JAMES ROLLINS - SANDSTORM

Over the lip of the wave, Omaha spotted the bow end of the Scimitar clear the corner. He shifted his thumb and flipped the cover over the nitrous feed. He twisted the nozzle to full feed. It was all or nothing.

The Scimitar rounded the bend and spotted them. It must appear that they were floundering, turned ass backward by some mean boil or whirlpool.

The other boat slowed, but momentum and the current brought the Scimitar into the rapids. Their pursuers were only ten yards away now. Too close to use the grenade launcher. Shrapnel from the explosion would risk their own boat and lives.

It was a momentary standoff.

Or so it seemed.

“Grab tight!” Omaha warned as he punched the nitrous injector.

It was like someone had ignited a case of TNT under their stern. The boat bolted forward, slamming into the standing wave, striking the boulder hidden beneath. The bow climbed the flat rock, driving the stern down. The twin pulse jets shot the aluminum frame straight up. They went airborne over the wave, flying high, trailing fire.

Danny hollered-then again, so did Omaha.

Their boat sailed over the Scimitar, but it was not meant for true flight. The nitrous cut out, the flames died, and their boat came crashing down atop the fiberglass Scimitar.

The jolt knocked Omaha on his ass. Water flooded over the gunwales, swamping him. Then the boat bobbed back up. “Danny!”

“I’m fine.” He was still strapped to his seat, looking dazed.

Crawling forward, Omaha searched beyond the rail.

The Scimitar lay shattered in pieces, floating in different directions. A body, facedown, bobbled among the debris. Blood trailed through the muddy waters, forming its own river. The smell of fuel fogged the air. But at least the current was dragging them safely away from the wreckage in case it exploded.

Omaha spotted two men clinging to flotsam, heading down into the raging rapids with their makeshift floaters. They seemed to have lost interest in dinosaur eggs.

Climbing back into the seat, he checked the engine. It coughed and died. No hope there. The aluminum frame was bent, the keel pocked, but at least they were seaworthy. He broke out the paddles.

Danny unbuckled and accepted one of the paddles. “What now?”

“Call for help before that other boat comes to investigate.”

“Who’re you going to call?”

SAFIA WAScarefully wrapping up the iron heart in acid-free specimen paper when the phone on the bench rang. It was Kara’s mobile phone. She had left it behind as she retreated to the lavatory again. To freshen up, she had told Safia and Clay. But Safia knew better. More pills.

The phone continued to ring.

“You want me to get that?” Clay asked, folding up the camera tripod.

Safia sighed and picked it up. It might be important. “Hello,” she said as she flipped it open.

There was a long pause.

“Hello?” she offered again. “Can I help you?”

A throat cleared, sounding far away. “Safia?” It was said in a soft, stunned voice. One she knew all too well.

Blood drained to her feet. “Omaha?”

“I…I was trying to reach Kara. I didn’t realize you were there, too.”

She fought her tongue free from the shock. Her words came out stiff. “Kara’s…indisposed at the moment. If you’ll hold, I’ll get-”

“Wait! Safia…”

She froze from lowering the phone, holding it as if she had forgotten how to use it.

With the phone pulled away from her ear, Omaha’s voice sounded tinny. “I…maybe…” He struggled for words, finally settling on a neutral question. “If you’re over there with her, then you must know what this is all about. What sort of expedition am I being shanghaied into?”

Safia put the phone back to her ear. She could handle shoptalk. “It’s a long story, but we found something here. Something extraordinary. It points to a possible new history about Ubar.”

“Ubar?”

“Exactly.”

There was another longish pause. “So this is about Kara’s father.”

“Yes. And for once, Kara may be onto something significant.”

“Will you be joining the expedition?” This question was asked woodenly.

“No, I can be more help here.”

“Nonsense!” The next words gushed out loudly. She had to hold the phone away again. “You know more about Ubar and its history than anyone on the face of the earth. You must come! If not for Kara, then for yourself.”

A voice suddenly spoke at her shoulder, having eavesdropped on Omaha’s tinny words. “He’s right,” Kara said, stepping around. “If we’re going to solve this riddle and any more we come across, we need you on-site.”

Safia stared between the phone and her friend, feeling trapped.

Kara reached over and took the cell. “Omaha, she’s coming.”

Safia opened her mouth to protest.

“This is too important,” Kara said, cutting her off, speaking both to Omaha and Safia. Her eyes shone glassily with the surge of drug-induced adrenaline. “I won’t accept no…from either of you.”

“I’m in,” said Omaha, his words an electronic whisper. “Matter of fact, I could use a little help getting out.”

Kara lifted the phone, turning the conversation private. She listened for a while, then nodded as she spoke. “Are you ever not in trouble, Indiana? I have your GPS coordinates. A helicopter will be out to retrieve you within the hour.” She snapped the phone closed. “You’re truly better off without him.”

“Kara…”

“You’re going. In a week’s time. You owe me that.” She stormed off.

After an awkward moment, Clay spoke up. “I wouldn’t mind going.”

She frowned. The grad student knew nothing about the real world. And maybe that was a good thing. She sensed she had started something that was best left forever buried.

HOURS AFTER Kara had stormed off, Safia sat in her dark office. The only light came from a lime-shaded banker’s lamp atop her walnut desk, illuminating a sea of paper and thumbed journals. How could Kara expect her to be ready to leave for Oman in a week’s time? Especially after the explosion here. There was still so much to attend to.

She couldn’t go. That was that. Kara would simply have to understand. And if she didn’t, that wasn’t Safia’s concern. She had to do what was right for herself. She had heard that often enough from her therapist. It had taken her four years to gather some semblance of normalcy in her life, to find security in her days, to sleep without nightmares. Here was home, and she wasn’t going to forsake it for a wild-goose chase into the hinterlands of Oman.

And then there was the prickly matter of the Omaha Dunn…

Safia chewed the eraser end of her pencil. It was her only meal in the past twelve hours. She knew she should leave, nip out for a late dinner at the pub on the corner, then try to catch a few hours of sleep. Besides, Billie had been sorely neglected over the past day and would need attention and a spot of tuna to assuage his hurt feelings.

Still, Safia could not move.

She kept running over her conversation with Omaha. An old ache throbbed in the pit of her belly. If only she hadn’t picked up the phone…

She had met Omaha ten years ago in Sojar, when she was twenty-two, fresh from Oxford, researching a dissertation on Parthian influences in southern Arabia. He had been stranded in the same seaside city, awaiting approval from the Omani government to proceed into a remote section of disputed territory.