SANDSTORM sf-1

by James Rollins

She remembered his fear of the sea, flashing back to a similar chat by the rail of the Shabab Oman. That now seemed like a world ago.

  Danny stood and stretched. “Coral and I were discussing that. About the sheer volume of water down here. There’s more than can be attributed to local rainfall or the water table.”

  Omaha stirred, speaking with his head down. He had not been asleep, only resting. “So what’s the story then, hotshot?”

  Coral answered, “It’s Earth-generated.”

  Omaha lifted his head. “Say again?”

  “Since the 1950s, it’s been known that there was more water within the Earth than can be explained by the surface hydrological cycle of evaporation and rainfall. There have been many cases of vast freshwater springs found deep within the Earth. Giant aquifers.”

  Danny interrupted. “Coral…Dr. Novak was telling me about one spring found during the excavation for the Harlem Hospital in New York. It produced water at the rate of two thousand gallons a minute. It took tons of concrete to produce enough pressure to plug the spring.”

  “So where the hell does all this new water come from?”

  Danny waved to Coral. “You know it better.”

  She sighed, clearly bothered at the interruption. “An engineer and geologist, Stephen Reiss, proposed that such new water is regularly formed within the Earth by the elemental combination of hydrogen and oxygen, generated in magma. That a cubic kilometer of granite, subjected to the right pressures and temperatures, has the capability of yielding eight billion gallons of water. And that such reservoirs of magmatic or Earth-generated waters are abundant under the crust, interconnected in a vast aquifer system, circling the globe.”

  “Even under the deserts of Arabia?” Omaha asked, half scoffing.

  “Certainly. Reiss, up until he died in 1985, had over fifty years of success finding water at sites other geologists flatly predicted were impossible. Including the Eilat Wells in Israel that continue to produce enough water for a city of a hundred thousand. He did the same in Saudia Arabia and Egypt.”

  “So you think all this water down here might be part of that system?”

  “Perhaps.” Coral opened a tiny door in one of her machines. Safia noted a whiff of fog rise from it. A cooler of some sort. She fished out a tiny test tube with tweezers. She swirled it around. Whatever Coral saw deepened a frown.

  “What’s wrong?” Danny asked, noting her reaction.

  “There’s something strange about this water.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She lifted the test tube. “I’ve been attempting to freeze it.”

  “So?”

  She held up the plastic test tube. “In the nitrogen cooler, I’ve lowered the water’s temperature to negative thirty Celsius. It still won’t freeze.”

  “What?” Omaha leaned closer.

  “It makes no sense. In a freezer, water gives up its heat energy to the cold and turns solid. Well, this stuff keeps giving off energy and won’t solidify. It’s like it has an unlimited amount of energy stored in it.”

  Safia stared past the dhow’s rail. She could still smell the ozone. She remembered the slight steaming in the water around the iron. “Do you still have the Rad-X scanner among the equipment?”

  Coral nodded, eyes widening. “Of course.”

  The physicist assembled the rod-and-base unit. She passed it over the test tube. Her eyes told what she found before she spoke. “Antimatter annihilation.”

  She shoved to her feet and held the scanner over the rail, moving from midship toward Safia’s place at the bow. “It grows stronger with every step.”

  “What the hell does it mean?” Omaha asked.

  “The magnetism in the iron is triggering some annihilation of antimatter.”

  “Antimatter? Where?”

  Coral stared all around her. “We’re sailing through it.”

  “That’s impossible. Antimatter annihilates itself with any contact with matter. It can’t be in the water. It would’ve annihilated with the water molecules long ago.”

  “You’re right,” Coral said. “But I can’t dismiss what I’m reading. Somehow the water here is enriched with antimatter.”

  “And that’s what’s propelling the boat?” Safia asked.

  “Perhaps. Somehow the magnetized iron has activated the localized annihilation of antimatter in the water, converting its energy into motive force, pushing us.”

  “What about the concern of it all destabilizing?” Omaha asked.

  Safia tensed. She remembered Painter’s explanation of how radiation from the decay of uranium isotopes might have triggered the museum explosion. She pictured the smoking bones of the museum guard.

  Coral stared at her scanner. “I’m not reading any alpha or beta radiation, but I can’t say for sure.” The physicist returned to her workstation. “I’ll need to do more studies.”

  The hodja spoke for the first time. She had ignored the excitement and simply stared forward. “The tunnel ends.”

  All eyes turned. Even Coral regained her feet.

  Ahead, a soft flicker of light danced, waxing and waning. It was enough to tell that the tunnel ended ten yards ahead. They sailed forward. In the last yard, the roof became jagged like the maw of a shark’s mouth.

  No one spoke.

  The ship sailed out of the tunnel and into a vast subterranean chamber.

  “Mother of God!” Omaha intoned.

  2:04 P.M.

  CASSANDRA HELDthe receiver of the satellite phone tight to her left ear and covered her right to cut out the howl of the storm. She was on the second floor of the cinder-block building that housed their command center. The storm tore through the ashes of the town. Sand battered the boarded windows.

  As she listened, she paced the floor. The voice, digitally altered, made it difficult to hear. The head of the Guild insisted on anonymity.

  “Gray leader,” the Minister continued, “to ask for such special treatment during this storm risks exposure of our desert op. Not to mention the entire Guild.”

  “I know it sounds excessive, Minister, but we’ve found the target. We are steps away from victory. We can be out of Shisur before the storm even ends. That’s if we can get those supplies from Thumrait.”

  “And what assurance can you give me that you will be successful?”

  “I stake my life on it.”

  “Gray leader, your life has always been at stake. Guild command has been studying your recent failures. Further disappointments now would make us seriously reconsider our need for your future employment.”

  Bastard, Cassandra cursed to herself. He hides behind his code name, sitting behind some goddamn desk, and he has the gall to question my competency. But Cassandra knew one way to spin her latest difficulty. She had to give Painter credit for that.

  “Minister, I am certain of victory here, but I would also request that afterward I be able to clear my name. I was assigned my team leader. He was not of my own choosing. John Kane has mishandled and undermined my command. It was his lack of security that caused both this delay and his own death. I, on the other hand, was able to subdue and apprehend the saboteur. A key member of DARPA’s Sigma Force.”

  “You have Painter Crowe?”

  Cassandra frowned at the familiarity behind that tone. “Yes, Minister.”

  “Very good, gray leader. I may not have misplaced my confidence in you after all. You’ll have your supplies. Four armored tractors driven by Guild operatives are already under way as we speak.”

  Cassandra bit her tongue. So all this browbeating was for show.

  “Thank you, sir,” she managed to force out, but it was a wasted effort. The Minister had already hung up. She shoved the phone down, but continued to pace the room twice more, breathing deeply.

  She had been so sure of victory when she blew the tractor out of the hole. She had enjoyed tormenting Painter, breaking him so he’d talk. She now knew the others posed no real threat. A handful of experienced fighters, but also
lots of civilians, children, and old women.

  After the wreckage had been cleared, Cassandra had gone down the hole herself, ready for victory, only to discover the underground river. There had been a stone pier, so the others must have found some vessel in which to row away.

  Alternate plans had to be made…again.

  She had to lean on the Minister, but despite her frustration, the call couldn’t have gone better. She had found a scapegoat for her past failures and would soon have everything she needed to ensure her victory under the sand.

  Calmer now, Cassandra headed to the stairs. She would oversee final arrangements. She clomped down the wooden steps and entered the temporary hospital ward. She crossed to the medic in charge and nodded.

  “You’ll have all the supplies you need. Trucks are coming in two hours.”

  The medic looked relieved. The other men heard her and cheers rose.

  She glanced to Painter, half sedated, groggy on the bed. She had left her laptop near his bed. The blue light of Safia’s transceiver glowed on the screen.

  A reminder.

  Cassandra carried the transmitter in her pocket, extra insurance for his good behavior and cooperation.

  She checked her watch. Soon it would all be over.

  2:06 P.M.

  KARA STOODat the prow with Safia. She held her sister’s free hand as Safia somehow propelled the dhow with her touch. They had done it, found what her father had sought for so many years.

  Ubar.

  The dhow sailed from the tunnel into a vast cavern, arching thirty stories overhead, stretching a mile out. A massive lake filled the cavern to an unknown depth.

  As they sailed the subterranean lake, flashlights pointed in all directions, spearing out from the dhow. But additional illumination was not necessary. Across the ceiling, scintillations of cobalt electricity arced in jagged displays while gaseous clouds swirled with an inner fire, edges indistinct, ghostly, ebbing and flowing.

  Trapped static charge. Possibly drawn from the storm on the surface.

  But the fiery display was the least cause for their amazement. Its glow reflected and dazzled off every surface: lake, roof, walls.

  “It’s all glass,” Safia said, gazing up and around.

  The entire cavern was a giant glass bubble buried under the sands. She even spotted a scattering of glass stalactites dripping down from the roof. Blue arcs glistened up and down their lengths, like electric spiders.

  “Slag glass,” Omaha said. “Molten sand that hardened. Like the ramp.”

  “What could’ve formed this?” Clay asked.

  No one even hazarded a guess as the dhow continued its journey.

  Coral eyed the lake. “All this water.”

  “It must be Earth-generated,” Danny mumbled. “Or once was.”

  Coral seemed not to hear him. “If it’s all enriched with antimatter…”

  The possibility chilled them all into silence. They simply watched the play of energies across the ceilings, mirrored in the still waters.

  Finally, Safia let out a soft gasp. Her hand dropped from the shoulder of the iron figurehead and covered her mouth.

  “Safia, what-”

  Then Kara saw it, too. Across the lake, a shore appeared out of the darkness; it rose from the waters and spread back to the far wall. Pillars of black glass stretched from floor to ceiling, hundreds, in all sizes. Mighty columns, thin spires, and unearthly twisted spirals.

  “The thousand pillars of Ubar,” Safia whispered.

  They were close enough for further details to reveal themselves, lit by the reflected glow of the electrical display. From out of the darkness, a city appeared, glinting, shining, shimmering.

  “All glass,” Clay murmured.

  The miraculous city climbed the shore, stretching high up the back wall, scattered among the pillars. It reminded Kara of the seaside towns found along the Amalfi coast, looking like a child’s toy blocks spilled down a hillside.

  “Ubar,” the hodja said at her side.

  Kara glanced back as all the Rahim knelt to the deck. They had returned home after two millennia. One queen had left; thirty now returned.

  The dhow had stopped after Safia lifted her hand, drifting on momentum.

  Omaha stepped to Safia’s side, encircling her with an arm. “Closer.”

  She reached again to the iron shoulder. The craft sailed again, moving smoothly toward the ancient lost city.

  Barak called from the wheel, “Another pier! I’ll see if I can take us in!”

  The dhow angled toward the spear of stone.

  Kara gazed out at the city as they drew nearer. Flashlight beams leaped the distance, adding further illumination. Details grew clearer.

  The homes, while all walled of glass, bore adornments of silver, gold, ivory, and ceramic tile. One palace near the shoreline had a mosaic that appeared to be made out of emeralds and rubies. A hoopoe bird. The crested bird was an important element in many stories about the Queen of Sheba.

  They were all overwhelmed.

  “Slow us down!” Barak called as they approached the pier.

  Safia released her hold on the iron statue. The dhow’s pace immediately dropped. Barak slid the craft easily alongside the pier.

  “Tie us up,” he said.

  The Rahim were again on their feet. They leaped to the sandstone pier and tied lines to silver stanchions, matching the ones on the royal dhow.

  “We are home,” Lu’lu said. Tears brimmed her eyes.

  Kara helped the old woman back to the center of the ship so she could step from boat to pier. Once on solid ground, the hodja waved Safia to her.

  “You should lead us. You have returned Ubar to us.”

  Safia balked, but Kara nudged her. “Do the old lady a favor.”

  Taking a deep breath, Safia climbed from the dhow and led the party to the glass shore of Ubar. Kara marched behind Safia and Lu’lu. This was their moment. Omaha even held back from rushing forward, though he did keep darting his head left and right, trying to see past the two women’s shoulders.

  They reached the shore, all flashlights ablaze.

  Kara glanced up and around. Distracted, she bumped into Safia’s back. She and the hodja had suddenly stopped.

  “Oh, God…” Safia moaned.

  Lu’lu simply fell to her knees.

  Kara and Omaha stepped around them. They both saw the horror at the same time. Omaha flinched. Kara took a step back.

  A few yards ahead, a skeletal, mummified body protruded from the street. Its lower half was still encased in glass. Omaha shifted his flashlight’s beam farther up the street. Other such bodies sprawled, half buried in the roadway. Kara spotted a single desiccated arm poking up out of the glass, as if drowning in a black sea. It appeared to be a child’s hand.

  They had all drowned in glass.

  Omaha moved a few steps closer, then jumped to the side. He pointed his flashlight down to where he had just stepped. His beam penetrated the glass, revealing a human shape buried below, burned to bone, curled within the glass under his feet.

  Kara could not blink. It was like her father.

  She finally covered her face and turned away.

  Omaha spoke behind her. “I think we just discovered the true tragedy that drove the last queen of Ubar out of here, sealing the place, cursing it.” He moved back to them. “This isn’t a city. It’s a tomb.”

  20

  Battle Under the Sand

  DECEMBER 4, 3:13 P.M.

  SHISUR

  PAINTER STAREDacross the makeshift medical ward. The injection of sedatives still kept his head full of cobwebs, but enough had worn off that he could think clearer, straighter. A fact he kept to himself.

  He watched Cassandra enter the room, pushing in from the storm, sand blowing in with her. It took an additional shoulder to shove the door closed.

  Painter had heard enough earlier to determine that her attempt to chase down the others had hit some snafu. But he had no details. Still, from
the confidence in her stride, from the way the morale here seemed high, she had not been fully thwarted. As always, she had another plan.

  She noted his bleary attention, crossed to him, and plopped down on a neighboring cot. His personal guard, seated behind him, shifted straighter. The boss was here. She pulled out a pistol and rested it in her lap.

  Was this the end?

  From the corner of his eye, he happened to note the tiny blue ring on the laptop computer. At least Safia was still alive. She had moved well out of Shisur by now, due north. Her Z-axis coordinate grid showed her still deep underground. Over three hundred feet.

  Cassandra waved off his bodyguard. “Why don’t you take a smoke. I’ll watch the prisoner for a bit.”

  “Yes, Captain. Thank you, sir.” He bolted away before she changed her mind. Painter heard the trace of fear in the man’s voice. He could guess how Cassandra commanded here. An iron fist and intimidation.

  Cassandra stretched. “So, Crowe…”

  Painter curled a fist under the sheets. Not that he could do anything. One of his ankles was cuffed to the cot’s foot. She sat just out of reach.

  “What do you want, Sanchez? Come to gloat?”

  “No. But I just wanted to let you know that you seemed to have piqued the interest of my superiors. In fact, capturing you may have earned me a few steps up the chain of Guild command.”

  Painter glowered at her. She had come not to gloat, but to brag. “The Guild? So that’s who signs your paychecks.”

  “What can I say? The salary was good.” She shrugged. “Better benefits packages. Matching 401(k)s. Your own death squad. What’s not to like?”

  Painter heard the combination of confidence and derision in her voice. It did not bode well. She certainly had a plan in place for victory here. “Why throw your lot in with the Guild?” he asked.

  She stared down at him tied to the cot. Her voice grew contemplative, but also somehow meaner. “ True power can only be found in those willing to break all rules to achieve their ends. Laws and regulations do nothing but bind and blind. I know what it feels like to be powerless.” Her eyes drifted away, into the past. Painter sensed a well of grief behind her words. Still, ice entered her voice. “I finally broke free by crossing lines few will cross. Beyond that boundary, I found power. And I will never step back…not even for you.”