The double doors were latched and sealed with a rusty padlock. Giordino gripped it in his massive hands and gave it a heavy tug. The shackle popped free. He looked at Pitt and smiled.
"Nothing to it really. The tumblers were old and worn."
"If I thought there was the least hope we'd ever get out of this place," Pitt said tartly, "I'd put you in for a medal."
He gently pulled one door open far enough for them to enter. One end of the garage was an open pit for mechanics to work under cars. There was a small office and a room filled with tools and machinery. The rest of the floor space held three cars and a pair of trucks in various stages of disassembly. But it was the car that sat in the open center of the garage that drew Pitt. He reached through one of the windows of a truck and pulled the light switch, illuminating an old pre-World War II automobile with elegant lines and a bright rose-magenta color scheme.
"My God," Pitt muttered in awe. "An Avions Voisin."
"A what?"
"A Voisin. Built from 1919 until 1939 in France by Gabriel Voisin. She's a very rare car."
Giordino walked from bumper to bumper, studying the styling of the quite unique and different car. He noted the unusual door handles, the three wipers mounted on the glass of the windshield, the chrome struts that stretched between the front fenders and radiator, and the tall, winged mascot atop the radiator shell. "Looks weird to me."
"Don't knock it. This classy set of wheels is our ticket out of here."
Pitt climbed behind the steering wheel, which was set on the right side, and sat in the art deco-designed upholstery of the front seat. A single key was in the ignition. He switched it on and stared at the fuel gauge needle as it climbed to the full line. Next he pressed the button that turned over the electrical motor that extended through the bottom of the radiator, and served as both the starter and the generator. There was utterly no sound of the engine being cranked over. The only indication that it was suddenly running was an almost inaudible cough and a slight puff of vapor out the exhaust pipe.
"A quiet old bird," observed Giordino, impressed.
"Unlike most modern engines with poppet valves," said Pitt, "this one is powered by a Knight sleeve-valve engine that was quite popular in its day for silent operation."
Giordino gazed at the old classic car with great skepticism. "You actually intend to drive this old relic across the Sahara Desert?"
"We've got a full tank of gas, and it beats riding a camel. Find some clean containers and fill them with water, and see if you can scrounge anything to eat."
"I doubt seriously," Giordino said, morosely staring around the run-down garage, "this establishment has a soft drink and candy machine."
"Do what you can."
Pitt opened the rear doors of the building and pushed out the yard gate far enough to allow the car to pass through. Then he checked over the car to ensure the oil and water were filled to capacity and there was air in the tires, particularly the spare.
Giordino came up with half a case of locally produced soft drink and several plastic bottles of water. "We won't go thirsty for a few days, but the best I could do in the culinary department is two cans of sardines I found in a desk and some gooey stuff that looks like boiled candy."
"No sense in hanging around. Throw your cache in the backseat and let's hit the road."
Giordino obliged and climbed in the passenger's seat as Pitt pushed the gear lever on the Cotal gearbox, actually a switch on an arm that protruded from the steering column, into low gear, pressed the accelerator pedal, and eased out the clutch. The sixty-year-old Voisin moved forward smoothly and quietly.
Pitt slowly picked his way between the junked cars and passed out the gate, cautiously driving down an alley until he reached a narrow dirt road leading to the west on a parallel course with the Niger River. He turned and followed the faint tracks, creeping along no faster than 2 5 kilometers an hour until he was out of sight of the town. Only then did he turn on the headlights and pick up speed.
"Might help if we had a road map," said Giordino.
"A map of camel tracks might be more practical. We can't risk taking the main highway."
"We're okay so long as this cow path runs along the river."
"Soon as we strike the ravine where Gunn's instruments detected the contamination, we'll turn and follow it north."
"I'd hate to be around when the chauffeur notifies Kazim that his pride and joy has been stolen."
"The General and Massarde will think we headed for the nearest border, which is Niger," said Pitt confidently. "The last place they'd expect us to cut and run is the middle of the desert."
"I must say," Giordino grumbled, "I'm not looking forward to the trip."
Neither was Pitt. It was a mad attempt with practically no chance of living to a ripe old age. The headlights showed the land was flat with patches of small, brown-stained rock. The beams caught haunting shadows cast from an occasional manna tree that seemed to flit and dart across the landscape like wraiths.
It was, thought Pitt, a very lonely place to die.
The sun rose hot, and by ten o'clock it was already 32 degrees C (90 degrees F). A wind began to blow from the south, and offered a small but mixed blessing for Rudi Gunn. The breeze felt refreshing to his sweating skin, but it swirled sand into his nose and ears. He wrapped his head cloth more tightly to keep out the grit and pressed his dark glasses against his face to protect his eyes. He took a small plastic bottle of water from his backpack and drained half of it. No need to ration, he thought, after spying a dripping tap beside the terminal.
The airport looked as dead as the night before. On the military side, there had been a changing of the guards, but the hangars and flight line were still void of activity. At the commercial air terminal he watched a man ride up on a motorbike and climb to the control tower. Gunn saw that as a good omen. No one with half a brain would willingly suffer in an elevated, glass-enclosed hot box under a blazing sun unless a plane was scheduled to arrive.
A falcon circled above Gunn's nest in the sand. He gazed at it for a while before cautiously rigging a few weatherworn boards over his body for shade. Then he surveyed the airfield once again. A truck had arrived on the tarmac in front of the terminal. Two men got out and unloaded a set of wooden chocks, which they set on the tarmac to block the aircraft's tires after landing. Gunn stiffened and began mentally preparing his best strategic approach to where the aircraft would park. He fixed the route in his mind, picking the shallow ravines and scattered growth for cover.
Then he lay back, settled in to endure the increasing heat and stared up at the sky. The falcon had homed in on a plover that was streaking and dodging toward the river. A few cotton puff clouds drifted across the vast blue expanse. He wondered how they could survive much less exist in the searing atmosphere. So intent was he on watching the clouds that he did not at first hear the low hum in the distance that signaled the approach of a jet aircraft. Then a glint caught his eye, and he sat up. The sun had flashed on a tiny speck in the sky. He waited, staring until the glint came again, only this time it was lower against the barren horizon. It was an aircraft on approach for landing but still too far away to be recognized. It had to be commercial, he surmised, or it wouldn't be expected to stop at the civilian side of the airfield.
He pushed off the boards shielding the sun, pulled on the backpack, and crouched in readiness for his furtive approach. He squinted into the glaring sky until the plane was only a kilometer away, his heart beginning to pound with anxiety. The seconds dragged past until at last he could distinguish the type and markings, a civilian French airbus carrying the light and dark green stripes of Air Afrique.