Free Sandstorm by James Rollins Page A

using her billions to delve into the past, to gather artifacts from all ages, to hire the best people, including Safia.
    She closed her eyes, wondering now how much of her own life had been guided by this fruitless quest. How influential had Kara been in her choice of studies? In her research projects here? She shook her head. It was too much to grasp at the moment. She would sort the matter later.
    She opened her eyes and stepped toward the statue, blocking the others. “I can’t let you do this.”
    Kara motioned her aside, her voice calm and logical. “If there’s a piece of the meteorite here, salvaging it is more important than a few scratches on a broken statue.”
    “Important for whom?” Safia attempted to match Kara’s stolid demeanor, but her question came off more as an accusation. “This statue is one of only a handful from that age in Arabia. Even broken, it’s priceless.”
    “The meteorite—”
    “—can wait,” Safia said, cutting off her benefactor. “At least until the sculpture can be moved safely.”
    Kara fixed her with a steely gaze that broke most men. Safia withstood the challenge, having known the girl behind the woman.
    Safia stepped toward her. She took the crowbar, surprised to feel the tremble in the other’s fingers. “I know what you were hoping,” she whispered. Both knew the history of the camel-shaped meteorite, of the British explorer who had discovered it, how it was supposed to guard the entrance to a lost city buried under the sands.
    A city named Ubar.
    And now it had exploded under most strange circumstances.
    “There must be some connection,” Kara mumbled, repeating her words from a moment ago.
    Safia knew one way to dispel such a hope. “You know that Ubar has already been found.” She let these words sink in.
    In 1992, the legendary city had been discovered by Nicolas Clapp, an amateur archaeologist, using satellite ground-penetrating radar. Founded around 900 B.C . and located at one of the few watering holes, the ancient city had been an important trading post on the Incense Road, linking the frankincense groves of the coastal Omani Mountains to the markets of the rich cities of the north. Over the centuries, Ubar had prospered and grown larger. Until one day, half the city collapsed into a giant sinkhole and was abandoned to the sands by the superstitious townfolk.
    “It was only an ordinary trading post,” she continued.
    Kara shook her head, but Safia was unsure if she was negating her last statement or resigning herself to the reality. Safia remembered Kara’s excitement upon hearing of Clapp’s discovery. It had been heralded in newspapers around the globe: FABLED LOST ARABIAN CITY FOUND ! She had rushed out herself to see the site, to help in the early excavation. But as Safia had stated, after two years of digging up potsherds and a few utensils, the site turned out to be nothing more exciting than an abandoned trading post.
    No vast treasures, no thousand pillars, no black ghosts…all that was left were those painful memories that haunted the living.
    “Lady Kensington,” the man with the metal detector called out again. “Maybe Dr. al-Maaz was right about not moving this bloody thing.”
    Both women turned their attention back to the toppled statue. It was now flanked by both of the team members with detectors. They held their devices to either side of the blocky torso. Both metal detectors were beeping in chorus.
    “I was wrong,” the first man continued. “Whatever I detected is not under the stone.”
    “Then where is it?” Kara asked irritably.
    The other man answered, “It’s inside it.”
    A stunned moment of silence followed until Kara broke it. “Inside?”
    “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry. I should’ve thought to triangulate earlier. But I never thought anything could be inside the stone.”
    Safia stepped forward. “It’s probably just some random iron deposits.”
    “Not from the readings we’re getting here. It’s a