hands felt cold under the African heat and she was shivering from shock. Her eyes were stricken. She had never watched anyone die before. She began to feel sick but somehow managed to control her stomach.
“But why kill himself?” she murmured. “For what purpose?”
“To protect others connected with your failed murder attempt,” Pitt answered.
“He’d willingly take his own life to remain silent?” she asked with disbelief.
“A loyal fanatic to his boss,” Pitt said quietly. “I suspect that if he hadn’t taken cyanide on his own, he’d have had help.”
Eva shook her head. “This is insane. You’re talking a conspiracy.”
“Face facts, lady, someone went to a lot of trouble to eliminate you.” Pitt stared at Eva. She looked like a small girl who was lost in a department store. “You have an enemy who doesn’t want you in Africa, and if you expect to go on living, I suggest you take the next plane back to the States.”
She looked dazed. “No, not while people are dying.”
“You’re tough to convince,” he said.
“Put yourself in my place.”
“Better yet, your colleagues’ shoes. They may be on a hit list too. We’d better get back to Cairo and warn them. If any of this is tied to your research and investigation, their lives are also in danger.”
Eva looked down at the dead man. “What do you intend to do with him?”
Pitt shrugged. “Throw him in the Med with his friends.” Then a devilish smile rode his craggy face. “I’d love to see the face of their ringleader when he learns his assassins have gone missing without a trace and you’re still walking around as if nothing happened.”
4
Company officials at the Backworld Expeditions offices in Cairo realized something was wrong when the desert safari group failed to arrive in the fabled city of Timbuktu on schedule. Twenty-four hours later, pilots of the aircraft that was chartered to return the tourists to Marrakech, Morocco, flew a search pattern to the north but saw no sign of the vehicles.
Fears intensified after three days passed and Major Fair-weather had still failed to report in. Mali government authorities were alerted and they cooperated fully, sending out military air and motorized vehicle patrols to backtrack the safari’s known route across the desert.
Panic began to reign after the Malians failed to find any sighting of people or the Land Rovers during a concentrated search lasting four days. An army helicopter flew over Asselar and reported seeing nothing but a dead and abandoned village.
Then on the seventh day, a French oil prospecting team, pushing south along the Trans-Saharan Motor Track, discovered Major Ian Fairweather. The sky over the flat, rock-strewn plain was open and empty. The sun burned down and baked the sand so that the heat waves shimmered and danced. The French geologists were astonished when a distorted apparition suddenly appeared through a wavering heat mirage. One moment the image seemed to float free, and then expand and retract to grotesque proportions in the hot, freakish air.
As the range closed they distinguished a figure waving his arms like a crazy man and stumbling directly toward them. Then he staggered to a stop, swayed like a small whirlwind, and slowly crumpled into the sand face first. The shocked driver of the Renault truck nearly braked too late and was forced to swerve around the fallen man, halting in a flurry of dust.
Fairweather was more dead than alive. He was badly dehydrated and the sweat on his body had crusted into a fine layer of white salt crystals. He soon regained consciousness as the French oil men slowly trickled water past his swollen tongue. Four hours later, his body fluids restored after drinking almost 2 gallons of water, Fairweather thickly croaked out the story of his escape from the massacre at Asselar.
To the one Frenchman on the prospecting team who understood English, Fairweather’s tale sounded like a drunken fabrication, but it also
“But why kill himself?” she murmured. “For what purpose?”
“To protect others connected with your failed murder attempt,” Pitt answered.
“He’d willingly take his own life to remain silent?” she asked with disbelief.
“A loyal fanatic to his boss,” Pitt said quietly. “I suspect that if he hadn’t taken cyanide on his own, he’d have had help.”
Eva shook her head. “This is insane. You’re talking a conspiracy.”
“Face facts, lady, someone went to a lot of trouble to eliminate you.” Pitt stared at Eva. She looked like a small girl who was lost in a department store. “You have an enemy who doesn’t want you in Africa, and if you expect to go on living, I suggest you take the next plane back to the States.”
She looked dazed. “No, not while people are dying.”
“You’re tough to convince,” he said.
“Put yourself in my place.”
“Better yet, your colleagues’ shoes. They may be on a hit list too. We’d better get back to Cairo and warn them. If any of this is tied to your research and investigation, their lives are also in danger.”
Eva looked down at the dead man. “What do you intend to do with him?”
Pitt shrugged. “Throw him in the Med with his friends.” Then a devilish smile rode his craggy face. “I’d love to see the face of their ringleader when he learns his assassins have gone missing without a trace and you’re still walking around as if nothing happened.”
4
Company officials at the Backworld Expeditions offices in Cairo realized something was wrong when the desert safari group failed to arrive in the fabled city of Timbuktu on schedule. Twenty-four hours later, pilots of the aircraft that was chartered to return the tourists to Marrakech, Morocco, flew a search pattern to the north but saw no sign of the vehicles.
Fears intensified after three days passed and Major Fair-weather had still failed to report in. Mali government authorities were alerted and they cooperated fully, sending out military air and motorized vehicle patrols to backtrack the safari’s known route across the desert.
Panic began to reign after the Malians failed to find any sighting of people or the Land Rovers during a concentrated search lasting four days. An army helicopter flew over Asselar and reported seeing nothing but a dead and abandoned village.
Then on the seventh day, a French oil prospecting team, pushing south along the Trans-Saharan Motor Track, discovered Major Ian Fairweather. The sky over the flat, rock-strewn plain was open and empty. The sun burned down and baked the sand so that the heat waves shimmered and danced. The French geologists were astonished when a distorted apparition suddenly appeared through a wavering heat mirage. One moment the image seemed to float free, and then expand and retract to grotesque proportions in the hot, freakish air.
As the range closed they distinguished a figure waving his arms like a crazy man and stumbling directly toward them. Then he staggered to a stop, swayed like a small whirlwind, and slowly crumpled into the sand face first. The shocked driver of the Renault truck nearly braked too late and was forced to swerve around the fallen man, halting in a flurry of dust.
Fairweather was more dead than alive. He was badly dehydrated and the sweat on his body had crusted into a fine layer of white salt crystals. He soon regained consciousness as the French oil men slowly trickled water past his swollen tongue. Four hours later, his body fluids restored after drinking almost 2 gallons of water, Fairweather thickly croaked out the story of his escape from the massacre at Asselar.
To the one Frenchman on the prospecting team who understood English, Fairweather’s tale sounded like a drunken fabrication, but it also
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