JAMES ROLLINS: SANDSTORM

“A meteorite?” the commander mumbled with a shake of his head, clearly disappointed that his conspiracy theory had not panned out. “That makes no sense.”

A commotion drew everyone’s attention to the door. Safia saw the director of the museum, Edgar Tyson, force his way into the security room. The usually dapper man wore a wrinkled suit that matched his worried expression. He tugged at his small white goatee. Only now did Safia wonder at his conspicuous absence. The museum was the man’s life and livelihood.

But the reason for his notable absence soon made itself clear. In fact it followed at his heels. The woman swept into the room, her presence almost preceding her form, like a surge before a storm. Tall, a full hand span over six feet, she wore a full-length tartan overcoat, dripping water, yet her sandy-blond hair, cut to the shoulders, was dry and coiffed to gentle curls that seemed to shift with their own breezes. Apparently she had not forgotten her umbrella.

Commander Randolph straightened, stepping forward, his voice suddenly respectful. “Lady Kensington.”

Ignoring him, the woman continued her search of the room, her eyes settling on Safia. A flash of relief. “Saffie…thank God!” She hurried forward and hugged her tightly, mumbling breathlessly in her ear, “When I heard…you work late so many nights. And I couldn’t reach you on the phone…”

Safia hugged her back, feeling the tremble in the other’s shoulders. They had known each other since they were children, been closer than sisters. “I’m all right, Kara,” she mumbled into her shoulder.

She was surprised by the depth of genuine fear in the otherwise strong woman. She had not felt such affection from her in a long time, not since they were young, not since the death of Kara’s father.

Kara trembled. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d lost you.” Her arms tightened around Safia, both comfort and need.

Tears rose in Safia’s eyes. She remembered another hug, similar words. I won’t lose you.

At the age of four, Safia’s mother had died in a bus accident. With her father already gone, Safia was placed in an orphanage, a horrible place for a child of mixed blood. A year later, the Kensington estate took Safia on as a playmate for Kara, put up in her own room. She barely remembered that day. A tall man had come and collected her.

It had been Reginald Kensington, Kara’s father.

Because of their closeness in age and a shared wild nature, Kara and Safia had become fast friends…sharing secrets at night, playing games among the date and palm trees, sneaking out to the cinema, whispering of their dreams under bedcovers. It had been a wonderful time, an endless sweet summer.

Then, at the age of ten, devastating news: Lord Kensington announced Kara would be traveling to England to study abroad for two years. Distraught, Safia had not even excused herself from the table. She had run to her room, panicked and heartbroken that she’d be returned to the orphanage, a toy put back in a box. But Kara had found her. I won’t lose you, she had promised amid tears and embraces. I’ll make Papa let you come with me.

And Kara had kept her word.

Safia went to England with Kara for those two years. They studied together, as sisters, as best friends. When they returned to Oman, they were inseparable. They finished their schooling in Muscat together. All seemed wonderful until the day Kara returned from a birthday hunting trip, sunburned and raving.

Her father had not returned with her.

Killed in a sinkhole was the official story, but Reginald Kensington’s body had never been found.

Since that day, Kara had never been the same. She still kept Safia close to her, but it was more from a desire for the familiar than from true friendship. Kara became engrossed in finishing her own education, in taking over the mantle of her father’s enterprises and ventures. At nineteen, she graduated from Oxford.

The young woman proved a financial savant, trebling her father’s net worth while still at the university. Kensington Wells, Incorporated, continued to grow, branching into new fields: computer technology platforms, desalination patents, television broadcasting. Still, Kara never neglected the fountainhead of all her family’s wealth: oil. In just the last year, Kensington surpassed the Halliburton Corporation for the most profitable oil contracts.

And like Kensington’s oil ventures, Safia was not left behind. Kara continued to pay for her education, including six years at Oxford, where Safia earned her doctorate in archaeology. Upon graduation, she remained under the employ of Kensington Wells, Inc. Eventually she came to oversee Kara’s pet project here at the museum, a collection of antiquity from the Arabian Peninsula, a collection first started by Reginald Kensington. And like his former corporation, this project also prospered under Kara’s mantle, growing into the single largest collection in the entire world. Two months ago, the ruling family in Saudi Arabia had attempted to buy the collection, to return it to Arabian soil, a deal rumored to be worth in the hundreds of millions.

Kara had declined. The collection meant more to her than money. It was a memorial to her father. Though his body had never been found, here was his tomb, this lone wing in the British Museum, surrounded by all the wealth and history of Arabia.

Safia stared past her friend’s shoulder to the live-feed monitor, to the smoky ruin of her hard work. She could only imagine what the loss would mean to Kara. It would be like someone desecrating her father’s grave.

“Kara,” Safia began, attempting to soften the blow that would come, to hear it from someone who shared her passion. “The gallery…it’s gone.”

“I know. Edgar already told me.” Kara’s voice lost its hesitancy. She pulled out of the embrace, as if suddenly feeling foolish. She stared around at the others gathered here. The familiar tone of command entered her demeanor. “What happened? Who did this?”

To lose the collection so soon after rejecting the Saudis’ offer had clearly piqued Kara’s suspicion, too.

Without hesitation, the tape was once again played for Lady Kensington. Safia remembered the earlier admonishment about the secrecy of what the footage revealed. No such warning was given to Kara. Wealth had its privileges.

Safia ignored the replay on the monitor. Instead she studied Kara, fearing how this might devastate her. From the corner of her eye, she caught the final flash of the explosion, and then the monitor went black. All during the viewing, Kara’s expression remained unchanged, a marble relief of concentration, Athena in deep thought.

But at the end, Kara’s eyes slowly closed. Not with shock and horror-Safia knew Kara’s moods only too well-but with profound relief. Her friend’s lips moved in a breathless whisper, a single word, caught only by her own ears.

“Finally…”

PATIENCE WASthe key to any successful hunt.

Painter Crowe stood upon his native lands, the land his father’s tribe named Mashantucket, the “much wooded land.” But where Painter waited, there were no trees, no birdsong, no whisper of wind across the cheek. Here it was the chime of slot machines, the chink of coins, the reek of tobacco smoke, and the continual recycling of lifeless air.

Foxwoods Resort and Casino was the largest gambling complex in the entire world, surpassing anything found in Las Vegas or even Monte Carlo. Located outside of the unassuming hamlet of Ledyard, Connecticut, the towering complex rose dramatically from the dense woods of the Mashantucket reservation. In addition to the gambling facility with its six thousand slot machines and hundreds of gaming tables, the resort was home to three world-class hotels. The entire facility was owned by the Pequot tribe, the “Fox People,” who had hunted these same lands for the past ten thousand years.