Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

Kazim lifted a smug eyebrow. "Elementary, my friend. I simply eliminate the problem they came to solve."

Massarde seemed curious. "How do you accomplish that?"

"I've already made a start," answered Kazim. "I sent my personal brigade to round up, shoot, and bury any victims of contamination sickness."

"You'd slaughter your own people?" Massarde's voice was ironic.

"I'm only doing my patriotic duty to stamp out a national plague," replied Kazim with more than a hint of indifference.

"Your methods are a bit extreme." A worried crease appeared in Massarde's face. "I caution you, Zateb, do not provoke an uproar. If the world accidentally discovers what we truly do here, an international tribunal will hang us both."

"Not without evidence or witnesses, they won't."

"What about those freakish devils who massacred the tourists at Asselar? Did you make them disappear too?"

Kazim gave a callous smile. "No, they killed and ate themselves. But there are other villages suffering the same maladies. Should Dr. Hopper and his party become overly annoying, perhaps I can see they witness a massacre firsthand."

Massarde didn't need an illustrated explanation. He'd read Kazim's secret report of the slaughter at Asselar. His mind easily pictured disease-crazed nomads literally swallowing up the UN investigators as they had the tourist safari.

"A most efficient means of eliminating a threat," he said to Kazim. "It saves the expense of a burial party."

"I agree."

"But if one or two of them should survive and attempt to return to Cairo?"

Kazim shrugged, the thin bloodless lips under the moustache parted in an evil smile. "Regardless of how they die, their bones will never leave the desert."

Ten thousand years ago the sand-dry wadis of the Republic of Mali ran full to their banks with water while the barren flatlands were blanketed with forests filled with hundreds of varieties of plant life. The fertile plains and mountains were home to early man long before he rose out of the stone age and became a pastoral herdsman. For the next seven thousand years vast tribes hunted antelopes, elephants, and buffaloes as they herded their long-horned cattle from one grazing ground to another.

In time, overgrazing along with the decreasing rains caused the Sahara to dry out and become the barren desert it is today, ever expanding, ever creeping into the lusher, more tropical lands of the African continent. The great tribes gradually abandoned the region, leaving behind a desolate and nearly waterless area to the few nomadic bands who have lingered on.

By discovering the incredible endurance of the camel, the Romans were the first to conquer the desert wastes, utilizing the beast to carry slaves, gold, ivory, and many thousands of wild animals for shipment to the bloody arenas of Rome. For eight centuries their caravans plodded across the nothingness from the Mediterranean to the banks of the Niger. And when the glory of Rome faded, it was the camel that opened the Sahara frontier to the invading, light-skinned Berbers, who were followed by the Arabs and the Moors.

Mali represents the end of a line of powerful and long vanished empires to rule black Africa. In the early Middle Ages the kingdom of Ghana expanded the great caravan routes between the Niger River, Algeria, and Morocco. In 1240 A.D., Ghana was destroyed by the Mandingos to the south who emerged as an even greater empire called Malinke, the basis of the name Mali. Great prosperity was achieved and the cities of Gao and Timbuktu became widely respected as the centers of Islamic learning and culture.

Legends were spun of the incredible wealth carried by the gold caravans, and the empire's fame spread through the Middle East. But two hundred years later, the empire had spiraled into decay as the Tuareg and Fulane nomads encroached from the north. The Songhai people to the east gradually took control and ruled until the Moroccan sultans pushed their armies to the Niger and devastated the kingdom in 1591. By the time the French launched their colonial flow southward in the early nineteenth century, the old empires of Mali were ail but forgotten.

After the turn of the century, the French established the territories of West Africa into what became known as the French Sudan. In 1960, Mali declared its independence, drew

up a constitution, and formed a government. The nation's first president was removed by a group of army officers led by Lieutenant Moussa Traore. In 1992, after a number of unsuccessful coup attempts, President (now General) Traore was overthrown by (then Major) Zateb Kazim.

Soon realizing he could not obtain foreign aid or loans as a military dictator, Kazim stepped down and installed the current President Tahir as a figurehead. A cunning manipulator, Kazim stacked the legislature with his cronies and kept his distance from the Soviet Union and the United States while maintaining close relations with France.

He soon set himself up as overseer of all trade, domestic and foreign, enriching a number of his secret bank accounts throughout the world. He dipped into development projects and despite installing strict customs controls, profited handsomely on the side from smuggling activities. French business payoffs for his cooperation, such as his association with Yves Massarde, made him a multimillionaire. Thanks to Kazim's absolute corruption and the greed of his officials, it was little wonder that Mali was one of the world's poorest nations.

The UN Boeing 737 banked so close to the ground Eva thought its wing tip would cut a groove through the mud and timber houses. Then the pilot leveled out on his approach to the primitive airport at the fabled city of Timbuktu and touched down with a firm thump. Gazing out her window, Eva found it difficult to imagine that the grubby town was once the great caravan market of the empires of Ghana, Malinke, and Songhai, and was inhabited by a hundred thousand people. Founded by Tuareg nomads as a seasonal camp in 1100 A.D., it became one of the largest trading centers in West Africa.

She found it difficult to envision a glorious past. But for three of the ancient mosques still standing, there were few sights of past grandeur. The town looked dead and abandoned, its narrow and crooked streets twisting around and seemingly going nowhere in particular. Its grip on life appeared tenuous and fruitless.

Hopper wasted no time. He was out the cabin door and on the ground before the whine of the jet engines died away. An officer, wearing the brief indigo headdress of Kazim's personal guard, walked up to him and saluted. He greeted the UN field researcher in English with a marked French accent.

"Dr. Hopper, I presume."

"And you must be Mr. Stanley," Hopper replied with his usual cutting humor.

There was no answering smile. The Malian officer gave Hopper an unfriendly look that was obviously coated with harbored suspicions. "I am Captain Mohammed Batutta. You will please accompany me to the airport terminal."