Sahara (52 page)

When Pitt’s call came through to NUMA’s worldwide communications network, Sandecker and the others, including Dr. Chapman, were gathered around a phone console that recorded the conversation and amplified Pitt’s voice through a speaker system so they could all converse without microphones or telephone receivers.

Most of the questions that had mounted over the past ninety minutes were answered in Pitt’s precise, hour-long report. Everyone sat listening intently and making notes as he related the harrowing events and epic struggles he and Giordino endured after parting with Gunn on the Niger River. He described in detail their discovery of the fraudulent operation at Fort Foureau. He shocked them with his revelation that Dr. Hopper and the World Health Organization scientists were alive and suffering as slaves in the mines of Tebezza along with Massarde’s French engineers, their wives and children, plus a score of other kidnapped foreigners and political prisoners of General Kazim. He ended his report on the accidental and fortunate finding of Kitty Mannock and her long-lost aircraft as they trekked across the desert. His audience could not help smiling among themselves as he recounted the construction of the land yacht.

The men seated around the console now understood why Pitt demanded to return to Mali with an armed force. The exposure of the gold mines of Tebezza and the hideous, inhuman conditions appalled them. But they were even more stunned to hear of the secret nuclear and toxic waste underground storage at Fort Foureau. Learning that the state-of-the-art solar disposal operation was a fraud brought worried expressions on their faces as they each began to wonder how many other Massarde Enterprises hazardous waste projects around the world were cover-ups.

Pitt followed by setting them straight on the criminal relationship between Yves Massarde and Zateb Kazim. He repeated in detail what he heard during his conversations with Massarde and O’Bannion.

Then the questions came, launched by Chapman. “You’ve concluded that Fort Foureau is the source of the red tide contamination?” asked Dr. Chapman.

“Giordino and I are no experts on groundwater hydrology,” replied Pitt, “but there is little doubt in our minds the toxic waste that is not burned but hidden below the desert is leaking and migrating directly into the groundwater. From there it flows beneath an old riverbed southward until it empties into the Niger.”

“How could large excavations be conducted below-ground without international environmental inspectors catching on?” asked Yaeger.

“Or discovery by satellite photos?” Gunn added.

“The key is the railroad and the cargo containers,” Pitt answered. “The excavation did not begin during construction of the solar reactor, photovoltaic, and concentrator arrays. Only after a large building was erected to shield the operation did trains hauling in nuclear and toxic waste begin returning to Mauritania with rock and dirt from the excavation for a landfill. From what Al and I were able to examine, Massarde took advantage of already existing limestone caverns.”

Everyone was silent for a moment, then Chapman said, “When this thing gets out, the scandal and investigations will never end.”

“Do you have documented proof?” Gunn asked Pitt.

“We can only tell you what we saw on the site and heard from Massarde. I’m sorry we can’t offer you more.”

“You’ve done an incredible job,” said Chapman. “Thanks to you the contaminant’s source is no longer unknown, and plans can be formed to cut off its leakage into the groundwater.”

“Easier said than done,” Sandecker reminded him. “Dirk and Al have handed us a gigantic can of worms.”

“The Admiral’s right,” said Gunn. “We can’t simply walk into Fort Foureau and close it down. Yves Massarde is a powerful and wealthy man with inside connections to General Kazim and the upper levels of the French government—”

“And a lot of other powerful men in business and government,” Gunn added.

“Massarde is a secondary consideration,” Pitt cut in. “Our most urgent priority is to save those poor people at Tebezza before they’re all killed.”

“Are any of them Americans?” asked Sandecker.

“Dr. Eva Rojas is a U.S. citizen.”

“She is the only one?”

“As far as I know.”

“If no President has ever kicked ass in Lebanon to free our hostages, there’s no way our current President will send in a Special Force Team to save one American.”

“Won’t hurt to ask,” proposed Pitt.

“He already turned me down when I made the request to rescue you and Al.”

“Hala Kamil offered the UN Critical Response and Tactical Team before,” said Gunn. “Surely she’ll authorize a rescue mission to save her own scientists.”

“Hala Kamil is a lady with high principles,” said Sandecker with conviction. “More idealistic than most men I know. I think we can safely rely on her to have General Bock send Colonel Levant and his men back into Mali.”

“People are dying in the mines like rats,” said Pitt, the bitterness of his tone obvious to the men listening. “God only knows how many were murdered since Al and I escaped. Every hour counts.”

“I’ll contact the Secretary General and brief her,” promised Sandecker. “If Levant moves as fast as he did to save Rudi, I suspect you’ll be explaining the situation face-to-face with him before breakfast in your time zone.”

Ninety minutes after Sandecker’s call to Hala Kamil and General Bock, Colonel Levant and his men and equipment were in the air and winging over the Atlantic toward a French air force base outside of Algiers.

General Hugo Bock arranged the maps and satellite photos on his desk and picked up an antique magnifying glass that had been given to him by his grandfather when he collected stamps as a young boy. The glass was highly polished without a flaw, and when adjusted to his eyes, enlarged the image it was trained upon without distortion around the circular edges. The piece had traveled with Bock all during his army career as a kind of good luck charm.

He took a sip of coffee and began examining the area inside the small circles he’d marked on the maps and photographs that indicated the approximate location of Tebezza. Though Pitt’s description of the mine site, relayed to Bock from Sandecker by fax, was a rough estimate, the General’s eye soon zeroed in on the landing strip and the vague road that led off through the narrow canyon splitting the high, rocky plateau.

This fellow Pitt, he thought, was most observant.

The man must have memorized what few landmarks he had seen during his epic trek across the desert into Algeria and backtracked them in his mind’s eye to the mine.

Bock began to study the terrain of the surrounding desert and did not like what he saw. The mission to rescue Gunn from the Gao airport had been relatively simple. Launched from an Egyptian military base near Cairo, the UN force had only to swoop in and seize the Gao airport, retrieve Gunn, and be on their way. Tebezza was a much tougher nut to crack.

Levant’s team would have to land at the desert airstrip, travel nearly 20 kilometers to the mine entrance, assault and secure a maze of tunnels and caverns, transport God knows how many prisoners back to the airstrip, load everyone on board, and take off.

The critical problem was too much time on the ground. The transport was a sitting duck and invited attack by Kazim’s air force. The time involved in a round trip of 40 kilometers over a primitive desert road considerably raised the odds of failure.

The attack could not rely purely on split-timing. There were too many unknown variables. Presenting any outside communication was critical. Bock could not see how the operation could be accomplished in less than one and a half hours minimum. Two could spell disaster.

His fist cracked the desk. “Damn!” he uttered harshly to himself. “No time for preparation, no time for planning. An emergency mission to save lives. Hell, we’ll probably lose more than we save.”

After looking at the operation from every angle, Bock sighed and dialed his desk phone. Hala Kamil’s secretarial aide put him right through.

“Yes, General,” she said. “I did not expect to hear from you so soon. Is there a problem with the rescue mission?”

“A number of them, I’m afraid, Madam Secretary. We’re stretched far too thin on this one. Colonel Levant is going to need backup.”

“I’ll authorize whatever additional UN forces you require.”

“We have none to spare,” explained Bock. “My remaining forces are on security duty at the Syrian-Israeli border or performing civilian rescue operations during the unrest and rioting inside India. Colonel Levant’s backup will have to come from outside the UN.”

There was a moment of silence as Hala assembled her thoughts. “This is most difficult,” she said finally. “I’m not sure who I can turn to.”

“What about the Americans?”

“Unlike his predecessors, their new President is most reluctant to interfere in the problems of third world nations. As a point of fact, it was he who requested that I authorize you to save the two men from NUMA.”

“Why was I not informed?” Bock asked.

“Admiral Sandecker could provide us with no intelligence as to their exact whereabouts. While waiting for leads, they escaped on their own, making any rescue attempt unnecessary.”

“Tebezza will not be a swift and sure operation,” Bock said grimly.

“Can you guarantee me success?” asked Hala.

“I’m confident in the ability of my men, Madam Secretary, but I cannot make any guarantees. If anything, I fear the cost in casualties will be high.”

“We cannot sit back and do nothing,” Hala said solemnly. “Dr. Hopper and his team of scientists are members of the UN. It is our duty to save our own people.”

“I quite agree,” said Bock. “But I’d feel more secure if we could count on a backup force should Colonel Levant become trapped by Malian military forces.”

“Perhaps the British or the French will be more willing—”

“The Americans can mount a more rapid response,” Bock interrupted. “If I had my way, I would demand their Delta Force.”

Hala went quiet, reluctant to give a concession, knowing the Chief Executive of the United States would prove stubborn and noncommittal. “I will talk with the President and present our case,” Hala said resignedly. “I can do no more.”

“Then I shall inform Colonel Levant there is no room for misjudgment or error, and that he can expect no help.”

“Perhaps he will benefit from luck.”

Bock breathed deeply. He could feel a cold chill of apprehension down his spine. “Whenever I banked on luck, Madam Secretary, something always went terribly wrong.”

St. Julien Perlmutter was sitting in his immense library that housed thousands of books, most neatly arranged on varnished mahogany shelves. At least two hundred, however, were haphazardly stacked and scattered loosely around the Persian carpet or piled on a badly worn rolltop desk. He sat with slippered feet propped on the untidy desktop reading a seventeenth-century manuscript while dressed in his uniform of the day, silk pajamas under a paisley robe.

Perlmutter was a legendary expert on maritime history. His collection of historical records and literature on ships and the sea was considered the finest in the world. Museum curators around the nation would have happily given any limb he requested or a blank check to obtain his massive library. But money mattered little to a man with a fifty-million-dollar inheritance, except to purchase additional rare books about the sea he didn’t already own.

Love of women didn’t come close to his love of research. If any man or woman could passionately give an hour lecture on any shipwreck ever recorded, it was St. Julien Perlmutter. Every salvager and treasure hunter in Europe and America sooner or later showed up on his doorstep for guidance.

A monster of a man, he weighed nearly 181 kilograms, or 400 pounds. He was a product of gourmet food and drink and little or no exercise beyond picking up a book and opening its pages. He had merry sky-blue eyes and a red face buried under a huge gray beard.

His phone rang, and he pushed aside several opened books to reach it. “Perlmutter here.”

“Julien, it’s Dirk Pitt.”

“Dirk, my boy,” he fairly shouted. “A long time since I’ve heard your voice.”

“Can’t be more than three weeks.”

“Who counts the hours when one is on the track of a shipwreck,” he laughed.

“Certainly not you or I.”

“Why don’t you hop over for a bite of my famous Crepes Perlmutter?”

“I’m afraid they’d get cold by the time I arrived,” Pitt replied.

“Where are you?”

“Algiers.”

Perlmutter snorted. “What are you doing in that dreadful place?”

“Among other things, I’m interested in a shipwreck.”

“In the Med off North Africa?”

“No, in the Sahara Desert.”

Perlmutter knew Pitt too well to know he was joking. “I’m familiar with the legend of a ship in the California desert above the Sea of Cortez, but I’m not aware of one in the Sahara.”

“I’ve run across three different references to it,” Pitt explained. “One source was an old American desert rat who was looking for a Confederate ironclad called the
Texas.
He swore it steamed up a now dry river and became lost in the sand. Supposedly it was carrying gold from the Confederate treasury.”

“Where do you find them?” Perlmutter laughed. “What sort of desert weed was this fellow smoking?”

“He also claimed that Lincoln was on board.”

“Now you’ve gone from the ridiculous to pure humbug.”

“Strange as it sounds, I believed him. And then I found two other sources for the legend. One was an old rock painting in a cave that showed what had to be a Confederate design warship. The other was a reference to a sighting in a log book I found in Kitty Mannock’s airplane.”

“Hold on a minute,” Perlmutter said skeptically. “Whose airplane?”

“Kitty Mannock.”

“You found her! My God, she vanished over sixty years ago. You really discovered her crash site?”

“Al Giordino and I stumbled on her body and the wreck of the plane in a hidden ravine while we were crossing the desert.”

“Congratulations!” Perlmutter boomed. “You’ve just cleared up one of aviation’s most famous mysteries.”