"It's carried by underground water movement," Pitt clarified. "Al and I had a look around inside the project before we were captured. High-level nuclear waste, as well as ten times the hazardous waste that's being burned, is being buried in underground caverns where it leaks into the groundwater."
"The world environmental regulation organizations must be told of this," exclaimed Grimes. "The damage a toxic dump the size of Fort Foureau can produce is inestimable."
"Enough talk," said Hopper. "Time is precious. We have to move forward on the escape plan for these men."
"What about the rest of you?"
"We're in no shape to cross the desert. Our strength has been sapped and our bodies racked from slaving in the mines, too little sleep, and almost no food or water. No way we can make it. So we did the next best thing. Hoarded supplies and prayed for someone like you to arrive in good physical condition."
Pitt looked down at Eva. "I can't leave her."
"Then stay and die with the rest of us," Grimes said abruptly. "You're the only hope for everyone in this hellhole."
Eva clutched Pitt's hand. "You must go, and go quickly," she pleaded. "Before it's too late."
"She's right, you know," added Fairweather. "Forty-eight hours in the shafts and they break you. Look at us. We're washed out. None of us could cross 5 kilometers of desert before dropping."
Pitt stared at the dirt floor. "How far do you think Al and I'd get without water? Twenty, maybe 30 kilometers farther than you?"
"We've only hoarded enough for one man," said Hopper. "We'll leave it to you to decide who makes the attempt and who stays."
Pitt shook his head. "Al and I go together."
"Two will never get far enough for rescue."
"What kind of distance are we talking about?" asked Giordino.
"The Trans-Saharan Motor Track is close to 400 kilometers due east of here, across the border in Algeria," replied Fairweather. "After 300, you'll have to trust to luck to get you the rest of the way. Once you reach the track, you should be able to flag down a passing vehicle."
Pitt tilted his head as if he didn't hear Fairweather right. "Maybe I missed something. You neglected to explain how we breeze past the first 300 kilometers?"
"You steal one of O'Bannion's trucks once you reach the surface. It should carry you that far."
"A little optimistic, aren't we," said Pitt. "What if its fuel tank is empty?"
"No one ever keeps an empty petrol tank in the desert," Fairweather said firmly.
"Just walk out of here, punch an elevator button, ride to the surface, steal a truck, and roll merrily on our way," Giordino scowled. "Sure we will."
Hopper smiled. "Do you have a better plan?"
"To be honest," Pitt laughed, "we don't even have an outline."
"We'd hurry things up a bit," warned Fairweather. "Melika will be dragging everyone back to the mines within the hour."
Pitt looked around the prisoners' cave. "Do you all blast and load ore?"
"The political prisoners, which includes us," answered Grimes, "dig and load the ore after it's blasted from the rock. The criminal prisoners labor in the rock crusher and recovery levels. They also make up the blasting crew. Poor devils, none of them last long. If they don't blow themselves to bits with explosives they die from the mercury and cyanide used in the amalgamation and refining of the gold."
"How many foreign nationals are you?"
"There are five of us left from the original team of six. One was murdered by Melika, who beat her to death."
"A woman?"
Hopper nodded. "Dr. Marie Victor, a vivacious lady and one of the finest physiologists in Europe." Hopper's jovial expression had vanished. "She was the third since we arrived. Two of the wives of the French engineers from Fort Foureau were murdered by Melika too." He paused to look sadly at the wasted little girl in the bunk. "Their children suffer the worst, and there is nothing we can do."
Fairweather pointed to a group of people clustered around three of the tiered bunks. Four were women, eight were men. One of the women was holding a little boy about three against her body.
"My God!" Pitt whispered. "Of course, of course! Massarde couldn't allow the engineers who constructed his project to return to France and spill the truth."
"How many women and children all told are down here?" Giordino asked with an expression clouded with wrath.
"The current count is nine women with four small children," Fairweather answered.
"Don't you see," Eva said softly. "The sooner you get free and bring help, the more people you'll save."
Pitt didn't need any further convincing. He turned back to face Hopper and Fairweather. "Okay, let's hear your plan."
It was a plan shot full of holes, the scheme of desperate men with little or no resources, incredibly oversimplified, but just crazy enough to work.
An hour later, Melika and her guards walked through the cavern dungeon and forced the slave laborers into the main chamber where they were assembled in work gangs before moving toward their assigned stations in the mines. It seemed to Pitt as if she took devious delight in wielding her thong right and left against the sea of unprotected flesh, cursing and beating men and women alike who looked as if they belonged in coffins.
"The witch never tires of adding sears to the helpless," Hopper seethed.
"Melika means queen, a name she gave herself," Grimes said to Pitt and Giordino. "But we call her the wicked witch of the west because she was a matron in a women's prison in the United States."
"You think she's rotten now," Pitt muttered. "Wait until she finds the ore cars Al and I covered with a facade of rock."
Giordino and Hopper hovered beside Pitt as he circled his arm around Eva's waist and guided her outside. Melika spied Pitt and moved toward him, stopped, and then stared at Eva menacingly. She grinned, knowing she could enrage Pitt not by striking him but laying the thong on Eva.
She swung but Giordino stepped between them and the thong made a sickening slapping sound as it met and bounced off his flexed biceps.
Except for an angry red welt that formed and began to ooze blood, Giordino showed no ill effects from a blow that would have left any normal man clutching his arm and groaning in agony. Without so much as a tic, he gave her a cold stare and said, "Is that the best you can do?"
The mob went dead still. They all halted in mid-stride, holding their breath for the storm that would surely come. Five seconds passed as if time was frozen in ice. Melika stood numb from the unexpected show of boldness, and then she quickly turned crimson with crazed anger. She reacted as though she couldn't cope with ridicule, snarling like a wounded bear and lashing out at Giordino with the thong.
"Restrain yourself!" came a commanding voice at the gate.
Melika spun around. Selig O'Bannion was standing just outside the dungeon, a giant amid munchkins. She held the thong poised in mid-air for a few moments before lowering it, glaring at O'Bannion in humiliation, her eyes coals of bitter resentment, like a neighborhood bully chastised in front of her victims by the cop on the beat.
"Do not injure Pitt and Giordino," ordered O'Bannion. "I want them to live the longest so they can carry the others into the burial chamber."
"Where's the sport in that?" said Pitt.
O'Bannion laughed softly and nodded at Melika. "Breaking Pitt physically will give me little enjoyment. Breaking his mind into quivering mush will be a happy experience for both of us. See that they have a light work load for the next ten shifts."
Melika begrudgingly nodded her head in compliance as O'Bannion mounted a locomotive and rode into one of the shafts for an inspection tour. "Out, you stinking scum," she growled, waving the blood-stained thong above her grotesque head and barrel-like body.