Sahara dpa-11 Page 13

  Then Giordino got in a clear shot and launched his last missile. The settling stern of the gunboat suddenly vanished in a puff of smoke and flame. And then the boat was gone, sliding under and leaving a large flutter of bubbles and a spreading slick of oil. The Commander-in-Chief of Benin's navy and his river fleet were no more.

  Pitt forced himself to turn his back on the flotsam-filled river astern and look to his own boat and friends. Gunn was coming shakily to his feet, bleeding from a cut across his balding head. Giordino appeared from the engine room looking like a man who had just stepped off a handball court, sweating and weary, but ready for a new game.

  He pointed up the river. "We're in for it now," he shouted the words in Pitt's ear.

  "Maybe not," Pitt shouted back. "At this speed we'll cross into Niger in twenty minutes."

  "Hopefully, we didn't leave any witnesses."

  "Don't count on it. Even if there were no survivors, somebody must have caught the fight from shore."

  Gunn gripped Pitt's arm and yelled. "As soon as we're in Niger, back off and we'll take up the survey again."

  "Affirmative," Pitt agreed. He shot a quick look at the satellite dish and communications antenna. It was then he noticed they were gone along with the airfoil. "So much for contacting the Admiral and giving him a full report."

  "Nor can the labs at NUMA receive my data transmission," said Gunn sadly.

  "Too bad we can't tell him the leisurely cruise up the river just turned into a bloody nightmare," Giordino bellowed.

  "We're dead meat unless we can figure another way out of here," Pitt said grimly.

  "I wish I could see the Admiral's face," Giordino grinned at the thought, "when he hears we broke his boat."

  "You will," Gunn shouted through cupped hands as he descended into the electronic compartment. "You will."

  What a stupid mess, Pitt thought. Only a day and a half into the project and they had killed at least thirty men, shot down a helicopter, and sunk two gunboats. All in the name of saving humanity, he mused sarcastically. There was no turning back now. They had to find the contaminant before the security forces of either Niger or Mali stopped them for good. Either way, their lives weren't worth the paper on a devalued dollar.

  He glanced at the small radar dish behind the cockpit. There was a saving grace after all. The dish was undamaged and still turning. It would have been hell running the river at night or through fog without it. The loss of the satellite navigation unit meant they would have to position the contamination entry into the river by spotting nearby landmarks. But they were unhurt and the boat was still seaworthy and pounding over the river at close to 70 knots. Pitt's only worry now was striking a floating object or a submerged log. At this speed any collision would gouge out the bottom of the hull and send the boat cartwheeling and splintering into a shattered wreck.

  Fortunately, the river flowed free of debris, and Pitt's calculations were only slightly off. They crossed into the Republic of Niger within eighteen minutes under skies and waters empty of security forces. Four hours later they were moored to the refueling dock at the capital city of Niamey. After taking on fuel and enduring the traditional hassle from West African immigration officials, they were allowed to proceed on their way again.

  As the buildings of Niamey and the bridge over the river named for John F. Kennedy receded in the Calliope's wake, Giordino spoke in a brisk, cheerful voice.

  "So far, so good. Things can't get worse than they already are."

  "Not good," Pitt said at the wheel. "And things can get a whole lot worse."

  Giordino looked at him. "Why the gloom? The people in these parts don't seem to have a beef with us."

  "It went too easy," said Pitt slowly. "Things don't work that way in this part of the world. Certainly not in Africa, not after our little altercation with the Benin gunboats. Did you notice while we were showing our passports and ship's papers to the immigration officials there wasn't a policeman or armed military guard in sight?"

  "Coincidence?" Giordino shrugged. "Or maybe just lax procedure?"

  "Neither," Pitt shook his head solemnly. "I've a hunch somebody is playing games with us."

  "You think the Niger authorities knew about our run-in with the Benin navy?"

  "Word travels fast here, and I'm willing to bet it's traveled ahead of us. The Benin military most certainly alerted the Niger government."

  Giordino was not sold. "Then why didn't the local bureaucrats arrest us?"

  "I haven't a clue," said Pitt pensively.

  "Sandecker?" offered Giordino. "Maybe he intervened."

  Pitt shook his head. "The Admiral may be a big gun in Washington, but he has no sway here."

  "Then somebody wants something we've got."

  "Seems to be heading in that direction."

  "But what?" asked Giordino in exasperation. "Our data on the contaminant?"

  "Except for the three of us, Sandecker, and Chapman, no one knows the purpose of our project. Unless there's a leak, it has to be something else."

  "Like what?"

  Pitt grinned. "Would you believe our boat?"

  "The Calliope!" Giordino was frankly disbelieving. "You'll have to do better than that."

  "No," stated Pitt flatly. "Think about it. A highly specialized craft, built in secrecy, capable of 70 knots, and with enough sting to take out a helicopter and two gunboats within three minutes. Any West African military leader would give his eyeteeth to get his hands on her."

  "Okay, I'll accept that," Giordino said grudgingly. "But answer me this. If the Calliope is so desirable, why wasn't she grabbed by Niger goons while we were standing around the refueling dock in Niamey?"

  "A shot in the dark? Okay, somebody cut a deal."

  "Who?"

  "Don't know."

  "Why?"

  "Can't say."

  "So when does the axe fall?"

  "They've let us get this far, so the answer must lie in Mali."

  Giordino looked at Pitt. "So we're not returning the way we came."

  "We bought a one-way ticket when we sank the Benin navy."

  "I'm a firm believer of getting there is half the fun."

  "The fun is over, if you are morbid enough to call it that." Pitt looked over the banks of the river. The green vegetation had given way to a barren landscape of scrub brush, gravel, and yellow dirt. "Judging from the terrain, we may have to trade the boat for camels if we expect to see home again."

  "Oh God!" Giordino groaned. "Can you picture me riding a freak of nature? A reasonable man who believes the only reason God put horses on earth is for background in western movies."

  "We'll survive," said Pitt. "The Admiral will move half of heaven and most of hell to get us out after we home in on the poison glop."

  Giordino turned and looked dolefully down the Niger. "So this is it," he said slowly.

  "This is what?"

  "The legendary creek people go up and lose their paddles."

  Pitt's lips curled in a crooked grin. "If that's where we are, then pull down the French tricolor ensign, and by God we'll fly our own."

  "We're under orders to hide our nationality," Giordino protested. "We can't go about our sneaky business under the stars and stripes."

  "Who said anything about the stars and stripes?"

  Giordino knew he was stepping into deep water. "Okay, dare I ask what flag you intend to raise?"

  "This one." He reached into a drawer of the bridge counter and tossed Giordino a folded black ensign. "I borrowed it at a costume party I attended a couple of months ago."

  Giordino made an expression of shocked dismay as he stared at the grinning skull in the center of the rectangular cloth. "The Jolly Roger, you intend to fly the Jolly Roger?"

  "Why not?" Pitt's surprise at Giordino's anguish seemed genuine. "I think it only fitting and proper we make a big splash under the appropriate banner."

  "Fine bunch of international contamination detectives we are," grumbled Hopper as he watched the
sunset over the lakes and marshlands of the upper Niger River. "All we've come up with is typical third world indifference toward sanitation."

  Eva sat on a campstool in front of a small oil stove to ward off the evening chill. "I tested for most of the known toxins and failed to find a trace of any of them. Whatever our phantom malady is, it's proving very elusive."

  An older man sat beside her, tall, heavy, with iron-gray hair, light blue eyes, wise and thoughtful. A New Zealander, Dr. Warren Grimes was the chief epidemiologist of the project. He contemplated a glass of club soda. "Nothing on my end either. Every culture I've obtained within 500 kilometers showed free of disease-related microorganisms."

  "Is there anything we might have overlooked?" asked Hopper, dropping into a folding chair with padded cushions.

  Grimes shrugged. "Without victims, I can't conduct interviews or autopsies. Without victims I can't obtain tissue samples or analyze results. I have to have observational data to compare symptoms or do a case control study."

  "If anyone is dying from toxic contamination," said Eva, "they're not dying around here."

  Hopper turned from the fading orange light on the horizon and picked up a pot from the stove and poured a cup of tea. "Can it be the evidence was false or exaggerated?"

  "UN headquarters received only vague reports," Grimes reminded him.

  "Without hard data and exact locations to work with, it seems we jumped the gun."

  "I think it's a cover-up," said Eva suddenly.

  There was silence. Hopper looked from Eva to Grimes.

  "If it is, it's a damned good one," muttered Grimes finally.

  "I'm not sure I'd disagree," Hopper said, his curiosity aroused. "The teams in Niger, Chad, and the Sudan are reportedly coming up dry too."

  "All that suggests is that the contamination is in Mali and not the other nations," said Eva.

  "You can bury victims," observed Grimes. "But you can't hide trace amounts of contamination. If it's around here, we would have found it. My personal opinion is that we've been on a wild goose chase."

  Eva looked at him steadily, her Dresden blue eyes large in the reflection of the flame from the camp stove. "If they can hide victims, they can alter reports."

  "Aha," Hopper nodded. "Eva has something. I don't trust Kazim and his crew of snakes, haven't from the beginning. Suppose they did alter the reports to throw us off the playing field? Suppose the contamination isn't where we've been led to believe it is?"

  "A possibility worth pursuing," Grimes admitted. "We've been concentrating in the dampest and most inhabited regions of the country because it follows suit they would carry the highest incidence of disease and contamination."

  "Where do we go from here?" asked Eva.

  "Back to Timbuktu," said Hopper firmly. "Did you notice the look on people we interviewed before setting out to the south? They were nervous and worried. You could see it in their faces. It's just possible they were threatened to keep silent."

  "Especially the Tuaregs from the desert," recalled Grimes.

  "You mean especially their women and children," Eva added. "They refused to be examined."

  Hopper shook his head. "I'm to blame. I made the decision to turn our backs on the desert. It was a mistake. I know that now."

  "You're a scientist, not a psychic investigator," Grimes consoled him.

  "Yes," Hopper agreed readily. "I'm a scientist, but I hate being made the fool."

  "The tip-off we all missed," said Eva, "was the patronizing attitude of Captain Batutta."

  Grimes looked at her. "That's right. Oh-ho. You've struck oil again, my girl. Now that you've brought it up, Batutta has been downright servile with cooperation."

  "True," Hopper nodded. "He's leaned over backward in allowing us to go our merry way, knowing we were hundreds of kilometers off the scent."

  Grimes finished off his soda water. "Be interesting to see the look on his face when you tell him we're going out in the desert and start from scratch."

  "He'll be on the radio to Colonel Mansa before I get the words out of my mouth."

  "We could lie," said Eva.

  "Lie, for what reason?" asked Hopper.

  "To throw him off, to throw them all off our trail."

  "I'm listening."

  "Tell Batutta the project is finished. Tell him we've found no sign of contamination and are returning to Timbuktu, folding up our tents and flying home."

  "You've missed me. Where is this leading?"

  "For all appearances the team has quit, given up," Eva explained. "Batutta waves a relieved farewell as we take off. Only we don't fly to Cairo. We land in the desert and set up shop again on our own without a watchdog."

  The two men took a few seconds to absorb Eva's scheme. Hopper leaned forward, intently mulling it over. Grimes looked as if someone asked him to catch the next rocket to the moon.

  "It's no good," Grimes said at last, almost apologetically. "You can't just land a jet aircraft in the middle of the desert. You need a runway at least 1000 meters long."

  "There are any number of areas in the Sahara where the ground is perfectly flat for hundreds of kilometers," Eva argued.

  "Too risky," Grimes said stubbornly. "If Kazim got wind of it, we'd pay dearly."

  Eva looked sharply at Grimes, then more slowly at Hopper. She detected the beginnings of a smile on Hopper's face. "It is possible," she said firmly.

  "Anything is possible, but often not practical."

  Hopper smashed his fist down on the arm of his camp chair so hard he nearly broke it. "By God, I think it's worth a go."

  Grimes stared at him. "You can't be bloody serious?"

  "Oh but I am. Our pilot and flight crew will have the final say, of course. But with the proper incentive, like a hefty bonus, I think they can be persuaded to risk it."

  "You're forgetting something," said Grimes.

  "Such as?"

  "What do we use for transportation after we land?"

  Eva tilted her head toward the small Mercedes four-wheel-drive car with an enclosed truckbed that had been provided by Colonel Mansa in Timbuktu. "The little Mercedes should just fit through the cargo door."

  "That's 2 meters off the ground," said Grimes. "How are you going to lift it on board?"

  "We'll use ramps and drive it on," Hopper said jovially.

  "You'll have to do it under Batutta's nose."

  "Not an insurmountable problem."

  "The vehicle belongs to the Malian military. How will you account for it gone missing?"

  "A mere technicality," Hopper shrugged. "Colonel Mansa will be told a thieving nomad stole it."

  "This is crazy," Grimes announced.

  Hopper suddenly stood. "Then it's settled. We'll launch our little charade first thing in the morning. Eva, I'll leave it to you to inform our fellow scientists of the plan. I'll hang out with Batutta and throw off suspicion by bemoaning our failure."

  "Speaking of our keeper," said Eva, glancing about the camp, "where is he hiding?"

  "In that fancy recreation vehicle with the communications equipment," replied Grimes. "He practically lives in there."

  "Strange that he conveniently, for us at any rate, wanders off whenever we're gathered in discussion."

  "Damned courteous of him, I say." Grimes stood and stretched his arms over his head. He furtively stared at the communications vehicle, and not sighting Batutta, sat down again. "No sign of him. He's probably sitting inside watching European music shows on the telly."

  "Or on the radio giving Colonel Mansa the latest gossip on our scientific circus," said Eva.

  "He can't have much to report," laughed Hopper. "He never hangs around long enough to see what mischief we're into."

  Captain Batutta was not reporting to his superior, not at the moment. He was sitting inside his truck listening through stereo headphones wired to an extremely sensitive electronic listening device. The amplifier was mounted on the roof of the truck and aimed toward the camp stove in the middle of the park
ed caravan. He leaned forward and adjusted the bionic booster, increasing the receiving surface.

  Every word spoken by Eva and her two associates, every murmur and whisper, came through without the slightest distortion and was recorded. Batutta listened until the conversation ended and the trio split up, Eva to brief the rest of the team on the new plot, Hopper and Grimes to study maps of the desert.

  Batutta picked up a phone uplink to a joint African nation communications satellite and dialed a number. A voice half a breath from a yawn answered.

  "Security Headquarters, Gao District."

  "Captain Batutta for Colonel Mansa."

  "One moment, sir," the voice said hastily.

  It took almost five minutes before Mansa's voice came over the receiver. "Yes, Captain."

  "The UN scientists are planning a diversion."

  "What kind of a diversion?"

  "They are about to report they have turned up no trace of contamination or its victims-"

  "General Kazim's brilliant plan to keep them out of the contaminated areas has been successful," Mansa interrupted him.

  "Until now," said Batutta. "But they have begun to see through the General's ploy. Dr. Hopper intends to announce the closing down of the project, then lead his people back to Timbuktu where they will depart in their chartered aircraft for Cairo."

  "The General will be most pleased."

  "Not when he learns Hopper has no intention of leaving Mali."

  "What are you saying?" demanded Mansa.

  "Their plan is to bribe the pilots to set the plane down in the desert and launch a new investigation into our nomadic villages for the contamination."

  Mansa's mouth suddenly felt as if it was filled with sand. "This could prove to be disastrous. The General will be most angry when he hears of it."

  "Not our fault," Batutta said quickly.