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  "Nothing really," Massarde said arrogantly. "After I built the railroad to bring in construction workers and materials, the excavation began under the first building erected. The soil was secretly removed and loaded in the empty railroad containers returning to Mauritania and used for a landfill in the nation's port city, a profitable ongoing project I might add."

  "Very shrewd. You get paid for the waste coming in and for the sand and rock going out."

  "I never stop at seeking merely one advantage," Massarde said philosophically.

  "No one is the wiser, and no one complains," said Pitt. "No environmental protection agencies threatening to close you down, no international uproar over polluting underground water systems. No one questions your methods of operation, particularly the corporations that produce the waste, and who are only too glad to get rid of it for a price."

  Verenne's expressionless gaze rested on Pitt. "There are few saints who practice what they preach when it comes to saving the environment," he said coldly. "Everyone is guilty, Mr. Pitt. Everyone who enjoys the benefits of chemical compounds from gasoline to plastics to water purification and food preservatives. It is a case of the jury secretly agreeing with the guilty. No one man or organization can control and destroy the monster. It is a self-propagating Frankenstein that is too late to kill."

  "So you make it worse by feeding on it in the name of profit. Instead of a solution, you've created a hoax."

  "Hoax?"

  "Yes, by reneging on the expense of building long-lasting waste canisters and excavating deep deposit chambers several kilometers underground, in geologically stable rock formations far beneath existing water tables." Pitt turned from Verenne to Massarde. "You're nothing more than a shyster contractor who charges exorbitant prices for inferior construction that endangers lives."

  Massarde's face went red, but he was a master at controlling anger. "The threat of waste leakage fifty or a hundred years from now killing off a few sand beggars matters little."

  "That's easy for you to say," said Pitt, his face hardened in scorn. "But the leakage is occurring today, and desert nomads are dying as we talk. And lest we forget that, what you've caused here could affect every living life form on earth."

  The threat of guilt for killing off the world made no impression. But the reference to dying nomads triggered something in Massarde's mind. "Are you working in concert with Dr. Frank Hopper and his World Health inspection team?"

  "No, Giordino and I are strictly on our own."

  "But you are aware of them."

  Pitt nodded. "I'm acquainted with his biochemist if that makes you happy."

  "Dr. Eva Rojas," said Massarde slowly, watching for the effect.

  Pitt saw the trap, but with nothing to lose he decided to string along. "Good guess."

  Massarde didn't become brilliantly successful by winning a lottery. He was a master of deception and intrigue, but his greatest asset was insight. "I'll make another guess. You were the man who saved her from General Kazim's assassins outside of Cairo."

  "I happened to be in the neighborhood, yes. You're in the wrong business, Massarde. You missed your calling by not becoming a palm reader."

  To Massarde the novelty of the confrontation was wearing off. He was not used to being talked down to. For a man who controlled a vast financial empire on a day-to-day basis, wasting time with a pair of unwelcome interlopers was merely an annoyance to be pushed aside and handled by employees.

  He nodded at Verenne. "Our little talk has ended. Please arrange for General Kazim to take these men into custody."

  Verenne's statue face finally broke into a python grin. "With pleasure."

  Captain Brunone did not come from the same mold as Massarde or Verenne. A product of the French military establishment, he may have resigned for triple wages but he still retained a level of honor. "Begging your pardon, Mr. Massarde, I wouldn't turn a rabid dog over to General Kazim. These men may be guilty of trespassing, but they certainly don't deserve to be tortured to death by ignorant barbarians."

  Massarde considered Brunone's comment for a moment. "Quite right, quite right," he said, strangely agreeable. "We can't lower ourselves to the level of the General and his butchers." A gleam came to his eyes as he stared at Pitt and Giordino. "'Transport them to the gold mines at Tebezza. He and Dr. Rojas can enjoy each other's company while they dig in the pits."

  "What about Kazim?" asked Verenne. "Won't he feel cheated out of making them pay for destroying his car?"

  "No matter," Massarde said with utter unconcern. "By the time he discovers their whereabouts they'll be dead."

  <<35>>

  The President looked across his desk in the oval office at Sandecker. "Why wasn't I briefed on this earlier?"

  "I was informed that it was a low-priority item that did not warrant interrupting your busy schedule of appointments."

  The President shifted his gaze toward the White House Chief of Staff, Earl Willover. "Is this true?"

  A balding, bespectacled man about fifty with a large red moustache shifted in his chair, leaned forward, and glared at Sandecker. "I ran the red tide theory by our national science board. They didn't agree that it was a worldwide threat"

  "Then how do they explain the incredible growth that's sweeping the middle Atlantic Ocean?"

  Willover returned the President's gaze impassively. "Respected ocean scientists believe the growth is temporary and the tide will soon begin to dissipate as it has in the past."

  Willover ran the Executive Branch like Horatius standing against the entire Etruscan army defending the bridge to Rome. Few got across to the oval office, and few escaped Willover's wrath if they overstayed their visit or had the audacity to disagree with the President and argue over policy. It went without saying, almost every member of Congress hated his intestines.

  The President looked down at the satellite photos of the Atlantic spread on his desk. "It seems pretty obvious to me this is not a phenomenon to ignore."

  "Left to its own resources the red tide would normally fade away," explained Sandecker. "But off the west coast of Africa it is being nursed by a synthetic amino acid and cobalt that stimulate the tide's growth to incredible proportions."

  The President, a former senator from Montana, looked more at home in the saddle than behind a desk. He was long and lean, spoke in a soft drawl, and stared through bright blue eyes. He addressed every man as sir and every woman as ma'am. Whenever he escaped from Washington, he headed for his ranch located not far from the Custer battlefield on the Yellowstone River. "If this threat is as serious as you say, the whole world is at risk."

  "If anything, we've probably underestimated the potential danger," said Sandecker. "Our computer experts have updated the rate of expansion. Unless we stop the spread, all life as we know it on earth will die from lack of oxygen in the atmosphere by late next year, probably sooner. The oceans will be dead before spring."

  "That's ridiculous," Willover scoffed. "I'm sorry, Admiral, but this is a classic case of Chicken Little claiming the sky is falling."

  Sandecker gave Willover a look equal to a jab with a spear.

  "I am not Chicken Little, and the coming annihilation is very real. We're not talking about the potential risks of ozone depletion and its effects on skin cancer two centuries from now. No geological upheavals or unknown plague, no nuclear Armageddon with ensuing darkness, no meteor striking the planet in a raging cataclysm. Unless the scourge of the red tide is stopped, and stopped quickly, it will suck up the oxygen from the atmosphere, causing the total destruction of every living thing on the face of the earth."

  "You paint a grim picture, sir," said the President. "This is all but impossible for me to visualize."

  "Let me put it this way, Mr. President. If you are reelected, the odds are you won't be around at the end of your term. Nor will you have a successor because there will be no one left to vote for him."

  Willover wasn't buying any of it. "Come now, Admiral, why don't you put on a sheet and
walk around holding a sign saying the world ends at midnight? To think we'll see complete extinction of mankind by this time next year because of oversexed behavior by some microscopic organisms is too farfetched."

  "The facts speak for themselves," said Sandecker patiently.

  "Your deadline sounds like nothing more than a scare tactic," replied Willover. "Even if you're correct, our scientists still have ample time to invent a solution."

  "Time we don't have. Let me give you a little illustration in simplified terms. Imagine that the red tide could double itself in size every week. If allowed to spread unhindered, it would cover every square kilometer of the earth's oceans in one hundred weeks. If history repeats itself, world governments will decide to shove aside the problem until the oceans are half covered. Only then do they institute a crash program to eliminate the red tide. My question to you, Mr. President, and you too, Mr. Willover, is what week will the oceans be covered by the tide, and how much time until the world can prevent disaster?"

  The President exchanged confused looks with Willover. "I have no idea."

  "Nor I," said Willover.

  "The answer is the oceans will be half covered in ninety-nine weeks, and you would have only one week to act."

  The President recognized the horrendous possibility with renewed respect. "I think we both get your point, Admiral."

  "The red tide shows no sign of dying," Sandecker continued. "We now know the cause. That's a step in the right direction. The next problem is to cut off the contamination at the source, and then seek out another compound that will either stop or at least hinder the growth."

  "Excuse me, Mr. President, but we must cut this short. You're supposed to have lunch with the Senate majority and minority leaders."

  "Let them wait," the President said irritably. "Do you have a handle on where this stuff is coming from, Admiral?"

  Sandecker shook his head. "Not yet, but we suspect it flows through an underground stream to the Niger River from the French solar detoxification project in the Sahara."

  "How can we be certain?"

  "My Special Projects Director and his right arm are inside Fort Foureau now."

  "You are in contact with them."

  Sandecker hesitated. "No, not exactly."

  "Then how do you know this?" Willover pushed him.

  "Intelligence satellite photos identified them penetrating the facility on board an incoming trail of hazardous material."

  "Your Special Projects Director," mused the President. "Would that be Dirk Pitt?"

  "Yes, and Al Giordino."

  The President stared across the room, unseeing for a moment as he remembered. Then he smiled. "Pitt was the man who saved us from the Kaiten nuclear car bomb menace."

  "One and the same."

  "Is he by chance responsible for that debacle with the Benin navy on the Niger River?" asked Willover.

  "Yes, but the blame is mine," said Sandecker. "Since my warnings went unheard, and I could get no cooperation from your staff or the Pentagon, I sent Pitt and two of NUMA's best men up the Niger to track the source of the compound."

  "You ordered an unauthorized operation without permission into a foreign nation," Willover exploded furiously.

  "I also persuaded Hala Kamil to lend me a UN tactical team to go into Mali and get my chief scientist and his data safely out of the country."

  "You could have jeopardized our entire African policy."

  "I didn't know you had one," Sandecker tossed back, completely unafraid of Willover, his eyes blazing with animosity.

  "You're stepping over your bounds, Admiral. This could have serious repercussions on your career."

  Sandecker was not one to shrink from a fight. "My duty is to my God, my country, and my President, Willover. You and my career come about eighty-sixth on my list."

  "Gentlemen," interrupted the President, "gentlemen." The frown on his face was more for theatrics than a show of anger. Secretly, he enjoyed seeing his aides and cabinet members slug it out with words. "I don't want to see any further friction between you. I'm convinced we're faced with a grim reality, and we'd better damn well work together for a solution."

  Willover let out a sigh of exasperation. "I will, of course, follow your instructions."

  "As long as I'm no longer shouting to be heard in a hurricane," said Sandecker calmly, "and can obtain the backup to stop the scourge, you won't have any problems with me."

  "What do you advise we do?" asked the President.

  "My NUMA scientists are already working round the clock on a counteractive chemical that will either neutralize or kill the red tide without upsetting the balance of marine ecology. If Pitt proves the contamination is indeed originating from Fort Foureau, I leave it up to you, Mr. President, to use whatever means in your power to shut the site down."

  There was a pause, then Willover said slowly; "Despite the awesome prospects, assuming for a moment the Admiral is on the beam, it won't be a simple matter to unilaterally close a multimillion-dollar installation owned by French business interests in a sovereign nation such as Mali."

  "We'd have some hard explaining to do," the President acknowledged, "if I ordered in the air force to level the project."

  "Tread cautiously, Mr. President," said Willover. "I see nothing but quicksand in this for your administration."

  The President looked at Sandecker. "What about scientists in other countries? Are they aware of the problem too?"

  "Not to its full extent," answered the Admiral, "not yet."

  "What showed you the trail?"

  "Only twelve days ago, one of NUMA's ocean current experts noticed the unusually large area of the red tide in photos taken by our SeaSat cameras and began plotting its growth. Stunned by the incredible speed by which it multiplied, he quickly brought it to my attention. After careful study I made the decision not to go public until we can bring this thing under control."

  "You had no right to take matters into your own hands," snapped Willover.

  Sandecker shrugged idly. "Official Washington turned a deaf ear to my warnings. I felt I had no option but to act on my own."

  "What steps do you propose for immediate action?" asked the President.

  "For the moment, we can do little but continue collecting data. Secretary General Hala Kamil has consented to call a special closed-door meeting of leading world oceanographers at UN headquarters in New York. She's invited me to reveal the situation and set up an international committee of marine scientists to coordinate efforts and share data while searching for a solution."

  "I'm giving you a free hand, Admiral. Please update me on all new developments any time of the day or night." Then the President turned his attention to Willover. "You'd better alert Doug Oates over at the State Department and my National Security Council. If Fort Foureau proves to be the culprit, and if no cooperation is forthcoming from concerned nations, we'll have to go in and take the place out ourselves."

  Willover came to his feet. "Mr. President, I strongly advise we exercise patience. I'm convinced this sea plague, or whatever it is you want to call it, will blow over, as do scientists whose opinions I respect."

  "I trust Admiral Sandecker's counsel," said the President, his eyes locked on Willover. "In all my years in Washington, I've never known him to make a bad call."

  "Thank you, Mr. President," said Sandecker. "There is one other matter that requires our attention."

  "Yes."

  "As I mentioned, Pitt and his backup, Al Giordino, have penetrated Fort Foureau. Should they be seized by the Malians or French security, it will be essential that they be rescued for any information they might have obtained."

  "Please, Mr. President," Willover persisted. "There can be a nasty political backlash by risking Army Special Forces or a Delta Team in a desert rescue mission if it fails and word leaks to the news media."

  The President nodded thoughtfully. "I agree with Earl on this one. I'm sorry, Admiral, but we'll have to think of another option to save your
people."

  "You say a UN force rescued your man who accumulated the data on the Niger River contamination?" asked Willover.

  "Hala Kamil was most helpful by ordering the UN Critical Response and Tactical Team to carry out the mission."

  "Then you'll have to prevail upon her to use them again if Pitt and Giordino are caught."

  "God knows I'll be crucified," said the President, "if I send in American men to strew the desert with French nationals."

  Sandecker's face reflected disappointment. "I doubt if 1 can convince her to send them back in a second time."

  "I'll make the request myself," the President promised.

  Willover was curt. "You can't have it all your way, Admiral."