Bendia Bones pulled into a dry stream bed when the sun started coming up. She shut the jeep down and tried to relax in its shade. She needed to take a nap before she tried to go any further. She didn't want to crash the jeep before she reached Umir.

The fear that an aerial search would discover her was mitigated by the fact no one knew which direction she had driven during the night. The people from the airport might get lucky and find her, but there was nothing she could do to mitigate that risk.

As soon as she had taken her nap, and taken care of any personal needs, she would drive into Umir and stash the jeep. Then she would look around the town on foot for a clue to where the map should take her.

She assumed there would indicators to the secret underground that the map stated would be there. The fact that she might drawing attention from both sides of the law didn't sit well but that was beyond her control.

Bendia slept in fits and starts. Every few minutes she would wake up enough to look around, and then dose off again. After three hours of that, she decided she was recharged enough to get back on the road.

She used some of her water to wash her face before taking a drink. She checked her compass and the map of the region. She should be in Umir in a few hours.

She packed up and got behind the wheel. She pulled out of the dry water bed and on the road. She drove south.

She reached the old town of Umir as the sun was heading down. She paused just as the buildings broke out from the horizon. She needed to hide the jeep to avoid official attention. She could walk the rest of the way into town without a problem. Once she was done, she could take the jeep back where it belonged and head out of the country.

If someone else found the jeep, they would take it where they wanted which would confuse things for her, or turn it in which would point to the thief being close by. Either result wouldn't make things that much more difficult for her as far as she could tell.

Once she had found the underground, she wouldn't be that easy to track down unless they flooded the tunnels with men. She didn't see any way to avoid any trouble for long if she stayed where she was. She had to keep moving.

She drove off the road and found a place to park next to a set of bushes. She got out and found some dead limbs to push up next to the wheels. She didn't see anything she could use to help camouflage the jeep.

She grabbed her bag and water from the jeep and started walking. She kept an eye on the nearing buildings as she went. She would need to take a break when she reached the town.

The sun faded away as she walked into the narrow streets of modern Umir.

Bendia wondered how long she had before someone tried to confront her over her research. She needed cover now that she was in Umir. She also needed to get off the street before she had problems with any local curfew.

She should have brought her assistant. A woman traveling alone in this part of the world was another problem on top of the ones she had figuring how to place the drawings and maps to the real world around her.

Having Kevin along would prevent some of the more mundane problems in her way. On the other hand, she would have had to protect him when they had trouble with whomever else was interested in Umir.

She walked the streets, keeping to the shadows when possible. She made constant mental notes about the buildings, and their apparent age, as she went. Any entrance to the underground section would probably be in the oldest part of the city.

She still had to find a place to hide out before things started catching up with her. Umir wasn't a tourist area. The locals would point her out unless she changed her appearance to blend in.

She put that on the list of things she had to handle before they turned into problems to be surmounted.

She found the wall cutting off most of the city from a small necropolis. She made her way down to the gate. If things went against her, she could hide out in there. She would have to avoid guards looking for grave robbers, but it was possible.

She saw a few places that looked like good hiding places as long as she didn't turn on a light to let others know she was there.

She passed on to look for other places to hide. The worse thing about hiding in a mausoleum other than the guards was the chance of being sealed in by accident.

She worked her way down the street. She checked her watch. She still needed a base of operations. She didn't want to walk back to the stolen jeep and use that for her campsite. When it was found, she couldn't be near it if she wanted to avoid trouble.

She found a cafe that was still open. She could have some coffee and think about what she wanted to do. She pulled her scarf over her head before she entered. She stepped inside and took a seat at a table where she could watch the two doors she could see. Someone was already looking for her. She didn't want them coming on her where she couldn't see them before they saw her.

A waiter arrived and demanded what she wanted. She ordered a cup of coffee. Her stomach growled. She asked for a kebab if he didn't mind.

He asked for the money first. She gave him half, with a warning that he wouldn't get the rest if he didn't hurry with the food. He went away in a huff. He returned just as fast with a cup and a pot. He poured coffee from the pot into the cup and went away.

Bendia sipped the coffee. It was bitter enough to hide any type of poison that might have been slipped inside. She decided not to worry about that. She had too many other problems to deal with at the moment than worry about being kidnapped from a cafe while having dinner.

It wouldn't be the first time she had got into trouble while trying to eat.

She smiled when the waiter brought her kebab on a metal plate in a platter. He put the platter down on the table. She gave him the other half of what she owed.

Bendia ate slowly. She had nowhere to be, and plenty of time to get there. Once she was done eating, she might tour the city one more time to look for a place to stay. Otherwise, she might use a roof to sleep until the sun came up.

She thought about whomever else could be looking for the secrets of Umir. She had run into several collectors over the years. Some seemed to be working for organizations. Some seemed to be working on their own as freelancers. She couldn't afford to run into any of them while she was still trying to figure out how to open a way into the underground and find the secret down there.

But it was better to know who else was on the field before she secured the artifact and had to run for her life. Private collectors wouldn't hesitate to kill her for a piece of history.

She finished her meal as the staff eyed her. She smiled as she stood and headed for the door. She had overstayed her welcome from the looks of things.

She stepped outside and made her way down the street. She stayed close to the walls, eyeing the narrow alleys around her. Umir didn't have a hotel as far as she knew. She should have planned this trip better.

She mentally shrugged. The original goal was to talk with Yuseff and secure the papers and maps. She had done that. The thieves appearing had caused her to rush into a search for the lost city.

If she had known she would have to search Umir, she would have brought more gear and her assistant, Davis. He would have been able to work with the natives to help secure passages where needed.

Davis would have been more respected because he was a man. She wasn't worthy because she was a woman, and a foreigner on top of that.

She could be a woman, or a foreigner, but not both of them together.

Bendia spotted three men closing on her. They formed a triangle with her between two of them and the third behind them. This didn't look good. They seemed too rough to be in league with the men who had tried to break into her hotel room.

“We want your money,” said the third man. His English carried a thick accent. He pulled a knife. “You will give it to us.”

Bendia pulled her Mauser and shot him. She didn't aim for his main body. She just snapped a shot at his leg. His two friends looked at him writhing on the ground. She shot them too. She put the Mauser away. She searched her robbers and kept their money and paperwork.

“The next time you try to rob someone, think of this mercy and walk on,” said Bendia in their language. “I hope you can talk to a doctor before the wounds become infected and causes your legs to be cut off.”

She slipped into an alley and walked away. She doubted the bandits knew who she was. They just saw her as a helpless victim. She hoped she hadn't given them reasons to improve their robbery technique.

On the other hand, she might have put them on the straight and narrow and they never did anything like this again. She doubted that outcome of their encounter but she knew stranger things had happened in her lifetime.

Solving other people's flaws were beyond her. She barely had hers in check.

She paused when she found that she was at the wall to the necropolis again. Maybe she could bed down in there for the night until she figured something out.

At least Mr. Biles was covering her backtrail. She didn't need a bunch of graverobbers trying to prevent her from finding something and handing it over to the museum, or the local government.

Shooting those muggers might lead to complications but it couldn't be helped. If they hadn't wanted to be shot, they should have tried to rob someone else. That was probably going to lead to avoiding the police until she was done with her search.

She certainly wasn't going to believe they would take her word over her attackers since she had walked away, and they hadn't.

She walked among the mausoleums. She found one that was out of the way at the back of the place. She tried the door. It moved under her touch. She stepped inside and closed the door. It should give her time to plan her approach to her search.

She didn't like the feeling that the hunters were closing in, but there wasn't anything she could do about that. Everything pointed at her coming to Umir. When the jeep was found, it was just confirm things.