Sandstorm (31 page)

It was past monsoon season, but the weather reports warned of a December storm, a front moving inland. They would have rain by nightfall. The squall last night had been only the first in a series of storms. There was talk that this weather system would cross the mountains and collide with the sandstorm rolling south, creating the perfect monster storm.

But Omaha had larger concerns than wild weather.

Omaha hurried across the souk. Their goal lay on the far side, where a modern strip of commercial facilities had sprouted, including a Pizza Hut and a minimart. Omaha wound through the last of the stalls, passing shops selling knockoff perfumes, incense burners, bananas, tobacco,
handcrafted jewelry, traditional Dhofari dresses made of velvet and covered with beads and sequins.

At last, they reached the street separating the souk from the modern strip mall. Omaha pointed across the way. “There it is. Now how is that place going to help you find Safia?”

Painter headed across. “I’ll show you.”

Omaha followed. He stared up at the sign:
SALALAH INTERNET CAFÉ
. The establishment specialized in elaborate coffees, offering an international array of teas, cappuccinos, and espressos. Similar establishments could be found in the most remote places. All it took was a telephone connection, and even the most out-of-the-way corner of the world could be surfing the Web.

Painter headed inside. He approached the counterperson, a blond-haired Englishman by the name of Axe who wore a T-shirt that read
FREE WINONA
, and gave him his credit card number and expiration date.

“You have that memorized,” Omaha asked.

“You never know when you’re going to be attacked by pirates at sea.”

As the man ran the number, Omaha asked, “I thought you wanted to keep a low profile. Won’t using your credit card give away that you’re still alive?”

“I don’t think it really matters anymore.”

The electronic credit card machine chimed. The man gave him a thumbs-up. “How much time do you want?”

“Is it a highspeed connection?”

“DSL, mate. No other way to surf.”

“Thirty minutes should be enough.”

“Brilliant. Machine in the corner is free.”

Painter led Omaha over to the computer, a Gateway Pentium 4. Painter sat down, accessed the Internet connection, and typed in a long IP address.

“I’m accessing a Department of Defense’s server,” he explained.

“How is that going to help find Safia?”

He continued typing, fingers flying, screens flashed, refreshed, disappeared, changed. “Through the DOD, I can gain access to most proprietary systems under the National Security Act. Here we go.”

On the screen appeared a page with the Mitsubishi logo.

Omaha read over his shoulder. “Shopping for a new car?”

Painter used the mouse to maneuver through the site. He seemed to have full access, flashing past password-encrypted screens. “Cassandra’s group was traveling in SUVs. Mitsubishis. They did not make much effort
to hide their backup vehicles. It didn’t take much to get close enough to read the VIN number off one in the alley.”

“VIN? The Vehicle Identification Number?”

Painter nodded. “All cars or trucks with GPS navigation systems are in constant contact with the orbiting satellites, keeping track of their location, allowing the driver to know where he is at all times.”

Omaha began to understand. “And if you have the VIN number, you can access the vehicle’s data remotely. Find out where they are.”

“That’s what I’m counting on.”

A screen appeared, asking for the VIN number. Painter typed it in, not looking at his fingers. He pressed the enter button, then leaned back. His hand had a slight shake in it. He clenched a fist in an attempt to hide it.

Omaha could read his mind. Had he remembered the number correctly? What if the kidnappers had disabled the GPS? So many things could go wrong.

But after a long moment, a digital map of Oman appeared, fed from a pair of geosynchronous satellites orbiting far above. A small box scrolled a series of longitude and latitude designation. The moving location of the SUV.

Painter sighed with relief. Omaha echoed it.

“If we could find where they were holding Safia…”

Painter clicked the zoom feature and zeroed in on the map. The city of Salalah appeared. But the tiny blue arrow marking the truck’s location was beyond its borders, heading deeper inland.

Painter leaned closer. “No…”

“Goddamnit. They’re leaving the city!”

“They must’ve found something at that tomb.”

Omaha swung away. “Then we have to go. Now!”

“We don’t know
where
they’re going,” Painter said, remaining at the computer. “I have to track them. Until they stop.”

“There is only one highway. The one they’re on. We can catch up.”

“We don’t know if they’ll go overland. They were in four-wheel-drives.”

Omaha felt pulled in two different directions: to listen to Painter’s practical advice, or to steal the first vehicle he could find and race after Safia. But what would he do if he reached her? How could he help her?

Painter grabbed his arm. Omaha balled a fist with the other.

Painter stared hard at him. “I need you to think, Dr. Dunn. Why would they be leaving the city? Where could they be going?”

“How the hell should—”

Painter squeezed his arm. “You’re as much an expert in this region as
Safia. You know what road they’re taking, what lies along the way. Is there anything out there that the tomb here in Salalah might point toward?”

He shook his head, refusing to answer. They were wasting time.

“Goddamnit, Omaha! For once in your life, stop reacting and
think!
”

Omaha yanked his arm away. “Fuck you!” But he didn’t leave. He remained trembling in place.

“What is out there? Where are they going?”

Omaha glanced over to the screen, unable to face Painter, afraid he’d blacken the man’s other eye. He considered the question, the puzzle. He stared at the blue arrow as it wound away from town, up into the foothills.

What had Safia discovered? Where were they headed?

He ran through all the archaeological possibilities, all the sites peppered across the ancient land: shrines, cemeteries, ruins, caves, sinkholes. There were too many. Turn over any stone here and you discover a piece of history.

But then he had an idea. There was a major tomb near that highway, just a few miles off the road.

Omaha moved back to the computer. He watched the blue arrow coursing along the road. “There’s a turnoff about fifteen miles up the highway. If they take that turn, I know where they’re headed.”

“That’ll mean waiting a bit more,” Painter said.

Omaha crouched by the computer. “It seems we have no choice.”

5:32 P.M.

P
AINTER BOUGHT
time on another computer. He left Omaha to monitor the SUV’s progress. If they could get a lead on where Cassandra was headed with Safia, they could get a head start. It was a slim hope.

Alone with his computer, Painter again accessed the DOD server. There was no reason to feign death any longer. He’d left enough of an electronic trail. Besides, considering the elaborate trap at the safe house, Cassandra knew he was alive…or at least, she was acting that way.

That was one of the reasons he needed to log back onto the DOD site.

He entered his private pass code and accessed his mail system. He typed in the address for his superior, Dr. Sean McKnight, head of Sigma. If there was anyone he trusted, it was Sean. He needed to apprise his commander of the events, let him know the status of the operation.

An e-mail window opened, and he typed rapidly, relating a thumbnail sketch of events. He stressed the role of Cassandra, the possibility of a mole in the organization. There was no way Cassandra could have known about the safe house, the electronic code for the equipment locker, without some inside information.

He finished:

Painter paused, took a deep breath, then continued typing:

Painter stared at the letter. Numb at the possibility.

Omaha waved to him from the neighboring computer. “They made the turnoff on the side road!”

Painter hit the send button. The letter vanished, but not his guilt.

“C’mon.” Omaha crossed to the exit. “We can close the distance.”

Painter followed. At the door, he gave one final glance back to his workstation. He prayed he was wrong.

DECEMBER 3, 5:55 P.M.
DHOFAR MOUNTAINS

S
AFIA STARED
out the window as the truck wound up a switchback through the mountainous hills. After they left the highway, asphalt had given way to gravel, which in turn disintegrated into a rutted red dirt path. They proceeded slowly, cautious of the deep gorge that shouldered the road to the left.

Below, the valley flowed away in deepening shades of lush green, disappearing into shadows near the bottom as the sun set to the west. A scatter of baobab trees dotted the slope, monstrous trees with tangled, rooted trunks that seemed more prehistoric than specimens of the modern world. Everywhere the land rolled in shades of emerald, striped in shadows. A waterfall glistened between two distant hills, its cataracts sparkling in the last rays of the sun.

If Safia squinted, she could almost imagine she was back in England.

All the lushness of the high country was due to the annual monsoon winds, the
khareef,
that swept the foothills and mountains in a continual misty drizzle from June through September. Even now, as the sun set, a steady wind had begun to blow, buffeting the truck. The sky overhead had darkened to slate gray, canopied with frothy clouds that brushed the higher hills.

The radio had been tuned to a local news channel during the ride up here. Cassandra had been listening for reports on the ongoing salvage operation on the
Shabab Oman.
Still, no survivors had been found, and the seas were again kicking up with the approach of a new
storm system. But what dominated the weather reports was news of the fierce sandstorm continuing its sweep south across Saudi Arabia, heading like a freight train for the desert of Oman, leaving a swath of destruction.

The wild weather matched Safia’s mood: dark, threatening, unpredictable. She felt a force building inside her, below her breastbone, a tempest in a bottle. She remained tense, tingling. It reminded her of an impending anxiety attack, but now there was no fear, only determined certainty. She had nothing, so could lose nothing. She remembered her years in London. It had been the same. She had sought comfort by becoming nothing, cutting herself off, isolating herself. But now she had truly succeeded. She was empty, left with only one purpose: to stop Cassandra. And that was enough.

Cassandra remained lost in her own thoughts, only occasionally leaning forward to speak in hushed tones to John Kane up front. Her cell phone had rung a few minutes ago. She had answered it tersely, turning slightly away, speaking in a whisper. Safia heard Painter’s name. She had tried to eavesdrop, but the woman kept her voice too low, blocked by the babble of the radio. Then she had hung up, made two other calls, and sunk into a palpably tense silence. Anger seemed to radiate in waves from the woman.

Since then, Safia kept her attention on the countryside, searching for places where she might hide, mapping the terrain in her head, just in case.

After another ten minutes of slow trekking, a larger hill appeared, its top still bathed in light. The golden bell of a short tower glinted in the sun.

Safia straightened. Job’s tomb.

“Is that the place?” Cassandra stirred, eyes still narrowed.

Safia nodded, sensing that now was not the time to provoke her captor.

The SUV coasted down a final slope, circled the base of the mount, and then began a long climb toward the top, crawling up a switchback. A group of camels lounged beside the road as their vehicle neared the hilltop tomb. The beasts were all couched for a rest, kneeling down atop their knobby knees. A few men sat in the shadow of a baobab, tribesmen from the hills. The eyes of both camels and men followed the passage of the three trucks.

After a last switchback, the walled tomb complex appeared, consisting of a small beige building, a tiny whitewashed mosque, and a handsome garden courtyard of native shrubs and flowers. Parking was merely an open stretch of dirt in front, presently empty because of the lateness of the day.

As before, Kane settled the truck to a stop, then came around to open Safia’s door. She climbed out, stretching a kink from her neck. Cassandra joined them as the other two SUVs parked and the men unloaded. They were all dressed in civilian clothes: khakis and Levi’s, short-sleeved shirts, polos. But all the men wore matching windbreakers with the logo for Sunseeker Tours, all a size too big, hiding their holstered weapons. They quickly dispersed into a loose cordon near the road, feigning interest in the gardens or walls. A pair had binoculars and scanned the immediate area, turning in a slow circle.

Except for the road leading here, the remaining approaches were steep, almost vertical cliff faces. It would not be easy to flee on foot.

John Kane went among his men, nodding, bowing his head in last-minute instructions, then returned. “Where first?”

Safia motioned vaguely to the mosque and vault.
From one tomb to another.
She led the way through the opening in the wall.

“Place looks deserted,” Kane commented.

“There must be a caretaker somewhere about,” Safia said, and pointed to the steel chain that lay loose beside the entrance. No one had locked the place.

Cassandra signaled to two men. “Search the grounds.”

Obeying, the pair took off.

Cassandra led the way after them. Safia followed with Kane at her side. They entered the courtyard between the mosque and small beige vault. The only other feature of the complex was a small set of ancient ruins near the back, neighboring the tomb. An ancient prayer room, supposedly all that was left of Job’s original home.

Closer by, the door to the tomb lay open, unlocked like the gate.

Safia stared toward the doorway. “This may take some time. I don’t have the slightest idea where to begin to look for the next clue.”

“If it takes all night, then it takes all night.”

“We’re staying here?” Safia could not keep the surprise from her voice.

Cassandra wore a hard-edged expression. “For as long as it takes.”

Safia swept the courtyard with her gaze. She prayed the caretaker had been careless in locking the place up and had already left. She feared hearing a gunshot somewhere out there, marking his death. And what if other pilgrims came later? How many more would die?

Safia felt conflicted. The sooner Cassandra had what she wanted, the less chance that other innocent folk would die. But that meant helping her. Something she was loath to do.

With no other choice, she crossed the grounds and entered the crypt. She had an inkling of what needed to be found—but not where it might be hidden.

She stood a moment in the entryway. The crypt here was smaller than Nabi Imran’s tomb, a perfect square. The walls were painted white, the floor green. A pair of red Persian prayer rugs flanked the grave mound, which again was draped in silk shawls imprinted with passages from the Koran. Beneath the cloths was the bare dirt in which Job’s body was said to have been buried.

Safia made a slow circle around the mound. There was no marble headstone as there had been at Imran’s tomb, only a scattering of clay incense burners, scorched black from frequent use, and a small tray for visitors to leave gifts of coins. The room was otherwise unadorned, with the exception of a wall chart listing the names of the prophets: Moses, Abraham, Job, Jesus, and Muhammad. Safia hoped they wouldn’t need to track all these men’s tombs on the road to Ubar. She ended back at the entrance, none the wiser.

Cassandra spoke at the door. “What about that iron heart? Can we use it here?” As before, she had brought the silver case and had set it outside the door.

Safia shook her head, sensing that the heart would not be significant here. She exited the chamber, slipping between Cassandra and Kane.

As Safia stepped outside, she realized she had walked through the tomb in her shoes. She had also left her hair uncovered. She frowned.

Where was the caretaker?

She eyed the grounds, fearful for the man’s safety, again hoping he’d already left. The winds had kicked up, scurrying through the yard, bobbing the heads of a row of daylilies. The place appeared deserted, displaced in time.

Yet Safia sensed something…something she could not name, almost an expectation. Maybe it was the light. It cast everything—the neighboring mosque, the edges of the walls, even the hard-packed gravel of the garden path—in stark, flat detail, a silver negative held over a bright light. She sensed if she waited long enough, all would be revealed in full color and clarity.

But she didn’t have the time.

“What now?” Cassandra pressed, drawing her back.

Safia turned. Beside the entranceway, a small metal door was affixed to the ground. She bent to the handle, knowing what lay beneath it.

“What are you doing?” Cassandra asked.

“My job.” Safia let her disdain shine through, too tired to care if she provoked her captor. She tugged up the door.

Hidden below was a shallow pit, sixteen inches deep, dug from the stone. At the bottom was a pair of petrified prints: a large man’s bare footprint and a horse’s hoof.

“What’s all this?” Kane asked.

Safia explained, “If you remember my story of Job, he was afflicted with disease until God ordered him to strike his foot down and a healing spring was called forth.” She pointed into the stone pit, to the footprint. “That is supposedly Job’s footprint, where he struck the ground.”

She pointed to the hole in the ground. “And there is where the spring bubbled up, fed from a water source at the foot of the hill.”

“The water traveled uphill?” Kane asked.

“It wouldn’t be a miracle otherwise.”

Cassandra stared down. “What does the hoofprint have to do with the miracle?”

Safia’s brow crinkled as she stared at the hoof. It was stone, too. “There is no story associated with it,” she mumbled.

Still something tweaked her memory.

Petrified prints of a horse and a man.

Why did that sound familiar?

Throughout the region, there were countless stories of men or beasts turning to stone. Some even concerned Ubar. She shuffled through her memories. Two such stories, found in the
Arabian Nights
collection—“The Petrified City” and “The City of Brass”—related the discovery of a lost desert city, a place so evil it was damned and its inhabitants frozen in place for their sins, either petrified or turned to brass, depending on the story. It was a clear reference to Ubar. But in the second story, the treasure hunters hadn’t stumbled upon the condemned city by accident. There had been clues and signposts that led them to its gates.

Safia recalled the most significant signpost from this story: a sculpture of brass. It depicted a mounted horseman, who bore aloft a spear with an impaled head atop it. On the head, an inscription had been written. She knew the line from the story by heart, having done extensive research for Kara about Arabian mysteries:

To Ubar.

Safia pondered the passage. A metallic sculpture turning with a touch to point to the next signpost. She pictured the iron heart, aligning itself like a compass needle atop the marble altar. The similarity was uncanny.

And now this.

She stared into the pit.

A man and a horse. Petrified.

Safia noted how both the foot- and hoofprint pointed in the same direction, as if the man were walking his mount. Was that the next direction? She frowned, sensing the answer was too easy, too obvious.

She lowered the lid and stood.

Cassandra kept at her side. “You’re onto something.”

Safia shook her head—lost in the mystery. She strode in the direction of the prints, walking where the long-dead prophet would have headed with his horse. She ended up at the entrance to the small archaeological site located behind the main tomb, separated from the newer building by a narrow alley. The ruins were a nondescript structure of four crumbling walls, no roof, outlining a small chamber ten feet across. It seemed once a part of a larger home, long gone. She walked through the threshold and into the interior.

While John Kane guarded the door, Cassandra followed her inside. “What is this place?”

“An ancient prayer room.” Safia stared up at the darkening skies as the sun sank away, then stepped over a kneeling rug on the floor.

Safia walked to where two of the walls had crude niches constructed into them, built to orient worshipers about the direction in which to pray. She knew the newer one faced toward Mecca. She crossed to the other, the older niche.

“Here is where the prophet Job prayed,” Safia mumbled, more to herself than Cassandra. “Always facing Jerusalem.”

To the
northwest.

Safia stepped into the niche and faced backward, back the way she had come. Through the dimness, she made out the metal lid of the pit. The footsteps led right here.

She studied the niche. It was a solid wall of sandstone, quarried locally. The niche was a tumble of loose stone blocks, long deteriorated by age. She touched the inner wall.

Sandstone…like the sculpture where the iron heart had been found.

Cassandra stepped next to her. “What do you know that you’re not telling us?” A pistol pressed into Safia’s side, under her rib cage. Safia had not even seen the woman pull it free.

Keeping her hand flat against the wall, Safia turned to Cassandra. It was not the pistol that made her speak, but her own curiosity.

“I need a metal detector.”

6:40 P.M.

A
S NIGHT
fell, Painter turned off the main highway onto the gravel side road. A green sign with Arabic lettering stated
JEBAL EITTEEN
9
KM
. The truck bounced from the asphalt surface to gravel. Painter didn’t slow down, spitting a shower of stones onto the highway. Gravel rattled in the wheel wells, sounding distinctly like automatic fire. It heightened his anxiety.