The Alexander Cipher. Will Adams

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СКАЧАТЬ he was holding here. His name had meant ‘Opener of the Ways’, which was why the miniaturised robot designed to explore the mysterious air shafts of the Great Pyramids had been christened with a version of his name, Upuaut. To the best of Gaille’s recollection, he’d gone out of fashion during the Middle Kingdom, around sixteen hundred BC. By rights, therefore, this painting should have been over three and half thousand years old. Yet the shedshed that Wepwawet was holding told a different story. For depicted upon it were the head and shoulders of a handsome young man, a beatific look upon his face, tilted up like some Renaissance Madonna. It was hard to know for sure when you were looking at a portrait of Alexander the Great. His impact on iconography had been so profound that for centuries afterwards people had aspired to look like him. But if this wasn’t Alexander himself, it was unquestionably influenced by him, which meant it couldn’t possibly date to earlier than 332 BC. And that begged an obvious question: what on earth was he doing on a standard held by Wepwawet, over a millennium after Wepwawet had faded from view?

      Gaille set this conundrum to one side and continued on her way, still murmuring Elena’s name, though only as an excuse should she encounter anyone. Her battery lamp went out again, plunging the place into complete blackness. She tapped her lamp again, and once more it sprang on. She passed another painting; as far as she could tell, identical to the first, though not yet fully cleaned. The walls began to show signs of charring, as though a great fire had once raged. She glimpsed a flash of white marble ahead, and two stone wolves lying prone yet alert. More wolves. She frowned. When the Macedonians had taken Egypt, they’d given many of the towns Greek names for administrative purposes, often basing them upon local cult-gods. If Wepwawet was the cult-god of this place, then surely this must be—

      ‘Gaille! Gaille!’ From far behind her, Elena was shouting. ‘Are you down there? Gaille!’

      Gaille hurried back along the passage. ‘Elena?’ she called up. ‘Is that you?’

      ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing down there?’

      ‘I thought you’d fallen. I thought you might be in trouble.’

      ‘Get out,’ ordered Elena furiously. ‘Get out now.’

      Gaille started to climb. She saved her breath until she reached the top. Then she said hurriedly: ‘Kristos told me you wanted to—’

      Elena thrust her face in Gaille’s. ‘How many times have I told you this is a restricted area?’ she yelled. ‘How many times?’

      ‘I’m sorry, Ms Koloktronis, but—’

      ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ Elena’s face was red; tendons stood out on her neck like a straining racehorse. ‘How dare you go down there? How dare you?’

      ‘I thought you’d fallen,’ repeated Gaille helplessly. ‘I thought you might need help.’

      ‘Don’t you dare interrupt me when I’m talking.’

      ‘I wasn’t—’

      ‘Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare!’

      Gaille stiffened. For a moment she considered snapping back. It had barely been three weeks ago, after all, that Elena had called her out of the blue and begged her, begged her, to take a month out from the Sorbonne’s Demotic Dictionary project to fill in for a languages assistant who’d fallen ill. But you knew instinctively in this world how well you matched up against other people, and Gaille didn’t stand a chance. The first time Elena had exploded, it had left Gaille shell-shocked. Her new colleagues had shrugged it off, telling her that Elena had been that way ever since her husband had died. She boiled like a young planet with internal rage, erupting unpredictably in gushes of indiscriminate, molten and sometimes spectacular violence. It had become almost routine now, something to be feared and placated, like the wrath of ancient gods. So Gaille stood there and took upon her chin all Elena’s scathing and brutal remarks about the poverty of her abilities, her ingratitude, the damage this incident would doubtless do her career when it got out, though she herself would, of course, do her best to protect her.

      ‘I’m sorry, Ms Koloktronis,’ Gaille said, when the tirade finally began to slacken. ‘Kristos said you wanted to see me.’

      ‘I told him to tell you I was coming over.’

      ‘That’s not what he told me. I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t fallen.’

      ‘Where did you go?’

      ‘Nowhere. I just checked at the bottom.’

      ‘Very well,’ said Elena grudgingly. ‘Then we’ll say no more about it. But don’t mention it to Qasim, or I won’t be able to protect you.’

      ‘No, Ms Koloktronis,’ said Gaille. Qasim, the on-site representative of the Supreme Council, was every bit as secretive about this place as Elena herself. No doubt it would be embarrassing for Elena to have to admit to him that she’d left the door unlocked and unguarded.

      ‘Come with me,’ said Elena, locking the steel door, then leading Gaille across to the magazine. ‘There’s an ostracon I’d like your opinion on. I’m ninety-nine point nine nine per cent sure of its translation. You can perhaps help me with the other nought point nought one per cent.’

      ‘Yes, Ms Koloktronis,’ said Gaille meekly. ‘Thank you.’

      III

      ‘Are you an idiot?’ scowled Max, having followed Knox to the stern of the dive boat. ‘Do you have a death wish, or something? Didn’t I tell you to leave Hassan’s woman alone?’

      ‘She came to talk to me,’ answered Knox. ‘Did you want me to be rude?’

      ‘You were flirting with her.’

      ‘She was flirting with me.’

      ‘That’s even worse. Christ!’ He looked around, his face suffused with fear. Working for Hassan could do that to people.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ said Knox. ‘I’ll stay away from her.’

      ‘You’d better. Trust me, you get on Hassan’s wrong side, you and your mate Rick can forget about your little project, whatever the fuck it is.’

      ‘Keep your voice down.’

      ‘I’m just warning you.’ He wagged a finger, as if he had more to say, but then he turned and walked away.

      Knox watched him go. He didn’t like Max; Max didn’t like him. But they had a valuable relationship. Max ran a dive school, and Knox was a good, reliable dive instructor who knew how to charm tourists into recommending him to others they met on their travels; and he worked for peanuts too. In return, Max let him use his boat and side-scan sonar for what he disparagingly referred to as his ‘little project’. Knox smiled wryly. If Max ever found out what he and Rick were after, he wouldn’t dismiss it so patronisingly.

      Knox had come to Sharm nearly three years before. He’d only been here four weeks when something extraordinary had happened; and it had been prompted by the very same tattoo that had caught Fiona’s eye.

      While he’d been sitting on the front one evening, enjoying a beer, a powerfully СКАЧАТЬ