Sahara (24 page)

Gunn pointed to the portable radio that rested on a counter shelf. “Might help if we strung them along.”

Pitt smiled in the darkness. “Yes, I think it’s time we take calls.”

“Why not?” Giordino went along. “I’m curious to hear what they have to say.”

“Talking to them might buy us the time we need to reach Gao,” advised Gunn. “We’ve a fair way to go.”

Pitt turned the helm over to Giordino, tuned up the volume on the portable radio’s speaker so they could all hear above the roar, and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Good evening,” he answered pleasantly. “How may I help you?”

There was a short pause. Then a voice replied in French.

“I hate this,” muttered Giordino.

Pitt stared up at the plane as he spoke.
“Non parley vous francais.”

Gunn wrinkled his brows. “Do you know what you said?”

Pitt looked at him innocently. “I informed him I can’t speak French.”

“Vous
is you,” Gunn lectured him. “You just told him,
he
can’t speak French.”

“Whoever he is will get the drift.”

The voice crackled through the speaker again. “I understand English.”

“That’s helpful,” Pitt replied. “Go ahead.”

“Identify yourself.”

“You first.”

“Very well, I am General Zateb Kazim, Chief of the Mali Supreme Military Council.”

At the reply Pitt turned and looked at Giordino and Gunn. “The big man himself.”

“I’ve always wanted to be recognized by a celebrity,” Giordino said with heavy sarcasm. “Never thought it would happen in the middle of nowhere.”

“Identify yourself,” Kazim repeated. “Are you commanding an American vessel?”

“Edward Teach, Captain of the
Queen Anne’s Revenge.”

“I attended university at Princeton,” Kazim replied dryly. “I am quite familiar with Blackbeard the pirate. Please cease with the satire and surrender your ship.”

“And if I have other plans?”

“You and your crew will be destroyed by Malian Air Force fighter-bombers.”

“If they don’t shoot any better than your navy gunboats,” Pitt needled Kazim, “we haven’t a care in the world.”

“Do not toy with me,” Kazim said, his tone suddenly viperous. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my country?”

“You might say we’re down-home folks on a little fishing trip.”

“Stop and surrender your vessel immediately!” Kazim spat.

“No, I don’t think I will,” Pitt answered cavalierly.

“You and your crew will surely die if you do not.”

“Then you will lose a boat like no other in the world. A one of a kind. I assume you have an idea of what she’s capable of.”

There was a long silence, and Pitt knew that his long shot had struck home.

“I’ve read the reports of your little altercation with my late friend, Admiral Matabu. I am fully versed on your boat’s firepower.”

“Then you know we could have blasted your gunboat to the bottom of the river.”

“I regret that they fired on you against my orders.”

“We can also knock your lumbering command plane out of the sky,” Pitt bluffed.

Kazim was not mentally deficient. He had already considered that event. “I die, you die. What is the percentage in that?”

“Give me some time to think that over, say until we reach Gao.”

“I’m a generous man,” Kazim said with unaccustomed patience. “But at Gao you will cease headway and bring your boat alongside the city’s ferry dock. If you persist in your foolish attempt to escape, my air force will put you in infidel hell.”

“I understand, General. You make our choice crystal clear.” Pitt flicked off the radio transmit switch and grinned from ear to ear. “I just love it when I make a good deal.”

The lights of Gao bloomed in the darkness, less than 5 kilometers ahead. Pitt took the wheel from Giordino and motioned at Gunn. “Get set to hit the water, Rudi.”

Gunn peered hesitantly at the white water swirling past at nearly 75 knots. “Not at this speed, I won’t.”

“Not to worry,” Pitt eased his mind. “I’ll make a sudden cut down to 10 knots. You slip over the side opposite the aircraft. Soon as you’re away, I’ll crank her up again.” Then to Giordino, “Sweet talk Kazim. Keep him occupied.”

Giordino lifted the radio and spoke in a muffled tone. “Could you repeat your terms, General?”

“Stop your senseless attempt at escape, turn over your vessel at Gao, and you live. Those are the terms.”

As Kazim talked, Pitt edged the
Calliope
closer to the shore of the river that held the town. The tension in the cockpit and his anxiety increased, a tension that spread to his three friends. He reasoned that Gunn had to go in before the lights of Gao revealed him in the black water by their reflection. And he had cause to be anxious. The game was to keep the Malians from becoming suspicious by his deceptive maneuver. The depth-sounder showed the bottom was coming up fast. He yanked the throttles back, lurching the
Calliope’s
bow deep into the water. The speed fell off so quickly that he was thrown forward against the cockpit counter.

“Now!” Pitt yelled at Gunn. “Go for it and good luck.”

Without a word of farewell, the little scientist from NUMA tightly clutched the straps to his backpack and rolled over the railing out of sight. Almost instantly, Pitt shoved the throttles to their stops again.

Giordino stared out over the stern, but Gunn was completely lost in the black river. Satisfied his friend was safely swimming across the 50 meters of water separating the bank from the boat, he turned back and calmly continued his conversation with General Kazim.

“If you promise us safe passage out of your country, the boat is yours, or what’s left of it after your gunboat mangled it.”

Kazim indicated no suspicion of the brief pause in the
Calliope’s
velocity through the water. “I accept,” he purred, fooling nobody.

“We have no wish to die in a hail of gunfire in a polluted river.”

“A wise choice,” replied Kazim. The words came formal and civil, but the hostility, the triumph were apparent in his tone. “Indeed there are no options for you to do anything else.”

Pitt had a sinking feeling he had overplayed his hand. There was little doubt in his mind, or in Giordino’s mind too, that Kazim meant to kill them and throw their bodies to the vultures. They had one shot at diverting the Malians from Gunn, one shot at staying alive, but the odds were slim, so low in fact that no self-respecting gambler would waste a cheap bet on them.

His plan, if it could subtly be called that, would buy them a few hours time, nothing more. He began to curse his folly for thinking they might get away with it.

But a moment later, salvation, unexpected and unimagined, appeared through the night.

20

Giordino tapped Pitt’s shoulder and pointed down the river. “That blaze of lights off the starboard bow, that’s the jazzy houseboat I told you about. The one we passed earlier. It’s decked out like a billionaire’s yacht, complete with helicopter and a bevy of friendly women.”

“Think it might carry a satellite communications system we could borrow to contact Washington?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it had telex.”

Pitt turned and smiled down at Giordino. “Since we have no pressing engagements, why not drop in?”

Giordino laughed and clapped him on the back. “I’ll set the detonator.”

“Thirty seconds should do it.”

“Done.”

Giordino handed the radio back to Pitt and dropped down the ladder to the engine room. He reappeared almost immediately while Pitt was in the act of programming the course into a computer and engaging the automatic pilot. Luckily the river was wide and straight, allowing the
Calliope
to cruise on her own for a considerable distance after they abandoned her.

He nodded at Giordino. “Ready?”

“Say the word.”

“Speaking of words.” Pitt raised the portable radio to his mouth. “General Kazim.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve changed my mind. You can’t have the boat after all. Have a nice day.”

Giordino grinned. “I like your style.”

Pitt casually tossed the radio overboard and stood poised until the
Calliope
was even with the houseboat. Then he pulled back the throttles.

As soon as the speed fell off to 20 knots he shouted, “Now!”

Giordino needed no coaxing. He ran across the rear deck and launched himself over the stern. He struck the water in the center of the churning wake, his splash lost in a spray of seething froth. Pitt hesitated only long enough to cram the throttles forward before leaping over the side, curling himself in a ball. The sudden impact came with a jolt that nearly knocked the wind out of him. Thankfully, the water was lukewarm and smothered him like a thick blanket. He took great care not to swallow any of the contaminated river. Their predicament was dire enough without becoming deathly sick.

He rolled over on his back just in time to see the
Calliope
rushing into the darkness with the speed and roar of an express train, a boat lifeless and abandoned with only moments to live. Pitt floated and stared and waited for the missiles and the fuel tanks to explode. He did not wait long. Even at over a kilometer the blast was deafening, and the shock wave that traveled through the water came like an invisible blow to his body. Flame belched through the blackness in a huge orange ball as the faithful
Calliope
blew herself into a thousand pieces. Within half a minute the flames were swallowed by the night and all trace of the beautiful sport yacht was gone.

There was also a strange hush now that the roar of the yacht’s engines and the explosion faded across the desert beyond the shore. The only sounds came from the drone of Kazim’s command plane and the soft strains of a piano playing on the houseboat.

Giordino sidestroked past. “Swimming? I thought you’d be walking.”

“Only on special occasions.”

Giordino lifted a hand skyward. “Think we conned them?”

“Temporarily, but they’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“Shall we crash the party?”

Pitt rolled over and began an easy breaststroke. “By all means.”

As he swam he studied the houseboat. It was the perfect craft to navigate a river. The draft couldn’t have been more than 4 feet. The design and shape reminded Pitt of an old Mississippi side paddle steamer, like the famed
Robert E. Lee,
except there were no paddle wheels and the superstructure was far more modern. One true similarity was the pilothouse perched on the forward part of the upper deck. If built for the open sea with an oceangoing hull it would have fallen in the elegant class of a mega-yacht. He studied the sleek helicopter perched on the middle stern deck, the glass-enclosed three-level atrium filled with tropical plants, the space-age electronics that sprouted from behind the wheelhouse. The incredible houseboat was a fantasy turned real.

They were within 20 meters of the houseboat gangway when the Malian gunboat came forging downriver at full speed. Pitt could see the shadowy figures of the boat’s officers on the bridge. They were all peering intently toward the explosion and paid no attention to the water off their beams. He also saw a group of crewmen on the bow and didn’t have to be told they were scanning the dark river for survivors while clutching automatic weapons with the safety catches in the
off
position.

In a quick glance before he ducked under the swirling wave chopped out by the gunboat’s twin props, Pitt saw a crowd of passengers suddenly appearing on the houseboat’s promenade deck. They were talking excitedly among themselves and gesturing in the direction of the
Calliope’
s final resting place. The entire boat and water surrounding it were brightly illuminated by floodlights mounted on the upper deck. Pitt resurfaced and paused, treading water in the dark, slightly beyond the outer limits of the lighted perimeter.

“This is as far as we can go without being spotted,” he said quietly to Giordino, who was calmly floating on his back a meter away.

“No grand entrance?” Giordino queried.

“Discretion tells me we’d be better off to advise Admiral Sandecker of our situation
before
we crash the party.”

“You’re right as usual, O great one,” Giordino acquiesced. “The owner might take us for thieves in the night, which we are, and clap us in irons, which he will no doubt do anyway.”

“I judge it about 20 meters. How’s your wind?”

“I can hold my breath as long as you can.”

Pitt took several deep breaths, hyperventilating to purge the carbon dioxide from his lungs, and then inhaled until every cubic millimeter was filled with oxygen before slipping under the water.

Knowing that Giordino was following his lead, he dove deep and angled against the unseen current. He stayed deep, almost 3 meters down, stroking for the side of the houseboat. He could tell when he was getting close by the increasing light on the surface. When a shadow slipped over him he knew he had passed under the curve of the hull. Extending a hand over his head so he wouldn’t strike his head, he slowly ascended until his fingers touched the slime that had formed on the boat’s bottom. Then he slightly veered so his head broke the water alongside the aluminum side.

He sucked in the night air and looked up. Except for several hands draped on the railing only 2 meters above his head, he could not see the passengers, nor could they see him, unless one of them leaned over and stared straight down. It was impossible to board the ship on the gangway without being seen. Giordino surfaced and immediately read the predicament.

Silently, Pitt motioned under the hull. He held apart his hands, indicating the depth of the boat’s draft. Giordino nodded in understanding as they both filled their lungs again. Then they quietly rolled forward out of sight, leveled off, and swam under the bottom of the hull. The beam was so wide it took them nearly a minute before they resurfaced on the other side.

The port decks were empty and lifeless. Everyone was around the starboard side, attracted by the destruction of the
Calliope.
A rubber bumper hung along the hull and Pitt and Giordino used it to pull themselves on board. Pitt hesitated all of two seconds to figure a rough layout of the boat. They were standing on the deck that held the guest suites. They would have to go up. Trailed by Giordino he cautiously moved up a stairway to the next deck. One quick peek through a large port at a dining salon with the size and elegance of a deluxe hotel restaurant and they continued upward to the deck just below the pilothouse.