Treasure

They'd be sitting ducks if they tried scrambling up ten feet of broken timber."

"Now might be a ripe oportunity to burn the helicopter and get the hell out of here," Findley said unhappily.

"The news gets worse, and it gets better," Gu

Giordino looked at Gu

"I stopped counting at fifteen."

"The opportunity to flee the coop gets even riper," muttered Findley.

"Hollis and his men?" asked Pitt.

Gu

terrorist reinforcements, they were ed by four hostages with two guards. I could just recognize them through my binoculars. One was your Dad. He and a woman were helping two other men along the tracks."

"Hala Kamil, bless her," Pitt said with vast relief. "Thank God, the old man is alive."

"The other two?" asked Giordino.

"Most likely Presidents Hasan and De Lorenzo."

"So much for early retirement," said Findley gloomily as he placed the final piece of tape over Pitts bandage.

"The terrorists are only keeping the Senator and the others alive to ensure a safe escape," said Pitt.

"And won't hesitate to murder them one by one until we hand over their helicopter," predicted Gu

Pitt nodded. "Without a doubt, but if we surrendered, there's no guarantee they wouldn't murder them anywayThey've already tried to assassinate Hala twice and most certainly want Hasan dead too."

"They'll call a truce and negotiate."

Pitt looked at his watch. "They won't haggle for very long. They know their time is ru

"So what's the plan?" asked Giordino.

"We stall and fight for as long as it takes." Pitt looked at Gu

"No, they were a good two hundred meters in the rear, trailing the main party up the rail-bed," Gu

"You're the smallest and the fastest, Rudi. If anybody can get clear of the building undetected and circle around behind those two guards while we distract them, you can."

Gu

"You can."

"That leaves only three of you to hold the fort."

"We'll have to make do." Pitt awkwardly rose to his feet and limped over to the pile of terrorists' clothing he'd tossed on the floor. He returned and held it out to Gu

They'll think you're one of them."

Gu

Giordino came to his rescue by laying a beefy hand on the smaller man's shoulder and steering him to a maintenance passage that dropped beneath the floor and ran around the giant crushing mill.

"You can get out through here," he said smiling. "Wait until things heat up before you make your break."

Gu

"You guys be here when I get back," he said. "You hear?"

Then he ducked under the flooring and was gone.

Hollis paced beside the postage-stamp-sized landing pad that the Lady Flamborough's crew had hurriedly fabricated over the swimming pool. A Carrier Pigeon helicopter settled onto the pad as a small team of men waited to board.

Hollis stopped when he heard a fresh outburst of gunfire from the direction of the mine, his face reflecting concern.

"Load and get 'em airborne," he shouted impatiently to Dillenger.

"Somebody's alive up there and fighting our battle."

"The mine must have been the hijackers' escape point," said Captain Collins, who paced at Hollis's side.

"And thanks to me, Dirk Pitt and his friends stumbled right into them,"

snapped Hollis.

"any way you can get there in time to save them and the hostages?" asked Collins.

Hollis shook his head in grim despair. "Not one chance in hell.

Rudi Gu

He found the narrow-gauge tracks and began walking silently on the crossties. He could see only a short distance around him, but within a few minutes of escaping the terrorists' assault on the crushing mill, he froze in position when his eyes distinguished several vague figures through the rain ahead. He counted four sitting and two standing.

Gu

His only drawback, and a vital one, was he only knew two or three words of Arabic.

Gu

The two figures who were standing took on more detail as he approached, and he saw they held machine guns lowered and pointed his way.

One of them replied with words Gu

"Who goes there?"

"Muhammad," he mumbled, relying on the prophet's name to carry him through, while lazily holding the Heckler & Koch across his chest with the muzzle aimed off to the side.

Gu

Then, while keeping his eyes aimed at the miserable people sitting on the ground between the track rails, and without even looking at the two guards, he squeezed the trigger.

Ammar and his men were on the verge of total exhaustion when they reached the outskirts of the mine. The persistent downpour had turned their clothes sodden and heavy. They struggled over a long mound of tracks and thankfully entered a shed that once housed mining-equipment parts.

Ammar dropped onto a wooden bench, his head drooped on his chest, his breath coming in labored gasps. He looked up as Ibn entered with another man.

"This is Mustapha Osman," said Ibn. "He says an armed group of commandos have killed their group leader and barricaded themselves in the crushing mill with our helicopter."