Sahara (31 page)

“Confederation of French African francs,” he said quietly. “The Admiral didn’t miss a trick.”

“Sandecker thought of everything all right,” Giordino admitted. “How come he trusted you and not me with a bankroll?”

“I have bigger feet.”

The proprietor returned and set, more like dropped, the bottles of beer on the table.
“Dix francs,”
he grunted.

Pitt handed him a bill. The proprietor held it up to one of the light bulbs and peered at it, then rubbed his greasy thumb over the printing. Seeing no smear, he nodded and walked away.

“He asked for ten francs,” Giordino said. “You gave him twenty. If he thinks you’re a big spender we’ll probably be mugged by half the town when we leave.”

“That’s the idea,” said Pitt. “Only a matter of time before the village con artist smells blood and circles his victims.”

“Are we buying or selling?”

“Mostly buying. We need a means of transportation.”

“A hearty meal should take priority. I’m hungry as a bear out of hibernation.”

“You can try the food here, if you like,” said Pitt. “Me, I’d rather starve.”

They were on their third beer when a young man no more than eighteen entered the bar. He stood tall and slender with a slight hunch to his shoulders. He had a gentle oval face with wide sad-looking eyes. His complexion was almost black and his hair thick and wiry. He wore a yellow T-shirt and khaki pants under an open, white cotton sheet-like garment. He made a quick study of the customers and settled his gaze on Pitt and Giordino.

“Patience, the beggar’s virtue,” Pitt murmured. “Salvation is on the way.”

The young man stopped at the table and nodded his head. “Bonsoir.”

“Good evening,” Pitt replied.

The melancholy eyes widened slightly. “You are English?”

“New Zealanders,” Pitt lied.

“I am Mohammed Digna. Perhaps I can assist you gentlemen in changing your money.”

“We have local currency,” Pitt shrugged.

“Do you need a guide, someone to lead you through any problems with customs, police, or government officials?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Pitt held out his hand at an empty chair. “Will you join us for a drink?”

“Yes, thank you.” Digna said a few words in French to the proprietor-bartender and sat down.

“You speak English real well,” said Giordino.

“I went to primary school in Gao and college in the capital of Bamako where I finished first in my class,” he said proudly. “I can speak four languages including my native Bambara tongue, French, English, and German.”

“You’re smarter than me,” said Giordino. “I only know enough English to scrape by on.”

“What is your occupation?” asked Pitt.

“My father is chief of a nearby village. I manage his business properties and export business.”

“And yet you frequent bars and offer your services to tourists,” Giordino murmured suspiciously.

“I enjoy meeting foreigners so I can practice my languages,” Digna said without hesitation.

The proprietor came and set a small cup of tea in front of Digna.

“How does your father transport his goods?” asked Pitt.

“He has a small fleet of Renault trucks.”

“Any chance of renting one?” Pitt put to him.

“You wish to haul merchandise?”

“No, my friend and I would like to take a short drive north and see the great desert before we return home to New Zealand.”

Digna gave a brief shake of his head. “Not possible. My father’s trucks have left for Mopti this afternoon loaded with textiles and produce. Besides, no foreigner from outside the country can travel in the desert without special passes.”

Pitt turned to Giordino, an expression of sadness and disappointment on his face. “What a shame. And to think we flew halfway around the world to see desert nomads astride their camels.”

“I’ll never be able to face my little old white-haired mother,” Giordino moaned. “She gave up her life’s savings so I could experience life in the Sahara.”

Pitt slapped the table with his hand and stood up. “Well it’s back to our hotel at Timbuktu.”

“Do you gentlemen have a car?” asked Digna.

“No.”

“How did you get here from Timbuktu?”

“By bus,” replied Giordino hesitantly, almost as if asking a question.

“You mean a truck carrying passengers.”

“That’s it,” Giordino said happily.

“You won’t find any transportation traveling to Timbuktu before noon tomorrow,” said Digna.

“There must be a good vehicle of some kind in Bourem that we can rent,” said Pitt.

“Bourem is a poor town. Most of the townspeople walk or ride motorbikes. Few families can afford to own autos that are not in constant need of repair. The only vehicle of sound mechanical condition currently in Bourem is General Zateb Kazim’s private auto.”

Digna might as well have prodded a pair of harnessed bulls with a pitchfork. Pitt and Giordino’s minds worked on the same wavelength. They both stiffened but immediately relaxed. Their eyes locked and their lips twisted into subtle grins.

“What is his car doing here?” Giordino asked innocently. “We saw him only yesterday at Gao.”

“The General flies most everywhere by helicopter or military jet,” answered Digna. “But he likes his own personal chauffeur and auto to transport him through the towns and cities. His chauffeur was transporting the auto on the new highway from Bamako to Gao when it broke down a few kilometers outside of Bourem. It was towed here for repairs.”

“And was it repaired?” Pitt inquired, taking a sip of beer to appear indifferent.

“The town mechanic finished late this evening. A rock had punctured the radiator.”

“Has the chauffeur left for Gao?” Giordino wondered idly.

Digna shook his head. “The road from here to Gao is still under construction. Driving on it at night can be hazardous. He didn’t want to risk damaging General Kazim’s car again. He plans to leave with the morning light.”

Pitt looked at him. “How do you know all this?”

Digna beamed. “My father owns the auto repair garage, and I oversee its operation. The chauffeur and I had dinner together.”

“Where is the chauffeur now?”

“A guest at my father’s house.”

Pitt changed the drift of the conversation to local industry. “Any chemical companies around here?” he asked.

Digna laughed. “Bourem is too poor to manufacture anything but handicrafts and woven goods.”

“How about a hazardous waste site?”

“Fort Foureau, but that’s hundreds of kilometers to the north.”

There was a short lull in the conversation, then Digna asked suddenly, “How much money do you carry?”

“I don’t know,” Pitt answered honestly. “I never counted it.”

Pitt saw Giordino look strangely at him and then flick his eyes at four men seated at a table in the corner. He glanced at them and caught them abruptly turning away. This had to be a setup, he concluded. He stared at the proprietor who was leaning over the bar reading a newspaper and rejected him as one of the muggers. A quick look at the other customers was enough to satisfy him that they were only interested in conversing between themselves. The odds were five against two. Not half bad at all, Pitt thought.

Pitt finished his beer and came to his feet. “Time to go.”

“Give my regards to the Chief,” said Giordino, pumping Digna’s hand.

The young Malian’s smile never left his face, but his eyes became hard. “You cannot leave.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Giordino waved. “We’ll sleep by the road.”

“Give me your money,” Digna said softly.

“The son of a chief begging for money,” Pitt said dryly. “You must be a great source of embarrassment for your old man.”

“Do not offend me,” Digna said coldly. “Give me all your money or your blood will soak the floor.”

Giordino acted as if he was ignoring the confrontation and edged toward one corner of the bar. The four men had risen from the table and seemed to be waiting for a signal from Digna. The signal never came. The Malians seemed confused by the utter lack of fear shown by their potential victims.

Pitt leaned across the table until his face was level with Digna’s. “Do you know what my friend and I do to sewer slime like you?”

“You cannot insult Mohammed Digna and live,” he snarled contemptuously.

“What we do,” Pitt calmly continued, “is bury them with a slice of ham in their mouth.”

The ultimate abhorrence to a devout Muslim is any contact with a pig. They consider them the most unclean of creatures and the mere thought of spending eternity in the grave with so much as a sliver of bacon is enough to cause their worst nightmares. Pitt knew the threat was as good as a wooden stake pressed against a vampire’s chest.

For a full five seconds Digna sat immobile, making sounds from his throat as if he was being strangled. The muscles of his face tautened and his teeth bared in uncontrolled rage. Then he leaped to his feet and pulled a long knife from under his robe.

He was two seconds slow and one second too late.

Pitt rammed his fist into Digna’s jaw like a piston. The Malian lurched backward, crashing into the table surrounded by men playing dominos and spilling the game pieces before sprawling to the floor in a twisted heap, out for the count. Digna’s henchmen all launched themselves against Pitt, circling him warily, three of them drawing nasty-looking curved knives while the fourth came at him with a raised axe.

Pitt grabbed his chair and swung down on his lead attacker, breaking the man’s right arm and shoulder. A shout of pain went up as the room erupted in confusion. The stunned customers crushed against each other in their panic to escape through the narrow door to safety outside the bar. Another exclamation of agony exploded from the assailant with the axe as a well-aimed bottle of whiskey thrown by Giordino smashed with a sickening thud into the side of the man’s face.

Pitt lifted the table above his head, his hand gripping two of its legs. In the same instant came the sound of shattered glass and Giordino was standing beside him, his hand thrust forward, clutching the jagged neck of a bottle.

The attackers stopped dead in their tracks, the odds now even. They stared dumbly at their two friends, one swaying on his knees, moaning and holding a badly skewed arm, the other sitting cross-legged with hands covering his face, blood streaming through his fingers: Another downward glance at their unconscious leader, and they began backing toward the door. In the blink of an eye they were gone.

“Not much of an exercise,” Giordino muttered. “These guys wouldn’t last five minutes on the streets of New York.”

“Watch the door,” said Pitt. He turned to the proprietor who stood completely unperturbed and unconcerned, turning the pages of his newspaper as if he regarded fights on his premises as regular nightly entertainment. “Le garage?” Pitt asked.

The proprietor raised his head, tugged at his moustache, and wordlessly jerked his thumb in a vague direction beyond the south wall of the bar.

Pitt threw several francs on the sagging bar to pay for the damage and said, “Merci.”

“This place kind of grows on you,” said Giordino. “I almost hate to part with it.”

“Picture it in your mind always.” Pitt checked his watch. “Only four hours before daylight. Off we go before an alarm is turned in.”

They exited the dingy bar and skirted the rear of the buildings, hugging the shadows and peering furtively around corners. Their precaution, Pitt realized, was largely an overkill: The almost total lack of street lights and the darkened houses with their sleeping inhabitants voided any chance of suspicion.

They came to one of the more substantial mud brick buildings in town, a large warehouse-like affair with a wide metal gate in the front and double doors at the rear. The chain-link fenced yard in back looked like an automotive junkyard. Nearly thirty old cars were parked in rows, stripped bare with little left of them but body shells and frames. Wheels and grimy engines were stacked in one corner of the yard near several oil drums. Transmissions and differentials leaned against the building, the ground around soaked from years of leaking oil.

They found a gate in the fence that was tied shut by a rope. Giordino picked up a sharp stone and cut through the rope, swinging open the gate. They moved carefully toward the doors, listening for any sound of a guard dog and peering through the darkness for signs of a security system. There must have been little need for theft prevention, Pitt decided. With so few cars in town, anyone stealing a part to repair a private vehicle would have immediately been suspect.

The double doors were latched and sealed with a rusty padlock. Giordino gripped it in his massive hands and gave it a heavy tug. The shackle popped free. He looked at Pitt and smiled.

“Nothing to it really. The tumblers were old and worn.”

“If I thought there was the least hope we’d ever get out of this place,” Pitt said tartly, “I’d put you in for a medal.”

He gently pulled one door open far enough for them to enter. One end of the garage was an open pit for mechanics to work under cars. There was a small office and a room filled with tools and machinery. The rest of the floor space held three cars and a pair of trucks in various stages of disassembly. But it was the car that sat in the open center of the garage that drew Pitt. He reached through one of the windows of a truck and pulled the light switch, illuminating an old pre-World War II automobile with elegant lines and a bright rose-magenta color scheme.

“My God,” Pitt muttered in awe. “An Avions Voisin.”

“A what?”

“A Voisin. Built from 1919 until 1939 in France by Gabriel Voisin. She’s a very rare car.”

Giordino walked from bumper to bumper, studying the styling of the quite unique and different car. He noted the unusual door handles, the three wipers mounted on the glass of the windshield, the chrome struts that stretched between the front fenders and radiator, and the tall, winged mascot atop the radiator shell. “Looks weird to me.”

“Don’t knock it. This classy set of wheels is our ticket out of here.”

Pitt climbed behind the steering wheel, which was set on the right side, and sat in the art deco-designed upholstery of the front seat. A single key was in the ignition. He switched it On and stared at the fuel gauge needle as it climbed to the full line. Next he pressed the button that turned over the electrical motor that extended through the bottom of the radiator, and served as both the starter and the generator. There was utterly no sound of the engine being cranked over. The only indication that it was suddenly running was an almost inaudible cough and a slight puff of vapor out the exhaust pipe.