"What brought you to that descriptive conclusion?" asked Massarde sarcastically.
"We know now there were three men on the boat that blew up on the river. I suspect they set the explosives as a diversion. Two came aboard your houseboat while the third, who must have been the man called Gunn, swam to shore and made his way to the airport."
"The raid and evacuation seem incredibly well conceived and timed to coincide with the pickup of this Gunn fellow."
"It developed quickly because it was planned and carried out by first-rate professionals," Kazim replied slowly. "The assault force was alerted to the time and place of Gunn's location, most certainly by the agent who called himself Dirk Pitt."
"How can you know that?"
Kazim shrugged. "A calculated guess." He looked at Massarde. "Are you forgetting that Pitt used your satellite communications system to contact his superior, Admiral James Sandecker? That's why he and Giordino came on board your boat."
"But that doesn't explain why Pitt and Giordino didn't make any attempt to escape with Gunn."
"Obviously you caught them before they could swim across the river and join him at the airport."
"Then why didn't they flee after stealing my helicopter? The Nigerian border is only 150 kilometers away. They could have almost made it with the fuel remaining in the helicopter's tanks. Makes little sense to fly deeper into the interior of the country, then ditch the craft and steal an old car. There are no bridges across the river in the area so they can't drive south to the border. Where can they possibly go?"
Kazim's ferret eyes looked at him steadily. "Perhaps where no one expected."
Massarde's brows pinched together. "North, into the desert?"
"Where else?"
"Absurd."
"I'm open to a better theory."
Massarde shook his head skeptically. "For what possible reason would two men steal a sixty-year-old car and strike out across the most desolate desert in the world? They'd be committing suicide."
"Until now their actions have defied explanation," Kazim admitted. "They were on some sort of covert mission. That much is certain. We still aren't certain what it is they were after."
"Secrets?" Massarde offered simply.
Kazim shook his head. "Any classified material on my military program is no doubt on file at the CIA. Mali has no secret projects that would interest a foreign nation, even those of our bordering nations."
"There are two you've forgotten."
Kazim looked at Massarde curiously. "What are you suggesting?"
"Fort Foureau and Tebezza."
Was it possible, Kazim thought, that the waste disposal project and the gold mines might be connected to the intruders? His mind tried to sift for answers, but there were none. "If those were their objectives, why are they mucking around over 300 kilometers to the south?"
"I can't answer you. But as my agent at the United Nations insisted, they were searching for a source of chemical contamination that originated in the Niger and caused an expansive growth of red tides after entering the sea."
"I find that utter rot. Most likely a red herring to hide their real mission."
"Which might well be the penetration of Fort Foureau and a human rights expose of Tebezza," Massarde threw out seriously.
Kazim was silent, his expression reflecting doubt.
Massarde continued. "Suppose Gunn already had vital information on him when he was evacuated. Why else would such a complex operation be mounted to rescue him while Pitt and Giordino headed north toward our joint projects?"
"We'll find the answers when I capture them," said Kazim, his voice becoming tense with anger. "Every available military and police unit has already closed all roads and camel trails leading out of the country. I've also ordered my air force to conduct aerial reconnaissance over the northern desert. I intend to cover every option."
"A wise decision," said Massarde.
"Without supplies they won't last two days in the heat of the desert."
"I trust your methods, Zateb. I have no doubt you will have Pitt and Giordino in one of your interrogation cells by this time tomorrow."
"Sooner, I should think."
"That's most reassuring," Massarde said, smiling.
But somehow he knew Pitt and Giordino would not be easy game to run down.
Captain Batutta came to attention and saluted as he stood in front of Colonel Mansa who merely returned the salute with an indifferent wave.
"The UN scientists are imprisoned at Tebezza," Batutta reported.
A slight smile touched Mansa's lips. "I imagine O'Bannion and Melika were happy to obtain new workers for the mines."
Batutta flashed an expression of disgust. "She's one cruel witch, that Melika. I don't envy any man who feels the sting of her quirt."
"Or woman," added Mansa. "She makes no distinction when she metes out punishment. I give Dr. Hopper and his party four months before the last of them lies buried in the sand."
"General Kazim will be the last to shed a tear over their demise."
The door opened, and Lieutenant Djemaa, the Malian air force pilot of the UN scientist's plane, walked in and saluted. Mansa looked up at him. "Did everything go off all right?"
Djemaa smiled. "Yes sir, we flew back to Asselar, dug up the required number of corpses, and loaded them on the plane. Then returned north where my copilot and I bailed out over the designated area of the Tanezrouft Desert, a good 100 kilometers from the nearest camel track."
"The plane burned after it crashed?" asked Manses.
"Yes sir."
"Did you inspect the wreckage?"
Djemaa nodded. "After the driver of the desert vehicle you stationed to pick us up arrived, we drove to the crash site. I had set the controls so it went down in a vertical dive. It exploded on impact, blasting a crater almost 10 meters deep. Except for the engines there wasn't a piece of wreckage larger than a shoe box."
Mansa's face broadened with a smile of satisfaction. "General Kazim will be pleased. Both you men can expect promotions." He looked at Djemaa. "And you, Lieutenant, will be in command of the search operation to find Hopper's plane."
"But why would I direct a search," asked Djemaa in confusion, "when I already know where it is?"
"Why else would you fill it with dead bodies?"
"Captain Batutta did not inform me of the plan."
"We play our benevolent role in discovering the wreckage," Mansa explained. "And then turn it over to international flight accident investigators, who will not have enough human remains to identify or evidence to provide the cause of the crash." He gave a hard stare at Djemaa. "Providing the Lieutenant has done a complete job."
"I personally removed the flight recorder," Djemaa assured him.
"Good, now we can begin displaying our country's concern over the disappearance of the UN scientists' flight to the international news media and express our deep regret for their loss."
The afternoon heat was suffocating as it reflected off the sun-baked surface. Without proper dark glasses, the immense plain of rock and sand, dazzled by the fiery sun, blinded Pitt's eyes as he sat on the graveled bottom of a narrow gorge under the shade of the Avions Voisin. Except for the supplies they had scrounged from the garage in Bourem, they only, possessed the clothes on their backs.
Giordino was in the midst of using the tools he'd found in the trunk of the car to remove the exhaust pipe and muffler to give the car more ground clearance. They had already reduced the tire pressure for better traction in the sand. So far the old Voisin moved through the inhospitable landscape like an aging beauty queen walking through the Bronx in New York, stylish but sadly misplaced.
They traveled during the cool of night beneath the light of the stars, groping over the barren expanse at no more than 10 kilometers an hour, stopping every hour to raise the hood and let the engine cool. There was no thought of using the headlights. The beams could have been caught by a keen observer from an aircraft far out of earshot. Quite often the passenger had to walk ahead to examine the ground. Once they almost drove into a steep ravine and twice they had to dig and scoop their way out of patches of soft sand.