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he last third of the journey was over hard ground, peppered with rocks that had been polished smooth by tiny grit blown by the wind. The rocks varied in size from marbles to footballs and made driving a horror, but they never gave thought to reducing their speed. They bounced over the uneven ground at a constant rate of 90 kilometers an hour, enduring the choppy, bone-jarring ride with stoic determination.
Exhaustion and suffering were overcome by thinking of what must be happening to the men and women they left behind. Giordino and Steinholm well knew that if there was any hope for them at all, the American Special Operations Forces must be found, and found quickly if a rescue mission was to reach the fort before Kazim massacred everyone inside. Giordino's promise to return by noon came back to haunt him. The prospect looked dim indeed.
"How far to the border?" asked Steinholm in English with an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent.
"No way of telling," Giordino answered. "They don't erect welcome signs to empty desert. For all I know, we've already crossed it."
"At least now it's light enough to see where we're going."
"Makes it easier for the Malians to pick us off too."
"I vote we head north toward the railroad," said Steinholm. "The fuel gauge is touching on empty. Another 30 kilometers and we'll have to walk."
"Okay, you sold me." Giordino checked the computer once more and pointed toward the compass mounted above the instrument panel. "Turn on a heading of 50 degrees northwest and run a diagonal course until we bisect the track bed. That will give us a few more kilometers in case we haven't passed into Mauritania yet."
"The moment of truth," Steinholm said, smiling. He jammed the pedal to the floor, spinning the wheels in the rock and sand, showering the air with pebbles and dust. In unison he twisted the wheel and sent the military version of the dune buggy tearing over the desert toward Massarde's railroad.
The fighters returned at eleven o'clock and resumed devastating the already wrecked fort with their missiles. When they finished their bomb runs, the four tanks took up the bombardment as the desert echoed with the constant rumble of explosives. To the defenders the thunder and devastation never seemed to end as Kazim's ground forces moved to within 300 meters and blasted away at the ruins with mortars and sniper fire.
The concentration of firepower was unlike anything the French Foreign Legion had ever experienced fighting the Tuaregs during their hundred-year occupation of West Africa. Shell after shell rained down, the detonations merging in a never-ending clap of thunder. The remnants of the walls continued to be pulverized from the constant explosions that hurled stone, mortar, and sand high into the air until little of the old fort bore any resemblance to its original shape. It now looked like a ruin from antiquity.
General Kazim's command aircraft had landed at a nearby dry lake. Accompanied by his Chief-of-Staff, Colonel Sghir Cheik, and Ismail Yerli, he was met by Captain Mohammed Batutta. The Captain led them to a four-wheel-drive staff car and drove them to the hastily set up headquarters of his Field Commander, Colonel Nouhoum Mansa, who stepped forward to greet them.
"You have them completely hemmed in?" Kazim demanded.
"Yes, General," Mansa quickly answered. "My plan is to gradually compress our lines around the fort until the final assault:
"Have you attempted to persuade the UN team to surrender?"
"On four different occasions. Each time I was flatly rejected by their leader, a Colonel Levant:"
Kazim smiled cynically. "Since they insist on dying, we'll help them along.
"There cannot be many of them left," observed Yerli as he peered through a telescope mounted on a tripod. "The place looks like a pulverized sieve. They must all be buried under the stone from the fallen walls.
"My men are anxious to fight," said Mansa. "They wish to put on a good show for their beloved leader."
Kazim looked pleased. "And they shall have their opportunity. Give the order to charge the fort in one hour."
There was no pause from the incessant hammering. Down in the arsenal, now crammed with nearly sixty commandos and civilians, the stones supporting the arched roof, their mortar crumbling, began falling on the huddled mass of people below.
Eva was crouched near the stairway, bandaging a female fighter whose shoulder was punctured in several places by small shrapnel, when a mortar shell burst at the head of the upper entrance. Her body shielded the woman she was tending as the blast mauled her with flying rock. She lost consciousness and awoke later to find herself laid out on the floor with the other wounded.
One of the medics was at work on her as Pitt sat and held her hand, his face tired, streaked with sweat, and wearing a stubble of beard turned nearly white with billowing dust, lit up with a loving smile.
"Welcome back," he said. "You gave us quite a scare when the stairway caved in."
"Are we trapped?" she murmured.
"No, we can break out when the time comes."
"It seems so dark."
"Captain Pembroke-Smythe and his team cleared an exit only big enough for us to breathe. It doesn't let in much light, but keeps out the shrapnel."
"I feel numb all over. How strange there is no pain."
The medic, a young red-headed Scotsman, grinned at her. "I've heavily sedated you. I couldn't have you waking up on me while I set your lovely bones."
