Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

Pitt said to Brunone, "Would it help if we said we were sorry?"

"It seems American humor never stops," said Brunone coldly. "You can offer your apologies to Mr. Massarde in person, but since you destroyed his helicopter, I wouldn't expect any pity if I were you."

Yves Massarde didn't smile often, but he was smiling now as Pitt and Giordino were escorted into his vast office. Leaning back in his expensive leather executive's chair, elbows parked on the armrests, fingers entwined under his chin, he smiled benignly like a mortician after a typhoid epidemic.

Felix Verenne stood by a window overlooking the facility. His eyes stared expressionless, like camera apertures, the lines in his face grim, his mouth tight in contempt. A marked contrast to his superior's bemused stare.

"Splendid work, Captain Brunone," Massarde purred. "You collected them uninjured and unmarked." He gazed speculatively at the two men standing before him in clean, white coveralls, at their tanned faces and excellent physical condition, took note of their seemingly unconcerned expressions, and remembered encountering the same indifference on his houseboat. "So they proved cooperative."

"Like schoolchildren beckoned to class," Brunone said formally. "They did as they were ordered."

"Very wise of them," Massarde murmured approvingly. He pushed back his chair and came around the desk and faced Pitt. "I compliment you on your passage across the desert. General Kazim doubted you would last two days. A remarkable accomplishment to have come so far ov

er hostile ground so fast."

"General Kazim is the last man I'd rely on for a prediction," said Pitt pleasantly.

"You stole my helicopter and crashed it in the river, Mr. Pitt. That will cost you dearly."

"You treated us shabbily aboard your houseboat, so we repaid you in kind."

"And General Kazim's valuable old car?"

"The engine seized up so we burned it," Pitt lied.

"You seemed to have developed a nasty habit for destroying other people's expensive possessions."

"I broke all my toys when I was a kid," Pitt said casually. "Drove my Dad up the walls."

"I can always purchase another helicopter, but General Kazim cannot replace his Avions Voisin. Enjoy what time you have left before his sadists work you over in his torture chambers."

"Lucky for me I'm a masochist," Giordino said, unruffled.

Just for a second Massarde looked amused, then his face turned curious. "What did you find that was so interesting that you drove halfway across the Sahara to Fort Foureau?" he demanded.

"We enjoyed your company so much on your houseboat, we thought we'd pay you another social visit--"

Massarde's hand lashed out as he viciously backhanded Pitt across the face, a large diamond ring cutting a path through the right cheek. Pitt's head twisted from the blow, but his feet remained firmly rooted to the carpet. "Does this mean you're challenging me to a duel?" he muttered through a taut grin.

"No, it means I am going to have you slowly lowered in a drum of nitric acid until you talk."

Pitt looked at Giordino, then back to Massarde, and shrugged. "All right, Massarde, you've got a leak."

Massarde frowned. "Be specific."

"Your hazardous waste, the chemicals you're supposed to be burning, are seeping into groundwater that flows under an ancient riverbed and is polluting every well between here and the Niger. From there it flows to the Atlantic where it's causing a catastrophic disaster that will eventually destroy all sea life. And that's just for starters. We followed the old riverbed and discovered it once flowed directly beneath Fort Foureau."

"We are almost 400 kilometers from the Niger," said Verenne. "Impossible for water to flow that far under the desert's surface."

"How do you know?" asked Pitt. "Fort Foureau is the only project or plant within Mali that receives chemical and biological waste. The compound responsible for the problem can only come from here, the only possible source. There's no question in my mind now that I know that you're hiding waste instead of burning it."

Irritation flickered at the edge of Massarde's mouth. "You're not entirely correct, Mr. Pitt. We do burn waste at Fort Foureau. A considerable amount as a matter of fact. Come into the next room, and I'll show you."

Captain Brunone stood back and gestured for Pitt and Giordino to follow Massarde.

He led them across a hall into a room whose center was filled by a three-dimensional scale, cutaway model of the Fort Foureau hazardous waste disposal project. The layout was elaborate, the detail so meticulous it was like looking at the real thing from a helicopter.

"Is this mock-up true to life or a fantasyland?" asked Pitt.