Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

She dabbed a wet handkerchief on the little girl's forehead and suddenly leaned her head against Pitt's chest and sobbed. "Why did you come to Mali? Now you're going to die like the rest of us."

"We have a date, remember?"

Pitt was concentrating his attention on Eva and didn't see the three men cautiously moving in between the bunks and surrounding them. The leader was a big man with a red face and bushy beard. The other two looked haggard and worn out. They all bore lash marks on their naked backs and chests. The menacing expressions on their faces brought a grin from Giordino as he turned and faced them. Their physical conditions were so pathetic he was confident he could have laid out all three without breathing hard.

"These men bothering you?" the red-faced man said to Eva protectively.

"No, no, not at all," Eva murmured. "This is Dirk Pitt, the man who saved my life in Egypt."

"The man from NUMA?"

"The same," Pitt replied. He turned to Giordino. "This is my friend, Al Giordino."

"By God, a real pleasure. I'm Frank Hopper and this shabby fellow on my left is Warren Grimes."

"Eva told me a great deal about you in Cairo."

"Damned sorry we have to meet under such grim circumstances," Hopper stared at the deep cuts on both of Pitt's cheeks and touched the long scab that ran across his own face. "It seems we've both angered Melika."

"Only on the left side. The right one came from another source."

The third man stepped forward and held out his hand. "Major Ian Fairweather," he introduced himself.

Pitt shook the outstretched hand. "British?"

Fairweather nodded. "Liverpool."

"Why were you brought here?"

"I led tourist safaris across the Sahara until one was massacred by plague-crazed villagers. I barely escaped with my life, and after struggling across the desert, was rescued and hospitalized in Gao. General Zateb Kazim arrested me so I couldn't reveal what I'd seen and sent me here to Tebezza."

"We did pathology studies on the villagers Major Fairweather is referring to," explained Hopper. "All died from a mysterious chemical compound."

"Synthetic amino acid and cobalt," said Pitt.

Hopper and Grimes looked peculiarly stunned. "What, what did you say?" demanded Grimes.

"The toxic contamination causing death and sickness throughout Mali is an organometallic compound that's a combination of an altered synthetic amino acid and cobalt."

"How could you possibly know that?" asked Hopper.

"While your team was searching in the desert, mine was tracking it up the Niger River."

"And you identified the stuff," Hopper said with a look of optimism that wasn't there before.

Pitt briefly told of the red tide explosion, his expedition up the river, and the presumed flight by Rudi Gunn with their data.

"Thank God, you got your results out," muttered Hopper.

"The source," pressed Grimes. "Where is the source?"

"Fort Foureau," Giordino answered him.

"Not a chance-"Grimes stared dumbly. "Fort Foureau and the contamination sites are hundreds of kilometers apart."

>

"It's carried by underground water movement," Pitt clarified. "Al and I had a look around inside the project before we were captured. High-level nuclear waste, as well as ten times the hazardous waste that's being burned, is being buried in underground caverns where it leaks into the groundwater."