The Pharaoh's Secret

15

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.”