Giordino looked at Pitt. "So we're not returning the way we came."
"We bought a one-way ticket when we sank the Benin navy."
"I'm a firm believer of getting there is half the fun."
"The fun is over, if you are morbid enough to call it that." Pitt looked over the banks of the river. The green vegetation had given way to a barren landscape of scrub brush, gravel, and yellow dirt. "Judging from the terrain, we may have to trade the boat for camels if we expect to see home again."
"Oh God!" Giordino groaned. "Can you picture me riding a freak of nature? A reasonable man who believes the only reason God put horses on earth is for background in western movies."
"We'll survive," said Pitt. "The Admiral will move half of heaven and most of hell to get us out after we home in on the poison glop."
Giordino turned and looked dolefully down the Niger. "So this is it," he said slowly.
"This is what?"
"The legendary creek people go up and lose their paddles."
Pitt's lips curled in a crooked grin. "If that's where we are, then pull down the French tricolor ensign, and by God we'll fly our own."
"We're under orders to hide our nationality," Giordino protested. "We can't go about our sneaky business under the stars and stripes."
"Who said anything about the stars and stripes?"
Giordino knew he was stepping into deep water. "Okay, dare I ask what flag you intend to raise?"
"This one." He reached into a drawer of the bridge counter and tossed Giordino a folded black ensign. "I borrowed it at a costume party I attended a couple of months ago."
Giordino made an expression of shocked dismay as he stared at the grinning skull in the center of the rectangular cloth. "The Jolly Roger, you intend to fly the Jolly Roger?"
"Why not?" Pitt's surprise at Giordino's anguish seemed genuine. "I think it only fitting and proper we make a big splash under the appropriate banner."
"Fine bunch of international contamination detectives we are," grumbled Hopper as he watched the sunset over the lakes and marshlands of the upper Niger River. "All we've come up with is typical third world indifference toward sanitation."
Eva sat on a campstool in front of a small oil stove to ward off the evening chill. "I tested for most of the known toxins and failed to find a trace of any of them. Whatever our phantom malady is, it's proving very elusive."
An older man sat beside her, tall, heavy, with iron-gray hair, light blue eyes, wise and thoughtful. A New Zealander, Dr. Warren Grimes was the chief epidemiologist of the project. He contemplated a glass of club soda. "Nothing on my end either. Every culture I've obtained within 500 kilometers showed free of disease-related microorganisms."
"Is there anything we might have overlooked?" asked Hopper, dropping into a folding chair with padded cushions.
Grimes shrugged. "Without victims, I can't conduct interviews or autopsies. Without victims I can't obtain tissue samples or analyze results. I have to have observational data to compare symptoms or do a case control study."
"If anyone is dying from toxic contamination," said Eva, "they're not dying around here."
Hopper turned from the fading orange light on the horizon and picked up a pot from the stove and poured a cup of tea. "Can it be the evidence was false or exaggerated?"
"UN headquarters received only vague reports," Grimes reminded him.
"Without hard data
and exact locations to work with, it seems we jumped the gun."
"I think it's a cover-up," said Eva suddenly.
There was silence. Hopper looked from Eva to Grimes.
"If it is, it's a damned good one," muttered Grimes finally.