Sandstorm

10:25 A.M.

OMAHA WATCHEDSafia crawl on her knees, sweeping sand off the floor with one hand. He found it hard to concentrate. He had forgotten how wonderful it was to work alongside her. He noted the tiny beads of perspiration on her brow, the way her left eye crinkled when she was intrigued, the dab of dirt on her cheek. This was the Safia he had always known…before Tel Aviv.

Safia continued sweeping.

Was there any hope for them?

She glanced up to him, noting that he’d stopped.

He stirred and cleared his throat. “What are you doing?” he asked, and motioned to her sweeping of the floor. “The maid comes tomorrow.”

She sat back and patted the wall tilted above her head. “This is the southeast side. The slab of the trilith that represents the morning star, rising each day in the southeastern skies.”

“Right, I told you that. So?”

Safia had been working in silence for the past ten minutes, laying out the supplies Painter had lugged here, very methodically, her usual way of doing things. She had spent most of this time examining the keys. Whenever he tried to interject a question, she would hold up a palm.

Safia went back to her sweeping. “We’ve already determined which wall corresponds to which celestial body-moon, sun, or morning star-but now we have to figure out which keys match those celestial bodies.”

Omaha nodded. “Okay, and what are you figuring?”

“We have to think in a context of ancient times. Something Cassandra failed to do, accepting modern miles for Roman ones. The answer lies in that fact.” Safia glanced back to him, testing him.

He stared at the wall, determined to solve this riddle. “The morning star is actually not a star. It’s a planet. Venus to be specific.”

“Identified and named by the Romans.”

Omaha straightened, then twisted to look at the artifacts. “Venus was the Roman god of love and beauty.” He knelt and touched the iron spear with the bust of the Queen of Sheba atop it. “And here’s a definite beauty.”

“That’s what I figured. So like at Job’s tomb, there must be a place to insert it. A hole in the ground.” She continued her search.

He joined her-but searched elsewhere. “You have it wrong,” he said. “It’s the wall that’s significant. Not the floor.” He ran his palm over the surface and continued his reasoning, enjoying the match of wits in solving this riddle. “It’s the slab that represents the morning star, so it is in the slab you’ll find-”

His words died as his fingers discovered a deep pock in the wall. Waist-high up the slab. It looked natural, easy to miss in the shadowy darkness. His index finger sank fully into it. He crouched there like the Dutch boy at the dike.

Safia rose up beside him. “You found it.”

“Get the artifact.”

Safia stepped over, grabbed the iron spear. Omaha pulled his finger free and helped her insert its end in the hole. It was an ungainly process with the wall angled. But they wiggled it into place. It kept sinking farther and farther. The entire haft of the spear was swallowed away, until only the bust was left, now hanging on the wall like some human trophy.

Safia manipulated it further. “Look how the wall is indented along this side. It matches her cheekbone.” She turned the bust and pushed it flush.

“A perfect fit.”

She stepped back. “Like a key in a lock.”

“And look where our iron queen is staring now.”

Safia followed her gaze. “The moon wall.”

“Now the heart,” Omaha said. “Does it belong to the sun wall or the moon?”

“I would guess the sun wall. The moon was the predominant god of the region. Its soft light brought cooling winds and the morning dew. I think whatever we’re looking for next, the final key or clue, will be associated with that wall.”

Omaha stepped to the north wall. “So the heart belongs to this wall. The sun. The harsh mistress.”

Safia glanced to the artifact. “A goddess with an iron heart.”

Omaha lifted the artifact up. There was only one place to rest it. In the small window cut into the northern slab face. But before settling it in place, he ran his fingers along the sill, having to stretch on his toes to feel the floor of the niche. “There are vague indentations in here. Like on the wall.” “A cradle for the heart.”

“A lock and key.”

It took a bit of rolling around to find the match between the iron heart’s surface and the indentations in the sandstone. He finally settled it in place. It rested upright. The end plugged with frankincense pointed at the moon wall.

“Okay, I’d say that’s an important slab,” Omaha said. “What now?”

Safia ran her hands along the last wall. “Nothing’s here.”

Omaha slowly turned in a circle. “Nothing that we can see in the dark.”

Safia glanced back at him. “Light. All the celestial bodies illuminate. The sun shines. The morning star shines.”

Omaha squinted. “But upon what do they shine?”

Safia backed up. She noted again the abnormally rough surface of the wall, its pocked moonscape. “Flashlights,” she mumbled.

They each retrieved one from the floor. Safia took a post by the mounted bust. Omaha moved to the heart in the window.

“Let there be light.” Holding the flashlight over his head, he positioned its beam as if it were sunlight pouring through the window, angled to match the position of the plugged end. “The sun shines through a high window.”

“And the morning star shines low on the horizon,” Safia said, kneeling by the bust, aiming her beam in the direction of the bust’s gaze.

Omaha stared at the moon wall, lit askance by their two light sources from two different angles. The imperfections of the wall created shadows and crevices. A form took shape on the wall, painted with these shadows.

Omaha squinted. “It looks like a camel’s head. Or maybe a cow’s.”

“It’s a bull !” Safia stared at Omaha, her eyes bright embers. “Sada, the moon god, is depicted as a bull, because of the beast’s crescent-shaped horns.”

Omaha studied the shadows. “But then where are the bull’s horns?”

The animal on the wall had nothing between its ears.

Safia pointed to the supplies. “Get me that while I hold the light.”

Omaha placed his flashlight in the window, resting it beside the iron heart. He crossed to the gear and grabbed the device that looked like a shotgun, only with one end belled out like a satellite dish. Safia had specifically asked Painter to bring it. He was anxious to see how this worked.

He passed it to her, taking her post with the flashlight.

She strode to the center of the room and pointed the laser excavator. A circle of red light appeared on the wall. She fixed it above the shadow figure, between the ears.

She pulled the device’s trigger. The red lights spun and sandstone immediately began to crumble as the laser energy vibrated the crystalline structure. Sand and dust billowed out. Also shinier bits. Flakes of metal, red.

Iron shavings, Omaha realized, understanding now why the metal detector was constantly abuzz. The architects of this puzzle had mixed iron shavings with the sand in the rock.

Back at the wall, the beam acted like a tornado, furrowing through the sandstone as if it were soft dirt. With his flashlight held steady, Omaha watched. Slowly, a brighter glitter revealed itself within the stone.

A mass of iron.

Safia continued to work, moving the laser up and down. In a matter of minutes, an arch of horns appeared, seated atop the shadowy image.

“Definitely a bull,” Omaha agreed.

“Sada,” Safia mumbled, lowering the gun. “The moon.”

She walked over and touched the rack of embedded horns, as if making sure they were real. A shower of blue sparks erupted with the contact. “Youch!”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said, shaking her fingers. “Just a static shock.”

Still, she backed a step away, studying the mounted horns on the wall.

The horns certainly appeared as a sharp crescent, protruding from the rock. Sand and dust cast from the excavation swirled into the chamber as the winds above grew suddenly more stiff, seeming to blow directly down through the hole in the roof.

Omaha glanced up. Above the sinkhole, the skies were dark, but something even darker stirred the air, sweeping downward. A light suddenly speared from it.

Oh, no…