SANDSTORM sf-1

by James Rollins

  New gunfire suddenly blasted up at the ridgeline.

  Everyone ducked and turned.

  “It looks like our decision is being made for us,” Omaha mumbled.

  Coral barked into her radio, Painter into his.

  Along the rim, lights flared, headlamps. Engines revved. Vehicles began to descend into the sinkhole, racing down.

  “What are they doing?” Omaha asked.

  Painter shoved aside his radio, his expression grim. “Someone up there spotted the tunnel. One of the women.”

  The hodja, Safia imagined. With Ubar now open, the Rahim wouldn’t flee. They would defend the site with their lives. Lu’lu was bringing the whole tribe down. A pair of dune buggies even bounced across the tumbled rock slide.

  Vehicles closed in on their position.

  The sudden eruption of gunfire died away.

  Coral explained, holding her radio to her ear, “A hostile scouting party got into a sniping position atop one of the towers. They’ve been dispatched.”

  Safia heard the respect in the woman’s voice. The Rahim had proven their mettle in this skirmish.

  In moments, buggies and bikes, loaded with women, braked in the sand. The first buggy bore familiar faces, crammed together: Kara, Danny, and Clay. Barak followed on a bike.

  Kara climbed out, leading the others. The winds were growing fiercer again, snapping scarves, flapping cloak edges. Kara held a pistol in one hand. “We spotted lights coming,” she said, and pointed in the other direction, off to the east. “Lots of them. Trucks, big ones. And at least one helicopter took off. I glimpsed its searchlight for a moment.”

  Painter clenched a fist. “Cassandra’s making her final move.”

  The hodja pushed through the throng. “Ubar is open. It will protect us.”

  Omaha glanced back to the hole. “All the same, I’ll keep my gun.”

  Painter stared east. “We have no choice. Get everyone below. Stick together. Carry as much as you can manage. Guns, ammunition, flashlights.”

  The hodja nodded to Safia. “You will lead us.”

  Safia glanced down the dark spiral of glass, suddenly less sure of her decision. Her breathing tightened. When it was only her own life, the risk was acceptable. But now other lives were involved.

  Her eyes settled to a pair of children, grasping each of Clay’s hands. They looked as terrified as the young man between them. But Clay held firm.

  Safia could do no less. She allowed her heart to thunder in her ears, but she calmed her breathing.

  A new noise intruded, carried on the wind. A deep bass rumble of an engine, something huge. The eastern rim lightened.

  Cassandra was almost here.

  “Go!” Painter yelled. He met Safia’s eyes. “Take them down. Quickly.”

  With a nod, Safia turned and began the descent.

  She heard Painter speak to Coral. “I need your bike.”

  11:44 A.M.

  CASSANDRA WATCHEDthe blue spinning ring on the transceiver blink out. She balled a fist. The curator was on the run again.

  “Get us over there,” Cassandra said between clenched teeth. “Now.”

  “We’re already here.”

  Out of the gloom, a stone wall appeared, crumbling, sand-scoured, more outline than substance, illuminated by their headlights.

  They’d reached the ruins.

  Kane glanced at her. “Orders?”

  Cassandra pointed to an opening in the wall, near a broken tower. “Get your men on the ground. I want the ruins locked down. No one leaves that chasm.”

  Kane slowed the tractor enough for his crack team of commandos to roll out the side doors, leaping over the trundling treads. Twenty men, bristling with weapons, spread into the storm, vanishing through the gap in the wall.

  Kane drove the tractor ahead, moving at a snail’s pace.

  The tractor crunched over the stone foundations of the ancient wall and into the inner city of old Ubar. The tractor’s headlights pierced no more than a few feet as the storm wailed and cast up gouts of sand.

  The sinkhole lay ahead, dark and silent.

  It was time to end all this.

  The tractor braked. Its headlights pierced ahead.

  Men dropped flat along the rim, using the cover of boulders and tumbled bits of ruins. Cassandra waited while the team took up positions, winging out to either side, encircling the sinkhole. She listened to their radio chatter, subvocalized over throat mikes.

  “In position, quadrant three…”

  “Mongoose four, on the tower…”

  “RPGs locked and loaded…”

  Cassandra hit Command Q on her keyboard and twenty-one red triangles bloomed on the schematic on the map. Each of the commandos had a locator beacon tagged to his fatigues. On the screen, she watched the team maneuver into position, no hesitation, efficient, fast.

  Kane directed his men from the command tractor. He stood, palms on the console, leaning forward to stare out the windshield.

  “They’re all in position. No movement seen below. All dark.”

  Cassandra knew Safia was there, hidden underground. “Light it up.”

  Kane relayed the order.

  All around the rim, a dozen floodlights snapped on, carried by the soldiers and aimed down into the hole. The chasm now glowed in the storm.

  Kane held one hand over his radio earpiece. He listened for half a breath, then spoke. “Still no hostiles in sight. Bikes and buggies below.”

  “Can they see any cavern entrance down there?”

  Kane nodded. “Where the vehicles are parked. A black hole. Video feed should be transmitting now. Channel three.”

  Cassandra brought up another screen on her laptop. Real-time video feed. The image was shaky, pixilating and vibrating. Static interference. A shimmer of electric charge danced down the whip antenna strapped outside the tractor.

  The storm was kicking into full blow.

  Cassandra leaned closer. On the screen, she saw wavering images of the chasm floor. Sand bikes with huge knobby tires. A scatter of Sidewinder desert dune buggies. But they were all abandoned. Where were all the people? The image swung, centered on a dark hole, three yards wide. It looked like a fresh excavation, glistening, reflecting back the spotlights.

  A tunnel opening.

  And all the rabbits had ducked into the hole.

  The video image scrambled, refocused, then was lost again. Cassandra bit back a curse. She wanted to see this for herself. She closed the jittery window on the screen and glanced at the spread of Kane’s men on the glowing schematic. They had the area locked down tight.

  Cassandra unbuckled. “I’m going to get a visual. Hold the fort.”

  She pushed to the back compartment and slid open the side door. The winds knocked her back, slamming her full in the face. She bent into the wind with a grimace, yanked a scarf over her mouth and nose, and shoved out. Using the tractor’s tread as a step, she jumped to the sand.

  She crossed to the front of the tractor, one hand on the tread for support. Winds battered her. She had new respect for Kane’s men. When she was ensconced inside the command vehicle, their deployment seemed satisfactory: quick, efficient, no fumbling. Now it seemed extraordinary.

  Cassandra crossed in front of the tractor, stepping between the two headlights. She followed the beams toward the sinkhole. It was only steps, but by the time she reached the rim, she could barely hear the growl of the tractor over the roar of the storm.

  “How’s things look, Captain?” Kane asked through her radio earpiece.

  She knelt and peered below. The chasm stretched ahead of her. Opposite her position, the far side of the sinkhole was a tumbled slope of rock, still rolling with tiny slides. A fresh avalanche. What the hell had happened? She shifted her gaze directly below her.

  The tunnel entrance stared back at her, a glistening eye, crystalline.

  Glass.

  Her pulse quickened at the sight of it. This had to be the entrance to whatever treasure lay
below. Her gaze swept over the parked vehicles. She could not let them steal the prize.

  She touched her throat mike. “Kane, I want a full team ready to enter that tunnel in five minutes.”

  There was no answer.

  “Kane,” she shouted louder, twisting around.

  The tractor’s headlights blinded her.

  She shoved to the side. Suspicion flared.

  She moved forward, only then spotting something knocked on its side, in the lee of the wall, abandoned, half covered in sand.

  A sand bike.

  Only one person was that clever.

  11:52 A.M.

  THE KNIFEstabbed at his face. Tangled, rolling across the floor, Painter turned his head, avoiding a fatal plunge to the eye. The dagger sliced his cheek, grazing the bone under his eye.

  Fury and desperation fueled Painter’s strength. Despite the blood flowing, he kept his legs pinned around the other man’s legs, his right arm clenched around the man’s neck.

  The bastard was as strong as a bull, bucking, rolling.

  Painter pinned him, trapping his knife arm.

  As he had climbed through the side door of the tractor, left conveniently ajar by Cassandra, he’d recognized the man. Painter had been hiding, buried under loose, windblown sand piled against the crumbling wall. Five minutes ago, he had ridden the sand bike at breakneck speeds up out of the sinkhole and raced to the gap in the east wall. He knew Cassandra’s forces would have to come through there with any vehicles.

  He hadn’t expected the behemoth of a tractor, a twenty-ton monster from the look of it. A bus fitted with tank treads. But it suited his purpose better than an ordinary truck.

  He had crawled out of hiding as the tractor stopped, idling in the storm. He had ducked between the back treads. As he expected, all attention had been focused on the sinkhole.

  Then Cassandra had stepped from the vehicle, giving him the opening he needed. With the door unlocked, Painter had slipped into the back compartment, pistol in hand.

  Unfortunately, his wrestling partner, John Kane, must’ve caught Painter’s reflection in the glass. He had swung around on a splinted leg and snapped out with the other, knocking the pistol from Painter’s hand.

  Now they struggled on the floor.

  Painter maintained his choke hold. Kane tried to slam the back of his head into the bridge of Painter’s nose. Painter avoided the blow. Instead, he yanked the man’s head back even farther and slammed it hard against the metal floor.

  A groan.

  He repeated the action three more times. The man went limp. Painter continued to clamp his forearm over the man’s neck. Only then did he note the blood spreading across the gray metal. Nose broken.

  Time running out, Painter let the man go. He stood up and stumbled back. If that leopard hadn’t tenderized the bastard first, Painter would never have won that fight.

  He shoved to the driver’s seat, popped the clutch, and gave the tractor some gas. The lumbering giant crunched forward, surprisingly agile. Painter checked his landmarks and aimed the tractor toward the right trajectory, straight for the sinkhole.

  Bullets suddenly peppered the side of the tractor. Automatic weapons. His presence had been discovered.

  The noise deafened.

  Painter continued forward, unconcerned. The tractor was armored. And he had locked the side door.

  The rim of the sinkhole appeared ahead. He kept the tractor moving.

  Bullets continued to pound, stones against a tin can.

  The front end of the tractor crawled past the lip of the sinkhole.

  That was good enough for Painter. Trusting momentum, he swept out of the seat. The tractor slowed but crept farther past the edge of the sinkhole. Its forward end dipped down as the rim crumbled. The floor tilted.

  Painter scrambled toward the rear door, intending to jettison before the tractor went over, taking his chances among the commandos. But a hand snatched his pant leg, yanking his feet out from under him. He fell hard, the wind knocked out of him.

  Kane dragged Painter toward him, still impossibly strong.

  Painter had no time for this. The floor angled steeply. He kicked out with a heel, striking Kane’s broken nose. The man’s head snapped back. His ankle was freed.

  Painter crawled and leaped up the sloped floor, climbing a cliff of steel. Equipment and gear tumbled toward the front, knocking into him. He felt a sliding lurch. Gravity now gripped the tractor. Treads tore through stone.

  It was going over.

  Leaping, Painter snatched the handle to the back hatch. Unfortunately, it opened out. He didn’t have good purchase to shove it open. Using his toes, his calves, he just managed to push the hatch a foot up.

  The wind did the rest. The storm caught the door and flung it wide.

  Painter followed, carried bodily outward.

  Beneath him, the tractor fell away, diving into the sinkhole.

  He managed one kick. Leapfrogging off the back end, he aimed for the cliff edge, arms outstretched.

  He made it, barely. His belly struck the edge. He flung his torso on the ground, legs dangling in the pit. His fingers dug for purchase. A screeching crash sounded below him. He noted figures scrambling toward him.

  They wouldn’t reach him in time.

  He slid backward. There was no grip. The tractor’s treads had churned the edge to mush. He managed for a moment to catch a buried rock in the dust.

  He hung for a breath by one hand and stared down.

  Forty feet below, the tractor had slammed nose-first into the glass hole, tearing away, crumpling, a twenty-ton plug in the tunnel.

  Good enough.

  His rocky purchase gave way. Painter fell, tumbling into the pit.

  Distantly he heard his name called.

  Then his shoulder struck an outcropping of rock, he bounced, and the ground rushed up to meet him, jagged with rocks and broken metal.

  Part Five

  Fire Down Below

  19

  Any Port in a Storm

  DECEMBER 4, 12:02 P.M.

  UNDERGROUND

  SAFIA HURRIEDdown the spiraling ramp, leading the others. The crash above them had thrown them into a panic. Debris rolled and skittered from above: glass, rocks, even a broken rim of metal. The last had rolled like a child’s hoop, skimming around the spiral, through the mass of folk in flight, and down into the depths.

  Omaha followed it with his flashlight until it vanished. The noise above subsided, echoing away.

  “What happened?” Safia asked.

  Omaha shook his head. “Painter, I guess.”

  Kara marched on her other side. “Barak and Coral went back to check.”

  Behind them marched Danny and Clay, backs loaded with gear. They held flashlights. Clay held his with both hands, as if it were a lifeline. Safia doubted he’d ever volunteer for a field expedition again.

  Beyond them marched the Rahim, similarly encumbered with supplies and packs. Only a few flashlights glowed. Lu’lu, bent in discussion with another elder, led them. They had lost six women during the fighting and bombing. Safia saw the raw grief in all their eyes. A child wept softly back there. As insulated as the Rahim were, a single death must be devastating. They were down to thirty, a quarter of them children and old women.

  The footing suddenly changed underfoot, going from rough glass to stone. Safia looked down as they wound around the spiral.

  “Sandstone,” Omaha said. “We’ve reached the end of the blast range.”

  Kara shone her light back, then forward. “The explosion did all this?”

  “Some form of shaped charge,” Omaha said, seemingly unimpressed. “Most of this spiraling ramp was probably already down here. The trilith chamber was its cork. The bomb simply blew its top away.”

  Safia knew Omaha was simplifying things. She continued forward. If they had passed the transition from glass to stone, then the end must be near. The sandstone underfoot was still wet. What if all they found was a flooded pass
age? They’d have to go back…face Cassandra.

  A commotion drew her attention. Coral and Barak trotted up to them. Safia stopped along with the others.

  Coral pointed back. “Painter did it. Dropped a truck over the entrance.”

  “A big truck,” Barak elaborated.

  “What about Painter?” Safia asked.

  Coral licked her lips, eyes narrowed with concern. “No sign.”

  Safia glanced past the woman’s shoulder, searching.

  “That won’t keep Cassandra off our tail forever. I already heard men up there digging.” Coral waved forward. “Painter bought us time, let’s use it.”

  Safia took a deep shuddering breath. Coral was right. She turned and continued down. No one spoke for another turn of the spiral.

  “How deep are we?” Kara asked.

  “I’d say over two hundred feet,” Omaha answered.

  Around another bend, a cavern opened, about the size of a double garage. Their lights reflected off a well of water in the center. It jostled gently, its surface misty. Water dripped from the ceiling.

  “The source of the water flume,” Omaha said. “The shaped charge of the explosion must have sucked it up, like milk through a straw.”

  They all entered the cavern. A lip of rock circled the well.

  “Look.” Kara pointed her light to a door on the far side.

  They marched around the well.

  Omaha placed his palm on the door’s surface. “Iron again. They sure like smelting around here.”

  There was a handle, but a bar was locked across the door’s frame.

  “To keep the chamber pressure-sealed,” Coral said behind them. “For the explosive vacuum.” She nodded back to the well of water.

  Far above them, a crash echoed down.

  Omaha grabbed the locking bar and pulled it. It wouldn’t budge. “Goddamnit. It’s jammed.” He wiped his hands on his cloak. “And all oily.”

  “To resist corrosion,” Danny said. He tried to help him, but the two brothers fared no better. “We need a crowbar or something.”