Artifact: A Daredevils Club Adventure Part 5

Frikkie downed the scotch and reached for the bottle. As he sank back into the cushions of his leather sofa, the torrent of noise outside returned. Small twigs and leaves battered the windows and walls of the house as the medevac chopper took off.

Frikkie snapped awake at the sound of the telephone. His first sensation was pain, searing, aching pain.

He reached for the bottle of Lagavulin and knocked it over, but nothing poured out. Empty.

"Master Frik, you're awake." Saaliim's voice was soft and full of concern. "Dr. Marryshow is on the line."

"What time is it?"

"Half-four. Should I bring you the phone?"

Frik waggled his head to try to clear it. It took a few moments for all of the previous day's events toreturn to him. "Yes," he said at last. "Also some coffee and anything you can find for this pain, short of morphine."

As Saaliim left, Frik tried to stand. A wave of nausea pa.s.sed over him and he dropped back onto the leather sofa he'd been sleeping on. His left hand was a ma.s.s of pain. His mouth tasted as if he'd washed down the embers of a campfire with a bottle of whiskey, which he supposed wasn't far from the truth.

Suddenly the receiver of a telephone appeared in front of him. He picked it up and croaked, "h.e.l.lo, Arthur?"

"You don't sound good, Frik."

"I'm fine if you discount the pain, and the aftereffects of a bottle of scotch. The important question is, how's Paul?"

There was a pause on the line, and Frik knew the answer to his question.

"He died twenty minutes ago."

"d.a.m.n it. Wasn't there anything you could do?" As soon as he'd asked the question, Frikkie knew it was a mistake.

"Had he been brought straight to a hospital instead of your house, maybe. But-"

That line of discussion wouldn't get them anywhere, so Frik cut in, saying, "His wife died years ago, as did his parents. Saaliim is trying to locate Paul's daughter." The smell of fresh coffee wafted into the study.

"I think I've got that taken care of," Arthur said. "Manny stopped by to see how Paul was doing. He just left. He said he can get a message to...Selene, right?"

Frik inhaled deeply of the comforting coffee aroma. "Yes. Selene. She's not particularly fond of me.

She's one of those environmentalists." Saaliim returned with a cup of coffee and a Vicodin. Frikkie washed down the pain pill with a swig of the liquid, which his a.s.sistant had cooled just enough with the addition of milk.

"I'm sorry to bring it up at a time like this, but..." Frik paused and took a deep breath. "The Daredevils Club meeting is less than two weeks away. Tell me that you'll support me in this, Arthur. We have to find that device."

"We'll talk about it tomorrow."

Frik took another swallow of coffee. He couldn't wait. The sense of dread that had seized him in the lab was eating at him, trying to get another grip. "Tell me you'll help, d.a.m.n it. You're my friend."

Arthur would have to back him in this. You owe me, he thought again, but as they had done right after the accident, the words remained unspoken. There was silence on the line. Were it not for the background murmur of the nurses at the station from which Arthur was making the call, Frikkie would have thought that his friend had hung up.

"Your answer?"

"No, Frik. I don't think so. The club has never been for the aggrandizement of any individual member.

Besides, there's something unsavory about all this-""You don't understand. You could be throwing away the key to the universe."

That made Arthur laugh. "Some lids are meant to remain locked, Frikkie. I'm not willing to be Pandora, here."

"d.a.m.n it, Arthur-"

"Over my dead body, Frik. The whole thing smells wrong to me. I suppose you can bring it up at the meeting New Year's Eve, but I'll fight you on it."

This time, the silence on the line was absolute.

Frikkie put the receiver in its cradle and lay back on the sofa. The alcohol he had consumed had not fully left his system and the narcotic was beginning to numb his extremities. He tried to focus on the events of the day, and on how to proceed, but things quickly got hazy. One diaphanous plan melted into another, until he pa.s.sed out cold.

At around midmorning, Frik awoke again, stiff and groggy and in his own bed. He a.s.sumed he'd been carried there by Saaliim. Wouldn't be the first time, he thought. He didn't know which was worse, the pain in his hand, the tightness in his chest from the smoke-filled lab, or his pounding hangover headache.

"Saaliim!"

His call instantly brought his a.s.sistant into the room.

"Coffee, my man. And something for this pain."

"Dr. Marryshow, he sent you some medicinals," Saaliim said. "Right there on your nightstand."

The younger man left the room and Frik picked up the white paper bag with a note in Arthur's handwriting stapled to it. Inside the bag there was antibacterial ointment for the burns and a small bottle of painkillers. The note contained cursory instructions about how often to take them and a warning not to drink alcohol while he did so. At the end of the instructions, Arthur had added: I'm leaving the island. Take it slowly for a few days, Frikkie, and don't overdo the medication. By then you'll have come to your senses. Arthur Or maybe you'll have changed your mind, Frik thought, and promptly swallowed twice the recommended dose of pills. By the time Saaliim returned with coffee, he was falling back into blackness.

For three days, Frik remembered little except pills, coffee, pain, and Saaliim's quiet presence floating in and out of the room. By the fourth morning, he was up and trying to dress when Saaliim knocked on the door.

"Telephone, Master Frik."

"Who is it?"

Arthur, he told himself as the events of the past few days returned to him. He's changed his mind.

"Missy Selene. Yesterday I told her you can't talk. Today she don't sound too good."

"I'll talk to her." Frik sat down on the side of the bed. Saaliim plugged in the extension phone, whichhe'd apparently kept unplugged for the last few days.

"h.e.l.lo? Selene?"

"Frik." Selene's voice was like an ice cube.

He shivered, despite the heat of the morning. "I'm sorry about your father, Selene. He was a good man."

"Sorry? I'll bet you are. You lost a major workhorse, not to mention his discovery. You've never given a d.a.m.n for anyone's safety but your own, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Selene-"

"You and your f.u.c.king oil drilling," Selene yelled. "By the time we're finished with you, Oilstar will be nothing but a memory."

The phone went dead in Frik's hand.

He pieced together what he knew about Selene. It wasn't much. She was bright, attractive, and had a Ph.D. in physics for which he had paid.

The penny dropped.

Green Impact had to be the "we" to which she had referred.

That was when the second penny dropped.

She knows, Frik thought. Her father must have sent her the pieces of the artifact. But how? There was no way she could have received them yet unless they'd been hand delivered. But by whom? Manny?

No. That was laughable. Manny was too smart to bite the hand that fed him.

How then? Maybe she hadn't received them yet. Maybe her father had told her he was sending them but- It doesn't matter, Frik told himself. All that matters is that she knows. If Paul had told her about the artifact, then even if he hadn't sent them to her, he might have told her where he'd hidden the missing pieces. In order to find out, he'd have to capture Selene, and for that, he'd need some help.

The Daredevils Club remained his only choice. He'd have to convince them, whether Arthur objected or not. Whatever it took, Frik needed the club. He wasn't going to go into extinction quietly, d.a.m.n it. He was no dumb tyrannosaur, he was Frikkie Van Alman, head of Oilstar, man of adventure. Nothing would stand in his way.

Nothing.

8.

NEW YORK CITY, DECEMBER 31, 1999.

Shivering from the cold, Peta pulled open the door to Danny's Seafood Grotto. She had made eighteen visits to New York, trips punctuated by high school and college graduation, the beginning and end of medical school, and taking over Arthur's Grenada practice during his long visits to Manhattan and his absences when he sojourned to destinations unknown. By now she should have expected it to be cold, but she was never quite prepared for its reality."Peta! Welcome back." Danny's maitre d' took her coat. "Stunning as ever." He hugged her like an old friend. "Lucky man, Arthur. He's waiting for you over at the piano. I'll take care of your coat."

It didn't surprise Peta that George greeted her by name, not after this many visits to the West Forty-sixth Street restaurant. On the one hand, she thought, it was boring to be that predictable; on the other, to be welcomed so effusively in a city like this made her feel rather like a celebrity.

Arthur sat at the piano bar, his back to her. To her surprise, he was engaged in earnest discussion with his buddy, Raymond Arno. She felt a spark of annoyance. This was her time, her part of the evening.

Bad enough that she was excluded from their d.a.m.n Daredevils Club meeting that started at midnight every New Year's Eve.

She felt herself pouting and stopped. With Arthur, there was no use making a fuss. Ever. He did what he did, and generally for what he believed was good reason.

At that moment, the piano player looked up and saw her. Grinning happily, he switched gears into "Happy Birthday to You," played a few bars of "Hot, Hot, Hot," then segued into a lively rendition of "Dollar Wine."

Peta broke into the sensual steps of the Caribbean soca. There was a round of applause. Arthur looked up and waved. Even at a distance, his expression softened. If only he looked that way more often, she thought. She moved to the rhythm for a moment longer before pushing her way through to the piano.

"You two look as if you're plotting a world takeover," she said.

"You're early." Arthur kissed her. "And beautiful."

"I'll second that," Ray added. "You're a lucky man, Marryshow." He pecked her on the cheek.

Ray and Arthur exchanged a quick glance, then Ray gestured in the direction of the men's room. "Too many beers," he said, though his tough, firm body belied the statement. "Think I'll leave you two to conduct your annual birthday meeting and slip out the back way when I'm done. Happy New Year, Peta. Nice to see you again. Quick, take my seat before someone else does. Happy birthday-to both of you. See you later, Arthur."

Arthur patted the seat. "Don't be angry with me, Peta. Ray and I had some things we had to discuss.

Seemed like as good a time as any to do it."

Peta watched Ray disappear into the dimly lit pa.s.sage that led to the rest rooms and the storeroom in the back. She knew the layout well: a right into the alcove with the two rest-room doors; a door straight back to the "family" exit through the storeroom and into the back alley. Turning to Arthur she said, "Get me a drink and you're forgiven. I was surprised, that's all. I didn't think he'd be here at all this year. Isn't he supposed to be opening a new casino in Vegas about now?" She snuggled up to her mentor and friend. "In case you don't know it, it's cold as a witch's t.i.t out there."

Though he was more than half again her age and a little craggy, Arthur was a handsome man, very tall and, like her, elegantly dressed. They blended seamlessly into the crowd as Danny's grew dense with New Year's Eve partygoers. The bodies around the piano bar were two and three deep and it took influence, bribery, or a very loud voice to so much as order a couple of drinks.

"I see you wore it," he said, fingering the exotic pendant he'd given her earlier in the day. She wore it around her neck, a smooth and somehow oily-looking irregular blue-green disk, bezel set and hung upon a twenty-four-carat gold chain.Peta placed her hand over his and pressed it against her. She could feel the pendant against her skin. It was as if it were sucking the heat from her body, and yet it didn't feel uncomfortable. "What the devil is it, Arthur?"

"That's my secret. Just take good care of it."

"You and your secrets."

He smiled. "Call it a lucky piece. That's what I call mine." He opened his hand and showed her his stone.

"I use it like a rubbing stone."

An hour pa.s.sed with Arthur and Peta sometimes silent, often animated, always affectionate. Yet despite her best efforts, something was making Peta uncomfortable. Searching to find a reason for her discomfort, she noticed that Arthur was playing the time-conscious physician's game of glancing a little too frequently at his watch. When he did so twice within two minutes, Peta covered the face of the watch with her hand.

"You just looked," she said. "You'll have plenty of time to get to your meeting at midnight. This is our celebration. I get you for another hour."

While Arthur had many mysterious missions in his life about which he said little to her, the Daredevils Club bothered her more than the others. She resented the fact that he would say nothing about the club's activities and that she was not welcome there. After all, she had been the instigator of the adventure that created the club. Her exclusion seemed personal. Was personal, all the more so since at least one woman had been admitted. And died.

"You're a bunch of nasty little misogynists," she said, knowing he would understand the reference.

"I've told you over and over that I swore to your father I would not ever knowingly encourage you to endanger your life. Not while I was alive. So stop thinking about it, darlin'," Arthur said. "The meeting is something I do and you don't. It's that simple." Yet one more time, he glanced at his watch.

Peta sipped her wine. "If it's that simple, what are you so nervous about?"

As if he'd made a sudden and difficult decision, Arthur said, "I'm going to tell you something, but you have to promise me that you'll keep it to yourself."

She nodded. It seemed odd for him to be telling her secrets in public, but she knew that sometimes an anonymous crowd made for more privacy.

"There's new trouble brewing in the Middle East," Arthur continued. "Big trouble. After the meeting, I'm going to Israel. I'll be teaching medics about frontline emergency burn treatment. G.o.d knows I've had enough experience. There'll be danger." He leaned toward her and stroked her cheek. "I'm getting tired, Peta," he confessed. "Tired is bad in my business."

Peta was thrown by Arthur's serious tone and flattered that he would risk the implicit danger of taking her into his confidence. She'd known for some time that he occasionally worked with some secret branch of the American government, but he'd never so much as whispered any of the details until well after the fact.

Not wanting to trivialize what he'd told her, yet knowing he would not want her to be melodramatic, she said, "Make sure you're back here next year, Doctor-if we don't cross paths again before that."

"I promise." His smile returned playfully. "In fact, I've already made reservations for dinner, instead ofjust drinks. Five o'clock won't be too early for you, will it?"

"Are you sure you can spare seven whole hours? Or does that mean you'll be leaving early for your meeting?" She tried to match his humorously sarcastic tone, but the words came out sounding petulant.

Immediately the smile faded from his lips. "I won't have to be there until midnight. Promise." He downed the rest of his rum and stood up. "My turn for the men's room." He took out his wallet and handed it to her. "Do me a favor, settle the bill."