Sandstorm (Page 76)

“An ancient prayer room.” Safia stared up at the darkening skies as the sun sank away, then stepped over a kneeling rug on the floor.

Safia walked to where two of the walls had crude niches constructed into them, built to orient worshipers about the direction in which to pray. She knew the newer one faced toward Mecca. She crossed to the other, the older niche.

“Here is where the prophet Job prayed,” Safia mumbled, more to herself than Cassandra. “Always facing Jerusalem.”

To the northwest.

Safia stepped into the niche and faced backward, back the way she had come. Through the dimness, she made out the metal lid of the pit. The footsteps led right here.

She studied the niche. It was a solid wall of sandstone, quarried locally. The niche was a tumble of loose stone blocks, long deteriorated by age. She touched the inner wall.

Sandstone…like the sculpture where the iron heart had been found.

Cassandra stepped next to her. “What do you know that you’re not telling us?” A pistol pressed into Safia’s side, under her rib cage. Safia had not even seen the woman pull it free.

Keeping her hand flat against the wall, Safia turned to Cassandra. It was not the pistol that made her speak, but her own curiosity.

“I need a metal detector.”

6:40 P.M.

A S NIGHT fell, Painter turned off the main highway onto the gravel side road. A green sign with Arabic lettering stated JEBAL EITTEEN 9 KM. The truck bounced from the asphalt surface to gravel. Painter didn’t slow down, spitting a shower of stones onto the highway. Gravel rattled in the wheel wells, sounding distinctly like automatic fire. It heightened his anxiety.

Omaha sat in the shotgun seat, his window rolled half down.

Danny sat behind his brother in the backseat. “Remember, this piece of crap doesn’t have four-wheel drive.” His teeth rattled as much as the vehicle.

“I can’t risk slowing down,” Painter called back. “Once nearer, I’ll have to go more cautiously. With the lights off. But for now we have to push it.”

Omaha grunted his approval.

Painter punched the accelerator as they reached a steep incline. The vehicle fishtailed. Painter fought it steady. It was not a vehicle suited for backcountry trekking, but they had no other choice.

Upon returning from the Internet Café, Painter had found Captain al-Haffi waiting with a 1988 Volkswagen Eurovan. Coral was examining his other purchases: three Kalashnikov rifles, and a pair of Heckler & Koch 9mm handguns. All traded for the sultan’s stallion. And while the weapons were sound, with plenty of extra ammunition, the van would not have been Painter’s first choice. The captain hadn’t known they’d be leaving the city. And with time running short, they had no time to seek alternate transportation.

Still, at least, the van could carry all of them. Danny, Coral, and the two Desert Phantoms sat crammed in the backseat, Kara, Clay, and Captain al-Haffi in the extra third row. Painter had attempted to dissuade them all from accompanying him, but he had little time to state his case. The others wanted to come, and they unfortunately knew too much. Salalah was no longer safe for any of them. Cassandra could dispatch assassins at any time to silence them. There was no telling where she had eyes, and Painter didn’t know whom to trust. So they stuck together as a group.

He bounced the van around a tight switchback. His headlights swung about and blinded a large animal standing in the road. The camel stared at the van as Painter slammed on the brakes. They skidded to a stop.

The camel glanced down at the vehicle, eyes shining red, and slowly sauntered the rest of the way across the road. Painter had to creep onto the shoulder in order to edge around it.

Once past, he accelerated—only to brake again in another fifty feet. A dozen more camels filled the road, ambling along in no order, free-roaming.

“Beep your horn,” Omaha said.

“And alert Cassandra’s group that someone’s coming?” Painter said with a scowl. “Someone will have to get out and scatter a path through them.”

“I know camels,” Barak said, and slid out.

As soon as his feet hit the gravel, a handful of men stepped out from behind boulders and shadowed alcoves. They pointed rifles at the van. Painter caught movement in his rearview mirror. There were another two men back there. They wore dusty ankle-length robes and dark headdresses.

“Bandits,” Omaha spat, reaching to his holstered pistol.

Barak stood beside the open van door. He kept his palms bared, away from his weapon. “Not bandits,” he whispered. “They’re the Bait Kathir.”

Bedouin nomads could distinguish various tribes at a distance of a hundred yards: from the way they tied their headcloths, to the colors of robes, to the saddles of their camels, how they carried their rifles. While Painter did not have this ability, he had educated himself on all the local tribes of southern Arabia: Mahra, Rashid, Awamir, Dahm, Saar. He knew the Bait Kathir, too, tribesmen of the mountains and desert, a reclusive, insular group prone to taking affront at the least slight. They could be dangerous if provoked, and very protective of their camels, more so even than they were of their wives.

One of the tribesmen stepped forward, a man worn by sun and sand into just bone and skin. “Salam alaikum,” he muttered. Peace be on you. They were strange words coming from someone still holding a weapon aimed at them.

“Alaikum as salam,” Barak responded, palms still bared. On you be peace. He continued in Arabic. “What is the news?”

The man lowered his rifle a fraction. “What is the news?” was the standard question all tribesmen asked upon meeting. It could not be left unanswered. A flurry of words passed between Barak and the tribesman: information about the weather, of the sandstorm threatening the desert, of the predicted megastorm to come, of the many bedouin fleeing the ar-rimal, the sands, of the hardships along the way, of the camels lost.

Barak introduced Captain al-Haffi. All desert folk knew of the Phantoms. A murmur passed among the remaining men. Rifles were finally slung up.

Painter had vacated the van and stood to the side. An outsider. He waited for the ritual of introductions and news to be shared. It seemed, if he followed the discourse correctly, that Sharif’s great-grandmother had worked on the film Lawrence of Arabia with the leader of this band’s grandfather. With such a bond, an air of celebration began to arise. Voices grew more excited.

Painter sidled to Captain al-Haffi. “Ask them if they saw the SUVs.”

The captain nodded, bringing a serious tone to his voice. Nods answered him. Their leader, Sheikh Emir ibn Ravi, reported that three trucks had passed forty minutes ago.