SANDSTORM sf-1 Page 10

  Danny nudged the shotgun. “Salt shot against a rocket launcher?”

  “All it takes is the element of surprise.” That and perfect timing.

  Pushing the throttle forward, he edged back into the current, this time working upriver. He followed the map in his head: skirt around that drop, around that deep boil, edge clear of the rock splitting the current, take the calmer side. He aimed for a standing, refractory wave as it humped over a boulder, worn smooth by the constant churn of water.

  The whine of the other boat grew as it approached.

  “Here they come…” Danny pushed up his glasses.

  Over the lip of the wave, Omaha spotted the bow end of the Scimitar clear the corner. He shifted his thumb and flipped the cover over the nitrous feed. He twisted the nozzle to full feed. It was all or nothing.

  The Scimitar rounded the bend and spotted them. It must appear that they were floundering, turned ass backward by some mean boil or whirlpool.

  The other boat slowed, but momentum and the current brought the Scimitar into the rapids. Their pursuers were only ten yards away now. Too close to use the grenade launcher. Shrapnel from the explosion would risk their own boat and lives.

  It was a momentary standoff.

  Or so it seemed.

  “Grab tight!” Omaha warned as he punched the nitrous injector.

  It was like someone had ignited a case of TNT under their stern. The boat bolted forward, slamming into the standing wave, striking the boulder hidden beneath. The bow climbed the flat rock, driving the stern down. The twin pulse jets shot the aluminum frame straight up. They went airborne over the wave, flying high, trailing fire.

  Danny hollered-then again, so did Omaha.

  Their boat sailed over the Scimitar, but it was not meant for true flight. The nitrous cut out, the flames died, and their boat came crashing down atop the fiberglass Scimitar.

  The jolt knocked Omaha on his ass. Water flooded over the gunwales, swamping him. Then the boat bobbed back up. “Danny!”

  “I’m fine.” He was still strapped to his seat, looking dazed.

  Crawling forward, Omaha searched beyond the rail.

  The Scimitar lay shattered in pieces, floating in different directions. A body, facedown, bobbled among the debris. Blood trailed through the muddy waters, forming its own river. The smell of fuel fogged the air. But at least the current was dragging them safely away from the wreckage in case it exploded.

  Omaha spotted two men clinging to flotsam, heading down into the raging rapids with their makeshift floaters. They seemed to have lost interest in dinosaur eggs.

  Climbing back into the seat, he checked the engine. It coughed and died. No hope there. The aluminum frame was bent, the keel pocked, but at least they were seaworthy. He broke out the paddles.

  Danny unbuckled and accepted one of the paddles. “What now?”

  “Call for help before that other boat comes to investigate.”

  “Who’re you going to call?”

  12:05 A.M. GMT

  SAFIA WAScarefully wrapping up the iron heart in acid-free specimen paper when the phone on the bench rang. It was Kara’s mobile phone. She had left it behind as she retreated to the lavatory again. To freshen up, she had told Safia and Clay. But Safia knew better. More pills.

  The phone continued to ring.

  “You want me to get that?” Clay asked, folding up the camera tripod.

  Safia sighed and picked it up. It might be important. “Hello,” she said as she flipped it open.

  There was a long pause.

  “Hello?” she offered again. “Can I help you?”

  A throat cleared, sounding far away. “Safia?” It was said in a soft, stunned voice. One she knew all too well.

  Blood drained to her feet. “Omaha?”

  “I…I was trying to reach Kara. I didn’t realize you were there, too.”

  She fought her tongue free from the shock. Her words came out stiff. “Kara’s…indisposed at the moment. If you’ll hold, I’ll get-”

  “Wait! Safia…”

  She froze from lowering the phone, holding it as if she had forgotten how to use it.

  With the phone pulled away from her ear, Omaha’s voice sounded tinny. “I…maybe…” He struggled for words, finally settling on a neutral question. “If you’re over there with her, then you must know what this is all about. What sort of expedition am I being shanghaied into?”

  Safia put the phone back to her ear. She could handle shoptalk. “It’s a long story, but we found something here. Something extraordinary. It points to a possible new history about Ubar.”

  “Ubar?”

  “Exactly.”

  There was another longish pause. “So this is about Kara’s father.”

  “Yes. And for once, Kara may be onto something significant.”

  “Will you be joining the expedition?” This question was asked woodenly.

  “No, I can be more help here.”

  “Nonsense!” The next words gushed out loudly. She had to hold the phone away again. “You know more about Ubar and its history than anyone on the face of the earth. You must come! If not for Kara, then for yourself.”

  A voice suddenly spoke at her shoulder, having eavesdropped on Omaha’s tinny words. “He’s right,” Kara said, stepping around. “If we’re going to solve this riddle and any more we come across, we need you on-site.”

  Safia stared between the phone and her friend, feeling trapped.

  Kara reached over and took the cell. “Omaha, she’s coming.”

  Safia opened her mouth to protest.

  “This is too important,” Kara said, cutting her off, speaking both to Omaha and Safia. Her eyes shone glassily with the surge of drug-induced adrenaline. “I won’t accept no…from either of you.”

  “I’m in,” said Omaha, his words an electronic whisper. “Matter of fact, I could use a little help getting out.”

  Kara lifted the phone, turning the conversation private. She listened for a while, then nodded as she spoke. “Are you ever not in trouble, Indiana? I have your GPS coordinates. A helicopter will be out to retrieve you within the hour.” She snapped the phone closed. “You’re truly better off without him.”

  “Kara…”

  “You’re going. In a week’s time. You owe me that.” She stormed off.

  After an awkward moment, Clay spoke up. “I wouldn’t mind going.”

  She frowned. The grad student knew nothing about the real world. And maybe that was a good thing. She sensed she had started something that was best left forever buried.

  5

  High Wire Act

  NOVEMBER 15, 02:12 A.M. GMT

  LONDON, ENGLAND

  HOURS AFTER Kara had stormed off, Safia sat in her dark office. The only light came from a lime-shaded banker’s lamp atop her walnut desk, illuminating a sea of paper and thumbed journals. How could Kara expect her to be ready to leave for Oman in a week’s time? Especially after the explosion here. There was still so much to attend to.

  She couldn’t go. That was that. Kara would simply have to understand. And if she didn’t, that wasn’t Safia’s concern. She had to do what was right for herself. She had heard that often enough from her therapist. It had taken her four years to gather some semblance of normalcy in her life, to find security in her days, to sleep without nightmares. Here was home, and she wasn’t going to forsake it for a wild-goose chase into the hinterlands of Oman.

  And then there was the prickly matter of the Omaha Dunn…

  Safia chewed the eraser end of her pencil. It was her only meal in the past twelve hours. She knew she should leave, nip out for a late dinner at the pub on the corner, then try to catch a few hours of sleep. Besides, Billie had been sorely neglected over the past day and would need attention and a spot of tuna to assuage his hurt feelings.

  Still, Safia could not move.

  She kept running over her conversation with Omaha. An old ache throbbed in the pit of her belly. If only she hadn’t pic
ked up the phone…

  She had met Omaha ten years ago in Sojar, when she was twenty-two, fresh from Oxford, researching a dissertation on Parthian influences in southern Arabia. He had been stranded in the same seaside city, awaiting approval from the Omani government to proceed into a remote section of disputed territory.

  “Do you speak English?” were his first words to Safia. She was working behind a small table on the dining terrace of a small hostelry overlooking the Arabian Sea. It was the haunt of many students doing research in the region, being cheap as chips and serving the only decent coffee around.

  Irritated at the interruption, she had been curt. “As a British citizen, I should hope I speak better English than you, sir.”

  Glancing up, she discovered a young man, sandy blond hair, corn-flower blue eyes, a dusky trace of beard, wearing scuffed khakis, a traditional Omani headcloth, and an embarrassed smile.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “But I noticed you had a copy of Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 5. I was wondering if I could glance at a section.”

  She picked up the book. “Which section?”

  “ ‘Oman and the Emirates in Ptolemy’s Map.’ I’m heading into the borderlands.”

  “Truly? I thought that region had been closed to foreigners.”

  Again that smile, only it had grown a mischievous edge. “So you caught me. I should’ve said I hope to be traveling to the borderlands. I’m still awaiting word from the consulate.”

  She had leaned back and eyed him up and down. She switched to Arabic. “What do you plan to do up there?”

  He didn’t miss a beat, responding in Arabic himself. “To help settle the border dispute by proving the ancient tribal routes of the local Duru tribes, confirming an historical precedent.”

  She continued in Arabic, checking his knowledge of the region’s geography. “You’ll have to be careful in Umm al-Samim.”

  “Yes, the quicksands,” he said with a nod. “I’ve read about that treacherous stretch.” His eyes flashed with eagerness.

  Safia relented and passed him her copy of the periodical. “It’s the only copy from the Institute of Arabian Studies. I’ll have to ask you to read it here.”

  “From the IAS?” He had taken a step forward. “That’s the Kensington nonprofit, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I’ve been trying to reach someone in authority over there. To grease some wheels with the Omani government. But no one would return my calls or letters. That place is a tough nut to crack, like its sponsor, Lady Kara Kensington. Now there’s a cold fish if there ever was one.”

  “Hmm,” she said noncommittally.

  After making their introductions, he asked if he could share her table while he read the article. She had nudged the chair in his direction.

  “I heard the coffee’s quite good here,” he said as he sat.

  “The tea’s even better,” she countered. “But then again, I’m British.”

  They had continued in silence for a long while, reading their respective journals, each occasionally eyeing the other, sipping their drinks. Finally, Safia noticed the terrace door swing open behind her guest. She waved.

  He turned at the arrival of the newcomer to their table. His eyes widened.

  “Dr. Dunn,” Safia said, “may I introduce you to Lady Kara Kensington. You’ll be happy to know she speaks English, too.”

  She had enjoyed watching color blush to his cheeks, caught off guard, blindsided. She suspected such didn’t happen often to the young man. The three of them spent the rest of the afternoon talking, debating current events in Arabia and back home, discussing Arabian history. Kara left before the sun set, heading off to an early business dinner with the local chamber of commerce, but not before promising to help Dr. Dunn with his expedition.

  “I guess I owe you at least dinner,” he had stated afterward.

  “And I suppose I must accept.”

  That night, they shared a leisurely dinner of wood-fired kingfish, accompanied with spiced rukhal bread. They talked until the sun sank into the sea and the skies filled with stars.

  That was their first date. Their second date wouldn’t be for another six months, after Omaha was finally freed from a Yemeni prison for entering a holy Muslim site without permission. Despite the penal setback, they continued to see each other off and on, across four out of the seven continents. One Christmas Eve, back at his family’s home in Lincoln, Nebraska, he had dropped to a knee by the couch and asked her to marry him. She had never been happier.

  Then a month later, everything changed in one blinding flash.

  She shied away from that last memory, standing up finally from her desk to clear her head. It was too stuffy in her office. She needed to walk, to keep moving. It would be good to feel the breeze on her face, even the damp chill of London’s winter. She retrieved her coat and locked up her office.

  Safia’s office was located on the second floor. The stairs down to the first floor were at the other end of the wing, near the Kensington Gallery, which meant she would have to pass the explosion site again. Not something she wanted to do. But she had no choice.

  She set off down the long dark hall, illuminated by the occasional red security lamp. Usually she enjoyed the empty museum. It was a peaceful time after the daily bustle. She would often wander the gated galleries, staring at cabinets and displays, comforted by the weight of history.

  No longer. Not this night.

  Circulating fans had been set up like guard towers on long poles the entire length of the north wing, whirring and rattling noisily, trying and failing to disperse the reek of charred wood and burned plastics. Space heaters dotted the floor, snaking orange cords, set up to dry out the halls and galleries after the pumps had drained the worst of the sooty water. It made the hall swelter, like the damp warmth of the tropics. The line of fans stirred the air only sluggishly.

  Her heels tapped the marble floor as she passed the galleries displaying the museum’s ethnographical collection: Celtic, Russian, Chinese. The damage from the explosion grew worse the nearer she approached her own gallery: smoke-stained walls, ribbons of police tape, piles of swept plaster, broken glass.

  As she passed the opening to the Egyptian exhibit, she heard a muffled tinkle behind her, like breaking glass. She stopped and glanced over a shoulder. For a moment, she thought she spotted a flicker of light from the Byzantine gallery. She stared for a long breath. The opening remained dark.

  She fought down a growing panic. Since the attacks had begun, she had difficulty distinguishing real danger from false. Her heart thudded in her throat, and the hairs on her arms tingled as a nearby fan rotated its pass over her, whirring asthmatically.

  Just the headlamps of a passing car, she assured herself.

  Swallowing her anxiety, she turned back around to discover a dark figure looming in the hall outside the Kensington Gallery.

  She stumbled back.

  “Safia?” The figure lifted a hand torch and flicked it on, blinding her with its brightness. “Dr. al-Maaz.”

  She sighed with relief and hurried forward, shielding her eyes. “Ryan…” It was the head of security, Ryan Fleming. “I thought you had gone home.”

  He smiled and flicked off the torch. “I was on my way when I was paged by Director Tyson. It seems a pair of American scientists insisted that they review the explosion site.” He walked her toward the opening to the gallery.

  Inside, two figures dressed in identical blue jumpsuits moved through the dark gallery. The only illumination came from a pair of lamp poles in each room that cast weak pools of light. In the dimness, the investigators’ instruments glowed brightly. They appeared to be Geiger counters. In one hand, each of them held a compact base unit with a lighted computer screen. In the other, they carried meter-long black wands, attached to the base unit by a coiled cord. They slowly worked one of the gallery rooms in tandem, sweeping their instruments over singed walls and piles of debris.

  “Physicists out o
f M.I.T.,” Fleming said. “They flew in this evening and came directly here from the airport. They must have some pull. Tyson insisted I accommodate them. ‘Post haste,’ to quote our esteemed director. I should introduce you.”

  Still edgy, Safia tried to bow out. “I really must be getting home.”

  Fleming had already stepped into the gallery. One of the investigators, a tall man with ruddy features, noted him, then her.

  He lowered his wand and strode rapidly forward. “Dr. al-Maaz, what good fortune.” He held out a hand. “I had hoped to speak to you.”

  She accepted his hand.

  “I’m Dr. Crowe,” he said. “Painter Crowe.”

  His eyes, piercing and attentive, were the color of lapis, his hair long to the shoulder, ebony black. She noted his tanned complexion. Native American, she guessed, but the blue eyes were throwing her off. Maybe it was just the name. Crowe. He could easily be Spanish, too. He had a generous smile that was also reserved.

  “This is my colleague Dr. Coral Novak.”

  The woman shook Safia’s hand perfunctorily with only the tiniest nod. She seemed anxious to return to her survey.

  The two scientists could not be more different. Compared to her darkly handsome companion, the woman seemed devoid of pigment, a pale shadow. Her skin glowed like freshly scrubbed snow, her lips thin, her eyes icy gray. Her naturally white-blond hair was cropped short. She stood as tall as Safia, lithe of limb, but still carried a certain sturdiness to her frame. It could be felt in her firm handshake.

  “What are you searching for?” Safia asked, taking a step back.

  Painter lifted his wand. “We’re checking for radiation signatures.”

  “Radiation?” She could not hide her shock.

  He laughed-not condescendingly, only warmly. “Don’t worry. It’s a specific signature we’re looking for, something following lightning strikes.”

  She nodded. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. It was nice meeting you both, and if there’s anything I can do to facilitate your investigation, please let me know.” She began to turn away.