Kevin Anderson - Artifact

Peta took in a deep breath. “Great white hunter rescues damsel in distress,” she said, trying to slow her rapidly beating heart.

“I am delighted to be of service,” Frik said. “Perhaps you will allow this to make up in some small measure for the recent unpleasantness between us.”

His casual air, combined with the apparent miracle of his timely arrival, told her instinctively that the whole thing had been a setup. Asshole, she thought. Fucking immature asshole.

She feigned more trouble catching her breath while she got her emotions under control. He might be an immature asshole, but he was also dangerous and armed. “Are you talking about Simon, or about your performance at the airport?” Or Blaine, she thought.

“Both.” He lowered the crossbow. “I’ve apologized to you about the incident at San Gabriel. I’m afraid Mr. Blaine got overzealous. He won’t be causing a problem for any women for a while, I assure you. As for my little, um, tantrum at the airport. Blame that on my male ego. Whatever the reason, I’m over it.”

“Am I supposed to say thank you for that, too?”

Frik made a weak attempt at a chortle. Then, never one for subtleties, he offered her the protection of his boat through the rest of Carnival.

Setup or no, Peta remained concerned for her own safety. For the moment, she decided, it was best to pretend friendship. She had little doubt that the same ego that Frik had blamed for the incident on the tarmac would persuade him that she was genuinely fooled by his attempt at charm.

She followed him back through town to the marina, recently renamed Blue Lagoon, where theAssegai was moored. The gate man let them in. They parked near the all-but-deserted bar and made their way down the narrow walkway to the boat.

As always, the dogs, Sheba and Maverick, greeted their master energetically. He settled them down, then ushered Peta on board. She accepted a drink from his ample stock and they exchanged a few pleasantries as they seated themselves at the big wooden table that stood on the afterdeck. The image of Arthur falling asleep on this very table the night they’d saved him from the Communists, seventeen years earlier, entered her mind.

Drink in hand, Frik’s tone went from solicitous to confidential. “I know what you think, Peta. You think that I had something to do with Arthur’s death.”

He waited for her to say something. Keep waiting, you bastard, she thought.

“You couldn’t be further from the truth, you know. Arthur was my dearest friend. I would never have done anything to harm him and I will always miss him. Come, I have something to show you.”

He took her into the ship’s saloon and showed her the pieces he had of the artifact. They were resting in some sort of wire frame. She recognized the oddly shimmering surface of the pieces and marveled at how perfectly the piece she recognized from the undersea cavern, the one Blaine had taken from her, fit into what had to be the one Paul had left Frik. Intuitively, she could see where the little cups and nodules on her piece would fit, and how Arthur’s, stuck in NYPD’s Midtown North evidence lockup, would link neatly to all three.

“It may surprise—even shock you—to find out that I know you have a piece of the artifact,” Frik said. “I saw it around your neck during the newscast, that god-awful night in New York.”

What is your game, Frik? Peta thought. Why are you taking me into your confidence? “What do you want me to say about that?” she asked, mostly to buy herself time.

“I don’t want you to say anything. I want you to give your fragment tome…forthe good of humanity.”

Frik held out his hand. She stared at it. He had delayed this long to make his demand; why make it now? Why not wait until New Year’s Eve?

Clearly, the answer was that he had trusted her then and did not trust her now. She could think of at least two obvious reasons for that, one at the bottom of the sea and one up on the mountain.

“I don’t have it on me,” she said, and fingered her neck as if to demonstrate that the pendant was not there.

“Bring it here tomorrow. I’m having my usual carnival party after the parade. It wouldn’t be complete without your presence anyway.”

The last thing I need, Peta thought, is one of Frik’s drunken parties. Then again, if she didn’t accept, the little mob scene on the Grand E´ tang road was likely to be repeated, sans the arrival of the white knight.

Humoring him, praying that Ralphie had the replica ready for her, she smiled congenially. “I could use a few laughs. I’ll bring it with me tomorrow night.”

35

Feeling for all the world like one of Siegfried and Roy’s caged white tigers, Ray paced around his Las Vegas penthouse. Even after a year of living in the apartment, its triangular shape, like that of the hotel beneath it, made him vaguely uncomfortable.

He stalked through what he thought of as the great room, with its sixty-foot-long wall of tempered, tinted glass, its twelve-foot ceiling and comfortable groupings of chairs and sofas.

Trying to clear his mind, he took in the view.

The windows and sliding door at one end faced west across his private helipad to Palace Station Casino and the mountain ranges beyond it. He could just make out the bloodred rock formations of Red Rock Canyon at the corner. The main wall of windows faced southeast, giving him a perfect view of Circus Circus and the rest of the Strip, with the Sahara across the street at the easternmost corner. If he stepped right up to the glass, he knew, he’d be able to look down at the head of the fifty-foot-tall lizard that appeared to be crashing out of the hotel’s outer wall. The latest battle between his stuntmen-performers and the animatronic beast should just have finished. Inside the casino, the creature’s tail would have stopped its periodic waving just below the ceiling.

He prowled down the back hall past the guest rooms, and ended up on the balcony off his own bedroom. From that vantage point, he could look northeast at Stratosphere Tower and downtown, and he could see the glow of the spinning neon Daredevil Casino sign on the nose of a replica of a space shuttle that jutted at a steep angle out of the side of his hotel’s tenth floor, with the tail and cargo doors angled away from the building. It looked as if the building were the shuttle’s external fuel tank and the craft was separating on its way toward the stars. The sides of the shuttle had dozens of viewing ports; the nose cone was glass, allowing tourists to get a one-of-a-kind picture of themselves suspended against the Las Vegas skyline. In what would have been the cargo bay, Ray’s high rollers could enjoy a five-star meal served in a multitiered restaurant. Each table was set against the cargo doors, which were made of specially tinted glass, creating the perfect setup for patrons to see the Stratosphere and the lights of downtown.

All very impressive, Ray thought, yet nothing in the spectacle of his hotel, or Las Vegas itself, held his attention. The Daredevil Casino was already showing a huge profit, enough for him to seriously contemplate buying land to build the Rig, an idea that had stayed with him since his visit to theValhalla; yet he felt edgy. Restive.

What he really needed to cure his restlessness was a new stunt job.

No, he thought. The way he felt was only partially due to his lack of a film job in the offing. More likely it was a symptom of withdrawal after the jungle battle against Green Impact. He had long since admitted to himself that he was a risk addict, and this sitting around was making him itch for the rush of adrenaline he’d felt as the bullets flew and explosives roared through the Delta Amacuro swamps.

Perhaps, he thought, he should coin a syndrome for what ailed him: danger deprivation syndrome. DDS. Sounded painful and impressive.