Nate groaned internally. He felt like he was being pulled in multiple directions, and he didn’t yet have a good answer to any of the problems they faced. Their time to locate the city had just been dramatically reduced. And even if they did, both the storm and the unknown convoy would be on top of them within the hour.
He walked over to the other side of the dune and found Wally.
“We’re gonna have company,” Nate said, and nodded toward the south.
“Bloody hell,” Wally said, then sloshed his way through the sand to Tim.
“What’s going on?” Nate asked Shane, who had Ana nearly climbing over his shoulder.
“Ana found something,” he said.
“It’s here, look.” She pointed to the screen excitedly.
Nate peered over Shane’s other shoulder and looked at the image on the screen. He was staring at a top-down view of the desert floor, with the drone several hundred feet in the air.
“What am I looking at?”
“Right?” Shane asked in confusion.
“It’s here.” Ana pointed to a sand dune. “Notice anything strange?”
Nate thought about it for a second. “It’s facing the wrong way,” he said finally.
“Exactly. Winds come from the northwest and push the sand to the southeast. This dune is in the complete opposite direction. Now, if we fly closer and look at it…” She nudged Shane, who obliged.
The screen showed the ground moving closer, before circling around to the southwest side of the dune. When the drone reached near ground level, Nate could clearly see what had Ana so excited, and he inhaled deeply. There were walls of black glass pushing nearly forty feet into the air.
“It looks exactly how Philby described the Wabar craters in 1932!”
“It’s definitely a meteorite impact,” Ana said. “That’s clear from the striations of the glassed sand. This one is much more intact, though, not covered up by the sand.”
Ana’s geological expertise had helped them to quickly ascertain a solid starting point from which to begin searching for the city. If it was here, the terrain feature she had discovered may well have been the impact that caused the metropolis to sink beneath the sands. But it also gave him another idea.
“Mark the location and call the drone back,” Nate said. “We need to get down there. There’s a sandstorm and a convoy of trucks full of armed men both coming this way.”
“Shit,” Shane said as he recalled the drone. “I hope you have a plan.”
“As a matter of fact,” Nate said, “I think I do. Do you still have those explosives?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
This was truly a cursed land, Novikov thought to himself. They had made good time and arrived at the site by midday, pursuing Wilde and his team north, and it confirmed for the Russian that they were after the very thing he was meant to protect. Fortunately, Novikov had been provided the grid for the area so he knew where they were headed, but it was still a large zone to cover. It would have been a simple matter to fan out and sweep the area, and eventually they would come across them. Perhaps Wilde and his team would take out a few of his men, but eventually Novikov’s force would overpower the group and this thing would be finished.
The desert, however, had other plans. At the same time as they arrived, a sandstorm had begun to roll in. The Russians hunkered down inside the trucks with the windows rolled up as the howling wind dashed sand against them like waves against a rocky shore. Occasionally, the trucks rocked back and forth when a particularly strong gust hit them, and he ordered the vehicles to cautiously make their way down into a low area between dunes. And here they sat.
Novikov fumed. This was unacceptable. Of all the dumb fucking luck. At this rate, Wilde and his team could slip right past them to the south and the mercenaries would never know the difference. They could spend days searching the area without finding them, and by that point the so-called graduate student could be anywhere. Novikov would lose his advantage of knowing the destination of his target’s journey, and he could not let that happen. He keyed his radio.
“Out of the trucks,” he ordered. “All men. Leave one with the vehicles, the rest will start sweeping the area.”
“Sir?” the driver of his truck asked.
“You heard me,” he growled. “You’ve all been paid. You’re all professionals. Does a little sand scare you? This is nothing compared to the snows of Siberia.”
The driver said nothing. He simply exited the truck and the rest followed. Shame was a powerful motivator and was the complement to greed for these men. In the Spetsnaz, reputation was everything. Because one left the service did not mean that mentality went away.
Novikov exited with them and pulled a pair of goggles down over his eyes and a scarf over his nose and mouth. Visibility was severely reduced, but he could still see nearly ten meters ahead. It was more than enough. He ordered the men to get on-line and begin a search pattern of the area, and they moved slowly forward. Sandstorms could last several hours, and he was not willing to lose more time.
After nearly half an hour, there was a call over the radio. One of his men had found something. He was on the right flank and so Novikov slowly and carefully made his way over to him. Eventually he found the man and asked for a detailed report.
