"We have an underground vault for those who succumb." answered O'Bannion.
"You're as murderous as Kazim," said Pitt. "Maybe worse."
"I've read of your undersea exploits, Mr. Pits," 0'Bannion said, brushing off Pitt's insult. "It will be most enjoyable having another party whose intellect is on a level with mine. I found your reports on deep-sea mining of particuiar interest. You must dine with me from time to lime and tell me of your underwater engineering Operations."
Pitt's face turned to ice. "Privileges so soon after incarceration? No thanks. I'd rather eat with a camel."
O'Bannion's lips bent minutely downward "Suit yourself, Mr. Pitt. Perhaps you'll change your mind after a few days of working under Melika."
"Who?"
"My overseer. She has an uncommon cruel streak. You two are in good physical condition. So I'd estimate that when we next meet, she will have turned you into a pair of subdued vermin."
"A woman?" asked Giordino curiously.
"Like no woman you'll ever meet again."
Pitt said nothing. The world knew of the notorious salt mines of the Sahara. They had become a byword for blue and white-collar workers everywhere as a job description. But a gold mine manned by slaves that was virtually unknown was a new twist. General Kazim no doubt had his hands in the profits, but the operation smelled like another venture of Yves Massarde. The quasi-solar detoxification project and the gold mine, and God only knew what else. This was a big game, a game that stretched in all directions like octopus tentacles, an international game that spelled more than just money, but inconceivable power.
O'Bannion stepped over to his desk and pressed a button on a small console. The door opened and the two guards walked into the room and stood behind Pitt and Giordino. Gordino glanced at Pitt, searching for a sign, a nod or movement of the eyes signaling a coordinated attack on the guards. Giordino would have charged an oncoming rhino without hesitation if Pitt had given the word. But Pitt stood there stiffly as if the feel of the manacles on his ankles and wrists had dulled his sense of survival. Somehow, above all else, he had to focus his wits on getting the secret of Fort Foureau into Sandecker's hands or die trying.
"I'd like to know who I'm working for," Pitt said. "Didn't you know?" asked O'Bannion dryly.
"Massarde and his pal, Kazim?"
"Two out of three. Not bad."
"Who's the third?"
"Why me, of course," O'Bannion answered patiently. "A most satisfactory arrangement. Massarde Enterprises provides the equipment and arranges for the sale of the gold. Kazim provides the labor, and I direct the mining and ore extraction operation, which is only fair since it was I who discovered the vein of gold."
"What percentage do the Malian people receive?"
"Why none," O'Bannion said impassively. "What would a nation of beggars do with riches if they were dropped in their laps? Squander or be fleeced out of them by shrewd foreign businessmen who know every angle for taking advantage of impoverished peoples? No, Mr. Pitt, the poor are better off poor."
"Have you notified them of your philosophy?"
O'Bannion's expression was one of pure boredom. "What a dull world this would be if we all were rich."
Pitt plunged on. "How many men die here in a year?"
"It varies. Sometimes two hundred, sometimes three, depending on disease epidemic or mine accidents. I really don't keep count."
"Amazing the workers don't strike," said Giordino idly.
"No work, no food," O'Bannion shrugged. "And then Melika usually gets them moving by whipping the skin off the ringleaders.
"I'm lousy with a pick and shovel," Giordino volunteered.
"You'll quickly become expert. If not, or you cause trouble, you'll be transferred to the extraction section." 0'Bannion paused to check his watch. "Still time for you to work a fifteen-hour shift."
"We haven't eaten since yesterday," complained Pitt.
"Nor will you eat today." O'Bannion nodded at the guards as he turned back to his bookshelves. "Take them."
The guards prodded them out. Apart from the receptionist and two men wearing tan coveralls and hard hats with miners' lamps, speaking in French and examining a piece of ore under a magnifying glass, there were no other people to be seen until they reached an office-type elevator with carpeted floor and chrome walls. The doors opened and the operator, a Tuareg, motioned them inside. The doors rattled shut and the hum of machinery reverberated off the walls of the shaft as they descended.
The elevator dropped quickly, the ride seemingly neverending. Black caverns flashed past, their circular openings marking the entrance to upper galleries. Pitt judged they had dropped well over a kilometer when the elevator began to slow and finally stopped. The operator opened the door, revealing a narrow, horizontal shaft leading off into the rock. The two guards escorted them to a heavy iron door. One of them took a key ring from his robe, selected a key, and turned the lock. Pitt and Giordino were pushed against the door so that it swung open. Inside was a much larger shaft with narrow rails laid on its floor. The guards closed the door and left them standing there.
As a matter of routine, Giordino checked the door. It was a good 2 inches thick and there was no handle on the inside, only a keyhole. "We won't be using this exit unless we can steal a key."
"Not to be used by the hired help," said Pitt. "For O'Bannion and his cronies only."
"Then we'll have to find another way. They obviously remove the ore through a different vertical shaft."
Pitt stared at the door thoughtfully. "No, I can't accept that. It's the executive elevator or nothing."
Before Giordino could reply, the whirring of an electric motor and the clanking sound of steel wheels against the rails came from one end of the shaft. A small generator driven locomotive pulling a long train of empty ore cars appeared and slowed to a stop. A black woman climbed down from the driver's seat and confronted the two men.
Pitt had never laid eyes on a woman with a body that was almost as wide as it was tall. She was, he decided, the ugliest woman he had ever laid eyes on. She'd have made a fitting gargoyle, he thought, on the eaves of a medieval cathedral. A heavy leather thong extended from her hand as if it had grown there. Without a word she stepped up to Pitt.
"I am Melika, foreman of the mines. I am to be obeyed and never questioned. Do you understand?"
Pitt smiled. "A new experience, taking orders from someone who resembles a toad with a weight problem."
He saw the thong whipping through the air, but too late to dock or ward off the blow. It caught him high on the side of the face, and he saw stars in front of his eyes as he staggered back against a shoring timber. The blow struck with such force he came within a speck of blacking out.
"Seems as though everyone is hitting on me today," Pitt said thickly through the agony.
"A short lesson on discipline," she snapped. Then in a lightning movement, incredibly swift for someone of her heavy build, she swung the thong backhanded toward Giordino's head. But she wasn't fast enough. Unlike Pitt, he had warning. He grasped her wrist in an iron grip, stopping the thong in midair. Slowly, as if in a test of wills, the two arms trembled as their muscles exerted every pressure at their command.
Melika had the strength of an ox. She had never imagined that any man could have been capable of gripping her so hard. Surprise showed in her widened eyes, then disbelief, then anger. With his other hand, Giordino tore the thong from her grasp as one would snatch a stick from a snarling dog, and hurled it into an ore car.
"You dirty scum," she hissed. "You'll suffer for this."
Giordino puckered up his lips and blew her a kiss. "Love-hate relationships are the best."
His cockiness cost him. He missed the sudden shift of the eyes, the foot lifting off the ground as the knee bent and thrust into his groin. Giordino released his grip on her wrist, dropped to his knees, and fell to his side, writhing in silent agony.