Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

Though they would not win, Dr. Darcy Chapman and Rudi Gunn were named as candidates for a joint Nobel Prize. They ignored the hoopla and returned together to the South Atlantic to analyze the effects of the mammoth red tide on the sea life. Dr. Frank Hopper joined them after being smuggled from the hospital and carried on board the research ship. He swore he'd recover faster back in the saddle, studying the toxicity of the red tides.

Hiram Yaeger received a fat bonus from NUMA and an extra ten-day paid vacation. He took his family to Disney World. While they enjoyed the attractions, he attended a seminar on archival computer systems.

General Hugo Bock, after seeing that the survivors and relatives of the dead from the now legendary battle of Fort Foureau received commendation medals and generous financial benefits, decided to resign from the UN Tactical Team at the height of his reputation. He retired to a small village in the Bavarian Alps.

As Pitt predicted, Colonel Levant was promoted to General, presented with a United Nations peace-keeping medal, and was named to succeed General Bock,

After recovering from hi

s wounds at his family manor in Cornwall, Captain Pembroke-Smythe was promoted to Major and returned to his former regiment. He was received by the Queen, who presented him with the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). He is currently posted with a special commando unit.

St. Julien Perlmutter, happy that he was wrong at seeing the American public take the reappearance of their most esteemed President and the belated expose of Edwin Stanton's treason in stride, was feted by numerous historic organizations and honored with enough awards to fill one wall of his house.

Al Giordino tracked down the cute piano player he met on Yves Massarde's houseboat in the Niger. Fortunately, she was unmarried and for some inexplicable reason, at least to Pitt, she took a liking to Giordino and accepted his invitation to go on a diving trip to the Red Sea.

As for Dirk Pitt and Eva Rojas. . .

June 25, 1996

Monterey, California

June marked the height of the tourist season on the Monterey Peninsula. They drove their cars and recreational vehicles bumper-to-bumper over the scenic Seventeen-Mite Drive between Monterey and Carmel. Along Cannery Row, the shoppers were shoulder-to-shoulder as they alternated between buying sprees and dining in the picturesque seafood restaurants overlooking the water.

They came to play golf at Pebble Beach, see Big Sur, and take pictures of sunsets off Point Lobos. They wandered through the wineries, stared at the ancient cypress trees, and strolled along the beaches, thrilling to the sights of gliding pelicans, the barking of the seals, and the crashing waves.

Eva's mother and father were becoming immune to their spectacular surroundings after having lived in the same cottage-style house in Pacific Grove for over thirty-two years. They often took for granted their good fortune at living in such a beautiful part of the California coast. But the blinders always came off when Eva came home. She never failed to see the peninsula through the eyes of a teenager, as if viewing her very own car for the first time.

Whenever she came home she dragged her parents out of their comfortable routine to enjoy the simple beauties of their community. But this trip was a different story. She was in no condition to push them into a bike ride or a swim in the brisk waters rolling in from the Pacific. Nor did she feel in the mood to do anything but mope around the house.

Two days out of the hospital, Eva was confined to a wheelchair, recovering from her injuries suffered at Fort Foureau. The wasted body, drained by her ordeal in the mines at Tebezza, had been rejuvenated by hefty helpings of healthy food that had added an inch on her slim waistline with the addition of too many calories, a condition exercise could not cure until her fractures knitted and the casts came off.

Her body was slowly mending, but her mind was sick from not hearing a word from Pitt. Since she had been airlifted from the ruins of the old Foreign Legion fort to Mauritania, and from there to a hospital in San Francisco, it was as though he had fallen into deep space. A phone call to Admiral Sandecker had only assured her that Pitt was still in the Sahara and had not returned to Washington with Giordino.

"Why don't you come golfing with me this morning?" her father asked her. "Do you good to get out of the house."

She looked up into his twinkling gray eyes and smiled at the way his gray hair never stayed combed. "I don't think I'm in shape to hit the ball," she grinned.

"I thought you might like to ride in the cart with me."

She thought it over for a while, and then nodded. "Why not?" She held up her good arm and wiggled the toes on her right foot. "But only if I get to drive."

Her mother fussed over her as she helped load Eva into the family Chrysler. "Now you see she doesn't hurt herself," she admonished Eva's father.

"I promise to bring her back in the same condition I found her," he joked.

Mr. Rojas teed off on the fourth hole of the Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Course along fairways that stretched around the Point Pinos Lighthouse. He watched his ball drop into a sandtrap, shook his head, and dropped the club in its bag.

"Not enough muscle," he muttered in frustration.

Eva sat behind the wheel of the cart and gestured to a bench perched on a lookout over the sea. "Would you mind, Dad, if I sat out the next five holes. It's such a beautiful day, 'd just like to sit and look at the ocean."

"Why sure, honey. I'll pick you up on my way back to the clubhouse."

After he helped her settle as comfortably as possible on the bench, he waved and drove the cart on down the fairway toward the green with three of his golfing buddies following in another cart.

There was a light mist hanging just over the water, but she could see the sweeping shore of the bay as it curved into the town of Monterey and then swept in a near straight line northward. The sea was calm and the waves moved like burrowing animals under the great fields of kelp. She inhaled the air, pungent with drying seaweed draped on the rocky shore, and watched a sea otter's antics as it cavorted around the kelp.