Sahara

by Clive Cussler

  Pitt was certain the sedatives had caused her mind to wander. There was no way a strange sound could be heard above the din of the fighting. His finger began to tighten on the trigger.

  "I don't hear anything," he said.

  "No. . . no, there it is again."

  He hesitated as her eyes came alive and reflected a vague sort of anticipation. But he willed himself to go through with it. He leaned down to kiss her lips and distract her as he began to squeeze the trigger again.

  She tried to lift her head. "You must hear it?"

  "Goodbye, love."

  "A train whistle," she said excitedly. "It's Al, he's come back."

  Pitt released the pressure on the trigger and cocked his head toward the upper entrance to the stairway. Then he heard it over the sporadic gunfire. Not a whistle, but the faint blare of a diesel locomotive air horn.

  Giordino stood beside the engineer and pulled the air horn cord like a crazy man as the train thundered over the rails toward the fighting. He stared and stared at the fort, hardly recognizing the ravaged structure as it grew larger through the windshield of the locomotive cab. The utter devastation, the pall of black smoke rising in the sky, made him sick at heart. From all appearances the relief force was too late.

  Hargrove gazed, fascinated. He couldn't believe that anyone could live through such destruction. Most all the parapets were shot away, the ramparts in unbelievable shambles. The front wall where the main gate once stood was nothing but a small mountain of tangled stone. He was astounded at the number of bodies strewn around the perimeter of the fort and the four burned-out tanks.

  "God but they put up a hell of a fight," Hargrove muttered in awe.

  Giordino pressed the muzzle of a pistol against the engineer's temple. "Lay on the brakes and stop this thing. Now!"

  The engineer, a Frenchman, who had been pirated away from operating the superfast TVG train between Paris and Lyons by double the salary from Massarde Enterprises, applied the brakes, stopping the train directly between the fort and Kazim's field headquarters.

  With clock-like precision, Hargrove's special operations warriors poured off the train in both directions simultaneously and hit the ground running. One unit launched an immediate attack on the Malian field headquarters, catching Kazim and his staff by complete surprise. The rest of the force began assaulting the Malian army from the rear. The covers were quickly thrown off the Apache helicopters that were tied down on the flatbed cars. Within two minutes they were lifting into the air, swinging into position to fire their hellfire missiles.

  In the sudden panic and confusion, Kazim stood rooted at the realization that the American Special Forces had sneaked across the border under the noses of his air screen. He was sick to his stomach in shock and made no effort to direct a defense or run for cover.

  Colonels Mansa and Cheik each grabbed Kazim by an arm and hustled him out of his headquarters' tent into a staff car as Captain Batutta quickly jumped behind the wheel. Ismail Yerli shared their love of self-preservation and climbed in the seat beside Batutta.

  "Get out of here!" Mansa shouted at Batutta as he and Cheik climbed in the backseat on each side of Kazim. "In the name of Allah, move before we're all killed""

  Batutta had no more wish to die than his superiors. Leaving their men to fight out of the trap on their own, the officers had no second thoughts about fleeing the battlefield to save their own skins. Frightened beyond logical thinking, Batutta raced the engine and threw the staff car in gear. Though the vehicle was a four-wheel-drive, he dug the tires deeply in the soft sand, cutting twin trenches without achieving traction. In panic, Batutta kept his foot jammed on the accelerator. The engine shrieked in protest at the excessive revolutions as he stupidly made matters worse by driving the wheels into the ground up to their axle hubs.

  Mouthing soundless words, Kazim abruptly returned to reality, and his face twisted in terror. "Save me!" he screamed. "I order you to save me!"

  "You fool!" Mansa yelled at Batutta. "Let off the gas or we'll never get away."

  "I'm trying!" Batutta snapped back, sweat bursting from his forehead.

  Only Yerli sat calmly and accepted his fate. He stared out the side window silently as he watched death approaching in the shape of a big, purposeful-looking man in American desert combat gear.

  Master Sergeant Jason Rasmussen of Paradise Valley, Arizona, had led his team off the train and straight at Kazim's headquarters' tents. Their job was to capture the communications section and prevent the Malians from spreading an alarm that would bring on an attack by Kazim's air force. In and out faster than a vampire pisses blood, as Colonel Hargrove had expressed it so picturesquely during the briefing, or else they were all dead meat if the Malian jet fighters caught them before their helicopters could recross the Mauritanian border.

  After his team members had swept aside weak resistance from the stunned Malian soldiers and achieved their goal of cutting off all communications, Rasmussen noticed the staff car out of the corner of his eyes and began running after it. From the rear he could make out three heads in the backseat and two in the front. His first thought, when he saw that the car appeared stuck in the sand, was to take the men inside as prisoners. But then the vehicle suddenly leaped forward and bounced onto firm ground. The driver cautiously increased speed and the car began to pull away.

  Rasmussen opened up with his machine gun. His fire peppered the doors and windows. Glass shattered and sparkled in the bright sun as bullets stitched across the car doors. After he emptied two clips, the heavily riddled car slowed and rolled to a halt. As he cautiously approached, Rasmussen saw that the driver had slumped lifeless over the wheel. The body of a senior Malian officer was leaning halfway out one window while another officer had fallen from an open door to his back on the ground and stared vacantly into the sky. A third man sat in the middle of the backseat, eyes wide open as if he was peering at some distant object while under hypnosis. The man in the passenger's seat in front, though, had a strange peaceful look in sightless eyes.

  To Rasmussen, the officer in the middle looked like some kind of cartoon field marshal. The coat of his uniform was covered in a maze of gold braid, sashes, ribbons, and medals. Rasmussen could not bring himself to believe this character was the leader of the Malian forces. He leaned through the open door and gave the high-ranking officer a nudge with his gun butt. The body sagged sideways on the seat, revealing two neat bullet holes through the spinal cord at the base of the neck.

  Sergeant first-class Rasmussen checked to see if the others were beyond medical help. All had suffered fatal wounds. Rasmussen had no idea that he had accomplished his mission far away and above expectations. Without direct orders from Kazim or his immediate staff, there were no subordinate officers willing to call an air strike on their own. Singlehandedly the sergeant from Arizona had changed the face of a West African nation. In the wake of Kazim's death a new political party supporting democratic reform would sweep out the old leaders of Mali and launch a new government. One that was unfavorable toward the manipulations of scavengers like Yves Massarde.

  Unaware he had altered history, Rasmussen reloaded his weapon, dismissed the carnage from his mind, and trotted back to help in mopping up the area.

  Nearly ten days would pass before General Kazim was buried in the desert beside his final defeat, unmourned, his grave forever unmarked.

  <<57>>

  Pitt ran up the steps of the arsenal and joined the surviving members of the tactical team who were making their final stand within a small pocket around the underground entrance. They had thrown up hasty barricades and were raking the parade ground with a steady fire. In the sea of devastation and death they still hung on, fighting with an almost insane ferocity to prevent the enemy from entering the arsenal and slaughtering the civilians and wounded before Giordino and the Special Forces could intervene.

  Bewildered by a stubborn defense that refused to die, the decimated flood of Malian attackers crested and stalled as Pitt, Pe
mbroke-Smythe, Hopper, Fairweather, and twelve UN fighters moved not back, but leaped forward. Fourteen men charging nearly a thousand. They rushed at the stunned mass, yelling like underworld demons and shooting at everything that stood in front of them.

  The wall of Malians parted like the Red Sea before Moses and fell back before the horrific onslaught that punched into their ranks. They scattered in every direction. But not all had been invaded by crippling paralysis. A few of the braver ones knelt and fired into the flying wedge. Four of the UN fighters fell, but the momentum carried the rest forward and the fighting became hand-to-hand.

  The report from Pitt's automatic slammed deafening in his ears as a group of five Malians melted away in front of him. There was no retreating or covering up as long as the Malian security forces held their ground.

  Face to face with a wall of men, Pitt emptied his pistol and then threw it before he was hit in the thigh and fell to the ground.

  At the same moment, Colonel Gus Hargrove's Rangers came pouring into the fort, laying down a murderous fire that took the late General Zateb Kazim's unsuspecting forces by complete surprise. Resistance in front of Pitt and the others seemed to melt away as the stunned Malians became aware of the assault on their rear. All courage and rationality dissolved. On a flat battlefield it would have been a complete rout, but within the fort there was no place to run. As if obeying an unspoken command they 'began throwing down their weapons and clasping their hands behind their heads.

  The intense firing quickly became sporadic and finally died away altogether. A strange silence settled over the fort as Hargrove's men began rounding up the Malians and disarming them. It seemed an eerie, disquieting moment for the sudden end of the battle.

  "Good Gawd!" one of the American Rangers uttered at seeing the unbelievable amount of carnage. From the time they had burst from the train and charged across the desert separating the fort from the track, they had jumped over and dodged around a vast carpet of dead and wounded, often so many they could not step between them. Now inside the demolished fortress, the bodies were piled three and four deep in some areas of the rubble. None had ever seen so many dead in one place before.

  Pitt painfully lifted himself up and hopped on one leg. He tore off a sleeve and wrapped it around the hole in his thigh to stem the flow of blood. Then he looked at Pembroke-Smythe who stood stiffly, gray-faced, and obviously in great pain from several wounds.

  "You look even worse than the last time I saw you," said Pitt.

  The Captain stared Pitt up and down and casually brushed a thick layer of dust from his shoulder insignia. "They'll never let you in the Savoy Hotel looking as shabby as you do either."

  As if resurrected from the grave, Colonel Levant rose from the incredible devastation and limped toward Pitt and Pembroke-Smythe, using a grenade launcher as a crutch. Levant's helmet was gone and his left arm hung limply at his side. He was bleeding from a gash across his scalp and a badly wounded ankle.

  Neither man had expected to find him alive. They both solemnly shook hands with him.

  "I'm happy to see you, Colonel," said Pembroke-Smythe cheerfully. "I thought you were buried under the wall."

  "I was for a time." Levant nodded at Pitt and smiled. "I see you're still with us, Mr. Pitt."

  "The proverbial bad penny."

  Levant's face took on a saddened look as he saw the pitifully few men of his force that moved forward to surround and greet him. "They whittled us down somewhat."

  "We whittled them down too," Pitt muttered grimly.

  Levant saw Hargrove and his aides approaching, accompanied by Giordino and Steinholm. He stiffened and turned to Pembroke-Smythe. "Form up the men, Captain."

  Pembroke-Smythe found it difficult to keep a steady voice as he assembled the remnant of the UN Tactical Team. "All right, lads. . ." He hesitated, seeing there was one female corporal helping to hold up a big sergeant. "And ladies. Straighten up the line."

  Hargrove stopped in front of Levant and the two colonels exchanged salutes. The American was stunned at seeing the meager number that had fought so many. The international fighting team stood proud, none unscathed, everyone a walking wounded. They looked like statues, they were covered with so much dust. Their eyes were deep-sunk and red, and the faces haggard by their ordeal. The men all wore stubbled beards. Their combat suits were torn and filthy. Some wore crude bandages that were soaked through with blood. And yet they stood undefeated.

  "Colonel Jason Hargrove," he introduced himself. "United States Army Rangers."

  "Colonel Marcel Levant, United Nations Critical Response Team."

  "I deeply regret," said Hargrove, "we couldn't arrive sooner."

  Levant shrugged. "It is a miracle you are here at all."

  "A magnificent stand, Colonel." Hargrove glanced around the destruction. Then he stared past Levant at the battle-weary fighters lined up behind, an incredulous look on his face. "Is this all of you?"

  "Yes, all that's left of my fighting force."

  "How many under your command?"

  "About forty at the beginning."

  As if in a trance, Hargrove again saluted Levant. "My compliments on a glorious defense. I've never seen anything like it."

  "We have wounded in the fort's underground arsenal," Levant informed Hargrove.

  "I was told you also were originally convoying women and children."

  "They are below with my wounded."

  Hargrove abruptly turned and shouted to his officers. "Get our medics up here and take care of these people. Bring up those from below and evacuate them onto the transport choppers, double quick. The Malian air force can show up any second."

  Giordino walked up to Pitt who was standing off to one side and embraced him. "I thought this time, old friend, you weren't going to make it."

  Pitt still tried a grin despite the waves of fatigue and the gnawing pain from the bullet hole in the fleshy part of his thigh. "The devil and I couldn't agree on terms."

  "I'm sorry I couldn't have put the show on the road two hours sooner," Giordino lamented.

  "No one expected you by train."

  "Hargrove couldn't risk flying his choppers through Kazim's fighter defense screen in daylight."

  Pitt looked up as an Apache warbird circled the fort, its sophisticated electronics probing over the horizons for intruders. "You made it through without detection," he said. "That's what counts."

  Giordino looked into Pitt's eyes guardedly. "Eva?"

  "Alive but badly injured. Thanks to you and your air horn, she missed dying by two seconds."

  "She came that close to being shot by Kazim's mob?" Giordino asked curiously.

  "No, shot by me." Before Giordino could reply, Pitt gestured toward the entrance to the arsenal. "Come along. She'll be happy to see your Quasimodo face."

  Giordino's face grew sober at the sight of all the wounded with their bloody bandages and splints lying jammed on the floor of the cramped area. He was surprised by the damage caused by falling stones from the ceiling. But what stunned him most was the incredible silence. None of the wounded uttered a sound, no moan escaped their lips. No one in that crumbling arsenal cellar spoke. The children merely stared at him, totally subdued after hours of fright.

  Then, as if on cue, they all broke into weak cheers and applause at recognizing Giordino as the one who brought reinforcements and saved their lives. Pitt was amused by it all. He had never seen Giordino display so much modesty and embarrassment as the men reached out to shake his hand and the women kissed him like a long-lost lover.

  Then Giordino spotted Eva as she raised her head and flashed a wide smile. "Al. . . oh Al, I knew you'd come back."

  He crouched beside her, careful not to make contact with her injuries, and awkwardly patted her hand. "You don't know how glad I am to see you and Dirk still breathing."

  "We had quite a party," she said bravely. "Too bad you missed it."

  "They sent me out for ice."

  She glanced around at the others
suffering around her. "Can't something be done for them?"

  "The medics from the Special Forces are on their way," Pitt explained. "Everyone will be evacuated as soon as possible:"

  Another few moments of small talk and the big, tough looking Rangers appeared and began tenderly carrying the children and helping their mothers outside to a waiting transport helicopter that had set down on the parade ground. The Ranger medics, assisted by the exhausted UN medical team, then directed the evacuation of the wounded.

  Giordino obtained a stretcher, and with Pitt hobbling on one end, gently carried Eva into the bright afternoon sun.

  "I never thought I'd hear myself say the desert heat feels good," she murmured.

  Two Rangers reached through the open cargo door of the helicopter. "We'll take her from here," said one.