It wasn’t fast enough. A single, odd-sounding shot rang out.
In some corner of his mind, the gunman recognized that sound as the report of the APS rifle’s heavy bolt, normally fired underwater, but in this case fired in the air. The thought was a flicker, brushed away by the impact of the five-inch projectile.
36
Southern Libya
Two days after his vacation was supposed to have ended, Paul was doing anything but relaxing. He was studying the geological printouts, running a computer analysis on the sound waves, with a program he’d downloaded from NUMA headquarters, and brewing a fresh pot of coffee all at the same time. He was on his own since Reza’s original geologist had either been kidnapped or run off to join the rebels several weeks before.
“Look at this,” Paul said as the computer finally printed an interpretation of the sound waves for him.
Gamay looked over, bleary-eyed. “What is it? More squiggly lines? How exciting.”
“Your enthusiasm’s not what it used to be,” Paul replied.
“We’ve been looking at this stuff for hours,” she said. “One chart of zigzag lines after another, running the data through filters and computer programs and comparing it to squiggly-line pictures from other parts of the world. At this point, I feel like you’re just testing my patience. Not to mention my sanity.”
“Tests you’re not exactly passing with flying colors,” Paul said, needling her.
“In which case I can kill you and claim temporary insanity. Now, what am I looking at?”
“This is sandstone,” Paul said, pointing to one section of the printout. “But this is a layer of liquid at the bottom of that sandstone. There’s still water down there.”
“Then why can’t the pumps pick it up?”
“Because it’s moving,” Paul said. “It’s subsiding, down into this secondary, deeper layer of rock and clay.”
“Meaning what?”
“If I’m right,” Paul said, “there’s another aquifer under the Nubian Aquifer.”
“Another aquifer?”
Paul nodded. “Seven thousand feet below the surface. These formations suggest it’s literally swelling with water. But this sound wave distortion here, and here, suggests the water is moving.”
“Like an underground river?”
“I’m not sure,” Paul said, “but that’s the only thing the computer has been able to match the pattern to.”
“So where’s it going?” she said, perking up.
“I don’t know.”
“Why’s it moving?”
Paul shrugged. “It just is. The squiggly lines can tell us only so much.”
A large boom rattled the windows and both of them looked up.
“There’s no thunder in this desert,” Gamay said coldly.
“Maybe it was a sonic boom,” Paul said. “I used to hear them all the time when I lived near the air base.”
Two similar thuds followed, accompanied by shouting and the rapid Pop! Pop! Pop! of distant gunfire.
Paul put the printout down and ran to the window. Across the desert he saw another flash as one of the pumping towers was engulfed in an orange fireball before falling to one side.
“What is it?” Gamay asked.