Artifact: A Daredevils Club Adventure Part 11

Two black Zodiac rafts filled with commandos sped across the channel of the Serpent's Mouth. They had eased out of one of the many mouths of the Orinoco Delta at midnight; after two hours Selene Trujold could just now make out the shape of the Yucatan near the gleaming beacon that was the Valhalla platform. There was half an hour's worth of water still to cross, the last of it with engines off,moving in silence.

Around her in the rafts, the commandos wore dark suits and carried a stash of black-market weapons, rifles, hand grenades, and explosives. They had night-vision goggles to enable them to direct night operations, but she knew that the Caribbean stars would give them all the illumination they needed.

Her Green Impact fighters were well trained and high-strung, keyed up for this a.s.sault, which had been a full month in the planning. Their information had proved correct: the tanker Yucatan was lashed to the Valhalla's separate pumping platform during the darkest hours of the night. Though the normal complement of crew members aboard the tanker outnumbered them, Green Impact had both weapons and determination.

And they had a plan, not the least component of which was the element of surprise.

Selene narrowed her eyes and looked around. "We have to time this properly," she said. "We know their routine. During the day, the Valhalla needs all of its two hundred crew members aboard. That's why the company gives them time for R and R at night. When the tanker pulls up and begins filling, most of the crew will go over to the Valhalla to party with the other workers. During the dead of night, there's only a skeleton crew aboard the tanker. That's when we strike."

Quiet and intent, the members of her force nodded and listened, though they had heard this briefing several times already.

"We are going to hijack the Yucatan, get rid of the remaining few aboard. We'll take them prisoner if possible, but don't waste any precious time. Then we disengage the pump and head out. The load should be mostly full by the time we're ready to go. Enough to cause the kind of disaster that n.o.body will be able to ignore. If you have any questions, ask them now."

Selene fingered the relic that hung from her neck, wondering yet one more time what it was. Nothing in her knowledge of physics or the related sciences provided any inkling as to its origins. She'd had it embedded in bark and suspended from a strip of leather soon after Manny Sheppard had delivered it and told her of her father's death. The pendant's smooth, irregular edges bit into the joints of her fingers.

She rubbed the fragment's slick, strangely greasy surface. It seemed to have a unique combination of heat and ice deep inside it.

Manny's delivery had also contained a note from her father, telling her of the importance of the contents of the package-and of how Frikkie Van Alman meant to abuse his connections and the resources of Oilstar to exploit the secrets it held. Her father's words had left her under no illusion as to who had been responsible for his death: he had dared to defy Van Alman, and had paid for that defiance with his life.

While this a.s.sault fit well within the parameters of Green Impact's agenda, she was doing this for him.

She was about to cause a financial disaster, a public relations disaster, and an ecological disaster. And it would all be blamed on Frikkie Van Alman. The media would need a scapegoat, and the pompous CEO would be led to the slaughterhouse.

In comparison, the Exxon Valdez spill would become a mere footnote in history. And her father would rest more easily.

The Zodiacs roared forward, plowing through the open waters of the Serpent's Mouth. The charcoal black sides of the rafts were large inflated tubes, big enough that even her largest man would have trouble getting his arms all the way around. The tubes angled up and together in the front, forming a point.

Between the tubes, a hard fibergla.s.s hull gave the riders a place to sit, and at the rear, the outboard motor was mounted to the squared-off aft of the hull.Relinquishing her hold on the pendant, Selene balanced against the rubber eyelets of the black raft.

Through the hum of the powerful outboard motor and the whisper of the waves, she could hear her father's ghost laughing.

She herself wouldn't laugh until the bloodshed and the horror of the next few hours were done.

Soon enough, the bulwark of the Oilstar Yucatan loomed up out of the water, surrounded by starlight.

Selene and her a.s.sault team switched off the motors of their dark Zodiac rafts. From that point on, they approached cautiously and in silence.

The garish display of the monstrous production platform sparkled like the contents of a treasure chest.

Selene wished they could do something against that target-the real target-but her small group had no chance against something as big as the Valhalla. There were two hundred people on board. Her group could cause some damage, but they'd all be killed.

On the other hand, if her information was correct and the timing worked out properly, Green Impact could get aboard the tanker and deal with the skeleton crew. Her group would have a chance of survival-and the oil-laden Yucatan would certainly make a sufficient statement for their cause.

With whispered commands and information communicated through gestures, the two Zodiacs approached the tanker from the rear. The Yucatan sat far from the towering offsh.o.r.e platform, drinking deeply of the crude petroleum that poured down into its holds from the pumping station.

They coasted closer to the stained hull of the ship. Next to her, one of the men stifled an outcry and lunged away from the side of the Zodiac. The large inflatable raft jerked and b.u.mped as something struck it from beneath and swam away, a shadow disappearing into darkness.

"Great white," the man said.

"Fortunately, we're not going swimming," Selene said. "Our business is aboard the tanker."

A couple of men chuckled quietly.

The commandos lashed their two rafts to the lower rungs of the metal ladder on the tanker's hull. Moving like shadows, they climbed to the deck, all but one man, whose task it was to tie the rafts together and move them around to the bow in readiness for the planned escape.

If nothing untoward happened, they could all make it back to the encampment.

In deciding which Green Impact members to take with her from their primary jungle compound, Selene had selected the most dedicated ones, those most ready to follow orders and do what had to be done.

These people would be called upon to kill. In an operation like this, she couldn't risk someone flinching or hesitating at the wrong moment.

The Green Impact commandos had studied detailed blueprints of the Oilstar Yucatan, memorizing every cranny, every deck plate. They had a fairly good idea of where the tanker's remaining crew members would be. Most would be snoozing in their cabins, perhaps grumbling that they couldn't go to the Valhalla platform like the others. Captain Calisto would almost certainly be in his private stateroom taking care of small details and reveling in the peace and quiet. He loved his ship and would not be the least bit interested in leaving her for R and R.

The a.s.sault team carried their packs of weapons, ammunition, and explosives. Upon reaching the deck, they stashed the more fragile items they wouldn't need until after they'd dealt with the crew. Then they split up, moving in small groups with separate, well-rehea.r.s.ed objectives.Selene and three companions marched up to the officers' quarters while the others entered the lower levels of crew cabins, rec rooms, and mess hall. The first m.u.f.fled gunshots rang out as she reached the captain's private stateroom. The door was partially ajar, so she could see his expression as he whirled around, astonished to hear the weapons fire from below.

Her three companions held out their a.s.sault rifles and Selene took a step forward. "I'm sorry about the disturbance, Captain Calisto." Her voice was quiet; commanding. "We need to have a word with you."

19.

"At least you didn't suggest climbing out there to roast marshmallows." McKendry pointed at the jet of flame coming from a pipe extended away from the rig, burning off the waste gases before they could build up and become a danger.

Keene managed a soft chortle. It blended into the murmur of music and laughter that came from the complex of living quarters. "They seem to be having a party down there," he said.

"Another egregious security lapse. Oilstar could certainly use our services as security consultants,"

McKendry said.

"I'll consider making the offer to Frik." Keene touched his nose, which had begun to ache from McKendry's punch.

From what he could tell, so many people worked on the rig that it was like a condominium complex. He imagined what it must be like to live in a small cabin, to share common rooms. "Not the life for me," he said. "Hard work, long hours, boredom-"

"None of which excuses the lack of security. n.o.body tried to stop you?"

Keene shook his head. "I didn't see a single human being. This place is wide open to an attack." They strolled around the platform, looking in all directions. "I can't believe Frik Van Alman is so blind. If Selene Trujold means to strike this rig, she won't have much trouble."

"Especially if she shows up tonight." McKendry glanced at his watch. "It's almost two-thirty. We should get back to the tanker before the replacement crew decides to do its job and head over there. We can talk to Calisto in the morning and maybe get him to call Frikkie and set up some better security here."

"I'm all for that, buddy. Let's go."

They climbed back down the leg of the platform as quickly as possible, not pausing to admire the view of the tanker a quarter mile away. As they swam across the placid water toward the Yucatan, Keene thought he sensed movement below him. Despite his professed lack of fear, he got set to defy the laws of motion if he encountered any contact with an undersea creature.

"Hey, McKendry," he called out. "Did you ever read any of those Peter Benchley books? You know, Jaws, The Beast, White Shark?"

"Idiot," McKendry yelled back, but he put on some speed. Keene was impressed by how little fear there was in his partner's response. See, he said to himself, it was for your own good, Terris.

"I hope the replacement crew hasn't come back yet," McKendry said, climbing out of the water and scaling the tanker's hull ladder.

Keene was right behind him. "If they have, we might have a harder time sneaking back to our presidentialsuite down in the pump room. Let's see if the captain's awake. Maybe we can talk ourselves into a decent meal."

They had reached the deck. Keene could see a group of people at the far end of the tanker, disengaging the long hose that had been filling the Yucatan's hold for hours. The shadowy workers made no noise, quietly going through the motions with all the finesse of a Green Beret squadron instead of a crowd of roughnecks.

"A meal sounds fine to me. I'm so hungry I could eat a shark." McKendry grinned.

"Better than the other way around," Keene responded. He yawned. "It's after three in the morning.

Asleep or awake, Calisto's likely to be in his stateroom."

They entered the crew quarters, climbed up another level, and reached the larger rooms where the crew and officers slept. McKendry sniffed and frowned. "Do you smell that? Gunpowder. Cordite...blood."

"Looking for trouble, McKendry?" Keene said. They had reached the captain's stateroom. The door was not entirely shut and light spilled out. "Captain?"

Keene tapped lightly on the door. McKendry pushed it wide open. Both men froze.

Captain Miguel Calisto lay dead in his chair, shot three times in the chest. Pools of blood seeped along the floor.

Keene looked at McKendry. "I get the feeling," he said, "that we just found Selene."

Before McKendry could respond, the powerful engines of the Oilstar Yucatan roared to life. With a lurch, the supertanker began to move. The deck vibrated as the tanker crawled away, detaching itself from the pumping station and heading out into the Caribbean.

"Okay, genius. What now?" McKendry raised his voice above the noise of the engines.

"We arm ourselves." Keene swiped his knuckles across the sweat on his forehead. "He's got to have a gun here somewhere."

He was talking as much to Captain Calisto, slumped in his wooden desk chair, as he was to McKendry.

The captain's corpse was still cooling. An occasional drop of blood oozed from his gunshot wounds, playing counterpoint to the groan of the tanker engines that shuddered through the walls of the bridge superstructure and the crew housing.

"I'd settle for a baseball bat," McKendry said. Keene knew that his partner was too intent on the imminent crisis to waste words. He moved from cabinet to cabinet, methodically opening cupboard doors, sliding the front panel on an old metal credenza.

Though he could smell the sour blood and the bitter residue of gunfire in the air, Keene, like McKendry, ignored the carnage and ransacked the captain's office. Unlike his methodical partner, his mode was to rifle the captain's desk with all the organization of a squall at sea. He found nothing useful: two well-watched Spanish-language p.o.r.n videotapes, three battered paperback novels, some paperwork, a stack of photos that variously showed a grinning Calisto with what seemed to be six different women.

The wide middle drawer held pencils, office paraphernalia. A few thin ledgers contained uninspired captain's logs.

The bottom left desk drawer was locked."This must be it." Keene tugged on the metal handle and pried into the crack without success, making a loud rattling noise that he knew would put McKendry on edge. When the drawer didn't open, he reached into the central desk drawer and withdrew a letter opener. Though he snapped the blade off in the hasp of the drawer lock, he finally succeeded in jarring it open. "Now we're getting somewhere."

He slid open the drawer and rummaged inside. "Nothing but c.r.a.p!"

McKendry came forward, looked down, and frowned. He pulled out a half-empty bottle of cheap scotch whiskey. "I guess the captain was more worried about someone stealing his booze than his-"

He melted back behind the metal cabin door as footsteps resounded in the corridor outside. A man entered, clearly one of the terrorists. He had high cheekbones, dark hair slicked back with seawater, and a gray jumpsuit with plenty of bulging pockets. His wide black belt was studded with the handles of several weapons or tools.

"d.a.m.n," he said. He stared at Joshua Keene. "Looks like we missed one."

Keene tried to grin disarmingly. "I'm looking for the gents' room. Can you direct me, please?"

The terrorist grabbed for a weapon at his belt.

"I don't think so." Terris McKendry sprang out from behind the cabin door. Holding the heavy bottle of scotch, he swung it down with the force of a sledgehammer. With a solid crunch of impact between skull and booze bottle, the stranger's cranium lost the duel. The golden brown liquid sloshed in the bottle as, head bloodied, the terrorist crumpled to the deck.

Keene dragged the man deeper into the cabin and closed the door with a kick of his heel. The fallen terrorist did not let out so much as a groan, and Keene didn't bother to check whether or not he was alive.

McKendry nudged the motionless form with the toe of his shoe. "Green Impact." There was no question in his voice. He wiped off the scotch bottle and set it next to the man, as if to offer him a good stiff drink to send him to the underworld.

Raising an eyebrow at his friend, Keene said, "You didn't spill a drop." He looked down at the body. "I don't see a badge or anything, but I believe you're correct. We can make the a.s.sumption that Selene Trujold and her goons decided to hit this tanker instead of the Valhalla platform, like Frik thought."

"Frik isn't always right."

"Maybe she considered this just a warm-up exercise."

McKendry reached down and pried the dead man's hand away from his weapon. Instead of a handgun, the terrorist had been trying to draw a large knife, well sharpened, good for throwing or filleting.

McKendry took it, examined the wide blade, and shook his head. "d.a.m.n macho South Americans.

Can't they carry a regular firearm like everyone else?" He slid the knife into his belt just as his partner found the ship-to-sh.o.r.e phone behind the captain's desk.

"Who do we call? Rescue? Venezuelan military? Trinidad's coast guard?"

"It's gotta be Frik," McKendry said. "He's not gonna want this to be handled by anybody but his own people."

Keene punched in the numbers for Frikkie Van Alman's private phone on board the a.s.segai. He listenedto it ring until a recording kicked in. "It's a friggin' answering machine," he said. "Pick it up, Frik! We've got a crisis here!"

With a clunk and a burst of static, the answering machine cut off and the phone picked up, carrying Frikkie Van Alman's familiar voice and familiar impatience. "I'm here. Who is this? What kind of crisis?"

Keene rapidly summarized what they knew so far. He heard the Afrikaner curse and what must have been him punching several b.u.t.tons on a keyboard or alarm-control panel. "I'm sending in reinforcements to help you mop up. The Yucatan won't get far." In a clipped voice, loud enough to be heard by both of the men, he reminded them of their primary goal. "While Selene Trujold is on board, you have one mission that takes precedence over all others. Acquire that artifact she got from her father."

"Instead of stomping terrorists? You've got weird priorities, Frik," Keene said. "Your tanker's been hijacked and the crew's been killed, and all you can think about is a hunk of jewelry?"

"I'm sending help," Frik said. "You two just stay on top of it there."

Keene shrugged. "It's your problem, Frik. Call up whatever cavalry you want."

"Who do you think he'll send?" he asked his partner, setting down the receiver.

"Frik?"

"No. The avenging angel. Of course I meant Frik." He looked around the cabin. "Maybe we should have told him to call in a cleaning crew while he's at it."

McKendry shook his head. "I think you've been sniffing blood long enough, Joshua. Let's get some air."

Keene opened the cabin door. Bowing slightly, he waved his partner into the pa.s.sageway and followed him until they reached the football-stadium-sized deck of the oil tanker.

Working silently against the thrum of the tanker's equipment, they circled around the Yucatan's white-painted bridge. Behind the bridge house loomed the radar mast with swiveling radar antennas and satellite dishes. The superstructure bristled with navigation and communication arrays. Foam monitors and fire-fighting stations stood unmanned. A third of the way forward from the bridge house, hose-handling derricks protruded skyward like stripped trees, and numerous pressure and vacuum-relief valves studded the deck like dark warts.