'Good lord!' Perlmutter uttered as he peered out the helicopter's windshield at the sunrise illuminating the dead land below. 'You walked through that?'
'Actually, we sailed across this section of the desert in our improvised land yacht,' Pitt answered. 'We're flying our trek in reverse.'
Perlmutter had flown into Algiers on a military jet, and then caught a commercial airliner to the small desert city of Adrar in southern Algeria. There, Pitt and Giordino had met him shortly after midnight and escorted him aboard a helicopter they'd borrowed from the project's French construction crew.
After refueling, they headed south, spotting the land yacht just after dawn, lying forlornly on its side where they had left it after their rescue by the Arab truck driver. They landed and dismantled the old wing, cables, and wheels that had saved their lives, lashing the pieces to the landing skids of the helicopter. Then they lifted off with Pitt at the controls and set a course for the ravine that held Kitty Mannock's lost aircraft:
During the flight, Perlmutter read over a copy Pitt had made of Kitty's logbook. 'What a courageous lady,' he said in admiration. 'With only a few swallows of water, a broken ankle, and a badly sprained knee, she hobbled nearly 16 kilometers under the most wretched conditions.'
'And that was only one way,' Pitt reminded him. 'After stumbling on the ship in the desert, she limped back to her aircraft.'
'Yes, here it is,' said Perlmutter, reading aloud.
Wednesday, October 14. Extreme heat. Becoming very miserable. Followed ravine southward until it finally opened out onto a wide, dry riverbed, I estimate about 10 miles from plane. Have trouble sleeping in the bitter cold nights. This afternoon I found a strange-looking ship half buried, in the desert. Thought I was hallucinating, but after touching the sloping sides of iron, I realized it was real. Entered around an old cannon protruding through an opening and spent the night. Shelter at last.
Thursday, October 15. Searched interior of ship. Too dark to see very much. Found several remains of the former crew. Very well preserved. Must have been dead a long time judging from the look of their uniforms. A plane flew over, but did not see the ship. I could not climb outside in time to signal. It was traveling in the direction of my crash. I will never be found here and have decided to return to my plane in the chance it has been discovered. I know now it was a mistake to try and walk out. If searchers found my plane they could never follow my trail. The wind has blown sand over it like snow in a blizzard. The desert has its own game, and I cannot beat it.
Perlmutter paused and looked up. 'That explains why you found the logbook with her entries at the crash site. She carne back in the vain hope the search planes had found hers.'
'What were her last words?' asked Giordino.
Perlmutter turned a page and continued reading.
Sunday, October 18. Returned to plane but have seen to sign of rescue party. Am pretty well done in. If I am round after I'm gone, please forgive the grief I've caused. A kiss for my mum and dad. Tell them I tried to die bravely. I cannot write more, my brain no longer controls my hand.
When Perlmutter finished, each man felt a deep sense of sadness and melancholy. They were all moved by Kitty's epic fight to survive. Tough guys to the end, they all fought to suppress their glistening eyes.
'She could have taught a lot of men the meaning of courage,' Pitt said heavily.
Perlmutter nodded. 'Thanks to her endurance, another great mystery may be solved.'
'She gave us a ball park,' acknowledged Pitt. 'All we have to do is follow the ravine south until it opens into an old riverbed and start our search for the ironclad from there.'
Two hours later, the Aussie recovery team paused in their task of carefully dismantling the weathered remains of Kitty Mannock's old Fairchild airplane and looked up as a helicopter appeared and circled the ravine containing the wreckage. Smiles broke out as the Hussies recognized the missing wing and landing gear tied to the chopper's landing skids.
Pitt eased back on the cyclic control and brought the craft to a gentle landing on the flat ground above the ravine to avoid covering the recovery workers and their equipment in a tornado of dust and sand. He shut down the engines and checked his watch. It was eight-forty A.M., a few hours shy of the hottest time of day.
St. Julien Perlmutter shifted his bulk in the copilot's seat in preparation for his exit. 'I wasn't built for these contraptions,' he grumbled as the full blast of the heat hit him upon exiting the air-conditioned cabin.
'Beats the hell out of walking,' Giordino said as he surveyed the familiar ground. 'Believe me, I know.'
A big, brawny Aussie with a ruddy face climbed from the ravine and approached them. 'Allo there, you must be Dirk Pitt.'
'I'm Al Giordino, he's Pitt.' Giordino gestured over his shoulder.
'Ned Quinn, I'm in charge of the recovery operation.'
Pitt winced as Quinn's huge paw crushed his hand. Massaging his knuckles, Pitt said, 'We brought back the parts of Kitty's aircraft that we borrowed a few weeks ago.'
'Much appreciated.' Quinn's voice rasped like iron against a grinding wheel. 'Amazin' bit of ingenuity, using the wing to sail over the desert.'
'St. Julien Perlmutter,' said Perlmutter, introducing himself.
Quinn patted an enormous belly that hung over a pair of work pants. 'Seems we both take to good food and drink, Mr. Perlmutter.'
'You wouldn't happen to have some of that good Aussie beer with you by chance?'
'You like our beer?'
'I keep a case of Castlemaine from Brisbane on hand for special occasions.'
'We don't have any Castlemaine,' said Quinn, mightily impressed, 'but I can offer you a bottle of Fosters.'
'I'd be much obliged,' Perlmutter said gratefully as his sweat glands began to pour.
Quinn walked over to the cab of a flatbed truck and pulled four bottles from an ice chest. He brought them back and passed them around.
'How soon will you be finishing up?' asked Pitt, moving off the subject of brew.
Quinn turned and stared at the portable crane that was preparing to lift the engine from the ancient aircraft onto the truck. 'Another three or four hours before she's snugly tied down and we're on our way back to Algiers.'
Pitt pulled the logbook from his shirt pocket and held it out to Quinn. 'Kitty's pilot log. She used it to record her final flight and tragic aftermath. I borrowed it for reference on something she found during her ordeal. I hope Kitty wouldn't have minded.'
'I'm sure she didn't mind at all,' said Quinn, nodding down at the wooden coffin draped in the Australian flag with the cross of St. George and stars of the Southern Cross. 'My countrymen are indebted to you and Mr. Giordino for clearing up the mystery of her disappearance so we could bring her home.'
'She's been gone too long,' said Perlmutter softly.
'Yes,' Quinn said with a touch of reverence to his rasping voice. 'That she has.'
Much to Perlmutter's delight, Quinn insisted on supplying their helicopter with ten bottles of beer before they said their farewells. To a man, the Aussies climbed the steep bank to express their thanks and heartily shake Pitt and Giordino's hands. After he lifted off the helicopter into the air, Pitt circled the wreckage once more in tribute before turning and following Kitty's footsteps toward the legendary ship in the desert.
Flying in a straight line over the meandering ravine that had taken Kitty days of painful struggle to limp through, the jet helicopter reached the ancient riverbed in less than twelve minutes. What had once been a flowing river surrounded by a green belt was now little more than a wide barren wash surrounded by unstable sand.
'The Oued Zarit,' announced Perlmutter. 'Hard to believe it was a thriving waterway.'
'Oued Zarit,' Pitt repeated. 'That's what the old American prospector called it. He claimed it began to go dry about a hundred and thirty years ago.'
'He was right. I did some research on old French surveys of the area. There once was a port near here where caravans traded with merchants who ran a fleet of boats. No telling where it stood now. It was covered over by sand not long after the unending drought began and the water sank into the sand.'
'So the theory is the Texas steamed up the river and became landlocked when the river ran dry,' said Giordino.
'Not a theory. I found a deathbed statement in the archives from a crewman by the name of Beecher. He swore he was the only survivor of the Texas' crew, and gave a detailed description of the ship's final voyage across
