Bendia Bones leaned in the shadow of a closed coffee house. She needed to get south to look around Umir. If she could find what she was looking for and turn it into a museum somewhere, she might head off the trouble she foresaw ahead.

She didn't want to be followed by goons across the countryside for the rest of her life.

Why were they so interested in what she was doing? She had visited the country many times before. Only twice out of all those times had she shot someone while looking for an artifact. Both times had involved Yuseff.

How much did he know about all this?

She doubted she could make him talk with her presence. He already knew she wouldn't shoot someone out of cold blood. She needed a reason to commit violence.

She needed to pay for her rooms and evade the police and the goons until she was out of the city. Maybe Rupert could help her with that.

She shrank back into deeper shadows before pulling out her phone. She dialed the Museum of Natural Science in Florida. She couldn't remember what time it was in the States.

“This is Rupert Biles,” said the weirdly accented voice of her contact at the Museum.

“This is Bones,” said Bendia. “I need a favor, Mr. Biles.”

“I'm listening,” said Biles.

“I need you to hire someone to pay my bill at two hotels here in Al-Khem,” said Bendia. “And pick up any bags left behind and ship them home.”

“Problems, Miss Bones?,” said Biles.

“I think Yuseff sold me the real deal,” said Bendia. “The problem is I think someone knows what he sold me and wants it.”

“I see,” said Biles. “How do you want to proceed?”

“I have to go south and look around Umir,” said Bendia. “I need someone to clean up behind me while try to figure out how to cross the desert.”

“What are the names of the hotels?,” asked Biles.

Bendia gave him the names, spelling them out for him.

“I'll make a call and see if I can get someone to shut down the hotels in the daytime your time,” said Biles.

“The key to the location according to the papers is in Umir,” said Bendia. “I'm going to try to figure a way to get there from here.”

“I can see what resources are in the area,” said Biles.

“I might need a fast pick up,” said Bendia. “I have to get moving, Mr. Biles. I'll try to call you when I know something better than what I have right now.”

“Good luck,” said Biles. He cut the call.

Bendia put her phone away as she thought about what she needed to do to get to where she wanted to go.

She could hire a car and pay the driver out of her dwindling reserves of cash. There was a bus heading south, but at some point, she would have to get off and walk the rest of the way. She could steal a car, or motorcycle, but there was no guarantee of replenishing the fuel once she was out in the desert.

A small airport took in small planes jumping from one part of the desert to the other. It was east of her if she was reading the city right. She might be able to catch a pilot who would take her to Umir, but she didn't have a lot of cash to pay for the rental.

On the other hand, what did the goons expect her to do? She doubted they foresaw her renting a puddle jumper and flying across the desert.

They probably expected her to join one of the caravans of camels and their tenders heading south for a bit before they circled around to the city again.

If worse came to worst, she knew how to pilot a plane, and could steal one if she had to do that. That would just bring more trouble from the government, but she didn't have to worry about that until she touched down in the deserted city.

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Then she would be easy to find and easy to bring to a local court of law for stealing an aircraft. She expected the penalty would be severe.

She decided to look around the airport until she made a decision on what she should do. Maybe she wouldn't have to steal one, if she could rent one for cheaper than she expected the price to be.

Bendia started down the alley. She kept an eye on the openings at either end as she headed for the airport. Something would break her way. It would take her days to cross the desert on foot. She would die from the heat before she got close to the ruins.

An airplane would expedite things in her opinion.

She made her way across the city. She avoided the lights of passing cars as much as possible. Women weren't allowed to roam at night without an escort.

She didn't want to make herself a target for the kind of men who liked running into women alone in the night. She had already caused enough damage to have the local police pick her up for questioning and put her on a plane out of the country if they didn't like her answers.

She nodded when she saw a tower with a red light near the top. It eclipsed the stars in the sky as it stood its solitary vigil. Squat buildings denoted hangars and the terminal where people waited for their puddle jumpers to take them to a bigger city to fly out of the desert.

She didn't see any lights to show they were taking any more flights at that time of night.

Bendia scanned the landscape for a patrol. She didn't see anything moving where she thought guards would be stationed to keep people like her out.

How much longer did she have before the goons tracked her down again?

They would know she wouldn't stop at any of the hotels after they found her at the second one. They would branch out their search. How long would it take before one of them thought of the airport?

If they knew she was trying to get to Umir, they didn't have to search for her at all. They could travel to where they expected her to show up and try to take her then.

Once she was in Umir, it would be a race to find the cave, search the maze, and get out with the artifact on whatever minimal supplies she would be able to carry with her.

If she was lucky, maybe she could take their supplies and leave them stranded somewhere out of the way while she went about her business.

She looked around again before she headed down to cross on the airport grounds. She used cover as much as possible to keep her silhouette from standing out to any guard who might be looking for her.

She wanted to look around to see if she could break into any of the hangars without being noticed, and if there was any plane she thought she could fly. She had no idea if there was a place to land close to Umir.

Dropping a plane belly down into the sand was not something she preferred to do if she could land on something solid.

And her limited experience said either type of landing would be because of a crash that she could have avoided if she knew what she was doing better.

Bendia snuck around the hangars. Most of them were locked down for the night. One was open, but the plane inside had left its engine somewhere else.

If she wanted to steal a plane, she would have to open a door to get inside, unlock and open the plane door, start the engine, roll it down the dirt runway into the air before any guard or awakened pilot decided to try to stop her.

Once she had done that, she would have to fly below the radar to Umir, and then land.

She saw so many flaws with that plan she leaned against a hangar and tried to think of something else she could do that seemed a little smarter.

The only other plan she could think of was to wait for daylight and ask for one of the pilots to take her to Umir.

She didn't like that plan because she didn't know how long she had before her trackers turned up, or if the pilot would take her to Umir in the first place.

If there wasn't a place to land, she might be dropped closer, but still miles away from her objective.

What was her second option in this situation?

Bendia saw a couple of jeeps parked next to one of the hangars. She walked over and looked inside. She didn't see keys in the open. She searched the vehicles and found a key each under the driver's seats.

She got behind one of the jeeps' wheel and put the key in the ignition. She turned the engine over. The dashboard said the jeep was full of gas. She could drive to Umir and back as long as she didn't run into any trouble.

She got out and checked the back of the vehicle. A gas can full of gas sat in a rack. Bottles of water sat in a plastic tray on the floorboard beyond the rack. She had enough gas and water to get to the search zone and look around for maybe a day.

She would have to figure out how to get gas and water and food at Umir. There used to be a little town nearby. Maybe she could get food there if it was still there.

The desert could swallow a town under the right conditions. No one would ever find it after such an event unless a searcher was incredibly lucky.

She got behind the wheel and drove away from the airport. She pulled up her bandanna to cover her face. Hopefully any policemen who saw her would mistake her for a man.

She pulled out her compass from her bag and set it on the passenger seat. She followed the arrow pointing south. All she had to do was get there before the sun came up, survey the ground, and then try to figure out where the cave was from her papers.

She doubted the ancient ruins had been destroyed by demons called up by a mystical key. That would be too strange by far. But if she could find proof that something was there, she could get a grant to look for more evidence.

Sometime along the way, she would have to hide the jeep so it didn't come back to her. Thievery by a woman was almost as bad as driving.

Bendia blinked her eyes against weariness as she drove along.