Sandstorm (49 page)

Bastard,
Cassandra cursed to herself. He hides behind his code name, sitting behind some goddamn desk, and he has the gall to question my competency. But Cassandra knew one way to spin her latest difficulty. She had to give Painter credit for that.

“Minister, I am certain of victory here, but I would also request that afterward I be able to clear my name. I was assigned my team leader.
He was not of my own choosing. John Kane has mishandled and undermined my command. It was
his
lack of security that caused both this delay and his own death. I, on the other hand, was able to subdue and apprehend the saboteur. A key member of DARPA’s Sigma Force.”

“You have Painter Crowe?”

Cassandra frowned at the familiarity behind that tone. “Yes, Minister.”

“Very good, gray leader. I may
not
have misplaced my confidence in you after all. You’ll have your supplies. Four armored tractors driven by Guild operatives are already under way as we speak.”

Cassandra bit her tongue. So all this browbeating was for show.

“Thank you, sir,” she managed to force out, but it was a wasted effort. The Minister had already hung up. She shoved the phone down, but continued to pace the room twice more, breathing deeply.

She had been so sure of victory when she blew the tractor out of the hole. She had enjoyed tormenting Painter, breaking him so he’d talk. She now knew the others posed no real threat. A handful of experienced fighters, but also lots of civilians, children, and old women.

After the wreckage had been cleared, Cassandra had gone down the hole herself, ready for victory, only to discover the underground river. There had been a stone pier, so the others must have found some vessel in which to row away.

Alternate plans had to be made…again.

She had to lean on the Minister, but despite her frustration, the call couldn’t have gone better. She had found a scapegoat for her past failures and would soon have everything she needed to ensure her victory under the sand.

Calmer now, Cassandra headed to the stairs. She would oversee final arrangements. She clomped down the wooden steps and entered the temporary hospital ward. She crossed to the medic in charge and nodded.

“You’ll have all the supplies you need. Trucks are coming in two hours.”

The medic looked relieved. The other men heard her and cheers rose.

She glanced to Painter, half sedated, groggy on the bed. She had left her laptop near his bed. The blue light of Safia’s transceiver glowed on the screen.

A reminder.

Cassandra carried the transmitter in her pocket, extra insurance for his good behavior and cooperation.

She checked her watch. Soon it would all be over.

2:06 P.M.

K
ARA STOOD
at the prow with Safia. She held her sister’s free hand as Safia somehow propelled the dhow with her touch. They had done it, found what her father had sought for so many years.

Ubar.

The dhow sailed from the tunnel into a vast cavern, arching thirty stories overhead, stretching a mile out. A massive lake filled the cavern to an unknown depth.

As they sailed the subterranean lake, flashlights pointed in all directions, spearing out from the dhow. But additional illumination was not necessary. Across the ceiling, scintillations of cobalt electricity arced in jagged displays while gaseous clouds swirled with an inner fire, edges indistinct, ghostly, ebbing and flowing.

Trapped static charge. Possibly drawn from the storm on the surface.

But the fiery display was the least cause for their amazement. Its glow reflected and dazzled off every surface: lake, roof, walls.

“It’s all glass,” Safia said, gazing up and around.

The entire cavern was a giant glass bubble buried under the sands. She even spotted a scattering of glass stalactites dripping down from the roof. Blue arcs glistened up and down their lengths, like electric spiders.

“Slag glass,” Omaha said. “Molten sand that hardened. Like the ramp.”

“What could’ve formed this?” Clay asked.

No one even hazarded a guess as the dhow continued its journey.

Coral eyed the lake. “All this water.”

“It must be Earth-generated,” Danny mumbled. “Or once was.”

Coral seemed not to hear him. “If it’s all enriched with antimatter…”

The possibility chilled them all into silence. They simply watched the play of energies across the ceilings, mirrored in the still waters.

Finally, Safia let out a soft gasp. Her hand dropped from the shoulder of the iron figurehead and covered her mouth.

“Safia, what—”

Then Kara saw it, too. Across the lake, a shore appeared out of the darkness; it rose from the waters and spread back to the far wall. Pillars of black glass stretched from floor to ceiling, hundreds, in all sizes. Mighty columns, thin spires, and unearthly twisted spirals.

“The thousand pillars of Ubar,” Safia whispered.

They were close enough for further details to reveal themselves, lit by the reflected glow of the electrical display. From out of the darkness, a
city
appeared, glinting, shining, shimmering.

“All glass,” Clay murmured.

The miraculous city climbed the shore, stretching high up the back wall, scattered among the pillars. It reminded Kara of the seaside towns found along the Amalfi coast, looking like a child’s toy blocks spilled down a hillside.

“Ubar,” the
hodja
said at her side.

Kara glanced back as all the Rahim knelt to the deck. They had returned home after two millennia. One queen had left; thirty now returned.

The dhow had stopped after Safia lifted her hand, drifting on momentum.

Omaha stepped to Safia’s side, encircling her with an arm. “Closer.”

She reached again to the iron shoulder. The craft sailed again, moving smoothly toward the ancient lost city.

Barak called from the wheel, “Another pier! I’ll see if I can take us in!”

The dhow angled toward the spear of stone.

Kara gazed out at the city as they drew nearer. Flashlight beams leaped the distance, adding further illumination. Details grew clearer.

The homes, while all walled of glass, bore adornments of silver, gold, ivory, and ceramic tile. One palace near the shoreline had a mosaic that appeared to be made out of emeralds and rubies. A hoopoe bird. The crested bird was an important element in many stories about the Queen of Sheba.

They were all overwhelmed.

“Slow us down!” Barak called as they approached the pier.

Safia released her hold on the iron statue. The dhow’s pace immediately dropped. Barak slid the craft easily alongside the pier.

“Tie us up,” he said.

The Rahim were again on their feet. They leaped to the sandstone pier and tied lines to silver stanchions, matching the ones on the royal dhow.

“We are home,” Lu’lu said. Tears brimmed her eyes.

Kara helped the old woman back to the center of the ship so she could step from boat to pier. Once on solid ground, the
hodja
waved Safia to her.

“You should lead us. You have returned Ubar to us.”

Safia balked, but Kara nudged her. “Do the old lady a favor.”

Taking a deep breath, Safia climbed from the dhow and led the party to the glass shore of Ubar. Kara marched behind Safia and Lu’lu. This was their moment. Omaha even held back from rushing forward, though he did keep darting his head left and right, trying to see past the two women’s shoulders.

They reached the shore, all flashlights ablaze.

Kara glanced up and around. Distracted, she bumped into Safia’s back. She and the
hodja
had suddenly stopped.

“Oh, God…” Safia moaned.

Lu’lu simply fell to her knees.

Kara and Omaha stepped around them. They both saw the horror at the same time. Omaha flinched. Kara took a step back.

A few yards ahead, a skeletal, mummified body protruded from the street. Its lower half was still encased in glass. Omaha shifted his flashlight’s beam farther up the street. Other such bodies sprawled, half buried in the roadway. Kara spotted a single desiccated arm poking up out of the glass, as if drowning in a black sea. It appeared to be a child’s hand.

They had all drowned in glass.

Omaha moved a few steps closer, then jumped to the side. He pointed his flashlight down to where he had just stepped. His beam penetrated the glass, revealing a human shape buried below, burned to bone, curled within the glass under his feet.

Kara could not blink. It was like her father.

She finally covered her face and turned away.

Omaha spoke behind her. “I think we just discovered the true tragedy that drove the last queen of Ubar out of here, sealing the place, cursing it.” He moved back to them. “This isn’t a city. It’s a tomb.”

DECEMBER 4, 3:13 P.M.
SHISUR

P
AINTER STARED
across the makeshift medical ward. The injection of sedatives still kept his head full of cobwebs, but enough had worn off that he could think clearer, straighter. A fact he kept to himself.

He watched Cassandra enter the room, pushing in from the storm, sand blowing in with her. It took an additional shoulder to shove the door closed.

Painter had heard enough earlier to determine that her attempt to chase down the others had hit some snafu. But he had no details. Still, from the confidence in her stride, from the way the morale here seemed high, she had not been fully thwarted. As always, she had another plan.

She noted his bleary attention, crossed to him, and plopped down on a neighboring cot. His personal guard, seated behind him, shifted straighter. The boss was here. She pulled out a pistol and rested it in her lap.

Was this the end?

From the corner of his eye, he happened to note the tiny blue ring on the laptop computer. At least Safia was still alive. She had moved well out of Shisur by now, due north. Her Z-axis coordinate grid showed her still deep underground. Over three hundred feet.

Cassandra waved off his bodyguard. “Why don’t you take a smoke. I’ll watch the prisoner for a bit.”

“Yes, Captain. Thank you, sir.” He bolted away before she changed her
mind. Painter heard the trace of fear in the man’s voice. He could guess how Cassandra commanded here. An iron fist and intimidation.

Cassandra stretched. “So, Crowe…”

Painter curled a fist under the sheets. Not that he could do anything. One of his ankles was cuffed to the cot’s foot. She sat just out of reach.

“What do you want, Sanchez? Come to gloat?”

“No. But I just wanted to let you know that you seemed to have piqued the interest of my superiors. In fact, capturing you may have earned me a few steps up the chain of Guild command.”

Painter glowered at her. She had come not to gloat, but to
brag.
“The Guild? So that’s who signs your paychecks.”

“What can I say? The salary was good.” She shrugged. “Better benefits packages. Matching 401(k)s. Your own death squad. What’s not to like?”

Painter heard the combination of confidence and derision in her voice. It did not bode well. She certainly had a plan in place for victory here. “Why throw your lot in with the Guild?” he asked.

She stared down at him tied to the cot. Her voice grew contemplative, but also somehow meaner. “
True
power can only be found in those willing to break all rules to achieve their ends. Laws and regulations do nothing but bind and blind. I know what it feels like to be powerless.” Her eyes drifted away, into the past. Painter sensed a well of grief behind her words. Still, ice entered her voice. “I finally broke free by crossing lines few will cross. Beyond that boundary, I found power. And I will never step back…not even for you.”

Painter recognized the futility of reasoning with her.

“I tried to warn you to back down,” Cassandra continued. “Piss off the Guild too many times and they have the tendency to bite back. They’ve taken a particular interest in you.”

Painter had heard whispers about the Guild. An organization structured after terrorist cells, a loose association with a shadowy leadership structure. They operated internationally, no specific national affiliation, though it was said they had risen out of the ashes of the former Soviet Union, a combination of Russian mobsters and former KGB agents. But since then, the Guild had dissolved across all borders, like arsenic in tea. Little else was known about them. Except that they were ruthless and bloody. Their goals were simple: money, power, influence. If they should gain access to the antimatter source, it would be a prize equal to none other. They could blackmail nations, sell samples to foreign powers or terrorists. The Guild would be unstoppable and untouchable.

He studied Cassandra. How far did the Guild’s reach stretch into Washington? He remembered his test e-mail. He knew at least one man who was on their payroll. He pictured Sean McKnight. They had all been set up. He tightened his fist.

She pushed forward, leaning elbows on knees. “When this is over, I’m going to package you up, put a ribbon around you, and deliver you to Guild command. They’ll pick apart your brain like a crab on a dead fish.”

Painter shook his head, but he was not even sure what he was denying.

“I’ve seen their interrogation methods firsthand,” Cassandra continued. “Impressive work. There was one fellow, an MI5 operative, who attempted to infiltrate a Guild cell in India. The chap was so broken down that all he had left to give were a few plaintive whimpers, the mewling of a beaten puppy. Then again I’d never seen a man scalped before, electrodes drilled into his skull. It’s fascinating stuff. But why am I telling you all this? You’ll get to experience it yourself.”

Painter had never imagined the depths of depravity and cunning in the woman. How had he missed such a well of corruption? How had he almost given his heart to her? He knew the answer. Like father, like son. His father had married a woman who would eventually stab him to death. How had his father missed such a murderous soul in the woman to whom he pledged his heart, whom he slept beside each night, with whom he bore a child? Was it some genetic blindness passed from one generation to the next?

His eyes drifted to the blue glow on the screen.
Safia.
He touched the well of warm feelings there. It was not love, not yet at least, not after so short a time. But it was deeper than respect and friendship. He grasped that possibility, that potential inside him. There were good women, with hearts as genuine as his own. And he could love them.

He stared back at Cassandra. The anger bled from him.

She must have seen something in his face. She had been expecting defeat but found resolution and calmness instead. Confusion shone in her eyes, and behind it, Painter caught a glimpse of something deeper.

Anguish.

But it was only a flicker.

In a blink, fury burned away all else. Cassandra shoved up, hand on her pistol. He simply stared at her. Let her shoot him. It would be better than to be handed off to her superiors.

Cassandra made a sound between a laugh and a sneer. “I’ll leave you to the Minister. But I may come to watch.”

“The Minister?”

“His is the last face you’ll ever see.” She swung away.

Painter heard the edge of fear behind her words with this last statement. It sounded exactly like the guard who had departed moments ago. Fear of a superior, someone ruthless and ironfisted. Painter sat very still on his cot.

The last cobwebs from the sedatives burned away in a sudden flame of insight.
The Minister.
He closed his eyes against the possibility. In that moment, he knew with certainty who led the Guild, or at least guided Cassandra’s hand.

It was worse than he imagined.

4:04 P.M.

T
HIS HAS
to be the queen’s palace,” Omaha said.

From across a courtyard of black glass, Safia stared up at the huge structure as Omaha splashed his flashlight’s beam over the surface of the towering, vaulted structure. Its base was square, but it was surmounted by a four-story round tower, with crenellated battlements at the top. Arches of blown glass decorated the tower, opening onto balconies that overlooked the lower city. Sapphires, diamonds, and rubies decorated rails and walls. Roofs of gold and silver shone in the blue coruscations that flickered across the cavern roof.

Still, Safia gave it a critical eye. “This is a duplicate of the ruined citadel up top. Look at the dimensions. The structure of the base. They match.”

“My God, Saff. You’re right.” Omaha stepped into the courtyard.

The space was walled on both sides, with a huge arched opening in front.

Safia stared behind her. The palace—and there was no question this was the queen’s palace—stood high up the cavern wall, near the back of the city, the rest of Ubar stretched in winding, crooked roads, descending below in terraces, stairs, and ramps. Pillars rose everywhere.

“Let’s peek inside,” Omaha said. He moved ahead, followed by Clay.

Kara helped Lu’lu. The
hodja
had recovered from her initial shock.

Still, on their journey up here, they had come across body after mummified body, buried in glass, most partially, some completely consumed. All around, at every turn, agonized poses stretched from the glass, macabre skeletal trees of desiccated, mummified limbs. The poses spoke of a misery beyond comprehension. One woman, frozen against a glass wall, sunk almost fully into it, had tried to protect her child, holding it
up, like an offering to God. Her prayer had not been heard. Her child lay in the glass over her head. Such misery was everywhere.

Ubar must have once housed a population that numbered close to a thousand. The elite of the city above. Royalty, clerics, artisans, those who garnered the favor of the queen. All killed.

Though the queen sealed the place and never spoke of it, some word must have escaped. Safia recalled the two stories from
The Arabian Nights:
“The City of Brass” and “The Petrified City.” Both tales spoke of a city whose populace were frozen in time, turned to brass or stone. Only the reality was much worse.

Omaha moved toward the entrance to the palace. “We could spend decades studying all this. I mean, look at the artistry in the glasswork.”

Kara spoke up. “Ubar reigned for a thousand years. It had a power source at hand unlike any seen before…or now. Human ingenuity will find a use for such power. It would not go untapped. This entire city is an expression of human resourcefulness.”

Safia had a hard time matching Kara’s enthusiasm. The city was a necropolis. A city of the dead. It was not a testament of resourcefulness, but of agony and horror.

For the past two hours, their small group had climbed the city, exploring it for some answer to the tragedy. But upon reaching the summit, they had found no clue.

The others of their party remained below. Coral still worked by the lake’s edge, performing arcane acts of chemistry, assisted by Danny, who had discovered a newfound passion for physics…or perhaps his passion lay more for the six-foot-tall blond physicist. Coral seemed to be onto something. Before Safia and the others left, Coral had asked for something odd: a couple drops of blood from her and a few of the Rahim. Safia had complied, but Coral refused to explain why she made such an odd request and went immediately to work.

Meanwhile, Barak and the remaining Rahim had spread out to search for some means to escape the tomb.

Omaha led their group into the palace courtyard.

In the center of the open space, a giant iron sphere, four feet in diameter, rested on a cradle of black glass, sculpted into a palm. Safia eyed the sculpture as she circled it. Clearly it represented the touch of the queen upon such iron artifacts, the source of all power here.

Safia noted Lu’lu studying it, too. Not with the reverence of before. Horror still shone in her eyes.

They moved past it.

“Look at this.” Omaha hurried forward.

He crossed to another sculpture, sandstone this time, perched on a glass pedestal. It flanked one side of the arched entrance to the palace. Safia stared up at the cloaked figure bearing aloft an elongated lamp on one arm. A twin to the sculpture that had once hidden the iron heart. Only the details of this one were not worn away. It was stunning, the intricate folds of cloth, a tiny sandstone flame perched at the tip of the lamp, the soft features of the face, clearly a young woman. Safia felt a renewed bit of enthusiasm.

She glanced to the other side of the archway. Another black glass pedestal stood there—but no statue. “The queen took it from here,” Safia said. “Her own statue…to hide the first key.”

Omaha nodded. “And planted it at Nabi Imran’s tomb.”

Kara and Lu’lu stood at the arched opening. Kara shone a flashlight inside. “You two should see this.”

Safia and Omaha joined her. Beyond the entry, a short hallway opened. Kara flashed her light along the walls. They shone with rich, earthen hues: tans, creams, rose, umber. Splashes of indigo and turquoise.

“It’s sand,” Kara said. “Mixed in with the glass.”

Safia had seen such artistry before, paintings done with different-colored sands, preserved behind glass…only in this case, the artwork lay
inside
glass. It covered walls, ceiling, floor, portraying an oasis in the desert. Overhead a sun shone with rays of golden sand, swirled with blue and white for the sky. To either side, date palms swayed, and in the distance, an inviting sapphire blue pool. Red dunes covered one wall, done with such subtlety of shades and hues as to invite one to come strolling. Underfoot, sand and stone.
Actual
sand and stone incorporated into the glass.

The group could not help but enter. After the horrors of the lower city, the beauty here was a balm for the heart. The entry hallway was a short few steps, opening into a large chamber with arched halls leading deeper. A sweep of stairs curved to the right, heading to the upper levels.

And everywhere about the room, sand filled the glass, creating panoramic landscapes of desert, sea, and mountains.

“Was this how the original citadel was decorated?” Omaha wondered. “Did the queen try to re-create the stone abode? Turning glass into sandstone.”

“It may have been a matter of privacy, too,” Safia said. “A light on the inside would reveal the queen’s every move.”

They wandered the space, finding enough in this one room to occupy their attention. Safia found herself studying one sand painting, opposite the entry. It was the first bit of decoration one saw upon entering.

It was a sweep of desert, the sun setting, shadows stretching, sky a dark indigo. Silhouetted was a flat-topped towering structure, vaguely familiar. A cloaked figure approached, bearing aloft a lamp. From atop the structure, a spray of brilliant sand cascaded, rays of light. The quartz and silica of the sand glistened like diamonds.