Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

After 20 kilometers, the plains met a plateau. The new sun was about to rise when they put it to a vote and decided to climb the steep escarpment to the top before resting for the day. Four hours later, when they finally struggled over the edge, the sun had risen well above the horizon. The effort had taken what little reserves they had left. Their hearts pounded madly after the torturous strain of the strenuous ascent, leg muscles fiery with pain, chests heaving as starving lungs demanded more air.

Pitt was exhausted and afraid to sit down for fear he could never regain his feet again. He stood weakly, swaying on the ledge, and gazed around as if he was a captain on the bridge of a ship. If the plain below was a featureless wasteland, the surface of the plateau was a sun-blasted, grotesque nightmare. A sea of confused, twisted tumbles of scorched red and black rock, interspersed with rusting obelisk-like outcroppings of iron ore, spread out to the east directly in their path. It was like staring at a city destroyed centuries ago by a nuclear explosion.

"What part of Hades is this?" Giordino rasped.

Pitt pulled out Fairweather's map, now badly wrinkled and beginning to split apart, and flattened it across his knee. "He shows it on the map, but didn't write in a name."

"Then from this moment on, it shall be known as Giordino's hump."

Pitt's parched lips cracked into a smile. "If you want to register the name, all you have to do is apply with the International Geological Institute."

Giordino collapsed on the rocky ground and stared vacantly across the plateau. "How far have we come?"

"About 120 kilometers."

"Still 60 to go to the Trans-Saharan Track."

"Except that we ran up against a manifestation of Pitt's law."

"What law is that?"

"He who follows another man's map comes up 20 kilometers short."

"You sure we didn't take a wrong turn back there?"

Pitt shook his head. "We haven't traveled in a straight line."

"So how much farther?"

"I reckon another 80 kilometers."

Giordino looked at Pitt through sunken eyes that were reddened from fatigue and spoke through lips cracked and swollen. "That's another 50 miles. We've already come the last 70 without a drop of water."

"Seems more like a thousand," Pitt said hoarsely.

"Well," Giordino muttered. "I have to say the issue is in doubt. I don't think I can make it."

Pitt looked up from the map. "I never thought I'd hear that from you."

"I've never experienced total agonizing thirst before. I can remember when it was a daily sensation. Now it's become more of an obsession than a craving."

"Two more nights and we'll dance on the track."

Giordino slowly shook his head. "Wishful thinking. We don't have the stamina to walk another 50 miles without water in this heat, not as dehydrated as we are."

Pitt was haunted by the constant vision of Eva slaving in the mines, being beaten by Melika. "They'll all die if we don't get through."

"You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip," said Giordino. "It's a miracle we made it this far-" He sat up and shaded his eyes. Then he pointed excitedly toward a jumbled mass of huge rocks. "There, between those rocks, doesn't that look like the small entrance to a cave?"

Pitt's eyes followed his pointing hand. There was indeed a black opening amid the rocks. He took Giordino's hand and pulled him to his feet. "See, our luck's changing for the better already. Nothing like a nice, cool cave to while away the hottest time of the day."

Already the heat was suffocating as it reflected off the red-brown rocks and iron outcroppings. They felt as if they were walking through the cinders of a barbecue. Without sunglasses they screwed their eyes up and covered them with the cloth of their makeshift turbans, peering down through tiny slits, seeing only the ground a few meters in front of them.

They had to climb a pile of loose boulders to the entrance of the cave, careful not to touch the rock with their bare hands or they would be sorely burnt. A small wall of sand had drifted across the floor of the entrance and they knelt and scooped it away with their hands. Pitt had to duck under the overhanging rock to enter the cave while Giordino waded through the sand while standing fully erect.

They did not have to wait for their eyes to get used to the dim light. There was no dark zone. The cavern had not been carved by wind or water eroding their way through limestone. A huge mass of rocks had been stacked upon one another during a great Paleozoic upheaval of the earth, forming a hollow cavern. The center was lit by the sun's rays that passed through openings in the rocks above.

As Pitt moved deeper into the interior, two large human figures loomed over him in the shadows. Instinctively, be stepped back, colliding with Giordino.