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"I received an inquiry from the CIA," said Sandecker with a tight smile, "asking if we knew anything about a maverick operation in Mali after you destroyed half the Benin navy and a helicopter."
"What did you tell them?"
"I lied. Please go on."
"Fire from one Benin gunboat did, however, manage to destroy our data transmission system," Gunn con
tinued, "making it impossible to telemeter my results to Hiram Yaeger's computer network."
"I'd like to retest your water samples while Hiram verifies your analysis data," said Chapman.
Yaeger stepped next to Gunn and tenderly picked up the computer disks. "Not much I can contribute to this meeting, so I'll get to work."
As soon as the computer wizard had left the room, Gunn stared at Chapman. "I double- and triple-checked my results. I'm confident your lab and Hiram will confirm my findings."
Chapman sensed the tension in Gunn's tone. "Believe me when I say I don't question your procedures or data for a minute. You, Pitt, and Giordino did one hell of a job. Thanks to your efforts we now know what we're dealing with. Now the President can use his clout to lean on Mali to shut off the contaminant at the source. This will buy us time to formulate ways to neutralize its effects and stop further expansion of the red tides."
"Don't break out the cake and ice cream just yet," Gunn warned seriously. "Though we tracked the compound to its entry point into the river and identified its properties, we were unable to discover the location of its source."
Sandecker drummed his fingers on the table. "Pitt gave me the bad news before he was cut off. I apologize for not passing along the information, but I was counting on a satellite survey to fill in the missing piece."
Muriel Hoag looked directly into Gunn's eyes. "I don't understand how you successfully pursued the compound through 1000 kilometers of water and then lost it on land."
"It was easy," Gunn shrugged wearily. "After we sailed beyond the point of highest concentration, our contaminant readings dropped off and the instruments began showing water with commonly known pollutants. We made several runs back and forth to confirm. We also took visual sightings in every direction. No hazardous waste dump site, no chemical storage or manufacturing facilities were visible along the river or inland. No buildings or construction, nothing. Only barren desert."
"Could a dump site have been buried over at some time in the past?" suggested Holland.
"We observed no evidence of excavation," replied Gunn.
"Any chance the toxin was brewed by mother nature?" asked Chip Webster.
Muriel Hoag smiled. "If tests bear out Mr. Gunn's analysis of a synthetic amino acid, it must have been produced by a biotech laboratory. Not mother nature. And somewhere, somehow, it was discarded along with chemicals containing cobalt. Not the first time accidental integration of chemicals produced a previously unknown compound."
"How in God's name could such an exotic compound suddenly appear in the middle of the Sahara?" wondered Chip Webster.
"And reach the ocean where it acts as steroids to dinoflagellates," added Holland.
Sandecker looked at Keith Hodge. "What's the latest report on the spread of the red tide?"
The oceanographer was in his sixties. Unblinking dark brown eyes gazed from a continually fixed expression on a lean, high-cheekboned face. With the correctly dated clothing he could have stepped from an eighteenth-century portrait.
"The spread has increased 30 percent in the past four days. I fear the growth rate is exceeding our most dire projections."
"But if Dr. Chapman can develop a compound to neutralize the contamination, and we find and cut it off at the source, can't we then control the tide's expansion?"
"Better make it soon," answered Hodge. "At the rate it's proliferating, another month and we should see the first evidence of it beginning to feed off itself without stimulation flowing from the Niger."
"That's three months early!" Muriel Hoag said sharply.
Hodge gave a helpless shrug. "When you're dealing with an unknown the only sure commodity is uncertainty."
Sandecker swung sideways in his chair and gazed at the blown-up satellite photo of Mali projected on one wall. "Where does the compound enter the river?" he asked Gunn.
Gunn stood and walked over to the enlarged photo. He picked up a grease pencil and circled a small area of the Niger River above Gao on the white backdrop reflecting the projection. "Right about here, off an old riverbed that once flowed into the Niger."
Chip Webster pressed the buttons of a small console sitting on the table, and enlarged the area around Gunn's marking. "No structures visible. No indication of population. Nor do I make out any sign of excavated dirt or a mound that would have to be in evidence if any type, of trench was dug to bury hazardous materials."
"This is an enigma, all right," muttered Chapman. "Where in the devil can the rotten stuff come from?"
