DECEMBER 3, 12:22 P.M.
SALALAH
SAFIA WOKE in a cell, disoriented and nauseated. The dark room spun and jittered as she moved her head. A groan bubbled up from her core. A high barred window let in stabbing shafts of light. Too bright, searing.
A wave of queasiness rolled over her.
She turned on her side and dragged her head, too heavy for her shoulders, over the edge of the cot. Her stomach clenched, then clenched again. Nothing. Still, she tasted bile as she collapsed back down.
She took deep breaths, and slowly the walls stopped their spin.
She became aware of the sweat covering her body, pasting the thin cotton shift to her legs and chest. The heat stifled. Her lips felt cracked, parched. How long had she been drugged? She remembered the man with the needle. Cold, tall, dressed in black. He had forced her to change out of her wet clothes aboard the boat and into the khaki shift.
Carefully, Safia stared around her. The room was stone walls, plank flooring. It stank of fried onions and dirty feet. The cot was the only furnishing. A single door of stout oak stood closed. No doubt locked.
She lay unmoving for several more minutes. Her mind floated, half deadened by the aftereffects of the drug they had given her. Still, deep inside her, panic coiled around her heart. She was alone, captured. The others dead. She pictured flames in the night, reflecting off storm-swept water. The memory had burned into her like a camera flash in the dark. All red, painful, too bright to blink away. Her breathing tightened, throat closed down. She wanted to cry but couldn’t. If she started, she would never stop.
Finally, she pushed up and rolled her feet to the floor. It was not with any determination beyond the heavy pressure in her bladder. Biological need, a reminder that she lived. She stood, unsteady, a hand against the wall. The stones were welcoming cool.
She stared up at the barred window. From the heat, the angle of the sun, it had to be close to midday. But which day? Where was she? She smelled the sea and the sand. Still in Arabia, she was sure. She crossed the room. The burning in her bladder sharpened.
She hobbled to the door, lifted an arm. Would they merely drug her again? She fingered the purple bruise at the angle of her left arm, where the needle had dug in. She had no choice. Need outweighed caution. She pounded on the door and called out hoarsely, “Hello! Can anyone hear me?” She repeated her words in Arabic.
No one answered.
She knocked harder, stinging her knuckles, an ache flaring between her shoulder blades. She was weak, dehydrated. Had they left her here to die?
Finally, footsteps responded. A heavy bar scraped against wood. The door swung open. She found herself facing the same man as before. He stood a half a foot taller than she, looming in a black shirt and scuffed, faded jeans. She was surprised to find his head shaved. She didn’t remember that. No, he had been wearing a black cap then. The only hair on his head were his dark eyebrows and a small tuft at his chin. But she did not forget those eyes, blue and cold, unreadable, passionless. A shark’s eyes.
She shivered as he stared at her, the heat suddenly gone from the room.
“You’re up,” he said. “Come with me.”
She heard a trace of an Aussie accent, but one blunted by years away from home. “Where…I have to use the lavatory.”
He frowned at her and strode away. “Follow me.”
He led her to a small hall bath. It had a squat toilet, curtainless shower, and a small stained washbasin with a leaking tap. Safia ducked inside. She reached a hand to the door, unsure if she would be allowed privacy.
“Don’t be long,” he said, pulling the door the rest of the way shut.
Alone, she searched the room for some weapon, some means of escape. Again the lone window was barred. But she could at least see out of this one. She hurried forward and stared out at the small township below, nestled against the sea. Palm trees and white buildings spread between her and the water. Off to the left, a flutter of rainbow-colored tarps and awnings marked off a market souk. And in the distance, green patches beyond the city defined banana, coconut, sugarcane, and papaya plantations.
She knew this place.
The Garden City of Oman.
Salalah.
It was the capital city of the Dhofar Province, the original destination of the Shabab Oman. It was a lush region, green, with waterfalls and rivers feeding the pastures. Only in this section of Oman did the monsoon winds bless the land with sweeps of rain, a regular light drizzle, and an almost continual mist over the nearby coastal mountains. It was a weather system like no other in the Gulf, one that allowed for the growth of the rare frankincense tree, a source of great wealth in ancient times. The riches here had led to the founding of the legendary cities of Sumharam, Al-Balid, and lastly, the lost city of Ubar.
Why had her kidnappers taken her here?
She crossed to the toilet and quickly relieved herself. Afterward she washed her hands and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She appeared a shadow of herself, gaunt, tense, hollow-eyed.
But she was alive.
A knock on the door. “ ’Bout done in there?”
With no other recourse, Safia stepped back to the door and opened it.
The man nodded. “This way.”
He strode off, not even glancing back, so sure of his control of the situation. Safia followed. She had no other choice, but her legs dragged, leaden with despair. She was marched down a short flight of stairs, along another hall. Other men, hard-eyed, rifles over shoulders, lounged behind doorways or stood guard. They finally reached a tall door.
The man knocked and pushed open the door.
Safia found a room furnished spartanly: a threadbare rug with the color long bleached out of it by the sun, a single sofa, two stiff wooden chairs. A pair of fans buzzed, stirring the air. A table to the side was weighted down by an array of weapons, electronic equipment, and a laptop computer. A cable trailed out the neighboring window to a palm-size satellite dish pointed at the sky.
“That’ll be all, Kane,” the woman said, stepping away from the computer.
“Captain.” The man nodded and left, closing the door.
Safia considered lunging for one of the guns on the table, but knew she would not get within a step of them. She was too weak, still wobbly.
The woman turned to her. She wore black slacks, a gray T-shirt, and over that, a loose long-sleeved shirt, unbuttoned, cuffs rolled to elbows. Safia noted the black butt of a holstered pistol at her side.
“Please sit,” she instructed, and pointed to one of the wooden chairs.
Safia moved slowly, but obeyed.
The woman remained standing, pacing behind the sofa. “Dr. al-Maaz, it seems your reputation as an expert in the antiquities of the region has come to the attention of my superiors.”
Safia barely understood her words. She found herself staring at the woman’s face, her black hair, her lips. This was the woman who had tried to kill her in the British Museum, orchestrated the death of Ryan Fleming, murdered all her friends last night. Faces, images shuffled through her mind, distracting her from the woman’s words.
“Are you listening, Dr. al-Maaz?”
She couldn’t answer. She searched for evil in the woman, for the capability for such cruelty and savagery. Some mark, some scar, some understanding. There was nothing. How could that be?
A heavy sigh escaped the woman. She crossed around the sofa and sat down, leaning forward, elbows on her knees. “Painter Crowe,” she said.
The unexpected name startled Safia, a flash of anger burning through her.
“Painter…he was my partner.”
Shock and disbelief rattled Safia. No…
“I see I have your attention.” The smallest smile of satisfaction shadowed her lips. “You should know the truth. Painter Crowe was using you. All of you. Needlessly putting you in harm’s way. Keeping secrets.”
“You’re lying,” she finally croaked out past her parched lips.
The woman lounged back into the sofa. “I have no need to lie. Unlike Painter, I’ll tell you the truth. What you stumbled into, discovered by misfortune and chance, holds the possible key to untold power.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about antimatter.”
Safia frowned at the impossibility of what she was hearing. The woman continued explaining about the explosion at the museum, radiation signatures, the search for the primary source of some stable form of antimatter. Despite her wish to deny it all, much of it began to make sense. Certain statements by Painter, some of his gear, the pressure by the U.S. government.
“The meteor fragment that exploded at the museum,” the woman continued. “It was said to guard the true gates of the lost city of Ubar. It is there that you will lead us.”
She shook her head, more in denial. “This is all preposterous.”
The woman stared a moment longer, stood, and walked across the room. She dragged something from under the table and grabbed a device from among the stacked equipment. As she returned, Safia recognized her own suitcase.
The woman flipped the trunk’s clasps and swung open the lid. The iron heart lay nestled within molded black Styrofoam. It glowed ruddy in the bright sunlight. “This is the artifact you discovered. Inside a statue dating back to 200 B.C. With the name of Ubar written on its surface.”
Safia slowly nodded, surprised at the woman’s intimate knowledge. She seemed to know everything about her.
The woman leaned down and passed the handheld device over the artifact. The device crackled and popped, sounding not unlike a Geiger counter. “It gives off an extremely low-level radiation signature. Barely detectable. But it’s the same as the exploded meteor. Did Painter ever tell you that?”
Safia remembered Painter testing the artifact with a similar device. Could it be true? Again despair settled to the pit of her stomach, a cold stone.
“We need you to continue your work for us,” the woman said, resealing the trunk. “To guide us to the lost gates of Ubar.”
Safia stared at the closed trunk. All the bloodshed, all the deaths…all tied to her discovery. Again. “I won’t,” she mumbled.
“You will, or you will die.”
Safia shook her head and shrugged. She didn’t care. All that she loved had been taken from her. By this woman. She would never help.
“We will proceed with or without you. There are other experts in your field. And I can make your last hours very unpleasant if you refuse.”
This actually drew a weak laugh from her. Unpleasant? After all she had been through…Safia lifted her head and fully met the woman’s eyes for the first time, a place she had feared staring into until now. They weren’t cold like those of the man who had led her here. They sparked with a deep-seated anger…but also confusion. A frown thinned the woman’s lips.
“Do what you have to,” Safia said, realizing the power in her own despair. This woman could not touch her, harm her. They had taken too much last night. Left nothing that could threaten her. Both of them knew this truth at the same moment.
A flash of worry showed in the pinch of the other’s eyebrows.
She needs me, Safia knew with certainty. The woman had lied about having access to some other expert. She can’t get someone else. Steel flowed through Safia, firming her resolve, firing away the last of her drug-induced lassitude.
Once before, a woman had walked out of nowhere and into her life, a bomb strapped to her chest, passionate with religious fervor, ending lives without mercy. All aimed at Safia.
That woman had died in the explosion back in Tel Aviv. Afterward, Safia had never been able to confront her, to hold her responsible. Instead, she took the guilt upon herself. But it was even more than that. Safia had never been able to exact revenge for the deaths laid at her feet, to purge her guilt.
That was no longer true.
She faced her captor, never breaking eye contact.
She remembered wishing she could’ve stopped that woman in Tel Aviv, met her earlier, somehow prevented the explosion, the deaths. Could it be true about a source of antimatter? She pictured the explosion at the British Museum, the aftermath. What would someone like this woman do with such power? How many more would die?
Safia could not let that happen. “What is your name?”
The question startled her captor. The reaction caused a flash of pleasure to erupt in Safia, as bright as the sun, painful but satisfying.
“You said you’d tell me the truth.”
The woman frowned, but answered slowly. “Cassandra Sanchez.”
“What will you have me do, Cassandra?” Safia enjoyed the look of irritation in the other at the informal use of her name. “If I cooperate.”
The woman stood, anger flashing. “In an hour, we will leave for the tomb of Imran. Where the heart’s statue was found. Where you were planning to head with the others. That’s where we’ll start.”
Safia stood. “One last question.”
The woman stared at her quizzically.
“Who do you work for? Tell me that and I’ll cooperate.”
Before answering, the woman crossed to the door, opened it, and waved for her man Kane to collect the prisoner. She spoke from the doorway.
“I work for the U.S. government.”
1:01 P.M.
CASSANDRA WAITED until the museum curator had left and the door had been closed. She kicked a palm-frond-woven wastepaper basket across the room, scattering its contents across the plank floor. A Pepsi can rattled and rolled to a stop by the sofa. Fucking bitch…
She had to restrain herself from further outbursts, bottling back her anger. The woman had seemed broken. Cassandra had never imagined her to be so cunning there at the end. She had seen the shift in the other’s eyes, a glacial slide of power from her over to her prisoner. She had been unable to stop it. How had that happened?
She clenched her hands into fists, then forced her fingers to relax and shook her arms. “Bitch…” she mumbled to the room. But at least the prisoner was going to cooperate. It was a victory with which she would have to be satisfied. The Minister would be pleased.
Still, bile churned in her stomach, keeping her mood sour. The curator had more strength in her than Cassandra had imagined. She began to understand Painter’s interest in the woman.
Painter…
Cassandra heaved out a perturbed sigh. His body had never been found. It left her feeling unmoored. If only—
A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. John Kane pushed inside before she could even turn. Irritation flashed at his blatant invasion of her privacy, his lack of respect.
“Lunch was brought up to the prisoner,” he said. “She’ll be ready at fourteen hundred.”
Cassandra crossed to the table of electronic gear. “How did the subdermal function?”
“Registering perfectly. A good, strong tracking signal.”
Last night, after the prisoner had been drugged, they had implanted a subdermal microtransceiver between her shoulder blades. The same device Cassandra was supposed to have implanted on Zhang back in the States. Cassandra found it especially gratifying to use Painter’s own design in this matter. The microtransceiver would act as an electronic leash on the prisoner when they were on the streets. They would be able to track the curator for a ten-mile radius. Any attempt at escape would be quashed.
“Very good,” she said. “See that your men are all ready.”
“They are.” Kane bristled at her command, but his neck was also on the line if this mission failed.
“Any word from local authorities about the ship’s explosion last night?”
“CNN is blaming it on unknown terrorists.” He snorted at this last.
“What about survivors? Bodies?”
“Definitely no survivors. Salvage is just beginning to determine cause and body count.”
She nodded. “Okay, get your men ready. You’re dismissed.”
Rolling his eyes a bit, he swung away and left the room, pushing the door behind him, but he didn’t close it completely. She had to cross over and shove it the rest of the way. The latch clicked.
Just keep needling, Kane…payback’s a bitch.
Sighing her frustration, she moved back to the sofa. She sat down, on the edge. No survivors. She pictured Painter, remembering the first time he had succumbed to her subtle advances, her carefully orchestrated seduction. Their first kiss. He had tasted sweet, of the wine they’d had at dinner. His arms around her. His lips…his hands slowly sliding up the curve of her hip.
She touched herself where his palm had come to a rest and leaned back into the sofa, less resolved than a moment ago. She felt more anger than satisfaction after the night’s mission. More edgy. And she knew why. Until she saw Painter’s drowned corpse, his name on the list of the dead dragged from the sea, she would never know with certainty.
Her hand moved down along her hip, remembering. Could things have turned out differently between them? She closed her eyes, fingers clenching on her belly, hating herself for even pondering the possibility.
Damn you, Painter…
No matter what she might fantasize, it would’ve ended badly. That’s what the past had taught her. First her father…sneaking into her bed at night, starting when she was eleven, high on crack, promising, threatening. Cassandra had retreated to books, erecting a wall between her and the world. In books, she learned how potassium stops the heart. Undetectable. On her seventeenth birthday, her father was found dead in his La-Z-Boy. No one paid attention to one needle puncture among the others. Her mother suspected and feared her.
With no reason to stay at home, she joined the army at eighteen, finding pleasure in hardening herself, testing herself. Then the offer, to enter a Special Forces marksman program. It was an honor, but not everyone thought of it that way. At Fort Bragg, an enlisted man pushed her into an alley, intending to correct her. He held her down, ripped open her shirt. “Who’s your daddy now, bitch?” A mistake. Both the man’s legs were broken. They were never able to repair his genitalia. She was allowed to leave the service as long as she kept her mouth shut.
She was good at secrets.
Afterward, Sigma came calling, and the Guild. It became all about power. Another way to harden herself. She had accepted.
Then Painter…his smile, his calm…
Pain flowed into her. Dead or alive?
She had to know. While she knew better than to make any assumptions, she could make contingency arrangements. She shoved off the sofa and stalked to the equipment table. The laptop was open. She checked the feed from the microtransceiver planted on the prisoner and clicked the GPS mapping feature. A three-dimensional grid appeared. The tracking device, depicted by a rotating blue ring, showed her in her cell.
If Painter was out there, he’d come for her.
She stared at the screen. Her prisoner might think she had gained an upper hand earlier, but Cassandra took the longer view.
She had modified Painter’s subdermal transceiver, paired it with one designed by the Guild. It required amplifying the power cell, but once this was done, the modifications allowed Cassandra at any time to ignite an embedded pellet of C4, to take out the woman’s spine, killing her with a keystroke.
So if Painter was still out there, let him come.
She was ready to end all uncertainty.
1:32 P.M.
EVERYONE COLLAPSED on the sand, bone-tired. The stolen flatbed truck steamed on the narrow coastal road behind them, its hood open. The stretch of white sand spread in an arc, bordered by rocky limestone cliffs that tumbled into the sea on either end. It was deserted, isolated from any village.
Painter stared south, trying to pierce the fifty or so miles that lay between him and Salalah. Safia had to be there. He prayed he wasn’t already too late.
Behind him, Omaha and the three Desert Phantoms argued in Arabic over the engine compartment of the truck.
The others sought the shade of the cliffs, collapsing and spent from the long night of rugged travel. The steel bed of the truck offered no cushioning against the bumps and ruts in the coastal road. Painter had caught snippets of sleep, but managed no real rest, just restless dreams.
He touched his left eye, half swollen shut now. The pain focused him on their situation. The journey, while steady, had been slow, limited by the terrain and the condition of the old road. And now a radiator hose had burst.
The delay risked all.
A crunch of sand drew his attention around to Coral. She wore a loose fitting robe, a bit too short, showing her bare ankles. Her hair and face were smudged with the oil from the bed of the truck.
“We’re late,” she said.
He nodded. “But how late?”
Coral glanced at her watch, a Breitlinger diver’s chronograph. She was rated one of the best logisticians and strategists in the organization. “I estimate Cassandra’s assault team made landfall at Salalah no later than midmorning. They’ll delay only long enough to make sure no one marked them for the Shabab’s bombing and to secure a fallback position in the city.”
“Best-and worst-case scenarios?”
“Worst. They reached the tomb two hours ago. Best. They’re heading there right now.”
Painter shook his head. “Not much of a window.”
“No, it’s not. We shouldn’t fool ourselves otherwise.” She eyed him. “The assault team demonstrated their drive and focus. With their victory at sea, they’ll proceed with a renewed determination. But there may be one hope.”
“What’s that?”
“Though determined, they’ll proceed with extra caution.”
He frowned at this.
Coral explained, “You mentioned earlier the element of surprise. That’s not truly where our best strength lies. From the profile I received on Captain Sanchez, she’s not one to take risks. She’ll proceed as if she expects pursuit.”
“And this is to our advantage? How?”
“When someone is always looking over their shoulder, they’re more likely to trip.”
“How very Zen of you, Novak.”
She shrugged. “My mother was a Buddhist.”
He glanced at her. Her statement was said so deadpan that he couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.
“Okay!” Omaha called as the engine choked, caught, and grumbled. More roughly than before, but it was running. “Mount up, everybody!”
A few wordless protests erupted as the others pushed from the sand.
Painter climbed in ahead of Kara, helping her up. He noted a tremble in her hands. “Are you all right?”
She freed her hand, clasping it in her other. She would not meet his eyes. “Fine. Just worried about Safia.” She found a shady spot in the back corner.
The others did the same. The sun had begun to heat up the flatbed.
Omaha leaped into the back as the giant Barak closed the drop gate. He was covered with oil and grease from his elbows to fingertips.
“You got it running,” Danny said, squinting at his brother, not so much from the sun’s glare as nearsightedness. He’d lost his glasses during the explosion. It had been a very tough introduction to Arabia for the young man, but he seemed to be holding up well. “Will the engine last to Salalah?”
Omaha shrugged, collapsing on the bed next to his brother. “We jerry-rigged something. Stoppered the bad hose to keep it from leaking. The engine may overheat, but we only have another fifty or so miles to go. We’ll make it.”
Painter wished he could share the man’s enthusiasm. He settled into a seat between Coral and Clay. The truck jerked forward, jostling them all, earning a worried whinny from the stallion. Its hooves clattered on the knobby bed. Wafts of diesel exhaust smoked up as the truck lurched back onto the road and set off again toward Salalah.
As the sun reflected off of every surface, Painter closed his eyes against the glare. With no hope of sleep, he found himself thinking about Cassandra. He rolled his past experience with his ex-partner through his head: strategy sessions, interoffice meetings, various operations in the field. In all such matters, Cassandra had proven his equal. But he’d been blind to her subterfuge, her streak of cold-bloodedness, her calculated ruthlessness. Here she surpassed him, making her a better field operative.
He pondered Coral’s words from a moment ago: When someone is always looking over their shoulder, they’re more likely to trip. Had he done that himself? Since the museum’s foiled heist, he had been too conscious of his past with Cassandra, his focus on her too muddled, unable to balance past with present. Even in his heart. Was that what had allowed him to let his guard down aboard the Shabab Oman? Some belief in Cassandra’s ultimate goodness? If he had fallen for her, there must have been something true between them.
Now he knew better.
A grunt of protest drew his attention across the truck bed. Clay yanked his cloak to cover his knees. He made for a poor Arab, what with his pale skin, shaved red hair, and studded ears. He caught Painter’s eye. “So what do you think? Will we get there in time?”
Painter knew honesty was best from here on out. “I don’t know.”
2:13 P.M.
SAFIA RODE in the backseat of the four-wheel-drive Mitsubishi. Three other identical vehicles trailed behind. They composed a small funeral parade headed to the tomb of the Virgin Mary’s father, Nabi Imran.
Safia sat stiffly. The SUV smelled new. The crispness of the interior—charcoal leather, titanium trim, blue accent lights—all belied the ragged state of its passenger. And she could not blame all the red-rimmed fogginess on the aftereffects of the sedatives. Instead, her mind spun on her earlier conversation with Cassandra.
Painter…
Who was he? How could he have once been partnered with Cassandra? What did that mean? She felt bruised inside, sore to the touch, as she pictured his wry smile, the way his hand touched so lightly on hers, reassuring. What else had he kept hidden? Safia pushed her confusion down deep, unable to face it yet, not sure even why it affected her so much. They barely knew each other.
She turned her focus instead on the other disturbing comment by Cassandra. How she worked for the U.S. government. Was that possible? Though Safia was well aware of the occasionally ruthless nature of American foreign policy, she could not fathom U.S. policymakers advocating this attack. Even the men under Cassandra had a raw, mercenary flare about them. Their nearness prickled her skin. These were no ordinary American soldiers.
And then there was the man named Kane, always dressed in black. She recognized his Queensland accent. An Aussie. He drove their vehicle, a little heavy-footed. Corners taken too sharply, almost angrily. What was his story?
The truck’s remaining occupant sat beside Safia. Cassandra watched the passing scenery, her hands in her lap. Like any tourist. Except she carried three guns. Cassandra had showed them to Safia. A warning. One in a shoulder holster, another at the base of her back, and the last strapped to her ankle. Safia suspected there was a hidden fourth weapon.
Trapped, she had no choice but to sit still.
As they traversed central Salalah, Safia watched the built-in navigation track the vehicle. They rounded past a beachside resort, the Hilton Salalah, then cut across traffic and aimed for the inner municipal district, the Al-Quaf area, where the tomb of Nabi Imran awaited them.
It was not much farther. Salalah was a small town, taking minutes to cross from one side to the other. The city’s chief attractions lay beyond the municipality, in the natural wonders of the surrounding landscape: the magnificent sandy beach of Mughsal, the ancient ruins of Sumhurran, the myriad plantations that prospered under the monsoon rains. And a bit farther inland, the green mountains of Dhofar loomed as a backdrop, one of the few places on Earth where the rare frankincense trees grew.
Safia gazed toward the misted mountains, a place of eternal mystery and wealth. Though oil had replaced frankincense as Oman’s main source of riches, incense still drove the local economy of Salalah. The traditional open-air markets scented the township with samplings of rosewater, ambergris, sandalwood, and myrrh. It was the perfume center of the world. All the top designers flew here to sample wares.
Still, in the past, frankincense was the true treasure of the country, surpassing even gold. Trade in the precious incense fueled Omani commerce, drove its seafaring dhows to as far north as Jordan and Turkey and as far west as Africa. But it was the overland route, the Incense Road, that became the true stuff of legend. Ancient ruins dotted its course, cryptic and mysterious, their histories mingled with the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The most famous was Ubar, the thousand-pillared city, founded by the descendants of Noah, a city that grew rich through the pivotal role it played as a major watering hole for caravans passing through the desert.
Now, millennia later, Ubar had become the focus of power again. Blood had been shed to discover its secret, to expose its heart.
Safia had to resist glancing over her shoulder to the silver case in back. The iron heart had come from Salalah, a bread crumb left behind, a trail marker to the true wealth of Ubar.
Antimatter.
Could it be possible?
Their Mitsubishi slowed and turned down an unpaved side street. They passed a line of roadside stands, sheltered under palm trees, selling dates, coconuts, and grapes. Their truck idled slowly past. Safia considered jumping for it, fleeing away. But she’d been buckled in place. Any move toward the belt’s release and she’d be stopped.
And then there were the trailing vehicles, full of armed men. One truck made the turn behind them, the other continued, perhaps circling around to cordon off the other end of the alley. Safia wondered at such extra measures. Kane and Cassandra seemed more than enough to handle the prisoner. Safia knew there was no escape.
It would be her death to attempt it.
A surge of fiery heat, a long-suppressed anger, burned through her. She would not sacrifice herself needlessly. She would play their game but wait for her chance. She glanced sidelong at Cassandra. She would have her revenge…for her friends, for herself. This thought sustained her as their truck pulled to a stop outside a set of wrought-iron gates.
The entrance to the tomb of Nabi Imran.
“Don’t try anything,” Cassandra warned, as if reading her mind.
John Kane spoke to a gate attendant, half leaning out the window. A few Omani rials passed hands. The gate guard pressed a button, and the gate swung open, allowing the vehicle to pass inside. Kane pulled in slowly and parked.
The other truck took a position by the roadside stands.
Kane hopped out and came back to open her door. It could be taken as a chivalrous act in any normal circumstance. At the present time it was merely a precaution. He offered a hand to help her out.
Safia refused, climbing free herself.
Cassandra came around the back of the truck. She carried the silver case. “What now?”
Safia searched around her. Where to begin?
They stood in the middle of a flagstone courtyard, walled and bordered by small orderly gardens. Across the courtyard, a small mosque rose. Its whitewashed minaret climbed blindingly into the midday glare, topped by a brownish gold dome. A small circular balcony at the top marked the place for the muezzin to sing the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, five times a day.
Safia offered her own prayer. Silence was her only answer, but it still gave her comfort. Within the courtyard, the sounds of the surrounding town were muted, hushed, as if the very air had stilled at the holiness of the shrine. A few worshipers moved discreetly through the grounds, respectful of the burial tomb that stretched along one side: a long, low building, framed in arches, painted white, trimmed in green. Within the building stood the gravesite of Nabi Imran, the father of the Virgin Mary.
Cassandra stepped in front of her. The woman’s impatience, her pent-up energy, stirred the air, leaving a wake behind her that was almost palpable. “So where do we begin?”
“At the beginning,” Safia mumbled, and strode forward. They needed her. Though a prisoner, she would not be rushed. Knowledge was her shield.
Cassandra strode after her.
Safia walked toward the entrance to the burial sanctuary. A robed man, one of the tomb’s attendants, strode out to meet their party.
“Salam alaikum,” he greeted.
“Alaikum as salam,” Safia responded.
“As fa,” he apologized, and pointed to his head. “Women are not allowed into the tomb with their hair uncovered.” He pulled free a pair of green scarves.
“Shuk ran.” Safia thanked him and quickly donned the apparel. Her fingers moved with a skill she long thought lost. She found not a small degree of satisfaction when the man had to help Cassandra.
The caretaker stepped away. “Peace be with you,” he offered as he retreated to the shaded gallery, back to his post.
“We’ll have to take off our shoes and sandals, too,” Safia said, nodding to the row of abandoned footwear outside the door.
Soon barefoot, they entered the tomb.
The sanctuary was simply one long hall, encompassing the length of the building. At one end was a raised brown marble headstone the size of a small altar. Incense burned atop the marble in a pair of matching bronze braziers, giving the room a medicinal scent. But it was the grave below the headstone that captured the immediate attention. Down the middle of the hall stretched a thirty-meter-long sepulcher, raised a half meter above the floor and draped in a rainbow of cloths imprinted with phrases from the Koran. Flanking the grave, the floor was draped with prayer rugs.
“That’s a big grave,” Kane said softly.
A single worshiper rose from his rug, glanced at the newcomers, and silently exited the room. They had the space to themselves.
Safia paced the thirty-meter length of the shrouded tomb. It was said that if you measured the length along one side of the sepulcher, you’d never get the same measurement on the other. She had never tested this bit of folklore.
Cassandra followed at her shoulder, gazing around. “What do you know about this place?”
Safia shrugged as she circled the end of the tomb and began the return journey toward the marble headstone. “The tomb has been revered since the Middle Ages, but all these trappings…” She waved her hand to encompass the vault and courtyard. “All of this is relatively new.”
Safia strode forward to the marble headstone. She placed a hand on its surface. “This was the spot where Reginald Kensington excavated the sandstone statue that hid the iron heart. Some forty years ago.”
Cassandra stepped forward with the small case. She circled the stone altar. The floating snakes of incense from the pair of braziers stirred in her passage, an angry, writhing motion.
Kane spoke up. “So the Virgin Mary’s father is really buried here?”
“There’s some controversy surrounding that claim.”
Cassandra glanced at her. “How so?”
“Most major Christian groups—Catholics, Byzantines, Nestorians, Jacobites—believe Mary’s father was a man named Joachim. But this is contested. The Koran claims she descended from a highly respected family, that of Imran. As does the Jewish faith. According to their stories, Imran and his wife desired a child, but his wife was barren. Imran prayed for a male child, one whom he would dedicate to the temple in Jerusalem. His prayer was answered, his wife became pregnant—but with a female child. Mary. Joyous still, her parents devoted her to live a life of piety in honor of God’s miracle.”
“Until she got knocked up by an angel.”
“Yes, that’s when things get sticky between the religions.”
“What about the statue, the one at the head of the grave?” Cassandra asked, drawing the conversation back to their goal. “Why was it placed here?”
Safia stood before the marble headstone and pondered the same question herself, as she had on the whole journey from London. Why would someone place a clue to Ubar in a place tied to the Virgin Mary, a figure revered by all three religious faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam? Was it because they knew the site would be protected throughout the ages? Each religion had an interest in preserving the tomb. No one could’ve anticipated Reginald Kensington excavating the statue and adding it to his collection back in England.
But who originally brought the statue to the shrine and why? Was it because Salalah marked the beginning of the Incense Road? Was the statue the first signpost, the first trail marker leading into the heart of Arabia?
Safia’s mind spun with various scenarios: the age of the statue, the mysteries surrounding the tomb, the multifaith veneration of the site.
She turned to Cassandra. “I need to see the heart.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re right. The statue must’ve been placed here for a reason.”
Cassandra stared at her for a long moment, then knelt atop one of the prayer rugs, snapped open the case. The iron heart shone dully within its black rubberized cushioning.
Safia joined her and lifted the heart free. Again she was surprised by its weight. It felt too dense for plain iron. As she stood, she felt the vague sloshing from within, heavy, as if some molten lead filled the heart’s iron chambers.
She carried it over to the marble altar. “The statue was said to be propped up here.” As she swung around, a few bits of frankincense dribbled from the end of one of the heart’s vessels and scattered like salt atop the marble altar.
Safia held the heart up to her own chest, positioning it anatomically—ventricles down, the aortic arch passing on the left—as it would lie in her own body. She stood above the long narrow tomb and pictured the museum statue before the explosion had blasted it apart.
It had stood almost seven feet, a draped figure, wearing a headdress and face scarf, typical of the bedouin today. The figure had borne aloft a long funerary incense burner, on the shoulder, as if aiming a rifle.
Safia stared down at the grains of ancient frankincense. Was the same incense once burned here? She cradled the fist of cold iron in the crook of one arm, and picked up a few crystalline grains and tossed them in a neighboring brazier, sending up a prayer for her friends. They sizzled and gave off a fresh whiff of sweetness to the air.
Closing her eyes, she inhaled. The air was redolent with frankincense. The scent of the ancient past. As she breathed, she traveled back in time, to before the birth of Christ.
She pictured the long-dead frankincense tree that produced this incense. A scraggly, scrubby tree with tiny gray-green leaves. She imagined the ancients who harvested the sap. They were a reclusive tribe in the mountains, so isolated and old that their language predated modern Arabian. Only a handful of tribesmen still survived in isolation up in their mountains, eking out a meager living. She heard their language in her head, a singsong sibilance that was compared to birdsong. These people, the Shahra, claimed to be the last surviving descendants of Ubar, tracing their lineage to its founding fathers.
Had such a people harvested this incense themselves?
As she drew the past into her with each breath, she felt herself swoon, the room spinning beneath her. Momentarily unable to discern up from down, she caught herself on the edge of the altar, her knees losing strength.
John Kane grabbed her elbow, the elbow cradling the heart.
It bobbled in her grip…and fell.
The heart struck the altar with a dull clank and rolled across the slick marble, spinning on its iron surface, slightly wobbly, as if whatever liquid was inside had thrown it off balance.
Cassandra lunged for it.
“No!” Safia warned. “Leave it be!”
The heart spun a final time and came to rest. As it settled, it seemed to rock and swing slightly contrary, then stopped completely.
“Don’t touch it.” Safia knelt down, eyes even with the edge of the altar stone. The incense cloyed the air.
The heart rested in the exact position she had been holding it a moment before: ventricles down, aortic arch up and to the left.
Safia stood. She adjusted her body to match the position of the heart, again as if it were residing in her own chest. Once in position, she corrected the placement of her feet and lifted her arms, pretending to hold an invisible rifle in her hands—or a funerary incense burner.
Frozen in the pose of the ancient statue, Safia sighted down the length of her raised arm. It pointed straight along the long axis of the tomb, perfectly aligned. Safia lowered her arms and stared at the iron heart.
What were the odds that the heart would by pure chance settle into this exact position? She remembered the sloshing inside the heart, pictured its jittery spin, its final wobble at the end.
Like a compass.
She stared down the long length of tomb, raising her arm to sight along it. Her gaze traveled past the walls, out over the city, and beyond. Away from the coast. Out toward the distant green mountains.
Then she knew.
She had to be sure. “I need a map.”
“Why?” Cassandra asked.
“Because I know where we have to go next.”