JAMES ROLLINS - SANDSTORM

Finally, her body calmed. She stretched her neck, a cat awakening.

She took a deep breath, then let it out. Now down to business.

She stood and took out the wireless detonator. She checked to make sure it hadn’t been damaged or its electronics fritzed. All appeared in order. She tabbed a key, pressed the red button, then tabbed the key again.

A deadman’s switch.

Rather than pressing the button to blow the chip in Safia’s neck, all she had to do was lift her finger.

Prepared, she slipped her pistol from her holster.

Time to greet the neighbors.

SEATED ONthe floor, Painter stared around the crowded room. Coral had already reported and debriefed him on all that had happened, her theories, and her concerns. She now sat beside him, checking her weapon.

Across the room, Safia stood with her group. They smiled and soft laughter floated from them. They were a new family. Safia had a new sister in Kara, a mother in Lu’lu. But what about Omaha? He stood at her side, not touching, but close. Painter saw how Safia would lean ever so slightly in the man’s direction, almost touching, but not.

Coral continued cleaning her gun. “Sometimes you just have to move on.”

Before he could respond, a shadow shifted on his right, by the entryway.

He watched Cassandra step into the room. Pistol in one hand, she was calm, unconcerned, as if she had just come in from a stroll to the park.

“Now isn’t this cozy,” she said.

Her appearance startled everyone. Weapons were snatched.

Cassandra didn’t react. She still had her pistol pointed at the ceiling. Instead, she held out a familiar device. “Is that any way to greet a neighbor?”

“Don’t shoot!” Painter boomed, already on his feet. “Nobody shoot!”

He even moved to stand in front of Cassandra, shielding her.

“I see you recognize a deadman’s switch,” she said behind him. “If I die, poor Dr. al-Maaz loses her pretty little head.”

Omaha heard her words. He had already shoved Safia behind him. “What is this bitch talking about?”

“Why don’t you explain, Crowe? I mean the transceiver is your design.”

He turned to her. “The tracker is… not the bomb.”

“What bomb?” Omaha asked, his eyes both scared and angry.

Painter explained, “When Cassandra had Safia in her custody, she implanted a small tracking device. Cassandra modified it with a small amount of C4. She holds the detonator. If she lets go of the trigger, it will blow.”

“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Omaha said. “We could’ve removed it.”

“Do that and it blows, too,” Cassandra said. “Unless I first deactivate it.”

Painter glared at her, then back to Safia. “I’d hoped to get you somewhere safe, then have a surgical and demolition team remove the device.”

His explanation did little to quell the horror in her eyes. And Painter knew some of it was directed at him. This was his job.

“So now that we’re all friends,” Cassandra said, “I’ll ask you to throw all your weapons out into that courtyard. Everyone now. I’m certain Dr. Crowe will ensure that every weapon is accounted for. One slip and I may have to lift my finger and scold someone. We wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?”

Painter had no choice. He did as Cassandra instructed. Rifles, pistols, knives, and two grenade launchers were piled into the courtyard.

As Coral threw her half-assembled gun with the others, she remained by the entry. Her eyes were on the cavern. Painter followed her gaze.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“The storm. It’s grown worse since your arrival. Much worse.” She pointed to the roof. “The energy is not draining fast enough. It’s destabilizing.”

“What does that mean?”

“The storm is building into a powder keg in here.” She turned to him. “This place is going to blow.”

FROM THEsecond-story balcony of the palace, Safia stared with the others out at the maelstrom. The cavern roof could no longer be seen. The roiling clouds of static charge had begun a slow spin across the dome, a vortex of static. In the center, a small downspout could be seen, perceptibly lowering, like the funnel cloud of a tornado. It aimed for the antimatter lake.

“Novak’s right,” Cassandra said. She was studying the phenomenon through her night-vision goggles. “The entire dome is filling up.”

“It’s the megastorm,” Coral said. “It must be much stronger than the ancient storm that triggered the cataclysm two thousand years ago. It’s overwhelming the capacity here. And I can’t help but think a fair amount of the lake water is probably destabilized like the contents of the iron camel.”

“What will happen?” Safia asked.

Coral explained, “Have you ever seen an overloaded transformer blow? It can take out an entire power pole. Now picture one the size of this cavern. One with a concentrated antimatter core. It has the capability of taking out the entire Arabian Peninsula.”

The sobering thought silenced them all.

Safia watched the vortex of energies churn. The funnel in the center continued to drop, slowly, inexorably. Primitive fear laced through her.

“So what can we do?” This question came from an unlikely source. Cassandra. She pulled up her night-vision goggles. “We have to stop this.”

Omaha scoffed. “Like you want to help?”

“I don’t want to die. I’m not insane.”

“Just evil,” Omaha muttered.

“I prefer the word ‘opportunistic.’ ” She directed her attention back to Coral. “Well?”

Coral shook her head.

“We ground it,” Painter said. “If this glass bubble is the insulator for this energy, then we need to find a way to shatter the bubble’s underside, ground the electrical storm, send its energy into the earth.”

“It’s not a bad theory, Commander,” Coral said. “Especially if you could break the glass under the lake itself, get the antimatter waters to drain into the original Earth-generated water system from whence it came. Not only would the energy dissipate, but it would lessen the risk of an antimatter chain reaction. The enriched waters would simply dilute away to the point of impotency.”

Safia felt a glimmer of hope. It didn’t last past Coral’s next words.

“It’s the practical application of that plan that’s the big problem. We don’t have a bomb massive enough to blow out the bottom of the lake.”

For the next few minutes, Safia listened to the discussions of possible explosive devices while knowing what lay implanted in her own neck, knowing what had happened back in Tel Aviv, back at the British Museum. Bombs marked the turning points in her life. They might as well mark her end. The threat should have terrified her, but she was beyond fear.

She closed her eyes.

She half noted the various ideas being bandied aloud, from rocket-propelled grenades even to the bit of C4 in her neck.

“There’s nothing here strong enough,” Coral said.

“Yes, there is,” Safia said, opening her eyes. She remembered the blast at the British Museum. She pointed down into the courtyard. “It’s not a camel, but it may do.”

The others stared where she pointed.

To the giant iron sphere resting in the glass palm.

“We sink it into the lake,” Safia said.

“The world’s largest depth charge,” Danny said.

“But how do you know it will explode like the camel?” Coral asked. “It might just fizzle like the iron maiden. These iron artifacts don’t all function the same way.”

“I’ll show you,” Safia said.

She turned and led the way back down the stairs. Once in the main room, she waved to each of the sand-painted walls. “Opposite the entry is the first Ubar, a rendering of its discovery. Over on that far wall is the depiction of Ubar above. Its face to the world. And this wall, of course, is the true heart of Ubar, its pillared glass city.” She touched the painting of the palace. “The detail is amazing, even down to the sandstone statues guarding the entrance. But on this picture both statues are shown.”