Hidden Sanctuary

"Son of a--" A sharp elbow in my side, courtesy of my right-hand man and lead technician, Pete Calandar, made me bite the whispered expletive in half. It was two in the morning, and we hid in the shadows of the large maintenance tent that rested at the edge of our small, ten-member camp. I shivered in the night air, wishing I'd taken the time to slip on a pair of shoes. It was winter in the desert, almost December, which meant that while the days were hot but bearable, the nights were as cold as Massachusetts in the middle of a snowstorm. I had bigger worries than frostbite. Beyond our hiding place and outlined by moonlight, some of the locals were sabotaging my oil rig and ruining my progress. Technically, the destruction in front of me should not be happening. My company was allowed to drill on Nubian land due to mutual agreement--but not everyone in the local village felt we had the right to be in their desert. Oddly enough, it was the younger people who were the least receptive to our presence. That, or they were the most bored and we were the easiest people to annoy. The distinctive sound of twisting metal clipped the air. Whatever their reason, I didn't care. A growl of frustration rose from my throat, and I raised my rifle. "What are you doing, Tru?" Pete whispered, his deep voice carrying no farther than my ear. "Stopping them." I took a moment to sight them through the night scope. The moon made the view as bright as midday. Not that the time of day mattered when it came to my aim. Pete said I couldn't hit water if I was standing in a lake. I looked anyway and confirmed my evaluation of the intruders. I was right. They were boys. Age eighteen, maybe less. Dressed in jeans and T-shirts. They looked harmless with their skinny legs and thin, adolescent shoulders. But I knew how much harm a wrench or length of pipe could do in the hands of a teenager. One of them kicked the oil rig's engine. Every muscle in my body contracted as anger roiled through me, making me shake. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I shifted my aim before I did something I'd regret, repositioning my sight from them to their Jeep. With luck, I could take out a tire. Then there'd be no way they could escape unless they tried to run on foot, and in the southern Egyptian desert, that was a death sentence, even for the locals. Grabbing the barrel, Pete pulled my rifle until the muzzle pointed at the glittering sand beyond us. "You can't shoot them." I yanked my weapon out of his grasp. "Not them. The Jeep. I was getting a closer look at them, that's all." "Oh." He had the presence of mind to look foolish as he ran a hand through his thinning red hair--a nervous gesture he'd had since before we met on the Bantha project five years ago in Russia. Twenty years my senior, Pete had seen it all. Done it all. That experience commanded loyalty. His crews worked like dogs for him. So, when I started Geo Investigations Incorporated three years ago, I knew Pete was the one person I had to have on my team. It hadn't been easy to convince him to join a start-up company, but a generous bonus tied to our first success had convinced him. Now, we were together out of mutual loyalty, and I enjoyed our quasi father-daughter relationship. Except at times such as this, when he acted like I was still a pampered heiress who didn't know her head from a hole in the ground, and who was not the boss of a successful oil exploration company. With a sigh of exasperation, I raised the rifle again and took a last, quick glance at the intruders. "Just kids," I muttered. Kids that were tearing my main engine apart. Shifting, I sighted the Jeep. "Be prepared to chase them," I whispered. "Chase them?" Pete's tone was incredulous. "You've got to be kidding. They may be skinny as rails, but they're wiry andMcClellan, Sharron is the author of 'Hidden Sanctuary', published 2006 under ISBN 9780373514281 and ISBN 037351428X.