Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

"People tearing their hair out, beating their heads against walls, sticking their hands in fire. Running around naked like animals on their hands and knees and eating their dead as if they suddenly turned into cannibals. This rice dish is good. What do they call it?"

"Khalta."

"I wish I could get the recipe from the chef."

"I think it can be arranged," Pitt said. "Did I hear you correctly? Those who are contaminated eat flesh?"

"Their reactions depend a great deal upon their culture," said Eva, digging into the khalta. "People in the third world countries, for example, are more used to slaughtered animals than people in Europe and the United States. Oh sure, we pass a road kill now and then, but they see skinned animals hanging in the markets or watch their fathers butcher the tribal goats or sheep. Children are taught early to catch and kill rabbits, squirrels, or birds, then skin and gut them for the grill. The primitive cruelty and the sight of blood and intestines are everyday events to those who live in poverty. They have to kill to survive. Then when tiny trace amounts of deadly toxins are digested and absorbed into their bloodstream over a long period of time, their systems deteriorate-the brain, the heart and liver, the intestines, even the genetic code. Their senses are dulled and they experience schizophrenia. Disintegration of moral codes and standards takes place. They no longer function as normal humans. To them, killing and eating a relative suddenly seems as ordinary as twisting a chicken's neck and preparing it for the evening dinner. I love that sauce with the chutney taste."

"It's very good."

"Especially with the khalta. We civilized people, on the other hand, buy nicely butchered, sliced meat in supermarkets. We don't witness cattle being brained with an electronic hammer, or sheep and pigs having their throats cut. We miss the fun part. So we're more conditioned to simply expressing fear, anxiety, and misery. A few might shoot up the landscape and kill the neighbors in a fit of madness, but we would never eat anyone."

"What type of exotic toxin can cause those problems?" asked Pitt.

Eva drained her wine and waited until the waiter poured another glass. "Doesn't have to be exotic. Common lead poisoning can make people do strange things. It also bursts capillaries and turns the whites of the eyes beet red."

"Do you have room for dessert?" Pitt asked.

"Everything is so good, I'll make room."

"Coffee or tea?"

"American coffee."

Pitt motioned to the waiter who was on him like a skier attacking fresh snow. "An Um Ali for the lady and two coffees. One American, one Egyptian.'

"What's an Um Ali?" asked Eva.

"A hot bread pudding with milk and topped with pine nuts. Soothes the stomach after a heavy meal."

"Sounds just right."

Pitt leaned back in his chair, his craggy face set in concern. "You said you're catching a flight tomorrow. Do you still intend to go to Mali?"

"Still playing the role of my protector?"

"Traveling in the desert can be a murderous business. Heat won't be your only enemy. Someone out there is waiting to kill you and your fellow do-gooders."

"And my knight in shining white armor won't be there to save me," she said with a tinge of sarcasm. "You don't frighten me. I can take care of myself."

Pitt stared at her, and she could see a look of sadness in his eyes. "You're not the first woman who said that and wound up in the morgue."

In a ballroom in another part of the hotel Dr. Frank Hopper was wrapping up a news conference. It was a good turnout. A small army of correspondents representing newspapers around the Middle East and four international wire services were besieging him with questions under a battery of lights from local Egyptian TV cameras.

"How widespread do you believe the environmental pollution is,

Dr. Hopper?" asked a lady from Reuters News Service.

"We won't know until our teams are in the field and have a chance to study the spread."

A man with a tape recorder waved his hand. "Do you have a source of the contamination?"

Hopper shook his head. "At the moment we have no idea where it's coming from."

"Any possibility it might be the French solar detoxification project in Mali?"

Hopper walked over to a map of the southern Sahara that was hung on a large display stand and picked up a pointer. He aimed the tip at a desolate region of desert in the northern section of Mali. "The French project is located here at Fort Foureau, well over 200 kilometers from the closest area of reported contamination sickness. Too far for it to be a direct source."