Sahara (37 page)

“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.”

In a typical windowless room somewhere in a little-traveled part of the Pentagon building, Air Force Major Tom Greenwald put down the phone after notifying his wife he would be late for dinner. He relaxed for a long minute as he turned his thoughts from the satellite photo analysis of the lighting going on between Chinese army units and democratic rebel forces to the job at hand.

The film from the GeoSat cameras sent by courier from Chip Webster at NUMA was processed and loaded in the military’s sophisticated display and enhancing equipment. When all was ready, Greenwald settled himself in a comfortable chair with a console installed in one arm. He opened a can of Diet Pepsi and began turning the dials and knobs on the console as he stared up at a television monitor the size of a small movie theater screen.

The GeoSat photos reminded him of the old spy-in-the-sky images of thirty years ago. Granted, the GeoSat was designed purely for space geological and water current survey, but it came nowhere close to the incredible imagery detail received by the latest intelligence-gathering Pyramider and Houdini satellites sent up by the space shuttles. Yet it was a vast improvement over the old LandSat that mapped the earth for over twenty years. The new model had cameras that could penetrate darkness and cloud cover, and even smoke.

Greenwald made adjustments and corrections with his console as each photo, showing different sections of the Malian northern desert, crossed the viewing screen and was computer-enhanced. He soon began to pick out tiny specks that were flying aircraft and a camel train winding across the desert floor from the salt mines of Taoudenni south to Timbuktu.

As the photo trail moved north from the Niger into the Azaouad, a barren region of dunes and nothingness that made up but one of the many areas of the Sahara, Greenwald found fewer and fewer signs of human presence. He could discern bones of animals, camels most likely, scattered around isolated wells, but a standing human was very difficult to detect, even for his exotic electronics systems.

After nearly an hour, Greenwald rubbed his tired eyes and massaged his temples. He had found nothing that indicated the slightest trace of the two men he had been asked to look for. The photos of the extreme northerly search grid that Webster thought they might have reached on foot were examined unsuccessfully and set aside.

Greenwald had done his bit for the cause and was about to call it a day and go home to his wife, but he decided to give it one final try. Years of experience had taught him that a target was never where he expected to find it. He sifted out the satellite photos revealing the deeper regions of the desolate Azaouad and gave them a fast scan.

The stark void appeared as empty as the Dead Sea.

He almost missed it, he would have missed it but for an indescribable feeling that a tiny object on the landscape did not fit its surroundings. It might have passed as a rock or a small dune, but the shape was not irregular like geology produced by nature. The lines were straight and well defined. His hand moved over a row of knobs, magnifying and enhancing the object.

Greenwald knew he was on to something. He was too much the expert to be fooled. During the war with Iraq, he became something of a legend for his uncanny knack at detecting the Iraqi army’s hidden bunkers, tank and artillery emplacements.

“A car,” he muttered aloud to himself. “A car covered over with sand to hide its presence.”

After tighter study, he could distinguish two tiny specks alongside the car. Greenwald wished he was looking at images received from a military satellite. He could have read the time on the target’s wristwatches. But the GeoSat was not built for fine detail. Even with careful tuning he could just make them out as two humans.

Greenwald took a moment to sit back and savor his discovery. Then he walked over to a nearby desk and dialed a phone. He waited patiently, hoping that a taped voice wouldn’t come on with an announcement to leave a message. On the fifth ring, a man answered who sounded as if he was out of breath.

“Hello.”

“Chip?”

“Yes. This Tom?”

“You been jogging?”

“The wife and I were out in the backyard talking to neighbors,” explained Webster. “I ran like hell when I heard the phone ringing.”

“I found something I think you’ll be interested in.”

“My two men, you pulled them from the GeoSat photos?”

“They’re over 100 kilometers further north than you reckoned,” said Greenwald.

There was a pause. “Sure you’re not looking at a pair of nomads?” asked Webster. “No way my people could have walked that far across a burning desert in forty-eight hours.”

“Not walked but drove.”

“Like drove a car?” asked Webster in surprise.

“Difficult to make out details. Looks to me as though they cover it with sand during the day as camouflage from searching aircraft and drive by night. It has to be your two guys. Who else can be playing fugitive games where the grass don’t grow.”

“Can you tell if they’re trying for the border?”

“Not unless they have a lousy sense of direction. They’re smack in the center of northern Mali. The nearest border to another country is a good 350 kilometers.”

Webster took a long moment to reply. “It must be Pitt and Giordino. But where in hell did they find a car?”

“Looks to me like they’re resourceful men.”

“They should have given up searching for the contamination source long ago. What madness has overtaken them?”

It was a question Greenwald could not answer. “Maybe they’ll give you a call from Fort Foureau,” he suggested, half serious, half in jest.

“They’re heading for the French solar waste project?”

“They’ve only another 50 kilometers to go. And it’s the only slice of Western civilization around.”

“Thank you, Tom,” said Webster sincerely. “The next favor is mine. How about me taking you and our wives to dinner?”

“Sounds good. Pick any restaurant and call me with day and time.”

Greenwald dropped the receiver in its cradle and refocused his attention on the fuzzy object and the two tiny figures next to it.

“You guys have to be crazy,” he said to the empty room.

Then he closed down the system and went home.

32

The dawn sun came up and cast a wave of heat across the desert like an oven door thrown open. The cool of the night vanished as quickly as the passing of a cloud. A pair of ravens flew across the oppressive sky, spied something that did not belong on the empty landscape, and began circling in hopes of finding a meal. On closer inspection they saw that a live human offered nothing of taste, and they slowly winged off to the north.

Pitt lay stretched out on the upper slope of a low dune, almost buried in the sand, and stared up at the birds for a few moments. Then he turned his attention back to the immense sprawl of the Fort Foureau solar detoxification project. It was an unreal place. Not simply a man-made edifice to technology but a thriving, productive facility surrounded by a land that had long since died under the onslaught of drought and heat.

Pitt twisted slightly as he heard the soft movement of sand behind him and saw Giordino approaching on his stomach, wiggling up the dune like a lizard.

“Enjoying the scenery?” asked Giordino.

“Come take a look. I guarantee you’ll be impressed.”

“The only thing that would impress me right now is a beach with nice cool surf.”