Artifact

Artifact Page 7

The phone rang two, three times. Frik could not recall ever having felt so frustrated at the hollow ringing of an unanswered telephone.

"Come on," he begged. "Pick up. Be there." But at the end of the third ring, an answering-machine message came on.

"You've reached Dr. Arthur Marryshow. If this is an emergency, please call my service at 212-555- 9239 or you may leave a message at the beep."

The number Frik had dialed was Arthur's personal one at the midtown Manhattan apartment where he'd lived for the last few years - when he wasn't away on some mission or another. Had it been on voice mail, which Arthur refused to use because he felt it was too impersonal, Frik might have left a message. But he didn't want to go through the service - not unless he had to. The less anyone knew about this the better.

There was, however, another number he could try, one Arthur had asked him not to use except in dire circumstances.

He dialed Arthur's cell phone number.

The phone clicked and rang.

"Yes."

"Arthur?"

"Who else would it be, Frik? You dialed my number." Arthur sounded annoyed at the interruption. Still, Frik had never been so glad to hear someone pick up. "This had better be important."

"It is. I need help. I need it fast and discreet. There's been an accident at the lab - and - "

"Frik, where are you?"

"Trinidad. Look, I need you to get here fast. Right away. You can use the Oilstar jet. It's at Kennedy."

Excellent chess player that he was, Frik automatically considered multiple options before embarking on any action, like the tone best used in this call. "Could you please" had been easy to discard because it left Arthur with too much of a choice. Offering recompense was out. Arthur, a plastic surgeon who had specialized in burn medicine, years before had pioneered grafting and reconstruction techniques that gave disfigured victims a chance at a normal life. It had made him loved, almost worshiped. It had also made him wealthy.

Of the two alternatives left to him, Frik had chosen the imperative. If that failed, he would take the I- scratched-your-back, you-scratch-mine mental leap which generally got him what he wanted. You owe me, Marryshow, he thought, picturing the prison escape in Grenada and the half dozen times he had saved his fellow Daredevil's life in the intervening seventeen years and conveniently dismissing the equal number of times the roles had been reversed.

"What is this about, Frikkie? What happened?"

Frik sighed with relief and outlined a carefully edited version of the night's events.

"You must get Paul and yourself to a hospital. You - "

"No." This was the hardest part: telling Arthur only enough so that he'd come and help with their wounds - especially Paul's. The scientist's skin was dotted with great blackened patches, as though someone had taken a brush laden with tar and swiped at it. "I can't."

Frik could hear Arthur's fury. "Call the hospital, get an ambulance, and...I'll..."

Frik took a deep breath and chugged Lagavulin straight from the bottle. A friend had sent him the bottle of his favorite single-malt scotch from Argyll, Scotland, and he'd kept it for a rainy day.

As far as he was concerned, it was storming.

He couldn't tell how bad his own burns were, but he could see only hazy fog through his left eye, and the left hand felt like it was being prickled by a hundred poisonous black sea urchins. His whole body was an archipelago of pain, the little islands only occasionally blurring together. A flash here, a flash there.

The alcohol was keeping the isles from connecting into a continent of agony, but it was also getting him drunk. He had to stay clear enough to make Arthur understand.

"We found something, Arthur. And if Paul spoke about it, at the hospital, under drugs, it would be bad  - "

"You are one stubborn bastard. I should hang up. What have you done for him?"

Saaliim, Frik's assistant, a native of Honduras who wore a perpetually thoughtful look, stood by the door, waiting to see what would happen. Frik relied on Saaliim for everything and anything. He was about the only person in the world, other than the members of the Daredevils Club, that Frik fully trusted.

"I gave him morphine from one of the kits. He's either asleep or unconscious, I'm not sure which. I think he'll be okay for the three, four hours it would take you to get here."

"Sooner. I'm in Grenada. Your call was transferred here."

Thank you, Lady Luck, Frick thought.

"If I cancel tomorrow's appointments, if I drop everything and run to you, I could fly myself over and be there in an hour, maybe less," Arthur continued.

Being the man of integrity that you are, you'll do exactly that, Frik thought. "Thank you," he said, without waiting for Arthur's full agreement. "There'll be a car waiting for you and I'll be sitting at the window, watching the road."

"You expect me to work in your house?"

"I can get you anything you need."

"Right. Like a burn center?"

"Mount Hope Medical Center has an HBO chamber but nothing for burns." Frik had to make his friend understand. "You have to trust me, Arthur. What we found, it's too important to risk having anyone learn about. It could change the world."

"And changing it could use. All right, Frik, I'll come. But I'm warning you, this had better be damn good."