Pitt lay stretched out on the upper slope of a low dune, almost buried in the sand, and stared up at the birds for a few moments. Then he turned his attention back to the immense sprawl of the Fort Foureau solar detoxification project. It was an unreal place. Not simply a man-made edifice to technology but a thriving, productive facility surrounded by a land that had long since died under the onslaught of drought and heat.
Pitt twisted slightly as he heard the soft movement of sand behind him and saw Giordino approaching on his stomach, wiggling up the dune like a lizard.
"Enjoying the scenery?" asked Giordino.
"Come take a look. I guarantee you'll be impressed."
"The only thing that would impress me right now is a beach with nice cool surf."
"Don't let your curly locks show," said Pitt. "A black tuft of hair against the yellow-white sand stands out like a skunk on a fence post."
Giordino grinned like the village idiot as he poured a handful of sand into his hair. He moved alongside Pitt, peering over the summit of the dune. "My, my," he murmured in awe. "If I didn't know better, I'd say I was looking at a city on the moon."
"The sterile landscape is there," Pitt admitted, "but there's no glass dome over the top."
"This place is almost as big as Disney World."
"I'd estimate 20 square kilometers."
"We have incoming freight," said Giordino, pointing to a long train of railroad cars drawn by four diesel engines. "Business must be booming."
"Massarde's toxic gravy train," Pitt mused. "I estimate about a hundred and twenty cars filled with poisonous garbage."
Giordino nodded toward a vast field covered with long trough-like basins with concave surfaces that bounced the sun's rays like a sea of mirrors. "Those look like solar reflectors."
"Concentrators," said Pitt. "They collect solar radiation and concentrate it into tremendous heat and proton intensities. The radiant energy is then focused inside a chemical reactor that completely destroys the hazardous waste."
"Aren't we the bright one," said Giordino. "When did you become an expert on sunlight?"
"I used to date a lady who was an engineer with the Solar Energy Institute. She took me on a guided tour of their research facilities. That was several years ago when they were still in the test stages of developing solar thermal technology for eliminating industrial toxic wastes. It appears Massarde has mastered the techniques."
"I've missed something," said Giordino.
"Like what?"
"This whole setup. Why go to the added expense and effort to erect this cathedral to sanitation in the middle of the world's biggest sandbox. Me, I'd have built it closer to a major industrial center. Must cost a bundle just to transport the stuff across half an ocean and 1600 kilometers of desert."
"A most astute consideration," Pitt admitted. "I'm curious too. If Fort Foureau is such a masterpiece of toxic waste destruction, and is judged by hazardous waste experts to be a safe, blue-ribbon operation, it doesn't make sense not to set it in a more convenient location."
"You still think it's responsible for the contamination leak into the Niger?" Giordino asked.
"We found no other source."
"That old prospector's story about an underground river may well be the solution."
"Except there's a flaw," said Pitt.
"You never were the trusting type," Giordino muttered.
"Nothing wrong with the underground flow theory. What I don't buy is leaking contamination."
"I'm with you," Giordino nodded. "What's to leak if they're supposed to be incinerating the crap?"
"Exactly."
"Then Fort Foureau isn't what it's advertised?"
"Not to my way of thinking."
Giordino turned and looked at him suspiciously. "I hope you're not thinking of strolling around down there as if we were a couple of visiting firemen."
"I had cat burglars more in mind."
"How do you propose we get in? Drive up to the gate and ask for a visitor's pass?"
Pitt nodded at the line of freight cars rolling over a siding that paralleled a long loading dock inside the facility. "We hop the train."
"And for a getaway?" Giordino asked suspiciously.
"With the Voisin's fuel gauge knocking on empty, bidding a fond farewell to Mali and driving off into the sunset was the last thing on my agenda. We catch the outward bound express for Mauritania."
Giordino made a glum face. "You expect me to ride first class in freight cars that have carried tons of toxic chemicals? I'm too young to melt into sludge."
Pitt shrugged and smiled. "You'll just have to be careful not to touch anything."
Giordino shook his head in exasperation. "Did you consider the obstacles involved?"
"Obstacles are made to be hurdled," Pitt answered pontifically.
"Like the electrified fence, the guards with Doberman pinschers, the patrol cars bristling with automatic cannon, the overhead lamps that light up the place like a baseball stadium?"
"Yes, now that you had to go and remind me."
"Mighty strange," Giordino reflected, "that a toxic waste incinerator has to be guarded like a nuclear bomb arsenal."
"All the more reason to inspect the premises," said Pitt calmly.
"You won't change your mind and head for home while we're still a team."
"Seek and ye shall find."
Giordino threw up his hands. "You're crazier than that old prospector and his cockamamy story of a Confederate ironclad with Abe Lincoln at the helm that's buried in the desert."
"We do have much in common," Pitt said easily. He rolled on his side and gestured toward a structure about 6 kilometers to the east a short walk from the railroad tracks. "See that old abandoned fort?"
Giordino nodded. "The one with Beau Geste, Gary Cooper, and the French Foreign Legion written all over it. Yes, I see it."
"Where Fort Foureau got its name," said Pitt. "No more than 100 meters separates its walls from the railroad. As soon as it's dark we'll use it for cover until we can hop an incoming train."
"I've already noticed they whip over the rails too fast for even a professional hobo to board."
"Prudence and patience," said Pitt. "The locomotives begin to slow just before they reach the old fort. Then they come to a crawl when they pull into what looks like a security station."
Giordino studied the station the train had to pass through to enter the heart of the project. "A dime to a dollar an army of guards checks out every freight car."
"They can't be too overzealous. Examining over a hundred freight cars filled with drums of toxic waste is not exactly a job a sane man would throw his heart and soul into. Besides, who would be dumb enough to stow away in one?"
"You're the only one who comes to mind," Giordino said dryly.
"I'm always open to more practical suggestions for sneaking past your electrified fence, Dobermans, floodlights, and patrol cars."
Giordino was in the middle of giving Pitt a long solemn look of exasperation when he tensed and twisted his head at the sky in the direction of the oncoming thump of an approaching helicopter.
Pitt looked up too. It was coming from the south and heading directly over them. It was not a military craft but a beautifully streamlined civilian version that was easily identified by the Massarde Enterprises name along the fuselage.
"Damn!" cursed Giordino. He looked back at the mound of sand they had thrown over the Voisin. "Any lower and he'll blow the sand right off the car."
"Only if he passes directly over it," Pitt said. "Burrow down and don't move."
An alert eye might have caught them, noticed the suspicious sand dune with its strange shape, but the pilot was concentrating on the landing pad near the Project's main office building and did not glance down at the disturbed sands or the forms hugging the dune. The helicopter's sole passenger was occupied with studying a financial report and did not glance out a window.