Sandstorm (52 page)
Authors: James Rollins
Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller, #Suspense, #Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Adventure, #Historical
Sliding down the side, Painter found the door and struggled to open it against the wind. Not a one-handed job. He tucked the pistol into his boxer’s waistband, its weight half pulling his shorts down. He set the laptop on the tread and finally got the door open enough to squeeze through. He snatched the computer with him.
At last, he slammed the door and latched it closed. Leaning his back against the door, he spit sand from his mouth and rubbed his eyes, clearing his eyebrows and lashes of grit.
Gunfire peppered the side of the carriage, stinging his back with their rattling impacts. He shoved away.
The fun never stops around here.
He hurried to the driver’s compartment and slid into the seat. He tossed the laptop onto the other seat. The sandstorm swirled beyond the windshield, a permanent midnight. He flipped on the lights. Visibility stretched for a whole two yards. Not bad.
He kicked the gear into reverse and headed out of Dodge.
He retreated straight back. If anything was back there, he’d simply have to trust that the armored behemoth could bull through it.
More gunfire chased him, like kids throwing stones.
He fled, noting when he cleared the charred remains of Shisur. He escaped
into the desert, shooting backward. Eventually he’d think about forward gears. But backward worked fine for now.
As he glanced to the windshield, he noted twin glows bloom in the darkness, out in the city.
Pursuit.
5:00 P.M.
A
S THE
others took a brief rest, Omaha stared at the queen’s palace. The structure had managed to escape the initial bombardment. Maybe they could make a stand here, up in its tower.
He shook his head.
Fanciful, but impractical. Their only hope was to keep moving. But they were running out of city. Not much lay above and beyond the palace. A few streets and low buildings.
He glanced over the lower city. Sporadic gunfire still flared, but it was both less frequent and closer. The Rahim’s defense was wearing thin, the line being overwhelmed.
Omaha knew they were doomed. He had never considered himself a pessimist, just a pragmatist. Still, he glanced at Safia. With his last breath, he would keep her safe.
Kara stepped beside him. “Omaha…”
He looked at her. She never called him Omaha. Her face was exhausted, lined by fear, eyes hollow. Like him, she sensed their end.
Kara nodded to Safia. Her voice was a sigh. “What the hell are you waiting for? Bloody Christ…” She stepped away to the courtyard wall, slumped against it, and sank to a seat.
Omaha remembered her earlier words.
She still loves you.
From steps away, he watched Safia. She knelt beside a child, holding both the girl’s small hands between her own. Her face shone in the glow overhead. Madonna and child.
He moved closer…then closer again. Kara’s words inside his head:
Life is hard. Love doesn’t have to be.
Safia didn’t look up, but she still spoke. “These are my mother’s hands,” she said so quietly, so calmly, defying their situation. She stared at the child. “All these women. My mother still lives through them. An entire life. From babe to elder. A full life. Not one cut short.”
Omaha dropped to one knee. He stared into her face as she studied the child. She simply took his breath away. Literally.
“Safia,” he said softly.
She turned to him, eyes shining.
He met her gaze. “Marry me.”
She blinked. “What…?”
“I love you. I always have.”
She turned. “Omaha, it’s not that simple…”
He touched her chin gently with a finger, and turned her face back to his. He waited for her eyes to find him. “That’s just it. Yes, it is.”
She attempted to shift away.
He would not let her escape this time. He leaned closer. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes shone a bit brighter, not from happiness but from the threat of tears. “You left me.”
“I know. I didn’t know what to do. But it was a
boy
who left you.” He lowered his hand, gently taking hers. “It is a
man
on his knees now.”
She stared into his eyes, wavering.
Movement over her shoulder caught his eye. Figures pushed out of the dark around the corner of the palace. Men. A dozen.
Omaha leaped to his feet, scrambling to push Safia behind him.
Out of the shadows, a familiar figure strode forth.
“Barak…” Omaha scrambled to comprehend. The giant of an Arab had been missing since before the attack.
More men followed behind Barak, in desert cloaks. They were led by a man with a crutch under one arm.
Captain al-Haffi.
The leader of the Desert Phantoms waved to the men behind him. Sharif was among them, as hale as when Omaha had last seen him, out at Job’s tomb. He had survived the firefight without a scratch. Sharif and the men dispersed down the streets, strapped with rifles, grenades, and RPG launchers.
Omaha stared after them.
He didn’t know what was going on, but Cassandra was in for a surprise.
5:05 P.M.
A
LL THAT
was left was the cleanup.
Cassandra kept one foot on the pontoon of her boat. She listened to the open channel as various teams swept the city in quadrants, clearing away pockets of resistance. She clutched her electronic tracker, fingers digging. She knew exactly where Safia was within the city.
Cassandra allowed the curator to scurry like a mouse while her crew mopped behind her, wearing through her resistance. Cassandra still wanted the bitch alive. Especially with Painter now on the run.
She had to resist screaming her frustration.
She would have the balls of every man topside if Painter escaped.
She took a deep shuddering breath. There was nothing she could do down here. She had to secure this place, root out its secrets, which meant capturing Safia alive. And with Safia in hand, Cassandra would have a card to play against Painter. A pretty little ace in the hole.
An explosion drew her attention back to the city. She was surprised her men needed to employ another grenade. She watched an RPG sail into the air.
She blinked at its trajectory.
Fuck…
She leaped from her perch and sprinted down the shoreline. Her rubber soles gave her good purchase on the rough glass. She dove behind a sheltering pile of debris as the grenade struck the pontoon boat.
The explosion deafened her, making her ears ache, even stinging her eyes. Glass and water sprayed high. She rolled up and away as broken glass rained down. She covered her head with her arms. Jagged pieces fell around her, dancing off other glass, slicing skin and clothes, stinging like a rain of fire.
After the deadly shower ceased, she stared up at the city. Had someone commandeered one of her team’s launchers? Another two RPGs flew by.
New automatic fire flared from a dozen places.
What the hell was going on?
5:07 P.M.
A
S THE
explosions echoed away and gunfire chattered, Safia watched Captain al-Haffi clump forward on his crutch. The shock of his arrival still held everyone speechless.
The captain’s eyes settled on Lu’lu. He dropped his crutch and lowered himself to one knee. He spoke in Arabic, but in a dialect few had heard spoken aloud. Safia had to strain her ears to recognize the words of the singsong speech.
“Your Highness, please forgive your servant for arriving so late.”
He bowed his head.
The
hodja
was as mystified as anyone else by his arrival and posturing.
Omaha stepped to Safia’s side. “He’s speaking Shahran.”
Safia’s mind spun. The Shahra were the mountain clan that traced their lineage to King Shaddad, the first ruler of Ubar…or rather the consort of its first queen.
Barak spoke, hearing Omaha. “We are all of the Shahra clan.”
Captain al-Haffi rose to his feet. Another man returned his crutch.
Safia realized what she had just witnessed: the formal acknowledgment of the king’s line to its queen.
Captain al-Haffi motioned them to follow, speaking again in English. “I had thought to get you clear, but all I can offer is shelter. We must hope my men and your women can hold the marauders off. Come.”
He led the way back around the palace. Everyone followed.
Omaha paced next to Barak. “You are Shahra?”
The man nodded.
“So that’s why you knew about that back door out of the mountains, through that graveyard. You said only the Shahra knew of that path.”
“The Vale of Remembrance,” Barak intoned more formally. “The graves of our ancestors, back to the exodus from Ubar.”
Captain al-Haffi hobbled alongside Lu’lu. Kara helped her from the other side, continuing their conversation. “Is that why you all volunteered for the mission? Because of its ties to Ubar.”
The captain bowed his head. “I apologize for the ruse, Lady Kensington. But the Shahra do not reveal their secrets to outsiders. That is not our way. We are as much guardians of this place as the Rahim. We were given this burden by the last queen of Ubar, just before our two lines parted ways. As she divided the keys, so she divided the royal lines, each with its own secrets.”
Safia stared between the two, the houses of Ubar joined again.
“What secret was left with you?” Omaha asked him.
“The old path into Ubar. The one walked by the first queen. We were forbidden to open it until Ubar was tread again.”
“A back door,” Omaha said.
Safia should have known. The queen who sealed Ubar after the horrible tragedy here was too meticulous. She had contingency plans stacked atop contingency plans, spreading them across both lines.
“So there’s a way out of here?” Omaha asked.
“Yes, to the surface. But there is no escape there. The sandstorm
rages, which makes crossing atop Ubar’s dome dangerous. It was what took us so long to get here, once we learned from Barak that the gate had been breached.”
“Well, better late than never,” Danny said behind them.
“Yes, but now a new storm strikes the area, rising from the south. It will be death to walk those sands.”
“So we’re still trapped,” Omaha said.
“Until the storm abates. We must simply hold out until that time.”
With that sobering thought, they crisscrossed a few more streets in silence, finally reaching the back cavern wall. It looked solid, but Captain al-Haffi continued forward. Then Safia spotted it. A straight fracture in the glass wall. It angled inward, making it difficult to spot.
Captain al-Haffi led them to the crack. “The surface lies a hundred and fifty steps up. The passage can act as a shelter for the children and women.”
“And a
trap
if we can’t hold off Cassandra. She still outnumbers us and outguns us.”
Captain al-Haffi stared across the group. “My men could use help. Anybody who can hold a gun.”
Safia watched Danny and Coral accept weapons from a stash inside the crack. Even Clay stepped forward and held out his hand.
Her student caught her surprised look. “I really want that A,” was all he said as he stepped away. His eyes shone with terror, but he did not back down.
Omaha went last. “I already have a pistol. But I could use a second.”
Captain al-Haffi handed him an M-16.
“But this’ll do.”
Safia stepped up as he moved away. “Omaha…” She had never acknowledged what he had said back by the palace. Had his words been a deathbed confession, knowing they were doomed?
He smiled at her. “You don’t have to say anything. I made my stand. I haven’t earned your response yet.” He moved away. “But I hope at least you’ll let me try.”
Safia shoved up to him and put her arm around his neck and held him tight. She spoke into his ear. “I do love you…I just don’t know…” She couldn’t finish the statement. It hung there between them.
He squeezed her anyway. “I do. And I’ll wait until you do, too.”
An argument forced them apart. Words between Kara and Captain al-Haffi.
“I will not let you fight, Lady Kensington.”
“I am perfectly able to shoot a gun.”
“Then take a gun with you to the stairs. You may need it.”
Kara fumed, but the captain was right. The last stand might come to a fight on the stairs.
Captain al-Haffi placed a hand on her shoulder. “I owe your family a debt. Let me pay it this day.”
“What are you talking about?” Kara said.
He bowed his head; his voice grew mournful and shamed. “This is not the first time I’ve lent my services to your family. When I was a young man, a boy really, I volunteered to help you and your father.”
Kara’s frown deepened.
Captain al-Haffi lifted his face to hers. “My first name is Habib.”
Kara gasped and stumbled back a step. “The guide on the day of the hunt. That was you.”
“I was to attend your father because of his interest in Ubar. But I failed. Fear kept me from following you and your father that day into the forbidden sands. Only when I saw that you intended to enter the
nisnases
did I come after you, but it was too late. So I collected you from the sands and returned you to Thumrait. I did not know what else to do.”
Kara appeared dumbstruck. Safia stared between them. Everything had come full circle…back to these same sands.
“So let me protect you now…as I failed to do in the past.”
Kara could only nod. Captain al-Haffi moved away. Kara called after him. “You were only a boy.”
“Now I’m a man.” He turned to follow the others back down to the city.
Safia heard an echo of Omaha’s words.
The
hodja
stared among those remaining. “It is not over yet.” With those cryptic words, she entered the cleft. “We must walk the path of the old queen.”
DECEMBER 4, 5:30 P.M.
SHISUR
T
HEY WERE
still on his tail.
Painter saw the glow of his pursuers back in the sandstorm. He lumbered forward, eking out as much speed as possible, which was approximately thirty miles per hour. And in the current teeth of this storm, this was a high-speed chase.
He checked both side mirrors. One truck tracked on each side. He caught the barest glimpse of his hunters: two loaded flatbed trucks. Despite their loads, they moved faster than he could, but they also had to compensate for the terrain. He, on the other hand, aimed the twenty-ton tractor in one direction, trundling over anything in his path, riding up one dune and down another.
Sand obliterated all sight lines. If this were a blizzard, it would be described as a whiteout.
Painter had set the tractor’s cruise control. He checked its other features. It had a radar dish, but he didn’t know how to operate it. He did find the radio. His initial plan had been to travel as close to Thumrait Air Base as necessary and contact the Omani Royal Air Force. Someone would listen. If he had any hope of rescuing the others, he had to blow his cover and alert the government here.
But the trucks had set him on a course away from the base, deeper into the storm. He had no chance to swing around. The other trucks were too fast.
As he climbed a monstrous dune, an explosion thundered on his left
side. Shrapnel and a wave of sand struck that side like a bitch-slap from God Himself.
An RPG.
For a moment, an awful grating sound tore at the treads.
Painter winced, but the tractor rode through it, grinding away whatever had clogged its gears. It moved up the long slope.
Another explosion, this time directly behind him. The noise was deafening, but the armor plating proved its mettle…or in this case, its poly-carbonate steel and Kevlar. Let them take potshots at him. The wind and storm would surely throw off their aim, and the tractor’s armor would do the rest.
Then he felt a sickening lurch.
The tractor’s treads still spun, but Painter’s speed slowed. The M4 began to slide. He suddenly realized what his hunters’ bombing had intended—not to take out the twenty-ton tractor, but to make it lose its footing.
They were bombing the slope, triggering an avalanche. The whole slope was sliding backward, taking the tractor with it. He switched off the cruise, popped the clutch, and kicked to a lower gear. He slammed the accelerator, trying to regain traction in the slippery slope.
No luck. He just churned himself into the loose sand.
Painter braked the tractor, fishtailing the back end, then hit reverse. He fled with the sand now, swimming with the riptide in the avalanche. He turned the tractor until he was parallel with the slope, the tractor tilting dangerously. He had to take care not to roll it.
He pushed the gear into neutral, braked, then back into first. The tractor moved forward again, now surfing down the slope, running along its flank, finding good traction
and speed.
He raced down to the bottom. The trucks gave chase, but they ran into the toppling sand and had to slow down.
Painter reached the end of the dune and cut around the corner.
He was done running from these fuckers.
He positioned the tractor to run straight, then reset the cruise.
Letting go of the wheel, he made sure the tractor continued its course. He then retreated quickly to the back. He found his own launcher. He loaded one of the rocket-propelled grenades, balanced the long tube on his shoulder, and crossed to the back hatch of the tractor.
He kicked the door open. Sand blew in, but not too fiercely as he was traveling into the wind. He stared out behind him. He waited until he spotted two glows, rounding the last dune, coming at him again.
“Come to Papa,” he mumbled, and aimed.
He set the crosshairs and pulled the trigger. The launcher exploded with a
whoosh.
He felt the backwash of heated air as the grenade rocketed away.
He watched the red fire of its trail, a shooting star.
The hunters spotted it, too. Painter saw them both wheel to either side. Too late. At least for one of them. The grenade exploded. Painter enjoyed seeing one of the glows shoved high into the air and explode into a fiery ball, shining brightly in the darkness. It crashed back into the sands.
The other truck had vanished. Hopefully, in its haste, it had bogged down among the dunes. Painter would watch for it.
He returned to his seat and checked both side mirrors. All dark.
With a moment to breathe, Painter opened the stolen laptop. Slowly pixels charged and bloomed to light on the dark screen. He prayed the batteries held. The schematic of the area reappeared. Painter stared.
Oh, God, there was no blue marker.
Panic prickled. Then the familiar tiny spinning blue ring appeared. It had taken an extra minute for the wireless feed to pick up again. Safia was still transmitting. He checked the scrolling coordinates. They were still changing. She was moving. Alive. He hoped that meant all the others were safe as well.
He had to get to her…to them. Though the implanted transceiver could not be removed—it was tamper-proofed to blow unless deactivated—he could get Safia out of Cassandra’s range, get her to a surgeon and demolition expert.
As he stared, he realized only the Z-axis coordinates were changing. That axis measured elevation or depth. The negative number was growing smaller, approaching zero.
Safia was climbing
up.
She was almost on the surface. She must have found a back door out of the caves. Good girl.
As he watched, he frowned. The Z coordinates passed zero and continued to climb into the positive numbers. Safia had not only reached the surface. She was climbing
higher.
What the hell?
He checked her position. She was 5.2 miles from his position. As he had already been heading in the general direction, he had only to adjust his course slightly, aiming directly for her.
He crept the speed up another five miles per hour.
Breakneck speed in the current conditions.
If Safia found a back door, so would Cassandra. He had to reach Safia
and the others as soon as possible. He glanced back to the blue glow. He knew one other person was surely monitoring this transmission.
Cassandra…and she still had the portable detonator.
5:45 P.M.
S
AFIA MARCHED
up the long dark stairs, the others trailing behind her, climbing in twos, children and old or injured women. Kara carried their only flashlight, pointed it up the passage, casting Safia’s shadow ahead of her. They sought to put as much distance as possible between them and the war below. Echoes of the fighting still reached them. A continual gunfire.
Safia fought to shut it out. She ran a hand along the wall. Sandstone. The steps underfoot had been worn by countless sandals and bare feet. How many others had walked this same path? She imagined the Queen of Sheba herself climbing or descending these stairs.
As she ascended, Safia sensed time’s constriction, the past and present merging into one. More than anywhere, here in Arabia, the past and present blurred. History was not dead and buried under skyscrapers and asphalt, or even trapped behind museum walls. It lived here, tied intimately to the land, merging story and stone into one.
She dropped her fingers.
Lu’lu joined her. “I heard you speaking to your beloved.”
Safia didn’t want to talk about it. “He’s not…that was before…”
“You both love this land,” the
hodja
continued, ignoring her attempt at a protest. “You’ve let too much sand come between you. But such dust can be swept aside.”
“It’s not that easy.”
Safia stared down at her hand, where a ring once rested. Gone like a promise once made. How could she trust he’d be there when she needed him?
It was a boy who left you. It is a man who kneels here now.
Could she believe that? In contrast, she pictured another’s face. Painter. The way he held her hand, his quiet respect and comfort, even the agony in his eyes when he frightened her.
Lu’lu spoke, as if reading her mind. “There are many men with noble hearts. Some take a little longer to grow into theirs.”
Safia felt tears rising. “I need more time…to think things through.”
“You’ve had time. Like us, you’ve spent too much time alone. Choices have to be made…before we are left with none.”
As proof, a short way up, the storm’s rush of winds moaned across the opening at the top.
Safia felt a breath of it across her cheek. She felt drawn to it. After so long below, she wanted to be free of this prison of rock. If only for a moment. To clear her head.
“I’m going to check the storm,” Safia mumbled.
“I’ll come with you,” Kara said, a step behind her.
“As will I,” the
hodja
added. “I would see with my own eyes what the first queen saw. I would see the original entrance to Ubar.”
The three of them continued alone up the last flights of stairs. The winds grew stiffer, and sand swirled down atop them. The three pulled up hoods, scarves, and goggles.
Safia hiked to the top. The opening was a crack ahead. Kara clicked off her flashlight. The storm was lighter than the dark passage.
The exit stood a yard away. Safia spotted a crowbar leaning near the exit. Beyond the threshold rested a large flat boulder, partially blocking the way.
“The rock must’ve hidden the entrance,” Kara said.
Safia nodded. Captain al-Haffi’s men must have used the crowbar to pry the stone aside enough to pass through. Perhaps, if they outlasted the storm, they could all escape, push the stone back in place, and block Cassandra.
The fresh wind filled Safia with hope.
Even from here, the storm did not seem as dark as she remembered back at Shisur. Maybe the brunt of it was ending.
Safia bent through the crack but stayed sheltered behind the stone. Sand still covered the sun, but full night had become twilight again. She could see the sun again, a wan moon through the storm.
“The storm looks less severe,” Kara said, confirming Safia’s assessment.
Lu’lu disagreed. “Do not be fooled. These sands around Ubar are deceptive. There is a very real reason tribes avoid this area, calling it cursed, haunted, the sands of djinns and devils.”
The
hodja
led them farther out of the entrance.
Safia followed, the wind tugging at her cloak and scarf. She looked around. She realized that they were atop a mesa, some thirty or forty feet above the desert floor. It was one of countless rocky prominences that poked from the dunes. “Ships of the sands,” they were named by the nomadic tribes.
Safia stepped farther out, examining their perch. She recognized the shape of the mesa. It was the same as the sand painting at the palace.
Here was where the first entrance to Ubar was discovered almost three millennia ago. She stared around. Both the citadel and the queen’s palace had been patterned after this mesa. The most precious of all the ships of the desert.
Beyond the mesa, the storm drew Safia’s eye. The swirling clouds in this area appeared strange. A mile or so out, the sandstorm darkened in bands, encircling the plateau. Safia could hear distant winds howling.
“It’s like we’re in the eye of a hurricane,” Kara said.
“It is Ubar,” Lu’lu said. “It draws the might of the storm to itself.”
Safia remembered how for a short time after the keys erupted and opened the gate, the sandstorm had seemed less intense.
Kara crept dangerously near one of the rims. It made Safia nervous.
“You should get back from there,” Safia warned, afraid a gust of wind might carry her over the edge.
“There’s a path down this side. More of a goat track. Maybe we could make it down. I can see three trucks below, about forty yards out. Captain al-Haffi’s transportation.”
Safia edged closer. She could not imagine trying to traverse a cliffside path in these winds. They gusted unpredictably.
Lu’lu agreed with Safia. “It is death to attempt those sands.”
Kara glanced back at the
hodja.
Her expression argued that it was just as dangerous to stay. Clearly Kara was willing to take the chance.
Lu’lu understood her thought. “Your father dismissed warnings of these sands, as you do now. Even after all you’ve seen.”
Her words only angered Kara. “What is there to fear?”
Lu’lu swept her arms out. “These are the sands of the
nisnases.
”
Both Safia and Kara knew that name. The black ghosts of the sands. It was the
nisnases
that were to blame for Reginald Kensington’s death.
Lu’lu pointed to the southwest. A small whirlwind stirred, twisting, a tornado of sand. It scintillated in the darkness, aglow with static charge. For a moment, it burst more brilliantly, then vanished.
“I’ve seen a dust devil like that,” Kara said.
Lu’lu nodded. “The
nisnases
bring the burning death.”
Safia pictured Reginald Kensington’s tortured body, locked in glass. It reminded her of the mummified citizens below. How were they connected?
Another devil bloomed off to the east. Another due south. They seemed to stir up from the sand and into the air. Safia had seen thousands of such whirlwinds, but never ones so brilliant with static charge.
Kara gazed out. “I still don’t under—”
Directly before them, a wall of sand blew up from below the mesa’s edge. They all fell back.
“A
nisnase!
” Lu’lu gasped.
The whirlwind formed just beyond the mesa, swirling in a sinuous column. Both Kara and the
hodja
retreated for the passage. Safia remained where she stood, mesmerized.
Vast waves of static charge swept up its length, chasing up from the sand and into the sky. Her cloak billowed, not from winds this time, but from the play of electricity in the air, crackling over her skin, clothes, and hair. It was a painful but somehow ecstatic feeling. It left her body cold, her skin warm.