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Now, as Nina surveyed the lagoon, the lines and squiggles on a map translated thehly circular, embraced by two pincers of blasted brick red rock Beyond the entrance were shallows that at low tide revealed rippling oon opened directly onto the ocean Its naturally sheltered waters would have attracted ancient mariners who coood weather or daylight Nearby was a dry riverbed, what the locals called a wadi Another good sign Settlerew near a river

Froh the dunes and eventually terminated at the ruins of a small Greek temple

The harbor would have been too tight for Rouessed the Greeks used the inlet as a teed hauling goods inland She 'had checked the old maps, and this site was miles froe, a sleepy Berber encampment, was ten miles away over a rutted sand road

Nina shielded her eyes from the sun and stared over the water at a ship anchored offshore The vessel's hull was painted froreen She squinted, justout the letters NUMA, the acronyency, emblazoned on the hull a to a US govern off a re and descended a dozen worn stone steps to where the water gently lapped the bottom stair

As she relinted off braids the color of ripe wheat woven together behind her head She slipped out of an oversized Tshirt The floral bikini she wore underneath revealed a strong, longlegged body nearly six feet tall

Nina inherited her first nahtly roundish face, and a peasant starandmother, a sturdy farm worker who found true love in a Ukrainian cotton field with a Tsarist soldier Froian h haughty cheekbones, and lush rated to the United States, the genetic airbrush had sli thick waists and wide hips, leaving a pleasing width and a healthy bustline

Froital ca and checked the strobe light Next came an air tank and US Divers buoyancy coloves, hood, weight belt, and mask and snorkel She suited up and on her head attached a Niterider Cyclops light that would keep her hands free, then fastened the quickrelease buckles of her BC and snapped on her weight belt Finally, she strapped a seven-inch Divex titaniu to a utility hook, she set the time on her latest toy, an Aqualand dive watch with a depth display

With no dive buddy to check her equiph the routine predive inspection twice Satisfied with the results, she sat on the stair and worked her feet into her fins, then she slipped off the step before the blistering North African sun cooked her inside the wetsuit The tepid water seeped between her skin and the neoprene wetsuit and quickly warulators, then pushed away from the stairs, turned, and slowly breaststroked into the pondlike lagoon

There was virtually no wave htly brackish, but even with the surface scuentle fin flutters, pitying the expedition's land archaeologists as they crawled on sore knees wielding trowels and whisk broo with sweat-caked dust Nina couldan aerial survey

A lowlying island topped by an anorexic scraggle of stunted pines guarded the entrance She planned to swioon: She would explore each half separately, les to the baseline The search pattern was similar to that used to find a wreck in the open ocean Her eyes would take the place of a sidescan sonar or netometer Precision et a feel for what lay underwater

Once below the clouded surface, the water was relatively clear, and Nina could see to the bottom, a depth of no more than twenty feet This meant she could snorkel and conserve air A series of intersecting straight lines les created by carefully fitted stone blocks

The stairway had continued down underwater to an old quay It was a significant discovery because it indicated the lagoon was once a real port and not a tee The bottom was likely to be covered with layers of civilization over a long period of time instead of junk tossed over the side by transient sailors

Soon she picked out thicker lines and piles of rubble Building ruins Bingo! Storage sheds, housing, or headquarters for a dock and harbore

Darkness looht she was at the end of the quay She passed over a large square opening and wondered if it could be a fish tank, what the ancients, called a piscine Far too big The size of an Oly pool

Nina spit out the snorkel, bit down on the regulatorone side of the yawning cavity Coe, swi until she had covered the entire perimeter It was around one hundred by one hundred fifty feet