Artifact

Paul Trujold, Arthur, Joshua Keene. Dead of unnatural causes. And now Simon. All but Trujold members of the Daredevils Club.



Something smells rotten, McKendry thought for the umpteenth time. But what...besides his own body, which could use some heavy bathing after weeks of hospital sponge baths? Chances were, boredom had led to his feeling that something was awry. He had little else to do but follow rehab instructions and concoct plots where there probably were none.



After Peta's initial hands-on care and during the subsequent weeks of his recovery, he had grown tired of hearing about the "miracle of his survival." Being transferred to rehab was a welcome change, until he found out that he would be staying there through Easter. Fed up with the time-consuming process of recuperation, he became obsessive about obeying instructions. He did whatever he was told to do, and then did it again for good measure, figuring that he had no choice if he wanted to get back on his feet and pick up where he and Keene had left off.



"They tell me you'll be well enough to leave soon," Frik said, entering the room without knocking. "If that's true, you're well enough to answer a few questions."



As boss of Oilstar, Frik had made several perfunctory visits to the hospital. Each time, within five minutes, he was there and gone. McKendry had no illusions about this being a simple courtesy call to wish him better or to express his continued grief at the loss of Joshua Keene.



Seeing Frik, he felt more than his usual annoyance at the man's lack of sensitivity. He had recovered from gunshot wounds before, more often than he wanted to count. He could deal with the residual pain using salves or painkillers, even this time when the flash burns from the explosion were an added annoyance. But nothing seemed able to drive away the ache of his friend's death. A few genuine words of condolence from Frik might have gone a long way.



Taking McKendry's silence to mean assent, Frik said, "I've been wanting to ask if you got any information about the artifact."



McKendry held his anger in check. "I was a little too busy to ask Ms. Trujold about her jewelry."



"Of course." Frik's paternal smile and pat on the shoulder were almost more than McKendry could tolerate. "I tend to get focused on my own goals sometimes. As I've said before, I'm very sorry about Joshua. I think the choice of his replacement for the club should be at your discretion."



McKendry clenched his hands under his thin blanket. "At this moment, I don't really care about the Daredevils Club, Frik. What I want is to feel Selene Trujold's throat inside my grip." He hesitated, but only briefly. "You know, you wouldn't need to worry so much about Green Impact terrorists if you had anybody aboard your tankers or your production platform who gave a damn about security. Joshua and I swam over from theYucatan . We climbed aboard theValhalla platform, ran around for over an hour, and swam back. He even scrambled to the top of the highest derrick. Not a soul saw us. Everybody was busy partying and ignoring standard procedures."



Frik gave a shrug. "This is South America. What can you do?"



"You can be professional, damn it!" McKendry said. "Put me in charge of security on that rig. I need an excuse to stay around and find Selene anyway."



Frik grinned as if he couldn't have been more pleased. Apparently, getting McKendry to work on the rig was precisely the motivation behind his visit. "You've got the job," he said, "starting as soon as you're ready. Complete carte blanche. Do what you need to do, with one proviso. When you find her, I want that artifact."



A few days later, McKendry stood on the broad deck of theValhalla production platform in dark blue jeans so new that they were not yet stained with enough oil and grease for him to fit in with the rig crew. This high off the water, he had a commanding view of the lowlands all around, the broad channel of the Serpent's Mouth with the island of Trinidad to the east and the wide and uncharted swamps of the Delta Amacuro on the Venezuelan mainland to the west.



Standing there, washed by humid breezes that reminded him he was alive, he grieved for Joshua Keene. The medicines he was taking were doing wonders for his residual physical pain, but they did nothing to soften the grief.



He kept remembering the flash of fire.



The explosion on the tanker deck seemed to be tattooed onto his retinas, so that when he shut his eyes he saw the silhouette of Keene's body, black against the flame front, flying into the night. Again and again, he felt the bullets strike his rib cage, like railroad spikes driven in with a sledgehammer. Barely conscious, he'd sensed theYucatan moving on like a lost, lumbering juggernaut through shark-infested water.



Even as he was sure that he was dying, he'd prayed that his friend was still alive.



Almost in self-defense, McKendry turned his thoughts from Keene to his new job. The crew had accepted his presence as security chief, following strict orders from Frik Van Alman. They were clearly intimidated by his size, his brooding nature, and the fact that he had survived what should have been mortal wounds. As far as they were concerned, he was a hero for having prevented a real disaster on the tanker. They approached him with equal measures of admiration and fear.



That was well and good. But what he really required from them was respect, and obedience to a new work ethic.



As Oilstar's newly appointed - self-appointed, really - security chief, McKendry was nothing if not serious about his work. He spoke with all of the levels of management, twenty-five people at a time. Though he hated to talk in public, he gave lecture after lecture.



It took him two days, ten talks, until he had spoken to every single person aboard theValhalla . As they met in the mess hall - where cooks were busy preparing spaghetti and fried fish, big pots of black beans, fried bananas, and heavily spiced rice - he saw their admiration turn to resentment with each of his pronouncements. Seeing the resistance, he called in reinforcements from the mainland, twenty private security troops who helped him go through the crew's personal lockers one at a time, rounding up shopping carts full of rum, scotch, whiskey. The galley even kept a stock of Carib, a flagrant breach of regulations.



During a ceremony reminiscent of a funeral at sea, McKendry made the crew stand and watch as he opened the bottles and poured the alcohol over the side, down into the sea. The quantity of liquor was certainly enough to be detectable even in the warm tropical water; he wondered if sharks could get drunk.



All personnel were required to have valid passports. Even prescription drugs had to be documented with the rig medical staff. Smoking was forbidden anywhere outside the living quarters and the coffee shop, and the workers squawked about not being able to carry lighters outside into the rig machinery and gas-separation towers. He had to crack a few heads together just to enforce commonsense housekeeping procedures. Even then, he was forced to send a boatload of twenty-three disgruntled and intractable rig workers back home with minimal severance pay and no future prospect for a paycheck from Oilstar.



After that, when he looked the remaining crew members in the eyes, he saw a change in their former laughing, carefree attitude. He had their attention, for now. As for what would happen after he achieved his goal and left them to their own devices, that was a different matter. If Frikkie Van Alman didn't keep watch, they could revert, and Oilstar could go down the tubes.



Frankly, McKendry didn't care. He was neither their father nor their baby-sitter.



Having lived in Venezuela, he was familiar with the general manana approach. It had driven him nuts then, and it did so now, even though he understood its origins. Venezuela was one of the prime movers in the formation of OPEC in 1960, and though oil prices had dipped in the 1980s - he could remember the resultant economic and political turmoil - the nation still lived with too much spending money and too little personal productivity, not to speak of enduring and overthrowing a succession of dictators. He figured that Frik's tolerance for the Venezuelan attitude was possible only because so much of his workforce was Trinidadian.



Not that they were so eager to lift that bale or tote that barge either.



The sooner he could get on with his real reason for being here, the better, he thought, as he raised a pair of binoculars and examined the topography around him: marshy islands, drunkenly balanced trees laden with greenery, the labyrinth of canos, the low swamps.



Scattered, disorganized villages dotted the seashore where the Orinoco petered out into the gulf. Looking at the landscape, he saw endless hiding places for the ecoterrorists. Grim and angry, standing alone under the whistling girders of the north derrick, the one Joshua had foolishly climbed, McKendry swore anew that he would find Selene Trujold and her murderous companions - with or without the law and the Venezuelan military, with or without the help of Oilstar.



For him, tracking down Green Impact had become personal.



To help speed the recovery from his injuries, McKendry used the exercise facilities onboard theValhalla platform, a health club that could have commanded high prices in the States. Most of the time, he felt as if it were his private domain. The potbellied rig workers never seemed interested in using their off- duty hours to exercise. They didn't bother to keep themselves in shape, and instead grew thick in the gut and spent their downtime smoking cigarettes, playing card games, and watching videotapes which, to his amusement, included a complete library of his former boss, the Spanish action star Rodolfo.



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 theYucatan 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 theYucatan 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 Senor 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 Senor 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, materiel - "



"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 friends in high and low places. Given time, I can find anybody."