Kevin Anderson - Artifact

He grabbed a weight belt and slipped on an extra three pounds of metal. He wanted to drop like a stone. If he needed to, he could shed the extra weight on the bottom.

Won’t pretty Miss Peta be surprised, he thought, lifting a chest near the front of the boat to pull out his BCV, fins, and an extra pair of tanks.

In minutes, ready to dive, he sat on the railing, rolled backward, and splashed into the water.

He had no trouble finding the cave opening; it had been clearly marked by Charles and Abdul when they’d discovered it. He assumed that Peta was deep inside by now, perhaps all the way into the cavern. Soon, she and Simon would be coming back.

If Simon was still alive.

He reached over his shoulder and adjusted his air mixture, cutting back the oxygen. When he was satisfied with the new mix, he pulled his knife from its sheath and—holding it in front of him like the bill of a swordfish—started into the cave.

Having done more than enough cave diving to know what to expect, he moved smoothly through the twists and turns. He could almost anticipate the bony stone fingers that lurched out from the top and the sides. He swam sleekly, knife held in front of him, dodging the rocky outcroppings.

How long, he wondered, before he’d be in the cave, face to face with Peta and Simon? The two of them would be totally oblivious to his arrival.

Surprise, surprise.

At a fork in the cave, he chose the wider passage. No diver could make it into the narrower one. The walls of this new tunnel were smooth, looking almost preformed, man-made even. Probably created by the flow of water in and out of the main cave.

He saw the dull glow of a light ahead. Instinctively, he kicked harder.

The rocky tube widened suddenly and he shot into the cave. He could only dimly see what was happening. Simon was suspended near the far wall, which was covered by a mural that looked like something from an alien theme park.

Peta floated partially behind Simon’s body.

Blaine watched as she took a specimen bag from the dead man’s belt and stuffed something into it.

Good, Blaine thought. All the hard work has been done.

He kicked once, twice.

She was turning in his direction. He imagined her shock at seeing someone else in the cave, her relief when she recognized him, and finally her horror when she realized his purpose.

Horror was a bad thing. It was no fun to know that something really bad was about to happen. Better to just go quietly, unaware that—oops, you’re dead. Blaine took no pleasure in the horror. Work like this was meant to be done well, but not necessarily savored.

He came at her hard, pushing Simon’s body ahead of himself like a battering ram. The panic was rising in her face, and he could see her gulping air as she hit the wall. Not good, he thought. You must breathe evenly when you’re diving this deep.

He noticed that his own breathing mixture felt thin and that he was gasping a bit from too much exertion. Unavoidable under the circumstances, he thought. He would check it later.

Keeping Peta pressed to the wall with Simon’s lifeless body, he moved his knife in a broad, sweeping arc and expertly cut the main hose from her regulator. Immediately the air mixture rocketed out. He shifted his grip to her BC to steady her as he cut her secondary hose.

She kicked at him. That was another downside of the subject of the work being aware of what was happening. Nothing alivewants to die.

Fortunately the water and the dead weight between them made her slow, inaccurate. It was too late for her as the twin jets of free air shot from her tanks and wedged her tighter between the dead body and the wall.

Blaine sheathed his knife, scooped up the specimen bag, and kicked his way back to the cave opening. He held the bag tightly in his hand, the prize for Frikkie.

A nice prize, with the added bonus that the witnesses would never see the surface again.

Death wouldn’t come all that quickly for Peta, but it would come. It was sad, really. She was a beautiful woman with a lot of fire.

He would have liked to have bedded her at least once.

25

Blaine moved slowly to the surface, taking his time. He didn’t let himself dwell on Peta’s struggle below. It wouldn’t have been pretty, but—by now—it was over. Time to be forgotten. She was quite beautiful, he thought again, and quite brave. Altogether rather remarkable.

Pity how things turned out sometimes.

At fifteen feet from the surface he slowed to a stop. Breathing a trimix made rest stops absolutely necessary to ensure that no bubbles brewed in his bloodstream as he changed pressure. It was always good to vent some internal gases at low depth. Like a race-car driver making a pit stop. If life had been different, that’s what he would have done: raced cars at high speed. He certainly had the balls for it.

Looking down, he saw a shape moving through the water. It circled coyly under him. His watch indicated that he had been at fifteen feet for only a minute—he should stay at this depth for another two minutes at least.

Beneath him, the shark described another circle, spiraling up his way.

Wouldn’t that be ironic? he thought. Get the artifact, kill Peta, and have a shark rip me to pieces.

He looked up at the hull of his boat. Enough of a rest stop, he thought, kicking toward it.

In moments, he broke the surface. The water had turned choppy and he could feel a breeze building up from the southeast. Little whitecaps slapped him one way and the other as he treaded water. He swam to the edge of the boat and latched on. Removing his vest and tanks in the water, he climbed on board and pulled up his gear behind him. In short order, with his wet suit unzipped to the waist, he had the engine going and had cast off from the rig.

He stuffed the specimen bag into his shorts. This was one prize he would keep very close to himself. He toweled the water from his hair, sat on the edge, and looked down, hoping to see the shark. Keep coming up for me, he thought, and I’ll put a damn bullet in your primeval head.

For a split second, he believed he could see it in the deep water below him, but then it faded and he guessed it had given up the chase.

He tossed away the towel, then eased back the throttle, prepared for a nice, leisurely cruise back to the shore. The boat belly-whapped on the choppy water, sending a cool spray shooting back at him. Feeling relaxed and satisfied, he brought out a silver metal box from under the foredeck hold, popped open the latches, and removed his sat phone. After turning it on, he said, “Frikkie.”

The phone dialed automatically. He could hear the whirring ring: once, twice. Come on, he thought. You have to be there. This is what you’ve been waiting for.

“Yes?”

“I got it.”

“Good. Correct that.Great . Take care with it.”

Blaine smiled. “It’s as safe as my family jewels, Frik. I tell you, though, it is a strange-looking thing. I do hope it was worth that beautiful woman’s life.”

“Wait! What did you just say?”

“Peta. I thought it might be tidier if she didn’t surface to ask questions. Seemed like a nice place to leave someone buried. She and Simon kind of disap—”

“Go! The hell! Back! Now!”

“What?”

Even as Blaine spoke, he started cutting the wheel of the boat, turning around. It rocked as its own wake hit it from behind, and for a moment the propellers cut at air. Then he gunned the throttle.

“Are you going back?”

“On my way. Now tell me—”

“You idiot. Did I tell you to kill her?”

“No, Frikkie, but it seemed like a…how you say…no-brainer. Why would you—”

“Because she still has a piece of the artifact, you fool!”

The Venezuelan let that sink in. This was not good. People rarely screwed up on Frikkie more than once. They didn’t live that long.