Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

"And the other," Giordino whispered, his face set in disbelief.

Pitt examined the figure next to the captain from head to toe. "Who do you think it is?"

"I don't trust my sunburned eyes. I was hoping you'd tell me."

Pitt's mind struggled to adjust to a set of circumstances that was completely foreign to him. "Whoever the artist," Pitt murmured in bewildered fascination, "he certainly painted a remarkable likeness of Abraham Lincoln."

Resting all day in the cool of the cave rejuvenated Pitt and Giordino to the point that they felt physically able to attempt a go for broke, nonstop crossing of the naked and hostile land to the Trans-Saharan Track. All thoughts and conjectures over the legendary ironclad in the desert were shelved temporarily in the recesses of their minds as they mentally prepared themselves for the almost impossible ordeal.

Late in the afternoon Pitt stepped outside the cave into the unremitting fire from the sun to set up his pipe for another compass reading. Only a few minutes in that open oven and he felt as if he was melting like a wax candle. He picked out a large rock that protruded from the horizon about 5 kilometers due east as a goal for the first hour of walking.

When he returned to the cool comfort of the cave of murals he did not have to feel the exhaustion and suffering or realize how weak he had become. His misery was all reflected in Giordino's hollow eyes, the filthy clothes, and grizzled hair, but especially in the look of a man who had come to the end of his rope.

They had endured countless dangers together, but Pitt had never seen Giordino with the look of defeat before. The psychological stress was winning over physical toughness. Giordino was pragmatic to the core. He met setbacks and hard knocks with characteristic stubbornness, assaulting them head-on. Unlike Pitt, he could not use the power of his imagination to banish the torture of thirst and the screaming pain of a body begging to wind down from lack of food and water. He could not bring himself to sink into a dreamworld where torment and despair were substituted with swimming pools, tall tropical drinks, and endless buffet tables piled high with appetizing delicacies.

Pitt could see that tonight was the last. If they were to beat the desert at its deadly game, they would have to redouble their determination to survive. Another twenty-four hours without water would finish them off. No strength would be left to go on. He was grimly afraid that the Trans-Saharan Track was a good 50 kilometers too far.

He gave Giordino another hour of rest before prodding him out of a dead sleep. "We have to leave now if we want to make any distance before the next sun."

Giordino opened his eyes into mere slits and struggled to a sitting position. "Why not stay in here another day and just take it easy?"

"Too many men, women, and children are counting on us to save ourselves so we can return and save them. Every hour counts."

The fleeting thought of the suffering women and frightened children down in the Tebezza gold mines was enough to wake Giordino from the heavy fog of sleep and bring him dazedly to his feet. Then at Pitt's urging, they feebly managed a few minutes of stretching exercises to loosen their aching muscles and stiff joints. One last look at the astounding rock paintings, their eyes lingering on the image of the rebel ironclad, and they set out across the great, sloping plateau, Pitt leading off toward the rock he'd pinpointed to the east.

This was it. Except for short rest stops, they had to forge on until they reached the track and were found by a passing motorist, hopefully one with a hefty supply of water. Whatever happened, searing heat, sand driven by the wind that blasted skin, difficult terrain, they had to keep going until they dropped or found rescue.

After having done its damage for the day, the sun slipped away and a swollen half moon took its place. Not a breath of air stirred the sand and the desert went profoundly still and silent. The desolate landscape seemed to reach into infinity, and the rocks protruding from the plateau like dinosaur bones still gave off shimmering waves from the day's heat. Nothing moved except the shadows that crept and lengthened behind the rocks like wraiths coming to life in the evening's fading light.

They walked on for seven hours. The rock used as a compass point came and went as the night wore on and became colder. Dreadfully weak and wasted, they began to shiver uncontrollably. The extreme ups and downs in temperature made Pitt feel as if he was experiencing seasonal changes, with the heat of day as summer, the evening as fall, midnight as winter, morning as spring.

The change in terrain came so gradually, he didn't realize the rocks and iron outcroppings had grown smaller and vanished completely. Only when he stopped to glance up at the stars for a heading and then looked ahead did he see they had come off the gradual slope of the plateau onto a flat plain cut by a series of wadis, or dry streams, carved out by long dead water flows or forgotten flash floods.

Their progress slowed with fatigue and tapered to a plodding stumble. The weariness, the sheer exhaustion, were like weights they were forced to carry on their shoulders. They walked and kept on walking, their misery deepening. Yet they made slow and even progress toward the east on what little strength they could spare. They were so weak that after the rest stops they could hardly rise to their feet and take up the struggle again.

Pitt kept himself going with images of how O'Bannion and Melika were treating the women and children in that hell pit of a mine. He had visions of Melika's tho

ng viciously striking helpless victims and slaves, sick from deprivation and overwork. How many had died in the days since he had escaped? Had Eva been carried to the chamber of corpses? He might have pushed aside such dire thoughts, but be let them linger since they only served to spur him to become a man beside himself, ignoring the suffering and continuing with the cold fortitude of a machine.

Pitt found it odd that he couldn't remember when he last spit. Though he sucked on small pebbles to relieve the relentless thirst, he could not even recall when he felt saliva in his mouth. His tongue had swelled like a dry sponge and felt as if it was dusted with alum, and yet he found he could still swallow.

They had lessened the loss of perspiration by walking in the cool of night and keeping their shirts on during the day to help control sweat evaporation without missing some of its cooling effects. But he realized that their bodies were badly desalinated, which contributed to their weakened condition.

Pitt tried every trick he could dredge up from his memory on desert survival, including breathing through his nose to prevent water loss and talking very little, and only then when they took a rest.

They came to a narrow river of sand that ran through a valley of boulder-strewn hills. They followed the riverbed until it turned north, and then climbed its bank and continued on their course. Another day was breaking, and Pitt paused to check Fairweather's map, holding up the tattered paper away from the brightening sky in the east. The rough drawing indicated a vast dry lake that stretched nearly unbroken to the Trans-Saharan Track. Though the level ground made for easier walking, Pitt saw a murderous environment, an open holocaust where shade did not exist.

There could be no resting during the fiery heat of the day. The ground was too gravelly firm to burrow under its surface. They would have to keep going and endure heat with the ferocity of an open flame. Already the sun was bursting into the sky and signaling another day of hideous torture.

The agony wore on and a few clouds appeared, hiding the sun, giving the men nearly two hours of grateful relief. And then the clouds drifted on and dissipated and the sun returned, hotter than ever. By noon Pitt and Giordino were barely clinging to life. If the heat of the day didn't conquer their agonized bodies the long night of intense cold surely would.

Then abruptly, they came to a deep ravine with steeply sloping banks that dropped 7 meters below the surface of the dry lake, slicing across it almost like a man-made canal. Because he was staring down at the ground Pitt nearly walked off the edge. He staggered to a halt, gazing despairingly at the unexpected barrier. There was simply not enough left in him to climb down into the bottom of the ravine and struggle up the other side. Giordino stumbled up beside him and collapsed, his body sagging limply before sinking to the ground, his head and arms hanging over the rim of the ravine.

As Pitt gazed across the crack in the dry lake at the vast nothingness ahead, he knew their epic struggle of endurance had come to an end. They had covered only 30 kilometers and there were another 50 to go.

Giordino slowly turned and looked up at Pitt, who was still on his feet, but swaying unsteadily, gazing at the eastern horizon as if seeing the goal that was tantalizingly near but impossible to reach.