Sandstorm

5
High Wire Act

HOURS AFTER Kara had stormed off, Safia sat in her dark office. The only light came from a lime-shaded banker’s lamp atop her walnut desk, illuminating a sea of paper and thumbed journals. How could Kara expect her to be ready to leave for Oman in a week’s time? Especially after the explosion here. There was still so much to attend to.

She couldn’t go. That was that. Kara would simply have to understand. And if she didn’t, that wasn’t Safia’s concern. She had to do what was right for herself. She had heard that often enough from her therapist. It had taken her four years to gather some semblance of normalcy in her life, to find security in her days, to sleep without nightmares. Here was home, and she wasn’t going to forsake it for a wild-goose chase into the hinterlands of Oman.

And then there was the prickly matter of the Omaha Dunn…

Safia chewed the eraser end of her pencil. It was her only meal in the past twelve hours. She knew she should leave, nip out for a late dinner at the pub on the corner, then try to catch a few hours of sleep. Besides, Billie had been sorely neglected over the past day and would need attention and a spot of tuna to assuage his hurt feelings.

Still, Safia could not move.

She kept running over her conversation with Omaha. An old ache throbbed in the pit of her belly. If only she hadn’t picked up the phone…

She had met Omaha ten years ago in Sojar, when she was twenty-two, fresh from Oxford, researching a dissertation on Parthian influences in southern Arabia. He had been stranded in the same seaside city, awaiting approval from the Omani government to proceed into a remote section of disputed territory.

“Do you speak English?” were his first words to Safia. She was working behind a small table on the dining terrace of a small hostelry overlooking the Arabian Sea. It was the haunt of many students doing research in the region, being cheap as chips and serving the only decent coffee around.

Irritated at the interruption, she had been curt. “As a British citizen, I should hope I speak better English than you, sir.”

Glancing up, she discovered a young man, sandy blond hair, corn-flower blue eyes, a dusky trace of beard, wearing scuffed khakis, a traditional Omani headcloth, and an embarrassed smile.

“Excuse me,” he said. “But I noticed you had a copy of Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 5. I was wondering if I could glance at a section.”

She picked up the book. “Which section?”

“ ‘Oman and the Emirates in Ptolemy’s Map.’ I’m heading into the borderlands.”

“Truly? I thought that region had been closed to foreigners.”

Again that smile, only it had grown a mischievous edge. “So you caught me. I should’ve said I hope to be traveling to the borderlands. I’m still awaiting word from the consulate.”

She had leaned back and eyed him up and down. She switched to Arabic. “What do you plan to do up there?”

He didn’t miss a beat, responding in Arabic himself. “To help settle the border dispute by proving the ancient tribal routes of the local Duru tribes, confirming an historical precedent.”

She continued in Arabic, checking his knowledge of the region’s geography. “You’ll have to be careful in Umm al-Samim.”

“Yes, the quicksands,” he said with a nod. “I’ve read about that treacherous stretch.” His eyes flashed with eagerness.

Safia relented and passed him her copy of the periodical. “It’s the only copy from the Institute of Arabian Studies. I’ll have to ask you to read it here.”

“From the IAS?” He had taken a step forward. “That’s the Kensington nonprofit, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I’ve been trying to reach someone in authority over there. To grease some wheels with the Omani government. But no one would return my calls or letters. That place is a tough nut to crack, like its sponsor, Lady Kara Kensington. Now there’s a cold fish if there ever was one.”

“Hmm,” she said noncommittally.

After making their introductions, he asked if he could share her table while he read the article. She had nudged the chair in his direction.

“I heard the coffee’s quite good here,” he said as he sat.

“The tea’s even better,” she countered. “But then again, I’m British.”

They had continued in silence for a long while, reading their respective journals, each occasionally eyeing the other, sipping their drinks. Finally, Safia noticed the terrace door swing open behind her guest. She waved.

He turned at the arrival of the newcomer to their table. His eyes widened.

“Dr. Dunn,” Safia said, “may I introduce you to Lady Kara Kensington. You’ll be happy to know she speaks English, too.”

She had enjoyed watching color blush to his cheeks, caught off guard, blindsided. She suspected such didn’t happen often to the young man. The three of them spent the rest of the afternoon talking, debating current events in Arabia and back home, discussing Arabian history. Kara left before the sun set, heading off to an early business dinner with the local chamber of commerce, but not before promising to help Dr. Dunn with his expedition.

“I guess I owe you at least dinner,” he had stated afterward.

“And I suppose I must accept.”

That night, they shared a leisurely dinner of wood-fired kingfish, accompanied with spiced rukhal bread. They talked until the sun sank into the sea and the skies filled with stars.

That was their first date. Their second date wouldn’t be for another six months, after Omaha was finally freed from a Yemeni prison for entering a holy Muslim site without permission. Despite the penal setback, they continued to see each other off and on, across four out of the seven continents. One Christmas Eve, back at his family’s home in Lincoln, Nebraska, he had dropped to a knee by the couch and asked her to marry him. She had never been happier.

Then a month later, everything changed in one blinding flash.

She shied away from that last memory, standing up finally from her desk to clear her head. It was too stuffy in her office. She needed to walk, to keep moving. It would be good to feel the breeze on her face, even the damp chill of London’s winter. She retrieved her coat and locked up her office.

Safia’s office was located on the second floor. The stairs down to the first floor were at the other end of the wing, near the Kensington Gallery, which meant she would have to pass the explosion site again. Not something she wanted to do. But she had no choice.

She set off down the long dark hall, illuminated by the occasional red security lamp. Usually she enjoyed the empty museum. It was a peaceful time after the daily bustle. She would often wander the gated galleries, staring at cabinets and displays, comforted by the weight of history.

No longer. Not this night.

Circulating fans had been set up like guard towers on long poles the entire length of the north wing, whirring and rattling noisily, trying and failing to disperse the reek of charred wood and burned plastics. Space heaters dotted the floor, snaking orange cords, set up to dry out the halls and galleries after the pumps had drained the worst of the sooty water. It made the hall swelter, like the damp warmth of the tropics. The line of fans stirred the air only sluggishly.

Her heels tapped the marble floor as she passed the galleries displaying the museum’s ethnographical collection: Celtic, Russian, Chinese. The damage from the explosion grew worse the nearer she approached her own gallery: smoke-stained walls, ribbons of police tape, piles of swept plaster, broken glass.

As she passed the opening to the Egyptian exhibit, she heard a muffled tinkle behind her, like breaking glass. She stopped and glanced over a shoulder. For a moment, she thought she spotted a flicker of light from the Byzantine gallery. She stared for a long breath. The opening remained dark.

She fought down a growing panic. Since the attacks had begun, she had difficulty distinguishing real danger from false. Her heart thudded in her throat, and the hairs on her arms tingled as a nearby fan rotated its pass over her, whirring asthmatically.

Just the headlamps of a passing car, she assured herself.

Swallowing her anxiety, she turned back around to discover a dark figure looming in the hall outside the Kensington Gallery.

She stumbled back.

“Safia?” The figure lifted a hand torch and flicked it on, blinding her with its brightness. “Dr. al-Maaz.”

She sighed with relief and hurried forward, shielding her eyes. “Ryan…” It was the head of security, Ryan Fleming. “I thought you had gone home.”

He smiled and flicked off the torch. “I was on my way when I was paged by Director Tyson. It seems a pair of American scientists insisted that they review the explosion site.” He walked her toward the opening to the gallery.

Inside, two figures dressed in identical blue jumpsuits moved through the dark gallery. The only illumination came from a pair of lamp poles in each room that cast weak pools of light. In the dimness, the investigators’ instruments glowed brightly. They appeared to be Geiger counters. In one hand, each of them held a compact base unit with a lighted computer screen. In the other, they carried meter-long black wands, attached to the base unit by a coiled cord. They slowly worked one of the gallery rooms in tandem, sweeping their instruments over singed walls and piles of debris.

“Physicists out of M.I.T.,” Fleming said. “They flew in this evening and came directly here from the airport. They must have some pull. Tyson insisted I accommodate them. ‘Post haste,’ to quote our esteemed director. I should introduce you.”

Still edgy, Safia tried to bow out. “I really must be getting home.”

Fleming had already stepped into the gallery. One of the investigators, a tall man with ruddy features, noted him, then her.

He lowered his wand and strode rapidly forward. “Dr. al-Maaz, what good fortune.” He held out a hand. “I had hoped to speak to you.”

She accepted his hand.

“I’m Dr. Crowe,” he said. “Painter Crowe.”

His eyes, piercing and attentive, were the color of lapis, his hair long to the shoulder, ebony black. She noted his tanned complexion. Native American, she guessed, but the blue eyes were throwing her off. Maybe it was just the name. Crowe. He could easily be Spanish, too. He had a generous smile that was also reserved.

“This is my colleague Dr. Coral Novak.”

The woman shook Safia’s hand perfunctorily with only the tiniest nod. She seemed anxious to return to her survey.

The two scientists could not be more different. Compared to her darkly handsome companion, the woman seemed devoid of pigment, a pale shadow. Her skin glowed like freshly scrubbed snow, her lips thin, her eyes icy gray. Her naturally white-blond hair was cropped short. She stood as tall as Safia, lithe of limb, but still carried a certain sturdiness to her frame. It could be felt in her firm handshake.

“What are you searching for?” Safia asked, taking a step back.

Painter lifted his wand. “We’re checking for radiation signatures.”

“Radiation?” She could not hide her shock.

He laughed-not condescendingly, only warmly. “Don’t worry. It’s a specific signature we’re looking for, something following lightning strikes.”

She nodded. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. It was nice meeting you both, and if there’s anything I can do to facilitate your investigation, please let me know.” She began to turn away.

Painter stepped after her. “Dr. al-Maaz, I had meant to hunt you down. I have a few questions that I would like to discuss with you. Maybe over lunch.”

“I’m afraid I’m very busy.” Those eyes caught hers. She was trapped, unable to look away. She read the disappointment in his pinched brow. “May-maybe something could be arranged. Try me in my office in the morning, Dr. Crowe.”

He nodded. “Very good.”

She tore her gaze away and was saved further humiliation by Ryan Fleming. “I’ll escort you out,” he said.

She followed him into the hall, refusing to glance back. It had been a long time since she had felt so foolish, so flustered…by a man. It must be an aftershock of her unexpected conversation with Omaha.

“We’ll have to take the stairs. The lifts are still out.”

She kept in step with Fleming.

“Odd bunch, them Americans,” he continued as they descended the flights to the first floor. “Always in such a hurry. Had to come this very night. Insisted that the readings they sought would deteriorate. It had to be now.”

Safia shrugged as they reached the bottom and passed the short way to the employee-side exit. “I don’t think that’s so much an idiosyncrasy of Americans as it is of scientists in general. We’re a surly and determined lot.”

He nodded with a smile. “I’ve noticed.” He used his passkey to unlock the door to keep the alarm from sounding. He pushed the door wide with his shoulder, stepping out to hold it open for her.

His eyes were on her, oddly shy. “I was wondering, Safia. If you had the time…maybe…”

The gunshot sounded like no more than a cracking walnut. The right side of Ryan’s head exploded against the door, splattering blood and brain matter. Bits of skull ricocheted off the metal door and into the hallway.

Three masked gunmen crowded through the open door before Ryan’s body hit the ground. They rammed Safia into the far wall, pinning her, choking her, one hand over her mouth.

A gun appeared, pressed against the center of her forehead. “Where’s the heart?”

Painter studied the red needle on his scanner. It jittered up into the scale’s orange range as he passed the detection rod over a blasted display cabinet. A significant reading.

The device had been designed by the nuclear labs at White Sands. Rad-X scanners were capable of detecting low-level radiation. Their particular devices had been specially calibrated to detect the unique decay signature of antimatter annihilation. When an atom of matter and antimatter collided and obliterated, the reaction liberated pure energy. That was what their detectors had been calibrated to sniff out.

“I’m picking up a particularly strong reading over here,” his partner called to him. Her voice was matter-of-fact, all business.

Painter crossed to her. Coral Novak was new to Sigma, recruited from the CIA only three years ago. Still, in the short time since her hiring, she had earned a Ph.D. in nuclear physics and was already a black belt in six disciplines of martial arts. Her IQ was off the charts, and she had almost an encyclopedic knowledge on a wide range of subjects.

He had heard of Novak, of course, even met her once at a district meeting, but they had only the short hop from Washington to London to better acquaint themselves. Not nearly enough time for two reserved people to form any relationship, beyond a stiffly professional one. He couldn’t help comparing her to Cassandra, which only exacerbated his reticence. Similar traits between the women tweaked his suspicion, while discordantly, the few differences made him wonder about his new partner’s competence. It made no sense. He knew this.

Only time would sort it out.

As he stepped beside her, she pointed her detection rod at the melted ruin of a bronze urn. “Commander, you’d better double-check my findings. I’m reading a signature all the way into the red range.”

Painter confirmed it with his own scanner. “Definitely hot.”

Coral dropped to a knee. Wearing thin lead gloves, she examined the urn, rolling it carefully. A rattle sounded inside. She glanced up at him.

He nodded for her to investigate. She reached through the mouth of the urn, searched a moment, then pulled free a thimble-size chunk of rock. She rolled it in her gloved palm. One side was blast-blackened. The other was red, metallic. Not rock… iron.

“A piece of the meteor,” Coral said. She held it out for Painter to scan. The readings indicated the item was the source of the strong reading. “And look at my ancillary readings. Besides Z-bosons and gluons against the background gamma, as expected with antimatter annihilation, this sample is emitting very low levels of alpha and beta radiation.”

Painter frowned. He had little background in physics.

Coral shifted the sample into a lead specimen jar. “The same radiation pattern found from decaying uranium.”

“Uranium? Like used in nuclear facilities.”

She nodded. “Nonpurified. Perhaps a few atoms trapped in the meteoric iron.” She continued to study her readings. Her brow creased with a single line, a dramatic response in the stoic woman.

“What is it?” he asked.

She continued to fiddle with her scanner. “On the flight over here, I reviewed the results from DARPA’s researchers. Something troubled me about their theories of a stabilized form of antimatter trapped in the meteor.”

“You don’t think such a thing is possible?” It was certainly a stretch of plausibility. Antimatter always and instantly annihilated itself when in contact with any form of matter, even oxygen in the air. How could it exist here in some natural state?

She shrugged without looking up. “Even if I accepted such a theory, the question arises of why the antimatter happened to ignite at this time. Why did this particular electrical storm trigger it to explode? Pure chance? Or was there something more?”

“What do you think?”

She pointed to her scanner. “Uranium decay. It’s like a clock. It releases its energy in set, predictable ways, spanning millennia. Perhaps some critical threshold of radiation from the uranium caused the antimatter to begin to destabilize. It was this instability that allowed the shock of the electrical discharge to ignite it.”

“Sort of like a timer on a bomb.”

“A nuclear timer. One set millennia ago.”

It was a disturbing thought.

Still, Coral’s brow remained creased. She had another concern.

“What else?” he asked.

She sat back on her heels and faced him for the first him. “If there is some other source of this antimatter-some mother lode-it may be destabilizing, too. If we ever hope to find it, we’d best not drag our feet. The same nuclear time clock could be ticking down.”

Painter stared at the lead sample jar. “And if we don’t find this lode, we’ll lose all chance of discovering this new source of power.”

“Or worse yet.” Coral glanced around the burned-out shell of the gallery. “This could occur on a much more massive scale.”

Painter let this sobering thought sink into him.

In the heavy silence, a scuffle of steps echoed up from the nearby stairwell. He turned. A voice carried to them, the words muffled, but he recognized Dr. al-Maaz’s voice.

A prickle of warning raced through Painter. Why was the curator returning?

Stronger words reached him, a tone of command, the speaker unknown. “Your office. Take us there.”

Something was wrong. He remembered the fate of the two Defense Sciences officers, shot execution style in their hotel room. He swung to Coral. Her eyes had narrowed.

“Weapons?” he whispered.

They hadn’t had time to arrange for sidearms, always a difficulty in gun-shy Britain. Coral bent and tucked up the cuff of her pant leg to reveal a sheathed knife. He hadn’t known she had it. They had flown commercial to substantiate their covers. She must have stashed the weapon in her checked luggage, then donned it when she used the restroom at Heathrow.

She slid free the seven-inch-long dagger, titanium and steel, German from the look of it. She held it out to him.

“Keep it…” He grabbed instead a long-handled spade from a nearby pile of tools one of the salvage teams had left.

Footsteps approached the stairwell opening. He didn’t know if it was merely museum security, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

Painter signaled Coral his plan, then flicked off the nearby lamp pole, plunging the entrance into gloom. The pair took positions on either side of the opening to the blasted wing. Painter took the post closest to the stairwell, behind a stack of wooden pallets. He could peer between the slats yet still remain in shadow. On the opposite side of the entrance, Coral crouched behind a trio of marble plinths.

Painter kept a hand raised. On my mark

From his hiding place, he kept an unblinking watch on the doorway. He didn’t have long to wait. A dark figure slid quickly through and took a position flanking the stairwell opening. He was masked, an assault rifle on his shoulder.

Certainly not museum security.

But how many others were there?

A second figure appeared, similarly attired and armed. They searched the hall. The rattle of the fans remained the only sound. Between them, a third masked figure stepped into view. He clutched Safia al-Maaz by the elbow, a pistol shoved into her ribs.

Tears ran down Safia’s pale face. She trembled with each step as she was dragged forward. She struggled to breathe, gasping, “It’s…it’s in my office safe.” She pointed her free arm down the hall.

Her captor nodded for his companions to continue.

Painter slid back slowly, made eye contact with his partner, and signaled their marks. She nodded, shifting position with smooth ease.

Out in the hall, the curator’s eyes searched the entrance to the Kensington Gallery. Of course, she must know the Americans were still here. Would she inadvertently do or say something to give them away?

Her feet slowed, and her voice rose sharply. “Please…don’t shoot me!”

Her captor shoved her forward. “Then do as we say,” he snarled.

She tripped and stumbled, but kept her feet. Her eyes again searched the gallery’s entrance as the pair drew nearer.

Painter realized her terrified outburst had been an attempt to pass on a warning to the American scientists, to send them into hiding.

His respect for the curator grew.

The pair of masked riflemen on point glided forward, passing Painter’s hiding spot. Their weapons swept over the blasted gallery. Discovering nothing, they continued down the hall.

A couple of yards behind the guards, the third man dragged Safia alMaaz. She searched the gallery glancingly. Painter noted the flash of relief as she found the nearest rooms deserted.

As the pair passed his position, Painter signaled his partner.

Go!

Coral sprang past the cluster of plinths-shoulder-rolled into the hall-and landed in a crouch between the guards and Safia’s captor.

Her sudden appearance startled the man holding Safia. His weapon shifted from his captive’s ribs. That was all Painter required. He hadn’t wanted the curator shot by reflex. That sometimes happened following a head blow.

Painter slipped from the shadows and swung the spade with deft skill. The gunman’s head cracked to the side, bone giving way. His form crumpled, dragging Safia to the floor with him.

“Stay down,” Painter barked, stepping past to Coral’s aid.

It wasn’t necessary. His partner was already in motion.

Pivoting on her free arm, Coral kicked out with her legs and struck the closest guard in the knees. His legs went out from under him. At the same time, her other hand threw the dagger with stunning accuracy, striking the second guard at the base of the skull, severing the brain stem. He fell forward with a strangled gasp. Coral continued her spin with fluid grace, a gymnast performing a deadly floor routine. Her boot heels slammed into the first man’s face as he attempted to pick himself up.

His head flew back, then rebounded forward, striking the marble floor.

She rolled over to him, ready to deliver more damage, but he was out, unconscious. Still, Coral kept a wary stance. The other gunman lay sprawled facedown. The only movement from him was the spreading pool of blood on the marble. Dead.

Closer, Safia struggled from beneath the arms of her dead captor. Painter went to her aid, dropping to one knee. “Are you hurt?”

She sat up, scooting free from the limp body, from Painter, too. “N-no…I don’t think so.” Her gaze flickered around the carnage, settling nowhere. A keening note entered her voice. “Oh God, Ryan. He was shot…by the door downstairs.”

Painter glanced back to the stairwell. “Are there any more gunmen?”

She shook her head, eyes wide. “I…I don’t know.”

Painter moved closer. “Dr. al-Maaz,” he said sternly, drawing her scattered attention. She was close to shock. “Listen. Was there anyone else?”

She took several deep breaths; her face shone with fear. With a final shudder, she spoke more firmly. “Not downstairs. But Ryan…”

“I’ll go check on him.” Painter turned to Coral. “Stay with Dr. al-Maaz. I’ll recon downstairs and see about rousing security.”

He bent down and recovered the gunman’s abandoned pistol, a Walther P38. Not a weapon he would’ve chosen. He preferred his Glock. But right now its weight felt perfect in his hand.

Coral stepped closer, freeing a coil of rope from a debris pile to secure their remaining prisoner. “What about our cover?” she whispered to him, casting a glance toward the curator.

“We’re both just very resourceful scientists,” he answered.

“So in other words, we’re sticking to the truth.” The barest glint of amusement showed in her eyes as she turned away.

Painter headed to the stairs. He could get used to a partner like her.

Safia watched the man vanish down the stairs. He moved so silently, as if gliding on ice. Who was he?

A grunt drew her attention back to the woman. She had a knee planted in the lower back of the last attacker. She had wrenched his arms back, earning a protest from the groggy gunman. She swiftly bound his limbs with rope, moving with deft skill. Either she had a background that included calf-roping, or there was more to this woman than mere physics. Beyond this one observation, Safia’s curiosity could not be further piqued.

She concentrated on her own breathing. There still seemed to be a deficient amount of oxygen in the air, even with the blowing fans. Sweat slicked her face and body.

She kept her position by the wall, knees raised tight, arms hugging her chest. She had to restrain herself from rocking. She did not want to appear that crazy. The thought helped calm her. She also kept her eyes away from the two bodies. The alarm would be raised. Security would come with batons, lights, and the comforting presence of others.

In the meantime, the hallway remained too empty, too dark, too humid. She found her gaze lingering on the stairwell opening. Ryan… The attack again played out in her head, reeling like bloody film stock, only silent. They have been after the iron heart, her own discovery, the one she had been so proud to uncover. Ryan had died because of it. Because of her.

Not again…

A sob shook through her. She tried to hold it back with her hands and found herself choking.

“Are you all right?” the woman asked from a step away.

Safia curled into herself, shaking.

“You’re safe. Dr. Crowe will get security up here any moment.”

She kept herself balled up, seeking a place of safety.

“Maybe I’d better get some-” The physicist’s voice cut off with a choke.

Safia lifted her face. The woman stood a step away, stiffly straight, arms out at her sides, head thrown back. She seemed to be trembling from crown to toe. Seizure. The choking sound continued.

Safia crabbed away, unsure, on her hands and knees, heading toward the stairwell. What was happening?

The woman’s form suddenly slumped, and she toppled forward to the floor. In the gloom of the hallway, a small blue flame crackled at the base of her spine. Smoke rose from her clothing. She lay unmoving.

It made no sense.

But as the blue flame died, Safia spotted a thin wire. It trailed from the prone woman to a figure standing three meters down the hall.

Another masked gunman.

He held a strange pistol in his fist. Safia had seen such a device before…in movies, not in real life. A tazer. A silent means of dispatch.

Safia continued scrambling backward, her heels slipping on the slick marble. She remembered her initial fright when leaving her office. She had thought she had heard someone, saw a flicker of light in the Byzantine gallery. It hadn’t been her anxious imagination.

The figure dropped the discharged tazer and strode after her.

Safia gained her feet with a speed borne of adrenaline and panic. The stairwell lay ahead. If she could reach it, get down to the security area-

Something struck the marble floor to the right of her toes. It hissed and spat blue sparks. A second tazer.

Safia bolted away from it and charged toward the opening. It would take a few moments to reset the tazer…unless the gunman had a third weapon. As she reached the stairwell, she expected to be struck by lightning from behind. Or simply shot.

Neither happened. She fell into the stairwell.

Voices greeted her from below, yelling. A gunshot sounded, deafening in the small space. More gunmen were downstairs.

Moving on pure instinct, Safia fled upward. There was no thought besides escape, to keep running. She pounded up, two steps at a time. There was no third level to this section of the museum.

These stairs led to the roof.

She rounded the first flight, grabbing the handrail to sweep herself around. A door appeared at the top of the next flight. An emergency exit. Locked from the outside, it would automatically open from the inside. An alarm would sound, but that was a good thing at the moment. She prayed it wasn’t secured after regular public hours.

Footsteps sounded behind her, at the stairwell entrance.

She lunged at the door, arms out, shoving the emergency latch.

It stuck. Locked.

She slammed into the steel door with a sob. No…

Painter held up his hands, the Walther P38 on the floor at his feet. He had come close to being shot in the head. The bullet had whizzed past his cheek, near enough for him to feel the burn of its passage. Only a quick dodge and roll had saved him.

But then again, he could imagine how it looked. Him kneeling beside Ryan Fleming’s body at the exit door, gun in hand. A trio of security men had come upon the scene, and all chaos had broken out. It had taken him a moment of frantic negotiating to reach this standoff-dropping his gun, hands in the air.

“Dr. al-Maaz was attacked,” he called over to the guard with the gun. Another checked the body, while the third was on a radio. “Mr. Fleming was shot when she was kidnapped. My partner and I were able to subdue the attackers upstairs.”

There was no note of reaction from the armed guard. He could just as well have been deaf. He simply pointed his pistol. Sweat beaded the man’s forehead.

The guard by the radio turned and spoke to his mates. “We’re to secure him in the nest until the police arrive. They’re on their way.”

Painter glanced to the stairwell. Concern jangled through him. The shot must have been heard upstairs. Had it sent Coral and the curator into hiding?

“Oi, you,” the guard with the pistol said. “Hands on your head. Move along this way.”

The guard waved the gun down the hall, away from the stairwell. It was the only firearm among the three, and its bearer seemed poorly acquainted with the weapon. He held it too loosely, too low. Probably the only gun here, one rarely pulled out of mothball storage. But the recent explosion had made everyone jumpy, overly alert.

Painter laced his fingers atop his head and turned where indicated. He had to reestablish control here. With his hands in plain view, he swung around, stepping closer to the inexperienced guard. As he turned, he shifted his weight on his right leg. The guard’s eyes flicked away for a half second. Plenty of time. Painter snap-kicked out with his left foot, striking the guard’s wrist.

The gun went skittering down the hall.

Sweeping down, Painter snatched the abandoned Walther from the floor and leveled it at the stunned trio. “Now we’re doing things my way.”

Desperate, Safia shoved the emergency latch to the roof door again. It refused to budge. She pounded a fist weakly against the jamb. Then she spotted a security keypad in the wall beside it. An old one. Not an electronic card scanner. It needed a code. Panic whined like a mosquito in her ear.

Each employee was assigned a default code. They could change it at their leisure. The default code was each employee’s birth date. She had never bothered to change hers.

A scuff of heel drew her attention around.

Her pursuer came around the lower flight, standing on the landing. The two eyed each other. The gunman now had a pistol in his grip. Not a tazer.

With her back to the door, Safia fingered the keypad’s buttons and punched in her birth date blindly. After years at the museum, she was accustomed to touch-typing entries into an accounting calculator.

Once done, she pushed the emergency latch.

It clicked but failed to budge. Still locked.

“Dead end,” the gunman said, his voice muffled. “Come down or die.”

Pinned against the door, Safia realized her mistake. The security grid had been upgraded after the millennium. A year was no longer defined by two digits, but four. Unclenching her fingers, she rapidly typed in the eight numbers: two for day, two for month, and four for her birth year.

The gunman took a step toward her, pistol stretching closer.

Safia rammed her back into the emergency latch. The door flung open. Cold air whipped over her as she tumbled out and darted to the side. A shot ricocheted off the steel door. Driven by desperation, she swung the door shut, slamming it into the masked face of the gunman as he lunged.

She didn’t wait, unsure if the door would relock, and fled around the corner of the rooftop exit hut. The night was too bright. Where was London’s fog when you needed it? She searched for a place to hide.

Small metal outcroppings offered some shelter: hooded vents, exhaust flumes, electrical conduits. But they were isolated and offered scant protection. The remainder of the roof of the British Museum looked like the parapet of a castle, surrounding a glass-roofed central courtyard.

A muffled shot blasted behind her. A door slammed open with a crash.

Her pursuer had broken through.

Safia sprinted for the closest cover. A low wall lipped the central courtyard, outlining the edges of the Grand Court’s glass-and-steel roof. She climbed over the parapet and ducked down.

Her feet rested on the metal rim of the two-acre geodesic roof. It spread out from her position in a vast plain of glass, broken into individual triangular panes. A few were missing, knocked loose by the blast last night and patched with plastic sheeting. The remaining panes shone like mirrors in the starlight, all pointing toward the middle, to where the bright copper dome of the central Reading Room rose from the middle of the courtyard, like an island in a sea of safety glass.

Safia remained crouched, realizing how exposed she was.

If the gunman searched over the wall, there was nowhere to run.

Footsteps sounded, crunching on the graveled roof. They circled around for a few moments, stopped for a long breath, then continued. Eventually they would head here.

Safia had no choice. She crawled out onto the roof, scuttling like a crab across the panes of glass, praying they would hold her weight. The forty-foot fall to the hard marble below would prove just as deadly as a slug in the head.

If she could only make it to the domed island of the Reading Room, get behind it…

One of the panes splintered under her knee like brittle ice. It must have been stressed by the blast. She rolled to the side as it gave way beneath her, cracking and falling through its steel frame. A moment later, a loud ringing crash echoed up as the pane struck marble.

Safia crouched only halfway across the vast roof, a fly stuck on a mirrored web. And the spider was surely coming, drawn by the crash.

She needed to hide, a hole to crawl into.

Safia glanced to the right. There was only one hole.

She rolled back to the empty steel frame, and without much more thought than hide, she swung her legs down through the frame, then wiggled on her belly. As her fingers grabbed the steel edge, she let herself drop, hanging now by her hands over the forty-foot fall.

She swung in place, facing back toward her initial hiding place by the wall. Through the glass, the starlit night was clear and bright. She watched a masked head peer over the low wall, searching the geodesic roof.

Safia held her breath. Viewed from outside, the roof was mirrored by the silvery starlight. She should be invisible. But already her arm muscles cramped, and the sharp steel cut into her fingers. And she would still need some strength to pull herself back up.

She searched down to the dark courtyard. A mistake. She was so high. The only light came from a handful of red-glowing security lamps near the wall. Still, she spotted the shattered pane of glass under her feet. The same would happen to her bones if she fell. Her fingers gripped tighter, her heart pounded harder.

She tore her gaze from the drop, glancing back up in time to see the gunman climbing over the wall. What was he doing? Once over the wall, he started across the roof, keeping his weight mostly on the steel-framed structure. He was coming straight at her. How did he know?

Then it dawned on her. She had noted the plastic-sheeted gaps in the roof. They were like missing teeth in a bright smile. There was only one such gap that was still uncapped. The gunman must have guessed that his target had fallen through and come to make certain. He moved swiftly, so unlike her own panicked crawl. He swept down on her hiding spot, pistol in hand.

What could she do? There was nowhere else to run. She considered simply letting go. At least, she’d have control over her death. Tears rose in her eyes. Her fingers ached. All she had to do was let go. But her fingers refused to unlatch. Panic held her clenched. She hung there as the man crossed the final pane.

Finally spotting her, he started back a step, then stared down at her.

Laughter flowed, low and dark.

In that moment, Safia realized her mistake.

A gun pointed at Safia’s forehead. “Tell me the combination-”

The crack of a pistol erupted. Glass shattered.

Safia screamed, losing the grip on one hand, hanging by the other. Her shoulder and fingers wrenched. Only then did she spot the shooter on the floor below. A familiar figure. The American.

He stood with his feet planted wide on the marble, aiming up at her.

She turned her face upward.

The pane of glass her attacker had been standing on had crackled into a thousand pieces, held together only by the safety coating. The thief stumbled backward, fumbling and losing the pistol. It flew high, then landed hard upon the shattered pane. The weapon fell through the broken glass and tumbled all the way to the floor below.

The thief sprinted across the roof, fleeing, aiming back toward the wall.

Below, the American fired and fired, blasting out panes of glass, following from below. But the thief was always a step ahead. Finally reaching the wall, the figure vanished over it. Gone.

The American swore loudly. He hurried back to where Safia hung by one arm, like a bat in the rafters. But she had no wings.

Safia struggled to get her other hand up on the support. She had to swing slightly, but finally her fingers gripped steel.

“Can you hold on?” he asked below her, concerned.

“I don’t seem to have much choice,” she called down hotly. “Now do I?”

“If you swing your legs,” he offered, “you might be able to hook them over the next frame.”

She saw what he meant. He had shot out the neighboring pane, leaving an open support bar between them. She took a deep breath-then with a small cry of effort, she swung her legs, tucked her knees, and hooked them over the bar.

Immediately, the ache in her hands lessened as the weight eased. She had to force herself not to cry with relief.

“Security’s already heading up there.”

Safia craned down to the American. She found herself speaking to keep herself from wailing. “Your partner…is she…?”

“Fine. Took a jolt, ruined a nice blouse, but she’ll be up and around.”

She closed her eyes with relief. Thank God… She couldn’t have handled another death. Not after Ryan. She took several more breaths.

“Are you all right?” the American asked, staring up at her.

“Yes. But, Dr. Crowe-”

“Call me Painter…I think we’ve passed formalities here.”

“It seems I owe you my life for the second time this night.”

“That’s what you get for hanging around with me.” Though she couldn’t see it, she could imagine his wry smile.

“That’s not very funny.”

“It will be later.” He crossed and recovered the thief’s gun from the floor.

That reminded Safia. “The one you were shooting at. It was a woman. ”

He continued his study of the weapon. “I know…”

Painter inspected the weapon in his hand. It was a Sig Sauer, 45mm, with a Hogue rubberized grip. It couldn’t be… He held his breath as he turned the weapon on its side. The thumb catch for the magazine release was on the right side. A custom feature for that rare left-handed shooter.

He knew this gun. He knew the shooter.

He stared up at the path of shattered glass.

Cassandra.