DECEMBER 4, 11:02 A.M.
SHISUR
PAINTER LAY flat on the roof of the cinder-block building. He had bundled his cloak tightly under his legs, the ends of his scarf tucked away. He didn’t want any telltale flapping of material to reveal his position.
He waited for the helicopter to make another pass over the town. He would get one shot. He had to assume the copter was outfitted with night vision. The muzzle flash would give away his position. He waited, the Galil sniping rifle at his cheek, resting on a bipod. The Israeli weapon, borrowed from one of the Rahim, had the capability to deliver a head shot at three hundred yards. But not in this storm, not with visibility so low. He needed the helicopter close.
Painter lay in wait.
The copter was up there somewhere, searching. An aerial hunter hidden in the storm. Any movement, and it would open fire with its double guns.
Painter noted the glow deeper in the storm, in the direction of the ruins. The second helicopter. He prayed that Safia and Omaha had kept their heads down. He had tried to radio them earlier, when he first suspected the danger, but something blocked the signal. Perhaps interference from the static charge of the storm. He attempted to reach them on foot, but the helicopters had swooped in, targeting anything that moved.
If there were birds in the air, then this was no small scouting party. Cassandra had somehow learned of her mistake and moved full forces in.
The radio in his ear whispered with static, the channel left open. Words formed out of the white noise. “Commander.” It was Coral, reporting in from the field. “As you suspected, I’ve hostiles coming in on all sides. They’re doing a building-by-building search.”
Painter touched his transmitter, trusting that the storm kept their words private. “The children and older women?”
“Ready. Barak awaits your signal.”
Painter searched the skies. Where are you? He needed to take out the helicopter if they were to have any hope of breaking through the noose around the town. The plan was to strike out west of the ruins, collecting Safia and Omaha along the way, risking the wild weather. Though the storm was growing worse with every minute, it could cover their retreat. If they left the ruins behind, perhaps Cassandra would be satisfied enough to make only half an effort to hunt them down. If they could get back to the mountains…
Painter felt a fury build in him. He hated to retreat, to hand Cassandra a victory here. Especially with the discovery of the secret chamber under the sinkhole. Cassandra would surely bring in heavy excavating equipment. Something lay down there. The Rahim were living proof of something extraordinary. His only hope was to abscond with Safia, delaying Cassandra enough for him to alert someone in Washington, someone he could trust.
And that certainly was not the command structure of Sigma.
Anger built in him, stoking a fire in his gut.
He had been set up. All of them had.
His mind flashed to Safia. He could still feel the beat of her heart under the blade he held at her throat. He had seen the look in her eyes afterward, as if he were a stranger. But what did she expect? This was his job.
Sometimes hard choices had to be made, and even tougher actions.
Like now.
With Coral’s report of forces moving into the town’s outskirts, they would be surrounded in minutes. He could no longer wait for the helicopter to show itself. It would need to be flushed out.
“Novak, is the rabbit ready to run?”
“On your go, Commander.”
“Rev it up.”
Painter waited, cheek against the gun, one eye peering through the telescopic lens, the other on the skies. A bright light burst down in the town, shining from an open doorway. Details were murky, but through his night-vision goggles, the light shone brilliant. A throaty engine growled and whined.
“Let her run,” Painter ordered.
“Rabbit’s loose.”
From the building, a sand cycle burst forth. Its path was only evident as a brightness tearing down an alley between buildings. It zigzagged through the tangle of streets. Painter watched the skies to either side and above.
Then it appeared, diving like a hawk.
The helicopter’s guns chattered, flashes in the storm.
Painter adjusted his rifle, aimed for the source of the gunfire, and pulled the trigger. The recoil struck his shoulder like a mule kick. He didn’t wait. He squeezed off another three shots, ears ringing.
Then he saw it, a flare of flame. A heartbeat later, an explosion lit the storm. Fiery wreckage spat in all directions, but the main bulk tumbled in a steep path. It struck a building, burst brighter, then crashed into the roadway.
“Go,” Painter yelled into his radio.
He shouldered the rifle and rolled off the roof’s lip. The soft sand cushioned his fall. All around, engines ignited with rumbles and coughing whines. Lights flared. Bikes and buggies burst forth from alleyways, lean-tos, and out of doorways. One bike sped past Painter. A woman leaned over the bars, another sat behind her, rifle on her shoulder. The women would sweep a path ahead, guard their rear.
From the doorway, Kara appeared, carrying a girl in her arms. Others followed. Barak helped an old woman, followed by two others, supporting each other. Clay and Danny held children’s hands, one on each side. Not a whimper from the lot of them. Not even Clay.
“Follow me,” Painter said, and set off.
He kept his rifle shouldered but held a pistol in one hand.
As he rounded the corner of their shelter, a barrage of gunfire sounded from the ruins. Through the gloom, a floodlight flared. The second helicopter.
“Oh, God…” Kara said behind him, knowing what the gunfire meant.
Safia and Omaha had been found.
11:12 A.M.
RUN!” OMAHA screamed as they ran across the floor of the sinkhole, but his words never reached his own ears. The rattle of guns was deafening. He pushed Safia ahead of him. They raced, blinded by the swirling sand, chased by a twin line of bullets chewing across the ground.
Directly ahead rose the western cliff of the sinkhole, shadowed from above by the citadel’s ruins. The wall was lightly scalloped, coved in. If they could get under the lip of rock, out of direct line of fire, they’d have some shelter.
Safia ran an arm’s length ahead of him, slightly encumbered by her sling, loping, the stiff winds tangling her cloak about her feet. Sand blinded. They hadn’t even had time to pull their goggles in place.
Moments ago, they had decided that the helicopter was the lesser of two evils. The powder keg building in the trilith chamber meant certain death. So they took their chances on the run.
The chatter of guns grew louder as the helicopter swept behind them.
The only reason they had survived this long was the sandstorm. The pilot fought to keep his craft trimmed in the winds. It buffeted and fluttered, a hummingbird in a gale, throwing off the pilot’s aim.
They fled for shelter, running blind.
Omaha waited for bullets to shred into him. With his last breath, he would push Safia to safety, if need be.
It wasn’t necessary.
The bullets suddenly stopped, as if the craft had run out of ammunition. The sudden silence drew Omaha’s attention over his shoulder, his ears still ringing. The helicopter’s floodlight angled away. The copter swept back.
With his attention turned, he stumbled over a rock, went down hard.
“Omaha…!”
Safia came back to help. He waved her off. “Get to shelter!”
Omaha hobbled after her, his ankle flaring with pain, twisted, sprained, hopefully not broken. He cursed his stupidity.
The helicopter retreated to the other side of the sinkhole. It had them dead to rights. They shouldn’t have made it. Why had it pulled back?
What the hell was going on?
11:13 A.M.
EAGLE ONE, don’t hit the goddamn target!” Cassandra screamed into the radio. She banged a fist on the armrest of her seat in the M4 armored tractor. On her laptop, she stared at the blue glowing ring of the curator’s transceiver. It had blinked into existence a moment ago.
The gunfire had flushed Safia out into the open.
Eagle One answered, the pilot’s voice choppy. “I’ve broke off. There are two of them. I can’t tell which one is the target.”
Cassandra had radioed just in time. She pictured the pilot cutting down the woman. The curator was her best chance to quickly root out the secrets here and abscond with the prize. And the asinine pilot had almost mowed her down.
“Leave them both,” she said. “Guard the hole they came out of.”
Whatever cavern the curator had disappeared into had to be important.
Cassandra leaned close to her laptop, watching the blue glow. Safia was still in the giant sinkhole. There was nowhere she could go that Cassandra could not find her. Even if the woman vanished into another cave, Cassandra would know where to find the entrance.
She turned to the tractor’s driver, John Kane. “Take us in.”
With the engine still running, he shoved the gearshift. The tractor jerked, then trundled up the dune that hid them from the town of Shisur. Cassandra sat back, one hand on the laptop, holding it steady.
As they reached the dune’s summit, the nose of the tractor rocked high, then fell down the far slope. The valley of Shisur lay ahead. But nothing could be seen beyond a few yards of the vehicle’s xenon headlights. The storm swallowed the rest away.
All except a scatter of glows, marking the town. Vehicles on the move. A firefight between her forces and some unknown party still continued.
Distantly, echoes of sporadic gunfire reached her.
The captain of her forward forces had radioed in his assessment: They all appear to be women.
It made no sense. Still, Cassandra remembered the woman she had chased through the back alleys of Muscat. The one who had vanished in front of her. Was there a connection?
Cassandra shook her head. It no longer mattered. This was the endgame, and she would not tolerate anyone thwarting her.
As she watched the show of lights in the darkness, she lifted her radio and spoke to the leader of her artillery. “Forward battery, are you in position?”
“Yes, sir. Ready to light the candles on your order.”
Cassandra checked her laptop. The blue ring of the transceiver persisted in the sinkhole. Nothing else mattered. Whatever they sought lay among the ruins, with the curator.
Raising her gaze, Cassandra stared at the shimmer of wavering lights where the town of Shisur lay. She lifted her radio, called the forward troops, and ordered a pullback. She then switched back to the artillery captain.
“Level the town.”
11:15 A.M.
AS PAINTER led the others out of the village and through the gates of the ruins, he heard the first whistle. It pierced through the storm’s roar.
He swung as the first shell struck the town. A fireball burst skyward, lighting the storm, illuminating a patch of the village briefly. The boom reverberated in his gut. Gasps rose around him. More whistles filled the air.
Rockets and mortars.
He never suspected Cassandra had such firepower at hand.
Painter fumbled for his radio. “Coral! Go dark!”
Whatever advantage of surprise they had gained by the sudden burst of vehicles from their hiding places had ended. It was time to evacuate.
Out in the town, the lights of the vehicles were all extinguished. Under the cover of darkness, the women were to retreat to the ruins. More rockets struck, blooming in wild spirals of fire, whipped by the winds.
“Coral!” he yelled into the radio.
No answer.
Barak grabbed his arm. “They know the rendezvous.”
Painter swung around. More concussions pounded his gut.
Over at the sinkhole, the gunfire from the second helicopter had gone silent. What was happening?
11:17 A.M.
SAFIA HUDDLED with Omaha under a lip of rock. The bombs rattled pebbles from the ruins of the citadel atop the cliff above them.
To the south, the dark skies glowed ruddy from fires. Another boom reverberated through the storm’s wail. The town was being destroyed. Had the others had time to escape? Safia and Omaha had left their radios down in the trilith chamber. They had no way of knowing how the others had fared.
Painter, Kara…
At her side, Omaha leaned most of his weight on his right foot. She had seen him take that spill while fleeing here. He had twisted his ankle.
Omaha mumbled through his scarf. “You could still make a dash for it.”
She was worn, her shoulder ached. “The helicopter…”
It still hovered over the sinkhole. Its floodlight had blinked off, but she still heard it. It swept a slow circuit over the sandy floor, keeping them pinned.
“The pilot broke off his attack before. He’s probably half blind by the storm. If you stuck to the wall, ran fast…I could even take potshots from here.”
Omaha still had his pistol.
“I’m not leaving without you,” Safia whispered. Her statement was not all altruistic. She squeezed his hand, needing to feel his solidness.
He attempted to free his hand. “Forget it. I’d just slow you down.”
She held harder. “No…I can’t leave your side.”
He suddenly seemed to understand the deeper meaning in her words, the raw fear. He pulled her closer. She needed his strength. He gave it to her.
The helicopter swept by overhead, the bell beat of its rotor wash suddenly louder. It angled back over the center of the sinkhole, unseen, its path described by the beat of its passage.
She leaned into Omaha. She had forgotten how broad his shoulders were, how well she fit against him. Staring over his shoulder, Safia noted a flicker of blue across the sinkhole, a dance of lightning.
Oh, God…
She clutched Omaha harder.
“Saff,” Omaha mumbled, lips by her ear. “After Tel Aviv—”
The explosion blew away any further words. A wall of superheated air slammed them both against the wall, to their knees. A flash of brilliance, then all vision squeezed away.
Rocks rained around them. A tremendous crack sounded above. A huge boulder struck the sheltering lip and thudded into the sand. More stones fell, a torrent of rocks. Half blind, Safia felt it under her knees. A shift in the earth.
The citadel was coming down.
11:21 A.M.
PAINTER HAD reached the edge of the sinkhole when the explosion ripped up from there. The only warning: a flash of blue scintillation deep in the hole. Then a column of cerulean blue fire erupted from the chamber opening, lighting every corner, shoving back the storm both with its brilliance and its hot breath.
The ground shook underfoot.
He felt the rush of heat shoot by his face, straight up, confined by the walls of the deep sinkhole, but its backwash still buffeted him backward.
Cries arose all around him.
The jetted column of cerulean fire struck the last helicopter full in the belly, knocking it skyward, cartwheeling it. Its fuel tank exploded in a wash of red flame, dramatic against the blue. The wreckage of the helicopter scattered away, not in pieces, but in liquid jets of molten fire. The entire craft had melted within the bath of cobalt flame.
Next, from the sinkhole’s south rim, Painter watched the ruins of the citadel, perched precariously over the western edge, begin a slow tumble into the pit. And at the bottom, lit by the balefire flames as they petered out, two figures stumbled across the floor, rocks falling all around them.
Safia and Omaha.
11:22 A.M.
DAZED, OMAHA leaned on Safia. She had an arm under his shoulders. They fought through the sands. His eyes wept from the residual burn on his retinas, but vision slowly returned. First a glow formed, dull, bluish. Then he saw dark shadows falling around him, thudding into the sand, some bouncing.
A rain of rocks. A biblical curse.
“We must get clear!” Safia yelled, sounding as if she were underwater.
Something struck the back of his good leg. They were both thrown to the sand. A deep grumble rattled behind them, above them, an angry god.
“It’s coming down!”
11:33 A.M.
PAINTER RACED headlong down the path into the sinkhole.
To his left, the back half of the citadel spilled into the chasm. It groaned and rumbled. Pouring rock and sand into one end of the pit. Painter had witnessed a mud slide during a rainstorm, an entire hillside liquefying. This was the same. Only a bit slower. Rock proving more stubborn.
In snatches through the stormy gloom, he spotted Safia and Omaha scrambling away from the avalanche as it slowly spilled toward them, chasing them across the floor. They fell down again as Omaha was struck in the shoulder and spun around.
Painter would not reach them in time.
A throaty growl whined behind him and a shout: “Out of the way!”
The shout threw him around. A light flicked on, spearing him in the face. He was blinded, but he saw enough in that split second to dive aside.
The sand bike sailed passed him down the slope, spewing up gravel and sand. It leaped the path ten feet from the bottom, front wheel yanked up, rear knobby wheel spinning. It landed with a bounce, a twist, a crunch of sand—then tore off across the floor.
Painter continued down the path.
He had spotted the rider, bent over the handlebars. It was Coral Novak, cloaked and goggled, hood thrown back, white hair flagging behind her.
Painter gave chase, watching the cycle tear alongside the avalanche. Its headlamp flicked back and forth as Coral dodged around obstacles. Then she reached the pair, braking and skidding to them. He heard her shout.
“Grab tight!”
Then she was off again, shooting straight across the floor, away from the tumbling stones, hauling Omaha and Safia, who clung to the seat’s back, feet and legs dragging behind.
They raced clear of the rock slide.
Painter reached the bottom, well clear of the tumult of stone and sand. By the time he reached the floor, it was over. The collapse of the hill and fortress settled to a stop. The steep cliff was now a gentle slope.
Edging the wide delta of spilled rock and sand, Painter hurried to the idling bike. Safia had climbed to her feet. Omaha leaned one hand on the seat. Coral sat astride the bike.
They all stared at the hole in the ground ahead of them. It steamed and roiled, like some entrance to hell. It was where the trilith chamber had once opened. Only now it was ten feet across, blasted wide.
And bubbling with water.
The headlamp of the bike illuminated the steaming surface.
As Painter watched, the waters receded, draining away rapidly.
What was revealed held everyone silent.
11:23 A.M.
CASSANDRA STARED, unblinking, through the windshield of the M4 tractor. A minute ago, they had watched a blue flash of fire shoot skyward. It had come from straight ahead.
In the direction of the ruins.
“What the hell was that?” Kane asked from the driver’s seat.
They had halted the tractor a hundred yards off. To the left, the town flickered with a dozen fires. Directly ahead, the ruins had gone dark again, lost in the storm.
“That was not one of our bloody mortars,” Kane said.
It sure as hell wasn’t. Cassandra glanced to her laptop. The glow of the curator’s transceiver continued to shine, though now it flickered, as if some interference fluttered its signal. What was going on over there?
She attempted to radio the only person who might know. “Eagle One, can you read me?”
She waited for a reply. None came.
Kane shook his head. “Both birds are down.”
“Order another two copters in the air. I want aerial coverage.”
Kane hesitated. Cassandra knew his concern. The storm, while already blowing fiercely, was only beginning to ratchet up. Its full might had yet to strike. And the coastal weather system was rushing up from the south, promising even wilder weather to come as the two systems collided. Outfitted as they were with only six VTOL copter sleds, to send up another pair risked half their remaining aerial force.
But Kane understood the necessity. They dared not conserve their resources. It was all or nothing. He passed Cassandra’s orders over his own radio. Once done, he glanced to her, silently asking her how to proceed.
She nodded ahead. “We’re going in.”
“Should we wait until the birds are in the air?”
“No, we’re armored.” She glanced over her shoulder to the men seated in the back compartment, Kane’s commando team. “And we have enough land support with us. Something’s happening over there. I can smell it.”
He nodded, shifted into gear, and kicked the tractor into motion. The lumbering tank ambled toward the ruins.
11:26 A.M.
SAFIA KNELT on one knee and reached a hand over the hole’s lip. She tested the heat with her palm. Winds tugged at her. Sand swirled in sweeps, but not as fiercely. The storm had abated slightly, a momentary pause, as if the explosion had sapped some strength from the gale’s force.
“Careful,” Omaha said behind her.
Safia stared down the hole at her feet. The waters continued to recede. It seemed impossible. As the waters had drained away, a glass ramp revealed itself, spiraling deep. The trilith chamber was gone. All that was left was glass, flowing downward in a corkscrew.
The entrance to Ubar.
Safia lowered her palm toward the ramp’s exterior, slowly, bringing it close to the glass. It still glistened with drops of water, radiant against the black surface, reflecting the bike’s headlight.
She felt no searing burn.
Daring, Safia touched a finger to the black glass. It was still warm, very warm, but it didn’t burn. She placed her palm flat. “It’s solid,” she said. “Still cooling, but the surface is hard.” She rapped on it to demonstrate.
Standing up, she reached a leg out and placed a foot on the ramp. It held her weight. “The waters must have cooled it enough to harden.”
Painter stepped toward her. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Coral spoke, still astride her bike. She lowered the radio from her lips. “Commander, all Rahim are now gathered. We can bug out on your word.”
Safia turned to the upper rim, but it was lost in darkness. She glanced down the throat of the glass spiral. “This is what we came to find.”
“If we don’t leave now, Cassandra will bottle us here.”
Omaha joined them. “Where will we go?”
Painter pointed west. “Into the desert. Use the storm as cover.”
“Are you mad? This blow is just starting. And the worst is yet to come. What about that goddamn megastorm? Out in the open desert?” Omaha shook his head. “I’d rather take my chances with that bitch.”
Safia pictured Cassandra, the ice in her manner, the mercilessness in her eyes. Whatever mystery lay below would be Cassandra’s to exploit. She and her employer. Safia couldn’t let that happen.
“I’m going down,” she said, cutting off the argument.
“I’m with you,” Omaha added. “At least it’s out of the storm.”
New gunfire suddenly blasted up at the ridgeline.
Everyone ducked and turned.
“It looks like our decision is being made for us,” Omaha mumbled.
Coral barked into her radio, Painter into his.
Along the rim, lights flared, headlamps. Engines revved. Vehicles began to descend into the sinkhole, racing down.
“What are they doing?” Omaha asked.
Painter shoved aside his radio, his expression grim. “Someone up there spotted the tunnel. One of the women.”
The hodja, Safia imagined. With Ubar now open, the Rahim wouldn’t flee. They would defend the site with their lives. Lu’lu was bringing the whole tribe down. A pair of dune buggies even bounced across the tumbled rock slide.
Vehicles closed in on their position.
The sudden eruption of gunfire died away.
Coral explained, holding her radio to her ear, “A hostile scouting party got into a sniping position atop one of the towers. They’ve been dispatched.”
Safia heard the respect in the woman’s voice. The Rahim had proven their mettle in this skirmish.
In moments, buggies and bikes, loaded with women, braked in the sand. The first buggy bore familiar faces, crammed together: Kara, Danny, and Clay. Barak followed on a bike.
Kara climbed out, leading the others. The winds were growing fiercer again, snapping scarves, flapping cloak edges. Kara held a pistol in one hand. “We spotted lights coming,” she said, and pointed in the other direction, off to the east. “Lots of them. Trucks, big ones. And at least one helicopter took off. I glimpsed its searchlight for a moment.”
Painter clenched a fist. “Cassandra’s making her final move.”
The hodja pushed through the throng. “Ubar is open. It will protect us.”
Omaha glanced back to the hole. “All the same, I’ll keep my gun.”
Painter stared east. “We have no choice. Get everyone below. Stick together. Carry as much as you can manage. Guns, ammunition, flashlights.”
The hodja nodded to Safia. “You will lead us.”
Safia glanced down the dark spiral of glass, suddenly less sure of her decision. Her breathing tightened. When it was only her own life, the risk was acceptable. But now other lives were involved.
Her eyes settled to a pair of children, grasping each of Clay’s hands. They looked as terrified as the young man between them. But Clay held firm.
Safia could do no less. She allowed her heart to thunder in her ears, but she calmed her breathing.
A new noise intruded, carried on the wind. A deep bass rumble of an engine, something huge. The eastern rim lightened.
Cassandra was almost here.
“Go!” Painter yelled. He met Safia’s eyes. “Take them down. Quickly.”
With a nod, Safia turned and began the descent.
She heard Painter speak to Coral. “I need your bike.”
11:44 A.M.
CASSANDRA WATCHED the blue spinning ring on the transceiver blink out. She balled a fist. The curator was on the run again.
“Get us over there,” Cassandra said between clenched teeth. “Now.”
“We’re already here.”
Out of the gloom, a stone wall appeared, crumbling, sand-scoured, more outline than substance, illuminated by their headlights.
They’d reached the ruins.
Kane glanced at her. “Orders?”
Cassandra pointed to an opening in the wall, near a broken tower. “Get your men on the ground. I want the ruins locked down. No one leaves that chasm.”
Kane slowed the tractor enough for his crack team of commandos to roll out the side doors, leaping over the trundling treads. Twenty men, bristling with weapons, spread into the storm, vanishing through the gap in the wall.
Kane drove the tractor ahead, moving at a snail’s pace.
The tractor crunched over the stone foundations of the ancient wall and into the inner city of old Ubar. The tractor’s headlights pierced no more than a few feet as the storm wailed and cast up gouts of sand.
The sinkhole lay ahead, dark and silent.
It was time to end all this.
The tractor braked. Its headlights pierced ahead.
Men dropped flat along the rim, using the cover of boulders and tumbled bits of ruins. Cassandra waited while the team took up positions, winging out to either side, encircling the sinkhole. She listened to their radio chatter, subvocalized over throat mikes.
“In position, quadrant three…”
“Mongoose four, on the tower…”
“RPGs locked and loaded…”
Cassandra hit Command Q on her keyboard and twenty-one red triangles bloomed on the schematic on the map. Each of the commandos had a locator beacon tagged to his fatigues. On the screen, she watched the team maneuver into position, no hesitation, efficient, fast.
Kane directed his men from the command tractor. He stood, palms on the console, leaning forward to stare out the windshield.
“They’re all in position. No movement seen below. All dark.”
Cassandra knew Safia was there, hidden underground. “Light it up.”
Kane relayed the order.
All around the rim, a dozen floodlights snapped on, carried by the soldiers and aimed down into the hole. The chasm now glowed in the storm.
Kane held one hand over his radio earpiece. He listened for half a breath, then spoke. “Still no hostiles in sight. Bikes and buggies below.”
“Can they see any cavern entrance down there?”
Kane nodded. “Where the vehicles are parked. A black hole. Video feed should be transmitting now. Channel three.”
Cassandra brought up another screen on her laptop. Real-time video feed. The image was shaky, pixilating and vibrating. Static interference. A shimmer of electric charge danced down the whip antenna strapped outside the tractor.
The storm was kicking into full blow.
Cassandra leaned closer. On the screen, she saw wavering images of the chasm floor. Sand bikes with huge knobby tires. A scatter of Sidewinder desert dune buggies. But they were all abandoned. Where were all the people? The image swung, centered on a dark hole, three yards wide. It looked like a fresh excavation, glistening, reflecting back the spotlights.
A tunnel opening.
And all the rabbits had ducked into the hole.
The video image scrambled, refocused, then was lost again. Cassandra bit back a curse. She wanted to see this for herself. She closed the jittery window on the screen and glanced at the spread of Kane’s men on the glowing schematic. They had the area locked down tight.
Cassandra unbuckled. “I’m going to get a visual. Hold the fort.”
She pushed to the back compartment and slid open the side door. The winds knocked her back, slamming her full in the face. She bent into the wind with a grimace, yanked a scarf over her mouth and nose, and shoved out. Using the tractor’s tread as a step, she jumped to the sand.
She crossed to the front of the tractor, one hand on the tread for support. Winds battered her. She had new respect for Kane’s men. When she was ensconced inside the command vehicle, their deployment seemed satisfactory: quick, efficient, no fumbling. Now it seemed extraordinary.
Cassandra crossed in front of the tractor, stepping between the two headlights. She followed the beams toward the sinkhole. It was only steps, but by the time she reached the rim, she could barely hear the growl of the tractor over the roar of the storm.
“How’s things look, Captain?” Kane asked through her radio earpiece.
She knelt and peered below. The chasm stretched ahead of her. Opposite her position, the far side of the sinkhole was a tumbled slope of rock, still rolling with tiny slides. A fresh avalanche. What the hell had happened? She shifted her gaze directly below her.
The tunnel entrance stared back at her, a glistening eye, crystalline.
Glass.
Her pulse quickened at the sight of it. This had to be the entrance to whatever treasure lay below. Her gaze swept over the parked vehicles. She could not let them steal the prize.
She touched her throat mike. “Kane, I want a full team ready to enter that tunnel in five minutes.”
There was no answer.
“Kane,” she shouted louder, twisting around.
The tractor’s headlights blinded her.
She shoved to the side. Suspicion flared.
She moved forward, only then spotting something knocked on its side, in the lee of the wall, abandoned, half covered in sand.
A sand bike.
Only one person was that clever.
11:52 A.M.
THE KNIFE stabbed at his face. Tangled, rolling across the floor, Painter turned his head, avoiding a fatal plunge to the eye. The dagger sliced his cheek, grazing the bone under his eye.
Fury and desperation fueled Painter’s strength. Despite the blood flowing, he kept his legs pinned around the other man’s legs, his right arm clenched around the man’s neck.
The bastard was as strong as a bull, bucking, rolling.
Painter pinned him, trapping his knife arm.
As he had climbed through the side door of the tractor, left conveniently ajar by Cassandra, he’d recognized the man. Painter had been hiding, buried under loose, windblown sand piled against the crumbling wall. Five minutes ago, he had ridden the sand bike at breakneck speeds up out of the sinkhole and raced to the gap in the east wall. He knew Cassandra’s forces would have to come through there with any vehicles.
He hadn’t expected the behemoth of a tractor, a twenty-ton monster from the look of it. A bus fitted with tank treads. But it suited his purpose better than an ordinary truck.
He had crawled out of hiding as the tractor stopped, idling in the storm. He had ducked between the back treads. As he expected, all attention had been focused on the sinkhole.
Then Cassandra had stepped from the vehicle, giving him the opening he needed. With the door unlocked, Painter had slipped into the back compartment, pistol in hand.
Unfortunately, his wrestling partner, John Kane, must’ve caught Painter’s reflection in the glass. He had swung around on a splinted leg and snapped out with the other, knocking the pistol from Painter’s hand.
Now they struggled on the floor.
Painter maintained his choke hold. Kane tried to slam the back of his head into the bridge of Painter’s nose. Painter avoided the blow. Instead, he yanked the man’s head back even farther and slammed it hard against the metal floor.
A groan.
He repeated the action three more times. The man went limp. Painter continued to clamp his forearm over the man’s neck. Only then did he note the blood spreading across the gray metal. Nose broken.
Time running out, Painter let the man go. He stood up and stumbled back. If that leopard hadn’t tenderized the bastard first, Painter would never have won that fight.
He shoved to the driver’s seat, popped the clutch, and gave the tractor some gas. The lumbering giant crunched forward, surprisingly agile. Painter checked his landmarks and aimed the tractor toward the right trajectory, straight for the sinkhole.
Bullets suddenly peppered the side of the tractor. Automatic weapons. His presence had been discovered.
The noise deafened.
Painter continued forward, unconcerned. The tractor was armored. And he had locked the side door.
The rim of the sinkhole appeared ahead. He kept the tractor moving.
Bullets continued to pound, stones against a tin can.
The front end of the tractor crawled past the lip of the sinkhole.
That was good enough for Painter. Trusting momentum, he swept out of the seat. The tractor slowed but crept farther past the edge of the sinkhole. Its forward end dipped down as the rim crumbled. The floor tilted.
Painter scrambled toward the rear door, intending to jettison before the tractor went over, taking his chances among the commandos. But a hand snatched his pant leg, yanking his feet out from under him. He fell hard, the wind knocked out of him.
Kane dragged Painter toward him, still impossibly strong.
Painter had no time for this. The floor angled steeply. He kicked out with a heel, striking Kane’s broken nose. The man’s head snapped back. His ankle was freed.
Painter crawled and leaped up the sloped floor, climbing a cliff of steel. Equipment and gear tumbled toward the front, knocking into him. He felt a sliding lurch. Gravity now gripped the tractor. Treads tore through stone.
It was going over.
Leaping, Painter snatched the handle to the back hatch. Unfortunately, it opened out. He didn’t have good purchase to shove it open. Using his toes, his calves, he just managed to push the hatch a foot up.
The wind did the rest. The storm caught the door and flung it wide.
Painter followed, carried bodily outward.
Beneath him, the tractor fell away, diving into the sinkhole.
He managed one kick. Leapfrogging off the back end, he aimed for the cliff edge, arms outstretched.
He made it, barely. His belly struck the edge. He flung his torso on the ground, legs dangling in the pit. His fingers dug for purchase. A screeching crash sounded below him. He noted figures scrambling toward him.
They wouldn’t reach him in time.
He slid backward. There was no grip. The tractor’s treads had churned the edge to mush. He managed for a moment to catch a buried rock in the dust.
He hung for a breath by one hand and stared down.
Forty feet below, the tractor had slammed nose-first into the glass hole, tearing away, crumpling, a twenty-ton plug in the tunnel.
Good enough.
His rocky purchase gave way. Painter fell, tumbling into the pit.
Distantly he heard his name called.
Then his shoulder struck an outcropping of rock, he bounced, and the ground rushed up to meet him, jagged with rocks and broken metal.