The Seal of Solomon by Rick Yancey Page A

and my descent slowed—but didn’t seem slow enough. At least I was falling feetfirst. I could see one or two other OIPEP troopers silhouetted against the sky, dangling from their chutes like the toys I used to buy—the green army men with the plastic parachutes that you threw underhanded into the air. Half the time the kite string didn’t unravel correctly and the army man crashed to earth or got hung up in a tree branch.
    I looked down between my feet and saw the desert rushing up. Bend your knees, Kropp, keep ’em loose, I told myself, but I smacked into the ground with my legs as stiff as one of those army men’s. My right ankle twisted in the sand. I pitched forward and the chute settled gently over my writhing body, the silky material wrapping tighter and tighter around me as I rolled in the sand.
    Somebody pulled the chute off me and rolled me over. I looked up into Ashley’s face—her red lipstick looked purple in the starlight—and said, “I think I broke my right ankle.”
    â€œLet’s see,” she said softly. She ran her fingers along the bones and then took my foot in both hands and gently turned it.
    â€œOuch!”
    â€œI think it’s a sprain. Let’s see if you can put any weight on it.”
    She unhooked me from the harness and pulled me to my feet.
    â€œPut your foot on the ground, Alfred,” she said.
    â€œOuch!”
    About a hundred feet away the agents were busy with the crates—or what was left of them. They had broken apart on impact; slats lay scattered in every direction.
    Op Nine came up, frowning.
    â€œKropp is hurt?” he asked.
    â€œNot badly,” Ashley said. “A sprain, I think.”
    Op Nine said to Ashley, “Kropp rides with you.”
    He trudged toward the other agents gathered around the remnants of the crates. We trailed behind, my arm draped over Ashley’s neck, my foot dragging in the sand. In every direction dunes marched like oceanic waves, disappearing into the horizon. I had thought the stars very bright on the shores of the Red Sea, but here in the desert they seared the blackness around them.
    â€œWhere exactly are we, anyway?” I asked Ashley.
    â€œThe Sahara.”
    The agents had pulled twelve snowmobiles from the shattered crates and were going down some kind of checklist, getting them ready, I guess, only there wasn’t much chance of a snowstorm in the desert. One agent was handing out the CW3XDs and clip belts that they threw over their shoulders, reminding me of Mexican bandits. Abby Smith stood by herself a few feet away, holding some electronic gadget with a bluish LCD glimmering on her frowning face.
    â€œWhat’s the deal with the snowmobiles?” I asked.
    â€œThey aren’t snowmobiles,” Ashley replied. “Well, they used to be. They’ve been modified. We call them sand-foils.”
    Instead of the ski pads, these had thin metal blades, the sharp edge facing down. Someone handed Ashley a helmet and she passed it to me.
    â€œPut this on, Alfred. A sand-foil’s top speed is a hundred and fifty miles per hour. Do you know what a single grain of sand can do if it hits you at that speed?”
    â€œNo, but I got hit with a baseball once that must have been going forty miles per hour; it hurt like heck.”
    I shoved the helmet down over my head. I could have guessed it would be too small, and it was. One of my ears was folded down.
    Abby snapped her device closed and trudged over to us.
    â€œWe’re approximately a hundred clicks due east of the target,” she said crisply. Her voice sounded very far away inside my helmet. “Remember, no wake-riding and no unauthorized firing of the 3XDs. Op Nine and I are on the point. Any questions?”
    Nobody had any questions or, if they did, they weren’t going to waste time asking them. All the agents except Ashley flipped the big CW3XDs onto their backs. Ashley had to ride with