"Have you cross-referenced their location?" Zaman asked Baseplate.
"Affirmative, we have a vehicle spotted out in the desert over satellites, over."
Zaman smiled at the answer, Lachina's head was still on Zaman's shoulder, smiling affectionately. "You hear that, Farid? We're about to get back on track with Drake, Al-Bashir, and the Lowells."
Zaman nodded to her. "We sure are. Once we get ahold of the virus, then we will be victorious." Several seconds later, Zaman's technological wrist mounted data pad and live footage of a vehicle from an overhead shot driving through the desert is displayed. Cassie and her friends.
The thought of taking down Cassie and her friends brought a smile of sadism to Zaman's face. It was nothing personal he had against the young adventurers. This was all business for the greater good. In the eyes of Zaman, taking over the world with the only group Overlord as the single and primary government was the most moral thing possible. Modern day governments could not make a difference anywhere. It's been two hundred and sixty years since the United States was founded and still they could not solve problems in their own land, so they went to go solve problems somewhere else. Things had gone from bad to worse since then. If Overlord was able to take over the world with them being the only available government, then they would greatly deduct the war, poverty, disease, famine, economic collapse on a great scale. In order for them to do that, they needed the virus that laid dormant inside Antony and Cleopatra's tomb.
If Cassie and Derek hadn't been involved in this adventure, then they would've been spared from Overlord in the future once they conquered the world. It was nothing personal, only business, but now that they are in the way, they are their business.
"Everybody, get in your vehicles, we are rolling out." Zaman counted fifty soldiers total including himself and decided that it would be enough. "I'll send everyone a tracking image on their wrist datapad. Get in your vehicles and make sure that your guns are loaded."
"Hell yeah," Khaled exclaimed.
"Time to bring the pain in the game," shouted Harkov at the top of his lungs.
Lachina removed her head from Zaman's shoulder and started climbing in the big truck and into the passenger seat. Zaman took the role as driver. The jeep beside them was manned by Harkov and Hamed.
"Baseplate, this 584901, thanks a lot for the assist. 584901 out." He steps on the gas, starts the engine, and drives off, the seven vehicles behind him following very closely. He risks glances at the beautiful Lachina as he drives. He smiled when she noticed him and she put a hand on his kneecap, in a nonchalant way rather than an affectionate way.
"What are you thinking?" Lachina asked nonchalantly.
"Nothing, just how pretty you are. That and having you as my secretary as soon as we conquer the world with me as president of the Middle East while our Leader is...Leader."
Back with Cassie and her group.
"How long till we get there?" Niko asked impolitely to Ahmed. "We've been driving for a long time in this hot desert with a limited amount of water and apples that are getting an all-over tan."
Cassie rubbed her head, wiping the dry sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "Be very patient, Niko." Her voice calms as if she was incapable of being annoyed. "Adventure takes patience and Ahmed here said that we would be there in no time. Have patience."
Niko moaned and groaned in a frustrated manner like a spoiled kid. "I have no patience."
Omaria gave a laugh that sounded like huffing and puffing. "You guys would never last out here in the desert." She leaned back in her seat, her face turned towards the sun but her eyes closed. "I grew up in the desert, without water and only a limited amount of roof over my head. I still made it as an Egyptologist and you don't hear me complaining. You guys are sissies."
Cassie glared at Omaria with a serious look. "We are sissies? You're the one who has a spare water bottle inside their breast pocket putting on your forehead when none of us are looking."
"Can we please stop with this godawful arguing?" Derek shouted, his knuckles turning bone white from clutching the wheel tightly. "Ahmed here is trying to think and you guys keep complaining and shooting him down like a bird. "Just shut your pieholes and let me drive here until we get to the Tomb." His jaw was hurting from clutching it. "And because of this nasty heatwave, as soon as we get back after being forced to drive in the desert for a couple hours, someone is buying me a strawberry shortcake."
"D-Man has a point." Cassie's nod to his comment was slow but sure. "As soon as we get back, we buy a strawberry shortcake, and smashed it on top of Derek's forehead and eat it off his hair with no spoon." To distract herself, she gently removed her journal from her back pocket with a pencil. She flipped to an empty page and started drawing while in a moving vehicle. She drew sketches of beautiful Derek from her angle as he drove. She drew an ugly, monstrous sketch of Omaria, but a beautiful, angelic sketch of Niko.
As for Ahmed, she drew him as a demonic being. She flipped to the next empty page and started drawing pictures of the most notable Overlord members liked Zaman, Hamed, Harkov, Lachina, and Khaled. Wrote notes down next to each one, saying how Zaman is arrogant, Hamed is a mad scientist, Harkov a sociopath, Lachina a slut in tights, and Khaled a quiet coward.
When she ran out of ideas to draw, she wrote down theories on what could be in the lost Tomb of Antony and Cleopatra. Gold, jewels, diamonds, water, fish. One idea that caused her to silently smile with wide eyes was…
Mummies.
About ten minutes later, the bumpy hills had become steeper. Cassie's eyes opened and she looked forward. Derek was driving down a hill and a huge sandstorm was about to engulf. Cassie lunged towards Derek, putting a hand on his shoulder, and saying, "What the hell are you doing? You're going to drive us in the storm."
Derek didn't look at Cassie, instead of looking at Ahmed for guidance. "I'm just following what Mr. Magoo over there is telling me where to drive." Ahmed inhaled a deep breath, reaching blindly for a red apple and taking a bite into it.
"Trust, you Americans. Trust me." Ahmed's slow and steady voice made Cassie less apprehensive.
She looked down at the clutch and licked her lips. "That's the sandstorm that I was talking about earlier."
"Ah, so you knew there was a sandstorm a present? If you were expecting, then why did you start panicking?"
"I wasn't panicking, I was...making sure that Derek was paying attention to driving and not about to run us off a cliff."
Derek groaned and corrected her, saying that she almost drove them off a cliff. "And I'm the one who fell out of the jeep."
"You won't just let it go?" Ahmed has had enough. "Hey, you guys wanted me to take you to these coordinates and this is what I am doing. These coordinates lead into the sandstorm so all of you better stop whining over who is a terrible driver and who is drawing creepy sketches of her friends."
Cassie's eyes widened, her face burning from blushing. "How the hell did you know I was drawing sketches of you guys?" She decided to ignore them and put on her goggles that Omaria bought for them. "Omaria, Niko, Derek, Ahmed, put on your goggles."
Everyone reached into their individual bags and took out a pair of goggles. They took in deep breaths as the jeep got closer and closer to the sandstorm. Looking at the towering sandstorm, Cassie had a sudden flashback. It was back when she was nineteen years old, looking for her Uncle Sam in Iceland while being chased by five Neo-Nazis. She was looking for the lost city of Ultima Thule and the Neo-Nazis kidnapped Derek and Uncle Sam and tried to coerce Cassie into looking for the substance known as Vril to sell to the highest bidder. Two of the Neo-Nazis named Franz and Zelig had Cassie and Derek in a truck with several Icelandic bandits, but Cassie and Derek managed to escape while Franz and Zelig were crushed to death in an avalanche.
Cassie blocked out that memory to focus completely on the sandstorm happening in front of her right now. She puts her scarf up to her mouth, takes in a deep breath, and they drive into the sandstorm.
The sandstorm hit them like a heavy hurricane. Cassie breathed through her desert scarf and peeked through the lenses in her goggles. She looked from her left and right, totally swarmed in a storm of flying sand.
"What's the plan now?" Derek asked Ahmed through his scar. "We are literally flying blind."
Ahmed retained his cool composure. "The coordinates are straight ahead, so there is nothing to fear."
Derek drove the jeep ahead a few more meters before finally pulling up and giving themselves a chance to look around their environment and scan.
Cassie jumped out the jeep and hard on the sandy ground. She paced around like a little girl, shrugging like how the Joker did in The Dark Knight. "Okay, so we are in the sandstorm, so I guess we start looking for the Tomb."
"That would be the plan." Derek retorted sarcastically. "Let's get to it. Ahmed, come on." Derek hopped out of the vehicle and started following Cassie. Niko and Omaria escorted Ahmed with his crate of apples in Cassie and Derek's direction. Before she left, Cassie had taken her Beretta 92FS with her just in case those Overlord soldiers were on their tail.
Cassie kept her eyes open through her goggles and constantly checked all around her. This sandstorm would be the perfect place to sneak up on someone. She ejected her magazine to make sure all bullets were loaded before she slapped the magazine back into place.
Cassie's foot landed in a ditch. She was caught off guard and pulled her leg out, but not before losing her balance. She tumbles forward and hits her head. "Ow," she moans. Her forehead felt like it had been hit with a hammer, she could already feel a bump on her forehead. She squeezes her eyes tight and winces in pain. "What the hell did I hit my head against?" She looks in front of her to discover a wall. The pain instantly disappears and her eyes direct upwards. A tall building structure with hieroglyphs dominated her in height.
"Wow, holy hell," she curses under her breath in amazement. "Derek? Pinch me; make sure that this is not a mirage." She figured that she was hallucinating because the pain in her forehead was gone, until Derek flicked her on the forehead, bringing the pain back. "Ow."
"It's not a mirage, Cassie," Niko explains to her. "This thing is real and without a doubt, is the thing that we are looking for. Omaria nods and explains how she is seeing the exact same thing. Ahmed was explaining the same thing but in his own native language.
Cassie and the group backed up several feet to get a much better view of the building structure in front of them. The Tomb had a sphinx figure on top with numerous statues carved beside it representing Egyptian mythological figures like Horus, Tefnut, Sobek, Ra. The doorway was made of pure gold that had been rusted due to prolonged exposure in the sandstorm, but the hieroglyphs on the door remained the same. Cassie holstered her weapon and took several steps forward towards the hieroglyphs on the door. "Well, this is certainly radiant. The hieroglyphs on here are primordial, door crafted in deliquesced gold. Structure of the door seems almost clasped to the point of impregnable. I gotta hand it to the workers for their proletarian."
"Man, you are using such big words, it's almost like you are trying to sound smart."
Cassie grinned and looked at Derek after he spoke his comment. "Derek, if you were so smart, then you should know what these big words mean. Especially primordial because that is what you are, buddy."