Page 29 of Indirect Attack
Slowly, I dragged my gaze from the door to my colleague, trying to work through his words.
“Beliefs?” I echoed. The same beliefs that had thrown the country into war in the first place?
But Jason just shrugged. “Speculation. Better to explore first. Don’t want to put anything out there until we know for sure.”
I swallowed, the enormity of this find, the good and bad, suddenly quite apparent.
A third team member had come up to join us in staring at the door. “What happened to the kingdom in those stories?”
“Conquerors conquered them, destroyed them and their kingdom, and I guess time took care of the rest and buried the evidence.” A sweep of his hat indicated the door and the passageway beyond.
“I think we should probably take a break, then assess the area and our next steps.”
Both Jason and our colleague looked at me, identical expressions of surprise on their faces. I wasn’t the lead here by any stretch of the imagination. I wasn’t even sure why I’d said it, except that I was so excited to get started I was bouncing on my toes even though I knew we had to take this slowly and carefully.
But I refused to flush or take the words back. And I was gratified when Jason and our colleague nodded at the wisdom of my idea.
“Sounds good.” Jason replaced his hat on his head. “I could use some lunch anyway.”
“Anyone know what they brought in for us to eat today?”
Our colleague’s voice drifted back to me as he and Jason started in the direction of the front of the camp. Others, having heard our conversation, followed.
I stayed for a moment longer, taking in the pictures on the door carved so long ago. I wondered what they meant or who they represented. Were they telling a story? Protecting whatever was inside? If it was true, and this ancient kingdom could change accepted history, we might need some of that protection ourselves.
Too absorbed in the work, I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. But as I followed Jason’s and my other colleagues’ path, my stomach began to growl. A check of my watch told me it was late for lunch and edging on dinner.
But I stumbled over my feet as a loud sound suddenly echoed piercingly across the dig site, nearly scaring a scream out of me. It took me a heartbeat to realize it was a siren and another few to understand what it meant—it was the warning the local military had set up to warn of attack.
When we’d arrived and done our safety orientation, we’d briefly heard the siren, so we knew what it sounded like. But we’d been told it was more of a formality, and there was little chance we’d hear it again.
I saw heads turning, people looking up and then around, trying to figure out what was going on and whether this was a real threat. My steps quickened until I reached a group of colleagues talking in hushed, anxious tones.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Not sure,” one of them answered.
The noise was strident, the piercing sound edging on my nerves and ratcheting my anxiety. This was, of course, the goal of a warning siren, and it was doing its job admirably. I could see my colleagues growing anxious, shifting from foot to foot, their gazes darting around the site, the beginnings of fear in their eyes.
We all looked up at running feet, and Greg came pelting over a slight rise of dirt. His eyes were enormous, his face ghostly white.
“It’s the assault signal!” he shouted in a hoarse gasp, waving his arms. “We have to get to the shelter immediately.”
I was frozen still for a moment as cold terror shot through me, outside noise becoming the rushing of blood in my ears.
Someone was attacking? Ben had talked of a threat yesterday, the reason he’d come to speak with the excavation director. Had he ever spoken to her? I’d thought, since Ben didn’t seem to be worried, I didn’t have to be, either.
I looked around wildly, trying to discern whether Ben was among the military men who were suddenly all motion and shouts, their massive rifles no longer slung over their shoulders but clutched in their hands. They were Marines—I recognized the uniforms—so they had taken over for the local force, as Ben had said. I’d entirely forgotten the changeover in my absorption with the dig, but where was Ben? I couldn’t see him among the soldiers.
“We have to get to the shelter right now, Jasmine!”
My other colleagues were already running to the building indicated for such use during our orientation. Greg was pulling at my arm, and I jerked around toward him. I opened my mouth to tell him I was going to find Ben when sharp, echoing sounds startled the words from me.
I’d heard those sounds echoing across the field when the Rusev boys had been dragged out for target practice by their father—gunshots.
The dig site exploded into a chaos of shouts, the terrifyingly loud pops of return fire, and people running everywhere. A truck blasted over the hill before the gates, carrying masked men with machine guns. They were firing randomly, and two of the soldiers at the gate went down as I watched.
I took off, my only thought to get to safety.
