Artifact

by F. Paul Wilson

Chapter 27

  Joshua Keene sat up gingerly, as if his body might be rigged to explode. Slowly, he captured a few memories. He recalled flashes: fighting the terrorists onboard theYucatan; seeing Terris McKendry shot in the chest two, maybe three times, impacts that knocked the big man backward, as if missiles had been launched into his body's core. He saw battered bicycles, heard them clattering to the oil tanker's deck, felt as much as heard the bamboosnap of a terrorist's neck under his own grip.

  After that, the explosion, fire, his body flung backward as if he had been kicked in the chest by Bruce Lee. He remembered the night and the smoke and the long, long fall to the dark water that cushioned him about as softly as a concrete parking lot. He recalled the water closing over his head, a vision of sharks, and then. . . nothing.

  He tried to focus his eyes to see where he was, but all he could see was the foggy image of a beautiful tanned woman with a haze of red-brown hair that looked like a halo.

  An angel, he thought. I'm dead. And passed back into semiconsciousness.

  The next time he awoke, his vision was clear. The same woman stood beside him. "I'm Selene Trujold," she said. She poured a finger of scotch into a white enamel cup and inhaled its aroma. "Here. Drink this and then we'll talk. "

  He took the cup from her, remembering the brief glimpse he had caught of her before all hell broke loose. "How long have I been out? Hours? Days?"

  "You've been here for a couple of days. I had you fished out of the water after the explosion on the tanker. "

  "Why?"

  "There were helicopters coming, a lot of chaos. I couldn't be sure you weren't one of us. "

  "You could have tossed me back to the sharks when you found out that I wasn't. "

  "You're right. I could have done that. I still can, if you don't prove useful to us. "

  Sheis a piece of work, Keene thought, remembering his assessment of her when he'd first spotted her on theYucatan . "I had a friend with me," he said. "He was fighting one of your people. Somebody shot him - one of your goons. "

  "None of us are goons, Mr. Rip Van Winkle or whoever you are. " Her tone, acrid at first, softened. "But Iam sorry about your friend. " To Keene's surprise, she sounded sincere. He sipped at the scotch, then drained the glass. The whiskey burned in his chest.

  "More?" She took the cup from him.

  "Not yet. I want to keep my head clear. "

  She smiled. "That'll be a switch. You haven't been conscious, not to mention compos mentis, since we hauled you into the Zodiac and cruised away from the tanker. "

  "Did you achieve your objective?"

  "We thought so - at the time. I expected a much larger explosion, but I'll accept any victory. If nothing else, I'm sure we called some attention to Oilstar's activities. "

  "And your own," Keene said.

  She shrugged. "For better or for worse. " She poured some of the scotch into the same cup for herself. "Scotch and coffee, two of the greatest amenities of Venezuelan civilization. " She looked contemplatively into the honey brown liquid and raised the cup. "Even out here in the jungle, I wouldn't do without them. "

  Antagonism crawled down Keene's spine. He looked at her angrily, started to say something, and passed out. He woke up with a pounding head and a throbbing body hinting at more wounds than he wanted to know about. His skin felt oily with perspiration, but he could not determine whether the sweat was from jungle humidity or a severe fever.

  He'd been having the most bizarre dreams he'd ever remembered. First he was making love to a woman with velvet skin, short cinnamon hair, a coffee-with-too-much-milk complexion, large intent eyes, a small nose, and a delicate chin. In the midst of their lovemaking, she ripped off her face as if it were a mask and he was catapulted into fiery nightmares filled with terrible visions that pounded inside his skull.

  He pressed his fingertips to his chest and found bandages and pain. He touched the patchwork of injuries, pressing down hard because the pain reminded him that he was still alive. His mind was full of questions. Where was he?

  He heard jungle crickets, the belching music of small frogs and of trickling water, the crackle and whisper of dried leaves woven into a fragrant roof over his head.

  "You awake now?"

  Keene turned his head and groaned as even the small movement set a series of pains in motion.

  Selene sat on the ground, her back against the inner wall of the hut. She gave him an odd smile, an expression that surprised him more than the amazing fact of finding himself alive. He tried to talk, but his voice came out in a squeak that embarrassed him. "What. . . happened?"

  "You've been dried, fed, and nursed back to life. Now it's time for some payback. "

  "Payback?"

  She laughed. "Nothing too strenuous, I promise you. First you tell me who you are. "

  "Joshua Keene. "

  "I assume that since you and your friend were on theYucatan, you work for Frik Van Alman. Is that correct?"

  "Not precisely. "

  "Then what, precisely, were you doing on the tanker?"

  Keene hesitated, confused by his pain and wondering how the beautiful woman questioning him could be the enemy. "It's complicated. Terris and I are. . . were in a group with Frik. He asked us to look for you," he said at last.

  "What sort of group? Why would you just blindly follow Frik's orders?"

  Keene felt the fuzz returning to his brain. He tried to shake it off. "It's called the Daredevils Club. It's like a brotherhood of adventurers. Frik asked for our help, and we saw the opportunity for some action. He wanted something he said your father stole from him and sent to you. "

  "Frikkie Van Alman is a sorry excuse for a human being. I know the things Van Alman says about Green Impact. He's a liar. A killer. A megalomaniac. " Her whole demeanor hardened. "My father is dead. Van Alman killed him because he knew too much about Oilstar's operations and their intent. "

  "I had nothing to do with that. Neither did Terris, and he's dead too. "

  Selene turned to walk back to a small camp stove where she was heating some water. The tail of her shirt rode up and he saw smooth skin.

  "You need to listen, Joshua. Green Impact is not a bunch of wild dogs trying to cause senseless destruction. Not my people, and not me. We're doing this to stop Frik from destroying our future. "

  "Are you sure you're not as deluded as he is?" Joshua's throat was dry, his voice hoarse. She moved toward the doorway. "I've got some things to take care of. " She tucked her shirt back into her khaki shorts. "We'll talk more when I get back. "

  Yet one more time, Keene drifted off into a restless sleep. He awoke in pain and filled with sadness, but less confused. This time he knew where he was and what he was doing there, though there were still plenty of gaps in the past. . . what was it? A week? Two? He had heard about temporary trauma-induced amnesia and knew that it wasn't likely to last. The memories would return in bits and pieces, like misrouted mail.

  He struggled off the mildewed canvas cot where he'd been lying and made it outside onto a small verandah. Sitting down on one of two handmade chairs, he surveyed his surroundings.

  The verandah overlooked a tiny tributary in the lush labyrinth of the Orinoco Delta. He could see some of the remaining members of Green Impact gathering food, preparing supplies, practicing skills. One man, probably a guard who had remained awake through the previous night's shift, slept in a mesh hammock. Tall trees filled with colorful tropical birds flanked the stream. Dwellings clustered together in what appeared to be an encampment, raised on poles above the marshy ground and constructed of thin stripped logs with roofs thatched with heavy dried palm fronds.

  "I'm glad to see you up," Selene said, appearing from behind and taking the chair next to him. She was holding the same white enamel mug, only this time he could smell coffee.

  "Here. " She handed him the cup. "It's strong. "

  Keene took it from her and placed it on a rickety little ta
ble that separated the chairs. "Do you know for sure that Terris McKendry is dead?"

  "There were many casualties that night," Selene said, looking away. "Five of my people, the skeleton crew on the tanker, and, yes, I suppose your friend, too. "

  Her expression serious, she reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out a strangely shaped object. She tapped it on the table with a dull-sounding click.

  "That's what Frik's so hot to have? That's the reason Terris died?" Keene could hear the rising fury in his own voice.

  "Yes. It may not look like much, but this one piece could change the world. Frik doesn't understand much about it, but he wants to possess it badly enough that when my father tried to keep it from him, Frik killed him. "

  "How do you know?" Keene asked her. "We were told it was a lab accident. "

  "Right! Funny that it happened the day after he and Frik had a confrontation about this very thing. Frik shouted at him, threatened him. " She held up the odd fragment, turning it so that the jungle light was reflected in skewed patterns. "My father wrote me a letter explaining where this thing came from. He was so frightened of what Frik would do that he separated the pieces of the artifact, sent this one to me for safekeeping, and sent another to himself. I'm not sure what happened to the rest. I think Arthur Marryshow might have another one. "

  "Arthur's dead too. Killed in an explosion on New Year's Eve not long after your father died. "

  Selene looked astonished, then even angrier. "See what I mean?"

  Keene contemplated his own doubts. Arthur Marryshow and Paul Trujold, dead within days of each other. Both men concerned about Frik Van Alman's peculiar artifact. He didn't believe in coincidences. "What else do you know about. . . that?" He pointed at the fragment.

  "All I know is that it was dredged up by Oilstar's test drilling rig, the one just off the coast of Trinidad," she said. "According to my father, the composition is like nothing ever found before, nothing that any human made. "

  "Are we talking little green men here?" Joshua allowed himself a small smile.

  "You tell me. " Selene thrust the fragment at him. "My father believed it has amazing properties. He was sure that when all the pieces were back together, this artifact - device,whatever you want to call it - could be the key to an energy source that would make filthy petroleum companies as obsolete as woodcutters from the Middle Ages. "

  "Frik runs an oil company. Why would he want it so badly?"

  "Because he wants to make sure nobody else gets it. "

  "Nowthat sounds like Frik. "

  The coffee tasted bitter in Keene's mouth. He added even more sugar than the Venezuelan norm. He didn't like Frik; never had. The Afrikaner was pushy and self-centered, with an abrasive personality. But a cold-blooded killer. . . ?"So what do we do now?" he asked Selene.

  "We?"

  Keene thought of what Frikkie Van Alman had told them - the lies and the innuendos. If Selene was telling him the truth, then Frik already had plenty of blood on his hands, and he didn't seem worried in the least about consequences. "Yes," he said. "We. "

  "Well, to begin with, theValhalla is an abomination," Selene said.

  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 skyscraper 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 bastard was trying to do, I knew that it was screwing 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 assault on theYucatan 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 assault, even if Frikkie did little 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 surreptitiously 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 pass 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 passed 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, brushing past reeds. She startled a cluster 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 grasses to a little dry pa
tch, a hummock raised above the water level and filled with flowers and sweet grasses. 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 shirt hung partially open. She raised his hand and slid it between the opening in her shirt, 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'mreal, 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 passion. "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 grass under the open tropical sky, laughing as the bugs flew around and the grass 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 diminishing light. "I'll help you shut down theValhalla platform. "