Sandstorm

7:33 A.M.

PAINTER SHIELDEDhis eyes as he stared at the stalled van, at the rising sun, at the walls of sand all around. This would not be a good place to be trapped when the coming sandstorm struck. He imagined those mountainous dunes spilling over them like crashing waves against rocks.

They had to get moving again.

A few minutes ago, the van had been careening along a stretch of flat sand, riding along the edges of dunes, a Volkswagen surfboard. The graveled “streets” they had been following had finally vanished completely, requiring them to furrow through hard-packed sand.

Only not all of the sand was packed.

“Camel wallow,” Barak commented, on his knees, staring at the back end of the van. Its front and rear tires were mired to the axle. “Sand here is very loose. And deep. Like quicksand. Camels roll in them to clean their bodies.”

“Can we dig the van out?” Omaha asked.

“There’s no time,” Painter said.

Barak nodded. “And the deeper you dig, the deeper the van will sink.”

“Then we’ll have to unload what we can. Travel on foot.”

Danny groaned from his seat in the sand. “We really have to be choosier with our means of transportation. First the flatbed truck, now this junker.”

Painter stepped away, too full of nervous energy, or maybe it was the electricity in the air, some cloud of static charge pushed ahead of the sandstorm. “I’m going to climb that dune. See if I can spot Shisur. It can’t be more than a mile. In the meantime, clean out the van. Weapons, equipment, everything.”

Painter set off up the hill. Omaha trudged after him. “I can check by myself,” Painter said, waving him off.

Omaha kept climbing, every step pounded deep, as if he were punishing the sand. Painter didn’t feel like arguing with him. So the pair trudged up the dune face. It was more of a trek than Painter had imagined down below.

Omaha drew a step nearer. “I’m sorry…”

Painter’s brow crinkled in confusion.

“About the van,” Omaha mumbled. “I should’ve spotted the wallow.”

“Don’t worry about it. I would’ve hit it, too.”

Omaha continued upward. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

Painter sensed the man’s apology covered more than the mired vehicle.

At last, they reached the knife-edged crest of the dune. It crumbled underfoot. Runnels of sand coursed down the far side.

The desert held a perfect crystal stillness. No birdsong, no chirp of insect. Even the wind had subsided momentarily. The calm before the storm.

Painter gaped at the expanse before them. Dunes stretched to all horizons. But what held his attention was the roiling wall to the north, a hurricane of sand. The dark clouds reminded Painter of stacked thunderclouds. He spotted even a few bluish flashes. Static discharges. Like lightning.

They needed to reach cover.

“There,” Omaha said, and pointed his arm. “That cluster of date palms.”

Painter made out a tiny patch of greenery about half a mile away, buried among the dunes, easy to miss.

“The oasis of Shisur,” Omaha said.

They were not far.

As he turned away, movement caught his eye. In the sky to the east. A black gnat flew, limned in the morning sunlight. He lifted his night-vision goggles over his eyes, flipping up the ordinary lenses rather than the low-light feature. He telescoped closer.

“What is it?”

“A transport helicopter. United States Air Force. Probably from Thumrait. It’s circling to land out there.”

“A rescue mission, because of the storm?”

“No. It’s Cassandra.” Painter heard her voice in his head. Did you really think that I’d believe you were heading to the border of Yemen? Here was more confirmation of how high up Cassandra’s group had its teeth and claws in Washington. How could Painter hope to win out here? He had only five people with him, few with military training.

“Are you sure it’s her?”

Painter watched the helicopter rotor down to the sands, vanishing among the dunes. “Yes. That’s the spot on the map. Six miles off course.”

Painter lowered his goggles. Cassandra was too close for comfort.

“We have to get moving,” he said.

Painter fixed the bearings and headed back downhill. The two men slid their way down, making faster time. Reaching the bottom, Painter eyed the stacked gear. It was a load. But they dared not leave anything they might need.

“How far?” Coral asked.

“Half a mile,” Painter said.

Looks of relief spread among the others.

But Coral stepped to his side, noting his tension.

“Cassandra’s already here,” he said. “Off to the east.”

Coral shrugged. “That’s good. When the sandstorm hits, she’ll be pinned down. It might buy us another day or two out here. Especially if that coastal high-pressure system crashes on top of us. The predicted megastorm.”

Painter nodded, taking a deep breath. Coral was right. They could still pull this off. “Thanks,” he mumbled to her.

“Anytime, Commander.”

They quickly divided the gear. The largest crate held the ground-penetrating radar unit. Painter and Omaha hauled it between them. It was monstrously heavy, but if they were to search the ruins for buried treasure, they might need such a tool.

So they set off, winding around a vast dune that crested two football fields in height, then slogged up and over smaller ones. The sun continued its climb, heating the sand and the air. Soon their pace became a crawl as they were drained of adrenaline, bone-tired and exhausted.

But at last, they climbed a low dune and discovered a cluster of modern cinder-block buildings, wooden structures, and a small mosque in the valley beyond. The village of Shisur.

Down in the valley, the endless red of the Rub‘ al-Khali was interrupted by green. Acacia bushes grew alongside the buildings, stretches of yellow-flowering tribulus spread across the sand, along with thickets of palmetto. Larger mimosalike trees trailed flowering fronds to the ground, creating shaded arbors. And the ubiquitous date palms climbed high.

After the desert trek, where the only vegetation had been a few straggly salt bushes and wan patches of tasseled sedge, the oasis of Shisur was Eden.

In the village, nothing moved. It appeared deserted. The winds had kicked up again as the forward edge of the storm pushed toward them. Bits of refuse spun in dust devils. Cloth curtains flapped out open windows.

“No one’s here,” Clay noted.

Omaha stepped forward, scanning the tiny township. “Evacuated. Then again, the place is pretty much abandoned during the off-season. Shisur is mostly a waystation for the wandering Bait Musan tribe of Bedouin. They come and go all the time. With the discovery of the ruins just outside the town and the beginning of tourism here, it has grown into a somewhat more permanent village. But even that’s pretty seasonal.”

“So where exactly are the ruins?” Painter asked.

Omaha pointed off to the north. A small tower of crumbling rock poked above the flat sands.

Painter had thought it a natural outcropping of limestone, one of the many flat-topped mesas that dotted the desert. Only now he noted the stacked stones that composed the structure. It look like some watchtower.

“The Citadel of Ubar,” Omaha said. “Its highest point. More of the ruins are hidden below, out of sight.” He set off toward the empty township.

The others began the final push to shelter, leaning against the stubborn wind, faces turned from the gusts of sand.

Painter remained a moment longer. They’d made it to Ubar at last. But what would they find? He stared at the danger looming to the north. The sandstorm filled the horizon, erasing the rest of the world. Even as he stared, Painter watched more of the desert being eaten away.

Again crackles of static electricity danced where the storm met the sands. He watched a particularly large discharge roll down a dune face, like a balloon cast before a stiff wind. It faded in moments, seeming to seep into the sand itself and vanish. Painter held his breath. He knew what he had just witnessed.

Ball lightning.

The same as had ignited the meteorite at the British Museum.

They had come full circle.

A voice spoke at his shoulder, startling him. “The blue djinn of the sands,” Barak said, having noted the same natural phenomenon. “Storms always bring out the djinn.”

Painter glanced to Barak, wondering if the man believed they were evil spirits or just a story to explain such phenomena.

Barak seemed to sense his question. “Whatever they are, they’re never good.” He set off down the hill after the others.

For a moment longer, Painter studied the monstrous storm, eyes stinging from the blowing sand. It was just beginning.

As he headed down the slope, his gaze cast off to the east. Nothing moved. The roll of dunes hid everything. A vast sea. But Cassandra and her team waited out there.

Sharks…circling and circling…