Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

Pitt settled next to Giordino and smiled. "During a trip around the states with a school buddy one summer, we stopped at a farm in Oregon that advertised for berry pickers. We thought it would be easy gas money and applied. Whey paid fifty cents a lug, which if I remember correctly, held about eight small boxes. What we didn't know is that raspberries are much smaller and softer than strawberries. Picking as fast as we could go it seemed forever to fill up a lugs"

So you loaded the bottoms with dirt and layered the tops with berries."

Pitt laughed. "At that, we only averaged thirty-six cents an hour."

"What do you think will happen when the old bitch finds out we laid timbers as false floors in the ore cars and only piled a few rocks on top to make them look fully loaded?"

"She won't be happy."

"Throwing a handful of dust on the lens of the TV camera to blur our images was a nice touch. The guards never caught on."

"At least our little con job bought us some time without exhausting our reserves."

"I'm so thirsty I could drink dust."

"If we don't get water soon, we'll be in no shape to make a break."

Giordino eyed the chains on his manacles and then the rails under the ore cars. "I wonder if we can cut our chains by laying them on the rails and running a car over them."

"I thought about that five hours ago," said Pitt. "The chains are too thick. Nothing less than a full-size Union Pacific diesel locomotive could crush these links."

"I hate a spoilsport," Giordino grumbled.

Pitt idly picked up a piece of ore and studied it under the string of overhead lights. "I'm no geologist, but I'd say this is gold-bearing quartz. Judging from the grains and flakes in the rock, it comes from a fairly rich vein."

"Massarde's share must go toward expanding his sordid empire."

Pitt shook his head in dissent. "No, he wouldn't spread it around and incur tax problems. I bet he skips converting it into cash and hoards the ingots somewhere. Since he's French, my guess is one of the Society Islands."

"Tahiti?"

"Or Bora Bora or Moorea. Only Massarde or his flunky, Verenne, knows for sure."

"Maybe when we get out of here we can go on a treasure hunt to the South Seas--"

Suddenly Pitt sat up and held a finger to his mouth for silence. "Another guard coming," he announced.

Giordino cocked an ear and gazed down the shaft. But the guard was not in sight yet. "Pretty clever of you to scatter gravel around the other side of the bend. You can hear the crunch of their footsteps before they appear."

"Let's look busy."

They both leaped to their feet and made a show of busily stacking ore on the heaps already topping the cars. A Tuareg guard walked around the bend and watched them for a minute. As he turned to leave and continue his rounds, Pitt shouted at him.

"Hey, pal, we're finished. See, all loaded. Time to knock off."

"Get food and water," Giordino jumped in.

The eyes of the guard darted from Pitt down along the line of ore cars. Suspiciously, he walked the train from end to end and back again. He looked at the large pile of ore remaining on the floor of the shaft and scratched his head through his litham. Then he shrugged and gestured with his automatic weapon for Pitt and Giordino to begin moving toward the entrance of the shaft.

"They're not big on small talk around here," grunted Giordino.

"Makes it tough

to bribe them."

Once into the main tunnel, they followed the narrow set of rails up a long sloping grade cut in the bowels of the plateau. An ore train with a guard driving the locomotive rumbled into view, and they had to press their backs against the side of the hewn wall to allow it to pass. A short distance later they reached a hollowed-out cavern where the rails from other cross shafts congregated at a large elevator that could hold four ore cars at one time.

"Where are they taking the ore?" asked Giordino.