‘There are some very resourceful people looking for us. The IHA, the UN — and Eddie.’ The mere thought of her husband gave her a surge of hope. He would move heaven and earth to rescue her — and probably destroy large chunks of both if necessary.
Banna seemed unconvinced, so she switched subjects, trying to keep the Egyptian’s mind occupied. ‘Have you found out anything new about Alexander’s route — like where he crossed the Alborz mountains?’
He flicked back through the notes. ‘He went east of Damavand — the tallest mountain in Iran. There is also a reference to a pass, but I am not sure which one. A map would help me identify it.’
‘Work out as much as you can,’ Nina told him. ‘Then try to stretch the rest out as long as possible before telling Kroll—’
A faint scrape of metal, then: ‘Dr Wilde?’
The voice was male, whispered. Everyone turned in alarm to its source — the ventilation slot. ‘Shit,’ Nina whispered. If the spy had heard them plotting and reported them to Kroll…
‘Dr Wilde, are you there?’ The voice was still low, and strained, as if the speaker were afraid of being overheard.
Bewildered, Nina replied: ‘Yeah?’
‘Please, quiet! I do not want the guards to know I am here.’
She stepped up on to the bed to look through the little opening. The metal cover at its other end had been lifted. A pair of blue eyes peered nervously back at her. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded.
‘You are Nina Wilde?’
‘Who’s asking?’
‘Please, I must be sure!’ The eyes glanced away as if checking for sentries, then back at her.
‘Yeah, I’m Nina Wilde,’ she said, curiosity taking hold. ‘And you are?’
Relief was clear even on the small visible part of the man’s face. He was young, Nina could tell; no older than twenty, if that. ‘I thought it was you when I saw you outside the Führer’s house. I recognised you from your photographs on the Internet. My name is—’
‘Koenig,’ she cut in, remembering the youth she had seen while being marched to Kroll’s residence — the twin of Jaekel’s victim in Los Angeles. ‘You’re Volker Koenig’s brother!’
‘Yes, I am Roland.’ His surprise turned to hopefulness. ‘You have seen Volker?’
‘Yeah, I saw him.’
‘Where is he? He told me he would find you, but… I did not think that you would come here.’
‘Right, we came here. That’s why we’re sitting in a prison cell,’ said Nina, her voice overflowing with sarcasm. ‘Your brother found me in Los Angeles. He wanted me to stop your people from raiding the tomb of Alexander the Great.’
Roland’s expression told her that while he knew something about his brother’s intentions, he had not been aware of the whole story. ‘Where is he?’
As much as she hated the Nazis, she couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for the youth, knowing what she was about to tell him. ‘Your brother, Volker… he’s dead.’
Roland flinched in shock. ‘Nein — no, no. That cannot be.’
‘He was gunned down in the street by one of your leaders! A guy called Jaekel — big scar on his face.’
‘Herr Jaekel, yes, of course. But — no, he would not have killed Volker.’
‘It happened right in front of me. And then Jaekel tried to kill me too.’
‘Then… where is Herr Jaekel?’
‘On a slab. Dead,’ she clarified; Roland’s English was good, but he apparently didn’t understand slang. ‘The police shot him.’
He drew back. ‘I… I do not believe you.’
‘Why? Your brother came looking for me; he never came back, but I’m here as a prisoner instead. What does that tell you?’
There was no answer. The vent cover clanked into place. ‘No!’ Macy gasped, jumping up beside Nina. ‘Don’t go, please!’
A pause… then the plate rose again. Roland looked back at the cell’s occupants. ‘Who else is there?’
‘I’m Macy, Macy Sharif. This is Ubayy Banna.’ The Egyptian stood and moved into Roland’s view. ‘We’re all archaeologists; we were kidnapped.’
Again the young man was shocked. ‘Kidnapped?’
‘You’ve got to get us out of here, please!’
‘I–I cannot. The front door is guarded. They will not let me in.’
‘Then get word to someone outside!’ said Nina. ‘Call my husband — or the United Nations in New York. There’s a man called Oswald Seretse; tell him where we are.’
Roland retreated again, agitated. ‘Only the Oberkommando may use the telephone, it is not permitted—’
‘Screw what’s permitted! Just do it!’
‘I am sorry, but — but I cannot help you…’ He jumped down from whatever he was standing on, and the cover clanged shut.
‘So, I guess he’s not going to bust us out of here,’ said Macy, breaking the glum silence that followed.
‘I guess not.’ Both women stepped down from the bed, the younger sitting heavily upon it. Nina, however, stalked across the cell in frustration. ‘Dammit! Nobody will even be looking for us here, but one frickin’ phone call would fix that. If Seretse knew we’d been taken from Egypt to Argentina, he could start searching in the right place—’
She broke off as her mind suddenly found the missing piece of the puzzle. ‘My God,’ she gasped. ‘How the hell did we miss it?’
‘Miss what?’ Macy asked.
‘I just realised why we can’t find the spring. We’ve been starting our search from the wrong place!’ Her companions looked mystified; she continued: ‘The text on the relic said to take a sun reading outside Alexander’s tomb — but it didn’t say which tomb. We all assumed it meant the one in Alexandria, because that’s where we found the statue of Bucephalus. But that wasn’t where Alexander was originally buried!’
‘Memphis!’ Banna exclaimed. ‘Of course — Ptolemy the Second moved the tomb from Memphis to Alexandria.’
‘Yeah — but Andreas didn’t know that when he made the fish! He went back to search for the spring after Alexander’s death, and evidently found it again, but the tomb was relocated while he was away. So all the clues, all the calculations you have to make using the relic to find the spring’s location… they use the original tomb as their starting point.’
‘Wow,’ said Macy. ‘Andreas must have been pissed when he got to Memphis to put the statue inside the tomb and found it wasn’t there any more.’
‘Maybe not. It actually worked to his advantage — it makes locating the spring even more of a challenge.’
Banna’s expression became thoughtful. ‘But we know. So now we can find it.’
‘Yeah. How far apart are Alexandria and Memphis?’
‘I do not know exactly,’ he said. ‘Memphis is south of Cairo, so… two hundred and fifty kilometres?’
‘We’ll need to work out the difference in degrees of latitude, though. And we can’t do that without a map.’ Nina paced across the cell, frustrated. ‘But now we know what we’ve got to do tomorrow. We string the Nazis along for as long as we can with the wrong starting point… while we work out where the spring really is using the right starting point. Then when,’ she placed deliberate emphasis on the word, to give hope to herself as much as her companions, ‘we get out of here? We’re going to find it ourselves.’
21
‘This is it,’ said Zane as the Jeep crested a low hill.
Eddie surveyed the landscape. ‘Christ, looks like we’re driving into a Clint Eastwood film. I should’ve brought a poncho.’ The scrubby plain rolled away to the distant Andean foothills. Winter had arrived, but for now the snow-capped peaks on the far horizon were keeping a jealous grip on their frozen moisture, everything a bleak, parched brown.