Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

"I don't have time for a lengthy situation report, Admiral. Please switch on your recorder."

"It's on."

"Rudi isolated the chemical villain. He has the recorded data and is headed for the Gao airport where he hopes to stow away on a flight out of the country. We pinpointed the location where the compound enters the Niger. The exact position is in Rudi's records. The rub is that the true source lies at an unknown location in the desert to the north. AI and I are remaining behind in an attempt to track it down. By the way, we destroyed the Calliope--"

"The natives are getting testy." Giordino shouted across the office. He was putting his considerable muscle against the door as it was being kicked in from the other side.

"Where are you?" questioned Sandecker.

"Ever hear of some rich guy named Massarde?"

"Yves Massarde, the French tycoon, I've heard of him."

Before Pitt could answer, the door burst in around Giordino and six burly crewmen rushed him like the forward wall of a rugby team. Giordino decked the first three before he was buried under a pile of thrashing bodies.

"We're uninvited guests on Massarde's houseboat," Pitt rushed the words. "Sorry, Admiral, I have to go now." Pitt calmly hung up the receiver, turned in the chair, and looked across the office at a man who entered the room behind the melee.

Yves Massarde was immaculately dressed in a white dinner jacket with a yellow rose in the lapel. One hand was stylishly slipped into the side pocket of his jacket, the elbow bent outward. He impassively stepped around the bruised and bloodied crewmen who were fighting to restrain Giordino as if they were derelicts on the street. Then he paused and stared through a haze of blue smoke from a Gauloise Bleu cigarette that dangled from one corner of his mouth. What he saw was a cold-eyed individual who sat behind his personal desk, arms folded in icy indifference, and benignly smiling back with bemused interest. Massarde was a keen judge of men. This one he immediately sensed was cunning and dangerous.

"Good evening," Pitt said politely.

"American or English?" inquired Massarde.

"American."

"What are you doing on my boat?" he demanded.

The firm lips fixed in a slight grin. "It was urgent that I borrow your telephone. I hope my friend and I haven't put you out. I'll be more than happy to reimburse you for the call and any damage to your door."

"You might have asked to come aboard my boat and used the phone like gentlemen." Massarde's tone clearly indicated he thought of Americans as primitive cowboys.

"Looking like we do, would you have invited perfect strangers who suddenly appeared out of the night into your private office?"

Massarde considered that, and then smiled thoughtfully. "No, probably not. You're quite right."

Pitt took a pen from an antique inkwell and scribbled on a note pad, then tore off the top paper, stepped from behind the desk, and handed it to Massarde. "You can send the bill to this address. Nice talking with you, but we have to be on our way."

Massarde's hand came out of his jacket with a small automatic pistol. He lined up the muzzle with Pitt's forehead. "I must insist you stay and enjoy my hospitality before I turn you over to Malian security forces."

Giordino had been roughly manhandled to his feet. One eye was already swelling and a small trickle of blood dropped from one nostril. "Are you going to clap us in irons?" he asked Massarde.

The Frenchman studied Giordino as if he was a bear in a zoo. "Yes, I think r

estraint is in order."

Giordino looked at Pitt. "See," he muttered sullenly. "I told you so."

Sandecker returned to the conference room in the NUMA headquarters building and sat down with a look of optimism that wasn't there ten minutes before. "They're alive," he stated tersely.

Two men were seated at the table whose surface was covered with a large map of the Western Sahara and intelligence reports on the Malian military and security police forces. They stared at Sandecker and nodded approvingly.

"Then we continue with the rescue operation as planned," said the senior of the two, a man with brushed-back gray hair and hard jeweled eyes with the gleam of blue topaz set in a large round face.

General Hugo Bock was a far-seeing man who planned accordingly. A soldier who possessed a remarkable variety of skills, he was a born killer. Bock was senior commander of a little-known security force called UNICRATT, the abbreviation for United Nations International Critical Response and Tactical Team. Highly trained and extremely capable fighters, the team was composed of men from nine countries who performed undercover missions for the United Nations that were never publicized. Bock had led a distinguished career in the German army, constantly on the move as an advisor to third world countries whose governments requested his services during revolutionary wars or conflicts over border disputes.

His second-in-command was Colonel Marcel Levant, a highly decorated veteran of the French Foreign Legion. There was an old-fashioned aristocratic quality about him. A graduate of Saint Cyr, France's foremost military college, he had served around the world and was a hero of the short desert war against Iraq in 1991. His face was intelligent, even handsome. Although he was almost thirty-six years old, his slim build, long brown hair, a large but neatly clipped moustache, and large gray eyes made him appear only recently emerged from a university graduation ceremony.