Sandstorm (Sigma Force 1)

Cassandra strode with Kane down the ranks. She wore night-vision goggles, khaki fatigues, and a hooded sand poncho, belted at the waist.

Kane marched with one hand covering the earpiece of his radio, listening to a report. A company of twenty soldiers had left ten minutes ago. “Roger that. Hold for further orders.” He lowered his hand and leaned toward Cassandra. “The team reached the town’s outskirts.”

“Have them circle the area. Both town and ruins. Pick vantages from which to snipe. I don’t want anything or anyone leaving that place.”

“Aye, Captain.” He returned to speaking into the throat mike, relaying orders.

They continued to the rear of the line, to where six flatbed trucks carried the VTOL copter sleds. The helicopters were covered in tarps and lashed to their transport cradles. They continued to the last two trucks. Men tugged free the ropes securing the copters. A tarp went flying into the wind, billowing high.

Cassandra frowned at this.

“These are your best two pilots?” Cassandra asked Kane as he finished with the radio.

“The bastards had better be.” Kane’s eyes were on the storm.

Both Cassandra and Kane’s lives were now staked on the success of this mission. The screwup at the tomb had cast both of them in a bad light. They needed to prove themselves to the Guild command. But more than that, Cassandra noted an idiosyncratic quality in the man, a new savageness, less humor, more deep-seated fury. He had been bested, maimed, scarred. No one did that to John Kane and lived to tell about it.

They reached the group of flatbed trucks.

Cassandra found the two pilots waiting. She strode toward them. They had helmets tucked under one arm, trailing electronic cords that would feed radar data. To fly in this weather would be to fly by instruments only. There was no visibility.

They straightened once they recognized her, difficult with everyone muffled up and bundled in ponchos.

Cassandra eyed them up and down. “Gordon. Fowler. You two think you can get these birds in the air. In this storm?”

“Yes, sir,” Gordon acknowledged. Fowler nodded. “We’ve attached electrostatic sand filters over the engine intakes and uploaded sandstorm software into our radar array. We’re ready.”

Cassandra saw no fear in their faces, even as the winds howled. In fact, they both looked flushed, excited, two surfers ready to tackle big waves.

“You’re to keep in constant contact with me personally,” Cassandra said. “You have my com channel.”

Nods.

“One will scout the town, the other the ruins. Kane has a software patch to load into your onboard computers. It will let you pick up the signal of the primary target. The target is not—and let me repeat not—to be harmed.”

“Understood,” Gordon mumbled.

“Any other hostiles,” Cassandra finished, “are to be shot on sight.”

Nods again.

Cassandra swung away. “Then let’s get these birds in the air.”

10:25 A.M.

O MAHA WATCHED Safia crawl on her knees, sweeping sand off the floor with one hand. He found it hard to concentrate. He had forgotten how wonderful it was to work alongside her. He noted the tiny beads of perspiration on her brow, the way her left eye crinkled when she was intrigued, the dab of dirt on her cheek. This was the Safia he had always known…before Tel Aviv.

Safia continued sweeping.

Was there any hope for them?

She glanced up to him, noting that he’d stopped.

He stirred and cleared his throat. “What are you doing?” he asked, and motioned to her sweeping of the floor. “The maid comes tomorrow.”

She sat back and patted the wall tilted above her head. “This is the southeast side. The slab of the trilith that represents the morning star, rising each day in the southeastern skies.”

“Right, I told you that. So?”

Safia had been working in silence for the past ten minutes, laying out the supplies Painter had lugged here, very methodically, her usual way of doing things. She had spent most of this time examining the keys. Whenever he tried to interject a question, she would hold up a palm.

Safia went back to her sweeping. “We’ve already determined which wall corresponds to which celestial body—moon, sun, or morning star—but now we have to figure out which keys match those celestial bodies.”

Omaha nodded. “Okay, and what are you figuring?”

“We have to think in a context of ancient times. Something Cassandra failed to do, accepting modern miles for Roman ones. The answer lies in that fact.” Safia glanced back to him, testing him.

He stared at the wall, determined to solve this riddle. “The morning star is actually not a star. It’s a planet. Venus to be specific.”

“Identified and named by the Romans.”

Omaha straightened, then twisted to look at the artifacts. “Venus was the Roman god of love and beauty.” He knelt and touched the iron spear with the bust of the Queen of Sheba atop it. “And here’s a definite beauty.”

“That’s what I figured. So like at Job’s tomb, there must be a place to insert it. A hole in the ground.” She continued her search.

He joined her—but searched elsewhere. “You have it wrong,” he said. “It’s the wall that’s significant. Not the floor.” He ran his palm over the surface and continued his reasoning, enjoying the match of wits in solving this riddle. “It’s the slab that represents the morning star, so it is in the slab you’ll find—”

His words died as his fingers discovered a deep pock in the wall. Waist-high up the slab. It looked natural, easy to miss in the shadowy darkness. His index finger sank fully into it. He crouched there like the Dutch boy at the dike.

Safia rose up beside him. “You found it.”

“Get the artifact.”

Safia stepped over, grabbed the iron spear. Omaha pulled his finger free and helped her insert its end in the hole. It was an ungainly process with the wall angled. But they wiggled it into place. It kept sinking farther and farther. The entire haft of the spear was swallowed away, until only the bust was left, now hanging on the wall like some human trophy.

Safia manipulated it further. “Look how the wall is indented along this side. It matches her cheekbone.” She turned the bust and pushed it flush.

“A perfect fit.”

She stepped back. “Like a key in a lock.”

“And look where our iron queen is staring now.”

Safia followed her gaze. “The moon wall.”