Sandstorm (Sigma Force 1)

To where the tomb of Job waited.

He pulled open the door to his Rover and climbed into the driver’s seat. He had been warned away. He knew it with dread certainty.

Something horrible was going to happen up there.

4:45 P.M.

SALALAH

S AFIA’S STILL alive,” Painter said as soon as he strode through the door of the safe house It was not so much a house as a two-room flat above an import-export shop that bordered the Al-Haffa souk. With such a business fronting the safe house, none would question the comings and goings of strangers. Just a normal part of business. The noise of the neighboring market was a chatter of languages, voices, and bartering. The rooms smelled of curry and old mattresses.

Painter pushed past Coral, who had opened the door upon his knock. He had already noted the two Desert Phantoms posted discreetly out front, watching the approach up to the safe house.

The others were gathered in the front room, exhausted, road-worn. A run of water tinkled from the neighboring bathroom. Painter noted Kara was missing. Danny, Omaha, and Clay all had wet hair. They had been taking turns showering away the trail dust and grime. Captain al-Haffi had found a robe, but it was too tight for his shoulders.

Omaha stood as Painter entered. “Where is she?”

“Safia and the others were leaving the tomb just as I arrived. In a caravan of SUVs. Heavily armed.” Painter crossed to the tiny kitchenette. He leaned over the sink, turned the tap, and ran his head under the spigot.

Omaha stood behind him. “Then why aren’t you tracking them?”

Painter straightened, sweeping back his sodden hair. Trails of water coursed down his neck and back. “I am.” He kept his eyes hard upon Omaha, then stepped past him to Coral. “How are we equipped?”

She nodded to the door leading to the back room. “I thought it best to wait for you. The electronic keypad proved trickier than I had imagined.”

“Show me.”

She led him to the door. The flat was a CIA safe house, permanently stocked, one of many throughout the world. Sigma had been alerted to its location when the mission was assembled. Backup in case it was needed.

It was.

Painter spotted the electronic keypad hidden under a fold of curtain. Coral had pinned the drape out of the way. A small array of crude tools lay on the floor: fingernail clipper, razor blades, tweezers, nail file.

“From the bathroom,” Coral said.

Painter knelt in front of the keypad. Coral had opened the casing, exposing the electronics. He studied the circuits.

Coral leaned beside him, pointing to some clipped wires, red and blue. “I was able to disable the silent alarm. You should be able to key into the equipment locker without alerting anyone. But I thought it best you oversee my work. This is your field of expertise.”

Painter nodded. Such lockers were rigged to silently send out an alarm, notifying the CIA when such a safe house was employed. Painter did not want such knowledge sent out. Not yet. Not so broadly. They were dead…and he meant to keep them that way for as long as possible.

His eyes ran along the circuits, following the flows of power, the dummy wires, the live ones. All seemed in order. Coral had managed to sever the power to the telephone line while leaving the keypad powered and untampered with. For a physicist, she was proving to be a damn good electrical engineer. “Looks good.”

“Then we can enter.”

During his premission briefing, Painter had memorized the safe house’s code. He reached to the keypad and typed in the first number of the ten-digit code. He would have only one chance to get it right. If he entered the code wrong, the keypad would disable itself, locking down. A failsafe.

He proceeded carefully.

“You have ninety seconds,” Coral reminded him.

Another failsafe. The ten-digit sequence had to be punched in within a set time span. He tapped each number with care, proceeding steadily. As he reached the seventh number in the sequence—the number nine—his finger hovered. The illuminated button seemed slightly dimmer than its neighbor, easy to miss. He held his finger. Was he being too paranoid? Jumping at shadows?

“What’s wrong?” Coral asked.

By now, Omaha had joined them, along with his brother.

Painter sat back on his heels, thinking. He clenched and unclenched his fingers. He stared at the number-nine button. Surely not…

“Painter,” Coral whispered under her breath.

If he waited much longer, the system would lock down. He didn’t have time to spare—but something was wrong. He could smell it.

Omaha hovered behind him, making him too conscious of the time ticking away. If Painter was to save Safia, he needed what lay behind this door.

Ignoring the keypad, Painter picked up the tweezer and nail file. With a surgeon’s skill, he carefully lifted free the number-nine key. It fell into his hand. Too easily. He leaned closer, squinting.

Damn…

Behind the key rested a small square chip with a pressure plunger in its center. The chip was wrapped tightly with a thin metal filament. An antenna. It was a microtransmitter. If he had pressed the button, it would have activated. From the crudeness of its integration, this was not a factory installation.

Cassandra had been here.

Sweat rolled into Painter’s left eye. He had not even been aware of the amount of moisture that had built up on his brow.

Coral stared over his shoulder. “Shit.”

That was an understatement. “Get everyone out of here.”

“What’s going on?” Omaha asked.

“Booby trap,” Painter said, anger firing his words. “Out! Now!”

“Grab Kara!” Coral commanded Omaha, ordering him into the bathroom. She got everyone else moving toward the door.

As they fled, Painter sat before the keypad. A litany of curses rang through his head like a favorite old song. He had been singing this tune too long. Cassandra was always a step ahead.

“Thirty seconds!” Coral warned as she slammed the flat’s door. He had half a minute until the keypad locked down.

Alone, he studied the chip.

Just you and me, Cassandra.

Painter set down the nail file and picked up the nail clipper. Wishing he had his tool satchel, he set to work on removing the transmitter, breathing deeply, staying in a calm place. He touched the metal casing to bleed away any static electricity, then set to work. He carefully dissected away the power wire from its ground, then just as carefully filed the plastic coating off the power wire without breaking it. Once the ground wire was exposed, he tweezed it up and touched it to the hot wire. There was a snap and a sizzle. A hint of burned plastic wafted upward.