‘That man,’ said Ibrahim.
‘Yes?’
‘He’s found a necropolis.’
Maha looked around. ‘Did he say where?’
‘In the old Royal Quarter.’ Ibrahim traced out the approximate area with his finger, then tapped its heart. Remarkably, it was impossible to be sure even of the broad outlines of the ancient city, let alone streets or buildings. They’d all been victims of Alexandria’s particular location. With the Mediterranean to the north, Lake Mariut to the south and west, and the marshy Nile Delta to the east, there’d been no room to expand. When new buildings had been needed, old ones had been torn down to make way for them. Fort Qait Bey was built on the ruined foundations of the Pharos lighthouse. And the limestone blocks of Ptolemaic palaces had been reused for Roman temples, Christian churches and Islamic mosques, mirroring the various ages of the city.
He turned to Maha with a storyteller’s smile. ‘Did you know that Alexander marked out our city’s walls himself?’
‘Yes, sir,’ she replied dutifully, but without looking up.
‘He leaked a trail of flour from a sack, only for birds of all colours and sizes to come feast upon it. Some people might have been put off by such an omen. Not Alexander.’
‘No, sir.’
‘He knew that it meant our city would provide shelter and sustenance for people from all nations. And he was right. Yes. He was right.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’m boring you.’
‘You said you wanted these letters out today, sir.’
‘I do, Maha. Indeed I do.’
Alexander hadn’t lived to see his city built. It had been Ptolemy and his progeny who’d benefited, ruling Egypt with gradually diminishing authority until the Romans had taken over, themselves displaced by the Arab conquest of AD 641. The administrative capital had been transferred south, first to Fustat, then to Cairo. Trade with Europe had fallen off; there’d no longer been such need for a Mediterranean port. The Nile Delta had silted up; the freshwater canals had fallen into disuse. Alexandria’s decline had continued inexorably after the Turks had taken control, and by the time Napoleon had invaded at the turn of the nineteenth century, barely six thousand people had lived here. But the city had since proved its resilience, and today some four million were packed together into high-density housing that rendered systematic excavation impossible. Archaeologists like Ibrahim, therefore, were at the mercy of developers, still tearing down old buildings to erect new ones in their place. And every time they did so, there was just a glimmer of a chance that they’d uncover something extraordinary.
‘He did describe one area in great detail,’ he said. ‘A forecourt with bronze doors leading to an antechamber and main chamber. What do you make of that?’
‘A tomb?’ hazarded Maha. ‘Ptolemaic?’
Ibrahim nodded. ‘Early Ptolemaic. Very early.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Indeed, it sounded to me like the tomb of a Macedonian king.’
Maha stood and turned, her fingers splayed on her desk. ‘You can’t mean …’ she began. ‘But I thought Alexander was buried in a great mausoleum.’
Ibrahim remained silent for several seconds, vicariously enjoying her excitement, wondering whether to deflate her gently now or risk sharing his wilder hopes. He decided to let her down. ‘He was, yes. It was called the Sema; the Greek word for “tomb”, you know. Or perhaps Soma, their word for “body”.’
‘Oh,’ said Maha. ‘So this isn’t Alexander, then?’
‘No.’
‘What is it?’
Ibrahim shrugged. ‘We’ll need to excavate to find that out.’
‘How? I thought we’d spent all our money.’
And that was the nub. Ibrahim’s entire budget for the year was already allocated. He’d begged as much from the French and Americans as they could give. It happened like that here, precisely because excavation was such an opportunistic affair. If too many interesting sites were found in the same financial period, he simply couldn’t handle them all. It became a matter of triage. At this precise moment, all his field archaeologists were involved directly or indirectly in projects right across the old city. Excavating this new site would demand new money, specialists and crew. And it wasn’t as if he could put it on hold until the new financial year. The stairwell was slap in the middle of the hotel’s prospective car park; Mohammed could accommodate a couple of weeks of excavation, but any more would ruin his schedule. That was a real concern to Ibrahim. In uncovering ancient Alexandria, he depended almost entirely upon property developers and construction companies to report significant finds. If ever he got a reputation for being difficult to work with, they’d simply stop notifying him, whatever their legal obligations. In many ways, this latest site was a headache he didn’t need. But it was also an early Macedonian tomb, quite possibly a very significant find indeed. He couldn’t let it slide by. He just couldn’t.
There was one possible source of funds, he knew. His mouth felt tacky and dry just thinking of it, not least because it would mean contravening all kinds of SCA protocols. Yet he could see no alternative. He conjured up some saliva to help him speak, forced a smile. ‘That Greek businessman who keeps offering to sponsor us,’ he said.
Maha raised her eyebrows. ‘You can’t mean Nicolas Dragoumis?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s the one.’
‘But I thought you said he was …’ She caught his eye and trailed off.
‘I did,’ he acknowledged. ‘But do you have a better suggestion?’
‘No, sir.’
Ibrahim had been delighted when Nicolas Dragoumis had first contacted him. Sponsors were always welcome. Yet something about his manner had made Ibrahim apprehensive. After putting down the phone, he’d gone directly to the Dragoumis Group’s corporate website, with all its links to subsidiaries in shipping, insurance, construction, media, import-export, electronics, aerospace, property, tourism, security and more. He’d found a sponsorship section explaining that the Dragoumis Group only supported projects that helped demonstrate the historical greatness of Macedonia, or which worked to restore the independence of Aegean Macedonia from the rest of Greece. Ibrahim didn’t know much about Greek politics, but he knew enough not to want to get involved with Macedonian separatists.
Elsewhere on the site, he’d found a page with a group photograph of the directors. Nicolas Dragoumis was tall, stringy, handsome and well-dressed. But it had been the man standing front centre who’d unnerved Ibrahim. Philip Dragoumis, group founder and chief executive, fearsome-looking, swarthy, lightly bearded, with a large, plum-coloured birthmark above his left cheekbone, and an incredibly potent gaze, even in a photograph. A man to steer clear of. But Ibrahim had no choice. His heart beat a little faster, a little louder, as though he were standing on the very edge of a high cliff.
‘Good. Then could you find me his telephone number, please?’
III
Knox