Sandstorm/Part 3 plot

Act of 3 of *Sandstorm*

## Chapter 11 Marooned

### DECEMBER 3, 12:22 P.M. SALALAH

Safia woke up disorientd. The dark room proved to be a mystery. She was feeling qqueasy Feeling tired, she got up, aware her self. How lolng was she drugged out for?
Carefully, Safia stared around her. The room was stone walls, plank flooring. It stank of fried onions and dirty feet. The cot was the only furnishing. A single door of stout oak stood closed. No doubt locked. She lay unmoving for several more minutes. Her mind floated, half deadened by the aftereffects of the drug they had given her. Still, deep inside her, panic coiled around her heart. She was alone, captured. The others dead. She pictured flames in the night, reflecting off storm-swept water. The memory had burned into her like a camera flash in the dark. All red, painful, too bright to blink away. Her breathing tightened, throat closed down. She wanted to cry but couldn’t. If she started, she would never stop.

A man comes and escorts her to another room. This room was spartanly decorated with 1 sofa, a few chairs, and a table for weapons, equipment, a computer. Cassandra.
Sitting down, Safia and Cassandra looked at each other. The woman acknowledges that she knows who Safia is. Cassandra explains that Safia's knowledge of Painter Crowe was based on misunderstanding and they stumbled on a great key to untold power by chance:antimatter. Cassandra continued to explain about the explosion, radiation, Painter, and the pressure by the U.S. Government.

She wants her to lead them to the city of Ubar. Holding the iron heart, Cassandra wants Safia to do it, or “you'll die.”.

Safia tells her to do whatever she wants, feeling the drug wear off. Cassandra latre reveals her name as Safia is lead away.

### 1:01 pm

Cassandra waited for Safia to leave before cursing. She had to control her anger outbursts.
John Kane reports that lunch was given to the prisoner and while she was unconcious, a subdermal chip was planted in her shoulder, enabling a way to track. They would be able to track he rin a 10-mile radius.
In addition, the ship's explosion from the previous night was blamed on unknown terrorists with no survivors.
Sitting down in the room, she fell into a mlot of old memories and tripped down memory lane. When she came to, she hopes to see Painter Crowe.

### 1:32pm

Everyone rode on the flatbed truck, tired.
Plenty of distance separated them from Salabab, much less any village.

Coral and Painter an alyzed best and worst case senario. Worst, the opposing team already arrived. Best: they are on their way. The engine was juryrriged for repairs and they need to get going.

### 2:13 P.M.

Safia rode in the back seat of the four-wheel drive Mistubishi. The group traveled in 4 cars to the tomb of Nabi Imran, the final resting place of the father of the Virgin Mary. They drove around town, slowly, going to the tomb.
The entrance of the tomb of Nabi Imran was through a set of Wrought-iron gates. The gate guard let them through by after the exchange of a few Omani rials.

They stood in the middle of a flagstone courtyard, walled and bordered by small orderly gardens. Across the courtyard, a small mosque rose.
They entered.

Soon barefoot, they entered the tomb. They strode to the tomb, at its marvel. They acknowledge that the tomb was a revered site in the three major religions.

The heart was brought forth, and it was let to spin on the ground. Safia tried to imitate her body like the heart, in a meditation pose. Like a compass. She knew where to go now.

## Chapter 12 Safety first

### DECEMBER 3, 3:02 P.M.SALALAH

Omaha sighed as the truck completely died, billowing smoke. They still had a few miles to go, some distance they decided to walk. They make plans to split up and do things. Omaha wants to head into town to get thing while Painter and Coral want to use a safe house.

### 3:42 P.M.

Safia looked over maps, finding the best determinations of locations. She had to look over a lot of data. She super focused on the mystery. The next clue to the secret heart of Ubar. She drew a line along a ruler. A blue line arrowed straight out from Nabi Imran's tomb and shot into the countryside. The pointer went past the city of Salalah and a top a steep-sided mount. Jebal Eiteen. The Mount Eitteen. Atop lies another of someone else that is revered across all faiths – Christiniaty, Judaism, and Islam: A prophet Job.

Everyone got in the vehicles and people moved on.

### 4:42 P.M.Mount EitteenDamned Scorpions

Dr. Jaques Betrand crushed a few scorpions. He was here on Mount Eitteen for work. He read over the camel-hairs of inscriptions. He was currently on a grant to road-map early Semeitic scripts, tracing their lineage from past to present. He encounters multiple leopards, strining into view. He then sees a figure, a wooman. Bare legs, bare feet with grace. He sees the woman move, although without clothes. The woman disappears. Jaques fall in surprise, and get a few stings. Moves around, he stumbles away. Walking out of the crypt, people had gone. He pulled open his door to his Range Rover and climbed into the driver's seat. He took the moment as a warning and he had to leave, a feeling with dread certainty. Something horrible was gonna happen here.

### 4:45 P.M. Salalah

Safia is still alive, Painter delcared as he strode through the door of the safe house. This safe house was a two room flat above an import-export shop that bordered the Al-Haffa souk. With such a business fronting the safe house, none would questions the comings and goings of strangers. People would see it as part of the business. The noises of the nirhgobring market was a chatter of languages, voices, and bartering. The rooms reeked of curry and old mattresses.

Reaching the room, Painter and Coral worked on it, going past the security. The silent alarm was disabled so that the CIA would not be alerted when the safe house was employed. He proceeded to start typing in a 10 digit number. As he does so, he notices the 7th number – the number 9 – was slightly dimmer. He picked up a tweezer and nail file, lifting the key. Behind it was a filament attached to a microtransimtter, a non-factory installation. Painter realizes this is a booby trap, forcing everyone to leave. He successfully disarms everything, walks into the room and salvages the 1 pound of c4, an amount that could of levelled the building. They now will have to find the best coffee place in down

### 5:10 P.M.

Omaha lead across the Al-Haffa souk with Painter while everyone else rested at the safe house. They reached across town to a place called Salalah Internet Cafe. This establishment had coffee, and internet, and all that is require is a telephone connection. Walking inside, he told the counterperson, a blonde Englishman by the Axe, and paid using his own credit card. They needed internet and 30 minutes of time.

They get on a computer, a Gateway Pentium 4. Accessing a secure DoD computer, he accesses the most proprietary systems under the National Security Act. Painter accesses information in order to track Cassandra's SUVs, Mitsubishi brand. All cars and trucks with GPS navigation systems are in constant contact with orbiting satellites, keeping track of locations, and he knew the Vin number of the one of the vehicles as he was close enough to get one off. Cassandra and their troupe is heading out of the city and he knew what tomb they are heading to. It was a route that lead them out of the city and to somewhere. Omaha looks over at the information and the route was to the foothill. There was a major tomb near that highway, just a few miles off that road. Omaha believes the group is heading there.
Painter bought time on another computer. He left a massive electronic trail and thought it would be best to do something else. Accessing the mail system, he typed in the email for his superior Dr. Sean McKnight, head of Sigma, someone that, Painter if needed to trust, is trusted by Painter Crowe. Typing out everything that happened, with a final note saying he believes Cassandra is heading to the Yemeni border. He prayed he was wrong.

## Chapter 13 Footprints of the Prophet

### December 3, 5:55P.M. Dhofar Mountains

Safia stared out the window as the truck wound up a switchback through the mountainous hills. The valley below showed green due to the annual monsoon. The radio tuned to a news channel and announced that there is a new storm system as well as ongoing salvage operation on the Shabab Oman.

The team arrive at the tomb. The Tomb of Job consisted of a walled tomb complex with a small beige building, a tiny whitewashed mosque, and a garden courtyard of native shrubs and flowers. Looking on, she finds a sculpture of brass depicting a mounted horseman. The iron heart fell on the ground and it lead Safia to figure out the location. The sculpture, when fell on the floor, had moved into a shape and pointed them to the small archaeological site located behind the main tomb. In this location, Safia figured out the best place, but she needed a metal detector.

### 6:40pm

As night fell, Painter turned off the main highway. When Painter and Omaha had returned from the Internet Cafe, Painter had found Captain al-Haffi waiting with a 1988 Volkswagen Eurovan. With the the sale of the sultan's stallion, he was able to get a lot of money. With it, they got the truck, 3 Kalashnikov rifles, and a pair of Heckler &Koch handguns. With the van carrying all of them, they had little choice but to use it.

The group had to pass as camels passed by. Also, the Bait Kathir. Captain al-Haffi reported that the men knew of the SUVs and went up to the tomb of Ayoub 40 minuts prior and has yet to come down. The broup agreed to join the in their rifhgt to rescue Safia.

The group makes its way up the mountain.

### 7:05 P.M.

Cassandra watches as one of Kane's men waved a metal detector over the back wall of the niche. Just right of the center in the wall, the detector buzzed with discovery.

Knowing this would be a treasure hunt, The Guild supplied her with an assortment of the usual equipment:Spades, picks, jack hammars, brushes, siftering screen. They also included multitude of technology that is quite useful. The final piece of technology was a state of the art ground-penetrating radar system and a link to the LANDSAT satellite system, a tool that could delve up to sixty feet under the sand to produce a detaieled topographical map of what lay below.

There was something new as well. A ULS laser. It could dig through rock. Cassandra used the tool to point it the wall. The laser charged up. She fired it; the laser pointed at the wall where Casandra wanted it and began to disintegrate into a cloud of dust and silica. Safia told her to stop, something she did.
All look to the crevice and niche that had been carved out of the laser. From the stone detailed emerged: a nose, heavy brow, an eye, corner of a lip. It was a face: Safia's face.

### 7:43 pm

Painter sat atop a camel, looking across a dark valley. Atop the far hill, the tomb blazed against the moonless night sky. The site was an easily defensible site, with one approach: the dirt road windng up the south face of the mountain.

He and Captain al-Haffi plans an attack so they can achieve victory. Tactics and plans are drawn up so that it would give them the most advantage as possible. Al-Haffi is concerned about Painter and his personal connection with Cassandra, a situation that could impact the the mission at hand.
Coral reminds him to show no mercy and no hesiation or he'll lose it all.
As the acmels continued their treak down to the bottom of the valley, everyone got ready.
Painter got down and lead the way, at first solo.

### 8:05pm

Safia worked to loosen the artifact from the embrace of the sandstone. Cleaning it up, Safia picks up the stone. She did not attempt to not stare at the features as the face was remarkably similar to her own. The resemblance was remarkable and coincidence was difficult to chalk up to.
She cleans up stuff, saying it poijnts south eas,t, saying it goes back to the tomb. Safia goes to the pit near the entrance to the tomb, and hauled it open. The tale of the brass horseman had borne a spear and Safia had found it. Asid from the pit, there was a hole in the center of the pit. Stories in the Bible and Koran say a magical spring gushed forth. She put aspear in th ehole, and it was a tight fit.
A rain showered. This enabled Safia to see the words writing on it.

She spotted tiny writing on the base of the neck, shadowed by the hairline. Four letters became clear. It was the name of a woman named Biliqis. This woman was revered across all faiths and was lost in mystery and myth: said to be half human, half spirit of the desert. She was better known by her title: The Queen of Sheba.

Safia wiped the tears from the queen's cheek: the bust moved as if it pivoted on slippery ice. It spun once and stopped, staring at the opposite direction: The north east.

## Chapter 14 Tomb Raider

### December 3, 8:07 P.M.Jebal Eitteen

Painter checks his watch.
Sheltering behind an acacia bush, He positioned himself far from the road. He watched the people leave their SUVs, and what they do. He looked to the mosque.
Light shown up the mosque. Painter slowly walks to the mosque, staying out of sight. 0 windows even in the back. Painter needed to get up to the top. Looking around, he notices a ladder, and a hand. Walking up to the hand, Painte realizes it was a man who was nconscious, probably darted as Cassandra darted the man. No time

Painter takes the ladder and puts it against the side of the wall. Scaling the rungs, he goes up fast. Looking around, he hears Cassandra, talking to Safia. Painter waited for everything. He watches as John Kane approaches Cassandra and tell her something.
Painter moves forward, sweeping the mosque's prayer room. Walking around, he needed a dash across to the tomb; he froze as he heard a sound from behind him. Two leopards approach him.

### 8:18 P.M.

Cassandra is interested in the map
Safia is drawing directions on maps for the group to go. She is perplexed as she is figuring things out.
Kane reports that the desert people mentione dpeviosuly have set up camp.

Safia mentions they need to travel as previously, distances were often marked. On the spear, the notches were marked as distances. The results came out to sixty-nine. Map drawings and sketches resulted in a mark in the desert: the location of the lost city. Safia busily calculated in her head. As Cassandra is about to ask her, a shot rang out. She knew it had to be Painter.

### 8:32

Painter realized it was stupid to fire at the leopards. They feared something and the shot ruined the element of surprise.
Cassandra shouted his name over the noise of the rain. Threatening Safia, Cassandra demanded he surrender himself to her, knowing he would not have been heading to the border of Yemen.

Strange, remarked Painter. He had sent the email out hours ago and planted with false information in a secure server to his boss. This remakr by Cassandra revealed that the message reached her intact and meant one thing: the betrayal of Sigma Force reached the top. Now he had no one to trust.

All the time in the world. He pressed the transmitter's button and rolled toward the stairs.

### 8:34 pm

The press of the transmitters launched the SUVs into the air as explosions marked their remains. It was signal to everyone else. With this, the men started their attack. However, this took an unexpected turn as five small helicopters rose into view. Backup for Cassandra.

### 8:35 P.M.

Kara lo oked at the Kalashnikov rifle in her lap. Clay tried to get the car moving. They were far from the others fighting for the place. The two had to do something else to learn the secrets of Ubar.
A ringing in her head brought her attention away from the firegith. Opening the door, she fell out. Stepping onto the road, she wandered up a short distance up the road and out of sight of the van.
An old woman stood in the roadway, facing Kara. The static in her head tuned to a proper station and drained the pain and nausea. Kara followed her, who had said “she will need you”.

### 8:36

Cassandra held Safia hostage. Withe the explosions, she took action to ensure no one comes to steal anything. Fighting occurred everywhere.
Shuffling sounds came. A woman stood in the doorway, taking away the iron heart. While Cassandra was distracted, Safia took the opportunity to escape. Pulling the carpet from under her, Safia caused Cassandra to topple, allowing her to roll. However, Cassandra had the opportunity to shoot her in the shoulder.

Running, Safia, ran down a few alleyways, only to have her mouth clamped by a mysterious hand.

### 8:39 P.M.

It was Painter.
He was hiding and watching, waiting for a way to draw out Cassandra. He lead her to find a better place to hide.

“Don't Move”

Kane was hiding somewhere and held a gun at him, telling him to drop his weapons, receiving orders from Cassandra to shoot him.

### 8:40 P.M.

Omaha, Coral, and Barak were figuring out the best way to fight.
Coral threw a grenade and it exploded, hitting the fuel tank of one of the helicopters. It exploded in a brilliant flash of light. Fighting and running, Coral ran to the SUV, getting Omaha and Barak into it.
Getting in as helicopters came to fire, they tried to run and fight at the same time.

### 8:44 P.M.

Safia stood between Painter and Cassandra. Kane was told by Cassandra to shoot but Safia tells them that if they kill him, she won't help them to discover the secret of Ubar. Cassandra tells Kane to shoot them. That does not get carried out. A leopard attacked Kane, who shot and missed them.

Safia ran away. Across the prayer room, all had gone quiet. Reaching the alleyway, she lunged across the wet gardens toward the far wall.
From the baobab tree, a camel appeared on the far side of the wall. It moved to meet her. It was the same camel that had sauntered past the tomb's door earlier. It had the same companion:The naked woman sitting atop the camel. The enemy of my enemy.
The stranger offered her hand as Safia reached the wall and spoke. The language was not Arabic nor English but it seemed to translate in her head.

“welcome sister” the stranger said in Aramic. Safia reached for her hand, and With the pain, Safia slipped into unconsciousness. She slumped and slipped away.

### 8:47 P.M.

Painter was exchanging weapons fire with Cassandra. He was worried for Safia.
He sees a camel turn away with a naked woman on it and cradling Safia in it.
The pair of leopards followed the camel out of sight.
A new sound and another shot forced Cassandra to retreat. A Mitsubishi truck bounced through the gardens with Barak. Painter got on.

## Chapter 15 Mountain Trek

###  December 4, 12:18 A.M>  Dhofar Mountains

Safia woke up.
She was propped up against a couched camel. A woman loomed at her side, an arm under her good shoulder.
Wondering where she is, Safia stood up and looked around. Her shoulder was bound, wrapped to slow the bleeding. The woman who rescued her was at her side, saying help comes.

In moments, Safia's eyes acclimated to the gloom to recognize that the jungle before her was hiding a rocky limestone cliff. An approaching light came from caverns and passages. As the light came, safia spotted three figures: an old woman, a child perhaps twelve, and a second young woman who could have been the twin of the one beside her. All in identical cloaks thrown back. Each had a ruby tattoo at the outer corner of the left eye: A single teadrop.

“She who was lost has come home” said the womans. The people welcomed her.

Safia asks “who are you? What do you want with me”. Questions that were only answered with “be at peace” and that all the answers will be given by the *hodja*. Safia realizes that *hodja* was a word that meant “tribal shaman”, always female. They were the keepers of knowledge, healers, oracles. The young woman came back from the camel with the silver suitcase and the iron spear with its bust of the Queen of Sheba, both artefacts stolen from Cassandra.
As they travel along the caverns, they smell the scent of jasmine. They stepped into a great bowl of an amphitheater, the roof of which, high overhead, bore a small opening to the sky, allowing water to flow through the hole in a trickling waterfall. Thirty or so peple sat about the chamber; all of them were women of all ages. In it was Kara.

###  1:02 A.M.  Thumrait Air Base, Oman

Cassandra poured over the m ap. She drew the location for their destination in red, the location of the lost city. Her current position, the Thumrait Air Base, was only 30 miles away.
She asked a young captain Garrison for supplies. The young captain checked a list, and acknowledged the supplies are ready. Tents, shelters, and other equipment were getting ready for the team lead by Cassandra.
They had a lot of equipment ready for the trip. The overland team would leave in half hour. Leaving the depot, Cassandra realizes the sandstorm was due to hit the region in 8 hours. Time tables had to be accelerated. The Minister was satisfied with her performance. She was not as Painter was still out there.

John Kane approached. He had survived his fight with the leopard and recovered at the air Base, although with numerous scratches, and a left leg in a splint. He mentioned that all cleanup was done after the firefight and no evidence was left behind. They had to track Safia but no signal. They had implanted a microtransmitter while she was drugged and unconcious, giving them a way to track her movements, although limited to a 10 mile radius.

###  1:32 A.M.  Dhofar Mountains

The group Painter and co were figuring out stuff.
Omaha and Danny were looking over maps.
Corla looked through stuff and the supplies pilfered from the back of Cassandra's SUV.

The group did not known where Kara and Safia went so they were desparate to find them.

Barak shared a smoke with Clay. He knew the mountains well enough to search. It was the 6 of them: Painter, Coral, Dann, Omaha, Clay, and Barak.
They spent 3 hours looking for them to no success.
One thing stuck out. The map that Safia drew was circled, with a distance measured out. However, the mileage used was modern miles. They had to use Roman miles, Instead of the 69 Roman miles Safia had said, she had sent Cassandra's team on 69 modern miles instead of the 63 modern eqivalent miles. The real location was by a place called Shisur, where the real location of Ubar were discovered. It was in 1992 and by Nicolas Clapp.

The group comes to the fact that Safia lied to the group and had Cassandra to be in a far location. Questions come to the woman who took he raway.
Barak tells tales of such women, often spokemon around campfires out in the deserts. They were warriors of the desert and more djinn than flesh, talk to animals, and vanish on command. Painter does not believe it is the first time they have encountered these woman, noting the attempt to kidnap Omaha and Danny in Muscat and their attempted kidnapping in a probably attempt as leverage.

### 1:55 A.M.

Safia and Kara hug as they see each other again.

Three women approach with materials to care for her shoulder. They tend to her injuries. The elder woman, the hodja, held a lot of respect to the rest.

### 2:32 A.M.

Kara watches the group of women attend to the wounds of Safia. The hodja, the eldest, tells Kara that Safia is well-cared for and Kra should not worry, telling her she has answers to your life.

Kara sets off with the hodja. They walked for over an hourhour through caverns and walked for some time. Once they walked through a cavern, Kara was confounded as she had 0 questions to who were these women. Once they are at a tunnel in a wall, a child waited at the entrance holdin gna oil lamp. The child, called Yaqued shuffled down the tunnel.

Kara turned to the hodja and asked for her name. Lu'lu was the name she uses, translated as the word Pearl. Strange, had Kara thought as only one class of people used jeweled names: Slaves.

Yaqut leads them down the tunnel to a limestone chamber, with a prayer rug and a low alter of black stone. She lit a small stack of wood, glowing the altar. Except it was raw glass. Inside was a human blacked, with arms stretched out in agony. Kara immediately realized why she was brought here. Her father.

### 3:12 A.M.

Safia woke to music and warmth. Shea was given tea to cheer up.

Gettign up, she looked around. She was escorted somewhere. The people who helped her called themselves the Rahim, a word meaning the “womb”.

She was led to the same cavern where Kara was grieving.

Hodja provided the explanation. Lord Kensington was not unknwon to the people. He had entered “sands forbidden” on the day he died, having been warned but chose to ignore them. The reason was unknown but it was Ubar that provided the mystery.
The power is unknown and is guarded by the Gates of Ubar and was lost to two millennia. The Rahim, as they call themselves, are its last guardians.
The key was the iron heart.
The spear with the bust of Biliqis, the Queen of Sheba was useful.
The city of Ubar thrived for 1200 years and was founded by King Shadad, grandchild of Noah and whose line supposedly continues to this day through the reclusive clan of bedouin Shahra.

### 3:28 P.M.

Kara felt nausous. She felt distaste. She reclals memries of why she left so far out from Muscat and flow out of [[Thumrait Air Base to this far.
She was angry these woman held the secrets so long. She had questions and the hodja was willing to answer. The desert took Kara's father, but gave her a sister.
The hodja reveals that Kara and Safia are sisters.

### 3:33 A.M.

Safia refused to believe this. However, it was only half-siblings through Reginald Kensington.
The Rahim had sent a member of their group, the Rahim, to look for the treasure when Lord Kensington discovered the statue at the tom of Nabi Imran. The find was signifcant and was dated to the founding of Ubar. Al-Maaz was the one sent to get close to know it. Her name was not Al-Maaz but Almaaz. It meant Diamond, but the orphange that Safia lived in had thought Almaaz was al-Maaz, her family name. The hodja revealed that Almaaz fell in love with Lord Kensington, and him with her. A few months later, she fell pregnant with his child. Panicked, she went back and was cared for by the Rahim, but since the child was not pure, she had to leave.

The child was not pure and thus did not have the teadrop tattoo.

And Lord Kensington found Safia in an orphanage. He continued to search for Safia's mother, neving giving up. However, it is that if one of them is to not be seen, then she will not be seen. The Rahim learned of Safia's orphan status and passed the information to Lord Kensington, who was heartsick. He took her into his family and raised her. He planned to wait until they were old enough to understand, but that did not happen.

The hodja continues and says that Safia broguht back the keys to Ubar: the heart and the spear. And now, they go the Gates of Ubar.