"Thank you," Katerina said.
The attendant watched the woman and the man go back to their car. They pulled away from the lot and turned west, as the other crazy foreigners had.
"The blond one was pretty," one of the guards said. "All those Western women are whores. I wouldn't mind trying her out."
"You couldn't afford her. Besides, she looks like she'd kick you in the balls if you tried anything," the other guard said. "Come on, I'll give you another game."
The two men settled down to their board game. The attendant went back to the magazine he'd been reading.
Nothing ever happens here, he thought.
CHAPTER 20
Blowing sand had drifted over the disused road to the abandoned ruins. The flat desert plain of the northern Sahara stretched as far as the eye could see.
"Reminds me of Iraq," Ronnie said.
Nick steered around a depression in the track. "At least there are no IED's."
"We're almost there." Selena pointed at a rough shape sticking up out of the sand.
"Must be. There's nothing else out here."
The shape was the stub of a broken column. Nick parked and they got out of the car.
Ronnie sniffed at the air.
"Smell that?"
Nick took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. The sun had a peculiar brownish halo around it. A breeze had started, like the breath of a furnace. It brought no relief from the heat.
"Yeah. We'd better do a quick search and get out of here."
"What are you two talking about?" Selena asked. "What's the matter?"
Ronnie rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. "When I was in Iraq and it was like this, it meant we were going to get hit with a sandstorm."
"There's a sandstorm coming?"
"Feels like it."
"Then we'd better start looking."
Selena went over to the broken column. She bent down to read an inscription on the weathered stone.
"This is from the right period, when Menes was king."
The wind picked up, kicking dust into the air.
Ronnie pointed south. "Here it comes."
To the south a dark, roiling cloud rose in a towering wall toward the sky. It spread across the horizon, a tidal wave of sand coming straight toward them.
"Oh my God," Selena said.
"We'll never make it back to the highway before that hits," Nick said. "Get in the car. We'll have to ride it out."
The wind grew stronger. The sand lifted up and began to move in a rippling carpet across the ground. Tiny bits and particles flitted through the air, stinging as they hit. They ran to the car and climbed in and rolled up the windows.
"Ever been in one of these?" Ronnie asked Selena. "It's an experience."
Selena watched as the ominous cloud approached.
"Do you have a cloth to wrap around your face?"
"But we're inside the car."
"That will help but it's still gonna get hard to breathe in here. Here."
Ronnie pulled a red bandanna from his back pocket and handed it to her. She wrapped it around her nose and mouth.
"Thanks." Her voice sounded muffled through the cloth.
"You look like you're getting ready to rob a bank," Nick said.
He took off his shirt. Ronnie did the same. They used the clothing to cover the lower part of their faces and waited.
The car shuddered as the leading edge of the storm struck against it. In an instant, Selena could see nothing outside the car. A dense wall of moving sand shrieked around them. The wind pounded on the car and rocked it on its wheels. The inside of the Rover began to fill with a thin haze that stuck to her skin and coated everything with a fine layer of grit. She closed her eyes against the assault and concentrated on breathing.
She tasted the Sahara as it tried to kill her. The howling of the wind made it impossible to think. Selena felt like curling up and pulling a blanket over her head, but there was no blanket and no place to curl up in.
She wasn't sure how long it had been, but after a while the storm passed. The wind died and the air cleared. It was possible to see again through the windows, except where sand had blasted the glass into silvery translucence.
Selena took the bandanna away from her face and coughed.
She handed it back to Ronnie. "You were right."
"About what?"
"About it being an experience. Is it over?"
"Yes," Nick said. "Let's check the damage."
He grunted as he pushed the door open against piled sand. When they got out of the car, the world had changed.
The Land Rover was buried to the tops of the wheels. In places the sand had stripped away the paint, exposing bare metal. The site of the ruined temple had been scoured clean, exposing a paved court and the broken remains of fallen columns that had been hidden under the sand. After five thousand years all that was left of the main building was a low outline of weathered stone.
The three of them shook sand out of their clothes. Nick looked at the car.
"Ronnie, let's start digging out. Selena, take a look at those ruins while we're doing that."
"Wish we had another shovel," Ronnie said.
"Yeah, but we don't. You take the shovel. I'll use one of the floor mats for a scoop."
While they worked to clear sand away from the wheels, Selena began examining the ruins.
The fallen columns were covered with inscriptions. They were in bad condition, weathered by the passage of time. Even so, she could read some of what had been written.
The first column Selena looked at was inscribed with a dedication to Ma'at, the goddess of justice and truth, daughter of the sun god, Ra. Ra was the most important of the old Egyptian gods, the giver of life and light.
She moved to the next column. The writing was illegible. Past the column was a broken slab of stone lying on the ground that might have once been part of a wall.
It was inscribed with Linear D.
Finding it sent a shot of adrenaline surging through her body. She began taking pictures. Once she got back to the hotel, there'd be plenty of time to make an accurate translation. Nick came over. His shirt was dark with sweat. He wasn't in the best of moods after digging sand with a floor mat.
"I want to get out of here. Have you found anything?"
"Yes." She pointed at the fallen slab. "This is that same writing. I took pictures. I haven't had a chance to look at the rest of the ruins yet."
"Hurry up, will you?"
He stomped back to the car and popped the hood. She could hear him swearing as he did something to the engine.
Sometimes he can be a real ass, she thought.
Looking through the ruins, she found no more of the linear writing. She took pictures anyway. There could be something in the hieroglyphics. She finished and went back to the car where Nick and Ronnie waited.
"I'm done."
Nick got in the car without saying anything and started the engine. It sputtered and coughed and started.
They headed in the direction of the coast. The track they'd followed to the site was buried in sand. He drove slowly. If they got stuck, AAA wasn't coming to the rescue.
Half an hour later they reached the highway.
CHAPTER 21
Elizabeth's phone signaled. She looked at the caller ID. It was Clarence Hood.
Clarence. I hope this isn't some new emergency.
The Director of the CIA and Elizabeth had become friends. They didn't always agree, but they worked well together. Both were realists about the threats facing the country. Both were dedicated to neutralizing those threats before they became reality.
"Hello, Clarence."
"Elizabeth. Have I caught you at a bad time?"
"Not at all. I was about to leave early for a change. For once, it's a slow day."
"Slow days worry me."
"I know what you mean. When it's slow, it means the bad guys are planning something."