“I guess he didn’t want anyone crashing his pool parties,” called Kismet, quickly detailing the results of his initial survey. “I’m going to check out the pool now.”
He played his light toward the murky reservoir. It was impossible to distinguish the bottom through the accumulation of moss and algae, but given the relative smallness of the square basin, Kismet concluded that it was probably no more than two meters deep and currently half-filled. The muck covering the surface offered no further clue as to how the pool might conceal an entrance to his hypothetical tunnel, but the smooth walls, though discolored, caught his eye. Unlike the ornate mosaic work on the pool deck, the vertical concrete faces were strictly utilitarian, finished only with a coat of white sealant, now almost uniformly stained by rings of dead algae and numerous irregular dark streaks that looked curiously like tire skid marks. The pool’s period of disrepair seemed to go back further than the start of hostilities.
Kismet noted that the corners were set at right angles. Most swimming pools utilized rounded corners with smooth seamless joints. It stood to reason that the bottom of the pool was likewise squared at the corners and Kismet tried to draw a mental picture of what it might look like when empty. He was now certain that the swimming pool concealed the entrance to a subterranean passageway, but there remained one more crucial piece of the puzzle: a means of opening that secret door.
Stepping away from the edge, he returned the beam to the outer perimeter and began scrutinizing the walls and the false windows for some sort of control mechanism, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He was not overly disturbed by the lack of discovery; the efforts at concealing the doorway would have been poorly served if the doorknob were so obvious to spot.
Marie seemed to understand what he was looking for. “Perhaps it uses a remote control unit, like a garage door opener.”
He pondered the suggestion. “Think about this from their point of view. Radio signals can be detected and intercepted. For that matter, any kind of electrically operated system would be detectable. They would have tried to eliminate any elements that might attract unwanted attention.”
“What does that leave us?”
“A simple mechanical system.” He glanced back at the pool. “Or hydraulics.”
Although he had looked past them several times, the four decorative statues guarding the corners of the basin seized his attention. The life-sized stone carvings — two lions and two water buffalo — were incongruous with the general decor of the area. Though it was easy to dismiss their presence as one more example of Saddam’s eclectic sense of style, Kismet decided to take a closer look.
The nearest lion’s torso straddled a single stone tile, roughly two meters in length. The rectangular surface appeared to have been laid as a pedestal for the sculpture, but none of the lion’s feet were touching it. Kismet knelt and shined his light around the edges of the tile and found that the slab was not held in place by mortar. Inspired by this discovery, he set down the flashlight and used both hands to give the statue a shove.
With surprisingly little resistance, the stone lion moved. Like the slab it guarded, the statue was not anchored in place. Kismet pushed from different angles until all four of the figure’s feet were on the rectangular tile.
Nothing happened.
“We’re missing something,” he declared after a moment of waiting. “But I think we’re on the right track.”
“What makes you think that?” asked Marie from the darkness above.
“This lion has Teflon pads under its feet. It was designed to be moved around without damaging the tile beneath. I think the four statues are counter-weights. If I can figure out the correct sequence, it should open the door.”
“But where is the door?”
“It’s in the pool…under the water.” He briefly illuminated the other statues, lingering on the horned likenesses of the water buffalo. “Could it be that simple?”
He returned the lion to its original position, then moved to the next sculpted figure, a representation of the domesticated river bovine once common in the marshes of southern Mesopotamia before dam construction dried up the swamps. Kismet was not surprised to see that the buffalo’s feet were already positioned on a similar stone tile. After a moment’s exertion, he shifted the statue away from the slab.
From deep beneath his feet, there was a groaning noise and a faint tremor. The rectangular stone seemed to waver in the beam of his flashlight, but there was no dramatic movement and after a few seconds the noise from below ceased. Encouraged nonetheless, Kismet crossed to the opposite corner where the remaining water buffalo was stationed, and likewise pushed it from its perch.
The groaning resumed instantly, followed a moment later by the sound of rushing water. Kismet checked the level of the pool and was not surprised to see that it had been completely drained in a matter of seconds. As the last few drops vanished into drains located along the perimeter of the pool bottom, the groaning noise changed into the scrape of stone sliding against stone. The stone on which the water buffalo statues now stood abruptly rose into the air, revealing that the slabs were merely the caps to twin pillars of concrete. As the columns rose from the deck, the bottom of the pool rose also. Movement ceased only when it drew level with the edge of the pool.
“It’s a hydraulic lift,” declared Kismet, a hint of amazement creeping into his voice. “They built an elevator in the swimming pool.”
“An elevator to what?” inquired Marie. “How do you make it go back down?”
“I’m betting it’s as simple as moving the lion statues onto the trigger tiles.” He moved to test this theory.
“You didn’t answer my first question,” she complained. “Where does it go?”
He tried to answer in between grunts of exertion as he moved the statues. “To our mysterious tunnel. Whoever built this made it big enough to handle a truck. My guess is that it was supposed to be some kind of bunker; a last redoubt, designed to hide the remnants of the high command, along with a representative number of vehicles and tanks, until the immediate threat had passed.”
“We’re more than a kilometer from the temple ruin. Are you saying the tunnel is that extensive?”
“I guess it would have to be.” He gave the last remaining lion a final push, and as the legs of the sculpted feline came to rest on the stone, the supporting slab began to sink. At the same time, the pool deck fell away, sliding back down to its original position. The pedestals for the water buffalo statues also receded into the pool deck, but stopped as soon as they were flush with the mosaic surface. The pool bottom kept going.
In the beam of the MagLite, Kismet could distinguish the catch basins in the walls to which the pool water had been shunted. Doubtless, the architect had designed the pool to be emptied or refilled on a moment’s notice. He found himself once more in awe of the engineering achievement.
The descent of the surreptitious elevator continued unchecked, dropping to a depth of ten fathoms — nearly twenty meters — into the darkness below. The shaft had been reinforced with concrete, maintaining the illusion of a swimming pool, albeit one that was ridiculously deep. When it finally stopped, Kismet could not tell if there was a means of continuing on.
He walked back to stand below Marie on the balcony. “I’m going to play with this for a minute to see if I can bring it back up. Go get Pierre and tell him what we found.”
“You’re not thinking of going in tonight, are you?”
“Why not? It’s time something went our way for a change.” As she turned away, he remembered one more thing. “And bring a rope!”