Sahara

DEAD GROUND

At Floyd Bennett Field on the shore of Jamaica Bay, New York, a man dressed like a sixties hippie leaned against a Jeep Wagoneer station wagon parked on a deserted end of the tarmac. He peered through a pair of granny glasses at a turquoise aircraft that taxied through a light morning mist and stopped only 10 meters away. He straightened when Sandecker and Chapman stepped from the NUMA jet and he moved forward to greet them.

The Admiral noted the car and nodded in satisfaction. He detested formal limousines, insisting on a four-wheel-drive for his personal transportation. He managed a brief smile at the Levi-jacketed, pony-tailed director of NUMA's vast computer data center. Hiram Yaeger was the only person on Sandecker's top staff who ignored the dress code and got away with it.

"Thank you for picking us up, Hiram. Sorry to drag you away from Washington on short notice."

Yaeger walked toward him with an outstretched hand. "No problem, Admiral. I needed a break from my machines." Then he tilted his head and stared up into the face of Dr. Chapman. "Darcy, how was the flight from Nigeria?"

"The cabin ceiling was too low and my seat too short," the tall toxicologist complained. "And to make matters worse, the Admiral beat me ten games to four at gin rummy."

"Let me help you throw your luggage in the car, and we'll head into Manhattan."

"Did you set an appointment with Hala Kamil?" asked Sandecker.

Yaeger nodded. "I phoned the UN Headquarters as soon as you radioed your time of arrival. Secretary General Kamil has rearranged her schedule to fit us in. Her aide was surprised she'd do that for you."

Sandecker smiled. "We go back a ways."

"She'll meet with us at ten-thirty."

The Admiral glanced at his watch. "An hour and a half. Time for a cup of coffee and some breakfast."

"Sounds good," said Chapman between yawns. "I'm half starved."

Yaeger took the parkway from the airport and turned off on Coney Island Avenue where he found a delicatessen. They settled into a booth and ordered from a waitress who openly stared at the towering figure of Dr. Chapman.

"What'll it be, gents?"

"Lox, cream cheese, and a bagel," ordered Sandecker.

Chapman opted for a pastrami and salami omelet while Yaeger simply had a Danish. They were silent within their own thoughts until the waitress brought their coffee. Sandecker stirred an ice cube in his cup to cool the brew and then settled back against the booth's backrest.

"What do your electronic babies have to say about the red tides?" he asked Yaeger.

"The projections look pretty grim," the computer expert said, toying with a fork. "I've run a continuous update of the increasing dimensions from satellite photos. The growth rate boggles the mind. It's like the old adage of starting with a penny and doubling it every day until you're a billionaire by the end of the month. The red tide off West Africa is spreading and doubling its size every four days. At four o'clock this morning it covered an area measuring 40,000 square kilometers."

"Or 100,000 square miles," Sandecker translated into the old system of measurement.

"At that rate it will cover the entire South Atlantic in three to four weeks," figured Chapman.

"Do you have a clue to the cause?" asked Yaeger.

"Only that it's probably an organometallic that's promoting a mutation of the dinoflagellates that make up the core of the red tide."

"Organometallic?"

"A combination of a metal and an organic substance," Chapman explained.

"Any particular compound that stands out?"

"Not yet. We identified dozens of contaminants, but none of them appear responsible. All we can guess at the moment is that a metallic element somehow got mixed with synthetic compounds or chemical by-products that were dumped in the Niger River."

"Might even be waste from exotic biotech research," suggested Yaeger.

"There are no exotic biotech experiments going on in West Africa," Sandecker said firmly.

"Somehow this unidentified crap acts as an exciter," Chapman continued, "almost like a hormone as it creates a mutant red tide with a staggering growth rate and an incredible degree of toxicity as well."

The conversation paused as the waitress served their breakfast off a tray. She left and returned with a pot of coffee and refilled their cups.

"Any chance we're looking at a bacterial reaction to a raw sewage spill?" asked Yaeger as he gazed sadly at a Danish that looked as if it had been stepped on by a greasy boot.

"Sewage can act as a nutrient for algae just as manure does with agricultural vegetation on land," said Chapman. "But not in this case. What we're dealing with is an ecological disaster that goes far beyond anything human waste can produce."

Sandecker knifed the cream cheese on his bagel and laid on the salmon. "So while we sit here and stuff our mouths, a red tide is forming that will make the '91 Iraqi oil spill look like a puddle in the Kansas prairie."

"And we can do nothing to stop it," admitted Chapman. "Without the proper analysis of water samples, I can only theorize on the chemical compound. Until Rudi Gunn finds the needle in the haystack and who or what put it there, our hands are tied."

"What's the latest word?" Yaeger asked.

"Word on what?" Sandecker mumbled between bites.

"Our three friends on the Niger," Yaeger answered, irritated at Sandecker's seeming indifference. "Transmission of their data telemetry suddenly stopped yesterday."

The Admiral glanced around the delicatessen to make sure he wasn't heard. "They became involved in a little altercation with two gunboats and a helicopter of the Benin navy."

"A little altercation!" Yaeger blurted incredulously. "How in hell did that happen? Were they injured?"

"We can only assume they survived in good shape," Sandecker said guardedly. "They were about to be boarded. To keep the project intact there was no choice but for them to go into a combat mode. During the fight their communications equipment must have been taken out."

"That explains why their telemetry failed," said Yaeger, calming down.

"Satellite photos from the National Security Agency," continued Sandecker, "show they blasted the hell out of both vessels and the copter and made it safely across the border into Mali."

Yaeger sagged in his seat, suddenly not hungry. "They'll never get out of Mali. They're sailing into a dead-end. I've run computer profiles on the Malian government. Their military leader has the worst record of human rights in West Africa. Pitt and the others will be caught and hanged on the nearest date palm."

"That's why we're meeting with the Secretary General of the UN," said Sandecker.

"What good can she do?"

"The UN is our only hope to get our team and their data out safely."

"Why am I beginning to get the idea our Niger River research was nonsanctioned?" Yaeger asked.

"We couldn't convince the politicians of the immediate urgency," said Chapman in frustration. "They kept insisting on setting up a special committee to look into the matter. Can you believe that? With the world on the brink of extinction, our illustrious elected officials want to strut their self-importance while bunched together in executive chairs and vocalize like an a cappella choir."

"What Darcy is saying," explained Sandecker, smiling at Chapman's choice of words, "is that we explained the emergency to the President, the Secretary of State, and several Congressional leaders. They all refused our request to twist the arms of the West African nations to permit us to analyze the river water."

Yaeger stared at him. "So to get a head start you sent Pitt, Giordino, and Gunn in on the sly."

"There was no other way. The clock is running down. We had to go around our own government. If this operation leaks out, my ass will be dipped in acid."

"This is worse than I thought."

"That's why we need the UN," said Chapman. "Without their cooperation there's too good a chance Pitt, Giordino, and Gunn will go into a Malian prison and never come out."

"And the data we require so desperately," said Sandecker, "will disappear with them."

Yaeger bore a look of sadness. "You sacrificed them, Admiral. You willingly sacrificed our closest friends."

Sandecker gave Yaeger a granite look. "Do you think 1 didn't wrestle with the devil over my decision? Considering the stakes, who would you have trusted to get the job done? Who would you have sent up the Niger?"

Yaeger rubbed his temples for a moment before answering. Finally, he nodded. "You're right, of course. They're the best. If anyone can accomplish the impossible, it's Pitt."

"I'm delighted you agree," Sandecker said gruffly. He looked at his watch again. "We'd better pay up and get rolling. I don't want to keep Secretary General Kamil waiting. Not when I'm about to get down on my knees and beg like a lost soul."

Hala Kamil, the Egyptian Secretary General of the United Nations, had the beauty and mystery of Nefertiti. Forty-seven years old, black eyes with a haunting quality, long ebony hair flowing slightly below her shoulders, delicate facial features enhanced by a flawless complexion, she kept her beauty and youthful look despite the heavy weight of her prestigious office. She was tall, and her shapely figure was apparent even under her conservative suit.

She rose and came from behind her desk as Sandecker and his friends were ushered into her office in the UN Headquarters Building. "Admiral Sandecker, how nice to see you again."

"My pleasure, Madam Secretary." Sandecker fairly beamed when in the presence of a beautiful woman. He returned her firm handshake and made a slight bow. "Thank you for seeing me."

"You're amazing, Admiral. You haven't changed."

"And you look even younger."

She smiled a ravishing smile. "Compliments aside. We've both added a wrinkle or two. It has been a long time."

"Almost five, years." Then he turned and introduced Chapman and Yaeger.

Hala took little notice of Chapman's size or Yaeger's attire. She was too used to meeting multisized people from a hundred nations in a variety of dress. She held out a small hand in the direction of facing sofas. "Please be seated."

"I'll be brief," Sandecker said without preamble. "I need your help in an urgent matter concerning an environmental disaster in the making that is threatening the very existence of the human race."

Her dark eyes stared at him skeptically. "You've made a very weighty statement, Admiral. If this is another dire prediction of the greenhouse effect, I've become immune."

"Something far worse," Sandecker said seriously. "By the end of the year most of the world's population will only be a memory."

Hala looked at the faces of the men sitting across from her. Their faces were set and grim. She began to believe him. She didn't exactly know why she believed him. But she knew Sandecker well enough to feel confident he was not a man given to fancy, nor would he run around claiming the sky was falling unless he had absolute, scientific proof.

"Please go on," she said briefly.

Sandecker turned the meeting over to Chapman and Yaeger, who reported their findings on the mushrooming red tide. After about twenty minutes, Hala excused herself and pressed a button on a desk intercom. "Sarah, would you please call the ambassador of Peru and tell him an important matter has come up and ask him if it's convenient for him to postpone our meeting until this time tomorrow."

"We deeply appreciate your time and interest," said Sandecker, and he meant it.

"There is no doubt about the horror of this threat?" she put to Chapman.

"None. If the red tide spreads unhindered over the oceans, it will stifle the oxygen required to support global life."

"And that doesn't take into consideration the toxicity," added Yaeger, "which is certain to cause mass death of all marine life and any human or animal that consumes it."

She looked at Sandecker. "What about your Congress, your scientists? Surely there must be concern by your government and the world environmental community."

"There is concern," replied Sandecker. "We've presented our evidence to the President and members of Congress, but the gears of the bureaucracy grind slowly. Committees are studying the matter, No decisions are forthcoming. The scope of the horror is beyond them. They cannot conceive of the rapidly dwindling time element."

"We have, of course, passed our preliminary findings along to ocean and contamination scientists," said Chapman. "But until we can isolate the exact cause of this plague on the seas, there is little any of us can do to create a solution."

Hala was silent. It was difficult for her to come to grips with apocalypse, especially on such short notice. In a way she was powerless. Her position as Secretary General of the UN was more as an illusionary queen of a hollow kingdom. Her job was to watch over the diverse peacekeeping functions and the many trade and relief programs. She could direct but not command.

She looked across a coffee table at Sandecker. "Other than promise the cooperation of our United Nations Environment Program Organization, I don't see what else I can do."

Sandecker's self-confidence took another step forward and his voice, low and tense, came slow and distinctly. "I sent a boat with a team of men up the Niger River to analyze the water in an attempt to find the source behind the red tide explosion."

Hala's dark eyes were cool and penetrating. "Was that your boat that sank the Benin gunboats?" she asked.

"Your intelligence is very good."

"I receive briefings from reports gathered around the world."

"Yes, it was a NUMA vessel," Sandecker admitted.

"You know, I assume, the Admiral who was Chief-of-Staff for the Benin navy and brother of the nation's president was killed in the battle."

"I heard."

"It was my understanding your boat was flying a French ensign. Doing your devious dirty work under a foreign flag could get your crew shot as enemy agents by the West Africans."

"My men were aware of the danger and volunteered. They knew every hour counts if we are to stop the red tide before it expands beyond our technology to kill it."

"Are they still alive?"

Sandecker nodded. "As of a few hours ago they had traced the contamination across the Malian border and were I approaching the town of Gao unmolested."

"Who else in your government knows about this?"

Sandecker nodded at Chapman and Yaeger. "Only the three of us and the men on the boat. No one outside of NUMA except you."

"General Kazim, the Malian Chief of Security, is no fool. He'll learn about the battle with Benin's navy, and his intelligence will have warned him of your crew's, entry into his country. He'll arrest them the minute they dock."

"The very reason I came to you, Madam Secretary."

This was it, Hala thought. "What do you want from me, Admiral?"

"Your help in saving my men."

"I thought it would come down to that."

"It's vital they be rescued as soon as they discover the origin of the contamination."

"We desperately need their analysis data," said Chapman flatly.

"Then it's the findings you really want to rescue," she said coldly.

"I'm not in the habit of abandoning brave men," Sandecker said, his chin thrust forward.

Hala gave a negative shake of her head. "Sorry, gentlemen, I can understand your desperation. But I cannot jeopardize the honor of this office by misusing my power to take part in an illegitimate international operation, regardless of how crucial."

"Not even if the men you save are Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino and Rudi Gunn."

Her eyes widened for a brief moment, and then she sagged back in her chair, her thoughts lost in the past for a brief instant. "I begin to see the picture," she said softly. "You're using me just as you used them."

"I'm not planning a celebrity tennis match," said Sandecker flatly. "I'm trying to prevent the loss of uncountable lives."

"You really shoot for the heart, don't you?"

"When it's necessary."

Chapman's eyebrows rose. "I'm afraid I don't understand any of this."

Hala stared off into space as she spoke. "About five years ago, the three men you sent up the Niger saved my life from terrorist assassins, not once but twice. The first time was on a mountain in Breckenridge, Colorado; the other was at an abandoned mine near a glacier on the Straits of Magellan. Admiral Sandecker is playing on my conscience to repay the favor."

"I seem to recall," said Yaeger, nodding. "It was during the hunt for the Alexandria Library treasure."

Sandecker rose, came over, and sat down beside her. "Will you help us, Madam Secretary?"

Hala sat motionless as a statue that slowly began to crack. Her breathing seemed faint and shallow. Finally, she turned slightly and faced Sandecker.

"All right," she said softly. "I promise to use every source at my fingertips to get our friends out of West Africa. I can only hope we're not too late, and they're still alive."

Sandecker turned away. He didn't want her to see the relief in his eyes. "Thank you, Madam Secretary. I owe you. I owe you big."

"No sign of life?" Grimes stared at the crumbling village of Asselar. "Not even a dog or a goat."

"Certainly looks dead," said Eva, shielding her eyes against the sun.

"Deader than a flattened toad on a highway," Hopper muttered as he peered through a pair of binoculars.

They stood on a small rise of rocky desert overlooking Asselar. The only evidence of humans were tire tracks that led into the village from the northeast. Strangely, none appeared to indicate a departure. Eva had the impression of an abandoned city of ancient times as she stared through the heat waves at the ruins surrounding the central part of town. There was an eerie silence about the place that made her feel tense and uneasy.

Hopper turned to Batutta. "Kind of you to cooperate with us, Captain, and allow us to land here, but it's obvious the village is a deserted ghost town."

Batutta sat behind the wheel of the open Mercedes four-wheel-drive and shrugged innocently. "A caravan from the salt mines at Taoudenni reported sickness in Asselar. What else can I tell you?"

"Won't hurt to have a look," said Grimes.

Eva nodded in agreement. "We should analyze the water from the well to be on the safe side."

"If you please walk in from here," said Batutta, "I'll return to the aircraft and transport the rest of your people."

"That's good of you, Captain," acknowledged Hopper. "You can ferry our equipment as well."

Without a reply or a wave, Batutta spun away in a cloud of dust and headed across a scrubby plain toward the parked aircraft that had landed on a long stretch of flat ground.

"Damned odd of him to suddenly become helpful," muttered Grimes.

Eva nodded. "Too helpful, if you ask me."

"I don't much care for it," said Grimes, gazing at the silent village. "If this was an American western movie, I'd say we were walking into an ambush."

"Ambush or not," said Hopper, unconcerned, "let's give a go at finding any inhabitants." He set off down the slope in long strides, seemingly oblivious to the noonday sun and the heat radiating from the rock-strewn ground. Eva and Grimes hesitated a moment, and then set off after him.

Ten minutes later they entered the narrow, alley-like streets of Asselar. The narrow thoroughfares showed anything but a concern for neatness. They had to step over and around small mounds of trash and scattered rubbish that seemed to litter every square meter of ground. A light, hot breeze suddenly shifted, and the smell of decay and rotting meat struck their nostrils. The ugly odor grew more powerful with every step they took. It seemed to be drifting from inside the houses.

Hopper refrained from entering any buildings until they reached the marketplace. Here, an incredibly disgusting sight met their eyes. None of them in their wildest flights of nightmarish imagination could have envisioned the horror scattered remains of human skeletons, skulls lined up as if' displayed for sale, blackened and dried skin hanging from the tree in the market square that seemed alive under the attack of swarms of flies.

Eva's first thought was that she was gazing at the human debris of some massacre by an armed force. But that theory was quickly discarded in her mind as it didn't explain the positioning of the skulls or the flayed skin. Something happened here that went far beyond atrocities committed by bloodthirsty soldiers or desert bandits. That much became apparent when she knelt down and picked up a bone, recognizing it as a humerus, the long bone of the upper arm. A chill coursed through her blood as she discovered that it was indented and chipped by what she correctly identified as human teeth marks.

"Cannibalism," she whispered in shock.

For some reason, the buzzing of the flies and the revelation uttered by Eva only served to heighten the deathly stillness of the village. Grimes gently took the bone from her hand and studied it.

"She's right," he said to Hopper. "Some bestial maniacs have eaten all these poor devils."

"Judging from the stink," said Hopper, wrinkling his nose, "there's still some who haven't turned to skeletons yet. You and Eva wait here. I'll check the houses and see if I can find a live one."

"Doesn't look to me like they take to strangers," Grimes resisted. "I suggest we beat a hasty retreat back to the plane before we wind up on the local menu."

"Nonsense," Hopper scoffed. "We're looking at an extreme case of abnormal behavior. It might very well be caused by the toxic contaminant we're searching for, and I'm not about to run away until I get to the bottom of it."

"I'll go with you," Eva said resolutely.

Grimes shrugged. He was from the old school and not about to be out-braved by a woman. "All right, we'll search together."

Hopper slapped him on the back. "Good show, Grimes. I'd be honored to be an ingredient with you in the same soup du jour."

The first house they entered, the walls little more than stacked rocks held together with dried mud, contained two bodies, a man and a woman, dead at least a week, the heat already having dried out their tissue and shriveled and tightened their skin. Death had not been swift but agonizingly slow, Hopper determined after a cursory examination of the shocking remains. Theirs had not been the death of a fast-acting poison. It had been the death of people who suffered excruciating torment until they were released.

"Can't tell much without a pathological examination," said Hopper.

Grimes looked down, his face calm and unperturbed. "These people have been dead for some time. I'd stand a better chance of finding solid answers from a fresh victim."

It sounded so cold and clinical to Eva. She shuddered, not from the cadavers but from recognizing a pile of small bones and skulls heaped in one corner of the darkened house. She could not help wondering if the couple had killed and eaten the flesh of their own children. The thought was too abhorrent to dwell on and she pushed it aside and struck out on her own, entering a house directly across the street.

She moved through a doorway that was more elaborate than the others. Beyond, there was an L-shaped courtyard that was clean and swept. Almost blasphemous as compared to the others that were filled with debris. The stench was particularly strong in this house. Eva dampened a small handkerchief with water from a canteen on her belt, then stepped cautiously from room to room. The walls were a chalky white and the ceilings high with exposed, rounded poles laid over a matting. There was plenty of light from numerous windows, all opening onto the courtyard.

It was one of the grander houses of the town, probably belonging to a merchant, Eva judged from the crafted chairs and tables that had somehow managed to remain upright in normal positions, unlike the furnishings in other houses that were tossed about and broken. She slowly edged around a doorway into a large rectangular room. She gasped and stood there, rooted in disgust at finding a grisly pile of rotting human limbs, neatly stacked in what was the kitchen.

Eva fought back the rising sickness, suddenly feeling drained and empty and frightened. She fled from the hideous sight and stumbled into a bedroom. Shock piled on top of shock. She froze and stared at a man lying on a bed as if relaxing, his eyes wide open. His head was propped up on a cushion and his hands were stretched at his side, palms up. He stared back at her through sightless eyes that might have been on loan from the devil. The whites of the eyes were a bright pinkish color while the irises were a deep red. For a frightful instant she thought he was still alive. But there was no rise in his chest from breathing, and his satanic-colored eyes never blinked.

Eva stood there, staring back for what seemed a long time. Finally, she mustered up her courage and walked over to the bed and touched the carotid artery in his neck with the tips of her fingers. There was no pulse. She leaned over and lifted his arm. Rigor mortis had barely stiffened his muscles. She straightened as she heard footsteps behind her. She whirled around and saw Hopper and Grimes.

They moved around her and looked down at the corpse. Then abruptly, Hopper laughed, the sound booming throughout the house. "By God, Grimes. You wanted a fresh victim for an autopsy, and there it lies."

After Batutta made the last trip into the village with the U N investigation team and their portable analysis equipment, he parked the Mercedes beside the aircraft. The inside of the cockpit and passenger cabin had quickly become an oven under the onslaught of the sun, and the crew was lounging in the shade under one wing. Though they had acted indifferent around the scientists when Batutta was present, they now came to attention and saluted him.

"Anyone left in the plane?" Batutta asked.

The chief pilot shook his head. "You took the last of them to the village. The aircraft is empty."

Batutta smiled at the pilot who wore an airline uniform with stripes on the sleeve. "A fine piece of acting, Lieutenant Djemaa. Dr. Hopper took the bait. You fooled him completely into thinking you were a substitute crew."

"Thank you, Captain. And thank my South African mother for teaching me English."

"I must use the radio to contact Colonel Mansa."

"If you will come to the cockpit, I will set the frequency for you."

Stepping into the aircraft cockpit was like stepping into a bucket of molten lead. Though Lieutenant Djemaa left the side windows open for ventilation, the heat still sucked the breath from Batutta. He sat and suffered while the disguised Malian air force pilot hailed Colonel Mansa's headquarters. Once contact was made Djemaa turned over the microphone to Batutta and thankfully left the steamy cockpit.

"This is Falcon-one. Over."

"I'm here, Captain," came the familiar voice of Mansa. "You can dispense with the code. I doubt if enemy agents are listening in. What is your situation?"

"The natives of Asselar are all dead. The Westerners are operating freely in the village. I repeat, all the villagers are dead."

"Those bloody cannibals killed themselves off, did they?"

"Yes, Colonel, down to the last woman and child. Dr. Hopper and his people believe everyone was poisoned."

"Do they have proof?"

"Not yet. They're analyzing the water from the well and performing autopsies on the victims now."

"No matter. Play along with them. As soon as they've finished with their little experiments, fly them to Tebezza. General Kazim has arranged a welcoming committee."

Batutta could well imagine what the General had planned for Hopper. He detested the big Canadian; he detested them all. "I shall see they arrive in sound shape."

"Accomplish your mission, Captain, and I can safely promise you a promotion."

"Thank you, Colonel. Over and out."

Grimes set up shop in the house of the dead man Eva had discovered. It was the largest and cleanest of any building in the village. He performed pathology on the corpse found in the bedroom while Eva carried out blood tests. Hopper did chemical analysis of several wells that produced the town's meager water supply. The other members of the team began analyzing tissue and bone samples from a random selection of the dead. In one large storage house behind the market center, they found the trashed Land Rovers from the safari whose members had been massacred. They put the vehicles into service shuttling supplies back and forth between the village and the aircraft while Captain Batutta wandered about, making himself generally useless.

The stench of the dead was too overpowering for sleep, so they worked through the night and into the next evening before taking a break. Camp was set up around the aircraft. After a brief sleep, dinner of packaged, condensed beef stew, the World Health team sat around an oil heater to ward off the 60-degree drop in temperature from the desert's daily high of 44 degrees C (111 degrees F). Batutta played congenial host and brewed them a pungent African tea, listening intently while everyone relaxed and compared notes.

Hopper puffed his pipe to life and nodded at Warren Grimes. "Suppose you begin, Warren. And give us a report of your examination of the only decent body we found."

Grimes took a clipboard from one of his assistants and studied it for a moment under the glare of a Coleman lantern. "In all my years of experience, I've never seen so many complications in one human. Reddish discoloration of the eyes, both the iris and the whites. Skin tissue an extreme flushed, bronze color. Greatly enlarged spleen. Blood clots in the vessels of the heart, the brain, and extremities. Kidneys damaged. Heavy scarring in the liver and pancreas. Very high hemoglobin. Degeneration of fatty tissue. No wonder these people ran amok and ate each other. Put all the disorders together and you could easily produce uncontrolled psychosis."

"Uncontrolled?" asked Eva.

"The victim slowly went mad as the conditions increased, especially damage to the brain, and he eventually went berserk, as evidenced by the signs of cannibalism. In my humble estimation it's a miracle he lived as long as he did."

"Your diagnostic conclusion?" Hopper probed.

"Death by massive polycythemia vera, a disease of unknown cause whose symptoms are increased numbers of red blood cells and hemoglobin in the circulation. In this case a massive infusion of red blood cells that produced irreparable damage to the victim's internal systems. And because blood-clotting factors were not created in enough amounts for heart stoppage and stroke, hemorrhages occurred throughout the body, becoming especially visible in the skin and eyes. It is as though he was injected with massive doses of vitamin B-12, which as you all know is essential in the development of red blood cells."

Hopper turned to Eva. "You did the blood testing. What about the cells themselves? Did they maintain their normal flat, round shapes with depressed centers?"

Eva shook her head. "No, they were formed like none I've ever seen before. Almost triangular with spore-like projections. As Dr. Hopper stated, their number was incredibly high. There are roughly 5.2 million red cells per cubic millimeter of blood in the average adult human. Our victim's blood carried three times that number."

Grimes said, "I might add that I also discovered evidence of arsenic poisoning, which would have also killed him sooner or later."

Eva nodded. "I confirmed Warren's diagnosis. Above normal concentrations of arsenic were found in the blood samples. Also, the cobalt level went off scale."

"Cobalt?" Hopper straightened in his camp chair.

"Not surprising," said Grimes. "Vitamin B-12 contains almost 4.5 percent cobalt."

"Both of your findings pretty well back the results of my analysis of the community wells," said Hopper. "There was enough arsenic and cobalt in a common cup of water to choke a camel."

"The underground water table," said Eva, staring into the glow from the heater. "The flow must have slowly worked itself through a geologic deposit of cobalt and arsenic."

"If I recall my university geology class," Hopper said, thinking back, "a common arsenide is niccolite, a mineral often associated with cobalt."

"Still only the tip of the iceberg," cautioned Grimes. "Both elements combined were not enough to cause this mess. Some other substance or compound acted as a catalyst with the cobalt and arsenic to push the level of toxicity beyond tolerant bounds and mushroomed the red cell count, one we missed."

"And mutated them as well," Eva added.

"Not to muddy the mystery any worse than it already is," said Hopper. "But something else turned up in my analysis. I found very high traces of radioactivity."

"Interesting," Grimes said lukewarmly. "But if anything, long exposure to above normal radiation levels would have lowered the red cell count. I saw nothing during my examination to suggest chronic effects of radioactivity."

"Suppose the radiation penetrated the well water only recently?" Eva offered.

"A distinct possibility," admitted Grimes. "But we're still left with the enigma of an unknown killer substance."

"Our equipment is limited," Hopper shrugged. "If we're looking at a new strain of bacteria or some combinations of exotic chemicals, we may not be able to totally identify the causes here. We'll have to take samples back to our laboratory in Paris."

"A synthetic by-product," Eva murmured thoughtfully. Then she made a sweeping gesture around the desert. "Where can it possibly come from? Certainly not from around here."

"The hazardous waste disposal at Fort Foureau?" Grimes advanced.

Hopper studied the bowl of his pipe. "Two hundred kilometers northwest. A bit far to carry a contaminant against prevailing winds and deposit it in the town wells. And that doesn't explain the high radiation levels. The Fort Foureau facility is not designed to accept radioactive waste. Besides, the hazardous materials are all burned, so there is no way they could penetrate an underground water supply and then be carried this far without having any deadly chemicals absorbed into the soil."

"Okay," said Eva. "What's our next step?"

"Pack up and fly to Cairo and then on to Paris with our samples. We'll take our prime specimen also. Wrap him good and keep him cool and he should remain in decent shape until we get him bedded down in ice in Cairo."

Eva nodded. "I agree. The sooner we perform our research under proper conditions, the better."

Hopper turned and stared at Batutta who had said nothing but sat listening, pretending indifference while a tape recorder under his shirt monitored every word.

"Captain Batutta."

"Dr. Hopper."

"We have decided to push on to Egypt first thing in the morning. Is this agreeable with you?"

Batutta flashed a wide smile and twisted one end of his moustache. "I regret I must stay behind and report to my superiors on the plight of the village. You are free to continue to Cairo."

"We can't just leave you here."

"There is plenty of gas in the vehicles. I will simply take one of the Land Rovers and drive back to Timbuktu."

"That's a 400-kilometer trek. You know the way?"

"I was born and bred in the desert," Batutta said. "I will leave at sunrise and be in Timbuktu by nightfall."

"Will our change of plan place you in any difficulty with Colonel Mansa?" asked Grimes.

"My orders were to serve you," Batutta said patronizingly. "Do not give it another thought. I am only sorry I cannot accompany you to Cairo."

"That settles it," said Hopper, rising from his chair. "We'll load up our equipment first thing in the morning and take off for Egypt."

As the meeting broke up and the scientists headed for their tents, Batutta lingered by the heater. He switched off the concealed tape recorder, and then raised a flashlight and blinked it twice at the cockpit window. A minute later the chief pilot climbed down the boarding ladder and approached Batutta.

"You signaled?" he said softly.

"The foreign pigs are leaving tomorrow," replied Batutta.

"I must radio Tebezza and alert them of our arrival."

"And remind them to give Dr. Hopper and his people a proper greeting."

The chief pilot winced knowingly. "A disgusting place, Tebezza. Once the passengers are in custody, I don't plan to spend any more time on the ground than necessary."

"Your orders are to fly back to the airport at Bamako," said Batutta.

"Gladly." The chief pilot made a brief bow of his head. "Good night, Captain."

Eva had taken a short walk to enjoy the clear air and the carpet of stars across the sky. She returned in time to see the pilot walk toward the aircraft, leaving Batutta alone by the heater.

Too compliant and far too eager to please, she mused. There's going to be trouble. She shook her head as if to cast off the thought. There you go again with your suspicious female nature. What can he do to stop them? Once in the air there would be no turning back. They would be free of the horror and on their way to a more friendly and open society. She took satisfaction in knowing she would never return. And yet something deep inside, her intuition perhaps, cautioned her not to feel too secure.

"How long have they been on our tail?" Giordino asked, rubbing three hours of sleep from his eyes and focusing on the image emanating within the radar screen.

"I spotted them about 75 kilometers back, just after we passed into Malian territory," answered Pitt. He stood to one side of the wheel, casually steering with his right hand.

"You get a look at their armament?"

"No, the boat was concealed 100 meters up a branch of the river. I caught a hard reflection on the surface radar that looked suspicious. Soon as we passed out of sight around a bend, they pulled into the channel and began chasing our wake."

"Might be only a routine patrol."

"Routine patrols don't hide under camouflaged netting."

Giordino studied the distance scale on the radar. "They're making no attempt to narrow the gap."

"Just biding their time."

"Poor old gunboat," Giordino said sorrowfully. "It doesn't know it's about to go to that great scrap yard in the sky."

"Sad to say, there are complications," said Pitt slowly. "The gunboat isn't the only bloodhound on the scent."

"They have friends?"

"The Malian military has thrown out the steel welcome mat." Pitt twisted his body and looked up at the flawless blue, afternoon sky that was barren of clouds. "A flight of Malian fighter jets is circling the sky to the east of us."

Giordino caught sight of them at once. The blazing sun glinted off their cockpit canopies. "French Mirage fighters, the newer modified model, I reckon. Six-no, seven of them-less than 6 kilometers away."

Pitt twisted again and pointed across the river to the west. "And that dust cloud beyond that range of hills running along the shoreline. That belongs to a convoy of armored cars." '

"How many?" Giordino asked as he mentally inventoried his remaining missiles.

"I counted four when they raced across a stretch of open ground."

"No tanks?"

"Our speed is 30 knots. Tanks couldn't keep up with us."

"We won't be surprising anyone this time," said Giordino matter-of-factly. "Word of our bite has preceded us."

"An obvious deduction judging by their reluctance to come within our effective range."

"The question that comes to mind is when will old what's-his-name-"

"Zateb Kazim?"

"Whoever," Giordino shrugged indifferently. "When will he sound the charge?"

"If he's smarter than that comic strip Admiral of the Benin navy, and he wants to confiscate the Calliope for his own pleasure, all he has to do is wait us out. Eventually, we'll run out of river."

"And fuel."

"That too."

Pitt went silent and gazed at the wide, lazy Niger wandering through the sandy plain. The yellow-gold sun was creeping toward the horizon as blue and white storks winged the hot afternoon air or strolled the shallows on long stick-like legs. A school of Nile perch leaped in the air and sparkled like miniature fireworks as the Calliope chased them over the placid water. A pinnace glided past on its way downriver, hull stained black with colorful painted designs on its double-ender bow and stern, its sail barely filled under a whisper of wind. A few of the crew slept on a cargo of rice sacks under a frayed awning while others poled with the current. All was serene and picturesque. Pitt found it hard to believe death and destruction skirted their course up the river.

Giordino broke Pitt's revery. "Didn't you mention that woman you met in Egypt was going to Mali?"

Pitt nodded. "She's connected with the UN team from the World Health Organization. They were flying to Mali to investigate a strange epidemic that had broken out among the desert villages."

"Too bad you can't rendezvous with her," said Giordino, smiling. "You could sit under a desert moon with your arm around her, whisper of your exploits in her ear, and sift sand."

"If that's your idea of a hot date, no wonder you bat zero."

"How else can you entertain a geologist?"

"Biochemist," Pitt corrected him.

Giordino's expression suddenly turned serious. "Did it ever occur to you that she and her scientist buddies might be looking for the same toxin we are?"

"The thought crossed my mind."

At that moment Rudi Gunn hustled up from his lab below, his face haggard but broken by a wide grin. "Got it," he announced triumphantly.

Giordino looked at him, not comprehending.

"Got what?"

Gunn didn't answer. He just smiled and smiled.

Pitt knew almost immediately. "You found it?"

"The glop that's exciting the red tides?" Giordino muttered.

Gunn nodded.

Pitt pumped his hand. "Congratulations, Rudi."

"I was almost ready to give up," said Gunn. "But my negligence opened the door. I've been putting hundreds of water samples through the gas chromatograph, and haven't been checking on the inner workings as often as I should. When I finally took a look at the results, I found a coating of cobalt inside the instrument's test column. I was shocked to see a metal was being extracted with synthetic organic pollutants and finding its way into the gas chromatograph. After frantic hours of experiments, modifications, and tests, I identified an exotic organometallic compound that's a combination of an altered synthetic amino acid and cobalt."

"Sounds Greek to me," shrugged Giordino. "What's an amino acid?"

"The stuff proteins are made of."

"How can it get in the river?" asked Pitt.

"Can't say," replied Gunn. "My guess is the synthetic amino acid came from a genetic engineering biotechnology laboratory whose wastes are being dumped along with chemical and nuclear wastes at the source area. For it to naturally mix into the vicious pollutant that's causing the red tides after reaching the sea seems remote. I believe it's forming at a common location."

"Could it be a dump site with nuclear waste too?"

Gunn nodded. "I'm finding fairly high readings of radiation in the water. It's only another portion of the overall pollution and has no relation to our contaminant's qualities, but there is a definite connection."

Pitt didn't reply but looked again into the radar screen at the image of the gunboat, still out of eyesight astern. If anything, it had dropped farther back. He turned and scanned the sky for the fighter jets. They were still lazily clawing at the sky, conserving their fuel while keeping a distant watch over the Calliope. The river had widened to several kilometers and he lost sight of the armored cars.

"Our job is only half done," he said. "The next exercise is to target where the toxin enters the Niger. The Malians don't seem in any hurry to harass us. So we'll continue our survey upstream and attempt to wrap this thing up before they slam the door."

"With our data transmission system kaput, how do we get the results to Chapman and Sandecker?" asked Giordino.

"I'll figure something."

Gunn placed his trust in Pitt without hesitation. He nodded without speaking and returned to his cabin lab.

Pitt thankfully turned over the helm to Giordino while he stretched out on a deck mat under the cockpit canopy and caught up on his lost sleep.

When he woke up, the sun's orange ball was a third down over the horizon, and yet the air felt 10 degrees warmer. A quick check of the radar showed the gunboat was still dogging their stern, but the watchdog fighter jets were on a course back to their base to refuel. They were getting cocky, Pitt surmised. The Malians must have thought their quarry was in the bag. Why else would the fighters depart without being relieved by another flight? As he rose to his feet and stretched his arms and shoulders, Giordino handed him a mug of coffee.

"Here, this should wake you up. Good Egyptian coffee with mud on the bottom of the cup."

"How long was I in dreamland?"

"You were dead to the world for a little over two hours."

"Have we passed Gao?"

"Cruised past the city about 50 kilometers back. You missed seeing a floating villa with a bevy of bikini-clad beauties throwing kisses to me from the railings."

"You're putting me on."

Giordino held up three fingers. "Scout's honor. It was the fanciest houseboat I've ever laid eyes on."

"Is Rudi still reading strong toxin levels?"

Giordino nodded. "He says the concentration gets hotter with each passing kilometer."

We must be close."

"He thinks we're almost on top of the stuff."

Just for an instant something flickered deep in Pitt's eyes, a sudden gleam, almost as if something was created, something imagined that reflected from inside his brain. Giordino always knew when Pitt departed reality and traveled to some unknown destination. With a blink of his opaline eyes all recognition was gone, replaced with a view of another scene.

Giordino stared at him curiously. "I don't like that look."

Pitt came back down to earth. "Just thinking of a way to keep the Calliope from a despotic backwater jerk who wants it for his drunken orgies."

"And how do you expect to erase the possessive gleam in Kazim's eye?"

Pitt smiled like a reincarnated Fagin. "By conjuring up a dirty scheme to defeat his expectations."

Shortly before sunset, Gunn called from below. "We've crossed into clean water. The contamination just disappeared off my instruments."

Pitt and Giordino immediately turned their heads and scouted both shores. The river at this point ran on a slight angle from west of north to east of south. There were no villages or bordering roads to be seen. Only desolation met the eyes, level and barren without disruption all the way to the four horizons.

"Empty," muttered Giordino. "Empty as a shaven armpit."

Gunn emerged, staring back over the stern. "See anything?"

"Look for yourself." Giordino swung an arm like a compass. "The cupboard's bare. Nothing but sand."

"We have a break in the geology to the east," said Pitt, motioning at a wide ravine dividing the shore. "Looks as though it once carried water."

"Not in our lifetime," said Gunn. "Appears to have been a tributary into the main channel during wetter centuries."

Giordino studied the ancient streambed solemnly. "Rudi must have tuned in a video game. There's no contamination entering the river here."

"Swing around and make another run so I can recheck my data," said Gunn.

Pitt complied and ran several lanes back and forth as if mowing a lawn, beginning close to the shore and working out into the channel toward the opposite bank until his props churned silt on the rising bottom. The radar showed the tailing gunboat had stopped, the captain and his officers probably wondering what the crew of the Calliope was up to.

Gunn popped his head through the hatch after the final run. "Swear to God, the highest concentration of toxin comes from the mouth of that big wash on the east bank."

They all stared dubiously at the centuries-old dry riverbed. The rock-strewn bottom curled northward toward a range of low dunes in the desert wasteland. No one spoke as Pitt set the throttles on idle and let the yacht drift with the current.

"No evidence of toxic residue beyond this point?" questioned Pitt.

"None," Gunn answered flatly. "The concentration goes off scale just below the old wash and then disappears upstream."

"Maybe it's a natural by-product of the soil," offered Giordino.

"This ungodly compound can't be produced by nature," muttered Gunn. "I promise you that."

"How about an underground drainage pipe running from a chemical plant beyond the dunes," Pitt speculated.

Gunn shrugged. "Can't tell without further investigation. This is as far as we can go. We've kept our end of the bargain. Now it's up to contamination specialists to pick up the rest of the pieces."

Pitt gazed over the stern at the gunboat that had crept into view. "Our hounds are getting nosy. Not bright of us to show them what devilment we're about. We'd best continue on course as though we're still taking in the scenery."

"Some scenery," grunted Giordino. "Death Valley is a garden spot compared to this."

Pitt pushed the throttles forward, and the Calliope lifted her bow and surged ahead with a mellow roar from her exhaust. In less than two minutes the Malian gunboat was left far in the yacht's spreading wake. Now, he thought, comes the fun part.

General Kazim sat in a leather executive chair at the end of a conference table flanked by two of Mali's cabinet ministers and his military Chief-of-Staff. At first glance the modern paintings on the silk-covered walls and the thick carpet gave the meeting room the look of a posh office in a modern building. The only giveaway was the curved ceiling and the muffled sound of the jet engines.

The elegantly furnished Airbus Industrie A300 was only one of several gifts Yves Massarde had presented to Kazim in return for allowing the Frenchman industrialist to conduct his vast operations in Mali without wasting time on such trifling details as government laws and restrictions. Whatever Massarde wanted, Kazim gave, so long as the General's foreign bank accounts became fat and he was kept in expensive toys.

Besides acting as a private means of transportation for the General and his cronies, the Airbus was electronically fitted out as a military communications command center, mostly to divert any accusations of corruption from the small but vocal opposition party members of President Tahir's parliament.

Kazim listened silently while his Chief-of-Staff, Colonel Sghir Cheik, explained in detail the reports of the destruction of the Benin gunboats and helicopter. He then passed Kazim two photographs taken of the super yacht on her passage up the river from the sea. "In the first photo," Cheik pointed out, "the yacht is flying the French tricolor. But since entering our country, she is sailing under a pirate flag."

"What nonsense is this?" demanded Kazim.

"We don't know," Cheik confessed. "The French ambassador swears the boat is unknown to his government and is not documented under French ownership. As to the pirate flag, it is an enigma."

"You must know where the boat came from."

"Our intelligence sources have been unable to trace its manufacturer or the country of origin. Its lines and style are unfamiliar to the major boat yards in America and Europe."

"Japanese or Chinese perhaps," suggested Mali's Foreign Minister, Messaoud Djerma.

Cheik pulled the hairs of his wedge-shaped beard and adjusted his tinted, designer glasses. "Our agents have also canvassed boat builders in Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan who design premier yachts with speeds exceeding 50 kilometers an hour. None had any record or knowledge of such a boat."

"You have no information about this intrusion at all?" Kazim asked unbelievingly.

"Nothing." Cheik held up his hands. "It's as though Allah dropped her from the heavens."

"An innocent-looking yacht that changes flags like a woman changes dresses sails up the Niger River," Kazim snarled coldly, "destroys half the Benin navy and its commanding Admiral, calmly enters our water without bothering to stop for customs and immigration inspection, and you sit there and tell me my intelligence network can't identify the nationality of the builder or the owner?"

"I'm sorry, my General," said Cheik nervously. His myopic eyes avoided Kazim's icy stare. "Perhaps if I had been permitted to send an agent on board at the dock in Niamey…"

"It cost enough as it was to bribe Niger officials to look the other way when the boat docked for refueling. The last thing I needed was a bumbling agent causing an incident."

"Have they replied to radio contact?" asked Djerma.

Cheik shook his head. "Our warnings have gone unanswered. They have ignored all communications."

"What in Allah's sacred name do they want?" questioned Seyni Gashi. The Chief of Kazim's Military Council looked far more like a camel trader than a soldier. "What is their mission?"

"It seems the mystery is beyond my intelligence people's mentality to solve," said Kazim irritably.

"Now that it's entered our territory," said Foreign Minister Djerma, "why not merely board and take possession?"

"Admiral Matabu tried it, and now he lies at the bottom of the river."

"The boat is armed with missile launchers," Cheik pointed out. "Highly effective judging from the results."

"Surely, we have the necessary firepower-"

"The crew and their boat are trapped on the Niger with nowhere to go," interrupted Kazim. "There is no turning back and running 1000 kilometers to the sea. They must realize any attempt to flee will be cause for our fighter aircraft and land artillery to destroy them. We wait and watch. And when they run out of fuel, their only hope of survival will be to surrender. Then our questions will be answered."

"Can we safely assume the crew will be persuaded to reveal their mission?" inquired Djerma.

"Yes, yes," Cheik quickly answered. "And much more."

The copilot stepped from the cockpit and snapped to attention. "We have the boat in visual sight, sir."

"So at last we can see this enigma for ourselves," said Kazim. "Tell the pilot to give us a good view."

The weariness of the punishing grind and the disappointment of not pinpointing the actual source of the toxin had dulled Pitt's vigilance. His usually sharp powers of perception lagged and his mind sidetracked any vision of the steel pincers that were slowly snapping shut on the Calliope.

It was Giordino who heard the distant whine of jet engines, looked up, and saw ii first-an aircraft flying less than 200 meters above the river, running lights blinking in the blue dusk. It visibly swelled into a large passenger jet with Malian national colors striped along the side of its fuselage. Two or three fighters as escorts would have been enough. This plane was surrounded by twenty. It seemed at first the pilot intended to fly straight down the river and buzz the Calliope, but 2 kilometers away it banked and began to circle, drawing closer in a slow spiral. The fighter escort spun off upward and launched into a series of figure eights overhead.

When the jet— Pitt by now had spotted the huge radar dome on the nose and recognized it as a command center aircraft— came within 100 meters, faces could be distinguished through the ports staring down, taking in every detail of the super yacht.

Pitt exhaled a long, silent sigh and waved. Then he made a theatrical bow. "Step right up, folks, and see the pirate ship with its merry band of river rats. Enjoy the show, but do not damage the merchandise. You could get hurt."

"Ain't it the truth?" Crouched on the ladder to the engine room, poised to leap at his missile launcher, Giordino stared warily at the circling plane. "If he so much as waggles his wings I'll divide, demolish, and disperse him."

Gunn leisurely sat in a deck chair and doffed his cap at the aerial spectators. "Unless you have a method for making us invisible, I suggest we humor them. It's one thing to be an underdog, but it's quite another to be easy pickings."

"We're overmatched all right," Pitt said, shaking off any trace of weariness. "Nothing we do will make any difference. They've got enough firepower to blow the Calliope into toothpicks."

Gunn scanned the low banks of the river and the barren landscapes beyond. "No use in grounding on shore and making a run for it. The countryside is wide open. We wouldn't get 50 meters."

"So what do we do?" asked Giordino.

"Surrender and take our chances," Gunn offered lamely.

"Even chased rats slash and run," said Pitt. "I'm for the last defiant gesture, a wasted gesture maybe, but what the hell. We give them a nasty sign with our fists, shove the throttles to the wall, and run like hell. If they get downright belligerent, we make cemetery fodder out of them."

"More likely they'll do it to us," complained Giordino.

"You really mean that?" Gunn demanded incredulously.

"Not on your life," Pitt said emphatically. "Mrs. Pitt's boy has no death wish. I'm gambling Kazim wants this boat so bad, he paid off Niger officials to let it pass into Mali so he could grab it. If I win, he won't want even the slightest scratch or dent in the hull."

"You're putting all your eggs in the wrong basket," argued Gunn. "Shoot down one plane and you'll stir up a hornet's nest. Kazim will send everything he's got after us."

"I certainly hope so."

"You're talking like a crazy man," said Giordino suspiciously.

"The contamination data," Pitt said patiently. "That's why we're here. Remember?"

"We don't have to be reminded," said Gunn, beginning to see a slip of light in Pitt's seeming loss of reality. "So what's boiling in your evil caldron of a brain?"

"As much as I hate to ruin a beautiful and perfectly good boat, a diversion may be the only way one of us can escape and carry the results of our operation out of Africa and into the hands of Sandecker and Chapman."

"There's method to his madness after all," Giordino admitted. "Keep talking."

"Nothing complicated," explained Pitt. "In another hour it will be dark. We reverse course and get as close to Gao as we can before Kazim gets tired of the game. Rudi goes over the side and swims for shore. Then you and I start the fireworks show and take off downriver like a vestal virgin chased by barbarian hordes."

"That gunboat might have something to say about that, don't you think?" Gunn reminded him.

"A mere trifle. If my timing is on key, we'll flash past the Malian navy before they know we've come and gone."

Giordino peered over his sunglasses. "Sounds remotely possible. Once the good times roll, the Malians' attention won't be focused on a body in the water."

"Why me?" Gunn demanded. "Why not one of you?"

"Because you're the best qualified," Pitt justified. "You're sly, cunning, and slippery. If anyone can grease their way into the airport at Gao and onto an airplane out of the country, it's you. You're also the only bona fide chemist among us. That alone entitles you to lay bare the toxic substance and its entry point into the river."

"We could make a run for our embassy in the capital city of Bamako."

"Fat chance. Bamako is 600 kilometers away."

"Dirk makes good sense," Giordino agreed. "His gray matter and mine put together couldn't give you the formula for bathroom soap."

"I'll not run out and allow the two of you to sacrifice your lives for me," Gunn insisted.

"Don't talk stupid," Giordino said stonily. "You know damn well Dirk and I don't have a mutual suicide pact." He turned to Pitt. "Do we?"

"Perish the thought," Pitt said loftily. "After we cover Rudi's getaway, we fix the Calliope so Kazim never enjoys its luxury. After that, we abandon ship ourselves and then mount a safari across the desert to discover the true source of the toxin."

"We what?" Giordino looked aghast. "A safari…"

"You have an incredible knack for simplicity," said Gunn.

"Across the desert," Giordino mumbled.

"A little hike never hurt anybody," Pitt said with a jovial air.

"I was wrong," Giordino moaned. "He wants us to self-destruct."

"Self-destruct?" Pitt repeated. "My friend, you just said the magic words."

Pitt took one final look at the aircraft overhead. They still circled aimlessly. They had shown no inclination to attack and obviously had no intention of making any now. Once the Calliope began her dash downriver Pitt could not afford the time to keep them under observation. Running wide open over a strange waterway in the black of night at 70 knots would take every shred of his concentration.

He shifted his gaze from the aircraft to the huge flag he'd run up the mast that supported the shattered satellite antenna. He had removed the small Jolly Roger from the stern jackstaff after finding a United States ensign folded away in a flag locker. It was large, stretching almost 2 meters, but with no breeze to lift it in the dry night air, it hung curled and flaccid around the antenna.

He glanced at the dome on the stern. The shutters were closed. Giordino was not preparing to launch the remaining six rockets. He was attaching them around the fuel tanks before wiring them to a timer/detonator. Gunn, Pitt knew, was below, stuffing the analysis data tapes and water sample records in a plastic cover that he tightly bound and stuffed in a small backpack along with food and survival gear.

Pitt turned his attention to the radar, fixing the position of the Malian gunboat in his mind. He found it surprisingly easy to shake off the tentacles of fatigue. His adrenaline was pumping now that their course was irrevocably set.

He took a deep breath and jammed the triple throttles wide open and crammed the wheel to the starboard stop.

To the men watching from the command aircraft it was as though the Calliope had suddenly leaped from the water and twisted around in midair. She carved a sharp arc in the center of the river, and hurtled downriver under full power, sheeted in a great curtain of foam and spray. Her bow came out of the water like an uplifted sword as her stern plunged deep under a great rooster tail that exploded in the air behind her transom.

The stars and stripes jerked taut and streamed out under the sudden onslaught of wind. Pitt well knew he was going against all government policy, defiantly flying the national emblem on foreign soil during an illegal intrusion. The State Department would scream bloody murder when the enraged Malians beat their breasts and lodged a flaming protest. God only knew the hell that would erupt inside the White House. But he flat didn't give a damn.

The dice were rolling. The black ribbon of water beckoned. Only the dim light of the stars reflected on the smooth surface, and Pitt did not trust his night vision to keep him in the deep part of the channel. If he ran the boat aground at its maximum speed it would disintegrate. His eyes constantly darted from the radar screen to the depth sounder to the dark watercourse ahead before repeating the routine.

He did not waste a glance at the speedometer as the needle hung at the 70-knot mark and then quivered beyond it. Nor did he have to look at the tachometers to know they were creeping past their red lines. The Calliope was giving it everything she had for her final voyage, like a thoroughbred running a race beyond her limits. It was almost as if she knew she would never make home port.

When the Malian gunboat moved almost to the center of the radar screen, Pitt squinted into the darkness. He just discerned the low silhouette of the vessel turning broadside to the channel in an effort to block his passage. It ran no lights, but he didn't doubt for an instant that the crew had their guns aimed down his throat.

He decided to feint to starboard and then cut port to throw off the gunners before skirting the shallows and charging under the gunboat's bow. The Malians had the initiative, but Pitt was banking on Kazim's unwillingness to ruin one of the world's finest speed yachts. The General would be in no hurry. He still had a comfortable margin of several hundred kilometers of river to stop the fleeing boat.

Pitt planted his feet squarely on the deck and positioned his hands on the wheel in preparation for the fast turns. For some unearthly reason the roar from the flat-out turbo diesels and the crescendo of wind pounding in his ears reminded him of the last act of Wagner's Twilight of the Gods. All that was missing was the thunder and lightning.

And then that struck too.

The gunboat let loose, and a whole mass of shrieking fire burst through the night, ear-piercing, a nightmare bedlam of shells that found and slammed into the Calliope.

Aboard the command plane, Kazim stared in shock at the unexpected attack. Then he flew into a rage.

"Who told the Captain of that gunboat to open fire?" he demanded.

Cheik looked stunned. "He must have taken it upon himself."

"Order him to cease fire, immediately. I want that boat intact and undamaged."

"Yes, sir," Cheik acknowledged, jumping from his chair and rushing to the communications cabin of the aircraft.

"Idiot!" Kazim snapped, his face twisted in anger. "My orders were explicit. No battle unless I so ordered. I want the Captain and his ship's officers executed for disobeying my command."

Foreign Minister Messaoud Djerma stared at Kazim in disapproval. "Those are harsh measures—"

Kazim cut Djerma off with a withering stare. "Not for those who are disloyal."

Djerma shrank from the murderous gaze of his superior. No man with a wife and family dared face up to Kazim. Those who questioned the General's demands disappeared as though they never existed.

Very slowly Kazim's eyes turned from Djerma and refocused on the action taking place on the river.

The vicious tracers, glowing weirdly in the desert blackness, streaked across the water, at first swinging wildly to the port of the Calliope. It sounded as if a dozen guns were blazing at once. Waterspouts thrashed the water like hail.

Then the aim of the gunners steadied and became deadly as the fiery shells walked across the river and began thudding into the now defenseless boat at almost point-blank range. Jagged holes appeared in the bow and foredeck; the shells would have traveled the interior length of the unarmored boat if they hadn't been absorbed by spare coils of nylon line and deflected by the anchor chain in the forecastle.

There was no time to avoid the initial barrage, barely time to react. Caught totally off balance, Pitt instinctively crouched and in the same movement desperately spun the wheel to avert the devastating fire. The Calliope responded and shot clear for a few moments until the gunners corrected and the orange, searing flashes skipped across the river and found the high-speed craft again, ripping the steel hull and shattering the fiberglass superstructure. The thud of the impacts sounded like the tire of a speeding car thumping over highway centerline reflectors.

Smoke and flame leaped from the holes torn in the forecastle where the tracers had fired the coils of line. The instrument panel shattered and exploded around Pitt. Miraculously, he wasn't hit by the shell, but he faintly felt a trickle of liquid down his cheek. He cursed his stupidity in thinking the Malians wouldn't destroy the Calliope. He deeply regretted having Giordino remove the missiles from their launchers and secure them to the fuel tanks. One shell into the engine room and they would all be blown into unidentifiable morsels for the fish.

He was so close to the gunboat now, if he had looked, he could have read the orange dial of his old Doxa dive watch from the muzzle flashes.

He cranked the wheel savagely, swerving the riddled yacht around the gunboat's bow with less than 2 meters to spare. And then he was past, the avalanching slab of water from the sport yacht's wash pitching the gunboat into a rolling motion that threw off the aim of the gunners and sent their shells whistling harmlessly into the night.

And then, quite suddenly, the continuous blast from the gunboat's cannon stopped. Pitt did not bother to fathom the reason for the reprieve. He maintained a zigzag course until the gunboat was left far behind in the darkness. Only when he was sure they were in the clear and the still functioning radar unit showed no indication of attacking aircraft did he relax and exhale his breath in welcome relief.

Giordino appeared beside him, concern on his face. "You okay?"

"Mad at myself for playing a sucker. How about you and Rudi?"

"A few bruises from being thrown around by your lousy driving. Rudi received a nasty knot on his head when he was knocked flat during a hard turn, but it hasn't stopped him from fighting the fire in the bow."

"He's a tough little guy."

Giordino raised a flashlight and shined it on Pitt's face. "Did you know you have a piece of glass sticking out of your ugly mug?"

Pitt raised one hand from the wheel and tenderly touched a small piece of glass from a gauge that was embedded in his cheek. "You can see it better than I can. Pull it out."

Giordino slipped the butt end of the flashlight between his teeth, pointed the beam at Pitt's wound, and gently took hold of the glass shard between his forefinger and thumb. Then with a quick jerk, he yanked it free. "Bigger than I thought," he commented offhandedly. He threw the glass overboard and retrieved a first aid kit from a cockpit cabinet. Three stitches and a bandage later, while Pitt kept his eyes on the instruments and the river, Giordino stood back and admired his handiwork. "There you go. Another brilliant operation in the continuing saga of Dr. Albert Giordino, desert surgeon."

"What's your next great moment in medicine?" Pitt asked as he spied a dim yellow glow from a lantern and slewed the Calliope into a wide arc, just missing a pinnace sailing in the dark.

"Why, presenting the bill, of course."

"I'll mail you a check."

Gunn appeared from below, holding a cube of ice against a blossoming bump on the back of his head. "It's going to break the Admiral's heart when he hears what we did to his boat."

"Down deep, I don't think he ever expected to see her again," Giordino prophesied.

"Fire out?" Pitt asked Gunn.

"Still smoldering, but I'll give it another shot from an extinguisher after I breathe the smoke out of my lungs."

"Any leaks below?"

Gunn shook his head. "Most of the hits we took were topside. None below the waterline. The bilge is dry."

"Are the aircraft still in the neighborhood? The radar only shows one."

Giordino tilted his head at the sky. "The big one is still giving us the eye," he confirmed. "Too dark to make out the fighters, and they're out of earshot, but my old bones tell me they're hanging around."

"How far to Gao?" asked Gunn.

"About 75 or 80 kilometers," Pitt estimated. "Even at this speed we won't see the city's lights for another hour or more."

"Providing those characters up there leave us alone," Giordino said, his voice raised two octaves to overcome the wind and exhaust.

Gunn pointed to the portable radio that rested on a counter shelf. "Might help if we strung them along."

Pitt smiled in the darkness. "Yes, I think it's time we take calls."

"Why not?" Giordino went along. "I'm curious to hear what they have to say."

"Talking to them might buy us the time we need to reach Gao," advised Gunn. "We've a fair way to go."

Pitt turned the helm over to Giordino, tuned up the volume on the portable radio's speaker so they could all hear above the roar, and spoke into the mouthpiece. "Good evening," he answered pleasantly. "How may I help you?"

There was a short pause. Then a voice replied in French.

"I hate this," muttered Giordino.

Pitt stared up at the plane as he spoke. "Non parley vous francais."

Gunn wrinkled his brows. "Do you know what you said?"

Pitt looked at him innocently. "I informed him I can't speak French."

"Vous is you," Gunn lectured him. "You just told him, he can't speak French."

"Whoever he is will get the drift."

The voice crackled through the speaker again. "I understand English."

"That's helpful," Pitt replied. "Go ahead."

"Identify yourself."

"You first."

"Very well, I am General Zateb Kazim, Chief of the Mali Supreme Military Council."

At the reply Pitt turned and looked at Giordino and Gunn. "The big man himself."

"I've always wanted to be recognized by a celebrity," Giordino said with heavy sarcasm. "Never thought it would happen in the middle of nowhere."

"Identify yourself," Kazim repeated. "Are you commanding an American vessel?"

"Edward Teach, Captain of the Queen Anne's Revenge."

"I attended university at Princeton," Kazim replied dryly. "I am quite familiar with Blackbeard the pirate. Please cease with the satire and surrender your ship."

"And if I have other plans?"

"You and your crew will be destroyed by Malian Air Force fighter-bombers."

"If they don't shoot any better than your navy gunboats," Pitt needled Kazim, "we haven't a care in the world."

"Do not toy with me," Kazim said, his tone suddenly viperous. "Who are you, and what are you doing in my country?"

"You might say we're down-home folks on a little fishing trip."

"Stop and surrender your vessel immediately!" Kazim spat.

No, I don't think I will," Pitt answered cavalierly.

"You and your crew will surely die if you do not."

"Then you will lose a boat like no other in the world. A one of a kind. I assume you have an idea of what she's capable of."

There was a long silence, and Pitt knew that his long shot had struck home.

"I've read the reports of your little altercation with my late friend, Admiral Matabu. I am fully versed on your boat's firepower."

"Then you know we could have blasted your gunboat to the bottom of the river."

"I regret that they fired on you against my orders."

"We can also knock your lumbering command plane out of the sky," Pitt bluffed.

Kazim was not mentally deficient. He had already considered that event. "I die, you die. What is the percentage in that?"

"Give me some time to think that over, say until we reach Gao."

"I'm a generous man," Kazim said with unaccustomed patience. "But at Gao you will cease headway and bring your boat alongside the city's ferry dock. If you persist in your foolish attempt to escape, my air force will put you in infidel hell."

"I understand, General. You make our choice crystal clear." Pitt flicked off the radio transmit switch and grinned from ear to ear. "I just love it when I make a good deal."

The lights of Gao bloomed in the darkness, less than 5 kilometers ahead. Pitt took the wheel from Giordino and motioned at Gunn. "Get set to hit the water, Rudi."

Gunn peered hesitantly at the white water swirling past at nearly 75 knots. "Not at this speed, I won't."

"Not to worry," Pitt eased his mind. "I'll make a sudden cut down to 10 knots. You slip over the side opposite the aircraft. Soon as you're away, I'll crank her up again." Then to Giordino, "Sweet talk Kazim. Keep him occupied."

Giordino lifted the radio and spoke in a muffled tone. "Could you repeat your terms, General?"

"Stop your senseless attempt at escape, turn over your vessel at Gao, and you live. Those are the terms."

As Kazim talked, Pitt edged the Calliope closer to the shore of the river that held the town. The tension in the cockpit and his anxiety increased, a tension that spread to his three friends. He reasoned that Gunn had to go in before the lights of Gao revealed him in the black water by their reflection. And he had cause to be anxious. The game was to keep the Maligns from becoming suspicious by his deceptive maneuver. The depth-sounder showed the bottom was coming up fast. He yanked the throttles back, lurching the Calliope's bow deep into the water. The speed fell off so quickly that he was thrown forward against the cockpit counter.

"Now!" Pitt yelled at Gunn. "Go for it and good luck."

Without a word of farewell, the little scientist from NUMA tightly clutched the straps to his backpack and rolled over the railing out of sight. Almost instantly, Pitt shoved the throttles to their stops again.

Giordino stared out over the stern, but Gunn was completely lost in the black river. Satisfied his friend was safely swimming across the 50 meters of water separating the bank from the boat, he turned back and calmly continued his conversation with General Kazim.

"If you promise us safe passage out of your country, the boat is yours, or what's left of it after your gunboat mangled it."

Kazim indicated no suspicion of the brief pause in the Calliope's velocity through the water. "I accept," he purred, fooling nobody.

"We have no wish to die in a hail of gunfire in a polluted river."

"A wise choice," replied Kazim. The words came formal and civil, but the hostility, the triumph were apparent in his tone. "Indeed there are no options for you to do anything else."

Pitt had a sinking feeling he had overplayed his hand. There was little doubt in his mind, or in Giordino's mind too, that Kazim meant to kill them and throw their bodies to the vultures. They had one shot at diverting the Maligns from Gunn, one shot at staying alive, but the odds were slim, so low in fact that no self-respecting gambler would waste a cheap bet on them.

His plan, if it could subtly be called that, would buy them a few hours time, nothing more. He began to curse his folly for thinking they might get away with it.

But a moment later, salvation, unexpected and unimagined, appeared through the night.

Giordino tapped Pitt's shoulder and pointed down the river. "That blaze of lights off the starboard bow, that's the jazzy houseboat I told you about. The one we passed earlier. It's decked out like a billionaire's yacht, complete with helicopter and a bevy of friendly women."

"Think it might carry a satellite communications system we could borrow to contact Washington?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if it had telex."

Pitt turned and smiled down at Giordino. "Since we have no pressing engagements, why not drop in?"

Giordino laughed and clapped him on the back. "I'll set the detonator."

"Thirty seconds should do it."

"Done."

Giordino handed the radio back to Pitt and dropped down the ladder to the engine room. He reappeared almost immediately while Pitt was in the act of programming the course into a computer and engaging the automatic pilot. Luckily the river was wide and straight, allowing the Calliope to cruise on her own for a considerable distance after they abandoned her.

He nodded at Giordino. "Ready?"

"Say the word."

"Speaking of words." Pitt raised the portable radio to his mouth. "General Kazim."

"Yes?"

"I've changed my mind. You can't have the boat after all. Have a nice day."

Giordino grinned. "I like your style."

Pitt casually tossed the radio overboard and stood poised until the Calliope was even with the houseboat. Then he pulled back the throttles.

As soon as the speed fell off to 20 knots he shouted, "Now!"

Giordino needed no coaxing. He ran across the rear deck and launched himself over the stern. He struck the water in the center of the churning wake, his splash lost in a spray of seething froth. Pitt hesitated only long enough to cram the throttles forward before leaping over the side, curling himself in a ball. The sudden impact came with a jolt that nearly knocked the wind out of him. Thankfully, the water was lukewarm and smothered him like a thick blanket. He took great care not to swallow any of the contaminated river. Their predicament was dire enough without becoming deathly sick.

He rolled over on his back just in time to see the Calliope rushing into the darkness with the speed and roar of an express train, a boat lifeless and abandoned with only moments to live. Pitt floated and stared and waited for the missiles and the fuel tanks to explode. He did not wait long. Even at over a kilometer the blast was deafening, and the shock wave that traveled through the water came like an invisible blow to his body. Flame belched through the blackness in a huge orange ball as the faithful Calliope blew herself into a thousand pieces. Within half a minute the flames were swallowed by the night and all trace of the beautiful sport yacht was gone.

There was also a strange hush now that the roar of the yacht's engines and the explosion faded across the desert beyond the shore. The only sounds came from the drone Kazim's command plane and the soft strains of a piano playing on the houseboat.

Giordino sidestroked past. "Swimming? I thought you'd be walking,"

"Only on special occasions."

Giordino lifted a hand skyward. "Think we conned them?"

"Temporarily, but they'll figure it out soon enough."

"Shall we crash the party?"

Pitt rolled over and began an easy breaststroke. "By all means."

As he swam he studied the houseboat. It was the perfect craft to navigate a river. The draft couldn't have been more than 4 feet. The design and shape reminded Pitt of an old Mississippi side paddle steamer, like the famed Robert E. Lee, except there were no paddle wheels and the superstructure was far more modern. One true similarity was the pilothouse perched on the forward part of the upper deck. If built for the open sea with an oceangoing hull it would have fallen in the elegant class of a mega-yacht. He studied the sleek helicopter perched on the middle stern deck, the glass-enclosed three-level atrium filled with tropical plants, the space-age electronics that sprouted from behind the wheelhouse. The incredible houseboat was a fantasy turned real.

They were within 20 meters of the houseboat gangway when the Malian gunboat came forging downriver at full speed. Pitt could see the shadowy figures of the boat's officers on the bridge. They were all peering intently toward the explosion and paid no attention to the water off their beams. He also saw a group of crewmen on the bow and didn't have to be told they were scanning the dark river for survivors while clutching automatic weapons with the safety catches in the of position.

In a quick glance before he ducked under the swirling wave chopped out by the gunboat's twin props, Pitt saw a crowd of passengers suddenly appearing on the houseboat's promenade deck. They were talking excitedly among themselves and gesturing in the direction of the Calliope's final resting place. The entire boat and water surrounding it were brightly illuminated by floodlights mounted on the upper deck. Pitt resurfaced and paused, treading water in the dark, slightly beyond the outer limits of the lighted perimeter.

"This is as far as we can go without being spotted," he said quietly to Giordino, who was calmly floating on his back a meter away.

"No grand entrance?" Giordino queried.

"Discretion tells me we'd be better off to advise Admiral Sandecker of our situation before we crash the party."

"You're right as usual, O great one," Giordino acquiesced. "The owner might take us for thieves in the night, which we are, and clap us in irons, which he will no doubt do anyway."

"I judge it about 20 meters. How's your wind?"

"I can hold my breath as long as you can."

Pitt took several deep breaths, hyperventilating to purge the carbon dioxide from his lungs, and then inhaled until every cubic millimeter was filled with oxygen before slipping under the water.

Knowing that Giordino was following his lead, he dove deep and angled against the unseen current. He stayed deep, almost 3 meters down, stroking for the side of the houseboat. He could tell when he was getting close by the increasing light on the surface. When a shadow slipped over him he knew he had passed under the curve of the hull. Extending a hand over his head so he wouldn't strike his head, he slowly ascended until his fingers touched the slime that had formed on the boat's bottom. Then he slightly veered so his head broke the water alongside the aluminum side.

He sucked in the night air and looked up. Except for several hands draped on the railing only 2 meters above his head, he could not see the passengers, nor could they see him, unless one of them leaned over and stared straight down. It was impossible to board the ship on the gangway without being seen. Giordino surfaced and immediately read the predicament.

Silently, Pitt motioned under the hull. He held apart his hands, indicating the depth of the boat's draft. Giordino nodded in understanding as they both filled their lungs again. Then they quietly rolled forward out of sight, leveled off, and swam under the bottom of the hull. The beam was so wide it took them nearly a minute before they resurfaced on the other side.

The port decks were empty and lifeless. Everyone was around the starboard side, attracted by the destruction of the Calliope. A rubber bumper hung along the hull and Pitt and Giordino used it to pull themselves on board. Pitt hesitated all of two seconds to figure a rough layout of the boat. They were standing on the deck that held the guest suites. They would have to go up. Trailed by Giordino he cautiously moved up a stairway to the next deck. One quick peek through a large port at a dining salon with the size and elegance of a deluxe hotel restaurant and they continued upward to the deck just below the pilothouse.

He cracked open a door and peered into what was a lavishly furnished lounge. All glass, delicately curved metalwork, and leather in golds and yellows. An ornate, fully stocked bar graced one wall.

The bartender was gone, probably gawking with the others outside, but a blond-haired woman with long bare legs, narrow waistline, and bronze-tanned skin sat at a baby grand piano that was covered in gleaming brass. She wore a seductively tight, black sequinned mini dress. She was playing a moody rendition of "The Last Time I Saw Paris," and was playing it badly while singing the words in a throaty voice. Four empty martini glasses sat in a row above the keyboard. She looked as if she had spent the entire day since sunup drowning in gin, the obvious cause behind her sour performance. She stopped in mid-chorus, staring in hazy curiosity at Pitt and Giordino through velvet green eyes, bleary and barely half open.

"What cat dragged you guys in here?" she slurred.

Pitt, catching a glimpse of himself and Giordino in the mirror behind the bar, a glimpse of a pair of men in soaked T-shirts and shorts, of men whose hair was plastered down on their heads and who hadn't bothered to shave in over a week, thought wryly to himself that he couldn't blame her for looking at them like they were drowned rats. He held a finger to his lips for silence, took one of her hands and kissed it, then flitted past her through a doorway into a hall.

Giordino paused and gave her a wistful look and winked a brown eye. "My name is Al," he whispered in her ear. "I love you and shall return."

And then he too was gone.

The hallway seemed to stretch into infinity. Side passages ran in every direction, an intimidating labyrinth to those suddenly thrust in its midst. If the houseboat looked large from the outside, it seemed downright enormous on the inside.

"We could use a couple of motorcycles and a road map," Giordino muttered.

"If I owned this boat," said Pitt, "I'd put my office and communications center up forward to enjoy the view over the bow."

"I think I want to marry the piano player."

"Not now," Pitt murmured wearily. "Let's head forward and check the doors as we go."

Identifying the compartments turned easy. The doors were labeled with fancy scrolled brass plates. As Pitt guessed, the one at the end of the hallway bore the title of Mr. Massarde's Private Once.

"Must be the guy who owns this floating palace," said Giordino.

Pitt didn't answer but eased open the door. Any corporate executive officer of one of the larger companies of the Western world would have turned green with envy at seeing the office suite of the houseboat anchored in the desert wilderness. The centerpiece was a Spanish antique conference table with ten chairs upholstered in dyed wool designs by master weavers on the Navajo reservation. Incredibly, the decor and artifacts on the walls and pedestals were American Southwest territorial. Life-size Hopi Kachina sculptures carved entirely from the huge roots of cottonwood trees stood in tall niches set within the bulkheads. The ceiling was covered by latillas, small branches placed across vigas, poles that acted as a roof support; the windows were covered by willow-twig shutters. For a moment Pitt couldn't believe he was on a boat.

Collections of fine ceremonial pottery and coil-woven baskets sat comfortably on long shelves behind a huge desk built from sun-bleached wood. A complete communications system was mounted in a nineteenth-century trastero, or cabinet.

The room was vacant, and Pitt lost no time. He crossed hurriedly to the phone console, sat down, and studied the complex array of buttons and dials for a few moments. Then he began punching numbers. When he completed the country and city codes, he added Sandecker's private number and sat back. The speaker on the console emitted a series of clicks and clacks. Then came ten full seconds of silence. At last the peculiar buzz sound of an American telephone being rung echoed from the speaker.

After ten full rings, there was no reply. "For God's sake, why doesn't he answer," Pitt said in frustration.

"Washington is five hours behind Mali. It's midnight there. He's probably in bed."

Pitt shook his head. "Not Sandecker. He never sleeps during a project crisis."

"He'd better get on the horn quick," Giordino implored. "The posse is following our water tracks up the hallway."

"Keep them at bay," Pitt said.

"What if they have guns?"

"Worry about it when the time comes."

Giordino glanced around the room at the Indian art. "Keep them at bay, he says," Giordino grunted. "Custer having fun in Montana, that's me."

At last a woman's voice came over the speaker. "Admiral Sandecker's office."

Pitt snatched the receiver out of its cradle. "Julie?"

Sandecker's private secretary, Julie Wolff, sucked in her breath. "Oh Mr. Pitt, is that you?"

"Yes, I didn't expect you to be in the office this time of night."

"Nobody has slept since we lost communications with you. Thank God, you're alive. Everyone at NUMA has been worried sick. Is Mr. Giordino and Mr. Gunn all right?"

"They're fine. Is the Admiral nearby?"

"He's meeting with a UN tactical team about how to smuggle you out of Mali. I'll get him right away."

Less than a minute later, Sandecker's voice came on in combination with a loud pounding on the door. "Disk?"

"I don't have time for a lengthy situation report, Admiral. Please switch on your recorder."

"It's on."

"Rudi isolated the chemical villain. He has the recorded data and is headed for the Gao airport where he hopes to stow away on a flight out of the country. We pinpointed the location where the compound enters the Niger. The exact position is in Rudi's records. The rub is that the true source lies at an unknown location in the desert to the north. AI and I are remaining behind in an attempt to track it down. By the way, we destroyed the Calliope—"

"The natives are getting testy." Giordino shouted across the office. He was putting his considerable muscle against the door as it was being kicked in from the other side.

"Where are you?" questioned Sandecker.

"Ever hear of some rich guy named Massarde?"

"Yves Massarde, the French tycoon, I've heard of him."

Before Pitt could answer, the door burst in around Giordino and six burly crewmen rushed him like the forward wall of a rugby team. Giordino decked the first three before he was buried under a pile of thrashing bodies.

"We're uninvited guests on Massarde's houseboat," Pitt rushed the words. "Sorry, Admiral, I have to go now." Pitt calmly hung up the receiver, turned in the chair, and looked across the office at a man who entered the room behind the melee.

Yves Massarde was immaculately dressed in a white dinner jacket with a yellow rose in the lapel. One hand was stylishly slipped into the side pocket of his jacket, the elbow bent outward. He impassively stepped around the bruised and bloodied crewmen who were fighting to restrain Giordino as if they were derelicts on the street. Then he paused and stared through a haze of blue smoke from a Gauloise Bleu cigarette that dangled from one corner of his mouth. What he saw was a cold-eyed individual who sat behind his personal desk, arms folded in icy indifference, and benignly smiling back with bemused interest. Massarde was a keen judge of men. This one he immediately sensed was cunning and dangerous.

"Good evening," Pitt said politely.

"American or English?" inquired Massarde.

"American."

"What are you doing on my boat?" he demanded.

The firm lips fixed in a slight grin. "It was urgent that I borrow your telephone. I hope my friend and I haven't put you out. I'll be more than happy to reimburse you for the call and any damage to your door."

"You might have asked to come aboard my boat and used the phone like gentlemen." Massarde's tone clearly indicated he thought of Americans as primitive cowboys.

"Looking like we do, would you have invited perfect strangers who suddenly appeared out of the night into your private office?"

Massarde considered that, and then smiled thoughtfully. "No, probably not. You're quite right."

Pitt took a pen from an antique inkwell and scribbled on a note pad, then tore off the top paper, stepped from behind the desk, and handed it to Massarde. "You can send the bill to this address. Nice talking with you, but we have to be on our way."

Massarde's hand came out of his jacket with a small automatic pistol. He lined up the muzzle with Pitt's forehead. "I must insist you stay and enjoy my hospitality before I turn you over to Malian security forces."

Giordino had been roughly manhandled to his feet. One eye was already swelling and a small trickle of blood dropped from one nostril. "Are you going to clap us in irons?" he asked Massarde.

The Frenchman studied Giordino as if he was a bear in a zoo. "Yes, I think restraint is in order."

Giordino looked at Pitt. "See," he muttered sullenly. "I told you so."

Sandecker returned to the conference room in the NUMA headquarters building and sat down with a look of optimism that wasn't there ten minutes before. "They're alive," he stated tersely.

Two men were seated at the table whose surface was covered with a large map of the Western Sahara and intelligence reports on the Malian military and security police forces. They stared at Sandecker and nodded approvingly.

"Then we continue with the rescue operation as planned," said the senior of the two, a man with brushed-back gray hair and hard jeweled eyes with the gleam of blue topaz set in a large round face.

General Hugo Bock was a far-seeing man who planned accordingly. A soldier who possessed a remarkable variety of skills, he was a born killer. Bock was senior commander of a little-known security force called UNICRATT, the abbreviation for United Nations International Critical Response and Tactical Team. Highly trained and extremely capable fighters, the team was composed of men from nine countries who performed undercover missions for the United Nations that were never publicized. Bock had led a distinguished career in the German army, constantly on the move as an advisor to third world countries whose governments requested his services during revolutionary wars or conflicts over border disputes.

His second-in-command was Colonel Marcel Levant, a highly decorated veteran of the French Foreign Legion. There was an old-fashioned aristocratic quality about him. A graduate of Saint Cyr, France's foremost military college, he had served around the world and was a hero of the short desert war against Iraq in 1991. His face was intelligent, even handsome. Although he was almost thirty-six years old, his slim build, long brown hair, a large but neatly clipped moustache, and large gray eyes made him appear only recently emerged from a university graduation ceremony.

"Do you have their location?" Levant asked Sandecker.

"I do," answered Sandecker. "One is attempting to smuggle himself on board a plane at the Gao airport. The other two are on a houseboat in the Niger River belonging to Yves Massarde."

Levant's eyes widened at hearing the name. "Ah yes, the Scorpion."

"You know him?" asked Bock.

"Only by reputation. Yves Massarde is an international entrepreneur who amassed a fortune estimated to be around two billion American dollars. He's called the Scorpion because a number of his competitors and business partners mysteriously disappeared, leaving him the sole proprietor of several large and very profitable corporations. He's considered quite ruthless, not to mention an embarrassment to the French government. Your friends couldn't have picked worse company."

"Does he carry out criminal activities?" asked Sandecker.

"Most definitely, but he leaves no evidence that would convict him in a court of law. Friends in Interpol tell me they have a file on him a meter thick."

"Of all the people in the Sahara," murmured Bock, "how did your people run into him?"

"If you knew Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino," Sandecker shrugged wearily, "you'd understand."

"I'm still at a loss why Secretary General Kamil approved an operation to smuggle your NUMA people out of Mali," said Bock. "Missions by our UN Critical Response and Tactical Team are usually undertaken in deep secrecy during times of international crisis. I fail to see why saving the lives of three NUMA researchers is so crucial."

Sandecker looked Bock straight in the eye. "Believe me, General, you'll never have a mission more important than this one. The scientific data these men have gathered in West Africa must be brought to our labs in Washington at the first opportunity. Our government, for stupid reasons known only to God, refuses to become involved. Hala Kamil, thankfully, saw the urgency of the situation and sanctioned your mission."

"May I ask what sort of data?" Levant queried Sandecker.

The Admiral shook his head. "I can't tell you."

"Is this a classified matter concerning only the United States?"

"No, it concerns every man, woman, and child who walks the earth."

Bock and Levant exchanged quizzical glances.

After a moment Bock turned back to Sandecker. "You stated that your men have split up. This factor makes a successful operation extremely difficult. We run a high risk by dividing our force."

"Are you telling me you can't get all my men out?" asked Sandecker incredulously.

"What General Bock is saying," explained Levant, "is that we double the risk by attempting two missions simultaneously. The element of surprise is cut in half. As an example, we stand a far greater chance of success by concentrating our force on removing the two men off Massarde's houseboat because we don't expect it to be secured by heavily armed military guards. And, we can determine the exact location. The airport is a different story. We have no idea where your man…"

"Rudi Gunn," Sandecker offered. "His name is Rudi Gunn."

"Where Gunn is hiding," Levant continued. "Our team would have to waste precious time searching him out. Also, the field is used by the Malian air force as well as commercial airliners. Military security runs around the clock. Anyone attempting to escape the country from the Gao airport would have to be extraordinarily fortunate to make it out in one piece."

"You want me to make a choice?"

"To plan for unforeseen difficulties," said Levant, "we must designate which rescue mission is a top priority and which one is our secondary."

Bock looked at Sandecker. "It's your call, Admiral."

Sandecker looked down at the map of Mali spread out across the table, focusing his eyes on the red line in the Niger River that marked the course of the Calliope. There was really little doubt in his mind as to a decision. The chemical analysis was all that mattered. Pitt's final words about remaining behind and continuing the search for the contamination origin came back to haunt him. He took out one of his custom-rolled cigars from a leather case and slowly lit it. He stared at the marking that indicated Gao for a long, meaningful moment before looking up at Bock and Levant again.

"Gunn must be your priority rescue," Sandecker said flatly.

Bock nodded. "So be it."

"But how can we be sure Gunn hasn't already managed to board a plane departing the country?"

Levant gave a knowledgeable shrug. "My staff has already checked the flight schedules. The next flight by an. Air Mali aircraft, or any other aircraft for that matter, scheduled to depart Gao for a destination outside the country is four days from now, providing it isn't canceled, which is by no means a rare event."

"Four days," Sandecker repeated, his expectations suddenly dashed. "No way Gunn can hide out for four days. Twenty-four hours maybe. After that, Malian security forces are bound to ferret him out."

"Unless he speaks Arabic or French and looks like a native," said Levant.

"No chance of that," said Sandecker.

Bock tapped the map of Mali with his finger. "Colonel Levant and a tactical team of forty men can be on the ground at Gao inside of twelve hours."

"We could, but we won't," cautioned Levant. "Twelve hours from now would put us there just after sunup, Mali time."

"My mistake," Bock corrected himself. "No way I can risk our force in daylight."

"The longer we wait," said Sandecker acidly, "the better Gunn's chances for being caught and shot."

"I promise you my men and I will do our best to get your man out," Levant said solemnly. "But not at great risk to others."

"Do not fail." Sandecker looked at Levant steadily. "He's carrying information that is critical for the survival of us all."

Bock's face wore a skeptical expression as he weighed Sandecker's words. Then his eyes turned hard. "Fair warning, Admiral, sanctioned or not by the Secretary General of the UN, if a score of my men die on a wild goose chase to save just one of yours, there better be urgent justification, or by God somebody is going to deal with me personally."

The inference of who somebody was came through clearly. Sandecker didn't even bat an eyelid. He had called in a debt from an old friend with an intelligence agency who passed him file copies of the UNICRATT force. They were called unicrazies by other special forces, tough men who lived and fought on the edge. Unafraid to die, totally fearless in combat, and incapable of mercy, there were few better at the craft of killing. And each acted as agents of their own nation, passing on information concerning undercover UN activities as a matter of course. He'd read a psychological profile on General Bock and knew squarely where he stood.

Sandecker leaned across the table and gazed at Bock through eyes that seemed to spark like knives on a grindstone. "Now hear this, you big Luger head. I don't give a damn about how many men you lose spiriting Gunn out of Mali. Just get him out. Screw up and your ass is mine."

Bock didn't hit him. He just sat there, staring at Sandecker from under great shrubs of gray eyebrows, and the bemused look in the eyes was that of a grizzly bear tucking in his napkin before dining on a rancher's calf. The Admiral was less than half Bock's size and any fight would have been over in the blink of an eye. Then the big German relaxed with a laugh.

"Now that you and I understand each other, why don't we get on with it and hatch a foolproof plan."

Sandecker smiled and slowly relaxed in his chair. He offered Bock one of his mammoth cigars. "A pleasure doing business with you, General. Let us hope the association will prove profitable."

Hala Kamil stood on the steps of the Waldorf Astoria hotel waiting for her limousine after leaving a formal inner given in her honor by the UN Ambassador from India. There was a light rain and the streets reflected the lights of the city on the wet pavement. As the long black Lincoln pulled to the curb she stepped under an umbrella held by the doorman, gathered up the long skirt of her dress, and gracefully slipped into the rear seat.

Ismail Yerli was already seated inside. He took her hand and kissed it. "I'm sorry to meet you like this," he apologized, "but it's too risky for us to be seen together."

"It's been a long time, Ismail," said Hala, her large eyes soft and radiant. "You've avoided me."

He glanced toward the chauffeur's compartment, making sure the divider window was raised. "I felt it best for you if I simply faded away. You've come too far and worked too hard to lose it all because of scandal."

"We could have been discreet," Hala said in a low voice.

Yerli shook his head. "Love affairs of men in power are largely ignored. But a woman in your position; the news media and gossip mongers would savage you in every nation of the world."

"I still have great affection for you, Ismail."

He put his hand over hers. "And I for you, but you are the best thing that ever happened to the United Nations. I won't be the cause of your downfall."

"So you walked out," she said, a hurt look growing in her eyes. "How very noble of you."

"Yes," he said without hesitation. "To avoid headlines reading, `Secretary General of the UN revealed as mistress to French intelligence agent working undercover in the World Health Organization.' My superiors at the Second Division of the National Defense Staff wouldn't exactly be overjoyed at my exposure either."

"We've kept our relationship a secret until now," she protested. "Why not continue?"

"Impossible."

"You're well known as a Turkish national. Who could possibly discover the French recruited you when you were a student at Istanbul University?"

"If someone digs deep enough they'll strike secrets. The first rule of a good agent is to operate in the shadows without being too furtive and too visible. I compromised my cover at the UN when I fell in love with you. If either British, Soviet, or American intelligence get even a whiff of our relationship, their investigation teams would never stop until they filled a file with sordid details which they would then use to extort favors from your high office."

"They haven't yet," she said hopefully.

"No, and they're not going to," he said firmly. "That's why we must not see each other outside the UN building."

Hala turned away and stared through the rain-streaked window. "Then why are you here?"

Yerli took a deep breath. "I need a favor."

"Something concerning the UN or your French bosses?"

"Both."

She felt as if she were being turned inside out. "You only use me, Ismail. You twist my emotions so that you can play your petty little spy games. You are an unscrupulous rat."

He didn't speak.

She gave in as she knew she would. "What do you want me to do?"

"There is an epidemiology team from the WHO," he spelled out, his voice suddenly businesslike, "which is investigating reports of strange diseases in the Malian desert."

"I recall the project. It was mentioned during my daily briefing several days ago. Dr. Frank Hopper is directing the research."

"That is correct."

Hala nodded. "Hopper is a well-respected scientist. What is your involvement with his mission?"

"My job is to coordinate their travel and see to their logistics, food, transportation, lab equipment, that sort of thing."

"You still haven't made clear what you want from me."

"I'd like you to recall Dr. Hopper and his investigators immediately."

She turned and looked at him in surprise. "Why would you ask that?"

"Because they're in great danger. I have it on good authority they are to be murdered by West African terrorists."

"I don't believe you."

"It's true," he said seriously. "A bomb will be placed on their plane, set to explode over the desert."

"What kind of monsters do you work for?" she snapped, her voice shocked. "Why come to me? Why haven't you warned Dr. Hopper?"

"I've tried to alert Hopper, but he has ignored all communications."

"Can't you persuade the Malian authorities to relay the threat and offer protection?"

Yerli shrugged. "General Kazim looks upon them as intruding foreigners and cares less about their safety."

"I'd be a fool if I didn't think there was more intrigue here than a simple bomb threat."

He looked into her face. "Trust me, Hala. My only thought is to save Dr. Hopper and his people."

Hala wanted desperately to believe him, but deep inside her heart she knew he was lying. "It seems everybody is searching for contamination in Mali these days. And they all urgently require salvation and evacuation."

Yerli looked puzzled but said nothing, waiting for her to explain.

"Admiral Sandecker of the United States National Underwater and Marine Agency came to me and requested approval for the use of our Critical Response and Tactical Team to rescue three of his people from Malian security forces."

"The Americans were searching for contamination in Mali?"

"Yes, apparently it was an undercover operation, but the Malian military intercepted them."

"They were caught?"

"Not as of four hours ago."

"Where exactly were they searching?"

Yerli seemed upset, and Hala detected the strained urgency in his tone. "The Niger River."

Yerli clutched her arm and his eyes turned deadly. "I want to know more about this."

For the first time she felt a chill run through her. "They were hunting for the source of a chemical compound that is causing the giant red tide off the coast of Africa."

"I've read about it in the newspapers. Go on."

"I was told they used a boat with chemical analysis equipment to track the chemical to where it emptied into the river."

"Did they find it?" he demanded.

"According to Admiral Sandecker, they had traced it as far as Gao in Mali."

Yerli didn't look convinced. "Disinformation, that has to be the answer. This thing must be a cover-up for something else."

She shook her head. "Unlike you, the Admiral does not lie for a living."

"You say NUMA was behind the operation?"

Hala nodded.

"Not the CIA or another American intelligence agency?"

She shook her arm free and smiled smugly. "You mean your devious intelligence sources in West Africa had no idea the Americans were operating under their noses?"

"Don't be absurd. What spectacular secrets could an impoverished nation like Mali possibly have that would attract American interests?"

"There must be something. Why don't you tell me what it is?"

Yerli seemed distracted and did not immediately answer her. "Nothing… nothing of course." He rapped on the glass to get the driver's attention. Then he motioned to the curb.

The chauffeur braked and pulled to a stop in front of a large office building. "You're tearing yourself away from me?" Her voice was thick with contempt.

He turned and looked at her. "I am truly sorry. Can you forgive me?"

Something inside her ached. She shook her head. "No, Ismail. I won't forgive you. We will never meet again. I expect your resignation letter on my desk by noon tomorrow. If not, I will have you expelled from the UN."

"Aren't you being a bit harsh?"

Hala's path was set. "Your concerns are not with the 'World Health Organization. Nor, if they only knew it, are you even 50 percent loyal to the French. If anything, you're working for your own financial ends." She leaned over him and pushed open the door. "Now get out!"

Silently, Yerli climbed from the car and stood on the curb. Hala, with tears forming in her eyes, pulled the door shut and never looked back as the driver shifted the limousine into gear and merged into the one-way traffic.

Yerli wished he could feel remorse or sadness, but he was too professional. She was right, he had used her. His affection toward her was an act. His only attraction for her was sexual. She had simply been another assignment. But like too many women who are drawn to aloof men who treat them indifferently, she could not help herself from falling in love with him. And she was only now beginning to learn the cost.

He walked into the cocktail lounge of the Algonquin Hotel, ordered a drink, and then used the pay phone. He dialed a number and waited for someone to answer on the other end.

"Yes?"

He lowered his voice and talked in a confidential tone. "I have information vital to Mr. Massarde."

"Where do you come from?"

"The ruins of Pergamon."

"Turkey?"

"Yes," Yerli cut in quickly. He never trusted telephones and hated what he thought were childish codes. "I am in the bar of the Hotel Algonquin. When can I expect you?"

"One A.M. too late?"

"No. I'll have a late dinner."

Yerli hung up the phone thoughtfully. What did the Americans know about Massarde's desert operation at Fort Foureau? he wondered. Did their intelligence services have a hint of the true activities at the waste disposal plant and were they snooping around? If so, the consequences could be disastrous, and the fall of the current French government would be the least of the backlash.

Behind him was black darkness, ahead the sparsely scattered street lights of Gao. Gunn still had 10 meters to swim when one of his kicking feet dug into the soft riverbed. Slowly, very cautiously, he reached down and grabbed the silt with his hands, pulling himself through the shallows until he was lying at the waterline. He waited, listening and squinting into the darkness shrouding the bank of the river.

The beach sloped at an angle of 10 degrees, ending at a low rock wall that bordered a road. He crawled across the sand, enjoying its heat against the wet skin of his bare arms and legs. He stopped and rolled onto his side, resting for a few minutes, reasonably secure that he was only an indistinct blur in the night. He had a cramp in his right leg and his arms felt numb and heavy.

He reached back and felt the backpack. For a brief instant, after he had struck the rushing water like a cannonball, he thought that it might have been torn from his back. But its straps still clung tightly to his shoulders.

He rose to his feet and sprinted in a crouching position to the wall, dropping to his knees behind it. He warily peered over the top and scanned the road. It was empty. But a badly paved street that ran diagonally into town had a fair amount of foot traffic. Out of the upper edge of one eye he caught a dim flare and looked up on the roof of a nearby house in time to see a man light a cigarette. There were others dim figures of people, some illuminated by lanterns, happily chatting with their neighbors on adjoining roofs. They must come up like moles, Gunn surmised, to enjoy the cool of the evening.

He studied the stream of the pedestrians on the street, trying to absorb a rhythm to their movements. They seemed o glide up and down the street in their loose, flowing garments on silent feet like wraiths. He unstrapped the backpack, opened it, and removed a blue bed sheet. He tore art of it in a crude body pattern and then draped it around himself in the style of a djellaba, a long-skirted garment with full sleeves and a hood. He wouldn't win a local fashion award, he thought, but felt reasonably satisfied it would pass unnoticed in the dimly lit streets. He considered removing n is glasses, but decided against the idea, positioning the hood to cover the rims. Gunn was nearsighted and couldn't see a moving bus 20 meters away.

He slipped the backpack under the robe and strapped it around his front as if it was simply a protruding stomach. He then sat on the wall and swung his legs over to the far side. He casually stepped across the road and up the narrow street, joining the citizens of Gao who were out for their evening stroll. After two blocks he reached a main intersection. The only vehicles prowling the streets were a few dilapidated taxis, one or two run-down buses, and a few scattered motorbikes and a bevy of bicycles.

It would be nice to simply hail a cab for the airport, he thought wistfully, but that was inviting attention. Before abandoning the boat he had studied the map of the area and knew the airport was a few kilometers south of town. He considered stealing a bicycle, but quickly eliminated the idea. The theft would have probably been noticed and reported, and he wanted no trace of his presence known. If the police or security forces did not have reason to think there was an illegal alien wandering in their midst, they would have no cause to search for him.

Gunn leisurely walked through the main section of town, past the market square, the decrepit Hotel Atlantide, and the merchants hawking their wares from stalls under arches across from the hotel. The smells were anything but exotic. Gunn welcomed the breeze that fanned most of the town's odors into the desert. Signposts were nonexistent but he navigated down the sandy streets by occasionally glancing up at the north star.

The people dressed in a blaze of green and blues and a smattering of yellow. The men were dressed in some form of djellaba or caftan. A number wore western pants and tunics. Few were bareheaded. Most male heads and faces were heavily swathed in blue cloth. Many of the women were covered in elegant cloaks, others long, flowered dresses. Most all were unveiled.

They all chattered constantly in strange low tones. Children ran everywhere, no two dressed alike. Gunn found it hard to imagine such social activity and congeniality in the middle of great poverty. It was as though nobody informed the Malians they were poor.

Keeping his head down and face covered by the hood so the white skin of his face wouldn't show, Gunn merged with the crowd and made his way out of the busy part of town. No one stopped him and asked awkward questions. If for some unexpected reason he was apprehended and interrogated he would claim to be a tourist on a hiking trip along the Niger. He did not dwell on that possibility for long. The danger of being stopped by someone who was looking specifically for an illegal American was nil.

He passed a road sign with a pointing arrow and a drawing of an airplane. He was making his way toward the airport easier than he expected. His luck hadn't skipped out on him yet.

He walked through the more affluent merchant-owned neighborhoods and into the surrounding slums. From the time he left the river, Gao had given him the impression of a town where, with the coming of darkness, some unseen horror crawls up through the sandy streets. It seemed to him a town drenched in the blood and violence of centuries. His imagination began to work overtime as he walked the dark and nearly deserted streets, beginning for the first time to see curious and hostile looks from people sitting in front of their crumbling houses.

He ducked into a narrow alley that looked to be empty and paused to take a revolver from the backpack, an old, snub-nosed Smith & Wesson 38-caliber Bodyguard model that had belonged to his father. His instinct told him that this was a place you didn't walk at night if you expected to see the dawn.

A truck rumbled past, stirring up the fine sand, its flatbed piled with bricks. A quick realization that it was going in his direction, and Gunn threw caution to the desert winds. He took a running leap and scrambled up the back of the truck. He came to rest flat on his stomach on top of the bricks facing forward and looking down on the roof of the cab.

The smell of the exhaust from the diesel engine came as a relief after the aroma of the town. From his vantage view atop the truck's cargo, Gunn picked out a pair of red lights blinking a few kilometers ahead and to his left. As the truck bounced closer, he could see a few floodlights mounted on a terminal building and two hangars across a darkened field.

"Some airport," he muttered to himself dryly. "They turn out all the runway lights when it's not in use."

A dip in the road showed in the truck's headlights, and the driver slowed. Gunn took advantage of the decreased speed and hit the ground running. The truck rolled on into the darkness, sand streaming from its tires, the driver blissfully unaware he'd carried a passenger. Gunn followed the truck's taillights until he came to an asphalt side road and a wooden sign painted in three languages that advertised the Gao International Airport.

"International," Gunn read aloud. "Oh how I hope so."

He walked along the side of the entry road, keeping off to one side in the remote chance a vehicle might happen by. There was little need for caution. The airport terminal was dark and the parking lot totally empty. His hopes took a downturn at a close-up view of the terminal building. He'd seen better-looking condemned warehouses than the wooden structure with a rusting metal roof. It took a brave man to climb and work in the nearby control tower sitting precariously on support girders that were almost eroded through. He walked around the buildings onto the dead and darkened tarmac. Across the field, illuminated by floodlights, sat eight Malian jet fighters and a transport plane.

He stood motionless as he spied two armed guards sitting outside a security shack. One was dozing in a chair, the other was leaning against the shack smoking a cigarette. Great, he thought, just great. Now he had to contend with the military.

Gunn held up his Chronosport dive watch and peered at the dial. It read twenty past eleven. He suddenly felt tired. He'd made it this far only to find a deserted airport that looked as if it hadn't seen an arriving or departing airliner in weeks. If that wasn't bad enough, the field was guarded by Malian air force security. No predicting how long he could sit it out before being discovered or expiring from lack of food and water.

He resigned himself for a long wait. Not good to hang around during daylight. He moved 100 meters into the desert before stumbling onto a small pit half filled with debris from some long-forgotten shed. He scooped out a depression in the dry sand, climbed in, and pulled several rotting boards over him. The hole could have been filled with ants or scorpions for all he knew, but he was too tired to care.

He was asleep within thirty seconds.

Roughly manhandled by Massarde's crewmen, Pitt and Giordino's wrists were cuffed, and they were forced in a kneeling position by short chains that wound around a steam pipe. They were helplessly confined in the bilge area below heavy steel plating that served as a deck of the engine and power-generating room above. Overhead, a guard armed with an automatic machine pistol slowly paced back and forth, his shoes clicking on the steel floor. They knelt in the dank bilge of the houseboat, their wrists chafing in the tight handcuffs, bare knees below their shorts only a few degrees from being burned by the hot metal flooring.

Escape was impossible. It was only a matter of time before they were turned over to General Kazim's security police, and their existence would end with a virtual death sentence.

The atmosphere in the bilge was stifling and nearly unbreathable. Sweat streamed out their pores from the damp heat that radiated from the steam pipe. The torment increased with each passing moment. Giordino felt badly weakened and debilitated, his strength almost totally sapped away after two hours of confinement in that hellhole. The humidity was worse than any steam bath he had ever sat in. And the loss of body liquids was driving him half mad from thirst.

Giordino looked across at Pitt to see how his self determined friend was taking this torturous confinement. As far as he could tell, Pitt showed no reaction at all. His face, soaked in perspiration, looked thoughtful and complacent. He was studying a row of wrenches that hung neatly in a row on the aft bulkhead. He could not reach them because the chain on his cuffs was stopped from slipping along the pipe by an overhanging brace. He thoughtfully measured the distance that stretched beyond his touch. Every so often he turned his attention to the grating and the guard, then back to the wrenches.

"Another fine mess you've gotten us into, Stanley," said Giordino, echoing a line from Laurel and Hardy comedies.

"Sorry, Ollie, all in the name of humanity," Pitt said with a grin.

"Think Rudi made it?"

"If he stayed in the shadows and kept his cool, there's no reason for him to wind up like us."

"What do you think old French moneybags expects to gain by making us sweat?" Giordino mused, wiping the sweat from his face with his arm.

"I have no idea," answered Pitt. "But I suspect we'll know why he stuck us in this hot box instead of turning us over to the gendarmes before too long."

"He has to be a real sorehead if he's mad over us using his telephone."

'My fault," said Pitt, his eyes reflecting mirth. "I should have made a collect call."

"Oh well, you couldn't know the guy is a cheap screw." Pitt looked at Giordino in long, slow admiration. He marveled that the stocky Italian could still summon up a sense of humor despite being on the brink of passing out.

In the long, agonizing minutes that followed, their ovenhot cell in the bilge, their ominous predicament, was pushed aside in Pitt's mind as he focused his thoughts on escape. At the moment any optimism was futile. There was not nearly enough muscle between them to break their chains, and neither he nor Giordino had the means to pick the locks on their handcuffs.

His mind conjured up a dozen contingencies, each ready to be canceled in favor of another. None were workable unless certain situations fell into place. The main hitch was the chains. Somehow or other they would have to come off the steam pipe. If not, Pitt's best-laid plans evaporated before they could get off the ground.

He broke off his mental gymnastics as the guard pulled up one of the floor plates and swung it back on its hinges. He took a key from his belt and opened the cuffs attached to their chains. Four crewmen were standing in the engine room. They leaned down and lifted Pitt and Giordino to their feet, dragged them through the engine room, up a stairway, and into a lush-carpeted hallway of the houseboat. One knocked on a teak door, then pushed the door wide and shoved the two prisoners into the room.

Yves Massarde sat in the middle of along, leather couch smoking a thin cigar and swirling a goblet of cognac. A dark-skinned man in an officer's military uniform sat in a facing chair, drinking champagne. Neither man rose as Pitt and Giordino stood before them dressed only in shorts and T-shirts, dripping with sweat and moisture.

"These are the pitiful specimens you fished from the river?" asked the officer, regarding them curiously through black, cold, and empty eyes.

"Actually, they came aboard without an invitation," replied Massarde. "I caught them in the act of using my communications equipment."

"You think they got a message through?"

Massarde nodded. "I was too late to stop them."

The officer sat his glass on an end table, rose from his chair, and walked across the room until he was standing directly in front of Pitt. He was taller than Giordino, but a good 6 inches shorter than Pitt.

"Which of you was in contact with me on the river?" he asked.

Pitt's expression cleared. "You must be General Kazim."

"I am."

"Just goes to show you can't judge a person by their voice. I pictured you as looking more like Rudolph Valentino than Willie the Weasel—"

Pitt crouched and turned sideways as Kazim, his face abruptly flushed with hate, his teeth clenched in sudden rage, lashed out at Pitt's groin with his booted foot. The thrust was vicious and carried most of Kazim's weight behind it. His expression of wrath suddenly turned to one of shock as Pitt, in a lightning move, caught the flailing foot with his hands in mid-flight and gripped it like a vise.

Pitt did not move, did not cast Kazim's leg aside. He merely stood there holding it between his hands, keeping the General balancing on one leg. Then very slowly he pushed the maddened Kazim backward until he dropped into his chair.

There was a stunned silence in the room. Kazim was in shock. As a virtual dictator for over a decade, his mind refused to accept insubordinate and contemptuous treatment. He was so used to people quivering before him, he did riot know how to immediately react at being physically subdued. His breathing came quickly, his mouth a taut white line, his dark face crimson with anger. Only the eyes remained black and cold and empty.

Slowly, deliberately, he eased a gun from a holster at his side. An older automatic, Pitt observed with remote detachment, a 9-millimeter Beretta NATO model 92SB. Unhurriedly Kazim thumbed down one side of the ambidextrous safety and aimed the muzzle at Pitt. An icy smile curled beneath the heavy moustache.

Pitt flicked a side-glance at Giordino and noted that his friend was tensed to leap at Kazim. Then his gaze locked on Kazim's grip on the automatic, waiting for the slightest tightening of the hand, the tiniest flexing of the trigger finger, bracing his knees to dodge to his right. This could have been an opportunity for an escape attempt, but Pitt knew he had lost any advantage by pushing Kazim too far. His death would be slow and deliberate. It stood to reason Kazim was a good shot, and he would not miss at that close range. Pitt knew he might move fast enough to duck the first shot, but Kazim would quickly adjust his aim and shoot to maim, first one kneecap, then the next. The General's evil eyes did not reflect a quick kill.

Then, half an instant away from when the room would explode in gunfire and convulsive bodies, Massarde made a flourish in the air with his hand and spoke in a commanding voice.

"If you please, General, conduct your execution elsewhere, certainly not in my party room."

"This tall one is going to die," Kazim hissed, the black eyes gazing at Pitt.

"All in due time, my good comrade," said Massarde while casually pouring himself another cognac. "Do me the courtesy of refraining from bloodying up my rare Nazlini Navajo rug."

"I'll buy you a new one," Kazim growled.

"Did you consider the fact he might want a fast and easy way out? It's obvious he baited you, choosing a fast death rather than suffering the agony of long, drawn-out torture."

Very slowly the pistol dropped, and Kazim's deathly smile turned wolfish. "You read him. You knew exactly what he was about."

Massarde gave a Gallic shrug. "The Americans call it street smarts. These men have something to hide, something vital. We both might benefit if they could be persuaded to talk."

Kazim pushed himself from the chair, approached Giordino, and raised the automatic again, this time shoving the Berettas barrel against Giordino's right ear.

"Let's see if you are more talkative than you were on your boat."

Giordino didn't flinch. "What boat?" he asked, his tone as innocent as a priest at confession.

"The one you abandoned minutes before it blew up."

"Oh, that boat."

"What was your mission? Why did you come up the Niger to Mali?"

"We were researching the migratory habits of the fuzzwort fish by following a school of the slimy little devils upriver to their spawning grounds."

"And the weapons aboard your boat?"

"Weapons, weapons?" Giordino made a downward turn of his lips and raised his shoulders in ignorance. "We ain't got no weapons."

"Have you forgotten your run-in with the Benin naval patrol boats?"

Giordino shook his head. "Sorry, it doesn't ring a bell."

"A few hours in the interrogation chambers of my headquarters in Bamako might jog your memory."

"Not a healthy climate for uncooperative foreigners I assure you," said Massarde.

"Stop conning the man," said Pitt, looking at Giordino. "Tell him the truth."

Giordino turned and stared blankly at Pitt. "Are you crazy!"

"Maybe you can stand torture. I can't. The thought of pain makes me ill. If you won't tell General Kazim what he wants to know, I will."

"Your friend is a sensible man," said Kazim. "You would be wise to listen to him."

Just for a second Giordino's blank look slipped, then it was back again, only this time it was beaming with anger. "You dirty scum. You traitor—"

Giordino's verbal abuse was abruptly cut off as Kazim pistol-whipped him across the face, opening a bloody gash on his chin. Giordino staggered two steps backward, then stopped and lurched forward like a maddened bull. Kazim lifted the automatic and aimed it between Giordino's eyes.

Here it comes, Pitt thought coldly, thrown off track by Giordino's bursting temper. Pitt rapidly stepped in front of Kazim and grabbed Giordino's arms, pinning them behind his partner's back. "Steady, for God's sake!"

Unnoticed, Massarde pressed a button on a small console by the couch. Before anyone spoke or made another move, a small army of crewmen surged into the room, their combined mass and weight driving Pitt and Giordino to the floor. Pitt barely had a fleeting glimpse of the avalanche before he tensed for the crush. He went down without fighting back, knowing it was useless, determined to save his strength. Not Giordino, he thrashed like a crazy man, filling the room with curses.

"Take that one back to the bilge," shouted Massarde, coming to his feet and pointing at Giordino.

Pitt felt the pressure fall away as the guards concentrated on wrestling Giordino into submission. One of the guards swung a short snapper cosh, a weight on the end of a flexible cable, and cracked Giordino on the neck just below and behind the ear. A grunt of pain and all fight went out of Giordino. He went limp as the guards grabbed him under the arms and dragged him from the room.

Kazim pointed the automatic at Pitt, who was still lying on the floor. "Now then, since you prefer cordial conversation to agony, why don't you begin by giving me your correct name."

Pitt twisted to his side and sat up. "Pitt, Dirk Pitt."

"Should I believe you?"

"It's as good a name as any."

Kazim turned to Massarde. "Did you have them searched?"

Massarde nodded. "They carried no credentials or papers of any kind."

Kazim stared at Pitt, his face a mask of repugnance. "Perhaps you can enlighten me on why you've entered Mali without a passport?"

"No problem, General," Pitt let the words rush out. "My partner and I are archaeologists. We were given a contract by a French foundation to search the Niger River for ancient shipwrecks. Our passports were lost when our boat was fired on by one of your patrol vessels and destroyed."

"Honest archaeologists would be begging like simpering children after being chained in a steam compartment for two hours. You men are too hardened, unafraid, and arrogant to be anything but trained enemy agents—"

"What foundation?" Massarde broke in.

"The Society of French Historical Exploration," Pitt answered.

"I've never heard of it."

Pitt made a helpless gesture with his hands. "What can I say?"

Since when do archaeologists explore for artifacts in a super yacht equipped with rocket launchers and automatic weapons?" asked Kazim sarcastically.

"It never hurts to be prepared for pirates or terrorists," Pitt smiled stupidly.

At that moment there was a knock on the door. One of Massarde's crewmen entered and handed him a message. "A reply, sir?"

Massarde scanned the contents and nodded. "Express my compliments and say he is to continue his investigation."

After the crewman left, Kazim asked, "Good news?"

"Most enlightening," Massarde purred. "From my agent with the United Nations. It seems these men are from the National Underwater and Marine Agency in Washington. Their mission was to hunt down a source of chemical contamination that originates in the Niger and causes a rapid growth in red tides after it enters the sea."

"A facade," sneered Kazim, "nothing more. They were sniffing around for something far more significant than pollution. My guess is oil."

"The very thoughts of my agent in New York. He suggested it might be a cover, and yet his source of information didn't think so."

Kazim looked at Massarde suspiciously. "Not a leak from Fort Foureau, I hope?"

"No, not at all," Massarde answered without hesitation. "My project is too distant to impact the Niger. No, it can only be another one of your many clandestine ventures you haven't seen fit to reveal."

Kazim's face went rigid and lifeless. "If anyone is responsible for spilling contamination in Mali, old friend, it must be you."

"Not possible," Massarde said flatly. He stared at Pitt. "You find this conversation interesting, Mr. Pitt?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You and your partner must be very valuable men."

"Not really. At the moment we're just your everyday, garden-variety prisoners."

"What do you mean by valuable?" inquired Kazim.

"My agent also reports the UN is sending a special tactical team to rescue them."

Just for a second Kazim looked shocked. Then he quickly came back on balance. "A special force is coming here?"

"Probably already on its way, now that Mr. Pitt was able to contact his superior." Massarde glanced at the message again. "According to my agent, his name is Admiral James Sandecker."

"It would appear there is no fooling you." The elegant room on the houseboat was cooled by air conditioning, and Pitt shivered uncontrollably after suffering the steamed heat in the bilge, but he was more conscious of a nameless chill. It came as a shock that Massarde was privy to the entire mission. He tried to imagine who might have betrayed them, but no one came immediately to mind.

"Well, well, well, we are not so clever and indifferent now that our cover is blown, are we my friend?" Kazim poured himself another glass of Massarde's excellent champagne. Then he looked up abruptly from his glass. "Where were you planning to rendezvous with the UN force, Mr. Pitt?"

Pitt was trying to give his impression of a man with amnesia. This was a dead-end street. The Gao airport was too obvious a pickup point. He dared not compromise Gunn, but he took a long shot in hopes that Kazim was as dumb as he looked.

"The Gao airport, they're flying in at dawn. We were to wait at the west end of the airstrip."

Kazim stared at Pitt for a brief moment, then suddenly he struck Pitt across the forehead with the barrel of his Beretta. "Liar!" he snapped.

Pitt ducked his head and covered his face with his arms. "It's the truth, I swear."

"Liar," Kazim repeated. "The airstrip at Gao runs north and south. There is no west end."

Pitt exhaled his breath in a long silent sigh, and shook his head very slowly. "I guess it would be useless to hold out. You'll get it out of me sooner or later."

"Unfortunately for you, I have methods for doing just that."

"Very well," Pitt said. "Admiral Sandecker's instructions after we destroyed the boat were to head due south of Gao about 20 kilometers to a wide, shallow ravine. A helicopter is to be flown in from Niger."

"What is the signal for a safe pickup?"

"There is no need for a signal. The surrounding countryside is deserted. I was told the helicopter will scout the area with its landing lights until they spot us."

"What time?"

"Four A.M."

Kazim looked at him long and pensively, then said caustically, "If you have lied to me again, you will deeply regret it."

Kazim put his Beretta back in its holster and turned to Massarde. "No time to waste. I have to prepare a welcoming ceremony."

"You would be smart, Zateb, to keep the UN at arm's length. I strongly advise against interfering with their tactical team. When they do not find Pitt and his friend, they will fly back to Nigeria. Shooting down the helicopter and killing every man on board will only open a hornet's nest."

"They are invading my country."

"A trivial point." Massarde waved his hand. "National pride does not become you. The loss of aid and funding for your, shall we say, nefarious programs, would not be worth satisfying a blood lust. Let them go unmolested."

Kazim gave a twisted smile, and a dry, humorless laugh. "Yves, you take all the pleasure from my life."

"While putting millions of francs in your pockets."

"And that too," Kazim acquiesced.

Massarde nodded at Pitt. "Besides, you can still have your fun with this one and his friend. I'm sure they will tell you what you wish to learn."

"They will talk before noon."

"I'm quite sure they will."

"Thank you for softening them up in your engine room sweat box."

"My pleasure." Massarde walked to a side door. "Now if you will excuse me, I must see to my guests. I've ignored them far too long."

"A favor," said Kazim.

"You have but to name it."

"Keep Mr. Pitt and Mr. Giordino in your steam room for a while longer. I would like any remaining spirit and hostility melted away before I have them transported to my headquarters in Bamako."

"As you wish," Massarde agreed. "I'll instruct my crew to return Mr. Pitt to the bilge."

"Thank you, Yves, my friend, for capturing and turning them over to me. I'm grateful."

Massarde bowed his head. "My pleasure."

Before the door closed behind Massarde, Kazim refocused his attention on Pitt. His black eyes blazed with fiendishness. Pitt could only remember once before seeing such concentrated malevolence in a human face.

"Enjoy your stay in the sweat bilge, Mr. Pitt. Afterward, you will suffer, suffer beyond your wildest nightmares."

If Kazim expected Pitt to tremble with fear, it didn't happen. If anything, Pitt looked incredibly calm. He wore the beaming expression of a man who just hit a jackpot on a slot machine. Inwardly, Pitt was rejoicing because the General had unwittingly unraveled the hitch in his escape plans. The gate had cracked open, and Pitt was going to slip through.

Too wound up to sleep, Eva was the first of the dozing scientists to notice the descent of the aircraft. Though the pilots feathered the controls as gently as possible, Eva sensed the slight drop in engine power and knew the plane had lost altitude when her ears suddenly popped.

She looked out the window, but all she saw was total blackness. There were no lights to be seen on the empty desert floor. A glance at her watch told her it was ten past midnight, only one and a half short hours since they loaded the last of the equipment and contamination samples on board and took off from the graveyard that was Asselar.

She sat quietly and relaxed, thinking that perhaps the pilots were simply turning on a new course and changing altitude. But the sinking sensation in her stomach told her the plane was still dropping.

Eva rose into the aisle and walked to the rear of the cabin where Hopper exiled himself so he could smoke his pipe. She approached his seat and gently shook him awake. "Frank, something's wrong."

Hopper was a light sleeper and almost instantly focused his eyes and looked up at her questioningly. "What did you say?"

"The plane is descending. I think we're landing."

"Nonsense," he snorted. "Cairo is five hours away."

"No, I heard the engines slack off."

"The pilots have probably throttled back to conserve fuel."

"We're losing altitude. I'm sure of it."

Hopper reacted to the seriousness of her tone and sat up and tilted his head, listening to the engines. Then he leaned over his armrest and peered down the aisle toward the forward bulkhead of the passenger cabin. "I believe you're right. The nose seems angled down slightly."

Eva nodded toward the cockpit. "The pilots have always kept the door open during flight. It's closed now."

"Does appear odd, but I'm sure we're overreacting." He threw off the blanket covering his large frame and stiffly rose to a standing position. "However, it won't hurt to have a look."

Eva followed him up the aisle to the cockpit door. Hopper turned the knob and his face suddenly clouded with concern. "The damn thing's locked." He pounded on the door, but after a few moments there was no response. If anything, the aircraft's angle of descent increased. "Something mighty queer is going on. You better wake the others."

Eva hurried back down the aisle and prodded the other members of the team out of their weary sleep. Grimes was the first to reach Hopper.

"Why are we landing?" he asked Hopper.

"I haven't the vaguest idea. The pilots aren't of a mind to communicate."

"Perhaps they're making an emergency landing."

"If they are, they're keeping it to themselves."

Eva leaned over a seat and peered into the darkness through a window. A small cluster of dim, yellow lights pierced the night several kilometers beyond the nose of the aircraft. "Lights ahead," she announced.

"We could kick the door in," Grimes suggested.

"For what purpose?" demanded Hopper. "If the pilots mean to land, there's no way we can stop them. None of us can take control of a jetliner."

"Then there is little we can do but return to our seats and fasten our seatbelts," said Eva.

The words had not left her mouth when the landing lights flashed on, illuminating a faceless desert. The landing gear dropped and the pilot made a tight bank as he lined up on the as yet unseen airfield. By the time they had all strapped themselves in, the tires thumped into hard-packed sand and the engines roared as the pilot engaged the air brakes. The soft surface of the unpaved runway produced enough drag to slow the plane down without the pilots standing on the brakes. The plane taxied toward a row of floodlights that stood beside the airstrip and rolled to a halt.

"I wonder where this is?" murmured Eva.

"We'll find out soon enough," said Hopper, moving toward the cockpit door, determined this time to kick it in. But it swung open before he reached it, and the pilot stepped into the cabin. "What is the meaning of this stopover?" Hopper demanded. "Is there a mechanical problem?"

"This is where you get off," the pilot said slowly.

"What are you talking about? You're supposed to fly us to Cairo."

"My orders are to set you down at Tebezza."

"This is a UN chartered aircraft. You were hired to take us to whatever destination we require, and Tebezza, or whatever you call it, is not one of them."

"Consider it an unscheduled stop," the pilot said doggedly.

"You simply can't throw us out in the middle of the desert. How do we get out of here and continue to Cairo?"

"Arrangements have been made."

"What about our equipment?"

"It will be guarded."

"Our samples must get to the World Health laboratory in Paris as soon as possible."

"That is not my concern. Now if you will please collect your personal items and disembark."

"We'll do no such thing," Hopper said indignantly.

The pilot brushed past Hopper and walked swiftly down the aisle to the rear exit. He undogged the shaft locks and pushed a large switch. The hydraulic pumps whirred as the aft floor slowly dropped and became a stairway leading to the ground. Then the pilot raised a large-caliber revolver he'd been holding behind his back and waved it at the startled scientists.

"Get off the aircraft, now!" he ordered gruffly.

Hopper moved until he was standing almost toe-to-toe with the pilot, completely ignoring the gun barrel touching his stomach. "Who are you? Why are you doing this?"

"I am Lieutenant Abubakar Babanandi of the Malian Airforce, and I am acting under orders from my superiors."

"And just who might they be?"

"The Malian Supreme Military Council."

"You mean General Kazim. He calls the shots around here-"

Hopper grunted in agony as Lieutenant Babanandi rammed the muzzle of his revolver sharply into the scientist's upper groin. "Please do not cause trouble, Doctor. Depart the plane or I will shoot you where you stand."

Eva clutched Hopper by the arm. "Do what he says, Frank. Don't let your pride kill you."

Hopper swayed on his feet, hands instinctively pressed against his groin. Babanandi seemed hard and cold, but Eva detected more fear in his eyes than hostility. Without another word, Babanandi crudely pushed Hopper onto the first step.

"I warn you. Do not linger."

Twenty seconds later, half supported by Eva, Hopper stepped to the ground and looked around.

A half dozen men, their heads and faces hidden in the indigo-tinted, heavily wrapped veil of the Tuaregs, walked over and stood in a semicircle around Hopper. They were all quite tall and menacing. They wore long flowing black robes, and were armed with broadswords that hung in sashes tied around their waists. They held automatic rifles, whose muzzles were collectively pointing at Hopper's chest.

Two other figures approached. One was a towering man, thin with light-skinned hands, the only part of him that showed except for eyes barely visible through the slit in his litham. His robe was dyed a deep purple but his veil was white. The top of Hopper's head just came level with the stranger's shoulders.

His companion was a woman who was built like a gravel truck whose bed was fully loaded. She was dressed in a dirty, loose-fitting dress that stopped short of the knees, revealing legs that were as thick as telephone poles. Unlike the others, her head was uncovered. Though she was as dark as the southern Africans and her hair was woolly, she had high cheekbones, a rounded chin, and sharp nose. Her eyes were small and beady, and her mouth stretched nearly the full width of her face. There was a cold and sadistic look about her, enhanced by a broken nose and a scarred forehead. It was a face that had once been brutalized. She held a thick leather thong in one hand that had a small knot on one end. She eyed Hopper as if she was a torturer of the Inquisition measuring her next victim for the iron maiden.

"What is this place?" Hopper demanded without introduction.

"Tebezza," answered the tall man.

"I've already been told that. But just where is Tebezza?"

The answer came in English accented in what Hopper guessed was a northern Irish. "Tebezza is where the desert ends and hell begins. Here gold is mined by convicted prisoners and slaves."

"Something on the order of the salt mines at Taoudenni," said Hopper, staring at the rifles aimed at him as he spoke. "Do you mind not sticking those guns in my face?"

"They area necessity, Dr. Hopper."

"Not to worry. We haven't come to steal your—" Hopper broke off in midsentence. His eyes turned blank as the color ebbed from his face, and he spoke in an astonished whisper. "You know my name?"

"Yes, we have been expecting you."

"Who are you?"

"My name is Selig O'Bannion. I am Chief Engineer of the mining operation." O'Bannion turned and nodded at the big woman. "My straw boss is Melika, which means queen. You and your people will take your orders from her."

Perhaps ten seconds passed in silence broken only by the slowly turning turbines of the aircraft. Then Hopper blurted, "Orders, what the hell are you talking about?"

"You were sent here, courtesy of General Zateb Kazim. It is his express wish that you work in the mines."

"This is kidnapping!" Hopper gasped.

O'Bannion shook his head patiently. "Hardly kidnapping, Dr. Hopper. You and your UN team of scientists will not be ransomed or held as hostages. You have been condemned to labor in the mines of Tebezza, excavating gold for the national treasury of Mali."

"You're madder than a cockroach—" Hopper began, then staggered back against the steps as Melika slashed him across the face with her heavy thong. He stiffened from the shocking blow and touched the welt that was raising on his cheek.

"Your first lesson as a slave, you putrid pig," the mountainous woman spat. "Beginning now, you do not speak unless ordered."

She raised her thong to strike Hopper again, but O'Bannion grabbed her arm. "Easy, woman. Give him time to get used to the idea." He looked up at the other scientists who had descended the steps and formed around Hopper, shock spread across their faces, the beginnings of terror in their eyes. "I want them in good condition for their first day's work."

Reluctantly, Melika lowered the thong. "I fear you are shedding your thick skin, Selig. They are not made of porcelain."

"You're an American," said Eva.

Melika grinned. "That's right, honey. Ten years as Chief of Guards at the Women's Institution in Corona, California. Take it from one who knows, they don't come any tougher than there."

"Melika takes special care of the female workers," said O'Bannion. "I'm sure she'll see to it you're considered one of the family."

"You make women work in the mines?" Hopper said disbelievingly.

"Yes, a number of them, including their children," O'Bannion answered matter-of-factly.

"You're flagrantly committing human rights violations," said Eva angrily.

Melika looked at O'Bannion, a fiendish expression on her face. "May I?"

He nodded. "You may."

The big woman shoved the end of the thong into Eva's stomach, doubling her over. Then she brought it down on the back of Eva's neck. Eva folded like a wet blanket and would have struck the ground if Hopper hadn't grabbed her around the waist.

"You'll soon learn that even verbal resistance is futile," said O'Bannion. "Better you cooperate and make your remaining time on earth as painless as possible."

Hopper's lips parted in incredulity. "We're respected scientists of the World Health Organization. You can't just execute any of us on a whim."

"Execute you, good doctor?" O'Bannion said casually. "Nothing of the sort. I intend to work you to death."

The scheme went exactly as Pitt hoped. After the guard shoved him back into the steamy bilge with Giordino, he appeared subservient and cooperative by raising his hands so the guard could lock his cuff chain around the steam pipe. Only this time Pitt held his hands up on the opposite side of the pipe bracket. Satisfied Pitt was solidly rechained, the guard silently let the steel trapdoor drop with a loud clang on his prisoners in the stifling atmosphere of the confined compartment.

Giordino sat uncaringly in a pool of moisture and massaged the back of his head. In the dense mist Pitt could hardly see him. "How'd it go?" Giordino asked.

"Massarde and Kazim are thick as thieves. They're partners in some kind of shady operation. Massarde pays off the General for favors. That much was obvious. Beyond that, I didn't learn much."

"Next question."

"Shoot."

"How do we get out of this teapot?"

Pitt lifted his hands and grinned. "With a mere twist of the wrist."

Now bound to the opposite side of the bracket, he slid his chain along the pipe until he reached the aft bulkhead that held the rack that contained several different-sized wrenches. He took one and tried it around the fitting mounted on the bulkhead to support the passage of the steam pipe. It was too large, but the next wrench was a perfect fit. He laid hold of the handle and pulled. The fitting was frozen with rust and failed to budge. Pitt rested a moment, then planted his feet against a steel beam, grasped the wrench with both hands, and heaved with all his strength. The fitting's threads begrudgingly broke their hold, and it moved. The first quarter turn took every muscle in Pitt's arms. With each twist the fitting began to rotate more easily. When it was finally free and attached by only two threads, Pitt paused and turned to Giordino.

"Okay, she's ready to be disconnected. We're lucky it's fed by low-pressure steam for heating the staterooms above or we'll know how a poor lobster feels in the pot when she drops loose. As it is, we'll be drenched with enough steam to smother us if we don't get out of here in one hell of a hurry."

Giordino rose to his feet, knees flexed, head bent low as his soaked curly black hair met the deck plating above. "Put the guard within my reach, and I'll take care o€ the rest."

Pitt nodded wordlessly and gave the fitting a series of fast rotations until it slipped free. Then he used the chain on his cuffs to hang on the pipe, using his weight to pull it free. A cloud of steam erupted and burst into the small confines of the bilge. Within seconds it was so thick Pitt and Giordino became completely lost to each other. In one swift movement, Pitt slipped his chain free over the end of the flowing pipe, scalding the backs of his hands.

In harmony he and Giordino began shouting and pounding on the bottom of the deck plate. Startled by the sudden hiss of escaping steam and seeing it billow from between the seams in the deck, the guard reacted as per Pitt's script and yanked open the plating. A billow of steam engulfed him while Pitt's unseen hands reached up from below and yanked him into the mist-filled bilge. The guard dropped headfirst and struck his jaw against a steel beam. He went out instantly.

One second later Pitt had torn the automatic rifle from the stunned guard's hands. Another five seconds later Giordino had blindly rummaged the man's pockets until his fingers touched the key to the locks of their handcuffs. Then as Giordino freed his wrists, Pitt leaped catlike onto the upper deck and crouched, swinging the barrel of the automatic rifle. The engine room was empty. No other crewmen had been on duty except the guard.

Pitt turned and knelt down, wiping the moisture falling from his brow, squinting into the rolling steam. "You coming?"

"Take the guard," an invisible Giordino grunted through the mist. "No reason to let the poor bastard die down here."

Pitt groped downward, feeling a pair of arms, and clutched them. He dragged the unconscious guard into the engine room and laid him on the deck. Next, he caught Giordino's wrist and pulled him from the hellhole, wincing from the pain that suddenly burst from his hands.

"Your hands look like boiled shrimp," said Giordino.

"I must have roasted them when I slipped my chain over the end of the pipe."

"We should wrap them with something."

"No time." He lifted his manacled hands. "Mind doing me the honor?"

Giordino quickly unlocked Pitt's chain and cuffs. He held up the key before dropping it in his pocket. "A keepsake. You never know when we'll get arrested again."

"Judging from the mess we're in, it won't take long," muttered Pitt. "Massarde's passengers will soon be complaining about the lack of heat, especially any women wearing bare-shouldered dresses. A crewman will be sent to repair the problem and discover us gone."

"Then it's time to exit stage left with style and discretion."

"With discretion anyway." Pitt moved to a hatch, eased it open, and peered onto an outside deck that ran aft to the stern of the houseboat. He moved out to the railing and gazed upward. People could be seen through large view windows in the lounge, drinking and conversing in evening dress, oblivious to the punishment that Pitt and Giordino had suffered almost directly below in the engine room.

He motioned for Giordino to follow, and they moved stealthily along the deck, ducking under portholes that opened into the crew's compartments until they came to a stairway. They pressed back in the shadows beneath the steps and stared through the upper opening. Sharply defined under bright overhanging lights, as if in full daylight, burgundy and white paint etched against the black sky, they could clearly see Massarde's private helicopter moored to the roof deck over the main salon. It sat deserted without a crewman around.

"Our chariot awaits," said Pitt.

"Beats swimming," Giordino agreed. "If Frenchy had known he was entertaining a pair of old air force pilots, he'd have never left it unattended."

"His oversight, our fortune," Pitt said mildly. He climbed to the top of the stairs and scanned the deck and peered through nearby ports for signs of life. What few heads he spotted in the cabins were uninterested in events outside and were turned away. He moved quietly across the deck, opened the door to the copter, and climbed in. Giordino pulled out the wheel chocks and removed the tie-down ropes before following Pitt, closing the door and settling in the right seat.

"What have we got here?" Giordino murmured as he studied the instrument panel.

"A late model, French-built, twin turbine Ecureuil, by the look of her," Pitt answered. "I can't tell what model, but we have no time to translate all the bells and whistles. We'll have to forgo a checklist, stoke her up, and go."

A precious two minutes were lost in start-up, but no alarm had been sounded as Pitt released the brake and the rotor blades began slowly turning, accelerating until they reached lift-off rotation. The centrifugal force fluttered the helicopter on its wheels. Like most pilots, Pitt didn't have to translate the French labels on the gauges, instrument, and switches spread across the panel. He knew what they indicated. The controls were universal and caused him no problem.

A crewman appeared and stared curiously through the spacious windshield. Giordino waved at him and smiled broadly as the crewman stood there, indecision etched on his face.

"This guy can't figure out who we are," said Giordino.

"He got a gun?"

"No, but his buddies who are charging up the stairs look none too friendly."

"Time to be gone."

"All gauges read green," Giordino said reassuringly.

Pitt didn't hesitate any longer. He held a deep breath and lifted the helicopter into a brief hover over the deck before dipping the nose and applying the throttles, forcing the machine into forward flight. The houseboat dropped behind, a blaze of light against the black of the water. Once clear, Pitt leveled at barely 10 meters and swung the craft on a course downriver.

"Where we headed?" asked Giordino.

"To the spot where Rudi found the contamination spilling into the river."

"Aren't we heading in the wrong direction? We found the toxin entry a good 100 kilometers in the other direction."

"Merely a feint to throw off the hounds. As soon as we're a safe distance away from Gao, I'll swing south and, we'll backtrack across the desert and pick up the river again 30 kilometers upstream."

"Why not drop in at the airport, pick up Rudi, and get the hell out of the country?"

"Any number of reasons," explained Pitt, nodding at the fuel gauges. "One, we don't have enough fuel to fly more than 200 kilometers. Two, once Massarde and his buddy Kazim spread the alarm, Malian jet fighters will hunt us down with their radar and either force us to land or blow us out of the sky. I give that little scenario about fifteen minutes. And three, Kazim thinks there were only two of us. The more distance we can put between Rudi and us gives him that much better chance to escape with the samples."

"Does all this just strike you out of the blue?" Giordino complained. "Or do you come from a long line of soothsayers?"

"Consider me your friendly, neighborhood plot diviner," Pitt said condescendingly.

"You should audition for a carnival fortune-teller," Giordino said dryly.

"I got us out of the steam bath and off the boat, didn't I?"

"And now we're going to fly across the middle of the Sahara Desert until we run out of fuel. Then walk across the world's largest desert looking for a toxic we-know-not-what till we expire or get captured by the Malian military as fodder for their torture dungeons."

"You certainly have a talent for painting bleak pictures," Pitt said sardonically.

"Then set me straight."

"Fair enough," Pitt nodded. "Soon as we reach the location where the contamination seeps into the river, we ditch the helicopter."

Giordino looked at him. "In the river?"

"Now you're getting the hang of it."

"Not another swim in this stinking river-not again." He shook his head in conviction. "You're nuttier than Woody Woodpecker."

"Every word a virtue, every move sublime," Pitt said airily, then, suddenly serious, added "Every aircraft the Malians can put in the air will be searching for this bird. With it buried under the river, they won't have a starting place to track us down. As it is, the last place Kazim would expect us to run is north into the desert wastes to look for toxic contamination."

"Sneaky," said Giordino. "That's the word for you."

Pitt reached down and pulled a chart out of a holder attached to his seat. "Take the controls while I lay out a course."

"I have her," Giordino acknowledged as he took hold of the collective control lever beside his seat and the cyclicpitch control column.

"Take us up to 100 meters, maintain course over the river for five minutes, and then bring us about on a heading of two-six-oh degrees."

Giordino followed Pitt's instructions and leveled off at 100 meters before looking down. He could just discern the surface of the river. "Good thing the stars reflect on the water or I couldn't see where the hell I was going."

"Just watch for dark shadows on the horizon after you make your turn. We don't want to spread ourselves over a protruding rock formation."

Only twenty minutes passed during their wide swing around Gao before they approached their destination. Massarde's fast helicopter flitted through the night sky like a phantom, invisible without navigation lights, with Giordino deftly handling the controls while Pitt navigated. The desert floor below was faceless and flat, with few shadows thrown by rocks or small elevations. It almost came as a relief when the black waters of the Niger River came into view again.

"What are those lights off to starboard?" asked Giordino.

Pitt did not look up, but kept his eyes on the chart.

"Which side of the river?"

"North"

"Should be Bourem, a small town we passed in the boat shortly before we moved out of the polluted water. Stay well clear of her."

"Where do you want to ditch?"

"Upriver, just out of earshot of any residents with acute hearing."

"Any particular reason for this spot?" asked Giordino suspiciously.

"It's Saturday night. Why not go into town and check out the action?"

Giordino parted his lips to make some appropriate comeback, gave up, and refocused his concentration on flying the helicopter. He tensed as he scanned the engine and flight gauges on the instrument panel. Approaching the center of the river, he eased back on the throttles as he delicately pushed the collective and tapped right rudder, turning the craft with its nose upriver while in a hover.

"Got your rubber ducky life vest?" asked Giordino.

"Never go anywhere without it," Pitt nodded. "Lower away."

Two meters above the water, Giordino shut down the engines as Pitt closed all the fuel switches and electrical bars. Yves Massarde's beautiful aircraft fluttered like a wounded butterfly, and then fell into the water with a quiet splash. It bobbed long enough for Pitt and Giordino to step out the doors and leap as far away as they could get, before diving into the river with arms and legs furiously stroking to escape the reach of the dying but still slowly spinning rotor blades. When the water reached the open doors and flooded the interior, the craft slipped beneath the smooth black water with a great sigh as the air was expelled from the passenger cabin.

No one heard it come down, no one from shore saw it sink. It was gone with the Calliope, settling into the soft silt of the river that would someday completely cover her airframe and become her burial shroud.

It wasn't exactly the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel, but to someone who had been thrown in a river twice, parboiled in a steam bath, and was footsore from stumbling around the desert in the dark for two hours, no watering hole could have offered greater sanctuary. He had never, Pitt thought, seen a dingier dive that looked so good.

They had the feeling of entering a cave. The rough mud walls met a well-trodden dirt floor. A long board propped on concrete bricks that served as the bar sagged in the middle, so much so it seemed that any glass set on its surface would immediately slide to the center. Behind the decrepit bar, a shelf that appeared wedged into the mud brick wall held a weird assortment of pots and valves that brewed coffee and tea. Next to it were five bottles of obscurely labeled liquor in various levels of consumption. They must have been stocked for the rare tourist who ventured in the place, Pitt surmised, since Muslims weren't supposed to touch the stuff.

Against one wall a small stove was throwing out a comforting degree of heat along with a pungent aroma that neither Pitt nor Giordino as yet identified as camel dung. The chairs looked like rejects from both the Goodwill and Salvation Army stores. None of them matched. The tables weren't much better, darkened by smoke, surfaces burned by countless cigarettes and carved with graffiti going back to the French colonial days. What little illumination there was in the closet-size room came from two bare light bulbs hanging from a single wire held up by nails in a roof beam. They glowed dimly, their limited power coming from the town's overworked diesel generator.

Trailed by Giordino, Pitt sat down at an empty table and shifted his attention from the furnishings to the clientele. He was relieved to find that none wore uniforms. The room held a composite of locals, Niger boatmen and fishermen, villagers, and a sprinkling of men whom Pitt took for farmers. No women were in attendance. A few were drinking beer but most sipped at small cups of sweet coffee or tea. After a cursory glance at the newcomers, they all went back to their conversations or refocused their concentration on a game similar to dominos.

Giordino leaned across the table and murmured, "Is this your idea of a night on the town?"

"Any port in a storm," said Pitt.

The obvious proprietor, a swarthy man with a massive thicket of black hair and an immense moustache, ambled from behind the makeshift bar and approached the table. He stood and looked down at them without a word, waiting for them to speak first.

Pitt held up two fingers and said, "Beer."

The proprietor nodded and walked back to the bar. Giordino watched as he pulled two bottles of German beer from a badly dented metal icebox, then turned and stared at Pitt dubiously.

"Mind telling me how you intend to pay?" asked Giordino.

Pitt smiled, leaned under the table, and slipped off his left Nike and removed something from the sole. Then with a cool, watchful expression his eyes traveled around the room.

None of the other patrons showed the slightest interest in either himself or Giordino. He cautiously opened his hands so only Giordino could see. Between his palms lay a neat stack of Malian currency.

"Confederation of French African francs," he said quietly. "The Admiral didn't miss a trick."

"Sandecker thought of everything all right," Giordino admitted. "How come he trusted you and not me with a bankroll?"

"I have bigger feet."

The proprietor returned and set, more like dropped, the bottles of beer on the table. "Dix francs," he grunted.

Pitt handed him a bill. The proprietor held it up to one of the light bulbs and peered at it, then rubbed his greasy thumb over the printing, seeing no smear, he nodded and walked away.

"He asked for ten francs," Giordino said. "You gave him twenty. If he thinks you're a big spender we'll probably be mugged by half the town when we leave."

"That's the idea," said Pitt. "Only a matter of time before the village con artist smells blood and circles his victims."

"Are we buying or selling?"

"Mostly buying. We need a means of transportation."

"A hearty meal should take priority. I'm hungry as a bear out of hibernation."

"You can try the food here, if you like," said Pitt. "Me, I'd rather starve."

They were on their third beer when a young man no more than eighteen entered the bar. He stood tall and slender with a slight hunch to his shoulders. He had a gentle oval face with wide sad-looking eyes. His complexion was almost black and his hair thick and wiry. He wore a yellow T-shirt and khaki pants under an open, white cotton sheet-like garment. He made a quick study of the customers and settled his gaze on Pitt and Giordino.

"Patience, the beggar's virtue," Pitt murmured. "Salvation is on the way."

The young man stopped at the table and nodded his head. "Bonsoir."

"Good evening," Pitt replied.

The melancholy eyes widened slightly. "You are English?"

"New Zealanders," Pitt lied.

"I am Mohammed Digna. Perhaps I can assist you gentlemen in changing your money."

"We have local currency," Pitt shrugged.

"Do you need a guide, someone to lead you through any problems with customs, police, or government officials?"

"No, I don't think so." Pitt held out his hand at an empty chair. "Will you join us for a drink?"

"Yes, thank you." Digna said a few words in French to the proprietor-bartender and sat down.

"You speak English real well," said Giordino.

"I went to primary school in Gao and college in the capital of Bamako where I finished first in my class," he said proudly. "I can speak four languages including my native Bambara tongue, French, English, and German."

"You're smarter than me," said Giordino. "I only know enough English to scrape by on."

"What is your occupation?" asked Pitt.

"My father is chief of a nearby village. I manage his business properties and export business."

"And yet you frequent bars and offer your services to tourists," Giordino murmured suspiciously.

"I enjoy meeting foreigners so I can practice my languages," Digna said without hesitation.

The proprietor came and set a small cup of tea in front of Digna.

"How does your father transport his goods?" asked Pitt.

"He has a small fleet of Renault trucks."

"Any chance of renting one?" Pitt put to him.

"You wish to haul merchandise?"

"No, my friend and I would like to take a short drive north and see the great desert before we return home to New Zealand."

Digna gave a brief shake of his head. "Not possible. My father's trucks have left for Mopti this afternoon loaded with textiles and produce. Besides, no foreigner from outside the country can travel in the desert without special passes."

Pitt turned to Giordino, an expression of sadness and disappointment on his face. "What a shame. And to think we flew halfway around the world to see desert nomads astride their camels."

"I'll never be able to face my little old white-haired mother," Giordino moaned. "She gave up her life's savings so I could experience life in the Sahara "

Pitt slapped the table with his hand and stood up. "Well it's back to our hotel at Timbuktu."

"Do you gentlemen have a car?" asked Digna.

"No."

"How did you get here from Timbuktu?"

"By bus," replied Giordino hesitantly, almost as if asking a question.

"You mean a truck carrying passengers."

"That's it," Giordino said happily.

"You won't find any transportation traveling to Timbuktu before noon tomorrow," said Digna.

"There must be a good vehicle of some kind in Bourem that we can rent," said Pitt.

"Bourem is a poor town. Most of the townspeople walk or ride motorbikes. Few families can afford to own autos that are not in constant need of repair. The only vehicle of sound mechanical condition currently in Bourem is General Zateb Kazim's private auto."

Digna might as well have prodded a pair of harnessed bulls with a pitchfork. Pitt and Giordino's minds worked on the same wavelength. They both stiffened but immediately relaxed. Their eyes locked and their lips twisted into subtle grins.

"What is his car doing here?" Giordino asked innocently. "We saw him only yesterday at Gao."

"The General flies most everywhere by helicopter or military jet," answered Digna. "But he likes his own personal chauffeur and auto to transport him through the towns and cities. His chauffeur was transporting the auto on the new highway from Bamako to Gao when it broke down a few kilometers outside of Bourem. It was towed here for repairs."

"And was it repaired?" Pitt inquired, taking a sip of beer to appear indifferent.

"The town mechanic finished late this evening. A rock had punctured the radiator."

"Has the chauffeur left for Gao?" Giordino wondered idly.

Digna shook his head. "The road from here to Gao is still under construction. Driving on it at night can be hazardous. He didn't want to risk damaging General Kazim's car again. He plans to leave with the morning light."

Pitt looked at him. "How do you know all this?"

Digna beamed. "My father owns the auto repair garage, and I oversee its operation. The chauffeur and I had dinner together."

"Where is the chauffeur now?"

"A guest at my father's house."

Pitt changed the drift of the conversation to local industry. "Any chemical companies around here?" he asked.

Digna laughed. "Bourem is too poor to manufacture anything but handicrafts and woven goods."

"How about a hazardous waste site?"

"Fort Foureau, but that's hundreds of kilometers to the north."

There was a short lull in the conversation, then Digna asked suddenly, "How much money do you carry?"

"I don't know," Pitt answered honestly. "I never counted it.

Pitt saw Giordino look strangely at him and then flick his eyes at four men seated at a table in the corner. He glanced at them and caught them abruptly turning away. This had to be a setup, he concluded. He stared at the proprietor who was leaning over the bar reading a newspaper and rejected him as one of the muggers. A quick look at the other customers was enough to satisfy him that they were only interested in conversing between themselves. The odds were five against two. Not half bad at all, Pitt thought.

Pitt finished his beer and came to his feet. "Time to go."

"Give my regards to the Chief," said Giordino, pumping Digna's hand.

The young Malian's smile never left his face, but his eyes became hard. "You cannot leave."

"Don't worry about us," Giordino waved. "We'll sleep by the road."

"Give me your money," Digna said softly.

"The son of a chief begging for money," Pitt said dryly. "You must be a great source of embarrassment for your old man."

"Do not offend me," Digna said coldly. "Give me all your money or your blood will soak the floor."

Giordino acted as if he was ignoring the confrontation and edged toward one corner of the bar. The four men had risen from the table and seemed to be waiting for a signal from Digna. The signal never came. The Malians seemed infused by the utter lack of fear shown by their potential victims.

Pitt leaned across the table until his fate was level with Digna's. "Do you know what my friend and I do to sewer slime like you?"

"You cannot insult Mohammed Digna and live," he snarled contemptuously.

"What we do," Pitt calmly continued, "is bury them with a slice of ham in their mouth."

The ultimate abhorrence to a devout Muslim is any contact with a pig. They consider them the most unclean of creatures and the mere thought of spending eternity in the grave with so much as a sliver of bacon is enough to cause their worst nightmares. Pitt knew the threat was as good as a wooden stake pressed against a vampire's chest.

For a full five seconds Digna sat immobile, making sounds from his throat as if he was being strangled. The muscles of his face tautened and his teeth bared in uncontrolled rage. Then he leaped to his feet and pulled a long knife from under his robe.

He was two seconds slow and one second too late.

Pitt rammed his fist into Digna's jaw like a piston. The Malian lurched backward, crashing into the table surrounded by men playing dominos and spilling the game pieces before sprawling to the floor in a twisted heap, out for the count. Digna's henchmen all launched themselves against Pitt, circling him warily, three of them drawing nasty-looking curved knives while the fourth came at him with a raised axe.

Pitt grabbed his chair and swung down on his lead attacker, breaking the man's right arm and shoulder. A shout of pain went up as the room erupted in confusion. The stunned customers crushed against each other in their panic to escape through the narrow door to safety outside the bar. Another exclamation of agony exploded from the assailant with the axe as a well-aimed bottle of whiskey thrown by Giordino smashed with a sickening thud into the side of the man's face.

Pitt lifted the table above his head, his hand gripping two of its legs. In the same instant came the sound of shattered glass and Giordino was standing beside him, his hand thrust forward, clutching the jagged neck of a bottle.

The attackers stopped dead in their tracks, the odds now even. They stared dumbly at their two friends, one swaying on his knees, moaning and holding a badly skewed arm, the other sitting cross-legged with hands covering his face, blood streaming through his fingers. Another downward glance at their unconscious leader, and they began backing toward the door. In the blink of an eye they were gone.

"Not much of an exercise," Giordino muttered. "These guys wouldn't last five minutes on the streets of New York."

"Watch the door," said Pitt. He turned to the proprietor who stood completely unperturbed and unconcerned, turning the pages of his newspaper as if he regarded fights on his premises as regular nightly entertainment. "Le garage?" Pitt asked.

The proprietor raised his head, tugged at his moustache, and wordlessly jerked his thumb in a vague direction beyond the south wall of the bar.

Pitt threw several francs on the sagging bar to pay for the damage and said, "Merci."

This place kind of grows on you," said Giordino. "I almost hate to part with it."

"Picture it in your mind always." Pitt checked his watch. "Only four hours before daylight. Off we go before an alarm is turned in."

They exited the dingy bar and skirted the rear of the buildings, hugging the shadows and peering furtively around corners. Their precaution, Pitt realized, was largely an overkill. The almost total lack of street lights and the darkened houses with their sleeping inhabitants voided any chance of suspicion.

They came to one of the more substantial mud brick buildings in town, a large warehouse-like affair with a wide metal gate in the front and double doors at the rear. The chain-link fenced yard in back looked like an automotive junkyard. Nearly thirty old cars were parked in rows, stripped bare with little left of them but body shells and frames. Wheels and grimy engines were stacked in one corner of the yard near several oil drums. Transmissions and differentials leaned against the building, the ground around soaked from years of leaking oil.

They found a gate in the fence that was tied shut by a rope. Giordino picked up a sharp stone and cut through the rope, swinging open the gate. They moved carefully toward the doors, listening for any sound of a guard dog and peering through the darkness for signs of a security system. There must have been little need for theft prevention, Pitt decided. With so few cars in town, anyone stealing a part to repair a private vehicle would have immediately been suspect.

The double doors were latched and sealed with a rusty padlock. Giordino gripped it in his massive hands and gave it a heavy tug. The shackle popped free. He looked at Pitt and smiled.

"Nothing to it really. The tumblers were old and worn."

"If I thought there was the least hope we'd ever get out of this place," Pitt said tartly, "I'd put you in for a medal."

He gently pulled one door open far enough for them to enter. One end of the garage was an open pit for mechanics to work under cars. There was a small office and a room filled with tools and machinery. The rest of the floor space held three cars and a pair of trucks in various stages of disassembly. But it was the car that sat in the open center of the garage that drew Pitt. He reached through one of the windows of a truck and pulled the light switch, illuminating an old pre-World War II automobile with elegant lines and a bright rose-magenta color scheme.

"My God," Pitt muttered in awe. "An Avions Voisin."

"A what?"

"A Voisin. Built from 1919 until 1939 in France by Gabriel Voisin. She's a very rare car."

Giordino walked from bumper to bumper, studying the styling of the quite unique and different car. He noted the unusual door handles, the three wipers mounted on the glass of the windshield, the chrome struts that stretched between the front fenders and radiator, and the tall, winged mascot atop the radiator shell. "Looks weird to me."

"Don't knock it. This classy set of wheels is our ticket out of here."

Pitt climbed behind the steering wheel, which was set on the right side, and sat in the art deco-designed upholstery of the front seat. A single key was in the ignition. He switched it on and stared at the fuel gauge needle as it climbed to the full line. Next he pressed the button that turned over the electrical motor that extended through the bottom of the radiator, and served as both the starter and the generator. There was utterly no sound of the engine being cranked over. The only indication that it was suddenly running was an almost inaudible cough and a slight puff of vapor out the exhaust pipe.

"A quiet old bird," observed Giordino, impressed.

"Unlike most modern engines with poppet valves," said Pitt, "this one is powered by a Knight sleeve-valve engine that was quite popular in its day for silent operation."

Giordino gazed at the old classic car with great skepticism. "You actually intend to drive this old relic across the Sahara Desert?"

"We've got a full tank of gas, and it beats riding a camel. Find some clean containers and fill them with water, and see if you can scrounge anything to eat."

"I doubt seriously," Giordino said, morosely staring around the run-down garage, "this establishment has a soft drink and candy machine."

"Do what you can."

Pitt opened the rear doors of the building and pushed out the yard gate far enough to allow the car to pass through. Then he checked over the car to ensure the oil and water were filled to capacity and there was air in the tires, particularly the spare.

Giordino came up with half a case of locally produced soft drink and several plastic bottles of water. "We won't go thirsty for a few days, but the best I could do in the culinary department is two cans of sardines I found in a desk and some gooey stuff that looks like boiled candy."

"No sense in hanging around. Throw your cache in the backseat and let's hit the road."

Giordino obliged and climbed in the passenger's seat as Pitt pushed the gear lever on the Cotal gearbox, actually a switch on an arm that protruded from the steering column, into low gear, pressed the accelerator pedal, and eased out the clutch. The sixty-year-old Voisin moved forward smoothly and quietly.

Pitt slowly picked his way between the junked cars and passed out the gate, cautiously driving down an alley until he reached a narrow dirt road leading to the west on a parallel course with the Niger River. He turned and followed the faint tracks, creeping along no faster than 2 5 kilometers an hour until he was out of sight of the town. Only then did he turn on the headlights and pick up speed.

"Might help if we had a road map," said Giordino.

"A map of camel tracks might be more practical. We can't risk taking the main highway."

"We're okay so long as this cow path runs along the river."

"Soon as we strike the ravine where Gunn's instruments detected the contamination, we'll turn and follow it north."

"I'd hate to be around when the chauffeur notifies Kazim that his pride and joy has been stolen."

"The General and Massarde will think we headed for the nearest border, which is Niger," said Pitt confidently. "The last place they'd expect us to cut and run is the middle of the desert."

"I must say," Giordino grumbled, "I'm not looking forward to the trip."

Neither was Pitt. It was a mad attempt with practically no chance of living to a ripe old age. The headlights showed the land was flat with patches of small, brown-stained rock. The beams caught haunting shadows cast from an occasional manna tree that seemed to flit and dart across the landscape like wraiths.

It was, thought Pitt, a very lonely place to die.

The sun rose hot, and by ten o'clock it was already 32 degrees C (90 degrees F). A wind began to blow from the south, and offered a small but mixed blessing for Rudi Gunn. The breeze felt refreshing to his sweating skin, but it swirled sand into his nose and ears. He wrapped his head cloth more tightly to keep out the grit and pressed his dark glasses against his face to protect his eyes. He took a small plastic bottle of water from his backpack and drained half of it. No need to ration, he thought, after spying a dripping tap beside the terminal.

The airport looked as dead as the night before. On the military side, there had been a changing of the guards, but the hangars and flight line were still void of activity. At the commercial air terminal he watched a man ride up on a motorbike and climb to the control tower. Gunn saw that as a good omen. No one with half a brain would willingly suffer in an elevated, glass-enclosed hot box under a blazing sun unless a plane was scheduled to arrive.

A falcon circled above Gunn's nest in the sand. He gazed at it for a while before cautiously rigging a few weatherworn boards over his body for shade. Then he surveyed the airfield once again. A truck had arrived on the tarmac in front of the terminal. Two men got out and unloaded a set of wooden chocks, which they set on the tarmac to block the aircraft's tires after landing. Gunn stiffened and began mentally preparing his best strategic approach to where the aircraft would park. He fixed the route in his mind, picking the shallow ravines and scattered growth for cover.

Then he lay back, settled in to endure the increasing heat and stared up at the sky. The falcon had homed in on a plover that was streaking and dodging toward the river. A few cotton puff clouds drifted across the vast blue expanse. He wondered how they could survive much less exist in the searing atmosphere. So intent was he on watching the clouds that he did not at first hear the low hum in the distance that signaled the approach of a jet aircraft. Then a glint caught his eye, and he sat up. The sun had flashed on a tiny speck in the sky. He waited, staring until the glint came again, only this time it was lower against the barren horizon. It was an aircraft on approach for landing but still too far away to be recognized. It had to be commercial, he surmised, or it wouldn't be expected to stop at the civilian side of the airfield.

He pushed off the boards shielding the sun, pulled on the backpack, and crouched in readiness for his furtive approach. He squinted into the glaring sky until the plane was only a kilometer away, his heart beginning to pound with anxiety. The seconds dragged past until at last he could distinguish the type and markings, a civilian French airbus carrying the light and dark green stripes of Air Afrique.

The pilot flared out just past the end of the runway, touched down, and braked. Then he taxied to the front of the terminal and tolled the big airbus to a halt. The engines were not shut down but kept turning as the two ground crewmen shoved the chocks under the wheels and then rolled a boarding stairway to the main exit door.

They stood and waited at the bottom of the stairway expectantly for passengers to disembark, but the exit door did not immediately open. Gunn began to make his move, scurrying toward the edge of the runway. After covering 50 meters, he paused behind the shelter of a small acacia tree and studied the airliner again.

The forward passenger door was finally sliding to one side, and a female flight attendant came down the boarding steps. She walked past the two Malian ground crewmen without looking at them and set a course for the control tower. The Malians turned their attention from the aircraft and stared at her with rapt curiosity. When she reached the base of the tower, she extracted a small pair of wire cutters from a bag slung over her shoulder and calmly severed the power and communication cables running from the controller's equipment to the terminal. Then she waved a signal at the plane's cockpit.

A ramp abruptly dropped from the rear of the fuselage accompanied by the high but muffled revolutions of an automobile engine. Suddenly, what looked to Gunn like an off-road dune buggy flew out of the cavern of the aircraft and down the ramp. The driver threw it into a sideway skid and aimed it toward the guard shack on the military side of the airfield.

Gunn had once been a member of the pit crew for Pitt and Giordino when they had entered a cross-country race in Arizona, but he had never seen an all-terrain vehicle like this one. There was no common body or chassis. The construction was a maze of tubular supports welded together and powered by a supercharged V-8 Rodeck, 541-cubicinch engine used by American drag racers. The driver sat within a small cockpit at the front of the vehicle, just ahead of the mid-mounted engine. A gunner sat slightly above the driver, manning a wicked looking six-barrel, lightweight Vulcan-type machine gun. Another gunner sat over the rear axle and faced backward with a 5.56-millimeter Stoner 63 machine gun. This type of vehicle, Gunn recalled, had been most effective during the desert war when used by American special forces teams behind the Iraqi lines.

It was followed down the ramp by a platoon of heavily armed men in unfamiliar uniforms who quickly rounded up the stunned Malian ground crew and secured the terminal building.

The two Malian air force guards on the military side of the airfield watched in fascination as the strange vehicle raced toward them. Only when it was within 100 meters did they recover and recognize it as a threat. They raised their guns to fire but were cut down with a quick burst from the forward gunner and his Vulcan.

Then the driver swung a sharp turn and the gunners began concentrating their fire on the eight Malian jet fighters parked on the tarmac. Unthreatened by a wartime emergency, the aircraft were not dispersed, but lined up in two neat rows as if awaiting inspection. The heavily armed vehicle bored in, lashing out with short, devastating bursts from its automatic weapons. In quick succession, aircraft after aircraft went up in fiery explosions and black storms of smoke as rivers of shells sledgehammered into their fuel tanks. One moment a sleek fighter jet was there, the next it was gone, a burning mass of wreckage.

Gunn observed the drama in genuine astonishment. He cringed behind the acacia as if its slim trunk was one wide concrete shield. The whole operation had taken no more than six minutes. The armed all-terrain vehicle sped back toward the jetliner, taking up a position at the entrance of the terminal. Then a man in an officer's uniform stepped from the boarding steps, holding what looked to Gunn like a bullhorn.

The officer held the speaker to his lips and spoke, his voice carrying over the flaming destruction on the other side of the airfield. "Mr. Gunn! Will you please step forward? We don't have much time."

Gunn was stunned. He hesitated, not knowing whether it was some sort of complex trap. He quickly shook the thought off as stupid. General Kazim would hardly destroy his air force just to capture one man. Yet, he still was reluctant to rush into view of so much firepower.

"Mr. Gunn!" the officer boomed again. "If you are within sound of my voice, I implore you to hurry or I will be forced to leave without you."

That was all the urging Gunn needed. He leaped from behind the acacia tree and ran over the uneven ground toward the jetliner, waving his hands and shouting like a madman.

"Hold on! I'm coming!"

The unknown officer who had hailed him paced the tarmac like an impatient passenger, irritated at a flight delay. When Gunn jogged up and stopped, he studied the NUMA scientist as one might look at a street beggar. "Good morning. Are you Rudi Gunn?"

"I am," answered Gunn, panting from exertion and the heat. "Who are you?"

"Colonel Marcel Levant."

Gunn gazed with admiration at the elite force efficiently guarding the perimeter around the aircraft. They had the appearance of a tough group of men with no qualms about killing. "What group is this?"

"A United Nations tactical team," replied Levant.

"How did you know my name and where to find me?"

"Admiral James Sandecker received a communication from someone called Dirk Pitt saying you were hiding near the airport, and that it was urgent you be evacuated."

"The Admiral sent you?"

"With the approval of the Secretary General," replied Levant. "How do I know you're Rudi Gunn?"

Gunn gestured around the desolation in the surrounding countryside. "How in hell many Rudi Gunns do you think just happened to be roaming around this part of the desert waiting for your beck and call?"

"You have no papers, no proof of identity?"

"My personal documents are probably on the bottom of the Niger River. You'll just have to trust me."

Levant passed the bullhorn to an aide and nodded toward the aircraft. "Recall and board," he ordered tersely. He turned back to Gunn and regarded him with a marked lack of cordiality. "Step into the plane, Mr. Gunn. We have no more time to waste in idle conversation."

"Where are you taking me?"

Levant threw a glance of irritation at the sky and said, "To Paris. From there you will be flown to Washington by Concorde where a number of very important people are anxiously waiting to debrief you. That is all you're required to know. Now please move along. Time is crucial."

"What's the rush?" Gunn demanded. "You've obviously destroyed their air force."

"Only one squadron I fear. There are three others based around the capital city at Bamako. Once alerted they can still intercept us before we escape Malian air space."

The armed dune buggy had already driven on board and was quickly followed by the ground forces. The flight attendant who had bravely cut the control tower cables took Gunn by the arm and hustled him up the boarding ramp.

"We don't have a first-class cabin with gourmet meals and champagne, Mr. Gunn," she said brightly. "But we do have cold beer and bologna sandwiches."

"You don't know how good that sounds," Gunn smiled.

He should have felt a great surge of relief as he climbed the boarding stairs, but suddenly he was swept by a wave of anguish. Thanks to Pitt and Giordino he was safely escaping to freedom. They had sacrificed to save him. How on heaven's earth did they ever manage to find a radio and contact Sandecker, he wondered.

They were mad to stay behind in that scorched land, he thought. Their commitment to finding the contamination was madness. Kazim would unleash his entire security force to hunt them down. If the desert didn't devour them, the Malians would.

He hesitated before entering the aircraft, turned, and gazed out over the ugly vastness of sand and rock. From his elevated position he could clearly see the Niger River, little more than a kilometer to the west.

Where were they now? What was their situation?

He tore himself from the sight and entered the cabin, the air-conditioned air striking his sweating body like a breaking wave. His eyes were smarting as the aircraft lifted off the runway past the flaming jet fighters.

Colonel Levant sat in the seat next to Gunn and studied the sorrowful expression. He searched Gunn's eyes for understanding, but found none. "You don't seem happy to be getting out of this mess."

Gunn stared out the window. "Just thinking of the men I left behind."

"Pitt and Giordino, they were good friends?"

"For many years."

"Why didn't they come with you?" asked Levant.

"They had a job to finish."

Levant shook his head, uncomprehending. "They are either very brave men or very stupid."

"Not stupid," said Gunn. "Not stupid at all." "They will surely end up in hell." "You don't know them." Only then did Gunn force a grin. "If anyone can enter hell and walk out again carrying a glass of tequila over ice," he said with renewed confidence, "it's Dirk Pitt."

Six elite soldiers of General Kazim's personal bodyguard force snapped to attention as Massarde stepped from his launch to the dock. A Major stepped forward and saluted. "Monsieur Massarde?"

"What is it?"

"General Kazim has asked that I escort you to him immediately."

"Did he know my presence is required at Fort Foureau and I do not wish to have my schedule interrupted?"

Politely the Major bowed. "I believe his request for a meeting with you is quite urgent."

Massarde gave a Gallic shrug of annoyance and motioned for the Major to lead. "After you."

The Major nodded and gave a curt order to a sergeant. Then he walked over the worn and bleached dock planking toward a large warehouse that bordered the dock. Massarde duly followed in the Major's footsteps, surrounded by the security guard.

"Please, this way," the Major said, gesturing around the corner of the warehouse while stepping into a small side alley.

There, under heavy security by armed guards, stood a Mercedes-Benz truck and trailer that was General Kazim's private mobile command and living quarters. Massarde was ushered up steps and through a door that immediately closed behind him.

"General Kazim is in his office," said the Major, opening another door and standing aside. The interior of the office felt like an Arctic ice floe after the heat outside. Kazim must have kept the air conditioning running at full blast, Massarde surmised. Curtains were drawn over bulletproof windows and he stood motionless for a moment waiting for his eyes to adjust after the bright sunlight.

"Come in, Yves, sit down," Kazim called from a desk as he replaced the receiver from one of four telephones.

Massarde smiled and remained standing. "Why so many guards? Do you expect an assassination?"

Kazim smiled back. "In light of the events of the past few hours, extra security seems a valid precaution."

"Have you found my helicopter?" Massarde asked directly.

"Not yet."

"How can you lose a helicopter in the desert? It only had enough fuel for half an hour's flight."

"It appears the two Americans you allowed to escape-"

"My houseboat is not equipped to contain prisoners," Massarde snapped. "You should have taken them off my hands when you had the chance."

Kazim stared directly at him. "Be that as it may, my friend, mistakes were made. It appears that after the NUMA agents stole your helicopter, they flew to Bourem where I have reason to believe they sank it in the river, walked to the village, and then stole my car."

"Your old Voisin?" Massarde pronounced it Vahsaan.

"Yes," Kazim acknowledged through taut lips. "The American scum made off with my rare, classic car."

"And you haven't found it or apprehended them yet?"

"No."

Massarde finally sat down, anger at losing his aircraft mixed with delight over the theft of Kazim's precious automobile. "What of their rendezvous with a helicopter south of Gao?"

"Much to my regret, I fell for their lie. The force I positioned in ambush 20 kilometers to the south waited in vain, and my radar field units detected no sign of aircraft. They came instead to the Gao airport in a commercial airliner."

"Why weren't you alerted?"

"It did not appear to be a security matter," Kazim answered. "Only an hour before sunrise, Air Afrique officials in Gao were notified that one of their aircraft was making an unscheduled landing so a group of tourists could visit the city and take a short cruise on the river."

"The airline officials believed it?" asked Massarde incredulously.

"And why not. They routinely asked for confirmation from company headquarters in Algiers and received it."

"Then what happened?"

"According to the airport controller and the ground crew, the aircraft, flying the markings of Air Afrique, supplied the proper identification on approach. But after it set down and taxied to the terminal, an armed force along with a weapons vehicle shot from the plane's interior and gunned down the security guards on the military side of the field before they could resist. Then the weapons vehicle destroyed an entire squadron of eight of my jet fighters."

"Yes, the explosions woke everyone on the houseboat," said Massarde. "We saw the smoke rise in the direction of the airport and thought a plane had crashed."

Kazim grunted. "Nothing that ordinary."

"Did the ground crew or controller identify the assault force?"

"The attackers wore unfamiliar uniforms with no badges or insignia."

"How many of your people were killed?"

"Fortunately, only two security guards. The rest of the base personnel, maintenance crew, and pilots were on leave for a religious festival."

Massarde's face grew serious. "This is no mere intrusion to find contamination. This sounds more like a raid by your rebel opposition. They're smarter and more powerful than you give them credit for."

Kazim waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. "A few dissident Tuaregs fighting on camels with swords. Hardly what you'd call highly trained special forces with modern firepower."

"Maybe they've hired mercenaries."

"With what funds?" Kazim shook his head. "No, this was a well-conceived plan carried off by a professional force. The destruction of the fighters was purely to eliminate any means of counterattack or interception during their escape after picking up one of the NUMA agents."

Massarde gave Kazim a bitter look. "Forgot to tell me about that little item, didn't you?"

"The ground crewmen reported that the leader of the attackers called for a man named Gunn, who appeared out of the desert where he'd been hiding. After Gunn boarded the aircraft, it took off on a northwesterly course and flew toward Algeria."

"Sounds like the plot for a second-rate motion picture."

"Do not be facetious, Yves." Kazim's tone was smooth but with a sharp edge. "The evidence points toward a conspiracy that goes far beyond a search for oil. I strongly believe both our interests are threatened by outside forces."

Massarde was hesitant to completely buy Kazim's theory. Their minimal trust was built on respect for each other's shrewd mind and a healthy fear of their respective powers. Massarde was very leery of the game that Kazim was playing. A game that could only end with the General on the receiving end. He looked into the eyes of a jackal while Kazim gazed into the eyes of a fox.

"What brought you to that descriptive conclusion?" asked Massarde sarcastically.

"We know now there were three men on the boat that blew up on the river. I suspect they set the explosives as a diversion. Two came aboard your houseboat while the third, who must have been the man called Gunn, swam to shore and made his way to the airport."

"The raid and evacuation seem incredibly well conceived and timed to coincide with the pickup of this Gunn fellow."

"It developed quickly because it was planned and carried out by first-rate professionals," Kazim replied slowly. "The assault force was alerted to the time and place of Gunn's location, most certainly by the agent who called himself Dirk Pitt."

"How can you know that?"

Kazim shrugged. "A calculated guess." He looked at Massarde. "Are you forgetting that Pitt used your satellite communications system to contact his superior, Admiral James Sandecker? That's why he and Giordino came on board your boat."

"But that doesn't explain why Pitt and Giordino didn't make any attempt to escape with Gunn."

"Obviously you caught them before they could swim across the river and join him at the airport."

"Then why didn't they flee after stealing my helicopter? The Nigerian border is only 150 kilometers away. They could have almost made it with the fuel remaining in the helicopter's tanks. Makes little sense to fly deeper into the interior of the country, then ditch the craft and steal an old car. There are no bridges across the river in the area so they can't drive south to the border. Where can they possibly go?"

Kazim's ferret eyes looked at him steadily. "Perhaps where no one expected."

Massarde's brows pinched together. "North, into the desert?"

"Where else?"

"Absurd."

"I'm open to a better theory."

Massarde shook his head skeptically. "For what possible reason would two men steal a sixty-year-old car and strike out across the most desolate desert in the world? They'd be committing suicide."

"Until now their actions have defied explanation," Kazim admitted. "They were on some sort of covert mission. That much is certain. We still aren't certain what it is they were after."

"Secrets?" Massarde offered simply.

Kazim shook his head. "Any classified material on my military program is no doubt on file at the CIA. Mali has no secret projects that would interest a foreign nation, even those of our bordering nations."

"There are two you've forgotten."

Kazim looked at Massarde curiously. "What are you suggesting?"

"Fort Foureau and Tebezza."

Was it possible, Kazim thought, that the waste disposal project and the gold mines might be connected to the intruders? His mind tried to sift for answers, but there were none. "If those were their objectives, why are they mucking around over 300 kilometers to the south?"

"I can't answer you. But as my agent at the United Nations insisted, they were searching for a source of chemical contamination that originated in the Niger and caused an expansive growth of red tides after entering the sea."

"I find that utter rot. Most likely a red herring to hide their real mission."

"Which might well be the penetration of Fort Foureau and a human rights expose of Tebezza," Massarde threw out seriously.

Kazim was silent, his expression reflecting doubt.

Massarde continued. "Suppose Gunn already had vital information on him when he was evacuated. Why else would such a complex operation be mounted to rescue him while Pitt and Giordino headed north toward our joint projects?"

"We'll find the answers when I capture them," said Kazim, his voice becoming tense with anger. "Every available military and police unit has already closed all roads and camel trails leading out of the country. I've also ordered my air force to conduct aerial reconnaissance over the northern desert. I intend to cover every option."

"A wise decision," said Massarde.

"Without supplies they won't last two days in the heat of the desert."

"I trust your methods, Zateb. I have no doubt you will have Pitt and Giordino in one of your interrogation cells by this time tomorrow."

"Sooner, I should think."

"That's most reassuring," Massarde said, smiling.

But somehow he knew Pitt and Giordino would not be easy game to run down.

Captain Batutta came to attention and saluted as he stood in front of Colonel Mansa who merely returned the salute with an indifferent wave.

"The UN scientists are imprisoned at Tebezza," Batutta reported.

A slight smile touched Mansa's lips. "I imagine O'Bannion and Melika were happy to obtain new workers for the mines."

Batutta flashed an expression of disgust. "She's one cruel witch, that Melika. I don't envy any man who feels the sting of her quirt."

"Or woman," added Mansa. "She makes no distinction when she metes out punishment. I give Dr. Hopper and his party four months before the last of them lies buried in the sand."

"General Kazim will be the last to shed a tear over their demise."

The door opened, and Lieutenant Djemaa, the Malian air force pilot of the UN scientist's plane, walked in and saluted. Mansa looked up at him. "Did everything go off all right?"

Djemaa smiled. "Yes sir, we flew back to Asselar, dug up the required number of corpses, and loaded them on the plane. Then returned north where my copilot and I bailed out over the designated area of the Tanezrouft Desert, a good 100 kilometers from the nearest camel track."

"The plane burned after it crashed?" asked Manses.

"Yes sir."

"Did you inspect the wreckage?"

Djemaa nodded. "After the driver of the desert vehicle you stationed to pick us up arrived, we drove to the crash site. I had set the controls so it went down in a vertical dive. It exploded on impact, blasting a crater almost 10 meters deep. Except for the engines there wasn't a piece of wreckage larger than a shoe box."

Mansa's face broadened with a smile of satisfaction. "General Kazim will be pleased. Both you men can expect promotions." He looked at Djemaa. "And you, Lieutenant, will be in command of the search operation to find Hopper's plane."

"But why would I direct a search," asked Djemaa in confusion, "when I already know where it is?"

"Why else would you fill it with dead bodies?"

"Captain Batutta did not inform me of the plan."

"We play our benevolent role in discovering the wreckage," Mansa explained. "And then turn it over to international flight accident investigators, who will not have enough human remains to identify or evidence to provide the cause of the crash." He gave a hard stare at Djemaa. "Providing the Lieutenant has done a complete job."

"I personally removed the flight recorder," Djemaa assured him.

"Good, now we can begin displaying our country's concern over the disappearance of the UN scientists' flight to the international news media and express our deep regret for their loss."

The afternoon heat was suffocating as it reflected off the sun-baked surface. Without proper dark glasses, the immense plain of rock and sand, dazzled by the fiery sun, blinded Pitt's eyes as he sat on the graveled bottom of a narrow gorge under the shade of the Avions Voisin. Except for the supplies they had scrounged from the garage in Bourem, they only, possessed the clothes on their backs.

Giordino was in the midst of using the tools he'd found in the trunk of the car to remove the exhaust pipe and muffler to give the car more ground clearance. They had already reduced the tire pressure for better traction in the sand. So far the old Voisin moved through the inhospitable landscape like an aging beauty queen walking through the Bronx in New York, stylish but sadly misplaced.

They traveled during the cool of night beneath the light of the stars, groping over the barren expanse at no more than 10 kilometers an hour, stopping every hour to raise the hood and let the engine cool. There was no thought of using the headlights. The beams could have been caught by a keen observer from an aircraft far out of earshot. Quite often the passenger had to walk ahead to examine the ground. Once they almost drove into a steep ravine and twice they had to dig and scoop their way out of patches of soft sand.

Without a compass or a map, they relied on celestial navigation to record their location and trail as they followed the ancient riverbed from the Niger River north ever deeper into the Sahara. By day they hid in gulleys and ravines where they covered the car with a thin coating of sand and scrub brush so it would blend in with the desert floor and appear from the air as a small dune sprouting a few pieces of sparse growth.

"Would you care for a cold, sparkling glass of Sahara spring water or the refreshing fizz of a Malian soft drink?" Giordino grinned, holding out a bottle of the local pop and a cup of the warm, sulphur-tasting liquid from the water tap he'd found in the village garage.

"I can't stand the taste," said Pitt, taking the cup of water and wrinkling his nose, "but it's best we drink at least three quarts every twenty-four hours."

"You don't think we should ration it?"

"Not while we have an ample supply. Dehydration will only come on that much quicker if we hoard and sip it a little at a time. Better to drink as much as we need to quench our thirst and worry when it's gone."

"How about a gourmet sardine for dinner?"

"Sounds jazzy."

"The only thing missing is a Caesar salad."

"You're thinking of anchovies."

"I never could tell the difference."

After savoring his sardine, Giordino licked his fingers. "I feel like an idiot sitting here in the middle of the desert eating fish."

Pitt smiled. "Be thankful you've got them." Then he tilted his head listening.

"Hear something?" asked Giordino.

"Aircraft." Pitt cupped his hands behind his ears. "A low-flying jet judging by the sound."

He crawled up the side of the ravine on his stomach until he reached the upper edge and moved behind a small tamarisk shrub so his head and face merged with its broken shadow. Then he began a slow, deliberate observation of the sky.

The throaty roar of a jet turbine exhaust came very clearly now as he peered ahead of the trailing sound waves. He squinted into the blazing blue sky but failed to see anything at first. He dropped his gaze lower, and then spotted a sudden movement against the empty desert terrain about 3 kilometers away. Pitt recognized it as an old American-built Phantom, sporting Malian air force insignia, about 6 kilometers to the south, flying less than 100 meters off the ground. It was like some great vulture, camouflage-brown against the yellow-gray of the landscape, and flying in great lazy arcs as if a sixth sense was telling it there was prey in the neighborhood.

"See it?" asked Giordino.

"An F-4 Phantom," answered Pitt.

"What direction?"

"Circling in from the south."

"Think he's onto us?"

Pitt turned and looked down at the palm fronds tied to the bumpers behind the rear wheels that were dragged along to cover the tire tracks. The parallel indentations in the sand that trailed off down the middle of the ravine were almost completely obliterated. "A search crew in a hovering helicopter might spot our trail but not the pilot of a jet fighter. He has no vision directly below his aircraft and has to bank if he wants to see anything. And he's flying too fast, too close to the ground to detect a vague pair of tire tracks."

The jet roared toward the ravine, close enough now so that its desert camouflage markings stained the pure blue of the sky. Giordino wiggled under the car as Pitt pulled the tamarisk shrub's branches over his head and shoulders. He watched as the pilot of the Phantom made a soaring turn, scanning the seemingly blank and empty world of the Sahara below.

Pitt tensed and held his breath. The aircraft's swing was bringing it directly over their gorge. Then it tore overhead, the air rushing past its wings like a wave cut by a ship's bow, the thrust of its turbine swirling the sand. Pitt felt the heat of its fiery exhaust sweep over him. It seemed almost as if the aircraft had materialized right over the gorge, so low Pitt swore he could have thrown a rock into its intake scoops. And then it was gone.

He feared the worst as he watched it roaring away. But it continued on its slow, circling search as though the pilot had seen nothing of interest. Pitt watched it until the plane was out of sight over the horizon. He kept watching for a few more minutes, wary that the pilot might have spied something suspicious and entertained the notion of a wide sweep before whipping over the gorge in hope of catching his quarry by surprise.

But the sound of the jet exhaust finally faded away in the distance, leaving the desert dead and silent once again.

Pitt slid back down the slope of the gorge and regained the shade of the ancient Voisin as Giordino crawled from beneath its chassis.

"A near thing," said Giordino, flicking a small platoon of ants from one arm.

Pitt doodled in the sand with a small, withered stick "Either we didn't fool Kazim by heading north or he isn't taking any chances."

"Must blow his mind that a car painted a color as loud as this one can't be found in a wasteland against a flat and colorless background."

"He can't be jumping for joy," Pitt agreed.

"I bet he went nuclear when he found out it was stolen, and figured we were the culprits," Giordino laughed.

Pitt held a hand up to shield his eyes and gazed at the sun dipping into the west. "Be dark in another hour, and we can be on our way."

"How does the ground ahead look?"

"Once we pass out of this gorge and back into the riverbed it continues as flat sand and gravel with a few scattered boulders. Good for driving if we keep a sharp eye and avoid jagged stones that can slice open a tire."

"How far do you figure we've gone since leaving Bourem?"

"According to the odometer, 116 kilometers, but as the crow flies, I'd judge about 90."

"And still no sign or trace of a chemical production or waste facility."

"Not even an empty container drum."

"I can't see much sense in going on," said Giordino. "No way a chemical spill could flow 90 kilometers over a dry riverbed into the Niger."

"It does seem a lost cause," Pitt admitted.

"We can still make a try for the Algerian border."

Pitt shook his head. "Not enough gas. We'd have to walk the last 200 kilometers to the Trans-Saharan Motor Track to even catch a ride to civilization. We'd die of exposure before making it halfway."

"So what are our options?"

"We push on."

"How far?"

"Until we find what we're looking for, even if it means doubling back."

"And litter the landscape with our bones in either case."

"Then at least we accomplish something by eliminating this section of the desert as a source for the contamination." Pitt spoke without emotion, staring into the sand at his feet as if trying to see a vision.

Giordino looked at him. "We've been through a lot together over the years. Be a damn shame for it to end in the armpit of the world."

Pitt grinned at him. "The old guy with the scythe hasn't put in an appearance just yet."

"This will be most embarrassing when we make the obituary columns," Giordino persisted pessimistically.

"What will?"

"Two directors of the National Underwater and Marine Agency lost and feared dead in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Who in their right mind will believe it?… Did you just hear something?"

Pitt stood up. "I heard."

"A voice singing in English. God, maybe we are already dead."

They stood side-by-side as the sun began disappearing over the horizon, listening to a voice singing what they recognized as the old camp song, "My Darling Clementine." The words became distinct as the off-key singing became very close.

"You are lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry Clementine."

"He's coming up the gorge," Giordino murmured, clutching a lug wrench.

Pitt picked up several rocks as weapons. They took up positions silently on opposite ends of the sand-covered car, crouching in readiness to attack, waiting for whoever was approaching to appear around a nearby bend in the gorge.

"In a cavern, in a canyon, excavating for a mine…" The figure of a man shadowed by the wall of the gorge walked around the bend leading an animal. "Lived a miner forty-niner and his daughter Clementine… "

The voice trailed off as he spied the car blanketed by sand. He came to a halt at the unexpected sight of the camouflaged vehicle and studied it not so much from surprise as simple curiosity. He moved closer, pulling the stubborn-acting animal behind him on a tether. Then he stopped beside the car, reached out, and brushed the sand from the roof.

Pitt and Giordino slowly rose and confronted the stranger, staring at the man as if he was an alien from another planet. This was no Tuareg leading a camel through the wilderness of his native land. This apparition was totally inconsistent with the Sahara, completely in the wrong place and time.

"Maybe he doesn't carry a scythe anymore," muttered Giordino.

The man was dressed like an old American western desert prospector. Battered old Stetson hat, denim pants held up by suspenders and tucked into scrapped and faded leather boots. A red bandana was tied around his neck and covered the lower part of his face, giving him the appearance of an early bandit.

The animal behind him was not a camel, but a burro, its back loaded with a pack almost as large as he was, containing goods and supplies including several round water canteens, blankets, tins of food, a pick and shovel, and a lever-action Winchester rifle.

"I knew it," Giordino whispered in awe. "We've expired and gone to Disneyland."

The stranger pulled down the bandana, revealing a white moustache and beard. His eyes were green, almost as green as Pitt's. His brows matched the beard but the hair that leaked from under the Stetson was still graying with streaks of dark brown. He stood tall, about the same height as Pitt and was more heavy than thin. His lips broadened into a friendly smile.

"I sure hope you fellas speak my language," he said warmly. "Because I could sure use the company."

Pitt and Giordino looked at each other blankly, and then back at the old desert rat, certain their eyes and their minds had run amuck.

"Where did you come from?" Giordino blurted.

"I might ask you the same thing," replied the stranger. He gazed at the coating of sand on the Voisin. "You the fellas that airplane was lookin' for?"

"Why do you want to know?" asked Pitt.

"If you two gents want to play question and answer games, I'll be on my way."

The intruder hardly wore the image of a nomad, and since he talked and looked like a fellow countryman, Pitt quickly decided to trust him. "My name is Dirk Pitt and my friend here is AI Giordino, and yes the Malians are looking for us."

The old man shrugged. "Not surprised. They don't take kindly to foreigners around here." He gazed in wonder at the Voisin. "How in heaven's name did you drive a car this far without a road?"

"It wasn't easy, mister…"

The stranger moved closer and stuck out a callused hand. "Everybody just calls me the Kid."

Pitt smiled and shook hands. "How did a man your age come to be called that?"

"Long time ago after, after I'd return from a prospecting trip, I'd always head for my favorite waterin' hole in Jerome, Arizona. When I'd belly up to the bar, my old saloon pals used to greet me with, `Hey, the Kid's back in town.' The name just sort of stuck."

Giordino was staring at the Kid's companion. "A mule seems out of place in this part of the world. Wouldn't a camel be more practical?"

"To begin with," the Kid said with noticeable indignation, "Mr. Periwinkle ain't no mule, he's a burro. And a real tough one. Camels can go farther and longer without water, but the burro was bred for the desert too. Found Mr. Periwinkle roamin' free in Nevada eight years ago, tamed him, and when I came to the Sahara I shipped him over. He's not half as rotten as a camel, eats less, and can carry as much weight. Besides, standin' lower to the ground like he does, he's a helluva lot easier to pack."

"A fine animal," Giordino retreated.

"You look like you're fixin' to move on. I was hopin' we might sit and talk a spell. I haven't met up with another soul except an Arab takin' a couple of camels to sell in Timbuktu. And that was three weeks ago. I never figured in a thousand years I'd run on to other Americans out here."

Giordino looked at Pitt. "Might be smart to hang around and pump information from someone who knows the territory."

Pitt nodded in agreement, opened the rear door of the Voisin, and gestured inside. "Would you care to take a load off your feet?"

The Kid stared at the leather seats of the car as if they were upholstered in gold. "I can't remember when I sat in a soft chair. I'm much obliged." He ducked into the car, sank into the rear seat, and sighed with pleasure.

"We only have a can of sardines, but we'd be happy to share it with you," offered Giordino with a gracious generosity seldom witnessed by Pitt.

"Nope, dinner's on me. I've got plenty of concentrated food packs. Be more than pleased to split them with you. How's beef stew sound?"

Pitt smiled. "You don't know how happy we are to be your guests. Sardines aren't exactly our idea of a taste treat in the wild."

"We can down the stew with our soft drinks," Giordino suggested.

"You got soda pop? How you fellas fixed for water?"

"Enough for a few days," answered Giordino.

"If you're running short I can point you coward a well about 10 miles to the north."

"We're thankful for any help," said Pitt.

"More than you know," added Giordino.

The sun had fallen below the horizon and twilight still lit the sky. With the approach of evening the air became breathable again. After hobbling Mr. Periwinkle, who found and began happily chomping on several clumps of coarse grass growing out of a small dune, the Kid added water to the concentrated beef stew and, to the relief of Pitt, cooked it over a small Coleman stove along with biscuits. If Kazim had sent aircraft to hunt them by night, a small fire, no matter how shielded by the walls of the gorge, would have been a dead giveaway. The old prospector also provided tin plates and eating utensils.

As Pitt soaked the final remains of his stew with a biscuit, he pronounced it as the most magnificent meal he'd ever eaten. He thought it amazing how a small measure of food could rejuvenate his optimism again. After they finished, the Kid produced a half-full bottle of Old Overholt straight rye whiskey and passed it around.

"Well now, if you've a mind to, why don't you boys tell me why you're drivin' around the worst part of the Sahara in a car that looks as old as I am."

"We're searching for a source of toxic contamination that's polluting the Niger and being carried down to the sea," answered Pitt directly.

"That's a new one. Where's the stuff supposed to come from?"

"Either a chemical plant or a waste disposal facility."

The Kid shook his head. "Ain't nothin' like that in these parts."

"Any heavy construction around this section of the Sahara?" asked Giordino.

"Can't think of any, except maybe Fort Foureau a ways to the northwest."

"The solar detoxification plant run by the French?"

The Kid nodded. "A real big spread. Mr. Periwinkle and me tramped past it about six months ago. Got chased off. Guards everywhere. You'd have thought they were secretly buildin' nuclear bombs."

Pitt took a swallow of the rye, taking pleasure as it burned all the way down his throat to his stomach. He passed the bottle to Giordino. "Fort Foureau is too far from the Niger to pollute its water."

The Kid sat silent a moment. Finally, he stared at Pitt with a curious twinkle in his eyes. "It might if the plant sat over the Oued Zarit."

Pitt leaned forward and repeated, "Oued Zarit?"

"A legendary river that ran through Mali until a hundred and thirty years ago when it began sinkin' into the sands. The local nomads, myself included, think the Oued Zarit still flows underground and empties into the Niger."

"Like an aquifer."

"A what?"

"A geological stratum that allows water to penetrate through pores and openings," Pitt answered. "Usually through porous gravel or limestone caverns."

"All I know is that if you dig deep enough, you'll strike water in the old river channel."

"I never heard of a river disappearing yet continuing its course deep in the earth," said Giordino.

"Nothin's unusual in that," explained the Kid. "Most of the flow of the Mojave River runs under the Mojave Desert of California before emptyin' in a lake. There's one tale of a prospector finding a cave leading hundreds of feet down to the underground stream. So his story goes, he found tons of placer gold along the water."

Pitt turned and looked steadily at Giordino. "What do you think?"

"Sounds to me like Fort Foureau might be the only game in town," Giordino replied soberly.

"A long shot. But an underground stream running from the toxic waste plant to the Niger could be our contamination carrier."

The Kid waved a hand up the gorge. "I guess you boys know this gulch runs into the old riverbed."

"We know," Pitt assured him. "We've been following it from the bank of the Niger most of last night. We holed up in this ravine during the heat of the day to keep from being seen by Malian search parties."

"Looks like you fooled them so far."

"What's your story?" Giordino asked the Kid, handing him the rye bottle. "You prospecting for gold?"

The Kid studied the label on the bottle for a moment as if trying to make up his mind to reveal the reason behind his presence. Then he shrugged and shook his head. "Lookin' for gold, yes. Prospectin', no. I guess it won't hurt me none to tell you boys. The truth is I'm lookin' for a shipwreck."

Pitt studied him with bleak suspicion. "A shipwreck… a shipwreck here in the middle of the Sahara Desert?"

"A Confederate ironclad to be exact."

Pitt and Giordino sat there in dazed incomprehension with the growing tentative wish there was a straitjacket in the Voisin's tool box. They both stared at the Kid in a very peculiar way. It was almost dark now, but they could still see the earnest expression in his eyes.

"Without the risk of sounding stupid," said Pitt skeptically, "would you mind telling us how a warship from the war between the states got here?"

The Kid took a long swallow from the rye bottle and wiped his mouth. Then he unrolled a blanket on the sand and stretched out, propping the back of his head with his hands. "It was back in April of 1865, the week before Lee surrendered to Grant. A few miles below Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate ironclad Texas was loaded with the records of the dyin' Confederate government. At leastways they said it was documents and records, but it was really gold."

"Are you sure it wasn't a myth like so many other treasure tales?" said Pitt.

"President Jefferson Davis himself, before he died, claimed the gold from the Confederate States treasury was loaded in the dead of night on board the Texas. He and his cabinet hoped to smuggle it through the Union navy blockade into another country so they could form a new government in exile and continue fightin' the war."

"But Davis was captured and imprisoned," Pitt said.

The Kid nodded. "The Confederacy died, never to be reborn."

"And the Texas?"

'The ship fought one hell of a battle as it steamed down the James River past half the Union navy and the forts at Hampton Roads before gainin' Chesapeake Bay and escapin' into the Atlantic. The last anybody saw the ship and any of its crew on this side of the ocean was when it vanished in a fog bank."

"And you think the Texas sailed across the sea and entered the Niger River?" Pitt ventured.

"I do," the Kid replied firmly. "I've traced contemporary sightin's by French colonials and natives who passed down stories of the monster without sails that floated by their villages on the river. Descriptions of the warship and the dates it was observed satisfy me that it was the Texas. "

"How could a warship the size and tonnage of an ironclad steam this far into the Sahara without stranding?" asked Giordino.

"That was in the days before the century of drought. This part of the desert had rain then, and the Niger ran much deeper than it does now. One of its tributaries was the Oued Zarit. At that time the Oued Zarit flowed from the Ahaggar Mountains northeast of here 600 miles to the Niger. Journals of French explorers and military expeditions say it was deep enough to afford passage for large boats. My guess is the Texas turned up the Oued Zarit from the Niger then grounded and became trapped when the water level began to drop with the approach of the summer heat."

"Even with a fair depth of water it seems impossible for a heavy vessel like an ironclad to sail this far from the sea."

"The Texas was built for military operations on the James River. She had a flat bottom and shallow draft. Navigatin' the tricky turns and depths of a river was no problem for her and her crew. The miracle was that she crossed an open ocean without sinkin' in rough water and heavy weather like the Monitor. "

"A ship could have reached any number of unpopulated regions during the 1860s up and down the North and Central American shores," Pitt said. "Why risk losing the gold hoard by sailing over dangerous seas and crossing uncharted country?"

The Kid took a cigar stub from his shirt pocket and lit it with a wooden match. "You have to admit, the Union navy never would have thought to search for the Texas a thousand miles up a river in Africa."

"Probably not, but it certainly seems like an extreme."

"I'm with you," said Giordino. "Why the desperation? They couldn't rebuild another government in the middle of a desert wasteland."

Pitt looked at the Kid thoughtfully. "There had to be more to the hazardous voyage than smuggling gold."

"There was a rumor." The subtle change in tone could hardly be called evasive, but it was unmistakable. "Lincoln was on board the Texas when she left Richmond."

"Not Abraham Lincoln," Giordino scoffed.

The Kid silently nodded.

"Who dreamed up that piece of fiction?" Pitt waved off another offer of the rye.

"A Confederate cavalry captain by the name of Neville Brown made a deathbed statement to a doctor in Charleston, South Carolina, when he died in 1908. He claimed his troop captured Lincoln and delivered him on board the Texas. "

"The ravings of a dying man," murmured Giordino in absolute disbelief. "Lincoln must have caught the Concorde to arrive in time to be shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre."

"I don't know the whole story," admitted the Kid.

"A fantastic but intriguing tale," said Pitt. "But tough to take seriously."

"I can't guarantee the Lincoln legend," the Kid said adamantly, "but I'll bet Mr. Periwinkle and the remains of my grubstake, the Texas and the bones of her crew, along with the gold, lie here in the sand somewhere. I've been roamin' the desert for five years searchin' for her remains and by God I'm gonna find her or die tryin'."

Pitt gazed at the shadowed form of the old prospector in sympathy and respect. He rarely saw such dedication and determination. There was a burning confidence in the Kid that reminded Pitt of the old miner in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

"If she's buried under a dune, how do you intend on discovering her?" asked Giordino.

"I got a good metal detector, a Fisher 1265X."

Pitt could think of nothing more of consequence to say except, "I hope good luck leads you to the Texas, and she's all you imagined."

The Kid lay there on his blanket without speaking for several seconds, seemingly lost in his thoughts. Finally, Giordino broke the silence.

"It's time we were on our way if we want to make any distance by dawn."

Twenty minutes later the engine of the Voisin was quietly idling as Pitt and Giordino said their goodbyes to the Kid and Mr. Periwinkle. The old prospector had insisted they take several packages of concentrated food from his stock. He had also drawn them a rough map of the ancient riverbed, marking in landmarks and the only well near the trail leading to the waste facility at Fort Foureau.

"How far?" asked Pitt.

The Kid shrugged. "About 110 miles."

"A hundred and seventy-seven kilometers on the odometer," translated Giordino.

"Hope you fellas find what you're lookin' for."

Pitt shook hands and smiled. "You too." He climbed in the Voisin and settled behind the wheel, almost sad to leave the old man.

Giordino lingered a moment as he bid a farewell. "Thank you for your hospitality."

"Glad to be of help."

"I've been wanting to say this, but you look vaguely familiar."

"Can't imagine why. I don't recall meetin' up with you fellas before."

"Would I offend you if I asked you your real name?"

"Not at all, I don't take offense easily. It's an odd name. Never used it much."

Giordino waited patiently without interrupting.

"It's Clive Cussler."

Giordino smiled. "You're right, it is an odd name."

Then he turned and settled in the front seat beside Pitt. He turned to wave as Pitt eased out the clutch and the Voisin began rolling over the fiat bed of the gully. But the old man and his faithful burro were quickly lost in the dark of evening.