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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?
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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.
7
To Frik, the next hour seemed like a lifetime. Arthur had called on his way to
the airport and issued instructions for what would be needed. Frik jotted them
down and repeated each one, a slur creeping into his voice. When he put down
the phone, he handed the list to Saaliim and told him to go out and collect
everything Arthur wanted.
Saaliim was also given a second mission.
After showing Saaliim the piece of the artifact that he d rescued from the
fire, Frik ordered his assistant to search the remains of the lab and
Trujold s house and car for the three missing components of the strange
object.
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Reluctant to leave Frik alone for long, Saaliim returned in less than an hour.
He had gathered everything Arthur needed, but he d found nothing that in any
way resembled the pieces of the artifact. Maybe he d made the wrong choice,
not taking Paul directly to the hospital. Chances were, they would have
ignored his babblings there, but they could have done something to keep him
alive at least long enough for Frik to extract from him the whereabouts of the
missing pieces.
Then again, he d learned to trust his first instinct, which in this case was
to keep things under tight control.
Leaving the matter of the artifact to be dealt with later, Frik settled down [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]