Artifact

by Kevin J. Anderson

  McKendry didn’t need to build his muscles, just keep them from atrophying; the recuperation-forced lethargy had already done enough damage. In less than a month, he was up to fifty push-ups and half an hour on the exercise bike at its highest tension setting. Satisfied, he put himself on a maintenance program and gave himself until May 31—Joshua Keene’s birthday—to complete the details of his security job and begin the second part of his mission: finding Selene and recovering the piece of Frik’s coveted artifact.

  He would keep his word to himself and to Frik, even though, to the Oilstar exec, losing Keene seemed to be nothing more than “the cost of doing business.”

  What he needed, McKendry thought, was a plan, preferably one that was proactive rather than defensive. Instead of waiting for Green Impact to rally its forces, to pull together the survivors of its terrorist team and find another way to strike against Oilstar, he would take the initiative.

  First, he would find out where Selene and her terrorists had gone to ground. The Orinoco jungles were wide and complex, but they were not impenetrable. He had no doubt that he could track her down, given time, and a little help from the Daredevils Club.

  Those who were left.

  Those he could trust.

  He eliminated Peta, to whom he already owed a debt of gratitude, and Frik, whom he neither liked nor trusted. That left Ray Arno. Last New Year’s Eve, when Frik had challenged all members of the Daredevils Club to take on this joint mission, the stuntman and explosives expert had offered his assistance. Now McKendry needed him to put together a team to find Selene Trujold’s encampment and strike Green Impact.

  On the last day of May, McKendry put through his call to Las Vegas.

  A day and a half later the thump, thump of chopper blades heralded Ray’s arrival. McKendry looked up at the dark bumblebee shape of the helicopter flying in from Port of Spain, and climbed to the top of the helipad, using the ladders and steep metal stairs instead of the elevator.

  The helicopter circled around, wavering as it hovered in the air, and settled askew on the painted circles of the landing pad. As the chopper’s rotors gradually slowed, the passenger door popped open and Ray Arno climbed out, all energy and muscles. McKendry came forward to meet him, extending a large hand whose grip was matched by Ray’s.

  “Thank you for coming.” Terris had to shout to be heard over the throbbing vibration of the helicopter

  “No problem, Terr.” The stuntman looked him up and down. “You look awful, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “I lost a lot of weight and—”

  “And your best friend. I was really sorry to hear about Josh.”

  McKendry nodded his thanks and led Ray to the lift. They took it down past convoluted pipes, exhaust torches, and fractionating tubes, where the production rig could perform preliminary refining of the petroleum they brought up.

  “Tell me about this,” Ray said.

  “The crude oil is piped out to tankers like theYucatán and taken to Venezuela’s major refineries on the northern coast at Puerto La Cruz and other places.”

  “And Frik gets richer every minute.”

  “Not just Frik. Venezuela’s oil boom began in the 1920s. The surge of unexpected money rocked the South American economy. Even with the extraordinary tax breaks and tariff exclusions granted to business developers from the States, Venezuelans suddenly found themselves the most affluent people on the entire continent.”

  “Tough job if you can get it,” Ray said. “Bet it took them no time to pick up European and North American vices.”

  The two men climbed past teams of workers wearing gloves and helmets, boots, and colorful jumpsuits smeared with crude oil. TheValhalla rig workers stood around talking, halfheartedly monitoring the production equipment. They glanced at their tough new security chief as he passed, then went back to their tasks with greater fervor.

  When the two men reached the habitation decks, a large module that seemed to be halfway between a military barracks and a run-down resort, McKendry went on talking.

  “If you help me finish this up,” he said, “it’ll be a story you can tell for ten New Year’s Eves in a row. It’ll finish up what Frik asked us to do and—”

  “If you want my help, Terris, you have it, but all I need is a story for one year. Not that I mean to go out of action anytime soon.”

  They walked through a pool hall, with its billiards tables and pinball machines and garish video games. There was also a small bowling alley, a Laundromat, even a movie theater—amenities that Oilstar used, along with large pay, to tempt crews into remaining offshore for months at a time. McKendry was pleased to see that no one was sitting around killing time during duty hours.

  “Some joint,” Ray said, stopping to look back at the path they had taken. “Maybe my next Strip hotel should be an oil rig. Listen, I really could use a drink. A cup of coffee will do.”

  McKendry led him to a table in the extensive cafeteria where chefs were working with large hot pans, filling and preparing a lunch of spiced rice, black beans, chicken, fish, sliced mangoes, papayas, and bananas.

  Ray had heard some news about the attempted hijacking of theYucatán and the potential disaster that had been averted. Over a large pot of coffee, McKendry gave him the full details. He described Green Impact’s agenda, talked about Selene Trujold, and detailed how it had all resulted in his own near fatal shooting, and the death of Joshua Keene.

  “Selene escaped,” he said. “Green Impact must have their camp out in the delta jungles. I think we’ll be able to find them.” He scowled. “I want to disable those bastards for what they did to Joshua.”

  Ray perked up. “We can also get the piece of the artifact from Selene.”

  “True enough,” McKendry said. “But that’s not my primary objective.”

  “Explain that to Frik,” Ray said.

  “I don’t think I owe Frik an explanation for anything.”

  “Okay, okay. God you’re jumpy.” Ray took a sip of coffee. “So what’s the plan?”

  “Joshua and I made the acquaintance of the Venezuelan minister of security, a Señor Juan Ortega de la Vega Bruzual. We had a nice chat with him in Caracas. He wants to keep himself out of the news, especially with all the recent political turmoil, but Señor Bruzual would be very happy to bag these terrorists, put their heads on stakes as it were, and show them off to the world news media. He thinks it would demonstrate that the country is getting back on its feet after all the attempted coups and the economic disasters.”

  Ray Arno pursed his lips. “Is he going to help?”

  “Off the record, yes. We talked again after I called you.” Not an easy task without Joshua’s language skills, he thought. “He told me he’d provide a handful of mercenaries to join any attack squadron we put together. He said he’ll supply us with whatever we need. Weapons, matériel—”

  “Good enough. But I want no killing except in self-defense. We could use two or three men who know the territory and speak the language. I want as few people as possible on the team, people I can trust and train.” He ran his fingers through his curly hair. McKendry wondered why he hadn’t noticed the gray before. “I think we should also track down Manny Sheppard. That old buzzard knows this end of the Caribbean like the back of his hand. He’s probably been up and down the Orinoco Delta, in and out of those tiny streams, more often than you’ve had a beer.”

  McKendry grunted his assent. Manny’s name had popped up more than once in Arthur’s New Year’s tales, and in Ray’s, too. “Does he know his way around this kind of an operation?”

  “Manny was in OECS security. He’s trained with the U.S. Special Forces. I’d say he could help out.”

  “Sounds like he’ll be a major asset. The next question is, do you know where to find him?”

  “I know he doesn’t carry a phone or have a listed number. I’ll start by contacting Peta and go from there. Better yet, I’ll take a quick trip to Grenada.” Ray smiled. “Fortunately, I have frien
ds in high and low places. Given time, I can find anybody.”

  29

  Peta had returned to Grenada with a lot of thinking to do. Most of it was unpleasant at worst and difficult at best, so she was perfectly happy to find ready-made excuses to avoid it.

  She got her wish. Independence Day festivities, just over, had increased her patient load. The newly arrived medical students, unruly as the ones before them, demanded far more than their fair share of attention. Not only did she have to help them in the classroom, but she was constantly needed to reassure angry landlords who wanted to kill the kids or sue their parents, whichever turned out to be simplest.

  Her life developed a tedious rhythm. She worked. She slept. She ate. Now and then she had dinner with an old friend, but knowing she was not good company, she soon gave up on that. She had heard nothing from Manny and assumed that he was off-island on one of the mysterious trips which often kept him away for months at a time.

  Now, suddenly, somehow, it was nearing the end of May.

  Carnival wasn’t until August, the students had settled down, and fewer tourists than usual demanded her time. She even found herself with a whole weekend to spend sitting on her balcony. The postcard perfection of St. George’s and the Carenage provided her with a backdrop for a too-long-delayed replay of the happenings in her life since December.

  Mostly, her mind was not so much filled with questions, but rather with answers she was loath to accept. For one thing, she was sure now that Frikkie—who had not so much as called with a trumped-up apology for the events at San Gabriel—didn’t care if the rest of the Daredevils were killed. In fact, though she had no proof, she suspected that he had been instrumental in killing Arthur.

  Worse yet, thinking back to that night in New York almost five months ago, she remembered that Ray had gone to the restrooms a little while before Arthur. Ray was a demolitions expert. It would have been easy for him to rig a bomb in the toilet, wait for Arthur to enter, and then detonate it by remote control.

  That would place Ray Arno squarely in cahoots with Frik.

  But why?

  What she needed was someone to talk to about all of this, someone she could trust completely.

  With Arthur dead, that left only Manny. She would have called his home to see if he was back in town, but he eschewed telephones and refused to have one in his house. His message center was Aboo’s, a bar owned by his father.

  Since she was tired of her own company and her circular thoughts, around sundown on Sunday she left her house to find him.

  Accompanied by the sound of church bells, she walked past the Parliament building and through the marketplace, abandoned this late in the day to island dogs and stray humans picking through the wilted leftovers of Saturday’s traffic. Rather than struggle over the hill on Young Street, she cut through Sendall Tunnel to the Carenage. Grenadian drivers weren’t known for their caution, and the narrow hundred-year-old passage under the large hill provided little room for error. She walked at a brisk pace, hugging the stone wall. Then, safely through, she slowed to stroll along the Carenage, enjoying the sounds and smells of the compact waterfront.

  When she passed the new Cable and Wireless building, she crossed the street to Aboo’s Bar.

  The small, run-down blue shack doubled as St. George’s Grand Central Station for a certain class of people. Though Peta had chosen never to ask Manny about it or to explore it herself, rumor had it that there was a dark room behind the bar which had served—still served—as the meeting place for everyone from murderers and ministers to government officials and their underage mistresses.

  The bar itself was small and utilitarian. Manny was behind the counter, relieving his father of Sunday-evening duty. He grinned broadly when she entered and instantly pulled out two cold bottles of Carib from the ice chest, one for each of them.

  “Looking good.” He kissed her on one cheek, then the other, and handed her a bottle.

  Peta smiled. “I’m glad to see you too.”

  “You come all this way for a beer or—”

  “I need to talk to you.” Peta drank deeply, hot after her long trek.

  “So talk.” Manny waved at the empty bar. “Crowd won’t hit till after church.”

  Peta settled herself on a worn barstool and lit a cigarette. Manny took it from her. “You gotta stop,” he said, inhaling deeply. Peta nodded and lit another.

  “You’re hopeless,” Manny said.

  “Probably.” She flicked into a piece of misshapen aluminum that passed as an ashtray. “There’s so much…I’m not sure where to begin.”

  “The last time I saw you, you were headed up the hill in San Gabriel,” Manny said.

  “Right. I was off to save Simon.”

  “Did you?”

  Peta shook her head. Like someone who had lost her place in a good novel and found it again, Peta was off and running. She told him about finding Simon and about the attempt on her life. “Blaine got the artifact. If the sharks didn’t get him, I assume he made it to the exploration platform and, eventually, back to Frik,” she said.

  “So you think Frikkie has it now?” Manny asked.

  “Absolutely.” She crushed her cigarette, reached for another, and thought better of it. Twirling the pack around like a top, she filled in Manny on her convictions about Frik and her suspicions about Ray.

  Manny put his hand over hers to stop the nervous mannerism. “I can’t believe Ray would do anything to hurt Arthur, so let’s talk about Frik,” he said. “Correct me if I’m wrong here. You’re saying Frikkie has two pieces of the artifact, one that he had in the first place and the one Simon died to retrieve. The same one Blaine took from you. And you’re saying that you think Arthur died because of the piecehe had—which the police took to their evidence lockup. Have you tried to retrieve that one?”

  “Yes. I’ve called NYPD countless times. They’re not ready to let go of it. The good part is that they’ve assured me they won’t release it to anyone else.”

  In San Gabriel, Peta had told Manny that she had a piece of the artifact, yet neither one of them added the obvious: if Frik knew she had it—and if her theories were correct—he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her for it when he was good and ready to do so. Now, Manny verbalized his fears for her safety. “We know he’s unscrupulous,” he added, after a short pause.

  “Believe me, I’ve thought about that a lot,” Peta said. “I think that I’m safe, for the moment.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it suits his purposes. We talked before about the possibility that Frik was the person who had Arthur killed to get at the artifact. We know for a fact that the killer didn’t get it. My guess is that Frik called NYPD, said he was Arthur’s closest friend, and asked them if they had it.”

  “In which case,” Manny said, “they would have told him that they had guaranteed to hand it over to you when they’re done with the case.”

  “Yes, so his best bet is to make nice to me and try to regain my confidence so that he can talk me into giving him both my stone and Arthur’s.”

  “I have to think about this.” Manny stared through the open doorway, as if simply looking at the sea would provide answers. “Oh shi-yit,” he said. “Trouble approaches from all sides.”

  Peta followed his line of vision. Out on the horizon, she saw the masts of theAssegai .

  “Maybe he’s come to apologize.” Manny’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

  “Apologize for what?” Ray asked, filling the doorway with his muscular form.

  “Here’s the other trouble I saw,” Manny said.

  “I got here yesterday. Didn’t your father tell you?” Ray shook Manny’s hand and hugged Peta. She froze, not knowing whether to shrink from his touch or hug him back, the way she had always done. He looked at her strangely, but said nothing.

  “My father didn’t say a word.” Manny handed Ray a beer and Peta a second. “Better get a refund on your bribe. How much was it?”

  “Twenty dollars.�
��

  “American?”

  Ray nodded. “He said he hadn’t seen you for weeks. I asked the other people in here too. A couple of leathery old men and that layabout fisherman whose wife always comes in looking for him.”

  Manny laughed. “How much did you tipthem ?”

  “Not much.” Ray set down his beer among the many circular rings on the single Formica tabletop in the corner of the bar. “Feels like home,” he said, cooling himself under the slow-moving ceiling fan.

  “To what do we owe this visit?” Peta asked.

  “I’ve been with Terris and—” He stopped short, clearly reluctant to continue whatever it was he had to say in front of Peta. “Look, this is confidential.”

  “Don’t worry about it. The last thing I need is your little-boy games.” Peta slid off the stool.

  “I’m sorry,” Ray said. “Arthur’s dead, but you’re not yet officially a member of the club. That doesn’t mean you don’t have my respect.”

  “No problem. I’m leaving.”

  “Stay,” Manny said. “I’m not a member of the club either. Whatever I can hear, you can hear.”

  Peta was torn between her first instinct, which was to tell Ray to stick it, and her need to find out what part—if any—he had played in Arthur’s death.

  “If you have doctor-type things to do, I can call you later,” Ray said hesitantly. “You’re in my database.”

  “Bad idea,” Manny said. “You know as well as we do what a problem it is keeping things confidential when dealing with our telephone system.”

  Peta knew that Ray couldn’t argue with him, not after being privy to many an argument with Grenadian officials about the fact that line tapping was legal on the island. Any attempt at privacy here was more of a challenge than all of the death-defying feats Ray had accomplished in his lifetime.