Artifact: A Daredevils Club Adventure Part 20

With darkness descending and the sound of a lone steel drum in her ears, she directed the driver to take her home. She called the airport to tell them to have her plane ready for departure at noon. Then she ate her corn, bathed, and packed a small overnight bag. Before midnight, she was fast asleep.

The next morning, carrying nothing but a tote and her medical bag, she drove her Honda to the bank. She took her pendant out of her safe-deposit box, pocketed it, and headed toward Morne Rouge and her Rasta friend, Ralphie Levine. He was the only person on the island who could be trusted to do what she needed to have done: replicate the piece in her pendant and swap the two, putting his fake in the bezel while he held on to the original.

Everything went so smoothly that Peta was at the airport thirty minutes early. She made one last check on her plane and headed upstairs to the coffee shop. Ray was already there, eating a lunch of chicken roti.

He pulled a small bone out of his mouth.

"Have some," he said, pushing the roti toward her. "It's good."

"I know it is." Though she never tired of the lightly curried chicken, cut into small pieces and wrapped, bones and all, in a thin East Indian flatbread, she scooted the dish back at him. "I don't eat before I fly."

"What's wrong, Peta? Have I done something to upset you?" Ray looked genuinely distressed.

"I don't know, Ray. Have you?"

"I would never do anything to hurt you. Surely you know that."

Ray took her hand. His touch was warm and rea.s.suring. "I do know that." She smiled at him and retrieved her hand. "Now let's get out of here."

It wasn't until the two of them stepped onto the tarmac that she saw Frik. He was dressed in long pants, wore shoes, and carried a briefcase-formal attire for him. His eye remained partially closed; his hand was wrapped in pressure bandages in a continuing attempt to minimize scarring from the deep burns he'd suffered.

"I know where you're going and what you're going to do," he said. "McKendry told me all about it. I'm coming along."

"Not a chance," Peta said quietly. "It's my plane and you're not getting on it."

He blocked her path. "You're telling me what to do?"

"Yup. Now get out of my way."

Frik didn't move.

"You heard the lady, Van Alman," Ray said.

"Even if we wanted you on board, you're in no shape to come," Peta added.

Frik stood his ground. Peta and Ray walked around him and headed for the plane. He followed them.

Peta slowed down almost imperceptibly. When he was so close that she could feel his breath on her neck, she stopped in her tracks and turned around, forcing him to step aside."What part of 'no' do you not understand?"

Frik stared at her, eyes filled with hatred. Waving his bandaged hand perilously close to her face, he said, "You'll regret this, b.i.t.c.h. One hand-no hands-I'm twice as good as any woman."

30.

In early June, standing at the head of Oilstar's La Brea dock, McKendry looked over his a.s.sault team.

Except for the fact that Manny Sheppard had been missing for two days and that they still had no specifics about the whereabouts of the ecoterrorists, they were as ready as they would ever be.

The three men Bruzual had sent slouched together against one of the pilings, smoking Peta's cigarettes and polishing their weapons. The one called Jose drew his knife against a stone to sharpen the edge. As he spun it, McKendry saw the initials J.R. etched into the pommel.

"You're his buddies. Where the devil is Sheppard?" McKendry looked at Peta and Ray accusingly.

"Triple A to the rescue," Manny said, appearing out of nowhere. With a self-satisfied grin, he handed McKendry a grease-stained sc.r.a.p of paper with a sketch on it.

According to Manny, he had glided up to the sh.o.r.eline of the jungle in his small outboard boat and asked an elderly Warao fisherman for information about Green Impact. Normally, the indigenous jungle Indians would not take part in any outsider activity, and they certainly wouldn't have betrayed Selene Trujold, so Manny had expected no answer. But the old man had caught a large and frightening catfish that day-surely an omen, since the Warao considered catfish to be magical creatures. He had given Manny all the details the team could possibly want, including a sketch of the camp itself.

"So when do we leave?" Jose sheathed his knife and rested his hand on the b.u.t.t of his pistol.

"When we've all memorized the sketch," Ray answered. He looked none too happy with the man's apparent bloodl.u.s.t. "Meanwhile, let's go over what we know."

"Again?" Another of Bruzual's men, Diego.

"Yes," Ray said. "Again. Peta?"

"As far as we know, Selene's group lost several members during the raid on the Yucatan. They probably have between ten and twenty members left, hiding in the jungle, planning more attacks against Oilstar.

Some Warao Indians are also likely to be in the camp, but they're workers, not converts to the cause-paid with trinkets and supplies. It's unlikely that they're motivated by political convictions or personal loyalty."

"We figure the Indians will disappear as soon as they see trouble," McKendry added.

"You're right," Manny said. "They're too smart to stick around waiting to be shot or"-he looked at Jose-"knifed."

Ray nodded. "I'm going to say this one more time. No violence except in self-defense. We're there to disable the camp and find Frik's piece of jewelry."

"And Selene," McKendry said. "I hope I can keep my hands off her neck long enough to hand her over to Bruzual for trial."

Peta looked at him with a worried expression, but Ray, who knew him better, just grinned.As day became night, with Manny at the helm of the fibergla.s.s boat supplied by Bruzual, they left Trinidad and headed toward the sh.o.r.es of the Orinoco Delta. The stars, bright during the team's journey across the gulf, were soon obscured by the jungle. Only a few pinp.r.i.c.ks of light were visible as they entered one of the narrow channels between overhanging mangrove and palm trees. No one spoke, not even when they reached the first of the palafitos, st.u.r.dy handmade huts that stood on pilings at the water's edge.

In the lowlands of eastern Venezuela, the slick whisper of water in the canos was like a wet tongue moving through the gra.s.ses, thick weeds, and leaf-heavy branches. The night songs of crickets and frogs in the dense underbrush made a din that masked the sounds of the quiet movement of the oars. The fibergla.s.s boat prowled like a piranha through the narrow rivulets. Now, the low strumming of a guitar was added to the nocturnal orchestra as Manny guided the boat up beside Green Impact's black Zodiac rafts.

The terrorists, falsely secure in their isolation, had not thought to have anyone keep watch.

With Manny leading the way, the a.s.sault team slipped through crackling weeds to the st.u.r.dy palafito poles. He used worn b.u.mps and notches as if they were a ladder to scramble up the nearest pole to the floor above. McKendry and the three men provided by Venezuelan security minister Bruzual stayed close behind, with Peta and Ray in the rear.

McKendry heard a rustle of palm fronds, small monkeys or rodents scampering across the thatched hut roofs. Through the leaves of a fern he was using as cover, he saw the intense white lights of Coleman lanterns set on tables and attracting swarms of jungle insects. The air smelled of hot oil, fried fish and bananas, and bitter tobacco smoke.

As he climbed the pole behind Manny, McKendry could see a long-legged man through the door opening that led into the next hut over. The stranger's bare feet were propped up on a windowsill and he was strumming a guitar. It was the young minstrel he and Keene had met in the delta cantina what seemed like forever ago.

Other than that, the compound was quiet. McKendry wondered briefly what had happened to the musician's girlfriend. Perhaps, he thought, she's already in bed, somewhere out of sight. He knew that in the jungle, people bedded down once darkness fell, and rose with the dawn. He and his team planned to take advantage of the routine and the darkness.

Manny and McKendry stepped into the first palafito and looked around. It was empty, probably a simple storage hut or one of the dwellings used by a recently killed member of Green Impact. The log floor creaked underfoot.

McKendry motioned for Jose to slip across to the next dwelling, where the guitarist was making enough noise to m.u.f.fle their stealthy approach. The mercenary moved like a shadow into the hut and behind the guitar player. There was a flash of metal, a jangling chord, and the guitar fell silent, leaving the jungle with only the insects and amphibians to provide music. Bruzual's man eased the guitar player back in his chair as he died.

"No," Ray said, his voice low and angry.

Jose looked up at him through the window and made an apologetic gesture, as if he'd had no choice but to do what he had done.

"Thank G.o.d," a Green Impact member grumbled from the next hut, unaware of why the music had stopped but evidently pleased. "Now we can finally get some sleep."Peta stifled a gasp and moved forward as if to help the guitar player. Ray stopped her and signaled Jose to come back. They watched until the guitarist stopped twitching and simply bled onto the uneven floor.

Ray faced the Venezuelan. "Now, get your a.s.s back and disable every last one of their boats," he whispered angrily. "And remember. If anyone else dies, so will you."

As a scowling Jose crept through the mud toward the wider canos, Ray motioned for Terris and Manny to move clockwise around the compound while he and Peta and the other two mercenaries headed counterclockwise.

McKendry thought for a moment that Rodolfo would have believed this was exciting. He would have wanted to come along-and he would either have been killed, or have gone back to huddle in the boat, making up stories he would tell later to the women in silvery miniskirts who clung to him in Caracas's discos and nightclubs.

"Let's get moving," he whispered to Manny. "Or we'll end up like that poor son of a b.i.t.c.h in there."

31.

Taking a roundabout route, Ray Arno circled the outer perimeter of the encampment, with Peta and the mercenaries forming a ragged line, twenty paces between each of them. As he moved through the mud and underbrush, ignoring the insects and the wetness, he reminded himself that he had been on movie sets that had made him more miserable than this.

Following naturally was the thought that those jobs had never been as important as this. It wasn't hyperbole to say that the fate of the world could depend on their success. And that success depended on this a.s.sault team.

Manny and McKendry were good men. Peta was a trooper. The men provided by the Venezuelan minister of security were what gave him pause.

He had worked with mercenaries before, more than once. The whole point of using them was that they did what they were paid to do. Problems arose only if they were serving two masters, in which case they would do what they had been told to do by the highest bidder.

According to the plan, Jose should have incapacitated the guitarist, tied him up so they could question him to see if he knew where Selene was. Not kill him. There was nothing Ray could do about it now, but there would be plenty he could do when it was time to make the final payment to Jose.

Frowning, he looked at the encampment, mentally ticking off at least a dozen safety violations that some OSHA representative on a movie lot would have written up. Here, it might even be an advantage. He knew from Manny's rough map of the camp where the terrorists kept most of their supplies. What wasn't on the map was where Green Impact kept its munitions. Food was in sealed lockers, some of which were suspended from trees, though the monkeys could still get at them. The rest of the cases and cans remained in the individual huts.

Two large propane tanks provided fuel for grills in what pa.s.sed for the camp's mess. He was surprised to note as he circled the building that the tanks also ran a heater and water pump attached to a shower at the back of the mess.

He was examining the tanks when Diego, one of the Venezuelan mercenaries, found the weapons cache in a small, partially camouflaged hut apart from the main encampment. After making whispered calls and gestures, to which Ray, Peta, and the third Venezuelan soon responded, the mercenary used a long knifeto pry open the first storage locker.

Both of Bruzual's other men dropped their old rifles and hauled out a.s.sault rifles and boxes of ammunition, making far too much clatter in their excitement. Ray cautioned them to be quiet, but the mercenaries seemed unduly greedy. He wondered if they would simply s.n.a.t.c.h the contraband rifles, which they could sell at a handsome profit on the black market, and flee with them.

Most of all, Ray was concerned with keeping the resources out of the hands of Green Impact.

He reached a decision. Glancing first at the luminous dial on his wrist.w.a.tch, he nodded to himself and rapidly opened the rest of the cases. With a shoestring attachment of wires and connected detonators, he rigged up three armed grenades, stuffed them in among packages of C-4 and Semtex, and played out the cord behind himself.

The Venezuelans looked at him, scowling with disappointment as they saw what he meant to do. Clearly, they would have preferred to confiscate the explosives, not destroy them. Ray held the detonator string in the fingers of one hand and urgently waved them away with the other.

One of the Green Impact men rustled through the bushes, calling out, "Hey, what's going on?" The voice held annoyance and curiosity, but not suspicion. Not yet.

Ray yanked the string, pulling the grenade detonator pins. The Green Impact guard, finally doing his duty, switched on a big flashlight and shone it around the jungle. The beam of light, splashing like melted b.u.t.ter across the branches, struck a scrambling Ray and his partners.

"Hey! I see you!" the Green Impact man called out.

As if on cue, the grenades exploded. Thatch smoldered and burst into flame. Green Impact members started screaming.

"I see you too," Ray muttered as the shock wave bowled him over into the muddy ground.

32.

By the time the grenades exploded, Manny and McKendry had reached the third hut. They saw two blond men on separate cots scrambling awake, shouting, looking at each other. In an instant, both of them had grabbed pistols from beneath their beds and lurched up, swinging the weapons to point at the door.

McKendry was determined to make an arrest, as if to prove to himself that he was in control. He even shot the first round, hitting one of the terrorists squarely in the right shoulder. The crack of his weapon fire sounded loud but was rapidly overwhelmed by the racket in the encampment.

The second blond man pulled up his own pistol as Manny charged forward and threw a pillow at the man's arm. The terrorist's shot was wild; the bullet splintered one of the wooden poles beside Manny.

Even though there was no longer any need for silence, Manny chose to pull a sap from his belt. He pushed the terrorist's gun arm away and swung the sand-filled pouch hard into the man's skull. His head snapped back and he collapsed onto the bed he had only partially gotten up from.

McKendry bent over the first downed terrorist, pleased to see he was still alive and conscious, though barely.

"Selene Trujold. Where is she?"The man coughed and bled. His eyes sharpened with awareness enough to gasp, "f.u.c.k you!"

McKendry stood up, his face grim. "Bleed to death, then."

Outside he could hear more weapon fire accompanying the crackling flames from the explosion. He didn't mind that Ray had blown up the explosives depot, leaving Green Impact without its stockpile.

Now was the time for open action.

The flames from the explosion lit up the area, casting witches' shadows and creating more uncertainty than illumination. He could see that the fire had spread to the central mess hall.

A moment later, the propane tanks exploded in a cough of feathery blue fire that bowled over two of the Green Impact terrorists and splintered the trees within fifteen feet into kindling.

At ground level, Ray and Peta and the two mercenaries were rounding up some of the Green Impact terrorists; a few others hid in the underbrush and opened fire.

McKendry didn't care about them. He was interested in only one person, and he was determined to get her-for Keene, and for himself. He could save her a lot of trouble if she capitulated. A whole lot.

Pushing his way to the open deck of the palafitos that overlooked the calm canos, McKendry shoved aside a small table where two unwashed coffee cups sat.

Below, he saw someone climbing into a boat. He could not tell for sure in the darkness, but his every instinct told him that it was Selene Trujold. Without calling for others to join her, she slid out into the waterway, moving with spare motions.

In a blaze of anger at Jose for disobeying instructions, McKendry raised his rifle, sighting in. He would deal with the Venezuelan later. The lazy slug was probably curled up in the bottom of one of the boats he'd been sent to disable. Meanwhile, he could not let the woman get away, not after what she had done to Joshua.

An expert marksman, he aimed, centering the crosshairs on Selene's head as she entered a shaft of starlight. Through his sight, he watched her head turn to the right, toward the fringe of the jungle. She raised her arm, and he could see the pistol in her hand.

Allowing himself no distractions, he focused on her temple and squeezed the trigger- "No!"