Artifact

Artifact Page 31

In early June, standing at the head of Oilstar's La Brea dock, McKendry looked over his assault team. Except for the fact that Manny Sheppard had been missing for two days and that they still had no specifics about the whereabouts of the ecoterrorists, they were as ready as they would ever be.

The three men Bruzual had sent slouched together against one of the pilings, smoking Peta's cigarettes and polishing their weapons. The one called Jose drew his knife against a stone to sharpen the edge. As he spun it, McKendry saw the initials J.R. etched into the pommel.

"You're his buddies. Where the devil is Sheppard?" McKendry looked at Peta and Ray accusingly.

"Triple A to the rescue," Manny said, appearing out of nowhere. With a self-satisfied grin, he handed McKendry a grease-stained scrap of paper with a sketch on it.

According to Manny, he had glided up to the shoreline of the jungle in his small outboard boat and asked an elderly Warao fisherman for information about Green Impact. Normally, the indigenous jungle Indians would not take part in any outsider activity, and they certainly wouldn't have betrayed Selene Trujold, so Manny had expected no answer. But the old man had caught a large and frightening catfish that day - surely an omen, since the Warao considered catfish to be magical creatures. He had given Manny all the details the team could possibly want, including a sketch of the camp itself.

"So when do we leave?" Jose sheathed his knife and rested his hand on the butt of his pistol.

"When we've all memorized the sketch," Ray answered. He looked none too happy with the man's apparent bloodlust. "Meanwhile, let's go over what we know."

"Again?" Another of Bruzual's men, Diego.

"Yes," Ray said. "Again. Peta?"

"As far as we know, Selene's group lost several members during the raid on theYucatan . They probably have between ten and twenty members left, hiding in the jungle, planning more attacks against Oilstar. Some Warao Indians are also likely to be in the camp, but they're workers, not converts to the cause - paid with trinkets and supplies. It's unlikely that they're motivated by political convictions or personal loyalty."

"We figure the Indians will disappear as soon as they see trouble," McKendry added.

"You're right," Manny said. "They're too smart to stick around waiting to be shot or" - he looked at Jose - "knifed."

Ray nodded. "I'm going to say this one more time. No violence except in self-defense. We're there to disable the camp and find Frik's piece of jewelry."

"And Selene," McKendry said. "I hope I can keep my hands off her neck long enough to hand her over to Bruzual for trial."

Peta looked at him with a worried expression, but Ray, who knew him better, just grinned.

As day became night, with Manny at the helm of the fiberglass boat supplied by Bruzual, they left Trinidad and headed toward the shores of the Orinoco Delta. The stars, bright during the team's journey across the gulf, were soon obscured by the jungle. Only a few pinpricks of light were visible as they entered one of the narrow channels between overhanging mangrove and palm trees. No one spoke, not even when they reached the first of thepalafitos, sturdy handmade huts that stood on pilings at the water's edge.

In the lowlands of eastern Venezuela, the slick whisper of water in the canos was like a wet tongue moving through the grasses, thick weeds, and leaf-heavy branches. The night songs of crickets and frogs in the dense underbrush made a din that masked the sounds of the quiet movement of the oars. The fiberglass boat prowled like a piranha through the narrow rivulets. Now, the low strumming of a guitar was added to the nocturnal orchestra as Manny guided the boat up beside Green Impact's black Zodiac rafts.

The terrorists, falsely secure in their isolation, had not thought to have anyone keep watch.

With Manny leading the way, the assault team slipped through crackling weeds to the sturdypalafito poles. He used worn bumps and notches as if they were a ladder to scramble up the nearest pole to the floor above. McKendry and the three men provided by Venezuelan security minister Bruzual stayed close behind, with Peta and Ray in the rear.

McKendry heard a rustle of palm fronds, small monkeys or rodents scampering across the thatched hut roofs. Through the leaves of a fern he was using as cover, he saw the intense white lights of Coleman lanterns set on tables and attracting swarms of jungle insects. The air smelled of hot oil, fried fish and bananas, and bitter tobacco smoke.

As he climbed the pole behind Manny, McKendry could see a long-legged man through the door opening that led into the next hut over. The stranger's bare feet were propped up on a windowsill and he was strumming a guitar. It was the young minstrel he and Keene had met in the delta cantina what seemed like forever ago.

Other than that, the compound was quiet. McKendry wondered briefly what had happened to the musician's girlfriend. Perhaps, he thought, she's already in bed, somewhere out of sight. He knew that in the jungle, people bedded down once darkness fell, and rose with the dawn. He and his team planned to take advantage of the routine and the darkness.

Manny and McKendry stepped into the first palafito and looked around. It was empty, probably a simple storage hut or one of the dwellings used by a recently killed member of Green Impact. The log floor creaked underfoot.

McKendry motioned for Jose to slip across to the next dwelling, where the guitarist was making enough noise to muffle their stealthy approach. The mercenary moved like a shadow into the hut and behind the guitar player. There was a flash of metal, a jangling chord, and the guitar fell silent, leaving the jungle with only the insects and amphibians to provide music. Bruzual's man eased the guitar player back in his chair as he died.

"No," Ray said, his voice low and angry.

Jose looked up at him through the window and made an apologetic gesture, as if he'd had no choice but to do what he had done.

"Thank God," a Green Impact member grumbled from the next hut, unaware of why the music had stopped but evidently pleased. "Now we can finally get some sleep."

Peta stifled a gasp and moved forward as if to help the guitar player. Ray stopped her and signaled Jose to come back. They watched until the guitarist stopped twitching and simply bled onto the uneven floor.

Ray faced the Venezuelan. "Now, get your ass back and disable every last one of their boats," he whispered angrily. "And remember. If anyone else dies, so will you."

As a scowling Jose crept through the mud toward the wider canos, Ray motioned for Terris and Manny to move clockwise around the compound while he and Peta and the other two mercenaries headed counterclockwise.

McKendry thought for a moment that Rodolfo would have believed this was exciting. He would have wanted to come along - and he would either have been killed, or have gone back to huddle in the boat, making up stories he would tell later to the women in silvery miniskirts who clung to him in Caracas's discos and nightclubs.

"Let's get moving," he whispered to Manny. "Or we'll end up like that poor son of a bitch in there."