Sahara

digested and absorbed into their bloodstream over a long period of time, their systems deteriorate-the brain, the heart and liver, the intestines, even the genetic code. Their senses are dulled and they experience schizophrenia. Disintegration of moral codes and standards takes place. They no longer function as normal humans. To them, killing and eating a relative suddenly seems as ordinary as twisting a chicken's neck and preparing it for the evening dinner. I love that sauce with the chutney taste.'

    'It's very good.'

    'Especially with the khalta. We civilized people, on the other hand, buy nicely butchered, sliced meat in supermarkets. We don't witness cattle being brained with an electronic hammer, or sheep and pigs having their throats cut. We miss the fun part. So we're more conditioned to simply expressing fear, anxiety, and misery. A few might shoot up the landscape and kill the neighbors in a fit of madness, but we would never eat anyone.'

    'What type of exotic toxin can cause those problems?' asked Pitt.

    Eva drained her wine and waited until the waiter poured another glass. 'Doesn't have to be exotic. Common lead poisoning can make people do strange things. It also bursts capillaries and turns the whites of the eyes beet red.'

    'Do you have room for dessert?' Pitt asked.

    'Everything is so good, I'll make room.'

    'Coffee or tea?'

    'American coffee.'

    Pitt motioned to the waiter who was on him like a skier attacking fresh snow. 'An Um Ali for the lady and two coffees. One American, one Egyptian.'

    'What's an Um Ali?' asked Eva.

    'A hot bread pudding with milk and topped with pine nuts. Soothes the stomach after a heavy meal.'

    'Sounds just right.'

    Pitt leaned back in his chair, his craggy face set in concern. 'You said you're catching a flight tomorrow. Do you still intend to go to Mali?'

    'Still playing the role of my protector?'

    'Traveling in the desert can be a murderous business. Heat won't be your only enemy. Someone out there is waiting to kill you and your fellow do-gooders.'

    'And my knight in shining white armor won't be there to save me,' she said with a tinge of sarcasm. 'You don't frighten me. I can take care of myself.'

    Pitt stared at her, and she could see a look of sadness in his eyes. 'You're not the first woman who said that and wound up in the morgue.'

    In a ballroom in another part of the hotel Dr. Frank Hopper was wrapping up a news conference. It was a good turnout. A small army of correspondents representing newspapers around the Middle East and four international wire services were besieging him with questions under a battery of lights from local Egyptian TV cameras.

    'How widespread do you believe the environmental pollution is, Dr. Hopper?' asked a lady from Reuters News Service.

    'We won't know until our teams are in the field and have a chance to study the spread.'

    A man with a tape recorder waved his hand. 'Do you have a source of the contamination?'

    Hopper shook his head. 'At the moment we have no idea where it's coming from.'

    'Any possibility it might be the French solar detoxification project in Mali?'

    Hopper walked over to a map of the southern Sahara that was hung on a large display stand and picked up a pointer. He aimed the tip at a desolate region of desert in the northern section of Mali. 'The French project is located here at Fort Foureau, well over 200 kilometers from the closest area of reported contamination sickness. Too far for it to be a direct source.'

    A German correspondent from Der Spiegel stood up. 'Couldn't the pollution be carried by winds?'

    Hopper shook his head. 'Not possible.'

    'How can you be so certain?'

    'During the planning and construction stages, my fellow scientists and I at the World Health Organization were consulted every step of the way by the engineers of the Massarde Entreprises de Solaire Energie who own the facility. All hazardous waste is destroyed by solar energy and reduced to harmless vapor. The output is constantly monitored. No toxic emission is left to be carried on the wind and infect life hundreds of kilometers away.'

    An Egyptian television reporter thrust a microphone forward. 'Are you receiving cooperation from the desert nations you plan to enter?'

    'Most all have invited us with open arms,' answered Hopper.

    'You mentioned earlier there was reluctance on the part of President Tahir of Mali to allow your research team into his country.'

    'That's true, but once we're on site and demonstrate our humane intentions, I expect that he'll have a change of heart.'

     'So you don't feel you are endangering lives by prying into the affairs of President Tahir's government?'

    The beginnings of anger stirred in Hopper's voice. 'The real danger is malaise in the minds of his advisors. They ignore the sickness as if it doesn't exist by letting it go officially unnoticed.'

    'But do you think it is safe for your team to travel about Mali freely?' asked the correspondent from Reuters.

    Hopper smiled a shrewd smile. The questions had turned in the direction he had hoped. 'If tragedy should occur, I count on you, the ladies and gentlemen of the news media, to investigate and lay the wrath of the world on the doorstep of the guilty party.'

    After dinner, Pitt escorted Eva to her hotel door. She fumbled with the key nervously, unsure of herself. She -certainly had the excuse, she told herself, to invite him in. She owed him, and she wanted him. But Eva played by the rules of the old school and found it difficult to leap into bed with every man who showed an interest in her, even one who had saved her life.

    Pitt noticed the faint shade of red rising from her neck into her face. He looked down into her eyes. They were as blue as a South Seas sky. He took her by the shoulders and gently pulled her to him. She tensed slightly but offered no resistance. 'Postpone your flight.'

    She averted her face. 'I can't.'

    'We may not meet again.'

    'I am bound by my work.'

    'And when you're free?'

    'I'll return to my family home in Pacific Grove, California.'

    'A beautiful area. I've often entered a classic car in the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.'

    'It's lovely in June,' she said, her voice suddenly trembling.

    He smiled. 'Then it's you and I and the Bay of Monterey.'

    It was as if they had become friends on an ocean voyage, a brief interlude that planted the seed of mutual attraction. He kissed her softly, and then stepped back. 'Stay out of harm's way. I don't want to lose you.'

    Then he turned and walked toward the elevators.

    For a century of centuries Egyptians and the vegetation have fought to maintain their precious toehold between the pewter-blue waters of the Nile and the yellow-brown sands of the Sahara. Winding 6500 kilometers from its headwaters in Central Africa to the Mediterranean, only the Nile of all the great rivers of the world flows north. Ancient, always present, ever alive The Nile is as alien to the arid North African landscape as it would be in the steamy atmosphere of the planet Venus.

    The hot season had arrived along the river. The heat rolled over and settled on the water like an oppressive blanket pulled from the great sprawling desert to the west. The dawn sun came over the horizon with the fiery thrust of a poker, spawning a slight breeze that felt like a blast from an open furnace.

    The serenity of the past met the technology of the present as a lateen-rigged felucca, manned by four young boys, sailed past a sleek research boat laden with state-of-the-art electronic gear. Seemingly little inconvenienced by the heat, the boys laughed and waved at the turquoise-colored boat heading on an opposite course downriver.