Artifact: A Daredevils Club Adventure Part 18

He pictured the huge structure of the rig's production platform. The first time he had seen the monolith, it had looked to him like an elephantine skysc.r.a.per of concrete and steel, bristling with tall derricks, piping, and tubes, belching flames and smoke. Little had he known that the pair of bright pilot flares burning at the edge of the extended derricks would become a funeral pyre for his friend Terris McKendry.

Selene looked at him, her eyes bright and intense. "Even before I found out from my father what that b.a.s.t.a.r.d was trying to do, I knew that it was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up the ecosystem here in the Serpent's Mouth-spilled oil and solvents, natural leakage, 'acceptable losses' of toxic chemicals and lubricants. It raises the temperature of the water, killing some fish, attracting others, messing with the entire balance."

She leaned closer to him. "And the sharks. The population has increased three- or fourfold. That's not natural."

The mention of sharks brought a new flood of memories, beginning with his game, a stunt, preparation for the confrontation to come later that night. He envisioned four concrete legs thrust downward all the way to the sea bottom, where a honeycomb of holding tanks were filled with the fresh crude oil, and remembered his fears during the swim from the tanker over to the production platform.

Green Impact had proven far more deadly than any aquatic predator.

"What do you think will happen as the drilling continues?" Keene asked.

"I can only guess," Selene said, "Who can say for sure what sort of global chaos might follow? Oilstar is producing from one of the bore-holes now, draining out a lot of crude oil, but other crews are still exploring. Frikkie wants to find the rest of that artifact. He needs to see if there's anything else down below at the Dragon's Mouth site. There have to be checks and balances."

"And Green Impact is one of those checks?" Anger and uncertainty replaced Keene's usual good humor.

"Yes we are." Selene got up and motioned him to follow. "Come on. Let me show you around."

At Green Impact's hideout in the jungle, the group had its supply cache, canned food and propane gas tanks brought in by flatboat, and what remained of its stockpile of weapons.

Automatically, his mind started cataloging the remnants and planning what would be needed to make a real attack against Oilstar. By Keene's estimates, there was barely enough ammunition left after the a.s.sault on the Yucatan to defend the compound if it was discovered. It would take months to pull together enough explosives and ammunition to have a real chance at another a.s.sault, even if Frikkie didlittle to improve security on the rig.

Selene explained to him that they traded with the Warao Indians, who went to trading posts and small villages on the larger waterways to surrept.i.tiously pick up items the ecocrusaders needed. No one noticed the Indians, who came and went as they pleased, like jungle shadows, but the trading post owners would certainly pay attention to a group of white strangers. Once or twice, Selene explained, she and her friends could pa.s.s themselves off as German bird-watchers or Canadian eco-tourists, but as time went by, suspicions would grow. They would have to move on.

Three days later, Selene took Keene out in one of Green Impact's small motorized boats. As they moved through narrow canos into broader streams, following the tributaries of a diffused Orinoco to the sea, they pa.s.sed half-naked Warao fishermen standing at the riverbanks, in search of birds or fish or eggs, the day's catch. Keene looked at some of the dark-skinned Indio children who hid beside their bare-breasted mothers. He smiled at them, but they didn't wave back.

When they reached the end of the jungle and the open waters of the Gulf of Paria, Selene brought the boat to a halt, letting the outboard putter into a low purr as if catching its breath. Keene looked up to watch a flock of scarlet ibises take wing from the muddy shallows.

"Amazing, aren't they?"

Keene nodded, watching the ibises fly off to find other feeding grounds, like matadors waving their capes in the humid air.

Selene turned the boat around and headed back upriver, winding in the direction of the Green Impact encampment. As they approached, she shut off the Zodiac's motor and drifted, turning into a small cano, brus.h.i.+ng past reeds. She startled a cl.u.s.ter of small yellow frogs, which plopped and splashed into the brownish water.

"This isn't the way back," Keene said.

She smiled at him. "You have a good memory. This is a special side trip just for you and me."

She took the black rubber raft as far as the little stream would allow, then beached it in the mud. When she climbed out, the soft ground squished under her boots. "We're just a stone's throw from the camp.

This is my retreat. No one else knows about it."

She reached back to take Joshua's hand. After he climbed out of the boat, she didn't release it, but led him through the gra.s.ses to a little dry patch, a hummock raised above the water level and filled with flowers and sweet gra.s.ses. Small birds fluttered and twittered, as if incensed at the human intrusion into what appeared to be a perfect, cozy meadow in the middle of the Orinoco Delta.

Selene took his other hand. Keene found himself helpless, as if his grip had turned to water. Her faded, loose s.h.i.+rt hung partially open. She raised his hand and slid it between the opening in her s.h.i.+rt, cupping it against her left breast. Keene tried to reclaim his hand. She pressed it tighter and he felt her nipple stiffen.

"Don't pull away," Selene said. "Feel my skin, feel my heart pumping, the blood beneath my flesh. I'm real, Joshua Keene, just as everything I have told you is real."

"Why me?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," she said. "Maybe it's just that I've been in the jungle for too long."

"What about the men in your group?""I'm their leader," she said. "It's tough enough for them to obey a woman without any other...complications."

"I've wanted you since the moment I saw you," Keene said. "Even when I thought you were the enemy."

She took his face in her hands and kissed him, gently at first, then with increasing pa.s.sion. "I have wanted you too, Joshua Keene," she said. "I could love you, I think."

They undressed each other slowly, taking turns, one article at a time. Then they made love in the soft gra.s.s under the open tropical sky, laughing as the bugs flew around and the gra.s.s tickled and scratched their naked skin.

Keene's body still felt tired and a little shaky, but enough of his wounds had healed. He lay beside Selene, watching the glow of the sun as it filtered through the overhanging branches, slipping toward afternoon and the western horizon. He wanted to stay this way, without cares, ignoring the future, but he could not remain in an endless present. He knew he had other obligations to face, and decisions to make.

Looking up into the knitted tree branches that formed a canopy overhead, feeling Selene warm beside him but not looking into her captivating eyes, Joshua said, "I meant it."

She propped herself up on one elbow, looking at him, but he continued to stare upward. She stroked his chest. "What was it you meant?"

He sat up and faced her in the rapidly diminis.h.i.+ng light. "I'll help you shut down the Valhalla platform."

28.

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 ofcondolence from Frik might have gone a long way.

Taking McKendry's silence to mean a.s.sent, 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 d.a.m.n about security. Joshua and I swam over from the Yucatan. We climbed aboard the Valhalla 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, d.a.m.n 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 the Valhalla 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 the Yucatan 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 thetanker. 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 the Valhalla. 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 p.r.o.nouncements. 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 quant.i.ty 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 pa.s.sports. Even prescription drugs had to be doc.u.mented 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 att.i.tude. 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 att.i.tude 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 seash.o.r.e 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 underthe 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...o...b..ard the Valhalla 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 amus.e.m.e.nt, 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 grat.i.tude, 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 a.s.sistance. 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 b.u.mblebee 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 pa.s.senger 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 mysaying 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 the Yucatan 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. The Valhalla rig workers stood around talking, halfheartedly monitoring the production equipment. They glanced at their tough new security chief as he pa.s.sed, 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 offsh.o.r.e 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."