Sandstorm

9:45 A.M.

CASSANDRA CLUTCHEDher laptop as the M4 high-speed tractor mashed over another small dune. The transport vehicle looked like a brown Winnebago balanced on a pair of tank treads, and despite its eighteen-ton weight, it chewed across the landscape with the efficiency of a BMW down the Autobahn.

She kept the pace reasonable, respecting the terrain and weather. Visibility was poor, only yards ahead. Windblown sand flumed all around, whipping off the tops of dunes in vast sails. The sky had darkened, cloudless, the sun no more than a wan moon above. She dared not risk bogging down the tractor. They’d never drag it free. So they proceeded with sensible caution.

Behind her the other five all-terrain trucks traveled in the tracks of the larger tractor as it blazed a trail through the desert. In the rear were the flatbeds with the cradled VTOL copters.

She glanced to the clock in the corner of the laptop’s screen. While it had taken a full fifteen minutes to get the caravan moving, they were now making good time. They’d reach Shisur in another twenty minutes.

Still, she kept an eye on the screen. Two display windows were open on it. One was a real-time feed from an NOAA satellite that tracked the path of the sandstorm. She had no doubt they’d reach the shelter of the oasis before the full storm struck, but just barely. And of even greater concern, the coastal high-pressure system was on the move inland, due to collide with this desert storm in the next few hours. It would be hell out here for a while.

The other screen on the monitor displayed another map of the area, a topographic schematic of this corner of the desert. It diagrammed every building and structure in Shisur, including the ruins. A small blue spinning ring, the size of a pencil eraser, glowed at the center of the ruins.

Dr. Safia al-Maaz.

Cassandra stared at the blue glow. What are you up to? The woman had led her off course, away from the prize. She thought to steal it out from under Cassandra’s nose, using the cover of the storm. Smart girl. But intelligence carried you only so far. Strength of arm was just as important. Sigma had taught her that, pairing brawn and brain. The sum of all men. Sigma’s motto.

Cassandra would teach that lesson to Dr. al-Maaz.

You may be smart, but I have the strength.

She glanced to the side mirror, to the trail of military vehicles. Inside, one hundred men armed with the latest in military and Guild hardware. Directly behind, in the tractor’s transport bed, John Kane sat with his men. Rifles bristled as they performed the deadly sacrament of a final weapons inspection. They were the best of the best, her Praetorian guards.

Cassandra stared ahead as the tractor ground its way inevitably forward. She attempted to pierce the gloom and windswept landscape.

Dr. al-Maaz might discover the treasure out there.

But in the end, Cassandra would take it.

She glanced back to the laptop’s screen. The storm ate away the map of the region, consuming all in its path. On the other display window, the schematic of the town and ruins glowed in the dim cabin.

Cassandra suddenly tensed. The blue ring had vanished from the map.

Dr. al-Maaz was gone.