The Pharaoh's Secret (9 page)

Gafsa, Tunisia

Paul Trout stood in the afternoon heat, sweating through his clothes and feeling his face burn despite the almost sombrero-sized hat he wore. As the sun dropped lower, its rays crept under the brim of the hat, stinging his skin with particular glee, as if to say pale New Englanders do not belong in this particular part of the world.

At six foot eight, Paul was the tallest of a group of hikers proceeding up a rocky hill devoid of any foliage. He was also the least athletic. A few paces ahead his wife, Gamay, continued to stride up the mountain as if it were a happy walk with the dog back home. She wore a runner’s outfit and a tan-colored ball cap. Her red hair was tied back in a ponytail that looped through the back of the cap and swung from side to side as she charged forward.

Paul shrugged. Someone had to be the athlete in the family. And someone had to be the voice of reason. “I think we should take a break,” he said.

“Come on, Paul,” Gamay called back, “it’s not far now. One more hill and you can take a break in the miraculous waters of the world’s newest lake and rest on Gafsa Beach.”

The area near the town of Gafsa had been an oasis since the time of the Roman Empire. Springs, baths and curative pools dotted the land. Most were supposedly imbued with healing powers of one kind or another. In fact, during their breaks from studying ancient ruins and perusing the famous Kasbah, Paul and Gamay had spent time relaxing in a spring-fed pool dug by the Romans and surrounded by towering stone walls.

“There’s plenty of miraculous water back at the hotel,” he joked.

“Yes,” Gamay said. “But those waters have been in place for thousands of years. This lake just appeared out of nowhere six months ago. Doesn’t that intrigue you?”

Paul was a geologist. He’d grown up in Massachusetts, spending plenty of time on the water and snooping around the famous Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Eventually, he went to Scripps Institution of Oceanography and earned a Ph.D. in marine geology, focusing on deep marine floor structures. His name was listed on several patents connected with technologies to study geologic formations beneath the seafloor. So, yes, based on his background, the thought of a lake appearing from out of nowhere did intrigue him, but his interest went only so far, and after an hour driving on what someone loosely called a road, followed by thirty minutes of hiking in the blazing sun, he was getting close to his limit.

“We’re almost there,” Gamay shouted back.

Paul marveled at his wife. She was a creature of boundless energy, always in motion. Even around the house she never seemed to sit still. Her doctorate was in marine biology, though she’d taken enough classes in other disciplines to have several additional degrees. Having watched her over the years, Paul knew she easily became bored with anything she mastered and was always searching for a new challenge.

She often insisted, with a wink of her eye, that he was endlessly frustrating and that was the key to their long, happy marriage. That and a healthy desire for adventure together, which was supported by their work for NUMA and often carried over into their vacations.

Up ahead, Gamay reached the top of the ridge even before the guide. She stopped, took in the view and put her hands on her slender hips.

The guide stopped beside her seconds later, but instead of looking impressed, there was a hint of confusion on his face. He removed his hat and scratched his head in puzzlement.

As Paul came over the ridge, he saw why. What had been a deep lake surrounded by rocky hills was now a mudflat with a ten-foot circle of brackish water in the middle. A discolored line marred the surrounding bluff, marking the water’s high point the way a ring of soap scum forms around a bathtub.

Some of the other tourists arrived at the top shortly after Paul. Like him, they were speechless. Having seen a selection of stunning photographs before being sold on the tour and shuttled out to the desert, this was not what they’d expected.

“Now, that’s a pitiful sight,” one woman said with a Southern accent. “Wouldn’t even qualify as a fishing hole where I come from.”

The guide, a local man who’d made a business out of taking
tourists to the lake, seemed confused. “I don’t understand. How is this possible? The lake was up to here two days ago.”

He pointed to the discolored ring lining the rocks.

“Evaporation,” a man from Scotland said. “It’s bloody hot out here.”

Staring at the mud, Paul forgot all his aches and pains. He knew they were looking at a mystery. The appearance of a lake was one thing—hot and cool springs worked their way to the surface all the time—but for a lake to disappear almost overnight . . . that was something altogether different.

He scanned the surroundings to get an idea of the surface area and depth, making a rough estimate of the lake’s volume. “That much water couldn’t evaporate in two months,” he said. “Let alone two days.”

“Then where did it go?” the woman from the South asked.

“Maybe someone nicked it,” the Scotsman replied. “After all, this whole area is in the middle of a drought.”

The man was right about that. Tunisia was suffering badly, even by North African standards. But a thousand tanker trucks filled to capacity wouldn’t have drained a lake this size. Paul looked for a break in the landscape or some avenue of escape for the water to flow through. He saw nothing of the kind.

Flies began to buzz around them and the group went silent. Finally, the Southern woman had seen enough. She patted the tour guide on the shoulder and turned back down the hill. “Afraid someone pulled the plug on you, honey. Sorry about that.”

In rapid succession the others followed, not interested in studying a mud hole. Even the guide left, talking the whole way down, desperately trying to explain what the lake had looked like just days before and insisting quite calmly that even though it was gone, there would be absolutely no refunds.

Paul lingered, considering what they saw and watching as a group of children began picking their way through the dried mud to get at the last remnants of water.

“She’s right,” he said to Gamay as she eased up beside him.

“About what?”

“About someone pulling the plug,” he said. “Springs like this bubble up from aquifers quite often. Usually when the layers of rock underneath crack and shift. Sometimes the water gets trapped, forms a lake like it apparently did here. Sometimes the spring keeps feeding it, sometimes it’s a one-shot deal. But even if the layers of rock shift again and cut off the water, the lake usually remains in place for months until the sun slowly bakes it dry. For this lake to vanish so suddenly, the water had to go somewhere else. But there’s no stream flowing away from here. The landscape is one big rocky bowl.”

“So if it can’t go up and it can’t go out, it must have gone down,” she said. “Is that your theory, Mr. Trout?”

He nodded. “Right back where it came from.”

“Have you ever heard of that happening before?”

“No,” Paul said. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t.”

As they marveled at the sight and took a few pictures, a man who’d been doing the same thing on a different section of the rim made his way over to them. He was rather short, perhaps five foot six, a floppy canvas hat covered his head and a layer of salt-and-pepper stubble covered his tanned face. A backpack, walking stick and binoculars suggested he was a hiker. But Paul noticed a yellow-and-black surveyor’s level in his hand.

“Hello,” the man said, tilting his hat up slightly. “I couldn’t help but overhear your discussion of the lake’s disappearance. All day long, people have been coming up that trail, shaking their heads with disappointment and walking away. You’re the first
people I’ve overheard really trying to figure out what happened and where the water has gone. You’re not geologists by any chance?”

“I have a background in geology,” Paul said, offering his hand. “Paul Trout. This is my wife, Gamay.”

He shook Paul’s hand and then Gamay’s. “My name is Reza al-Agra.”

“How do you do,” she said.

“I’ve had better days,” he admitted.

Paul nodded toward the surveyor’s tools. “Did you come here to measure the lake?”

“Not exactly,” he replied. “Like you, I was trying to figure out how and why the water vanished. My first step was to determine how much water had been here in the first place.”

“We were happy just to guess,” Paul admitted, thinking a survey of the mud seemed like overkill.

“Yes, well . . .” Reza said, “I don’t have that luxury. I’m the director of water recovery for the Libyan government. I’m expected to be precise.”

“But this is Tunisia,” Gamay pointed out.

“I realize that,” he replied. “But I thought I should see it. In my profession, disappearing lakes are a bad omen.”

“It’s just one small lake in the middle of the desert,” Gamay said.

“But it isn’t just this lake that’s vanished,” he replied. “In my country, our water supplies have been drying up for the past month. Spring-fed lakes going dry, streams reduced to a trickle. Not to mention every oasis in the country turning brown, some of which have been green since the Carthaginians ruled the land. So far, we’ve overcome it by pumping more groundwater, but lately many of our pumping stations have reported drastically reduced flows. We thought it was a local problem, but hearing about this
vanishing lake—and now seeing it for myself—tells me the issue is more widespread than I imagined. It suggests a drastic underground change to the water table.”

“How is that possible?” Gamay asked.

“No one knows,” he said simply. “Any chance you’d be willing to help me find out?”

Paul glanced at his wife. An unspoken message passed between them. “We’d be glad to,” he said. “If you can give us a ride back to the hotel later, we’ll grab our things and let the tour go on without us.”

“Splendid,” Reza said with a smile. “My Land Rover is just down the road.”

Valletta Harbor, Malta

Entering Valletta Harbor was like a trip into the past, back to an age when tiny outposts like Malta, ruled by groups of powerful men, were vital to international trade and the control of the Mediterranean.

As the
Sea Dragon
motored past the breakwater, the view was much the same as it had been in the island’s glory days and Kurt had no problem imagining himself living here in the nineteenth, eighteenth or even seventeenth century.

Dead ahead, lit up by the setting sun, the looming dome of the Carmelite church dominated the view. All around it, ancient buildings and other churches stood. The harbor itself was guarded by no less than four stone-walled garrisons with gunnery plazas and citadels that still watched over the narrow channel.

Fort Manoel sprouted from an island on one fork of the multipronged inlet, while Fort Saint Elmo sat at the tip of the peninsula. Its discolored stone walls appeared brutish and unyielding after nearly five hundred years. Directly across from it, guarding the right-hand side of the harbor, Fort Ricasoli had a different design and appeared low and lean, as its walls stretched out and connected to the breakwater, where a small lighthouse sat. And finally, inside the harbor, sat Fort Saint Angelo, jutting straight from the water’s edge on a narrow spit of land.

And if all the forts weren’t enough to suggest that Malta was a stronghold, the seawalls, buildings and naturally occurring bluffs were all made up of the same tawny-colored stone.

It seemed more like the island had been carved and whittled from a single block of limestone instead of built up from the ground over the years.

“Makes you wonder how an outsider ever took over the island,” Joe said, marveling at the fortifications.

“The same way brute force is always countered,” Kurt replied. “By misdirection and trickery. Napoleon sailed into the harbor on his way to Egypt and began buying supplies for his ships. The locals, eager to make money, let him in. As soon as his fleet was safely past the forts, he landed his army and pointed his guns toward their homes.”

“Trojan horse without building a horse,” Joe summed up.

By now, the
Sea Dragon
had made its way to the inner harbor and was headed toward an open section of the docks. It was more modern here, small tankers offloading fuel and heating oil sat beside cruise ships and a bulk freighter. The
Sea Dragon
bumped the dock beside them.

Not waiting for the boat to tie up, Kurt and Joe leapt onto the wharf and began a brisk hike toward the street.

“Keep two men on watch at all times,” Kurt yelled back. “I suspect there are dangerous men about.”

“Like the two of you?” Reynolds replied with a shout.

Kurt laughed.

“Try not to cause too much trouble,” Reynolds added. “We’re all out of bail money.”

Kurt just waved. He and Joe were late for a meeting with the curator of the Maltese Oceanic Museum.

“Think the curator will still be waiting?” Joe asked as they tried to hail a cab.

Kurt glanced at the sky. It was almost dusk. “I give it a fifty-fifty shot.”

A cab pulled up at the top of the lane and they climbed in.

“We need to go to the Oceanic Museum,” Kurt said.

The cabdriver made excellent time, navigating the narrow, winding streets, running several yellow lights and dropping them off at the front of the museum, beside a statue of Poseidon.

After paying and adding a healthy tip, Kurt and Joe crossed the plaza, avoiding an area cordoned off for construction. Reaching the front of the museum, they climbed the steps toward a suitably impressive façade.

The front of the Maltese Oceanic Museum reminded Kurt of the New York Public Library, complete with stone lions on either side. When they reached the front door, Kurt spoke with a security guard and he and Joe waited as the guard called a number for them.

Shortly, a rangy man in a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows came to the door.

Kurt offered a hand. “Dr. Kensington, I presume?”

“Call me William,” the man said, shaking Kurt’s hand. He was
an English expatriate. One of many on an island that had been part of the British Empire for over a century.

“Sorry we’re late,” Kurt said. “The wind was contrary.”

Kensington grinned. “It usually is. That’s why someone invented the motorboat.”

A light wave of laughter made the rounds as Kensington ushered them into the building and then locked the door behind them. A nod to the security guard seemed customary, but before he led them down the hall, Kurt noticed the curator looking back out the door, bending one of the slats in the venetian blinds to get a better view.

Kensington turned from the window and led them through the foyer and past an expansive main hall, where preparations were ongoing for the party and the auction a few days hence. They continued on to Kensington’s office, a small rectangular room in a remote corner of the third floor. It was cluttered to the rafters with tiny artifacts, stacks of magazines and scholarly papers. The window seemed out of place, as it was a narrow panel of stained glass.

“Leftover from the building’s prior life as an abbey in the eighteenth century,” Kensington explained.

As the three men sat down, floodlights came on outside, accompanied by the sounds of construction work: jackhammers and cranes and men shouting.

“A little late to be breaking up the place,” Kurt suggested.

“They’re redoing the plaza,” Kensington said. “They work at night so they don’t disturb the tourists.”

“Wish they’d do that on the roads around D.C.,” Joe said. “It would speed up my commute dramatically.”

Kurt handed Kensington his card.

“NUMA,” the curator said, perusing the card. “I’ve worked
alongside your people before. Always a pleasure. What can I help you with?”

“We’re here to ask about the pre-auction reception.”

Kensington put the card aside. “Yes,” he said. “It’s going to be very exciting. The gala will take place two nights from now. It will be done to the nines, with all the trimmings. I’d invite you, but I’m afraid it’s a closed group.”

“What happens at this party?”

“It allows the guests to peruse the lots in a virtual fashion,” Kensington said, “and size up one another, so they can know who they’re bidding against.” He grinned. “Nothing pumps up the prices like a little ego-driven competition.”

“I can imagine,” Kurt said.

“Let me tell you,” the curator added. “People will pay a pretty penny for the right to see something no one else has seen in hundreds or even thousands of years.”

“And an even prettier penny to take it home and keep it to themselves.”

“Yes,” Kensington said. “But there’s nothing illegal about that. And it’s all for the benefit of the museum. We’re a private organization, we have to fund our restoration activities through something more than ticket sales.”

“Do you have a list of items for sale?”

“I do,” Kensington said. “But I’m afraid I can’t share it. Rules and such.”

“Rules?” Kurt said.

“And such,” Kensington repeated.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Kurt said.

A bead of sweat appeared on Kensington’s forehead. “You know how it is, being explorers of the sea. As soon as something is
recovered and revealed to the world, people begin to fight over who owns it. When gold is recovered from a Spanish galleon, who does it belong to? The salvage team says it’s theirs. The Spanish insist it was on their ship. The descendants of the Incas say it was our gold in the first place, we dug it from the ground. And that’s just gold, with artifacts it’s even worse. Did you know the Egyptians are now suing to get the Rosetta stone back from England? And the Lateran Obelisk from Rome? It originally stood outside the Temple of Amun in Karnak until Constantius the Second took it. He wanted it brought to Constantinople, but the obelisk only made it as far as Rome.”

“So you’re saying . . .”

Kensington was blunt. “We expect to be sued as soon as the items are revealed. We’d like to have at least one night to enjoy them without fighting the lawyers of the world.”

It was a good story, maybe even half true, Kurt thought, but Kensington was hiding something. “Mr. Kensington,” he began.

“William.”

“I didn’t want to have to do this,” Kurt continued, “but you leave me no choice.”

He pulled out the photographs that Dr. Ambrosini had given him and slid one across the desk.

“What am I supposed to be looking at here?”

“That’s you,” Kurt said. “Not your best shot, I agree, but clearly it’s you. You’re even wearing the same tweed jacket.”

“So I am. So what?”

“The other men in this picture,” Kurt began, “let’s just say they’re not the kind of men you want to be seen in pictures with. And I’m doubting they’re the kind that will end up at your party either.”

Kensington stared at the photo.

“Do you recognize any of them?” Joe asked.

“This one,” Kensington said, pointing to the missing Dr. Hagen. “He’s a treasure hunter of some sort, minor collector. A doctor, if I recall correctly. The other two were colleagues of his. But I don’t see what this has to do—”

“He’s a doctor,” Kurt interrupted. “You’ve got that part right. He’s also a suspected terrorist, wanted in connection with the incident that occurred on Lampedusa yesterday. The others may be part of it as well.”

Kensington’s face went white. The networks had been running nonstop coverage of the story, calling it the worst industrial disaster since Bhopal. “I’ve heard nothing about terrorism,” he said. “I thought it was a chemical accident caused by that freighter that ran aground.”

“That’s what the world’s being told,” Kurt said. “But that’s not the case.”

Kensington gulped at nothing and cleared his throat. He drummed his fingers and then fidgeted with a pen on his desk as a crane rumbled to life outside.

“I . . . I really don’t know what you want me to say,” he stammered. “I don’t even remember the man’s name.”

“Hagen,” Joe said, ever helpful.

“Yes, right . . . Hagen.”

“You must be forgetful,” Kurt said. “According to the people who took this photo, you’ve met with Hagen three times. We’re hoping you at least remember what he wanted.”

Kensington sighed and looked around as if looking for help. “He wanted an invite to the party,” he said finally. “I told him I couldn’t oblige.”

“Why is that?”

“As I explained, it’s a
very
private affair. Reserved for only a few dozen extremely wealthy patrons and friends of the museum. Dr. Hagen could not afford a seat at the table.”

Kurt sat back. “Not even with two hundred thousand euros?”

That got Kensington’s attention, but the curator gathered himself quickly. “Not even with a million.”

Kurt had always assumed the money was to buy the artifacts, but maybe it had another purpose. “On the chance he offered you that money as a bribe, you should understand that these aren’t the kind of people who pay. They prefer to cover their tracks. They might show you the cash. Might give you a down payment or even let you hold it. But when you’ve given them what they want, they’ll make sure you never live to spend it.”

Kensington didn’t reply with indignation, he just sat silently as if he was considering Kurt’s words.

“But, then, you know that already,” Kurt added. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been gazing out the window as if the Grim Reaper was stalking you.”

“I . . .”

“You’re waiting for them to come back,” Kurt said. “You’re afraid of them. And, trust me, you have good reason to be.”

“I gave them nothing,” Kensington said in his own defense. “I told them to go away. But you don’t understand, they . . .”

Kensington went silent and started fumbling with something on the desk before reaching down and opening a drawer.

“Slowly,” Kurt said.

“I’m not reaching for a gun,” Kensington said, pulling out a bottle of antacids that was almost empty.

“We can protect you,” Kurt said. “We can get you safely to the
authorities who’ll keep you from harm, but you have to help us first.”

Kensington popped a few of the antacids into his mouth. It seemed to help him find his balance.

“There’s nothing to protect me from,” he said, chewing the tablets. “I mean, this is ludicrous. A couple of collectors badger me about some artifacts and suddenly I’m an arch-criminal? A mass murderer?”

“No one is accusing you of that,” Kurt said. “But these men were involved. And you’re involved with them, willingly or unwillingly. Either way, you’re in danger.”

Kensington massaged his temple as shouts from outside echoed through the building and a jackhammer went to work.

Kurt recognized the look of a man in great turmoil. He seemed to want to rub away the pain, the noise, the stress.

“I assure you,” Kensington said, “I know nothing about those men. They simply wanted, like you, to know about some items at the auction, items I am bound in a covenant of confidentiality not to speak about. But before you get any ideas, I can tell you this: the items in question are nothing out of the ordinary. There is nothing unusual about them at all.”

The jackhammer outside finally ceased and in the relative quiet Kensington reached for a pen, his hand visibly shaking.

“They are just trinkets,” he continued, speaking almost absentmindedly as he put pen to paper. “Unauthenticated artifacts from Egypt. Nothing of great value.”

An engine roared in the courtyard below. The sound was powerful and oddly out of place. It was enough to make the hair on Kurt’s neck stand up. He turned to see a shadow swinging across the stained glass of the window.

“Look out,” he shouted, diving from his chair to the floor.

A mighty crash followed as the business end of a crane boom punched through the window like a battering ram.

Glass shards and dust flew in all directions as the yellow-and-black boom plowed forward, hitting Kensington’s desk and crushing it up against the wall, pinning Kensington in the process.

The boom pulled back several feet and Kurt lunged toward Kensington, grabbing him and dragging him out of the way before a second thrust of the crane took out the remnants of the desk and punched a hole in the ancient stone wall behind it.