SANDSTORM sf-1

by James Rollins

  She was handed one by another member of the team.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Kara asked.

  “Peek inside.” Safia ran her hand over the heat-blasted surface of the statue. The sandy surface was now fused glass. She planted the flashlight facedown on the statue’s bulky torso and flicked it on.

  The entire glassy surface of the statue lit up. Details were murky through the dark crystalline crust. Safia didn’t see anything unusual, but the glass was only two inches thick. Whatever they were looking for might be deeper in the stone.

  Kara gasped behind her. She was staring over Safia’s shoulder.

  “What?” She began to pull away the flashlight.

  “No,” Kara warned. “Move it toward the center.”

  Safia did so, bringing the wash of light over the middle of the torso.

  A shadow appeared, a lump in the center of the statue, lodged deep, at the point where glass became stone. It shone a deep crimson under the light. The shape was unmistakable-especially given its position inside the torso.

  “It’s a heart,” Kara whispered.

  Safia sat back, stunned. “A human heart.”

  8:05 P.M.

  HOURS LATER, Kara Kensington stood in the private lavatory outside the department of the ancient Near East.

  Just one more…

  She shook a single orange pill into her palm. Adderall, a prescription amphetamine, twenty milligrams She weighed the pill in her hand. So much kick in such a small package. But maybe not enough. She added a second tablet. After all, she’d had no sleep last night and still had much to do.

  Tossing back the pills, she dry-swallowed them, then stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her skin looked flushed, her eyes a bit too wide. She ran a hand through her hair, trying to fluff some body back into it. She failed.

  Bending down to the tap, she turned the cold spigot, soaked both hands, and pressed them to her cheeks. She took deep breaths. It seemed like days rather than hours since she had been woken from her bed back at her family estate in the village of Blackheath. News of the explosion had her chauffeured limo racing through the stormy streets to reach the museum.

  And now what?

  Throughout the long day, various forensic teams had gathered all the necessary samples from the gallery: charred wood, plastics, metals, even bone. Finally, a few slag fragments of the meteorite had been picked out of the rubble. All initial evidence suggested that an electrical discharge had ignited some volatile components deep in the chunk of meteoric iron. No one was willing to say what those components were. From here, the investigation would be carried out in labs both in England and abroad.

  Kara could not hide her disappointment. Witnessing the glowing ball of lightning on the video footage had drawn her back to the day her father had vanished into the dust cloud, a spiral of sand sparking with similar crackles of bluish electricity. Then the explosion…another death. There had to be a connection between the past and present.

  But what? Was it just another dead end, like so many times in the past?

  A knock on the door drew her attention from her reflection.

  “Kara, we’re ready for the examination.” It was Safia. In her friend’s voice, she heard concern. Only Safia understood the weight around Kara’s heart.

  “I’ll be right out.”

  She dropped the plastic pill vial back into her purse and snapped the satchel closed. Already the initial surge of drug-induced energy took the edge off her despair. With one last futile sweep of her hair, she crossed to the door, unlocked it, and pushed out into one of the more handsome research quarters-the famous Arched Room of the British Museum.

  Built in 1839, the two-story vaulted chamber, located in the west section of the museum, was of early Victorian design: double galleries of library shelves, pierced iron walkways and stairs, arched piers leading into recessed alcoves. The very bones of the place harkened back to the times of Charles Darwin, of Stanley and Livingston, of the Royal Society of scientists, where researchers wore jackets with tails and gathered studiously among the stacks of books and ancient tablets. Never open to the public, the department of the ancient Near East now utilized the room as a student center and reserve archive.

  But today, deserted of all but a select few, it served as a makeshift morgue. Kara stared across the room to the stone cadaver, headless and armless, resting atop a wheeled stretcher. It was all that was left of the ancient sculpture found in the north wing. Safia had insisted that it be rescued from the rubble and brought up here, out of harm’s way.

  Two halogen lamps lit the body, and an array of tools rested atop a neighboring library bench, set up like a surgeon’s table with scalpels, clamps, and thumb forceps. There were also various-size hammers and brushes.

  Only the surgeon was missing.

  Safia snapped on a pair of latex gloves. She wore safety glasses and a tightly cinched apron. “Ready?”

  Kara nodded.

  “Let’s crack this old man’s chest,” a young man called with the usual crass enthusiasm of an American. Kara, well familiar with all who worked in her gallery, knew Clay Bishop, a grad student out of North-western University. He fiddled with a digital camcorder resting on a tripod, standing in as the group’s videographer.

  “A little respect, Mr. Bishop,” Safia warned.

  “Sorry,” he said with a crooked grin that belied any true remorse. He was not unhandsome for a gaunt bit of Generation X. He wore jeans, a vintage concert T-shirt depicting the Clash, and Reeboks that might have once been white, but this last was only a rumor. He straightened, stretching, showing a strip of his bare belly, and ran a hand over the stubble of his red hair. The only modicum of studiousness to the grad student was the pair of thick, black-rimmed glasses, uncool enough to be fashionable nowadays. “We’re all set here, Dr. al-Maaz.”

  “Very good.” Safia stepped under the halogen lights, positioning herself beside the spread of tools.

  Kara circled to view from the far side, joining the only other person observing the autopsy: Ryan Fleming, head of security. He must have arrived when she had gone to the loo. He nodded to her, but his stance stiffened at her approach, nervous at her proximity, like most of the museum staff.

  He cleared his throat as Safia took measurements. “I came down here when I heard about the discovery,” he mumbled to Kara.

  “Why might that be?” she asked. “Is there a security concern?”

  “No, it was simple curiosity.” He nodded to the sculpture. “Not every day we find a statue with a heart hidden inside it.”

  That was indeed true, though Kara suspected it was a different matter of the heart that had drawn Fleming down here. His eyes spent more time examining Safia than the strange statue.

  Kara allowed him his puppy-dog crush and turned her attention to the prone sculpture. Beneath the shell of blasted glass, a deeper glow of crimson took up the lamplight.

  A heart, a human heart.

  She leaned closer. While the heart appeared life-size and anatomically correct, it had to have been sculpted from some type of ore since the forensic team’s detectors had picked up its presence. Still, Kara almost expected to see it beat if she waited long enough.

  Safia leaned over the statue with a diamond-tipped tool. She carefully scored the glass, forming a perfect square around the buried heart. “I want to preserve as much as possible.”

  Next she placed a suction-cup device atop the glass square and gripped the handle. “I expect the interface between the glass and the sandstone beneath to be weak.”

  Safia grabbed a rubber mallet and tapped firmly along the inside edge of the glass square. Small cracks appeared, following the prescored lines. Each pop drew a wince from everyone. Even Kara found her fingers balling up.

  Only Safia remained calm. Kara knew her friend’s propensity for panic attacks during stressful situations, but whenever Safia labored in her own element, she was as hard as the diamonds on her glass cutter…and as sharp. She
worked with a Zen-like calmness and focused concentration. But Kara also noted the glint in her friend’s eyes. Excitement. It had been a long time since Kara had seen such a glimpse in Safia, a reminder of the woman she used to be.

  Maybe there was hope for her yet.

  “That should do it,” Safia said. She returned the mallet and used a tiny brush to sweep stray chips away, keeping her work surface pristine. Once satisfied, she gripped the suction handle and applied a bit of pressure, first pushing in one direction, then the other, gently rocking the square. Finally, she simply pulled straight up, lifting the block of glass cleanly away.

  Kara stepped closer, staring into the statue’s opened chest. The heart was even more detailed than she had first imagined. Each chamber was distinct, including tiny surface arteries and veins. It rested perfectly in its sandstone bed, as if the sculpture had formed naturally around it, a pearl inside an oyster.

  Safia carefully freed the glass from the suction device and flipped it over. There was an imprint of the heart’s upper surface in the glass. She turned to the camera. “Clay, are you getting a good shot of all this?”

  Crouched by his camera, he bounced up and down on his heels. “Oh, man, this is fantastic.”

  “I take that as a yes.” Safia placed the glass on the library table.

  “What about the heart?” Fleming asked.

  Safia turned and peered into the open chest. She tapped the handle of a tiny brush against the heart. The ring was heard by all. “Metal for certain. Bronze, I’d guess, from the ruddy color.”

  “That almost sounded hollow,” Clay commented, shifting the camera tripod to get a better view in the chest cavity. “Do it again.”

  Safia shook her head. “I’d best not. See how the sandstone lips over the heart in places. It’s locked in there fairly well. I think we should leave it untouched. Other researchers should see this in situ before we disturb it.”

  Kara hadn’t dared breathe for the past minute. Her heart hammered in her ears, and not from the amphetamines. Had no one else noticed it?

  Before she could ask, a door slammed farther back in the Arched Room. Everyone jumped slightly. Footsteps approached. Two men.

  Safia tilted the halogen light to shine down the hall. “Director Tyson.”

  “Edgar.” Kara stepped forward. “What are you doing here?”

  The head of the museum stepped aside to reveal his companion. It was the inspector from Central London homicide. “Inspector Samuelson was with me when I heard the news of your brilliant discovery. We were just finishing up, and he asked if he might see the astounding find for himself. How could I refuse, considering how much help he’s been?”

  “Certainly,” Kara said in her best diplomatic tone, hiding a flash of irritation. “You’re just in time.” She waved them over to the makeshift morgue, giving up her space. Her own discovery would have to wait a little longer.

  Fleming nodded his greeting to his boss. “I guess I’ve seen enough myself. I should go check on the night shift.” He stepped away, but not before turning to Safia. “Thank you for allowing me to observe.”

  “Anytime,” she said distantly, distracted by the exposed heart.

  Kara noted how the head of security’s eyes lingered on Safia, then turned away, wounded, as he left. Safia was forever blind to all but her work. She had let greater men than Fleming slip from her life.

  Inspector Samuelson stepped up to fill the security chief’s spot. He had his suit jacket over one arm, sleeves rolled up. “I hope I’m not intruding.”

  “Not at all,” Safia said. “It’s a fortunate discovery.”

  “Indeed.”

  The inspector leaned over the statue. Kara was certain more than plain curiosity had drawn him here. Coincidences were causes for investigation.

  Edgar stood at the inspector’s shoulder. “Simply brilliant, isn’t it? This discovery will draw attention from all around the world.”

  Samuelson straightened. “Where did this statue come from?”

  “It was discovered by my father,” Kara said.

  Samuelson glanced to her, one eyebrow cocked.

  Kara noted how Edgar stepped back, eyes on his toes. It was a tender subject to broach.

  Safia pushed up her safety goggles and continued the explanation, relieving Kara of the need. “Reginald Kensington had financed an archaeological team to oversee the excavation for the construction of a new mausoleum at a tomb in the town of Salalah on the Omani coast. He discovered the statue buried beside the older tomb. It was a rare discovery: to find a pre-Islamic statue, one dating to 200B.C in such pristine shape. But the tomb had been revered for two millennia. Thus the site was not overly trampled or desecrated. It’s a true tragedy to have such a perfectly preserved artifact destroyed.”

  Samuelson was not stirred. “But its destruction also allowed this new discovery. There’s a balance in that. The same can’t be said for poor Harry Masterson.”

  “Of course,” Safia said quickly. “I didn’t mean to imply that…his death was not the true tragedy. You’re most correct.”

  Samuelson glanced around at those gathered. His eyes lingered a bit longer on the grad student, Clay Bishop. Whatever he saw there, he found wanting. His eyes drifted back to the statue. “You mentioned a tomb, near where this statue was found.”

  “Yes. The tomb of Nabi Imran.”

  “A pharaoh or something?”

  Safia smiled. “This wasn’t an Egyptian tomb.” Like Kara, she knew the inspector was playing dumb. “In Arabia, the most famous tombs are those that mark the graves of people from the Bible or the Koran. In this case, a figure from both. ”

  “Nabi Imran? I don’t recall that name from any Bible class.”

  “Actually he was quite significant. You have heard of the Virgin Mary?”

  “Vaguely.” He said this so sincerely he drew another smile from Safia.

  She had been teasing out the revelation, but she finally relented. “Nabi Imran was Mary’s father.”

  01:54 P.M. EST

  ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

  PAINTER CROWE sat in the backseat of the silver Mercedes S500 sedan. It glided smoothly down Interstate 66 from Dulles International, heading east toward Washington, but they weren’t going that far. The driver, a taciturn fellow built like a linebacker, signaled and took the Glebe exit in Arlington. They were almost to DARPA headquarters, less than half a mile away.

  He checked his watch. Only a couple hours ago he had been in Connecticut, confronting a partner he had trusted for the past five years. His thoughts shied away from Cassandra, but still circled around the sore subject.

  They had been recruited out of Special Forces at the same time: he from the Navy SEALS, she from the Army Rangers. DARPA had chosen them for a new, highly secretive team within the organization, code-named Sigma Force. Most in DARPA were unaware of its existence. Sigma’s objective was search and seizure, a covert militarized team of technically trained agents who were sent into high-risk situations to obtain or protect new research and technologies. Where the Delta Force had been established as an antiterrorist squad, Sigma was started to protect and maintain the technological superiority of the United States.

  No matter the cost.

  And now this call back to headquarters.

  It had to be a new mission. But why the urgency?

  The sedan traveled down North Fairfax Drive and pulled into the parking lot. They ran a gauntlet of security measures and were soon sliding into an empty spot. Another man, barrel-chested and expressionless, stepped forward and opened the door.

  “If you’ll follow me, Commander Crowe.”

  Painter was led into the main building, escorted to the office suite of the director, and asked to wait while his attendant proceeded forward to announce his arrival. Painter stared at the closed door.

  Vice Admiral Tony Rector had been the head of DARPA for as long as Painter had been in service there. Prior to that, he had been the head of the Office of Information Awaren
ess, the intelligence-gathering wing of DARPA, critical after September 11 in monitoring data flowing across computer networks in search of terrorist plots, activities, and financial transactions. The admiral’s intelligence, expertise, and evenhanded management had eventually won him the directorship of DARPA.

  The door opened. His escort waved him forward, stepping aside and allowing Painter to pass. Once he was through, the door closed behind him.

  The room was paneled in dark mahogany and smelled vaguely of pipe tobacco. A matching mahogany desk stood in the center. Behind it, Tony “The Tiger” Rector rose to shake his hand. He was a large man, not fat, but someone who had once been well muscled now gone a little soft as he crossed his sixtieth year. But flesh was all that was soft about the man. His eyes were blue diamonds, his hair slicked and silver. His grip was iron as he shook Painter’s hand and nodded him to one of the two leather chairs.

  “Have a seat. I’ve called up Dr. McKnight. He’ll be joining us.”

  Dr. Sean McKnight was Sigma’s founder and director, Painter’s immediate superior, an ex-Navy SEAL who had gone on to earn a Ph.D. in both physics and information technology. If Dr. McKnight was being called in, then all the big boys were coming to play. Whatever was going down was significant.

  “May I ask what this is in regard to, sir?”

  The admiral settled into his own chair. “I heard about the bit of unpleasantness up in Connecticut,” he said, sidestepping the question. “The boys down in the Advanced Technology Office are waiting for that spy’s suitcase computer to be delivered. Hopefully, we’ll be able to retrieve the plasma weapons data from it.”

  “I’m sorry we-I failed to obtain the password.”

  Admiral Rector shrugged. “At least the Chinese won’t be getting their hands on it. And considering all you faced, you did a fine job up there.”

  Painter held back asking about his former partner. Cassandra was most likely heading to a secure site to be interrogated. From there, who knew? Guantбnamo Bay, Fort Leavenworth, or some other military prison? It was no longer his concern. Still, an ache throbbed in his chest. He hoped it was only indigestion. He certainly had no reason to feel any pangs over Cassandra’s fate.