"I'll look forward to it."
She closed her eyes, tilted back her head, and soaked in the sun, her cheeks glowing from the rising heat of the day. He gazed down at her, taking in every lovely detail that had not been affected by her long ordeal. The lookouts stationed around the ramparts faded into the bright sunlight. He wanted to wrap her in his arms, forget the dangers, forget everything but this moment and kiss her.
And he did.
For a long moment she gripped him tightly around the neck and kissed back. He squeezed her around the waist and pulled her to her toes. How long they clung together, neither could remember.
Finally she pushed back and looked up into his opaline green eyes, and felt weakness, excitement, and love wrapped up in one swirling emotion. She whispered, "I knew from that dinner together in Cairo I'd never be able to resist you."
He said softly, "And I thought I'd never see you again."
"Will you be going back to Washington after we escape?" She spoke the words as if reaching safety was a certainty.
He shrugged without letting her go. "I'm sure they'll want me to return and work on stopping the red tides. And you, after a good rest, where will it be? Another mission of mercy to an underdeveloped country to fight disease?"
"It's my job," she murmured. "Helping to save lives is all I've ever wanted to do since I was a little girl."
"Doesn't leave much time for romance, does it?"
"We're both prisoners of our occupations."
The lookout came over then. "You'll have to get down below out of sight now," she said as if embarrassed. "We can't be too careful now, can we?"
Eva pulled Pitt's beard-stubbly face down to hers and whispered again in his ear. "Would you think me wanton if I said I want you?"
He smiled. "I'm an easy mark for wanton girls."
She made a small gesture at brushing back her hair and straightening out her dirty and tattered clothing. "But certainly not one who hasn't bathed in two weeks and is as skinny as an underfed alley cat."
"Oh I don't know. Unwashed skinny women have been known to bring out the animal in me."
Without another word, Pitt led her down to the parade ground and into a small storeroom off of what was once the kitchen and mess hall. It was empty except for a wooden keg of iron spikes. No one was in sight. He left her for a minute and returned with two blankets. Then he laid the blankets on the dusty floor of the empty storeroom and locked the door.
They could barely see each other from the light that crept under the door as he squeezed her with his arms again. "Sorry I can't offer you champagne and a king-size bed."
Eva daintily straightened the blankets and knelt down, looking up at his dim, rugged-looking face. "I'll just close my eyes and imagine I'm with my handsome lover in the most luxurious suite in the finest hotel in San Francisco."
Pitt kissed her and laughed softly. "Lady, you've got one fantastic imagination."
Massarde's chief aide, Felix Verenne, stepped into his boss' office. "A call from Ismail Yerli at Kazim's headquarters."
Massarde nodded and picked up the phone. "Yes, Ismail, I hope this is good news."
"I regret to tell you, Mr. Massarde, the news is anything but good."
"Did Kazim catch the UN combat unit?"
"No, he has yet to find them. Their plane was destroyed as we thought, but they vanished in the desert."
"Why can't his patrols follow their tracks?" Massarde demanded angrily.
"The desert wind has blown sand over them," Yerli answered calmly. "All trace of their trail has been obliterated:"
"What is the situation at the mine?"
"The prisoners have rioted, killed the guards, and destroyed the equipment and ravaged the offices. Your engineers are dead too. It will take six months to put the mine back in full operation."
"What of O'Bannion?"
"Disappeared. No sign of his body. My men did find his sadistic overseer, however."
"The American he called Melika?"
"The prisoners mutilated her body with a vengeance, almost beyond recognition."
"The raiders must have taken O'Bannion as informant against us," suggested Massarde.
"Too soon to tell," Yerli replied. "Kazim's officers have just begun interrogating the prisoners. Another bit of news I can pass along that won't sit well with you is that the Americans, Pitt and Giordino, were recognized by one surviving guard. They somehow fled the mines over a week ago, crossed into Algeria, and returned with the UN raiders."
Massarde was thunderstruck. "Good God, that means they reached Algiers and made outside contact."
"My thoughts also."
"Why weren't we informed by O'Bannion they had escaped?"
"Fear of how you and Kazim would react, obviously. How they traveled over 400 kilometers of desert without food and water is a mystery."
"If they exposed our operation of the mine with captive labor to their superiors in Washington, they must have also revealed the secret of Fort Foureau."
"They have no documented proof," Yerli reminded him. "Two foreigners who illegally crossed sovereign borders and committed criminal acts against the Malian government will not be taken seriously in any international court of law."
"Except that my project will be besieged with news correspondents and world environmental investigators."
"Not to worry. I will advise Kazim to close the borders to all outsiders, and have them expelled if they do."
"You're forgetting," said Massarde, trying to remain calm, "the French engineers and scientists I contracted to build the project and threw into Tebezza. Once they reach safety, they will spread the word of their abduction and imprisonment. Even more damaging, they will expose our illegal waste dumping operation. Massarde Enterprises will be attacked on all fronts, and I will face criminal charges in every country I have an office or project."
"None will live to give evidence," Yerli said as if it was a foregone conclusion.
"What is the next step?" Massarde asked.
"Kazim's aerial reconnaissance and motor patrols can find no indication of their crossing into Algeria. That means they're still in Mali, staying undercover and awaiting rescue."
"Which Kazim's forces will stop."
"Of course."
"Could they have headed west for Mauritania?"
Yerli shook his head to himself. "Not with over 1000 kilometers between them and the first village with water. Also, they couldn't possibly have carried enough fuel for that distance."
"They must be stopped, Ismail," said Massarde without concealing a note of desperation. "They must be exterminated."
"And they shall be," Yerli promised. "I vow to you, they will not get out of Mali. Every last one of them will be hunted down. They may fool Kazim, but they won't fool me."
El Haj Ali sat in the sand under the shade of his camel and waited for a train to pass by. He had walked and ridden over 200 kilometers from his village of Araouane to see the wonder of a railroad, described to him by a passing Britisher who was leading a group of tourists across the desert.
Just past his fourteenth birthday, Ali's father had given him permission to take one of the family's two camels, a superb white animal, and travel north to the shining rails and witness the great steel monster with his own eyes. Though he had seen automobiles and distant aircraft in the sky, other wonders such as cameras, radios, and television sets were a mystery to him. But to actually see and perhaps touch a locomotive would make him the envy of every boy and girl in his village.
He drank tea and sucked on boiled sweets as he waited. After three hours and no sign of an approaching train, he mounted his camel and set off along the tracks toward the Fort Foureau project so he could tell his family about the immense buildings that rose out of the desert.