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"An innocent-looking yacht that changes flags like a woman changes dresses sails up the Niger River," Kazim snarled coldly, "destroys half the Benin navy and its commanding Admiral, calmly enters our water without bothering to stop for customs and immigration inspection, and you sit there and tell me my intelligence network can't identify the nationality of the builder or the owner?"
"I'm sorry, my General," said Cheik nervously. His myopic eyes avoided Kazim's icy stare. "Perhaps if I had been permitted to send an agent on board at the dock in Niamey. . ."
"It cost enough as it was to bribe Niger officials to look the other way when the boat docked for refueling. The last thing I needed was a bumbling agent causing an incident."
"Have they replied to radio contact?" asked Djerma.
Cheik shook his head. "Our warnings have gone unanswered. They have ignored all communications."
"What in Allah's sacred name do they want?" questioned Seyni Gashi. The Chief of Kazim's Military Council looked far more like a camel trader than a soldier. "What is their mission?"
"It seems the mystery is beyond my intelligence people's mentality to solve," said Kazim irritably.
"Now that it's entered our territory," said Foreign Minister Djerma, "why not merely board and take possession?"
"Admiral Matabu tried it, and now he lies at the bottom of the river."
"The boat is armed with missile launchers," Cheik pointed out. "Highly effective judging from the results."
"Surely, we have the necessary firepower-"
"The crew and their boat are trapped on the Niger with nowhere to go," interrupted Kazim. "There is no turning back and running 1000 kilometers to the sea. They must realize any attempt to flee will be cause for our fighter aircraft and land artillery to destroy them. We wait and watch. And when they run out of fuel, their only hope of survival will be to surrender. Then our questions will be answered."
"Can we safely assume the crew will be persuaded to reveal their mission?" inquired Djerma.
"Yes, yes," Cheik quickly answered. "And much more."
The copilot stepped from the cockpit and snapped to attention. "We have the boat in visual sight, sir."
"So at last we can see this enigma for ourselves," said Kazim. "Tell the pilot to give us a good view."
The weariness of the punishing grind and the disappointment of not pinpointing the actual source of the toxin had dulled Pitt's vigilance. His usually sharp powers of perception lagged and his mind sidetracked any vision of the steel pincers that were slowly snapping shut on the Calliope.
It was Giordino who heard the distant whine of jet engines, looked up, and saw ii first-an aircraft flying less than 200 meters above the river, running lights blinking in the blue dusk. It visibly swelled into a large passenger jet with Malian national colors striped along the side of its fuselage. Two or three fighters as escorts would have been enough. This plane was surrounded by twenty. It seemed at first the pilot intended to fly straight down the river and buzz the Calliope, but 2 kilometers away it banked and began to circle, drawing closer in a slow spiral. The fighter escort spun off upward and launched into a series of figure eights overhead.
When the jet-- Pitt by now had spotted the huge radar dome on the nose and recognized it as a command center aircraft-- came within 100 meters, faces could be distinguished through the ports staring down, taking in every detail of the super yacht.
Pitt exhaled a long, silent sigh and waved. Then he made a theatrical bow. "Step right up, folks, and see the pirate ship with its merry band of river rats. Enjoy the show, but do not damage the merchandise. You could get hurt."
"Ain't it the truth?" Crouched on the ladder to the engine room, poised to leap at his missile launcher, Giordino stared warily at the circling plane. "If he so much as waggles his wings I'll divide, demolish, and disperse him."
Gunn leisurely sat in a deck chair and doffed his cap at the aerial spectators. "Unless you have a method for making us invisible, I suggest we humor them. It's one thing to be an underdog, but it's quite another to be easy pickings."
"We're overmatched all right," Pitt said, shaking off any trace of weariness. "Nothing we do will make any difference. They've got enough firepower to blow the Calliope into toothpicks."
Gunn scanned the low banks of the river and the barren landscapes beyond. "No use in grounding on shore and making a run for it. The countryside is wide open. We wouldn't get 50 meters."
"So what do we do?" asked Giordino.
"Surrender and take our chances," Gunn offered lamely.
"Even chased rats slash and run," said Pitt. "I'm for the last defiant gesture, a wasted gesture maybe, but what the hell. We give them a nasty sign with our fists, shove the throttles to the wall, and run like hell. If they get downright belligerent, we make cemetery fodder out of them."
"More likely they'll do it to us," complained Giordino.
"You really mean that?" Gunn demanded incredulously.
"Not on your life," Pitt said emphatically. "Mrs. Pitt's boy has no death wish. I'm gambling Kazim wants this boat so bad, he paid off Niger officials to let it pass into Mali so he could grab it. If I win, he won't want even the slightest scratch or dent in the hull."
