“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.”
16
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.”