JAMES ROLLINS - SANDSTORM

“No, it’s not the location,” Danny said.

Omaha nodded. “I measured it. The circle is marked sixty-nine miles from Job’s tomb, along this red line.”

Painter had debriefed them on all the details, including overhearing the tall man call out the number sixty-nine, measuring something along the pole.

“So it matches the number I heard,” Painter said.

“But they figured miles,” Omaha said. “ Our miles.”

“So?”

Omaha gave him a look as if it were obvious. “If that artifact they found at Job’s tomb was dated the same as the iron heart-and why wouldn’t it be?-then it goes back to sometime around 200B.C ”

“Okay,” Painter said, accepting the fact.

“Back then, a mile was defined by the Romans. A mile was calculated as five thousand Roman feet. And a Roman foot is only eleven and a half inches. Safia would know this! She let Cassandra believe it was modern miles. She sent the bitch on a wild-goose chase.”

“So what’s the real distance?” Painter asked, moving closer to the map.

At his side, Omaha chewed the edge of his thumb, clearly doing a calculation in his head. After a moment, he spoke. “Sixty-nine Roman miles is equivalent to just over sixty three modern miles.”

“He’s right,” Coral said. She had been doing her own calculation.

“So Safia sent Cassandra six miles past the true location.” Painter frowned. “That’s not too far.”

“In the desert,” Omaha countered, “six miles is more like six hundred.”

Painter didn’t squash the man’s pride in Safia, but he knew the ruse would not fool Cassandra for long. As soon as she realized that nothing was at that false site, she’d start consulting. Someone would solve the mystery. Painter estimated Safia’s ruse bought them a day or two at most.

“So where on the map is the true location?” Painter asked.

Omaha bobbed his head, excited. “Let’s find out.” He quickly adjusted his strings and pins, measuring and rechecking. A frown crinkled his brow. “That doesn’t make sense.” He stuck a pin in the map.

Painter leaned over and read the name pinned there. “Shisur.”

Omaha shook his head, dismay in his voice. “It’s been a goddamn wild-goose chase all along.”

“What do you mean?”

Omaha continued to frown at the map, as if it were to blame.

Danny answered for him. “Shisur is where the old ruins of Ubar were originally discovered. Back in 1992, by Nicolas Clapp and a few others.” Danny glanced to Painter. “There’s nothing there. All this running around just leads to a place that’s already been discovered and scoured.”

Painter could not accept that. “There has to be something.”

Omaha slammed a fist on the map. “I’ve been there myself. It’s a dead end. All this danger and bloodshed…for nothing!”

“There has to be something everyone has missed,” Painter persisted. “Everyone thought those two tombs we were at before had been thoroughly examined, but in a matter of days, new discoveries were made.”

“Discoveries made by Safia,” Omaha said sourly.

No one spoke for a long stretch.

Painter focused on Omaha’s words. Realization slowly dawned. “She’ll go there.”

Omaha turned to him. “What are you talking about?”

“Safia. She lied to Cassandra to stop her from getting to Ubar. But like us, she knows where the clues truly pointed.”

“To Shisur. To the old ruins.”

“Exactly.”

Omaha frowned. “But like we said, there’s nothing there.”

“And like you said, Safia discovered clues where no one found them before. She’ll think she can do the same at Ubar. She’ll go there for no other reason but to keep whatever might be there from Cassandra’s grasp.”

Omaha took a deep begrudging breath. “You’re right.”

“That’s if she’s allowed to go,” Coral said from the side. “What about the woman who took her away? The one with the leopards.”

Barak answered her, his voice somewhat embarrassed. “I’ve heard tales of such women, spoken around campfires out in the desert. Spoken among all tribes of the sands. Warriors of the desert. More djinn than flesh. Able to speak to animals. Vanish on command.”

“Yeah, right,” Omaha said.

“There was indeed something strange about that woman,” Painter conceded. “And I don’t think this is the first time we’ve had a run-in with her.”

“What do you mean?”

Painter nodded to Omaha. “Your kidnappers. In Muscat. It was a woman you saw in the market.”

“What? You think she’s the same woman?”

Painter shrugged. “Or perhaps one of the same group. There’s another party involved in all this. I know it. I don’t know if it’s Barak’s warrior women or just some group looking to make a buck. Either way, they’ve taken Safia for a reason. In fact, they may have even attempted to kidnap you, Omaha, because of Safia’s affection for you. To use you as leverage.”

“Leverage for what?”

“To get Safia to help them. I also spotted the silver case tied on the camel’s back. Why take the artifact unless there’s a good reason? Everything keeps pointing back to Ubar.”

Omaha pondered his words, nodding his head. “Then that’s where we’ll go. With that bitch distracted, we’ll wait and see if Safia shows up.”

“And search the place in the meantime,” Coral said. She nodded to the stacked gear. “There’s a ground-penetrating radar unit in here, good for looking under sand. And we’ve a box of grenades, additional rifles, and I don’t know what this is.” She held up a weapon that looked like a shotgun with a belled end to it. From the glint in her eyes, she was dying to try it out.

Everyone turned to Painter, as if waiting for his agreement.

“Of course we’re going,” he said.

Omaha clapped him on the shoulder. “Finally something we agree on.”

SAFIA HUGGEDKara. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m not sure.” Kara trembled in her grip. Her skin felt clammy, moist.

“The others? I saw Painter…what about Omaha, his brother…?”

“As far as I know, everyone’s okay. But I was away from the fighting.”

Safia had to sit down, her legs weak, knees rubbery. The cavern swam a bit around her. The tinkling of the waterfall through the hole in the roof sounded like silver bells. Firelight from the five campfires dazzled her eyes.

She sank to a rumpled blanket by the fire. She couldn’t feel the heat of the flames.

Kara followed her down. “Your shoulder! You’re bleeding.”

Shot. Safia didn’t know if she’d spoken aloud or not.

Three women approached, arms full. They carried a steaming basin, folded cloths, a covered brazier, and oddly out of place, a box with the red cross of an emergency medical kit. An elderly woman, not the same as the one who had led her here, followed with a tall walking stick, fiery in the glow of the campfire. She was ancient, shoulders hunched, hair white but neatly combed and braided back over her ears. Rubies adorned her lobes, matching her teardrop tattoo.

“Lie down, daughter,” the old woman intoned. English again. “Let us see to your injuries.”

Safia had no energy to resist, but Kara guarded over her. She had to trust that her friend would protect her if necessary.

Safia’s blouse was stripped from her. The soiled bandage was then soaked in a steaming poultice of aloe and mint and slowly peeled back. It felt as if they were flaying the skin off her shoulder. She gasped, and her vision darkened.

“You’re hurting her,” Kara warned.

One of the three women had knelt and opened the emergency medical kit. “I have one ampoule of morphine, hodja, ” the woman said.