Artifact

“Ray!” Peta leaned against the man she’d known for seventeen years, since together they’d saved Arthur’s life. “There was an explosion. Arthur’s…he’s dead, Ray.”

Ray looked stu

Peta at last let go. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she described what she had seen.

Ray gripped her shoulder. “I’ll find out who did this to him. I swear I will.”

“Did this tohim ?” Peta repeated. “You think someone was out to murder Arthur?” Somewhere at the back of her presently fuzzy mind she remembered Arthur telling her about his mission to the Middle East. Was this a directed act, co

“He was into a lot of dangerous stuff. You know that.” Ray paused. “I’ll miss him too,” he said, more gently. “He was one of my oldest and dearest friends, Peta.” His eyes filled with tears, and for the first time since she’d known him, he looked middle-aged.

“Look, I don’t mean to sound callous but there’s nothing we can do for Arthur. Not right now. It’s not going to be easy to get through the crowds, but I have to be at the meeting by midnight. So do you.” He put his arm around her. “Arthur said he wanted you to take his place if something…permanent…ever happened to him. There has to be a vote and it has to be unanimous, but—”

Peta shook off his arm. She was stu

“Yes.” He buttoned up her coat, took off his scarf and wrapped it around her neck. Then he put his arm back around her. “Listen,” he said. “Before we go, there’s something I should warn you about. No matter how much we loved Arthur, you won’t see us mourning his death, not in any conventional way. It’s an agreement we made after our first member died. The meetings go on and we grieve privately, each in our own way.”

Peta felt her temper rise, but pragmatism and emotional exhaustion won out. Therewas nothing else she could do right now. She allowed Ray to lead her through the drunk and rowdy New Year’s Eve celebrants to Arthur’s Manhattan penthouse, a one-bedroom apartment that sat squarely in the middle of the flat roof of the Time Hotel.

The prewar hotel was on West Forty-ninth, half a block from Broadway in the heart of the theater district. At the Ambassador Theater next door, a performance was just letting out. Peta didn’t see the people, didn’t notice anything but her sorrow. She couldn’t think beyond Arthur: his mentoring and friendship; their first visit to New York; their first lovemaking, on her twenty-second birthday, and the evolution of that night into an abiding, all-encompassing love.

She was oblivious to the greetings of the doorman, who knew her from her a

The elevator opened into Arthur’s apartment. Frik stood on the rooftop, his back to her, staring down at the city. Three more men waited inside. She recognized them as acquaintances of Arthur’s.

Stone-faced, Ray poured brandy into two glasses and handed one of them to her. “Drink it,” he said. He downed most of the contents of his own glass. Then he turned toward the others and told them that Arthur would not be at the meeting that night, or ever again.

Each of the men reacted in his own way. One stood up and began to pace. Another, whom she’d known for some time, had tears in his eyes. He put his face in his hands, as if he did not want the others to see his weakness. The third man yelled out “No!” His cry brought Frik to the doorway.

“What’s happened?” he asked, standing in the half shadows.

“It’s Arthur,” Ray said quietly. “He’s dead.”

Frik stared at Ray. “Here,” he said, reverting to his native Afrikaans. “God.” After a moment he asked, “How did it happen?”

As Ray began his recounting, Peta felt on the edge of hysteria. In emotional self-defense, she fell into the habit born of years of training. She looked at the members of the Daredevils Club and cataloged what she knew about them and their activities.

While he’d kept the details a secret, Arthur had told her small things, nonspecific things. She knew that they gathered every New Year’s Eve to exchange tales of the past year’s most daring and death-defying adventures, that they were all people who, by inclination or profession, risked their lives on a regular basis. They sought out trouble, took on jobs that nobody fully sane would do, and put their lives on the line at every opportunity. The playground for their adventures was the world—be it in military installations, deep undersea trenches, or just on the mean streets of New York. They risked their lives for the thrill, the glory, or the money, and they came together to share their adventures because half the fun was telling the tale.

Peta tried to remember what specifics she could about the three men sitting in Arthur’s living room.

The one she knew best, outside of Frik and Ray, was the man who had cried and called out. He was Simon Brousseau, a Miami-based inventor of scuba-diving gear, a womanizer, and an underwater junkie. Judging by his pallor, he had a bad heart condition. Were she his physician, she’d be warning him to take it easy.

The other two men she’d met only briefly, over di

The last man, the pacer, was Joshua Keene, McKendry’s “partner in insanity,” according to Arthur. Keene was McKendry’s opposite, a wild man who placed great stock in his instincts and his intuition. He had a quick and wi

Peta had not found McKendry’s gruff ma

“That’s all I know,” Ray said at last. In the ensuing silence, he added, “You’re all aware that Arthur wanted Peta to be his successor if something happened to him.”

Frik, who had stayed in the doorway listening to the details of his old friend’s death, stepped into the light. Peta immediately noticed burn scars on his face. He was wearing gloves, but she could see the traceries of more severe scars on his left hand in the gap between the sleeve and the glove.

“Peta’s entry fee for membership will have to be the same as it is for any man,” Frik said. “Proof of participation in a new adventure that makes her worthy of inclusion in the club.”

“Damn all of you.” Peta hurled her brandy glass in Frik’s direction. It hit the wall closest to him and splintered, leaving behind a golden brown trickle. “Your friend is dead. Dead. And why? For all I know, it’s because of some stunt he pulled to impress you.”