Kevin Anderson - Artifact

As she listened to it ring, she wondered what exactly it was that she was going to tell him—and why. There wasn’t anything either of them could do at this stage.

She disconnected the phone.

Screw Frik. Screw the Daredevils, all of them. She really didn’t give a damn about any of them.

All she cared about was going to Danny’s to keep her promise to Arthur, and to herself. She pulled her gloves out of her handbag and put them on, wrapped her shawl around her neck and over her head like a hood, and dragged her case the eight city blocks from the Midtown North precinct station to Danny’s.

George spotted her as she entered the small foyer. He ran toward her, put his arms around her, and held her, gently, as if she were fragile and might break.

He took the suitcase from her and led her inside. At the far end of the bar, the piano player recognized Peta. Smiling broadly, he switched gears into “Happy Birthday to You,” played a few bars of “Hot, Hot, Hot,” then segued, as he had done so many times before, into a lively rendition of “Dollar Wine.”

I should have told George to tell him to cut that out, she thought, forcing herself to look across at the piano. Sitting there, his back to her, was a café au lait man about the same size and build as Arthur.

Where are you when I need you, David Copperfield? There is no magic and this was a terrible idea, she thought.

The man turned around to face her.

“You son of a bitch! How could you!” she yelled as adrenaline powered by a mix of untrammeled fury and profound joy propelled her across the room. She rushed at him, punched him full out, and knocked him backward onto the piano. “One whole year, you let me believe you were dead.”

For a few moments, Arthur let her rant. Then she felt his arms around her. He held her so close she could hardly breathe. When the tears came, he kissed them away.

When they stopped, he led her to the corner table markedReserved .

“Would you give me a chance to apologize? To explain,” he said, holding her hand across the white linen tablecloth.

“Do I have a choice?”

“I had to do it,” Arthur said. “Ray helped me. We faked the whole thing.”

Peta’s mind flashed back to the bloody fragments on the men’s-room floor. “If it wasn’t you—”

“I assure you it wasn’t.” Arthur accompanied his weak attempt at humor with a kiss on her hand. “When I went out there, I opened a door near the bathrooms for Ray to bring in a body he’d ‘borrowed’ from the morgue’s John Doe slab. We’d figured any male would do, given that he was about to be blown to bits.”

“So you locked the corpse, with explosive attached, into the bathroom, and slipped out the rear door?”

“Right.”

“But why, Arthur? And where have you been all this time?”

A part of their conversation a year ago struggled into Peta’s consciousness.There’s new trouble brewing in the Middle East, big trouble. After the meeting, I’m going to Israel. I’ll be teaching medics about frontline emergency burn treatment .

There had been trouble all right, and it wasn’t over yet. “It was the Israel thing, wasn’t it?” she said.

He nodded. “That was part of it. But also, there was no other way I could properly investigate Frik. He’s dangerous, Peta. It’s not just the artifact. I still have to find proof, but I can tell you that he has his hands in a lot of other dirty business.”

“Seems to be a proliferation of that around here,” Peta said.

“Of what?”

“Dirty business. My guess is, it’s reached epidemic proportions.” She told him about her experience that afternoon with New York’s finest. “They knew it was a setup, didn’t they? The police.”

“Yes. But not until the people I work for squashed the investigation.”

“How long have you—?”

“Been back? Long enough to have my contacts retrieve my piece of the artifact.”

She pulled her hand away from him. “Why didn’t you get in touch with me? I’ve been through hell—”

“Orders. There’s still too much going on. My silence is part of the deal. I’ve already said too much.”

“Will they ever let you tell me?”

“I’m working on it. That’s all I can say—for now.”

“I can be trusted to keep my mouth shut. You know that.”

“That’s not the point.”

She looked him straight in the eye. In a monotone which held no vestige of emotion she said, “Tell me, Arthur. Whatis the point.”

He leaned forward so far that his face was almost touching hers. “The point, my darling Peta, is that once I tell you…ifI tell you…you’ll be as involved as I am.”

Give it up, girl, she thought. At least for now. Leave the recriminations alone and delight in the gift of his presence. “Have you seen Ray?” she asked, making an enormous effort to appear normal.

“I was with him when you called to tell him you were coming to Danny’s. I booked a seat here right away, and another back to Vegas on the flight with you. The plan now is to test the whole artifact’s capabilities at the meeting, where we can keep Frik under wraps.” He glanced at her neck. “I heard about the stunt he pulled in Grenada. And that you had to give him your pendant.”

“Sadly, yes.”

Saying nothing about the switch she had made with the pendant, Peta raised her glass. You want closemouthed. I’ll give you closemouthed. “Happy birthday, Arthur Marryshow,” she said. “Happy birthday to us.”

41

“Josh.” Ray Arno shook Keene’s hand as he stepped off the private elevator into his penthouse. McKendry followed on Keene’s heels. “Terr. I tell you, I could hardly believe it when I heard the message on my machine, saying that you’d both be here. Good to see you both alive.”

“Good to be seen,” McKendry said.

Ray had to work to maintain his smile. Both men seemed to have aged a decade in the past year. McKendry, especially, must have shed another ten pounds since Ray had last seen him. Both men carried grim, haunted looks, as if they’d been through hell and had not quite made it all the way back.

Ray offered drinks and showed them around the penthouse. When he’d given them the inside tour, he hit a switch that automatically drew all of the curtains, revealing picture windows which overlooked the panorama below.

“Behold. My own private playground,” he said, pointing out the various hotels along the strip. Naming the mountains. Taking what was almost an owner’s pride in Red Rock Canyon and snowcapped Mount Charleston.

The visitors took in all the grandeur without much reaction. Keene’s usual ebullience was conspicuously absent. He had moved to a window and stood gazing out at the glittering panorama.

“Is Van Alman coming?” he said finally.

The tight voice and the use of the last name instead of “Frik” were not lost on Ray.

“He’s due any minute.”

“Lots of good people are dead because of his little treasure hunt.”

“And because of us,” McKendry said. “We’ve been over all this, Josh—”

“I know, I know, but I detest him and his goddamn device. If he’d letitbe…” He took a deep breath and turned from the window. “We got our piece, didn’t we? Like good little errand boys we went and found it, and we’re here to deliver it. But at what cost? If it had been up to me I’d have tossed it into the Cayman Trench and told Frik to go dive for it himself.”

The Cayman Trench…hundreds of miles long, five miles deep. Ray shook his head. No one would ever have found it there.

“Why didn’t you?” he asked.

“Because I needed to know that the past year wasn’t for nothing. And because I promised someone that if this device could be put to good use, I’d see to it that it was. I also promised that if it was going to be used for wrong, I’d prevent it. By any means necessary. Otherwise this is the last place I want to be.”