Sandstorm (37 page)

Painter paced the road now, less settled with his decision. They had found no body. Where had Kara gone? Did her disappearance have something to do with her withdrawal from the drug? He took a deep breath. Maybe it was best. Away from them, Kara might have a better chance of surviving. Still, Painter paced.

Off to the side, Barak shared a smoke with Clay, the two men a contrast in size, form, and philosophy bonded by the lure of tobacco. Barak knew the mountains and had led them through a series of rutted roads, well camouflaged. They ran with their lights off, going as fast as safety allowed, stopping at times whenever the sound of helicopters approached.

It was just six of them now: he and Coral, Omaha and Danny, Barak and Clay. The fate of Captain al-Haffi and Sharif remained unknown, scattered to the winds with the fleeing Bait Kathir. They could only hope for the best.

After three hours of harried driving, they had stopped to rest, regroup, plan what to do next. All they had to guide them from here were the inked marks on the map.

At the van, Omaha straightened a kink in his back with a pop that was heard all the way to the road. “She tricked the bitch.”

With the mountain valley quiet and dark, Painter walked back to join the others. “What are you talking about?”

Omaha waved him over. “Come see this.”

Painter joined him. At least, Omaha’s belligerence toward him had
lessened. En route, Painter had related his story of the leopards, the firefight, the intervention of the strange woman. Omaha finally seemed to settle on the belief that as long as Safia was away from Cassandra, it was an improvement.

Omaha pointed to the map. “See these lines. The blue one clearly leads from the tomb in Salalah to Job’s tomb here in the mountains. Safia must’ve found some clue at the first tomb to lead to the second.”

Painter nodded. “Okay, what about the red line?”

“Safia found some clue at Job’s tomb, too.”

“The metal post with a bust on it?”

“I suppose. It doesn’t matter any longer. See here. She’s marked a circle along this red line. Out in the desert. Like this is where to go next.”

“The location of Ubar.” Painter felt a sick, sinking feeling. If Cassandra already knew where it was…

“No, it’s not the location,” Danny said.

Omaha nodded. “I measured it. The circle is marked sixty-nine miles from Job’s tomb, along this red line.”

Painter had debriefed them on all the details, including overhearing the tall man call out the number sixty-nine, measuring something along the pole.

“So it matches the number I heard,” Painter said.

“But they figured miles,” Omaha said. “
Our
miles.”

“So?”

Omaha gave him a look as if it were obvious. “If that artifact they found at Job’s tomb was dated the same as the iron heart—and why wouldn’t it be?—then it goes back to sometime around 200
B.C
.”

“Okay,” Painter said, accepting the fact.

“Back then, a mile was defined by the Romans. A mile was calculated as five thousand Roman feet. And a Roman foot is only eleven and a half inches. Safia would know this! She let Cassandra believe it was modern miles. She sent the bitch on a wild-goose chase.”

“So what’s the real distance?” Painter asked, moving closer to the map.

At his side, Omaha chewed the edge of his thumb, clearly doing a calculation in his head. After a moment, he spoke. “Sixty-nine
Roman
miles is equivalent to just over sixty three modern miles.”

“He’s right,” Coral said. She had been doing her own calculation.

“So Safia sent Cassandra six miles past the true location.” Painter frowned. “That’s not too far.”

“In the desert,” Omaha countered, “six miles is more like six hundred.”

Painter didn’t squash the man’s pride in Safia, but he knew the ruse
would not fool Cassandra for long. As soon as she realized that nothing was at that false site, she’d start consulting. Someone would solve the mystery. Painter estimated Safia’s ruse bought them a day or two at most.

“So where on the map is the true location?” Painter asked.

Omaha bobbed his head, excited. “Let’s find out.” He quickly adjusted his strings and pins, measuring and rechecking. A frown crinkled his brow. “That doesn’t make sense.” He stuck a pin in the map.

Painter leaned over and read the name pinned there. “Shisur.”

Omaha shook his head, dismay in his voice. “It’s been a goddamn wild-goose chase all along.”

“What do you mean?”

Omaha continued to frown at the map, as if it were to blame.

Danny answered for him. “Shisur is where the old ruins of Ubar were originally discovered. Back in 1992, by Nicolas Clapp and a few others.” Danny glanced to Painter. “There’s nothing there. All this running around just leads to a place that’s already been discovered and scoured.”

Painter could not accept that. “There has to be something.”

Omaha slammed a fist on the map. “I’ve been there myself. It’s a dead end. All this danger and bloodshed…for nothing!”

“There has to be something everyone has missed,” Painter persisted. “Everyone thought those two tombs we were at before had been thoroughly examined, but in a matter of days, new discoveries were made.”

“Discoveries made by Safia,” Omaha said sourly.

No one spoke for a long stretch.

Painter focused on Omaha’s words. Realization slowly dawned. “She’ll go there.”

Omaha turned to him. “What are you talking about?”

“Safia. She lied to Cassandra to stop her from getting to Ubar. But like us, she knows where the clues truly pointed.”

“To Shisur. To the old ruins.”

“Exactly.”

Omaha frowned. “But like we said, there’s nothing there.”

“And like you said, Safia discovered clues where no one found them before. She’ll think she can do the same at Ubar. She’ll go there for no other reason but to keep whatever might be there from Cassandra’s grasp.”

Omaha took a deep begrudging breath. “You’re right.”

“That’s if she’s allowed to go,” Coral said from the side. “What about the woman who took her away? The one with the leopards.”

Barak answered her, his voice somewhat embarrassed. “I’ve heard tales of such women, spoken around campfires out in the desert. Spoken
among all tribes of the sands. Warriors of the desert. More djinn than flesh. Able to speak to animals. Vanish on command.”

“Yeah, right,” Omaha said.

“There was indeed something strange about that woman,” Painter conceded. “And I don’t think this is the first time we’ve had a run-in with her.”

“What do you mean?”

Painter nodded to Omaha. “Your kidnappers. In Muscat. It was a woman you saw in the market.”

“What? You think she’s the same woman?”

Painter shrugged. “Or perhaps one of the same group. There’s another party involved in all this. I know it. I don’t know if it’s Barak’s warrior women or just some group looking to make a buck. Either way, they’ve taken Safia for a reason. In fact, they may have even attempted to kidnap you, Omaha, because of Safia’s affection for you. To use you as leverage.”

“Leverage for what?”

“To get Safia to help them. I also spotted the silver case tied on the camel’s back. Why take the artifact unless there’s a good reason? Everything keeps pointing back to Ubar.”

Omaha pondered his words, nodding his head. “Then that’s where we’ll go. With that bitch distracted, we’ll wait and see if Safia shows up.”

“And search the place in the meantime,” Coral said. She nodded to the stacked gear. “There’s a ground-penetrating radar unit in here, good for looking under sand. And we’ve a box of grenades, additional rifles, and I don’t know what this is.” She held up a weapon that looked like a shotgun with a belled end to it. From the glint in her eyes, she was dying to try it out.

Everyone turned to Painter, as if waiting for his agreement.

“Of course we’re going,” he said.

Omaha clapped him on the shoulder. “Finally something we agree on.”

1:55 A.M.

S
AFIA HUGGED
Kara. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m not sure.” Kara trembled in her grip. Her skin felt clammy, moist.

“The others? I saw Painter…what about Omaha, his brother…?”

“As far as I know, everyone’s okay. But I was away from the fighting.”

Safia had to sit down, her legs weak, knees rubbery. The cavern swam a bit around her. The tinkling of the waterfall through the hole in the
roof sounded like silver bells. Firelight from the five campfires dazzled her eyes.

She sank to a rumpled blanket by the fire. She couldn’t feel the heat of the flames.

Kara followed her down. “Your shoulder! You’re bleeding.”

Shot.
Safia didn’t know if she’d spoken aloud or not.

Three women approached, arms full. They carried a steaming basin, folded cloths, a covered brazier, and oddly out of place, a box with the red cross of an emergency medical kit. An elderly woman, not the same as the one who had led her here, followed with a tall walking stick, fiery in the glow of the campfire. She was ancient, shoulders hunched, hair white but neatly combed and braided back over her ears. Rubies adorned her lobes, matching her teardrop tattoo.

“Lie down, daughter,” the old woman intoned. English again. “Let us see to your injuries.”

Safia had no energy to resist, but Kara guarded over her. She had to trust that her friend would protect her if necessary.

Safia’s blouse was stripped from her. The soiled bandage was then soaked in a steaming poultice of aloe and mint and slowly peeled back. It felt as if they were flaying the skin off her shoulder. She gasped, and her vision darkened.

“You’re hurting her,” Kara warned.

One of the three women had knelt and opened the emergency medical kit. “I have one ampoule of morphine,
hodja,
” the woman said.

“Let me see the wound.” The elder leaned down, supported by her staff.

Safia shifted so her shoulder was bared.

“The bullet passed cleanly through. Shallow. Good. We’ll not have to operate. Sweet myrrh tea will ease her pain. Also two tablets of Tylenol with codeine. Hook an IV to her good arm. Run in a liter of warmed LRS.”

“What of the wound?” the other woman asked.

“We’ll cauterize, pack, and wrap the shoulder, then sling the arm.”

“Yes,
hodja.
”

Safia was propped up. The third woman poured a steaming mug of tea and handed it to Kara. “Help her drink. It will give her strength.”

Kara obeyed, accepting the mug with both hands.

“You’d best sip, too,” the old woman told Kara. “To clear your head.”

“I doubt this is strong enough.”

“Doubt will not serve you here.”

Kara sipped the tea, grimaced, then offered it to Safia. “You should drink. You look like hell.”

Safia allowed a bit to be dribbled between her lips. The warmth flowed down into the cold pit that was her stomach. She accepted more. Two pills were held in front of her.

“For the pain,” the youngest of the three women whispered. All three looked like sisters, only a few years apart.

“Take them, Saffie,” Kara urged. “Or I’ll take them myself.”

Safia opened her mouth, accepted the medication, and swallowed them down with a bit more of the tea.

“Now lie back while we minister to your wounds,” the
hodja
said.

Safia collapsed to the blankets, warmer now.

The
hodja
slowly lowered to the blanket beside her, moving with a grace that belied her age. She rested her walking stick over her knees.

“Rest, daughter. Be at peace.” She placed one hand atop Safia’s.

A gentle bleary feeling swelled through her, fading all the ache from her body, leaving her floating. Safia smelled the jasmine wreathed about the cavern.

“Who…who are you?” Safia asked.

“We’re your mother, dear.”

Safia flinched, denying the possibility, offended. Her mother was dead. This woman was too old. She must be speaking metaphorically. Before she could scold, all sight dissolved away. Only a few words followed her away.

“All of us. We’re
all
your mother.”

2:32 A.M.

K
ARA WATCHED
the group of women attend to Safia as her friend lolled on the blankets. A catheter was inserted into a vein in her right hand and hooked to an intravenous drip attached to a warm bag of saline, held aloft by one of Safia’s nurses. The other two rinsed and daubed the bullet wound in Safia’s shoulder. The injury was smaller than a dime. A cauterizing powder was sprinkled generously over the site, which was then painted with iodine, packed with cotton gauze, and expertly wrapped.

Safia thrashed slightly, but remained asleep.

“Make sure she keeps her arm in a sling,” the older woman said, watching the work of the others. “When she is awake, make sure she drinks a cup of the tea.”

The hodja lifted her staff, posted it on the ground, and pulled herself up. She faced Kara. “Come. Let my daughters care for your sister.”

“I won’t leave her.” Kara moved closer to Safia.

“She will be well cared for. Come. It is time for you to find what you have sought.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Answers to your life. Come or stay. It makes no matter to me.” The old woman thumped off. “I will not argue with you.”

Kara glanced to Safia, then to the elder.
Answers to your life.

Kara slowly rose. “If anything happens…” But she didn’t know whom she was threatening. The nurses seemed to be taking good care of her friend.

With a shake of her head, Kara set off after the
hodja.

“Where are we going?”

Ignoring Kara, the
hodja
continued. They left the trickling waterfall and fires behind and crossed into the deeper gloom that rimmed the chamber.

Kara stared around. She barely remembered entering this cavern. She had been conscious of it, but it was as if she had moved in a pleasant fog, plodding behind a similarly clad older tribeswoman. After leaving the van, they had walked for well over an hour, through a shadowy forest, to an ancient dry well, accessed via a narrow cut in the rock. They had spiraled down into a mountainside, walking for some time. Once they reached the cavern here, Kara had been abandoned by the fire, told to wait, the fog lifting from her. With its dissipation, her headache, tremors, and nausea had returned like a leaden blanket. She felt barely able to move, let alone find her way out of this warren of tunnels. Questions she asked were ignored.