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  "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-choru
s, 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 r
estraint is in order."

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

  <<21>>

  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.