Free Sandstorm by James Rollins Page B

strong signal.”
    “We’ll have to break it open,” Kara said.
    Safia frowned at her. Bloody hell. She dropped to her knees beside the sculpture, soaking her pants. “I need a flashlight.”
    She was handed one by another member of the team.
    “What are you going to do with that?” Kara asked.
    “Peek inside.” Safia ran her hand over the heat-blasted surface of the statue. The sandy surface was now fused glass. She planted the flashlight facedown on the statue’s bulky torso and flicked it on.
    The entire glassy surface of the statue lit up. Details were murky through the dark crystalline crust. Safia didn’t see anything unusual, but the glass was only two inches thick. Whatever they were looking for might be deeper in the stone.
    Kara gasped behind her. She was staring over Safia’s shoulder.
    “What?” She began to pull away the flashlight.
    “No,” Kara warned. “Move it toward the center.”
    Safia did so, bringing the wash of light over the middle of the torso.
    A shadow appeared, a lump in the center of the statue, lodged deep, at the point where glass became stone. It shone a deep crimson under the light. The shape was unmistakable—especially given its position inside the torso.
    “It’s a heart,” Kara whispered.
    Safia sat back, stunned. “A human heart.”
    8:05 P.M.
    H OURS LATER, Kara Kensington stood in the private lavatory outside the department of the ancient Near East.
    Just one more…
    She shook a single orange pill into her palm. Adderall, a prescription amphetamine, twenty milligrams . She weighed the pill in her hand. So much kick in such a small package. But maybe not enough. She added a second tablet. After all, she’d had no sleep last night and still had much to do.
    Tossing back the pills, she dry-swallowed them, then stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her skin looked flushed, her eyes a bit too wide. She ran a hand through her hair, trying to fluff some body back into it. She failed.
    Bending down to the tap, she turned the cold spigot, soaked both hands, and pressed them to her cheeks. She took deep breaths. Itseemed like days rather than hours since she had been woken from her bed back at her family estate in the village of Blackheath. News of the explosion had her chauffeured limo racing through the stormy streets to reach the museum.
    And now what?
    Throughout the long day, various forensic teams had gathered all the necessary samples from the gallery: charred wood, plastics, metals, even bone. Finally, a few slag fragments of the meteorite had been picked out of the rubble. All initial evidence suggested that an electrical discharge had ignited some volatile components deep in the chunk of meteoric iron. No one was willing to say what those components were. From here, the investigation would be carried out in labs both in England and abroad.
    Kara could not hide her disappointment. Witnessing the glowing ball of lightning on the video footage had drawn her back to the day her father had vanished into the dust cloud, a spiral of sand sparking with similar crackles of bluish electricity. Then the explosion…another death. There had to be a connection between the past and present.
    But what? Was it just another dead end, like so many times in the past?
    A knock on the door drew her attention from her reflection.
    “Kara, we’re ready for the examination.” It was Safia. In her friend’s voice, she heard concern. Only Safia understood the weight around Kara’s heart.
    “I’ll be right out.”
    She dropped the plastic pill vial back into her purse and snapped the satchel closed. Already the initial surge of drug-induced energy took the edge off her despair. With one last futile sweep of her hair, she crossed to the door, unlocked it, and pushed out into one of the more handsome research quarters—the famous Arched Room of the British Museum.
    Built in 1839, the two-story vaulted chamber, located in the west section of the museum, was of early Victorian design: