Eva stumbled, barely able to keep on her feet, as Pitt helped her to where the laborers assembled. "Al and I will get through," he promised her. "But you've got to hang on until we return with an armed force to rescue you and these other poor souls."
"Now I have a reason for living," she said softly. "I'll be waiting."
He kissed her on the lips and the bruises on her face lightly. Then he turned to Hopper, Grimes, and Fairweather, who were standing around them in a protective ring. "Take care of her."
"We will," Hopper nodded in assurance.
"I wish you wouldn't deviate from our original plan," said Fairweather. "Hiding you in one of the ore cars going up to the crusher is safer than your idea."
Pitt shook his head. "We'd still have to move through the ore-crushing level, then the refining and recovery areas before reaching the surface. I don't like the odds. Taking the direct route up the executive elevator and through the engineering offices has more appeal."
"If there's a choice between sneaking out the back door or strutting out the front," said Giordino plaintively, "he'll go for style every time."
"Do you have a rough guess as to the number of armed guards?" Pitt directed his question to Fairweather because the safari leader had endured the mines longer than Hopper and his people.
"A rough guess?" Fairweather thought a moment. "Somewhere between twenty and twenty-five. The engineers are armed too. I've counted about six of them besides 0'Bannion."
Grimes passed two small canisters to Giordino who hid them under his tattered shirt. "All the water we've been hoarding. Everyone contributed out of their ration. A little less than 2 liters is all we managed. I'm sorry there isn't more."
Giordino placed his hands on Grimes' shoulders, unusually touched by the sacrifice. "I'm aware of the cost, thank you."
"The dynamite?" Pitt queried Fairweather.
"I have it," answered Hopper, slipping Pitt a small stick of explosives with a detonation cap. "One of the blasting crew smuggled it out in his shoe."
"Two final items," said Fairweather. "A file to cut through your chains, stolen out of a locomotive toolbox by Grimes. And a diagram of the shafts that also shows the surveillance cameras. On the back, I've drawn a crude map of the country you have to cross before reaching the Trans-Saharan Track."
"If anybody knows the desert, Ian does," affirmed Hopper.
"I'm grateful," said Pitt. Uncharacteristically, his eyes began to water. "We'll do our best to return with help."
Hopper put a great bear-like arm around Pitt. "Our prayers and hearts go with you."
Fairweather shook his hand. "Remember to skirt the dunes. Don't attempt to cross them. You'll only get bogged down and die."
"Good luck," Grimes said simply.
A guard came over and prodded Pitt and Giordino away from the others with his gun butt. Pitt disregarded him, leaned down, and gave Eva a final light kiss.
"Don't forget," he said. "You and I and the bay of Monterey."
"I'll wear my most revealing dress," she smiled gamely.
Before he could say more, the guard shoved him away. As he reached the exit tunnel, he turned to wave a farewell, but she and the others were lost to view amid the milling mass of laborers and guards.
The guard led Pitt into the shaft where they'd loaded ore a few hours earlier and then left them. Another empty ore train was sitting on the track alongside a fresh pile of excavated rock.
"I'll make a show of competing for employee of the month while you work on your chains out of camera range," said Pitt. He began tossing rocks in the ore cars as Giordino attacked his shackles with the file Grimes had provided.
Fortunately, the iron was old and of poor quality. The file bit through the links quickly and Giordino pulled the broken chain through the loops in his manacles, freeing his hands and feet of restricted movement. "Your turn," he said.
Pitt draped his chain over the edge of an ore car for support and sliced through a link in less than ten minutes. "We'll have to work on the cuffs later, but at least now we can dance and jab."
Giordino casually swung his chain like an aircraft propeller. "Who takes the guard, you or me?"
"You," answered Pitt candidly as he reinserted the split chain through his manacles. "I'll fake him out."
A half an hour later, as the crunch of gravel announced the guard's approach, Pitt yanked the power supply cord from the TV camera. This time two guards appeared around the bend. Two Tuaregs moving on opposite sides of the ore train rails, guns leveled in an ever-constant firing position. Their unblinking eyes, barely visible through the slit in their lithams, seemed frozen in cold implacability.
"Two coming to visit," whispered Giordino. "And they don't look in the mood for a friendly social call."
The guard on the right approached and poked the muzzle of his gun in Pitt's ribs to hurt and harass him. A slightly raised eyebrow was all that indicated a surprised flinch. Pitt backed away and smiled disarmingly.
"Nice that you could drop by."
It was essential to make a lightning move before the guards realized they were about to be attacked. The words had hardly left his lips when Pitt snatched the gun with his left hand, twisted it away, and hurled a boulder with unerring aim. A strikeout pitch, the rock thudded against the guard's forehead. The guard arched over backward like a tightly strung bow and dropped flat across the rails.
For two seconds, though it seemed much longer, the second guard stared unbelievingly down at his fallen companion. No guard at Tebezza had ever been attacked by the slave labor, and the realization that it was happening momentarily stunned him. Then the awareness of possible death struck him and he shook off the spell. He lifted his weapon to shoot.
Pitt pivoted away from the gun muzzle, and threw himself to one side, grabbing desperately for the fallen guard's weapon. He had a fleeting glimpse of a chain being flipped over the Tuareg's head like a child's jump rope, and then of Giordino pulling and twisting the ends like a garrote. Giordino's great strength lifted the guard off the ground, feet kicking wildly in the air. The machine gun clattered onto the rails as the guard's hands released their grip and grabbed frantically at the chain biting into his throat.
When the thrashing settled to a feeble twitch, Giordino loosened the chain and allowed the guard to fail to the ground next to his unconscious partner only two gasps away from death. Then he swept up the gun and cradled it in his arms, the sights aiming down the mine shaft.
"How benevolent of us not to kill them," Giordino muttered.
"Only a temporary reprieve," said Pitt. "When Melika gets through with them for allowing us to escape, they'll find themselves working alongside the people they've beaten and tormented."
"Can't leave these guys laying around where they'll be found."
"Dump them in one of the ore cars and cover them with rock. They won't wake up for at least two hours. More than enough time for us to be well on our way across the desert."
"Providing a repairman doesn't rush to repair the camera."
As Giordino went to work disposing of the guards, Pitt consulted Fairweather's diagram of the mine shafts. There was no way he could retrace his steps to the engineer's private elevator by memory, not with a maze of mine shafts honeycombing in every direction, and without a compass, picking the correct course was all but impossible.
Giordino finished his chore and picked up the automatic rifles and studied them. "All plastic and fiberglass five-five-six-millimeter French-manufacture general military issue. Nice little piece."
"No shooting if we can help it," said Pitt. "We have to be discreet before Melika realizes we're missing."
Once outside their work shaft they went straight across the main tunnel into the opening directly opposite. Fifty meters later, carefully ducking the TV cameras marked on Fairweather's map, they had reached another cavern without seeing anyone. No one challenged them, no one attacked them. They were alone for the first part of their escape.