Sahara Page 30

Chapman sensed the tension in Gunn's tone. "Believe me when I say I don't question your procedures or data for a minute. You, Pitt, and Giordino did one hell of a job. Thanks to your efforts we now know what we're dealing with. Now the President can use his clout to lean on Mali to shut off the contaminant at the source. This will buy us time to formulate ways to neutralize its effects and stop further expansion of the red tides."

  "Don't break out the cake and ice cream just yet," Gunn warned seriously. "Though we tracked the compound to its entry point into the river and identified its properties, we were unable to discover the location of its source."

  Sandecker drummed his fingers on the table. "Pitt gave me the bad news before he was cut off. I apologize for not passing along the information, but I was counting on a satellite survey to fill in the missing piece."

  Muriel Hoag looked directly into Gunn's eyes. "I don't understand how you successfully pursued the compound through 1000 kilometers of water and then lost it on land."

  "It was easy," Gunn shrugged wearily. "After we sailed beyond the point of highest concentration, our contaminant readings dropped off and the instruments began showing water with commonly known pollutants. We made several runs back and forth to confirm. We also took visual sightings in every direction. No hazardous waste dump site, no chemical storage or manufacturing facilities were visible along the river or inland. No buildings or construction, nothing. Only barren desert."

  "Could a dump site have been buried over at some time in the past?" suggested Holland.

  "We observed no evidence of excavation," replied Gunn.

  "Any chance the toxin was brewed by mother nature?" asked Chip Webster.

  Muriel Hoag smiled. "If tests bear out Mr. Gunn's analysis of a synthetic amino acid, it must have been produced by a biotech laboratory. Not mother nature. And somewhere, somehow, it was discarded along with chemicals containing cobalt. Not the first time accidental integration of chemicals produced a previously unknown compound."

  "How in God's name could such an exotic compound suddenly appear in the middle of the Sahara?" wondered Chip Webster.

  "And reach the ocean where it acts as steroids to dinoflagellates," added Holland.

  Sandecker looked at Keith Hodge. "What's the latest report on the spread of the red tide?"

  The oceanographer was in his sixties. Unblinking dark brown eyes gazed from a continually fixed expression on a lean, high-cheekboned face. With the correctly dated clothing he could have stepped from an eighteenth-century portrait.

  "The spread has increased 30 percent in the past four days. I fear the growth rate is exceeding our most dire projections."

  "But if Dr. Chapman can develop a compound to neutralize the contamination, and we find and cut it off at the source, can't we then control the tide's expansion?"

  "Better make it soon," answered Hodge. "At the rate it's proliferating, another month and we should see the first evidence of it beginning to feed off itself without stimulation flowing from the Niger."

  "That's three months early!" Muriel Hoag said sharply.

  Hodge gave a helpless shrug. "When you're dealing with an unknown the only sure commodity is uncertainty."

  Sandecker swung sideways in his chair and gazed at the blown-up satellite photo of Mali projected on one wall. "Where does the compound enter the river?" he asked Gunn.

  Gunn stood and walked over to the enlarged photo. He picked up a grease pencil and circled a small area of the Niger River above Gao on the white backdrop reflecting the projection. "Right about here, off an old riverbed that once flowed into the Niger."

  Chip Webster pressed the buttons of a small console sitting on the table, and enlarged the area around Gunn's marking. "No structures visible. No indication of population. Nor do I make out any sign of excavated dirt or a mound that would have to be in evidence if any type, of trench was dug to bury hazardous materials."

  "This is an enigma, all right," muttered Chapman. "Where in the devil can the rotten stuff come from?"

  "Pitt and Giordino are still out there searching for it," Gunn reminded them.

  "Any late word of their condition or whereabouts?" asked Hodge.

  "Nothing since Pitt's call aboard Yves Massarde's boat," replied Sandecker.

  Hodge looked up from his notepad. "Yves Massarde? God, not that pond slime."

  "You know him?"

  Hodge nodded. "I crossed paths with him after a bad chemical spill in the Med off Spain four years ago. One of his ships that was carrying waste carcinogenic chemicals known as PCBs for disposal in Algeria broke up and sank in a storm. I personally think the ship was scuttled in a combination insurance scam and illegal dump. As it turned out, Algerian officials never had any intention of accepting the waste for disposal. Then Massarde lied and cheated and pulled every legal dodge on the books to evade responsibility for cleaning up the mess. You shake hands with that guy and you better count your fingers when you walk away."

  Gunn turned to Webster. "Intelligence-gathering satellites can read newspapers from space. Why can't we orbit one over the desert north of Gao in search of Pitt and Giordino?"

  Webster shook his head. "Negative. My contacts at the National Security Agency have their best eyes in the sky keeping tabs on the new Chinese rocket firings, the civil war going on in the Ukraine, and the border clashes with Syria and Iraq. They're not about to spare us time from their intelligence scans to find civilians in the Sahara Desert. I can go with the latest-model GeoSat. But it's questionable whether it can distinguish human forms against the uneven terrain of a desert like the Sahara."

  "Wouldn't they show up against a sand dune?" asked Chapman.

  Webster shook his head. "No one traveling the Sahara in their right mind would walk across the soft sand of dunes. Even the nomads skirt around them. Wandering in a sea of dunes means certain death. Pitt and Giordino are smart enough to avoid them like the plague."

  "But you will do a search and survey," Sandecker insisted.

  Webster nodded. He was quite bald with little indication of a neck. A round belly hung over his belt, and he might have posed as a "before" on a weight-loss commercial. "I've a good friend who's a top analyst over at the Pentagon and an expert on satellite desert reconnaissance. I think I can sweet-talk him into examining our GeoSat photos with his state-of-the-art enhancing computers."

  "I'm grateful for your backup," Sandecker said sincerely.

  "If they're out there, he can locate them if anyone can," Webster promised him.

  "Has your satellite seen any sign of the plane carrying that team of disease investigators?" asked Muriel.

  "Not yet I'm afraid. Nothing showed on our last pass across Mali except a small smudge of smoke faintly drifting in from one side of our camera path. Hopefully on the next orbit we can obtain a more detailed picture. It may prove to be nothing but a nomad bonfire."

  "There isn't enough wood in that part of the Sahara for a bonfire," Sandecker said solemnly.

  Gunn looked lost. "What disease investigation team are you talking about?"

  "A group of scientists from the World Health Organization on a mission to Mali," explained Muriel. "They were searching for the cause behind an outbreak of strange afflictions reported in nomadic desert villages. Their plane disappeared somewhere between Mali and Cairo."

  "Was there a woman on the team? A biochemist?"

  "A Dr. Eva Rojas was the team biochemist," replied Muriel. "I once worked with her on a project in Haiti."

  "Did you know her?" asked Sandecker of Gunn.

  "Not me, but Pitt. He dated her in Cairo."

  "Maybe it's just as well he doesn't know," Sandecker said. "He must have enough problems just staying alive without bad news to fog his mind."

  "There's no confirmation of a crash yet," said Holland hopefully.

  "Maybe they made a forced landing in the desert and survived," Muriel said hopefully.

  Webster shook his head. "Wishful thinking I'm afraid. I fear General Zateb Kazim has his dirty h
ands in this business."

  Gunn recalled, "Pitt and Giordino had a conversation with the General on our boat's radio shortly before I hit the river. I got the impression he's a nasty customer."

  "As ruthless as any Middle East dictator," said Sandecker. "And twice as hard to deal with. He won't even meet or speak with our State Department diplomats unless they hand him a fat foreign aid check."

  Added Muriel, "He ignores the United Nations and refuses any outside relief supplies to his people."

  Webster nodded. "Any human rights activist dumb enough to enter Mali and protest, simply vanishes."

  "He and Massarde are thick as thieves," said Hodge. "Between the two of them they've raped the country into total poverty."

  Sandecker's face hardened. "Not our concern. There won't be a Mali, a West Africa, or anywhere else on earth if we don't stop the red tide. Right now, nothing else matters."

  Chapman spoke up. "Now that we have data we can sink our teeth into, we can all focus our skills and work together to formulate a solution."

  "Make it quick," said Sandecker, his eyes narrowing. "If you've failed thirty days from now, none of us will get a second chance."

  <<31>>

  A brisk breeze was quivering the leaves along the Palisades above the Hudson River as Ismail Yerli peered through binoculars at a small bluish-gray bird perched on a tree trunk upside down. He acted as if his full attention was on the little bird and failed to notice the appearance of a man behind him. Actually, he had been aware of the approaching intruder for nearly two minutes.

  "A white-breasted' nuthatch," said the tall, rather handsome stranger who wore an expensive burgundy leather jacket. He sat down on a flat rock next to Yerli. His sandy hair was neatly slicked down with a razor-edge part on the left side. He stared indifferently at the bird through pale blue eyes.

  "The duller black on the back of the head suggests a female," said Yerli without lowering his glasses.

  "The male is probably nearby. Perhaps tending the nest."

  "Good call, Bordeaux," said Yerli, using the other man's code name. "I didn't know you were a bird watcher."

  "I'm not. What can I do for you, Pergamon?"

  "It was you who requested this meeting."

  "But not in the boondocks under a bone-chilling wind."

  "Meeting in gourmet restaurants is not my idea of working undercover."

  "I never took to the idea of operating in the shadows and living in slums," Bordeaux said dryly.

  "Not wise to act flamboyant."

  "My job is to protect the interests of a man who, I might add, pays me extremely well. The FBI isn't about to put me under surveillance unless they suspect me of espionage. And since our job-- at least my job-is not to steal classified American secrets, I fail to see why I have to melt into the foul-smelling masses."

  Bordeaux's contemptuous outlook toward intelligence did not sit well with Yerli. Although they had known each other and often worked together over the years on behalf of Yves Massarde, strangely neither man knew the other's real name and never made an effort to learn it. Bordeaux was head of Massarde Enterprises' commercial intelligence operations in the United States. Yerli, only known to him as Pergamon, often passed along information vital to Massarde's international projects. For this he was paid handsomely up and above his salary as a French intelligence agent. A situation tolerated by his superiors because of Massarde's strong connections with many of France's cabinet members.

  "You're getting careless, my friend."

  Bordeaux shrugged. "I am getting bored dealing with uncouth Americans. New York is a cesspool. The country is divided by racial and ethnic diversity and is disintegrating. Someday, the United States will repeat the economic and regional strife going on in Russia and the Commonwealth States today. I long to return to France, the only truly civilized nation in the world."

  "I hear one of the NUMA people escaped from Mali," Yerli said, abruptly changing the subject.

  "That idiot Kazim let him slip through his fingers," replied Bordeaux.

  "Didn't you pass on my warning to Mr. Massarde?"

  "Of course I warned him. And he in turn alerted General Kazim. Two other men were captured by Mr. Massarde on his houseboat, but Kazim, in all his dazzling brilliance, was too stupid to search for the third agent who escaped and was evacuated by the UN tactical team."

  "What are Mr. Massarde's thoughts on the situation?"

  "He's not happy, knowing there is a serious risk of an international investigation into his project at Fort Foureau."

  "Not good, any threat to expose and close down Fort Foureau is a threat to our French nuclear program."

  "Mr. Massarde is quite aware of the problem," said Bordeaux acidly.

  "What of the World Health scientists? The morning newspapers said their plane is reported overdue and presumed missing."

  "One of Kazim's better ideas," answered Bordeaux. "He faked the plane crash in an uninhabited part of the desert."

  "Faked? I forewarned Hala Kamil of what I had conceived as a genuine bomb plot to destroy the aircraft and Hopper and his team."

  "A slight change in your plan to frighten off any future inspections by World Health scientists," said Bordeaux. "The plane crashed all right, but the bodies on board were not those of Dr. Hopper and the rest."

  "They're still alive?"

  "They're as good as dead. Kazim sent them to Tebezza."

  Yerli nodded. "Better they should have died quickly than in the mines of Tebezza as overworked and starved slaves." Yerli paused thoughtfully, then said, "I think Kazim has made a mistake."

  "The secret of their true situation is safe," said Bordeaux indifferently. "No one escapes from Tebezza. They go into the mines and never come out."

  Yerli took a Kleenex out of his coat pocket and began wiping the lenses of his binoculars. "Did Hopper discover any evidence that might prove damaging to Fort Foureau?"

  "Enough to cause renewed interest and promote a deeper investigation if his report had been made public."

  "What is known about the NUMA agent who escaped?"

  "His name is Gunn, and he's the Deputy Director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency."

  "An influential man."

  "Indeed."

  "Where is he now?"

  "We traced the aircraft that evacuated him to Paris, where he boarded a Concorde for Washington. From there, he was taken directly to NUMA headquarters. My sources say he was still inside the building as of forty minutes ago."

  "Is it known if he smuggled vital information out of Mali?"

  "Whatever information he obtained, if any, from the Niger River is a mystery to us. But Mr. Massarde feels confident nothing was discovered that could jeopardize the Fort Foureau operation."

  "Kazim should have an easy time making the other two Americans talk."

  "I received word just as I left to meet you. Unfortunately, they escaped too."

  Yerli stared at Bordeaux in sudden irritation. "Who bungled?"

  Bordeaux shrugged. "Makes no difference, who's to blame. Frankly, it's not our concern. What's important is that they are still inside the country. There is little hope of them escaping over the border. It's only a matter of hours before Kazim's search operation hunts them down."

  "I should fly down to Washington and penetrate NUMA. With the right moves I might discover if there was more behind this than a cut-and-dried pollution investigation."

  "Let that go for now," said Bordeaux coolly. "Mr. Massarde has other work for you."

  "Did he clear it with my superiors at the National Defense Staff?"

  "Your official release for outside duty will be conveyed to you within the hour."

  Yerli said nothing but resumed peering through his glasses at the little nuthatch that was still perched bottom-side-up, pecking away at the bark of the tree trunk. "What does Massarde have in mind?"

  "He wants you in Mali to act as liaison to General Kazim."

  Yerli showed no reaction. He kept the
glasses trained on the bird as he spoke. "I was assigned for eight months in the Sudan some years ago. A dreadful place. The people were quite friendly though."

  "One of Massarde Enterprises' jets will be waiting at La Guardia Airport. You're to board at six o'clock this evening."

  "So I'm to play nursemaid to Kazim to prevent him from making any further blunders."

  Bordeaux nodded. "The stakes are too high to allow the madman to run amok."

  Yerli reinserted his binoculars in their case and slung it over his shoulder. "I once dreamed I died in the desert," he said quietly. "I pray to Allah that it was just that. . . a dream."