It was small, not more than a single square mile, with only a few thousand residents. The structures were a mix of 1950s modern and extremely ancient, dating back thousands of years. Many of the central structures were enormous sandstone monuments; some towering many stories and built from blocks larger than trucks, and all fitted together with barely a seam showing.

“What are we looking for?” Casey asked, putting her hands on Eli’s shoulders and pretending to massage the Mossad agent.

Eli grimaced but kept his eyes on the screen. “Something that doesn’t fit – Northern Arabic script, or something guarded with no clear reason, and of course, traces of high energy particle radiation.” He looked at a small readout on the side of his screen. “So far we have nothing above background normal, but as we have seen from Mosul, even moving the radioactive matter through the area leaves an atomic trace. Tweety can pick these up.”

“Clever bird,” Sam said.

“Israeli tech.” Adira smiled. “Tell Jack Hammerson I’m happy to trade him some.”

There were few people on the street, and Adira started to point out different buildings to the group. “The Mausoleum of Ferdowsi, and that’s the grave of Akhavan-Sales. All just relics now.” She nodded toward a long wall so old it was now crumbling back into the desert from which it had come. “The Darvaze Razan Gate.” She snorted. “It was an ancient barrier and a place of kings and magic. Many wanted to be buried here, simply because it was rumored to be one of the portals to the afterlife,” she went on. “That large structure there is the Harounieh Dome …”

“See that?” Alex pointed. “Wait, back Tweety up.”

“The dome?” Adira asked.

“Yeah, someone’s inside, pulled back into the shadows, but they’re there.” Alex frowned as he stared at the dome. It was a huge foreboding structure, but something seemed to call to him, draw him to it. He blinked and shook his head to clear it.

“Got something.” Adira pointed at the data rolling up the screen. “Tweety sniffed a trace.”

CHAPTER 13

Tweety landed on the bed and Adira lifted it and stroked it like a real bird. “So, we have a marginal high energy particle spike at the dome, but everything else is insignificant.” Adira shook her head. “Should be more, if what we seek is in there.”

“Might be. Hammerson says they’ve detected mole-holes out in the desert off Kashaf-Roud’s river valley. Just like at their Arak facility – hard to see, very well concealed, but they’re there. He thinks it might indicate something interesting below ground. Like a nuclear facility, or something they felt needed to be bomb-proof. They’ll do further deep penetration scans when the satellite is in a better proximity orbit.”