“Which means someone else sent that email from Richter’s computer. They’re luring her into a trap.” Nate swore. “We’ve got to get to her first.”
“No doubt,” Wally agreed, “but what the hell is in that report to make it worth killing people all over the world?”
It was a great question, and Nate had no idea. The fact that therewere underground water sources in Saudi Arabia was well-known, and the kingdom had already tapped several of them for agriculture. He couldn’t see the downside to having more, which meant there was an angle they weren’t seeing. As usual, they needed more information.
When they finally arrived in London, Nate went to work. After a significant amount of digging, he was able to locate several of the Metrys’ relatives, giving them more starting points in addition to the planned meeting in the souk. He and Wally would have to make their way to Cairo and work it out from there. And as long as they were doing so, he would have time to put together the other pieces of the puzzle that would lead him to Ubar.
Wally ordered a pizza and bought a case of Fuller’s London Pride ale and Nate set about working through the night. When he got ahold of something, he found it difficult to sleep until he accomplished whatever the goal was. Right now he needed to get all the information he had acquired on Ubar straight, and he started by gathering his materials together in one place. He had a student account for ArcGIS, an interactive software analysis tool that, among many other functions, allowed him to apply graphic layers over imagery.
He had the initial routes he had plotted for the Philby and Thomas expeditions, but turned off those layers to reapply them, painstakingly drawing them using the maps he had made copies of in Cambridge and the Royal Geographical Society. They were similar, but slightly off. Erring on the side of caution, Nate chose to use the hand-drawn maps from the men’s notes as the true paths and would adjust on the ground if needed.
He once again entered the coordinates that Bertram Thomas had been standing at when he was given an azimuth of 325 degrees and a distance of several days’ journey. All of this he plotted against the known locations of the Wabar craters and Philby’s campsite. Then he added in the approximate area of the well with the strong current thatthe explorer had written about, and the rough location where Thomas’s Bedouins had claimed to have retrieved their treasure.
All that was missing were the ancient camel trails and the underground water sources. Once he had those, he would plot them on the imagery and analyze how they overlapped. Nate hoped the water sources would line up with the wells and that the camel trails would lead to the correct area, which would also need to sit near those underground rivers. Together, it should give an approximate location that they could travel to, and then use drones as the eye in the sky to see what man could not on the ground and what machine could not from space. He just needed the last bits of information. Hopefully Anastasia would provide one, and his Saudi friend the other.
Reflexively Nate clicked over and checked his email. There was a message waiting from Ahmed. Excitedly he opened it and read quickly. Ahmed would give him the satellite photos, but they would be hard copies and he had to hand-carry them. This was great news. Even hard copies could be superimposed onto an electronic system, provided there were enough reference points and an accurate map scale. He continued reading. Ahmed said nothing about having obtained a permit from the Ministry of Culture, which Nate took to be a bad sign.
“Damn,” he swore to himself. He knew Ahmed would do everything he could, but he wasn’t holding his breath and would need to come up with an alternate plan. He emailed Ahmed back, thanked the Saudi officer for all his help, and asked if he would be willing to meet in Cairo the day before Anastasia was set to meet with her unknown emailer. Nate figured he would be in Egypt anyway, and knew it was an easy trip from Saudi Arabia. Hopefully, he thought, his old friend would bring more good news with him.
After a few hours of sleep, Nate woke to the sound of Wally making tea. He yawned, threw on a Boston University T-shirt, and joined his friend at the table. There was some fruit and a few pastries that had been purchased from the shop downstairs, and they munched and drank their tea while BBC News played in the background. Nate’s brain was fried. He had spent most of the night doing research.
“I found her,” Wally said.
“Who?”
“Anastasia Metry.” He handed Nate an iPad.
It was open to an article detailing a local beauty competition in Lebanon. There was a photo of a very attractive Arab woman in an evening gown with her name captioned below. The article mentioned that she was a geology student at the American University of Beirut. The photo took him by surprise when he saw it. He had not expected her to be so beautiful.
“A looker that one, yeah?”
Nate didn’t disagree. He sat silently for a minute before finally speaking.
“I’m going” was all he said.
“Brilliant,” Wally replied. “Going where?”
“To the Rub’ al Khali. The Empty Quarter.” Wally waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.
“You heard from Ahmed, then? You got the permit?”
Nate shook his head. “No word yet. But I’m going, regardless.”
“Alright,” Wally said. “So that’s bonkers, then.”
“How do you figure?”
“How do I figure? How do you not?” Wally was once again incredulous.
“Who dares wins, right?” It was the motto of the British Special Air Service.
Wally groaned. “Yeah, who dares, mate. Not who commits suicide. For starters, how do you get into the bloody country if they don’t want you there?”
“How would you?” Nate asked as he sipped his tea. Wally thought it over.
“Well, Qatar, Bahrain, and the UAE are nonstarters. Too much border security to cross illegally. Maybe Oman, although the oil refineries out that way means they actually patrol that part of the border, plus the increased security what with the war in…” He stopped and looked up at his exhausted friend. “Oh, fuck off. You’re taking the piss!”
Nate smiled and took another sip of his tea.
