Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

"A long shot. But an underground stream running from the toxic waste plant to the Niger could be our contamination carrier."

The Kid waved a hand up the gorge. "I guess you boys know this gulch runs into the old riverbed."

"We know," Pitt assured him. "We've been following it from the bank of the Niger most of last night. We holed up in this ravine during the heat of the day to keep from being seen by Malian search parties."

"Looks like you fooled them so far."

"What's your story?" Giordino asked the Kid, handing him the rye bottle. "You prospecting for gold?"

The Kid studied the label on the bottle for a moment as if trying to make up his mind to reveal the reason behind his presence. Then he shrugged and shook his head. "Lookin' for gold, yes. Prospectin', no. I guess it won't hurt me none to tell you boys. The truth is I'm lookin' for a shipwreck."

Pitt studied him with bleak suspicion. "A shipwreck. . . a shipwreck here in the middle of the Sahara Desert?"

"A Confederate ironclad to be exact."

Pitt and Giordino sat there in dazed incomprehension with the growing tentative wish there was a straitjacket in the Voisin's tool box. They both stared at the Kid in a very peculiar way. It was almost dark now, but they could still see the earnest expression in his eyes.

"Without the risk of sounding stupid," said Pitt skeptically, "would you mind telling us how a warship from the war between the states got here?"

The Kid took a long swallow from the rye bottle and wiped his mouth. Then he unrolled a blanket on the sand and stretched out, propping the back of his head with his hands. "It was back in April of 1865, the week before Lee surrendered to Grant. A few miles below Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate ironclad Texas was loaded with the records of the dyin' Confederate government. At leastways they said it was documents and records, but it was really gold."

"Are you sure it wasn't a myth like so many other treasure tales?" said Pitt.

"President Jefferson Davis himself, before he died, claimed the gold from the Confederate States treasury was loaded in the dead of night on board the Texas. He and his cabinet hoped to smuggle it through the Union navy blockade into another country so they could form a new government in exile and continue fightin' the war."

"But Davis was captured and imprisoned," Pitt said.

The Kid nodded. "The Confederacy died, never to be reborn."

"And the Texas?"

'The ship fought one hell of a battle as it steamed down the James River past half the Union navy and the forts at Hampton Roads before gainin' Chesapeake Bay and escapin' into the Atlantic. The last anybody saw the ship and any of its crew on this side of the ocean was when it vanished in a fog bank."

"And you think the Texas sailed across the sea and entered the Niger River?" Pitt ventured.

"I do," the Kid replied firmly. "I've traced contemporary sightin's by French colonials and natives who passed down stories of the monster without sails that floated by their villages on the river. Descriptions of the warship and the dates it was observed satisfy me that it was the Texas. "

"How could a warship the size and tonnage of an ironclad steam this far into the Sahara without stranding?" asked Giordino.

"That was in the days before the century of drought. This part of the desert had rain then, and the Niger ran much deeper than it does now. One of its tributaries was the Oued Zarit. At that time the Oued Zarit flowed from the Ahaggar Mountains northeast of here 600 miles to the Niger. Journals of French explorers and military expeditions say it was deep enough to afford passage for large boats. My guess is the Texas turned up the Oued Zarit from the Niger then grounded and became trapped when the water level began to drop with the approach of the summer heat."

"Even with a fair depth of water it seems impossible for a heavy vessel like an ironclad to sail this far from the sea."

"The Texas was built for military operations on the James River. She had a flat bottom and shallow draft. Navigatin' the tricky turns and depths of a river was no problem for her and her crew. The miracle was that she crossed an open ocean without sinkin' in rough water and heavy weather like the Monitor. "

"A ship could have reached any number of unpopulated regions during the 1860s up and down the North and Central American shores," Pitt said. "Why risk losing the gold hoard by sailing over dangerous seas and crossing uncharted country?"

The Kid took a cigar stub from his shirt pocket and lit it with a wooden match. "You have to admit, the Union navy never would have thought to search for the Texas a thousand miles up a river in Africa."

"Probably not, but it certainly seems like an extreme."

"I'm with you," said Giordino. "Why the desperation? They couldn't rebuild another government in the middle of a desert wasteland."

Pitt looked at the Kid thoughtfully. "There had to be more to the hazardous voyage than smuggling gold."

"There was a rumor." The subtle change in tone could hardly be called evasive, but it was unmistakable. "Lincoln was on board the Texas when she left Richmond."

"Not Abraham Lincoln," Giordino scoffed.