Sandstorm (Sigma Force 1)

“I guess not,” Painter said. He noted the excitement growing between Safia and Omaha. They were in their element. He was excluded, on the outside looking in. A flare of jealousy prickled through him.

Safia picked up the thread. “Something terrified the royal family, enough that they wanted Ubar locked from the world. I don’t know what that event was, but the queen did not act rashly. Look at how methodical her preparations were afterward. She prepared keys, hid them in places sacred to the people, wrapped them in riddles. Does this sound like an irrational response? It was calculated, planned, and executed. As was her first step in sealing Ubar.”

Safia glanced to Omaha.

He filled in the final blank. “The queen deliberately caused the sinkhole to collapse.”

A stunned moment of silence followed.

“She destroyed her own town?” Kara finally asked. “Why?”

Safia nodded. “The town was only a means to an end. The queen put it to its final use. To bury Ubar’s gate.”

Omaha glanced all around the rim. “The act also had a psychological purpose. It drove folks away, frightened them from ever approaching. I wager the queen herself spread some of the stories about God’s wrath. What better way to hang a religious ‘Do Not Trespass’ sign on these lands?”

“How did you figure all that out?” Painter asked.

“It was only a conjecture,” Safia said. “I had to test it. If the sinkhole was used to bury something, then there must be something down here. Since the metal detectors discovered nothing, either the object was too deep or it was some type of chamber.”

Painter glanced at the diggers.

Safia continued, “As with the tomb sites, the queen cloaked clues in symbols and mythology. Even the first key. The iron heart. It symbolized the heart of Ubar. And in most towns, the heart of their community is the well. So she hid the Gate of Ubar in the well, buried them in sand, as the iron heart was sealed in sandstone, then dropped the sinkhole on top of them.”

“Driving people away,” Painter mumbled. He cleared his throat and spoke more clearly. “What about the radiation signature?”

“It would take dy***ite to drop this sinkhole,” Omaha answered.

Safia nodded. “Or some form of an antimatter explosion.”

Painter glanced at Lu’lu. The hodja had remained stoically quiet the entire time. Had her ancestors really utilized such a power?

The old woman seemed to note his attention. She stirred. Her eyes were hidden by goggles. “No. You cast aspersions. The queen, our ancestor, would not kill so many innocent people just to hide Ubar’s secret.”

Safia crossed to her. “No human remains were ever found in or around the sinkhole. She must have found some way to clear the city. A ceremony or something. Then sank the hole. I doubt anyone died here.”

Still, the hodja was unconvinced, even taking a step back from Safia.

A shout rose from the diggers. “We found something!” Danny yelled.

All their faces turned to him.

“Come see before we dig further.”

Painter and the others all shifted over. Coral and Clay stepped aside for them. Danny pointed his shovel.

In the center of the trenchlike hole, the dark red sand had turned to snow.

“What is that?” Kara asked.

Safia hopped down, dropped to a knee, and ran her hand over the surface. “It’s not sand.” She glanced up. “It’s frankincense.”

“What?” Painter asked.

“Silver frankincense,” Safia elaborated, and stood up. “The same as what was found plugging the iron heart. An expensive form of cement. It’s stoppered the top of the hidden chamber like a cork in a bottle.”

“And below it?” Painter asked.

Safia shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out.”

9:45 A.M.

C ASSANDRA CLUTCHED her laptop as the M4 highspeed tractor mashed over another small dune. The transport vehicle looked like a brown Winnebago balanced on a pair of tank treads, and despite its eighteen-ton weight, it chewed across the landscape with the efficiency of a BMW down the Autobahn.

She kept the pace reasonable, respecting the terrain and weather. Visibility was poor, only yards ahead. Windblown sand flumed all around, whipping off the tops of dunes in vast sails. The sky had darkened, cloudless, the sun no more than a wan moon above. She dared not risk bogging down the tractor. They’d never drag it free. So they proceeded with sensible caution.

Behind her the other five all-terrain trucks traveled in the tracks of the larger tractor as it blazed a trail through the desert. In the rear were the flatbeds with the cradled VTOL copters.

She glanced to the clock in the corner of the laptop’s screen. While it had taken a full fifteen minutes to get the caravan moving, they were now making good time. They’d reach Shisur in another twenty minutes.

Still, she kept an eye on the screen. Two display windows were open on it. One was a real-time feed from an NOAA satellite that tracked the path of the sandstorm. She had no doubt they’d reach the shelter of the oasis before the full storm struck, but just barely. And of even greater concern, the coastal high-pressure system was on the move inland, due to collide with this desert storm in the next few hours. It would be hell out here for a while.

The other screen on the monitor displayed another map of the area, a topographic schematic of this corner of the desert. It diagrammed every building and structure in Shisur, including the ruins. A small blue spinning ring, the size of a pencil eraser, glowed at the center of the ruins.

Dr. Safia al-Maaz.

Cassandra stared at the blue glow. What are you up to? The woman had led her off course, away from the prize. She thought to steal it out from under Cassandra’s nose, using the cover of the storm. Smart girl. But intelligence carried you only so far. Strength of arm was just as important. Sigma had taught her that, pairing brawn and brain. The sum of all men. Sigma’s motto.

Cassandra would teach that lesson to Dr. al-Maaz.

You may be smart, but I have the strength.

She glanced to the side mirror, to the trail of military vehicles. Inside, one hundred men armed with the latest in military and Guild hardware. Directly behind, in the tractor’s transport bed, John Kane sat with his men. Rifles bristled as they performed the deadly sacrament of a final weapons inspection. They were the best of the best, her Praetorian guards.

Cassandra stared ahead as the tractor ground its way inevitably forward. She attempted to pierce the gloom and windswept landscape.