Annotation

Lady Kara Kensington's family paid a high price in money and blood to found the gallery that now lies in ruins. And her search for answers is about to lead Kara and her friend Safia al-Maaz, the gallery's brilliant and beautiful curator, into a world they never dreamed actually existed. For new evidence exposed by the tragedy suggests that Ubar, a lost city buried beneath the Arabian desert, is more than mere legend … and that something astonishing is waiting there. Two extraordinary women and their guide, the international adventurer Omaha Dunn, are not the only ones being drawn to the desert. Former U.S. Navy SEAL Painter Crowe, a covert government operative and head of an elite counterespionage team, is hunting down a dangerous turncoat, Crowe's onetime partner, to retrieve the vital information she has stolen. And the trail is pointing him toward Ubar.

JAMES ROLLINS

To Katherine, Adrienne, and RJ, the next generation

Part One

1

NOVEMBER 14, 01:33 A.M.

01:53 A.M.

02:13 A.M. GMT (09:13 P.M. EST)

SIGMA.

2

02:38 P.M. GMT

4:20 P.M.

08:02 A.M. EST

3

8:05 P.M.

01:54 P.M. EST

09:48 P.M. GMT

4

12:05 A.M. GMT

5

Part Two

6

11:42 A.M.

12:04 P.M.

12:13 P.M.

12:45 P.M.

12:53 P.M.

7

6:48 P.M.

8:02 P.M.

8:18 P.M.

8

09:12 P.M.

09:22 P.M.

10:28 P.M.

11:35 P.M.

11:48 P.M.

MIDNIGHT

9

1:38 A.M.

1:42 A.M.

1:55 A.M.

1:58 A.M.

2:02 A.M.

10

2:10 A.M.

2:12 A.M.

2:22 A.M.

2:45 A.M.

3:47 A.M.

Part Three

11

1:01 P.M.

1:32 P.M.

2:13 P.M.

12

3:42 P.M.

4:42 P.M.

4:45 P.M.

5:10 P.M.

5:32 P.M.

13

6:40 P.M.

7:05 P.M.

7:43 P.M.

8:05 P.M.

14

8:18 P.M.

8:32 P.M.

8:34 P.M.

8:35 P.M.

8:36 P.M.

8:39 P.M.

8:40 P.M.

8:44 P.M.

8:47 P.M.

15

1:02 A.M.

1:32 A.M.

1:55 A.M.

2:32 A.M.

3:12 A.M.

3:28 P.M.

3:33 A.M.

Part Four

16

7:14 A.M.

7:33 A.M.

8:02 A.M.

8:22 A.M.

17

9:32 A.M.

9:45 A.M.

9:53 A.M.

10:18 A.M.

10:22 A.M.

10:25 A.M.

10:47 A.M.

18

11:12 A.M.

11:13 A.M.

11:15 A.M.

11:21 A.M.

11:23 A.M.

11:44 A.M.

11:52 A.M.

Part Five

19

12:32 P.M.

12:42 A.M.

12:45 P.M.

1:52 A.M.

2:04 P.M.

2:06 P.M.

20

4:04 P.M.

4:25 P.M.

4:42 P.M.

4:45 P.M.

4:52 P.M.

5:00 P.M.

5:05 P.M.

21

5:45 P.M.

6:05 P.M.

6:10 P.M.

6:12 P.M.

6:15 P.M.

6:16 P.M.

6:17 P.M.

6:19 P.M.

6:22 P.M.

22

7:07 P.M.

7:09 P.M.

7:22 P.M.

7:35 P.M.

7:43 P.M.

8:07 P.M.

Epilogue

DIRECTOR SEAN MCKNIGHT.

Be there…

Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Books by James Rollins

JAMES ROLLINS

SANDSTORM

To Katherine, Adrienne, and RJ, the next generation

DEPT. OF DEFENSE CODE:

ALPHA42-PCR

SIGMA FORCE

Part One

Thunderstorm

1

Fire and Rain

NOVEMBER 14, 01:33 A.M.

THE BRITISH MUSEUM

LONDON, ENGLAND

HARRY MASTERSON would be dead in thirteen minutes.

If he had known this, he would’ve smoked his last cigarette down to the filter. Instead he stamped out the fag after only three drags and waved the cloud from around his face. If he was caught smoking outside the guards’ break room, he would be shit-canned by that bastard Fleming, head of museum security. Harry was already on probation for coming in two hours late for his shift last week.

Harry swore under his breath and pocketed the stubbed cigarette. He’d finish it at his next break…that is, if they got a break this night.

Thunder echoed through the masonry walls. The winter storm had struck just after midnight, opening with a riotous volley of hail, followed by a deluge that threatened to wash London into the Thames. Lightning danced across the skies in forked displays from one horizon to another. According to the weatherman on the Beeb, it was one of the fiercest electrical storms in over a decade. Half the city had been blacked out, overwhelmed by a spectacular lightning barrage.

And as fortune would have it for Harry, it was his half of the city that went dark, including the British Museum on Great Russell Street. Though they had backup generators, the entire security team had been summoned for additional protection of the museum’s property. They would be arriving in the next half hour. But Harry, assigned to the night shift, was already on duty when the regular lights went out. And though the video surveillance cameras were still operational on the emergency grid, he and the shift were ordered by Fleming to proceed with an immediate security sweep of the museum’s two and a half miles of halls.

That meant splitting up.

Harry picked up his electric torch and aimed it down the hall. He hated doing rounds at night, when the museum was lost in gloom. The only illumination came from the streetlamps outside the windows. But now, with the blackout, even those lamps had been extinguished. The museum had darkened to macabre shadows broken by pools of crimson from the low-voltage security lamps.

Harry had needed a few hits of nicotine to steel his nerve, but he could put off his duty no longer. Being the low man on the night shift’s pecking order, he had been assigned to run the halls of the north wing, the farthest point from their underground security nest. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t take a shortcut. Turning his back on the long hall ahead, he crossed to the door leading into the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court.

This central two-acre court was surrounded by the four wings of the British Museum. At its heart rose the great copper-domed Round Reading Room, one of the world’s finest libraries. Overhead, the entire two-acre courtyard had been enclosed by a gigantic Foster and Partners-designed geodesic roof, creating Europe’s largest covered square.