Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

Pitt began moving toward the door. "You start assembling the parts. I've got an errand to run. I'll catch up to you later."

Pitt walked past a group of men who were strengthening the doors of the main gate and made his way around the walls of the fort, careful to cover his footprints. He dropped down into a narrow ravine and walked until he came to a mound rising beside a steep slope.

The Avions Voisin sat in undisturbed solitude.

Most of the sand he and Giordino had hastily thrown over the roof and hood had blown away but enough was left to have kept it difficult to spot by Kazim's air patrols. He opened the door, sat behind the wheel, and pressed the starter button. Almost at once the engine settled into a quiet idle.

Pitt sat there for a few minutes, admiring the workmanship of the old auto. Then he turned off the ignition switch, stepped out, and recovered the body with sand.

Pitt climbed down the stairs into the arsenal. He saw immediately that Eva was on the mend. Although she was still haggard and pale, and her clothing tattered and filthy, she was helping to feed a young boy who was cradled in his mother's arms. She looked up at Pitt with an expression that reflected renewed strength and determination.

"How is he doing?" he asked.

"He'll be playing soccer in no time after he's eaten some solid food and a healthy supply of vitamins."

"I play football," the boy whispered.

"In France?" Eva asked curiously.

"We call it soccer," said Pitt, smiling. "In every country but ours it's known as football."

The father of the boy, one of the French engineers who had constructed the Fort Foureau project, came over and shook Pitt's hand. He looked like a scarecrow. He wore crude leather sandals, his shirt was torn and stained, and his pants were held up by a knotted rope. His face was half hidden under a black beard and one side of his head was heavily bandaged.

"I am Louis Monteux."

"Dirk Pitt."

"On behalf of my wife and boy," Monteux said weakly, "I can't thank you enough for saving our lives."

"We're not out of Mali yet," said Pitt.

"Better a quick death than Tebezza."

"By this time tomorrow we'll be beyond General Kazim's reach," Pitt assured him,

"Kazim and Yves Massarde," Monteux spat, "Murdering, criminals of the first magnitude."

"The reason Massarde sent you and your family to: Tebezza," Pitt questioned him, "it was to keep you from exposing the fraudulent operation at Fort Foureau?"

"Yes, the team of scientists and engineers who originally designed and constructed the project discovered upon completion that Massarde planned to bring in far more toxic waste than the operation was capable of disposing."'

"What was your job?"

"To design and oversee the construction of the thermal reactor for the destruction of the waste,"

"And it's working."

Monteux nodded proudly. "Yes indeed. Extremely well. It happens to be the largest and most efficient detoxification system operating anywhere in the world today. The solar, energy technology of Fort Foureau is the finest in its field."

"So where did Massarde go wrong? Why spend hundreds of millions of dollars for state-of-the-art equipment only to use it as a facade to secretly bury nuclear and excessive train loads of toxic waste?"'

"Germany, Russia, China, the United States, half the world is awash in high-level nuclear waste, the violently radioactive sludge that remains from reprocessed reactor fuel rods and the fissionable material from the production of nuclear bombs. Though it only represents less than one percent of all leftover nuclear material, there are still, millions of gallons of it sitting around with nowhere to go, Massarde offered to dispose of it all."

"But some governments have built disposal repositories."

"Too little, too late," Monteux shrugged. "France's new burial site at Soulaines was almost filled when completed. Then there is the Hanford Reservation waste facility at Richland, Washington, in your country. The tanks that were designed to contain high-level liquid waste for half a century began leaking after twenty years. Close to a million gallons of highly radioactive waste have escaped into the ground to contaminate the groundwater."

"A neat setup," said Pitt thoughtfully. "Massarde makes under-the-table deals with governments and corporations desperate to get rid of their toxic waste. Because Fort Foureau in the western Sahara seemed an ideal dumping ground, he goes into partnership with Zateb Kazim as a buffer against domestic or foreign protest. Then he charges, exorbitant fees and smuggles the waste info the middle of the world's most useless piece of real estate and buries it, under the guise