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The threat of guilt for killing off the world made no impression. But the reference to dying nomads triggered something in Massarde's mind. "Are you working in concert with Dr. Frank Hopper and his World Health inspection team?"
"No, Giordino and I are strictly on our own."
"But you are aware of them."
Pitt nodded. "I'm acquainted with his biochemist if that makes you happy."
"Dr. Eva Rojas," said Massarde slowly, watching for the effect.
Pitt saw the trap, but with nothing to lose he decided to string along. "Good guess."
Massarde didn't become brilliantly successful by winning a lottery. He was a master of deception and intrigue, but his greatest asset was insight. "I'll make another guess. You were the man who saved her from General Kazim's assassins outside of Cairo."
"I happened to be in the neighborhood, yes. You're in the wrong business, Massarde. You missed your calling by not becoming a palm reader."
To Massarde the novelty of the confrontation was wearing off. He was not used to being talked down to. For a man who controlled a vast financial empire on a day-to-day basis, wasting time with a pair of unwelcome interlopers was merely an annoyance to be pushed aside and handled by employees.
He nodded at Verenne. "Our little talk has ended. Please arrange for General Kazim to take these men into custody."
Verenne's statue face finally broke into a python grin. "With pleasure."
Captain Brunone did not come from the same mold as Massarde or Verenne. A product of the French military establishment, he may have resigned for triple wages but he still retained a level of honor. "Begging your pardon, Mr. Massarde, I wouldn't turn a rabid dog over to General Kazim. These men may be guilty of trespassing, but they certainly don't deserve to be tortured to death by ignorant barbarians."
Massarde considered Brunone's comment for a moment. "Quite right, quite right," he said, strangely agreeable. "We can't lower ourselves to the level of the General and his butchers." A gleam came to his eyes as he stared at Pitt and Giordino. "'Transport them to the gold mines at Tebezza. He and Dr. Rojas can enjoy each other's company while they dig in the pits."
"What about Kazim?" asked Verenne. "Won't he feel cheated out of making them pay for destroying his car?"
"No matter," Massarde said with utter unconcern. "By the time he discovers their whereabouts they'll be dead."
The President looked across his desk in the oval office at Sandecker. "Why wasn't I briefed on this earlier?"
"I was informed that it was a low-priority item that did not warrant interrupting your busy schedule of appointments."
The President shifted his gaze toward the White House Chief of Staff, Earl Willover. "Is this true?"
A balding, bespectacled man about fifty with a large red moustache shifted in his chair, leaned forward, and glared at Sandecker. "I ran the red tide theory by our national science board. They didn't agree that it was a worldwide threat"
"Then how do they explain the incredible growth that's sweeping the middle Atlantic Ocean?"
Willover returned the President's gaze impassively. "Respected ocean scientists believe the growth is temporary and the tide will soon begin to dissipate as it has in the past."
Willover ran the Executive Branch like Horatius standing against the entire Etruscan army defending the bridge to Rome. Few got across to the oval office, and few escaped Willover's wrath if they overstayed their visit or had the audacity to disagree with the President and argue over policy. It went without saying, almost every member of Congress hated his intestines.
The President looked down at the satellite photos of the Atlantic spread on his desk. "It seems pretty obvious to me this is not a phenomenon to ignore."
"Left to its own resources the red tide would normally fade away," explained Sandecker. "But off the west coast of Africa it is being nursed by a synthetic amino acid and cobalt that stimulate the tide's growth to incredible proportions."
The President, a former senator from Montana, looked more at home in the saddle than behind a desk. He was long and lean, spoke in a soft drawl, and stared through bright blue eyes. He addressed every man as sir and every woman as ma'am. Whenever he escaped from Washington, he headed for his ranch located not far from the Custer battlefield on the Yellowstone River. "If this threat is as serious as you say, the whole world is at risk."
"If anything, we've probably underestimated the potential danger," said Sandecker. "Our computer experts have updated the rate of expansion. Unless we stop the spread, all life as we know it on earth will die from lack of oxygen in the atmosphere by late next year, probably sooner. The oceans will be dead before spring."
"That's ridiculous," Willover scoffed. "I'm sorry, Admiral, but this is a classic case of Chicken Little claiming the sky is falling."
Sandecker gave Willover a look equal to a jab with a spear.
"I am not Chicken Little, and the coming annihilation is very real. We're not talking about the potential risks of ozone depletion and its effects on skin cancer two centuries from now. No geological upheavals or unknown plague, no nuclear Armageddon with ensuing darkness, no meteor striking the planet in a raging cataclysm. Unless the scourge of the red tide is stopped, and stopped quickly, it will suck up the oxygen from the atmosphere, causing the total destruction of every living thing on the face of the earth."
