Текст книги "Sandstorm"

Автор книги: James Rollins

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 29 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

“It’s happening again,” Coral said.

Omaha stared at the dead man, buried in glass. He knew what she meant.

Fiery death had returned to Ubar.

6:12 P.M.

PAINTER BOUNCEDin his seat as the twenty-ton tractor flew over a small dune. He could see nothing now. The visibility of a few yards had dropped to the tip of his nose. He was driving blind. He could be blithely aiming for the edge of a cliff and he’d never know.

A few minutes ago, the sandstorm had suddenly whipped up with a renewed ferocity. The buffeting winds sounded like giant fists striking the tractor. Painter’s head throbbed from the concussion of the forces.

Still, he continued blindly forward. His only guidance glowed on the laptop beside him.

Safia.

He had no idea if she heard his radio call or not, but she hadn’t moved since the broadcast. She was still aboveground…actually about forty feetaboveground. There must be a hill ahead. He’d have to slow once he was nearer.

A shimmer of reflection caught his eye. In the side mirror. The second pursuit vehicle. It was following the tractor’s larger lights. The hunter had to be as blind as he, following in his tracks, keeping to his packed path, letting him encounter any obstacles.

The blind leading the blind.

Painter continued. He dared not leave his post. The winds suddenly whipped even more savagely. For a moment, the tractor tilted up on one tread, then slammed down. Christ…

For some reason, a laugh bubbled out of him. The gibbering amusement of the damned.

Then the winds ended, as if someone had unplugged the fan.

The lumbering tractor rode out into more open sands. The skies even lightened from midnight to twilight. Sand still stirred, and winds did indeed still blow, but at a tenth of the velocity of a moment ago.

He glanced to the side mirror. A solid wall of blackness blanketed the view. He must have traveled completely through its heart and out the other side.

As he watched, he saw no sign of the pursuit vehicle, its glow lost in the total darkness. Perhaps that last burst of winds had flipped the sucker.

He focused forward.

His sight line stretched for a good quarter mile. In the distance he could see a shadowy prominence of dark rock. A desert mesa. He glanced at the laptop. The blue glow lay directly ahead.

“So that’s where you are.”

He kicked up the speed of the tractor.

He wondered if Safia could see him. Reaching out, he took the radio in hand. He kept one eye on the road. Throughout the region, mini-tornadoes whipped and snaked, joining desert to sky. They glowed with a cobalt radiance. Crackles of static charge spun up from the ground. Most stood in one place, but a few meandered over the desert landscape. He was close enough to see one etch down a dune face, sand coughing up around it. In its wake, it left a trail of black sand, a squiggled sigil, a pen stroke from some storm god.

Painter frowned. He had never seen such a phenomenon.

But it was none of his concern.

He had more pressing worries. He raised the radio to his lips. “Safia, if you can read me, let me know. You should be able to see me.”

He waited for a reply. He didn’t know if Safia still had one of their radios. It was the frequency to which he had set the tractor’s transmitter.

Noise burst from the receiver. “-ainter! Go! Turn back!”

It was Safia! It sounded like she was in trouble.

He hit the transmit button. “I’m not turning back. I’ve got-”

An arc of electricity leaped from the radio receiver to his ear. Yelping out, he dropped the radio. He smelled burning hair.

He felt a surge of static charge throughout the vehicle. Every surface shocked him. He kept his hands on the rubber-coated wheel. The laptop sizzled, then gave off a loud pop.The screen went dead.

The sound of a foghorn reached him, blaring, persistent.

Not a foghorn…a truck’s horn.

He glanced at the side mirror. From the storm’s black wall, the pursuit truck flew out into the open. The last winds slapped the back end. Its frame tilted, beginning to flip.

Then it was free. It struck the sands, the tires on one side, then the other. It bounced, skidded, and spun a full turn. But it was out of the storm.

Painter swore.

The truck’s driver must have been as shocked to be alive as Painter was to see him. The flatbed idled. It looked like hell. One tire was flat, the bumper was curled into a steel smile, the tarp over its load in back had been blown to one side, tangled amid the ropes.

Painter pressed his accelerator, racing forward, putting as much distance between himself and the truck. He remembered the RPG bombardment. He wanted a little breathing room, then he’d take care of this truck.

In the side mirror, the truck followed, limping after him.

Painter prepared to fight, setting the cruise.

Ahead the desert was a forest of whirling sand devils, glowing in the twilight gloom. They all seemed to be on the move now. He frowned. They were all moving in unison, some unearthly ballet.

Then he felt it. A familiar lurch in the sand.

He had felt the same when the grenades had triggered an avalanche over the dune face. The shift of sands under his treads.

But he was on flat ground.

All around the whirlwinds danced, static electricity sparked, and the desert loosened under him. Against all odds, the twenty-ton tractor was becoming mired. His speed slowed. He felt its back end fishtailing. The tractor swung around, dragged by unknown forces. Then he was trapped, stopped.

His side window now faced toward the pursuit truck. It continued toward him, closing in on its wide, knobby sand tires. Then the sand under it became powder. It sank to its rims…then axle.

Bogged.

Both hunter and prey were trapped, flies in amber.

But this amber still flowed.

He felt it beneath him. The sand was still moving.

6:15 P.M.

SAFIA GAVEup on the radio. She could only watch in horror, alongside Kara and Lu’lu. It was a landscape out of a nightmare, a painting done by Salvador Dalн. The world melted and stretched.

She stared out at the whirlwinds, the deadly electrical discharges, pools of black sands, streaks of the same, carved out by skittering devils. The dusty clouds in the sky glowed from the amount of energy flowing into them, fed by the snaking columns of sand and static charge.

But that was not the worst.

For as far as she could see, the entire desert floor had begun to churn in one giant whirlpool, spinning around the buried bubble of Ubar. The sandstone mesa was a boulder in the current. But there were smaller rocks: Painter’s tractor and another truck, mired in the churning sands.

Whirlwinds closed in on the vehicles, etching the sand with molten fire.

A crash echoed to the left. A piece of the mesa tore away, tumbling into the sand, a glacier calving into the sea.

“We can’t stay here,” Kara said. “It’ll tear this island apart.”

“Painter…” Safia said. Her clothing sparked and crackled with discharges as she stepped toward the mesa’s edge. He had come to rescue them, driving to his doom. They had to do something.

“He’s on his own,” Kara said. “We can’t help him.”

The radio suddenly crackled in her hand. She had forgotten she was holding it. Painter…

“Safia, can you hear me?” It was Omaha.

She lifted her radio. “I’m here.”

His voice sounded distant, as if from another planet. “Something strange is going on down here. The static is arcing all over. It’s zapping the glass. Melting spots. It’s the cataclysm all over again! Stay away!”

“Can you get up here? To the stairs?”

“No. Danny, Clay, Coral, and I are holing up in the palace.”

A commotion by the tunnel drew her eye. Sharif climbed out.

Kara moved to meet him.

He pointed to the tunnel. “We’ve retreated to the stairs,” he said, panting. “Captain al-Haffi will attempt to hold the enemy off. You should-” His voice died as he suddenly caught a view of the desert. His eyes widened.

Another splintering crack erupted. Rocks crashed. The rim of the mesa crumbled.

“Allah, preserve us,” Sharif prayed.

Kara waved him back. “He’d better. Because we’re bloody damn well running out of places to hide.”

6:16 P.M.

CASSANDRA KNEWtrue terror for the first time in ages. The last time she had felt this gut-level fear was as a child, listening to her father’s footsteps outside her bedroom door at midnight. This was the same. A fear that gelled the insides and turned bone marrow to ice. Breathing was a talent forgotten.

She cowered inside a tiny glass building, more a chapel, enough for one person to kneel. Its only entrance was a short door that had to be ducked into. No windows. Past the door, the lower city spread below her.

She watched the continual arcing bolts of discharge. Some struck the lake, grew more intense, then sucked back to the roof, brighter for the effort, as if the storm above were feeding off the waters below.

The same was not true when it struck the glass. Every surface absorbed the strange energy, becoming a liquid pool, but only as briefly as a lightning flicker. Then it turned solid again.

She had watched one of her men succumb to such a bolt. He had been sheltering behind a wall, leaning on it. Then the bolt struck the wall. He fell through it, his support suddenly gone. The wall solidified again. Half his body on one side, the other half on this side. Between, he had been burned to bone. Even his clothes had caught fire, a human torch, on two sides of glass.

All across the city, the fighting had stopped. Men sought shelter.

They had seen the mummified bodies. They knew what was happening.

The cavern had gone deathly quiet, accept for the occasional gunshot by the back wall, where the enemy had sequestered itself in some passageway. Anyone who approached was shot.

Cassanda clutched her electronic tracker. She watched the spread of red triangles. Her men. Or those few that were left. She counted. Of the fifty on the assault team, only a dozen were left. She watched as another blinked out. A shattering scream fluttered through the city.

Death stalked her men.

She knew even such enclosed shelters were not safe. She had seen the mummified bodies within a few of the homes.

The key seemed to be movement. Perhaps the amount of static in the room was such that any stirrings attracted a bolt to stab out at it.

So Cassandra sat still, very still. She had done the same in her childhood bed. It hadn’t helped then. She doubted it would now. She was trapped.

6:17 P.M.

OMAHA LAYflat at the entryway to the palace. The quiet pressed upon him. Beyond the courtyard, the firestorm worsened. Bolts crackled, shattering into brilliant forks. The dome shone like the corona of a blue-white sun.

Omaha watched and knew death was near.

But at least he had told Safia he loved her. He had made his peace. He would have to be satisfied with that. He glanced upward. He prayed Safia was safe. She had relayed another short message, describing the chaos upstairs.

Death above, death below.

Take your pick.

Coral lay with him, studying the storm. “We’re inside the world’s largest transformer.”

“What do you mean?”

They spoke in whispers, as if afraid to draw the sleeping giant’s attention.

“The glass cavern with its energized antimatter solution is acting like a massive insulated superconductor. It draws energy to itself like the iron camel did at the museum. In this case, it collects the static energy of any passing sandstorm, sucking it down from above. But as energy builds in the chamber, crossing some threshold, it must need to shed its excess energy, like lightning does during a thunderstorm. Only this is aimed from sand to sky, shooting upward again in immense discharges, creating those momentary blasts of deadly whirlwinds on the desert’s surface.”

“Like it’s draining its battery,” Omaha said. “But what’s going on in here?”

“A storm in a bottle. The megastorm is pouring too much energy down here. The bubble can’t discharge it fast enough, so some of it’s lashing back.”

“Zapping itself.”

“Redistributing charge,” she corrected. “Glass is a great conductor. It merely takes the excess energy it can’t discharge to the surface and passes it down to the floor below. The glass here captures the energy and disperses it. A cycle to keep the charge spread evenly throughout the entire glass bubble rather than just the dome. It’s that equilibrium of energy that keeps the antimatter lake stable during this storm. A balance of charges.”

“What about those pockets of molten glass?”

“I don’t think it’s moltenglass. At least not exactly.”

Omaha glanced questioningly in her direction. “What do you mean?”

“Glass is always in a liquidstate. Have you ever seen antique glass? The flowing streaks that slightly distort the clarity? Gravity affects glass like a liquid, slowly pulling it down in streams.”

“But what does that have to do with what’s going on here?”

“The energy bolts aren’t just melting the glass. They’re changing its state,instantaneously breaking all bonds, liquefying the glass to the point that it borders on gaseous. When the energy disperses, it resolidifies. But just for a flash, it’s in a fiery state between liquid and gas. That’s why it doesn’t flow. It keeps its basic shape.”

Omaha hoped this discussion was leading to some solution. “Is there anything we can do about it?”

Coral shook her head. “No, Dr. Dunn, I’m afraid we’re fucked.”

6:19 P.M.

THE FIERYexplosion drew Painter’s attention to the mesa.

A truck parked near the sandstone prominence flipped in the air, spewing flaming fuel. One of the roving sand devils continued past it. It left a steaming trail of blackened sand.

Molten glass.

These sinuous columns of static charge were somehow discharging astronomical amounts of heat energy, burning their way across the landscape.

Painter remembered Safia’s warning over the radio before it shorted out. She had tried to warn him away. He hadn’t listened.

Now he was trapped inside the tractor as it slowly spun in a vast whirlpool of churning sand. For the past five minutes, it had carried him along, sweeping him in a wide arc, slowly spinning him in place. He was a planet orbiting a sun.

And all around death danced. For every whirlwind that blew itself out with a sharp discharge of static, another three took its place.

It was only a matter of time before one crossed his path, or worse yet, opened up under him. As he spun, he saw the other truck. It was faring no better. Another planet, smaller, maybe a moon.

Painter stared across the sands that separated them. He saw one chance.

It was a madman’s course, but it was better than sitting here, waiting for death to come knocking. If he had to die, he’d rather die with his boots on. He stared down at his naked form. He wore only his boxers. Okay, he’d have to forgo the whole boot dream.

He stood up and crossed to the back. He’d have to travel light.

He took a single pistol…and a knife.

Outfitted, he stepped to the back door. He’d have to be fast. He took a moment to take several deep breaths. He opened the back door.

The clear expanse of desert suddenly erupted yards away. A devil spun up from the sand. He felt the backwash of its static. His hair flumed around his head, crackling. He hoped it didn’t catch fire.

Stumbling back, he fled away from the back door. Time had run out.

He darted to the side door, shoved it open, and leaped.

Hitting the ground, he sank to his calves. The sand was damnably loose. He glanced over a shoulder. The devil loomed behind the tractor, crackling with energy. He smelled ozone. Heat pulsed from the monster.

Fleet feet, little skeet.

It was a nursery rhyme his father had often whispered in his ear when he was caught dawdling. No, Papa…no dawdling here.

Painter hauled his feet free from the sand and raced around the front end of the tractor. The whirlpool dragged at him, bordering on quicksand.

He spotted the flatbed truck. Fifty yards. Half a football field.

He sprinted for it.

Fleet feet, little skeet.

He ran, the rhyme a mantra in his head.

Across the sand, the truck’s door popped open. The soldier stood on the running board and pointed a rifle at him. No trespassers.

Luckily Painter already had his pistol up. He fired and fired. There was no reason to spare the bullets. He squeezed and squeezed.

The driver fell backward, arms out.

The explosion behind Painter shoved him forward, face-first. A wave of fire seared. Spitting sand, he leaped up and away.

He glanced back to see the tractor on its side, on fire, its tank exploded by the heat of the devil as it expanded its reach. Painter pounded away. Flaming fuel rained down all around, splashing into the sand.

He simply ran, hell-bent.

Reaching the flatbed, he skipped the cab door, used the driver’s body as a stepping-stone, and scrambled into the flatbed in back. The tarp was still tangled in the ropes. He used his knife to slice the lashings. They were taut and popped like overstretched guitar strings. He kicked tarps and ropes aside.

He exposed what lay underneath. What he had spotted when the flatbed mired. One of the copter sleds.

This little skeeter found his wings.

6:22 P.M.

SAFIA HEARDthe staccato firing of a pistol.

Painter…

She had been huddling just inside the stairway passage. Kara and Lu’lu kept guard with her. She had been pondering some way to escape the doom here. She sensed an answer, just beyond reach. A clue she was missing, letting fear frazzle through her. But fear was an old companion. She took deep breaths, inhaling calm, exhaling tension.

She thought about the mystery.

She remembered her thoughts on the way up here. How the past and the present were merging in countless ways. She closed her eyes. She could almost feel the answer rising inside her like a bubble in water.

Then the gunshots.

Followed by an explosion. Like the one that had taken out one of Captain al-Haffi’s trucks a minute or so ago.

Safia bolted back to the top of the mesa. A fireball billowed upward, shredding in the winds. The tractor lay on its side.

Oh, God…Painter…

She spotted a naked figure scrambling by the smaller truck.

Kara joined her. “It’s Crowe.”

Safia grabbed on to that hope. “Are you sure?”

“He really needs to cut his hair.”

The figure climbed into something in the back of the truck. Then Safia spotted the spread of collapsible rotors. She heard a distant whine. The rotors churned. A helicopter.

Kara sighed. “That man is resourceful, I’ll give him that.”

Safia noted a tiny whirlwind, one of the untethered ones scribing through the dunes, swing in a wide arc, aiming for the truck and copter.

Did Painter see it?

6:23 P.M.

PAINTER LAYflat on his belly in the sled. The controls were near his arms, one for each hand. He kicked up the rotor speed. He had flown helicopters during Special Forces training, but never one like this.

But how different could it be?

He yanked the right throttle. Nothing happened. He pulled on the left. Still nothing. Okay, maybe things were a bit different.

He pulled on both throttles and the copter lifted out of its cradle and into the air. He kept the throttles pulled and shot up in a wobbly arc, spun by the winds. The thump-thumpof the rotors matched his heart, fast and furious.

As the copter swung, he caught a glimpse of a twister on his tail. It glowed and spat fire like a demon risen from hell.

Painter played with the controls, leaning right, left, and forward.

Forward was good.

He sped away, dipping too low, like sliding down a snowy slope. He attempted to get his nose up before he buried himself in the sand. He worked the throttle, rolled to the left, balanced it out, and finally found a way to bring the nose up.

Now he was aiming directly for a monstrously huge whirlwind.

He climbed higher and to the right-and successfully managed to spin himself in place while stillflying toward the large devil. He felt his stomach flip. He dragged the left throttle, stopped the spin, and just managed to miss the devil.

But as a parting shot, the whirlwind spat an arc of static, zapping him. Painter felt the shock from the tip of his toes to his eyebrows.

So did the sled.

All power died. Instruments twirled. He plummeted, rotors churning uselessly. He switched all systems off, then back on again. Rebooting. A small whine answered, the motor coughed. Then died.

The mesa lay ahead. He aimed for it as best he could…which was at the side of its cliffs.

He rebooted again. The motor caught this time. The spinning rotors must have helped jump-start the engine. He pulled both throttles.

The copter climbed.

The cliffs rushed at him.

“C’mon…” he mumbled between clenched teeth.

As he reached the mesa, he caught a glimpse of its top. He willed the craft up another few inches. The landing skids brushed the edge of the lip, caught a bit, tilting the copter on its side. Rotors tore into stone.

They shattered away.

The sled compartment flipped high, and landed upside down atop the mesa. A lucky break. Painter banged his head, but he lived.

He popped the side hatch and fell out. He lay on the stone, panting, surprised to be alive. It was a good surprise.

Safia hurried over to him.

Kara followed, staring down at him, arms crossed. “Good effort, but have you ever heard of the phrase, ‘out of the frying pan, into the fire’?”

He sat up. “What the hell’s happening?”

“We must get to a safe place,” Safia said, helping him stand.

“Where?” Kara asked, taking his other arm. “The sandstorm is tearing apart the desert, and Ubar is on fire below.”

Safia straightened. “I know where we can go.”

22

Firestorm

DECEMBER 4, 6:45 P.M.

UBAR

SAFIA STOODwith Captain al-Haffi at the base of the stairs. She stared out at the azure maelstrom roiling over the arched room. It blinded. Bolts of cerulean energy lanced, forked, and speared all across the chamber. The most disturbing feature was the absolute quiet. No thunder here.

“How far to the palace?” she asked the captain.

“Forty yards.”

She stared back up the staircase. The Rahim were down to fourteen adult women and the original seven children. Captain al-Haffi’s dozen men were now eight. None of them looked ready to enter Ubar with its electrical wildfire.

But they stood ready to follow Safia.

She faced the path they had to walk. One misstep meant a fiery death.

“Are you sure about this?” Kara asked behind her. She was flanked by Lu’lu and Painter.

“As much as I can be,” Safia answered.

Painter had borrowed a cloak from one of the Shahran men, but he was still barefoot. His lips were tight.

Far back, echoing down the passage behind them, the tumble of stones reached them. The preparation had taken longer than Safia would have liked. Already the upper sections of the stairway were falling apart.

“You’re putting a lot of trust in that old queen,” Painter said.

“She survived the cataclysm. The king’s line survived. During the last cataclysm, the royal line was protected. They were the only ones. How?”

Safia turned and emptied the folded cloak she held in her hand. Sand poured out and covered the glass in front of her. It skittered down the path.

“ Sandis a great insulator. The royal palace of Ubar is covered with sand paintings, on floors, walls, and ceilings. The mix of so much sand in the glass must ground the structure against the static bursts, protecting those inside.” She tapped her radio. “Like it has so far with Omaha, Coral, Danny, and Clay.”

Painter nodded. She read the respect and trust in his eyes. She took strength from his solid faith in her. He was a rock when she needed something to hang on to. Again.

Safia turned and stared back at the long line of folk. Everyone carried a burden of sand. They made bags out of cloaks, shirts-even the children carried socks full of sand. The plan was to pour a sand path from here to the palace, where they’d shelter against the storm.

Safia lifted her radio. “Omaha?”

“Here, Saff.”

“We’re setting off.”

“Be careful.”

She lowered the radio and stepped out onto the sand-covered glass. She would lead them. Moving forward, she used a boot to spread the sand as far as it would go and still leave good insulation underfoot. Once she reached the end, Painter handed her his bag of sand. She turned and cast the new sand down the path, extending the trail, and continued on.

Overhead, the cavern roof blazed with cobalt fire.

She still lived. It was working.

Safia crept down the sandy path. Behind her, a chain grew, passing bagful after bagful from one hand to another.

“Watch where you step,” Safia warned. “Make sure sand is under you at all times. Don’t touch the walls. Watch the children.”

She poured more sand. The trail snaked from the back wall, winding around corners, down stairs, along ramps.

Safia stared out at the palace. They crept closer at a snail’s pace.

Static charges lanced at them almost continuously now, attracted to their movements, stirring whatever electromagnetic field stabilized the place. But the glass on either side always drew away the charge, like a lightning rod. Their path remained safe.

Safia dumped a load of sand from a cloak, then heard a cry behind her.

Sharif had slipped several yards back on one of the sandy stairs. He caught his balance on a neighboring wall and used it to push up.

“Don’t!” Safia yelled.

It was too late.

Like a wolf on a straggling lamb, a lance of brilliance lashed out. The solid wall gave way. Sharif fell headlong into the glass. It solidified around his shoulders. His body spasmed, but there was no scream, his face trapped in glass. He died immediately. The edges of his cloak smoldered.

Children cried out and pushed their faces into their mothers’ cloaks.

Barak ran up from farther back, slipping past others, his face a mask of pain. She nodded to the women and children.

“Keep them calm,” Safia said. “Keep them moving.”

She took the next bag. Her hands shook. Painter stepped next to her, taking the bag. “Let me.”

She nodded, falling back into second place. Kara was behind her. “It was an accident,” she said. “Not your fault.”

Safia understood it with her head, but not her heart.

Still, she did not let it paralyze her. She followed Painter, passing another sack to him. They crept onward.

At last, they rounded the courtyard wall. Ahead the entry to the palace glowed. Omaha stood in the archway, flashlight in hand.

“I left the porch light on for you guys.” He waved them forward.

Safia had to resist the urge to run forward. But they were not safe yet. They continued at the same steady pace, rounding the iron sphere resting in its cradle. Finally, their long trail reached the entry.

Safia was allowed through first. She stepped inside and hugged her arms around Omaha, collapsing against him. He picked her up in his arms and carried her back to the main room.

She didn’t object. They were safe.

7:07 P.M.

CASSANDRA HADwatched the procession, not moving, barely breathing. She knew to move meant death. Safia and Painter had passed within a few yards of her small glass alcove.

Painter had been a surprise. How could he be here?

But she did not react. She kept her breathing even. She was a statue. The many years of Special Forces training and field ops had taught her ways to remain still and quiet. She used them all.

Cassandra had known Safia was coming. She had mapped their progress, moving only her eyes, and had watched the very last red triangle on her tracker vanish a moment ago. She was all that was left. But it wasn’t over.

Cassandra had watched in amazement as Safia returned to the cavern from above, returning here, passing so close.

A sand trail.

Safia had discerned the only safe haven in the cavern: the large, towering building that stood fifteen yards away. Cassandra heard the others’ happy voices as they reached their sanctuary.

She remained perfectly still.

The sandy track wound only two yards from her position. Two large steps. Moving only her eyes, she watched the skies. She waited, tensing every muscle, preparing herself. But she remained a statue.

Then a bolt struck down about three yards away.

Close enough.

Cassandra sprang through the door, trusting in the old adage “lightning never strikes the same place twice.” She had nothing else to go on.

One foot touched glass, only long enough to leap away. Her next foot landed on sand. She dropped to a crouch on the path.

Safe.

She took deep breaths, half sobbing in relief. She allowed herself this moment of weakness. She would need it to steel herself for the next step. She waited for her heart to stop pounding, for the shakes to subside.

Finally, her body calmed. She stretched her neck, a cat awakening.

She took a deep breath, then let it out. Now down to business.

She stood and took out the wireless detonator. She checked to make sure it hadn’t been damaged or its electronics fritzed. All appeared in order. She tabbed a key, pressed the red button, then tabbed the key again.

A deadman’s switch.

Rather than pressing the button to blow the chip in Safia’s neck, all she had to do was lift her finger.

Prepared, she slipped her pistol from her holster.

Time to greet the neighbors.

7:09 P.M.

SEATED ONthe floor, Painter stared around the crowded room. Coral had already reported and debriefed him on all that had happened, her theories, and her concerns. She now sat beside him, checking her weapon.

Across the room, Safia stood with her group. They smiled and soft laughter floated from them. They were a new family. Safia had a new sister in Kara, a mother in Lu’lu. But what about Omaha? He stood at her side, not touching, but close. Painter saw how Safia would lean ever so slightly in the man’s direction, almost touching, but not.

Coral continued cleaning her gun. “Sometimes you just have to move on.”

Before he could respond, a shadow shifted on his right, by the entryway.

He watched Cassandra step into the room. Pistol in one hand, she was calm, unconcerned, as if she had just come in from a stroll to the park.

“Now isn’t this cozy,” she said.

Her appearance startled everyone. Weapons were snatched.

Cassandra didn’t react. She still had her pistol pointed at the ceiling. Instead, she held out a familiar device. “Is that any way to greet a neighbor?”

“Don’t shoot!” Painter boomed, already on his feet. “Nobody shoot!”