daylight was thick with chalky motes, swirling slow as planets, clotting like salve on his lips, tickling his throat.

It was cool down here, gloriously quiet after the incessant din of the building site. Including the stairwell from which he had just emerged, four arched doorways led off this rotunda, one for each point of the compass. Curved benches with oyster-shell hoods were recessed into limestone walls sumptuously carved with prancing gods, hissing medusas, rampant bulls, soaring birds, bursting flowers, and drapes of ivy. A dark, downward-sloping corridor showed through the first doorway, humped with rubble and dust. Mohammed swallowed with distaste and premonition as he tore aside its cobweb veil. A low side passage led off the winding corridor into a vast, tall chamber, its walls pocked by columns of square-mouthed openings. A catacomb. He went to the left wall, lit up a dusty yellow skull with the flashlight, and tipped the dome aside with a finger. A small, blackened coin fell from its jaw. He picked it up, examined it, set it back down. He shone his flashlight deep into the niche, lighting up a heap of skulls and bones pushed to the far end to make room for later occupants. He grimaced at the sight and retreated to the main corridor to continue his survey. He passed four more burial chambers before descending a flight of twelve steps, then another five before he reached the top of another flight of steps and the water table. He returned to the rotunda. Ahmed, Husni, and Fahd had come down, too, and were now on their hands and knees, scrabbling through the rubble. He was puzzled that they hadn't explored farther until he realized it was the only spot with natural light-he had taken their one flashlight.