Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

June 10, 1996

Washington, D. C.

Two weeks after the siege of Fort Foureau, Admiral Sandecker was seated in a conference room at NUMA's headquarters in Washington at the head of along table. Dr. Chapman, Hiram Yaeger, and Rudi Gunn sat alongside, staring into a large TV monitor embedded in one wall.

The Admiral motioned impatiently at the blank screen. "When are they going to come on?"

Yaeger was holding a telephone to his ear while studying the monitor. "The satellite should be downlinking their signal from Mali any second."

Almost before Yaeger finished speaking, a picture flickered and settled onto the screen. Pitt and Giordino sat together behind a desk piled with file folders and papers while facing into a camera. "Are you receiving us all right on your end?" asked Yaeger.

"Hello, Hiram," answered Pitt. "Nice to see your face and hear your voice."

"You're looking good here. Everyone is anxious to talk to you."

"Good morning, Dirk," greeted Sandecker. "How are your injuries?"

"It's afternoon here, Admiral. And I'm healing nicely, thank you."

After Pitt exchanged friendly greetings with Rudi Gunn and Dr. Chapman, the Admiral launched the discussion. "We have good news," he said enthusiastically. "A satellite survey of the South Atlantic, computer analyzed only an hour ago, shows the growth rate of the red tide as falling off. All of Yaeger's projections indicate that the spread is slowly grinding to a halt."

"And not a week too soon," said Gunn. "We've already detected a 5 percent drop in the world's total oxygen supply. It wouldn't be long before we'd all begin to feel the effects."

"All automobiles from every cooperating nation in the world were within twenty-four hours of being banned from the streets," Yaeger lectured. "All aircraft grounded, all industrial factories shut down. The world was a hair away from coming to a standstill."

"But it appears both our efforts have paid off," acknowledged Chapman. "You and Al, finding and burning the source of the synthetic amino acid that stimulated the dinoflagellate population explosion, and our NUMA scientific team discovering the little critters are fussy about reproducing if they're subjected to a one-part-per=million dose of copper."

"Have you found a significant drop in the contamination streaming into the Niger River since we shut off the flow?" asked Pitt.

Gunn nodded. "By nearly 30 percent. I underestimated the migration rate of groundwater from the hazardous waste project south to the river. It moves more rapidly through the textured sand and gravel of the Sahara than I originally projected."

"How long before the pollution reaches a safe level?"

"Dr. Chapman and I are predicting a good six months before most of its residue has flowed into the ocean."

"Cutting off the pollutant was a vital first step," Chapman spelled out. "It gave us extra time to air drop copper particles over large areas of the tides. I think it's safe to say we've turned the corner on an eco-disaster of frightening consequences."

"But the battle is far from over," Sandecker reminded him. "The United States alone produces only 58 percent of the oxygen it consumes, oxygen mostly created by plankton in the Pacific Ocean. In another twenty years, because of the increase in auto and air traffic, and the continuing devastation to the world's forests and wetlands, we'll begin to use up our oxygen faster than nature can replenish it."

"And we still face the problem we're currently experiencing of chemicals poisoning the oceans," Chapman followed the Admiral. "We've had a bad scare, but the near tragedy with the red tides has demonstrated how critically close human and wildlife are to the last gasp of oxygen"

"Maybe from now on," said Pitt, "we won't take our air supply for granted."

"Two weeks have passed since you took over Fort Foureau," said Sandecker. "What's your situation with the operation?"

"Pretty damned good, actually," answered Giordino. "After cutting off all incoming waste shipments by train, we've kept the solar reactor burning day and night. Another thirty-six hours should see all industrial contaminants that Massarde hid away in the underground storage vaults destroyed."

"What have you done about the nuclear waste storage?" asked Chapman.

"After they had a brief rest from their ordeal at Tebezza," Pitt replied, "I asked the original French engineers who supervised the construction of the project to return. They agreed and have since assembled Malian work crews to continue excavating the storage chamber down to 1.5 kilometers."

"Will that depth keep high-level waste safe from earth's organisms? Plutonium 239, for example, has a half-life of 24,000 years."

Pitt smiled. "Unknowingly, Massarde couldn't have selected a better place for the deep burial of waste. The geology is very stable in this part of the Sahara. The rock beds have been undisturbed for hundreds of millions of years. We're nowhere near crustal-plate boundaries, and far below existing groundwater. No one will have to worry about the waste affecting life ever again."

"How do you intend to contain the waste after it's stored underground?"