“I’m sorry to bring it up at a time like this, but…” Frik paused and took a deep breath. “The Daredevils Club meeting is less than two weeks away. Tell me that you’ll support me in this, Arthur. We have to find that device.”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
Frik took another swallow of coffee. He couldn’t wait. The sense of dread that had seized him in the lab was eating at him, trying to get another grip. “Tell me you’ll help, damn it. You’re my friend.”
Arthur would have to back him in this. You owe me, he thought again, but as they had done right after the accident, the words remained unspoken. There was silence on the line. Were it not for the background murmur of the nurses at the station from which Arthur was making the call, Frikkie would have thought that his friend had hung up.
“Your answer?”
“No, Frik. I don’t think so. The club has never been for the aggrandizement of any individual member. Besides, there’s something unsavory about all this—”
“You don’t understand. You could be throwing away the key to the universe.”
That made Arthur laugh. “Some lids are meant to remain locked, Frikkie. I’m not willing to be Pandora, here.”
“Damn it, Arthur—”
“Over my dead body, Frik. The whole thing smells wrong to me. I suppose you can bring it up at the meeting New Year’s Eve, but I’ll fight you on it.”
This time, the silence on the line was absolute.
Frikkie put the receiver in its cradle and lay back on the sofa. The alcohol he had consumed had not fully left his system and the narcotic was beginning to numb his extremities. He tried to focus on the events of the day, and on how to proceed, but things quickly got hazy. One diaphanous plan melted into another, until he passed out cold.
At around midmorning, Frik awoke again, stiff and groggy and in his own bed. He assumed he’d been carried there by Saaliim. Wouldn’t be the first time, he thought. He didn’t know which was worse, the pain in his hand, the tightness in his chest from the smoke-filled lab, or his pounding hangover headache.
“Saaliim!”
His call instantly brought his assistant into the room.
“Coffee, my man. And something for this pain.”
“Dr. Marryshow, he sent you some medicinals,” Saaliim said. “Right there on your nightstand.”
The younger man left the room and Frik picked up the white paper bag with a note in Arthur’s handwriting stapled to it. Inside the bag there was antibacterial ointment for the burns and a small bottle of painkillers. The note contained cursory instructions about how often to take them and a warning not to drink alcohol while he did so. At the end of the instructions, Arthur had added:
I’m leaving the island. Take it slowly for a few days, Frikkie, and don’t overdo the medication. By then you’ll have come to your senses. Arthur
Or maybe you’ll have changed your mind, Frik thought, and promptly swallowed twice the recommended dose of pills. By the time Saaliim returned with coffee, he was falling back into blackness.
For three days, Frik remembered little except pills, coffee, pain, and Saaliim’s quiet presence floating in and out of the room. By the fourth morning, he was up and trying to dress when Saaliim knocked on the door.
“Telephone, Master Frik.”
“Who is it?”
Arthur, he told himself as the events of the past few days returned to him. He’s changed his mind.
“Missy Selene. Yesterday I told her you can’t talk. Today she don’t sound too good.”
“I’ll talk to her.” Frik sat down on the side of the bed. Saaliim plugged in the extension phone, which he’d apparently kept unplugged for the last few days.
“Hello? Selene?”
“Frik.” Selene’s voice was like an ice cube.
He shivered, despite the heat of the morning. “I’m sorry about your father, Selene. He was a good man.”
“Sorry? I’ll bet you are. You lost a major workhorse, not to mention his discovery. You’ve never given a damn for anyone’s safety but your own, you bastard.”
“Selene—”
“You and your fucking oil drilling,” Selene yelled. “By the time we’re finished with you, Oilstar will be nothing but a memory.”
The phone went dead in Frik’s hand.
He pieced together what he knew about Selene. It wasn’t much. She was bright, attractive, and had a Ph.D. in physics for which he had paid.
The penny dropped.
Green Impacthad to be the “we” to which she had referred.
That was when the second penny dropped.
She knows, Frik thought. Her father must have sent her the pieces of the artifact. But how? There was no way she could have received them yet unless they’d been hand delivered. But by whom? Manny?
No. That was laughable. Manny was too smart to bite the hand that fed him.
How then? Maybe she hadn’t received them yet. Maybe her father had told her he was sending them but—
It doesn’t matter, Frik told himself. All that matters is that she knows. If Paul had told her about the artifact, then even if he hadn’t sent them to her, he might have told her where he’d hidden the missing pieces. In order to find out, he’d have to capture Selene, and for that, he’d need some help.
The Daredevils Club remained his only choice. He’d have to convince them, whether Arthur objected or not. Whatever it took, Frik needed the club. He wasn’t going to go into extinction quietly, damn it. He was no dumb tyrannosaur, he was Frikkie Van Alman, head of Oilstar, man of adventure. Nothing would stand in his way.
Nothing.
8
NEWYORKCITY, DECEMBER31, 1999
Shivering from the cold, Peta pulled open the door to Danny’s Seafood Grotto. She had made eighteen visits to New York, trips punctuated by high school and college graduation, the beginning and end of medical school, and taking over Arthur’s Grenada practice during his long visits to Manhattan and his absences when he sojourned to destinations unknown. By now she should have expected it to be cold, but she was never quite prepared for its reality.
“Peta! Welcome back.” Danny’s maitre d’ took her coat. “Stunning as ever.” He hugged her like an old friend. “Lucky man, Arthur. He’s waiting for you over at the piano. I’ll take care of your coat.”
It didn’t surprise Peta that George greeted her by name, not after this many visits to the West Forty-sixth Street restaurant. On the one hand, she thought, it was boring to be that predictable; on the other, to be welcomed so effusively in a city like this made her feel rather like a celebrity.
Arthur sat at the piano bar, his back to her. To her surprise, he was engaged in earnest discussion with his buddy, Raymond Arno. She felt a spark of annoyance. This was her time, her part of the evening. Bad enough that she was excluded from their damn Daredevils Club meeting that started at midnight every New Year’s Eve.
She felt herself pouting and stopped. With Arthur, there was no use making a fuss. Ever. He did what he did, and generally for what he believed was good reason.
At that moment, the piano player looked up and saw her. Grinning happily, he switched gears into “Happy Birthday to You,” played a few bars of “Hot, Hot, Hot,” then segued into a lively rendition of “Dollar Wine.”
Peta broke into the sensual steps of the Caribbean soca. There was a round of applause. Arthur looked up and waved. Even at a distance, his expression softened. If only he looked that way more often, she thought. She moved to the rhythm for a moment longer before pushing her way through to the piano.
“You two look as if you’re plotting a world takeover,” she said.
“You’re early.” Arthur kissed her. “And beautiful.”