Kevin Anderson - Artifact

Peta discovered further evidence of McKendry’s dumb luck when she examined the exit wound and found it just low enough to miss ripping up his posterior shoulder girdle. An inch higher and he’d be looking at permanent disability. Talk about charmed lives.

Telling the nurse to set up a bed for her in one of the little rooms adjacent to intensive care, she washed up and put in a call to Frik.

“It’ll be a while before his next escapade, but with good care and exquisite attention to antisepsis, he’ll make it. His lung’s not reinflating as quickly as I’d like, so I’m going to stay here with him for a few days.”

Frik sounded relieved. “Thanks, Peta. I’ll be in to see you later this evening. I can’t leave the office right now.”

“I heard about Simon. Is he all right?”

“Why wouldn’t he be?”

“I warned you both that he shouldn’t be diving, Frik.”

“Well for your information, he’s fine. He had to come up because he used up most of his tank clearing debris from his entry point. I wish I had half his energy. He’s down in Port of Spain now, pretending to be some TV star, but he’s going back to San Gabriel tomorrow to complete the dive.”

“Alone? No dive buddy?”

“He seems to prefer it that way.”

Idiot! Peta thought. She was fed up with all this macho bullshit. When she had stabilized McKendry, she would hitch a ride to San Gabriel. If Manny was in the area, he would take her there; if not, she’d use one of Frik’s speedboats. Not that she particularly wanted to delay her return to Grenada, but in all good conscience she had to take one more shot at warning Simon that his heart probably couldn’t take another dive. If she couldn’t convince him to stop, she would insist on going along. Barring unforeseen setbacks, she should be able to leave McKendry in the hands of the hospital staff in three days, four tops. She would mention it to Frik when he came to see McKendry.

Ifhe came to see him.

22

Thus far, Frik had called several times, but he had not yet made an appearance. Peta was hardly impressed by his lack of compassion and admitted to herself yet one more time that the Oilstar chief was not among her favorite people.

Two days later, by which time McKendry’s condition had been stabilized, Frikkie showed up at the hospital. He was not a pretty sight. His one eye hadn’t yet fully healed from the explosion that had killed Paul Trujold, and his hand looked as if it had a long way to go before it was good for more than gross manipulation. His visit was short, their conversation brief and more about Simon than Terris; in neither case were his emotions involved.

“Simon’s in San Gabriel. He hasn’t gone down—in the water—again yet. The weather’s not been conducive. Too much rain, too many currents stirring things around.”

“You shouldn’t let him—”

“Let him? May I remind you again that he’s an adult. What he chooses to do is his own business.”

There was obviously no point in arguing with the man. None at all. “I’d like to see him,” Peta said. “I think I’ll head out to San Gabriel for a day or two. I could use the rest.”

“What about McKendry?”

“Terris is a long way from full recovery, but he’s doing well. Barring unforeseen complications, the hospital can manage fine without me. When they think he’s ready, they’ll send him on to rehab. He won’t need me for that, either. If they have to reach me, they can call me in San Gabriel.”

Something in Frik’s expression told her that this was the last thing he wanted her to do. For whatever reason, Simon’s dive was of enormous importance to him. Well, that’s just too bad, she thought. It was not only a man who had to do what a man had to do.

Leaving Frik at McKendry’s bedside, she went outside for a smoke. It was the last American cigarette she had brought from New York. From now on, it was back to the local 555s, which were milder and cheaper anyway. I’ll give up again soon, she told herself, lighting up. After having given them up for three years, she had fallen into old habit the night Arthur was killed.

“Got another one?” Saaliim asked.

Peta jumped. “Didn’t know you were here, and no, this is my last one.”

She handed it to him and they shared it the way they would have shared a joint.

“I’d like to go to San Gabriel this afternoon.” She waved away the end of the smoke. “Think you can take me there?”

He drew on the butt, then crunched it underfoot. “I have to take Mr. Frik to theAssegai, ” he said. “After that we maybe go to the site. Mr. Frik say maybe Mr. Brousseau come dive today. Maybe not.” He looked up at the sky. “Maybe later it storm.”

“Could be.” Eighty-four degrees. Humid. Sultry. Not a cloud to be seen. A tourist would have laughed, she thought. “Is Manny on island?”

“I think so.”

“Good.” Peta glanced at the Hummer beyond them in the physician’s parking lot, unsurprised that Frik would feel it his right to park there. “I’ll get my things and make arrangements with the charge nurse. Don’t leave without me.”

When she was ready to leave the hospital, Saaliim was half asleep behind the wheel of the car. Frik paced impatiently back and forth next to it.

“One more minute and we’d have been out of here,” he said.

Peta didn’t answer; in fact, she said little en route to Frikkie’s dock, and only waved a passing good-bye as Saaliim turned the Hummer around.

To her delight, the first person Peta saw at the dock was Manny Sheppard, inevitable Carib in hand. He was clearly happy to see her.

“Hey, beautiful. What’s up?”

She hugged him. “You first, Manny. What’s up with you? Which way you headed?”

“Which way you want me to head?”

“I need to get to San Gabriel.”

He motioned toward his small steel-hulled freighter. “Come. I’ll take you there. I got a load of supplies headed for Grenada. San Gabby’s a quick stop on the way.”

She had known Manny since childhood, as well as anyone could ever know him. He was the sort of person with whom you could never quite tell what was real and what he was making up on the spot. He’d been running boats up and down the Caribbean since he left the OECS Security Forces. What was in the boats he sailed around was always an open question, though no customs officials had ever found any evidence to back up their suspicions.

“So what you want in San Gabby?”

“I’m looking for Simon Brousseau.” She felt a sudden stab of anxiety. “He hasn’t gone diving today, has he?”

“Not so far as I know. Simon be probably resting up in San Gabriel, making the lovely ladies happy,” he said.

Peta had no idea how many lovely ladies might be hiding in the small fishing village close to the drill site, nor did she care. If the choice was diving or diddling, sex was certainly the less life-threatening option for Simon.

They sailed through a seascape dotted with rock outcroppings and headed toward the Dragon’s Mouth—the narrow channel separating Trinidad from the Venezuelan mainland. San Gabriel was actually a small island off the coast of the Chaguara Peninsula, the northern spit of land pointing from Trinidad toward the body of South America. It was one of a half dozen towns that made most of their living from not-so-rich Americans and Europeans who wanted to experience diving and sport fishing, but couldn’t afford the big resorts and charters.

As many times as Peta had made the journey through the Dragon’s Mouth by sea before, she was still taken by its jagged beauty. Distracted, wanting some escape from the endless worries about Simon and Terris that ran through her mind, at first she only half listened to what Manny was saying.