Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

It wasn't exactly the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel, but to someone who had been thrown in a river twice, parboiled in a steam bath, and was footsore from stumbling around the desert in the dark for two hours, no watering hole could have offered greater sanctuary. He had never, Pitt thought, seen a dingier dive that looked so good.

They had the feeling of entering a cave. The rough mud walls met a well-trodden dirt floor. A long board propped on concrete bricks that served as the bar sagged in the middle, so much so it seemed that any glass set on its surface would immediately slide to the center. Behind the decrepit bar, a shelf that appeared wedged into the mud brick wall held a weird assortment of pots and valves that brewed coffee and tea. Next to it were five bottles of obscurely labeled liquor in various levels of consumption. They must have been stocked for the rare tourist who ventured in the place, Pitt surmised, since Muslims weren't supposed to touch the stuff.

Against one wall a small stove was throwing out a comforting degree of heat along with a pungent aroma that neither Pitt nor Giordino as yet identified as camel dung. The chairs looked like rejects from both the Goodwill and Salvation Army stores. None of them matched. The tables weren't much better, darkened by smoke, surfaces burned by countless cigarettes and carved with graffiti going back to the French colonial days. What little illumination there was in the closet-size room came from two bare light bulbs hanging from a single wire held up by nails in a roof beam. They glowed dimly, their limited power coming from the town's overworked diesel generator.

Trailed by Giordino, Pitt sat down at an empty table and shifted his attention from the furnishings to the clientele. He was relieved to find that none wore uniforms. The room held a composite of locals, Niger boatmen and fishermen, villagers, and a sprinkling of men whom Pitt took for farmers. No women were in attendance. A few were drinking beer but most sipped at small cups of sweet coffee or tea. After a cursory glance at the newcomers, they all went back to their conversations or refocused their concentration on a game similar to dominos.

Giordino leaned across the table and murmured, "Is this your idea of a night on the town?"

"Any port in a storm," said Pitt.

The obvious proprietor, a swarthy man with a massive thicket of black hair and an immense moustache, ambled from behind the makeshift bar and approached the table. He stood and looked down at them without a word, waiting for them to speak first.

Pitt held up two fingers and said, "Beer."

The proprietor nodded and walked back to the bar. Giordino watched as he pulled two bottles of German beer from a badly dented metal icebox, then turned and stared at Pitt dubiously.

"Mind telling me how you intend to pay?" asked Giordino.

Pitt smiled, leaned under the table, and slipped off his left Nike and removed something from the sole. Then with a cool, watchful expression his eyes traveled around the room.

None of the other patrons showed the slightest interest in either himself or Giordino. He cautiously opened his hands so only Giordino could see. Between his palms lay a neat stack of Malian currency.

"Confederation of French African francs," he said quietly. "The Admiral didn't miss a trick."

"Sandecker thought of everything all right," Giordino admitted. "How come he trusted you and not me with a bankroll?"

"I have big

ger feet."

The proprietor returned and set, more like dropped, the bottles of beer on the table. "Dix francs," he grunted.

Pitt handed him a bill. The proprietor held it up to one of the light bulbs and peered at it, then rubbed his greasy thumb over the printing, seeing no smear, he nodded and walked away.

"He asked for ten francs," Giordino said. "You gave him twenty. If he thinks you're a big spender we'll probably be mugged by half the town when we leave."

"That's the idea," said Pitt. "Only a matter of time before the village con artist smells blood and circles his victims."

"Are we buying or selling?"

"Mostly buying. We need a means of transportation."

"A hearty meal should take priority. I'm hungry as a bear out of hibernation."

"You can try the food here, if you like," said Pitt. "Me, I'd rather starve."

They were on their third beer when a young man no more than eighteen entered the bar. He stood tall and slender with a slight hunch to his shoulders. He had a gentle oval face with wide sad-looking eyes. His complexion was almost black and his hair thick and wiry. He wore a yellow T-shirt and khaki pants under an open, white cotton sheet-like garment. He made a quick study of the customers and settled his gaze on Pitt and Giordino.

"Patience, the beggar's virtue," Pitt murmured. "Salvation is on the way."

The young man stopped at the table and nodded his head. "Bonsoir."

"Good evening," Pitt replied.

The melancholy eyes widened slightly. "You are English?"

"New Zealanders," Pitt lied.