When a then eighteen year old Samantha Blake told her parents that she was planning to go into the military, she'd actually thought it was a good idea. She had a background that involved a lot of physical training and handling guns of all shapes and sizes, she was stubborn enough to survive basic training, and she had a pretty calm nature that would help her in times of crises.

Her mother had rolled with the news and gave a bright, beaming smile that always made Sammi feel loved. Eva Blake was kind and optimistic above all else, which made her a fantastic preschool teacher. Jared, on the other hand, was a completely different story. He had disapproved of Samantha's decision only because he didn't like to think of his only child in mortal danger. He came around, of course, and by the time Samantha was twenty, he even owned a camouflage shirt with My daughter can kick your honor student's ass printed in yellow on it. He was very proud.

At the beginning, even with the intensive training and yelling of the higher-ups, Samantha was determined to prove herself as a decent enough soldier. The only real problem she seemed to have was her ability to sniff out trouble like a bloodhound sniffed out a deer carcass. Promotions and demotions seemed to go hand-in-hand for her, not that she really cared about what rank she was.

And now, a year shy of forty, she was seriously starting to wonder if she had made the right choice twenty-one years ago. If she had just kept her head down, she'd probably be in Dallas working at Blake's Antiquities, far from Iraq and the insurgents currently firing round after round into some old statues.

"I could've had a dog," she mutters.

"What," Chris asks, looking over at her. All but his eyes were covered by a heavy scarf to protect his face from the sand and heat, but she could see his curiosity just the same.

"I'm just thinking out loud again." She waves it off and focuses back on the group of men gathered below, none of them aware of the three people on the ridge. "Is that guy seriously standing half a foot from the crossfire and beating at the statues with a sledgehammer?"

"Looks like it. You know, we used to have smart guys that we stole stuff from, but now it's just…" He gestures at the group of men, giving a disappointed sigh. "They're like Disney villains or something." Kneeling between the pair, Nick doesn't say anything as he continues to watch the on-going stupidity. "Do you seriously want a dog?"

"What?"

"Earlier, you said something about getting a dog. Do you want one?"

"Not particularly. I was just musing on what might've been different if I'd stayed home all those years ago." Back in the clinging humidity of a Texas summer, cousins always nearby due to how close their families were, grandparents bickering about their glory days. It was appealing, but it would've been boring as all hell. "I think I'd rather be here."

"Seriously? Were you dropped on your head as child or something?"

"Yeah, but my uncle said it was an accident," she teases with a smile he couldn't see. Like the other two, she had a headscarf wrapped around her to serve as protection from the heat as well as to hide the tangled mess of her black hair. She'd learned that she got more respect from locals when they thought she was a teenaged boy than when they learned she was actually a woman. Not that she was complaining, she got to wear pants this way, though Greenway was always berating her for not being in uniform. "Maybe one day we'll have long enough off to go and visit the Blake clan. You and my great-uncle could compare yellow streaks."

"I'm not a coward, I just have a little instinct called self-preservation. Unlike you two, I'd like to be old and gray before I kick the bucket." She grins and sends a wink his way, Chris shaking his head. "Think about it, though, we could be that clichéd old couple that sits in rocking chairs on the front porch and drinks iced tea."

"Watching the grandkids play in the yard with the dog?"

"And we'd have a croquet set near the pink flamingo thingies."

"That sounds perfect right about now."

"Do you two mind," Nick asks, talking for the first time since he crouched in the sand ten minutes ago. "One of us is trying to work."

"More like you're trying to get us court marshalled again. I gotta tell ya, Nick, that last time was no fun."

"Don't get dramatic on me, Sammi. I got us out of that easy. If it wasn't for me, you two wouldn't be planning your retirement right now."

"If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have gotten court marshalled in the first place," Chris returns dryly. Nick stands up, still staring through the crusty lenses of the binoculars he refused to share. "Back to the matter at hand, it looks like we're shit outta luck this time around."

"Nah, we can do this." Chris and Samantha share a look for a moment, realizing Nick's plan a second later and following after him to the horses. The terrain under their feet was rocky but became sand closer to the bottom of the slope, making running a difficult task.

"Hell no! Command thinks we're doing advanced recon a hundred miles from here and I know Greenway would mount our heads on his wall if we die doing something so stupid as rushing head-first at a bunch of armed insurgents."

"Chris is right," Samantha adds, angrily shedding the robes that were trying to tangle around her ankles," this is beyond idiotic!" Nick sends her a quick glance over his shoulder, only half paying attention to the stolen papers he was stuffing in his saddlebag. "Don't give me that look, I don't like that look, Nick. That look usually means some kind of cut scene and then nearly getting my goddamn head blown off."

"I don't know about you, but I kind of like her head where it is. I've had some good conversations with her head still on her shoulders." Nick doesn't slow down, continuing the prep that had become more than familiar over the past fifteen years. With a sigh, Samantha joins in and moves to check her kit—medical supplies, army-issued knife, pistol. "Oh, not you, too."

"Can't let him go down there by himself."

"Then we're at least calling in an air strike."

"An air strike," Nick repeats incredulously. "That's a horrible idea, Vail."

"Just a tiny one, okay? Just a small boom that'll have the insurgents running away!"

"And command will know where we are."

"And we'll do twenty years in Leavenworth for looting." Chris seemed resigned now, scarf dangling loosely around his neck from the headpiece of it. Samantha yanks her own scarf off and drops it to the ground, wisps of her hair falling out of the braided bun she'd put it up in that morning.

"We're not looters, we're liberators of precious antiquities." Chris and Samantha finished the last part of the sentence with him, the mantra intimately familiar. It was supposed to make them feel less shitty about stealing antiques and selling them to the highest bidder, but mostly it just felt as old and tired as Samantha did sometimes.

"That's great and everything, but we still have no clue what's down there. For all I know, we could be risking our necks for a medieval toaster oven."

"Medieval toaster ovens are rocks, babe," Samantha comments, looking up from securing the strap of her bag. "We got those all over the place."

"You know what I mean. Stop being such a smartass when I'm trying to drill some common sense into our fearless leader."

"Let me know how that goes for ya." Nick brings a piece of printer paper out of his bag again, tapping it almost angrily. "Sarge, chill out with all the pointing."

"What's that say, Sammi," Nick asks, thrusting the paper out for her to see. Haram was written in bold strokes in the center of the paper, probably with some kind of fountain pen that had been modified to hold ink better since there were no splotches. Below the word was coordinates, the same ones that she knew would match up with the village below them.

"Do you really want me to answer or would you prefer to wow us with your theatrics?"

"It says Haram, and we all know that means treasure."

"It doesn't actually."

"It means forbidden knowledge," Chris snaps, looking dangerously close to stamping his foot. "You'd know that if you'd paid any attention to our translator! Around here, forbidden knowledge can usually be translated into ancient mummies will kill you slowly! I don't know about you all, but I wouldn't put it past ancient Mesopotamians to curse an entire village!"

"Or there could be a room filled with treasure down there somewhere that this Henry guy wants as badly as you two want plastic flamingos in your front yard."

"I don't actually want flamingos," Samantha interjects, raising her hand. "I'm more of a lawn gnome kind of gal." Nick and Chris send her unimpressed looks and she waves the rambling off again. "You're right, we can talk about lawn decorations later."

"My point is if we get the treasure, then we can probably get the dude that wrote this letter to pay double." He swings gracefully into his saddle and Samantha would stake her thumbs on the fact that he was part elf or something. "Mount up." Knowing she'd get yelled at for at least four hours if she allowed a superior officer to run into danger alone—she already had the Colonel's command tent memorized from past incidents—she follows suit and takes up the reins in one hand.

"Nah, it's not happening," Chris argues. "We're stayin' here this time."

"She's already on her horse, Vail."

"Good, then she and I can head back the way we came towards civilization and gun-toting maniacs we can trust."

"Vail, don't make me do this." Nick brings out his knife, the metal edge winking in the sunlight. Samantha liked when metal did that, the flash of light reminding her of a camera flair and summer afternoons with her family.

"You gonna stab me? I'd like to see you try because we all know I'm faster than you." He wasn't, but Samantha didn't burst his bubble. "Come on, man, do it." He holds out his arms, baring his chest beneath the olive-green tee. But Nick had another idea in mind, the sharp blade of his knife cutting through the leather canteen that held their only scrap of water. "What the fuck? It's gonna take us a whole day to get more water now!"

"There's a well in that village with clean water. Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I must have left it in my other pants!" He really did stamp his foot this time, throwing his scarf to the ground in his temper tantrum. "You're such a dick!"

"Would you relax? We'll just slip in and slip out before they even realize someone's there." Samantha bites her lip, urging her horse up next to his so that she could look down the slope again. The village was empty apart from the troublemakers, the gunfire echoing like fireworks. Maybe it's possible. Except her gut was saying the opposite, intuition telling her that it would be safer to wait it out until the men below them grew bored and moved on. Too bad Nick's intuition had shriveled up and died in infancy.

Twenty minutes, two empty magazines, and a fracture later, Samantha realized this was definitely not a slip-in-slip-out type of job. She also decided the best way to kill Nick would be with some clothespins and a whole lot of lemon juice.

"We make it out of this alive, Morton, and I'll kill you with my bare hands," she screams as they continue in a dead sprint through the village.

"Love you too, Sammi!" Another sharp turn and a hail of gunfire had them dropping to the ground and sliding over the rough floor, her fractured ankle throbbing when it hits a wall. She bites back a scream of pain, forcing herself back to her feet to stumble after the other two. Neither of them seemed able to stay up, all three of them tripping over each other in a mad dash to get away from the gunmen coming up behind them. Another sharp turn and then the three of them were tumbling inside an abandoned shop, Nick kicking the door shut behind them.

"Slip in, slip out," Chris screams shrilly, shooting at some of the men coming up behind them. "This isn't that, Nick! This isn't what we always do!"

"Get to the stairs!" Samantha grabs the back of Chris' shirt and hauls him up before taking off again up some stairs that led out onto a veranda on the second floor. Out of ammo and running low on patience, Samantha throws her useless pistol at one of the men, managing to bring him to his knees as she started up a second set of stairs. Chris was waiting for her on the roof, jutting his hip out for her to take the spare pistol he'd brought along. "Grenade!"

"Goddammit," Samantha shrieks as she's launched onto the next roof by the force of the blast. She rolls onto her back with a grunt of pain, quickly snuffing out the small flames trying to eat through her Pink Floyd top.

"I hate you," Chris roars, kicking his legs against the roof. "I didn't even wanna come to this country!" The three of them huddle up against the side of the roof where they had some decent cover, Samantha's hands shaking as she attempts to turn off the safety.

"Just let me think for a second," Nick yells back, panicked. With a growl of frustration, she attempts to fight off the effects of her adrenaline, forcing her hands to steady so she could flick the safety off and chamber a round.

"If anyone is listening, this is L-26, urgent, hot!" She looks over her shoulder, finding Chris yelling into the walkie. She doesn't focus on that for long, turning to face a crumbling wall that would probably reach her thighs had she been standing, using it as cover as she begins firing round after round at the men on the ground. Even in her panicked state, she's able to hit a few of them as she relies on the years of training she's had.

"Did you just call in an air strike?!"

"Yes, 'cause I'm gonna take these bastards down with me if I have to die here!" Samantha drags the men to the ground with her seconds before a rifle shot clipped the top of the wall, knocking more rubble down on them. "Son of a bitch! This is not how I wanted to spend my Saturday afternoon!"

"Come on," Samantha growls, yanking him after her. They keep low as they run, dropping down onto a lower roof and then up onto another one after that as the bullets zipped past them through the air.

"Where do they keep comin' from?" They attempt a third jump only to be driven back by more men. Are they popping out of the fucking desert or what, she thinks irritably as she dives down once more. On top of her swelling ankle, she's got minor burns along her shoulders and now she's pretty fucking sure her ribs are bruised. "We're gonna die!"

"Shut up and let me think," Nick yells again, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"We're gonna die and it's gonna be all your fault!"

"Let me think!"

"Are you sure your capable of that," Samantha retorts, punching his arm as hard as she could. "Because it seems like the only part of you that does any thinking is your dick! I'm never gonna own a gnome now and it's all your fault!" Each word was punctuated by another hard punch to his arm until he squirmed out of her way.

"I'm thinking!"

"What are you thinking," Chris demands, the vein in his forehead bulging out. "Huh, genius?"

"I'm thinking… We're probably gonna die here." The muscle in Chris' jaw was twitching as he pounded his fist against the roof with a growl. There was a high whistle and a massive explosion when Chris' fist made contact a second time, then men were shouting and getting the hell out of dodge.

After sharing a shocked look, they crawl over to the edge of the roof and peer down at the crater left behind, the sand scorched black from the flames. "You see? My air strike came in handy! What did you do that was actually useful today?!" Samantha lets her head fall down onto her arms, heaving out a sigh of relief at the fact that she still had a pulse.

"Oh, thank fuck," she breathes. They were given second of peace to gather their wits, Chris and Samantha latching onto each other in a tight hug. The moment didn't last long, however, the building giving a rough jolt that had them straightening up again to look at the stone beneath their knees. "That's not good, that's not good!" The front of the building caves in underneath them, sending them tumbling down with the other rubble.

The sand seemed to suck her in, drawing her further and further from the remains of the shop until she was in freefall, flailing arms catching on rough stone and instinct having her cling to it for all she was worth. She lets out a pained groan, blinking the sand out of her eyes so she can see what exactly she was holding onto.

"What in the hell?" Looking up, she could see part of an eye, the bridge of the nose she was clinging to, and a high sloping forehead carved from dark stone that had degraded over time. Beneath her was an opened mouth and a yawning hole that went too far down into the earth for her to make out. "Guys, get me out of here!"

"Babe, look at me," Chris says. Samantha tilts her head back in order to make him out, the dusty cellphone in his head making a faint clicking sound as he snapped a picture.

"Why?" It was a simple question and she didn't feel like she could manage anything more sophisticated than that at the moment. The muscles in her shoulders were screaming at her to just let go and let gravity do its job, but she adjusts her grip and holds on tighter to the rock.

"You look like a booger."