Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

"Look for yourself." Giordino swung an arm like a compass. "The cupboard's bare. Nothing but sand."

"We have a break in the geology to the east," said Pitt, motioning at a wide ravine dividing the shore. "Looks as though it once carried water."

"Not in our lifetime," said Gunn. "Appears to have been a tributary into the main channel during wetter centuries."

Giordino studied the ancient streambed solemnly. "Rudi must have tuned in a video game. There's no contamination entering the river here."

"Swing around and make another run so I can recheck my data," said Gunn.

Pitt complied and ran several lanes back and forth as if mowing a lawn, beginning close to the shore and working out into the channel toward the opposite bank until his props churned silt on the rising bottom. The radar showed the tailing gunboat had stopped, the captain and his officers probably wondering what the crew of the Calliope was up to.

Gunn popped his head through the hatch after the final run. "Swear to God, the highest concentration of toxin comes from the mouth of that big wash on the east bank."

They all stared dubiously at the centuries-old dry riverbed. The rock-strewn bottom curled northward toward a range of low dunes in the desert wasteland. No one spoke as Pitt set the throttles on idle and let the yacht drift with the current.

"No evidence of toxic residue beyond this point?" questioned Pitt.

"None," Gunn answered flatly. "The concentration goes off scale just below the old wash and then disappears upstream."

"Maybe it's a natural by-product of the soil," offered Giordino.

"This ungodly compound can't be produced by nature," muttered Gunn. "I promise you that."

"How about an underground drainage pipe running from a chemical plant beyond the dunes," Pitt speculated.

Gunn shrugged. "Can't tell without further investigation. This is as far as we can go. We've kept our end of the bargain. Now it's up to contamination specialists to pick up the rest of the pieces."

Pitt gazed over the stern at the gunboat that had crept into view. "Our hounds are getting nosy. Not bright of us to show them what devilment we're about. We'd best continue on course as though we're still taking in the scenery."

"Some scenery," grunted Giordino. "Death Valley is a garden spot compared to this."

Pitt pushed the throttles forward, and the Calliope lifted her bow and surged ahead with a mellow roar from her exhaust. In less than two minutes the Malian gunboat was left far in the yacht's spreading wake. Now, he thought, comes the fun part.

General Kazim sat in a leather executive chair at the end of a conference table flanked by two of Mali's cabinet ministers and his military Chief-of-Staff. At first glance the modern paintings on the silk-covered walls and the thick carpet gave the meeting room the look of a posh office in a modern building. The only giveaway was the curved ceiling and the muffled sound of the jet engines.

The elegantly furnished Airbus Industrie A300 was only one of several gifts Yves Massarde had presented to Kazim in return for allowing the Frenchman industrialist to conduct his vast operations in Mali without wasting time on such trifling details as government laws and restrictions. Whatever Massarde wanted, Kazim gave, so long as the General's foreign bank accounts became fat and he was kept in expensive toys.

Besides acting as a private means of transportation for the General and his cronies, the Airbus was electronically fitted out as a military communications command center, mostly to divert any accusations of corruption from the small but vocal opposition party members of President Tahir's parliament.

Kazim listened silently while his Chief-of-Staff, Colonel Sghir Cheik, explained in detail the reports of the destruction of the Benin gunboats and helicopter. He then passed Kazim two photographs taken of the super yacht on her passage up the river from the sea. "In the first photo," Cheik pointed out, "the yacht is flying the French tricolor. But since entering our country, she is sailing under a pirate flag."

"What nonsense is this?" demanded Kazim.

"We don't know," Cheik confessed. "The French ambassador swears the boat is unknown to his government and is not documented under French ownership. As to the pirate flag, it is an enigma."

"You must know where the boat came from."

"Our intelligence sources have been unable to trace its manufacturer or the country of origin. Its lines and style are unfamiliar to the major boat yards in America and Europe."

"Japanese or Chinese perhaps," suggested Mali's Foreign Minister, Messaoud Djerma.

Cheik pulled the hairs of his wedge-shaped beard and adjusted his tinted, designer glasses. "Our agents have also canvassed boat builders in Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan who design premier yachts with speeds exceeding 50 kilometers an hour. None had any record or knowledge of such a boat."

"You have no information about this intrusion at all?" Kazim asked unbelievingly.

"Nothing." Cheik held up his hands. "It's as though Allah dropped her from the heavens."