Sahara (25 page)

He cracked open a door and peered into what was a lavishly furnished lounge. All glass, delicately curved metal-work, 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 Office.

“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 cotton-wood 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. “Dirk?”

“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. Al 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.”

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.

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.”