A
day later, Hatch stood at the helm of the
Plain Jane,
watching the preparations going on around him. Almost despite himself, he felt a sense of mounting excitement. At his side,
two communications monitors—a closed-band scanner covering all the expedition’s channels, and a radio tuned to the dedicated
medical frequency—emitted occasional chirps and squawks of conversation. The ocean was calm, with only the barest swell, and
there was a gentle offshore breeze. The perpetual mist was thin today, gauzy linen loosely encircling the island. It was a
perfect day for off-loading, and Captain Neidelman was making the most of it.
Although the
Plain Jane
was anchored in the same spot as the night before—just outside the Ragged Island reef—the landscape had changed dramatically.
Setup had begun shortly after sunset and escalated at daybreak. The huge sea barge was now anchored two points off the eastern
shore by massive chains, bolted into the rocky sea floor by Neidelman’s dive team. As Hatch watched, the hundred-ton floating
crane was being moored off the western end of the island, its long hydraulic rig hanging over the shoreline like a scorpion’s
tail, ready to pluck off the wrack of two hundred years of treasure hunting. Lying in its shadow was the
Griffin,
Neidelman’s command ship. Hatch could just make out the Captain’s stiff, narrow figure on the flying bridge, closely supervising
the proceedings.
The large research vessel, the
Cerberus,
remained beyond the circle of mist, silent and still, as if not deigning to approach land. The two launches, named the
Naiad
and the
Grampus,
had dropped crews on the island early in the morning. Now the boats were busy offshore. From the pattern of the
Naiad’s
movements, Hatch could tell she was plotting the sea floor. The
Grampus
was taking readings of the island itself, using equipment he was not familiar with.
Hatch continued scanning the activity around him until his gaze fell at last upon the island itself. He still felt a kind
of sickness in his gut when he looked at it. Perhaps it was a sickness that would never go away. But he had made his decision,
and that in itself lifted a huge burden from his shoulders. Every morning now, he awoke more certain that his decision had
been the right one. The night before, he’d even caught himself speculating over what he could do with close to a billion dollars.
Then and there, he’d made up his mind: He would put all of it, every penny, into a foundation in his brother’s name.
A sudden flicker of white on the island briefly caught his eye before disappearing again into the mists. Somewhere, he knew,
crews were already on the move, locating old pits, roping safe trails, tagging ancient junk hidden by the tall brush for later
removal. “Tall nettles,” Hatch quoted to himself,
Cover up, as they have done
These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough
Long worn out, and the roller made of stone.
Other teams, he knew, were taking corings from beams in the countless cribbed shafts. These corings would be carbon 14 dated
in the
Cerberus
lab to determine their age in an attempt to pinpoint which shaft was the original Water Pit. He pulled out his binoculars
and swung them slowly across the terrain until he located one of the teams, pale apparitions in the mist. They were spread
out in a ragged line, moving slowly, hacking away at the chokecherries with brush hooks and axes, stopping occasionally to
take photographs or scribble notes. One man swept a metal detector in an arc ahead of him; another probed the ground with
a long, narrow instrument. At the head of the group, he noticed a German shepherd, diligently sniffing the ground.
Must be trained to smell high explosive,
Hatch thought to himself.
There were, all told, perhaps fifty people bustling on and around the island. All Thalassa employees, and all highly paid:
Neidelman had told him that—outside of the core half-dozen or so that would receive actual shares of the profits instead of
salary—the average worker would earn twenty-five thousand dollars. Not bad, considering that the majority would be gone from
the island within a fortnight, once the various installations were complete and the island stabilized.
Hatch continued scanning the island. At the safe northern end of the island—the only area one could walk without fear—a pier
and dock had gone up. Beside it, the tug was off-loading a welter of equipment: crated generators, acetylene tanks, compressors,
electronic switching equipment. Already onshore were orderly piles of angle iron, corrugated tin, lumber, and plywood. A tough-looking
little all-terrain vehicle with bulbous tires was towing a trailerload of equipment up the improvised path. Nearby, a group
of technicians was beginning the work of wiring an island phone system, while another was erecting Quonset huts. By tomorrow
morning, one of them would be Hatch’s new office. It was amazing how fast things were happening.
Still, Hatch was in no hurry to set foot on Ragged Island.
Tomorrow’s plenty soon enough,
he thought.
A loud clatter echoed toward him as a heavy piece of equipment was loaded onto the pier. Sound carried well across water.
Hatch knew that, even without Bud Rowell’s assistance, all of Stormhaven must now be buzzing with news of his return and the
sudden flurry of activity on the island. He felt a little guilty that he hadn’t been able to tell Bud the whole story two
days before. By now, he’d certainly figured it out. Idly, Hatch wondered what people were saying. Perhaps some of the townspeople
suspected his motives. If so, let them; he had nothing to be ashamed of. Even though his grandfather’s bankruptcy had relieved
his family of legal responsibility, his father had paid off—painfully, over many years—all the family’s local debts. There
had been no finer man than his father. And that fineness of character made his grotesque, pathetic end that much more painful….
Hatch turned away from the island, refusing to follow the line of thought any further.
He checked his watch. Eleven o’clock: the Maine lunch hour. He went belowdecks, raided the gas-powered refrigerator, and returned
with a lobster roll and a bottle of ginger ale. Climbing into the captain’s chair, he propped his feet on the binnacle and
dug avidly into the roll.
Funny thing about sea air,
he thought to himself.
Always makes you hungry.
Maybe he ought to research that particular nugget for the
Journal of the American Medical Association.
His lab assistant Bruce could use a good dose of salt air. Or any air, for that matter.
As he ate, a seagull landed on the thrumcap and eyed him quizzically. Hatch knew lobstermen hated seagulls—called them wharf
rats with wings—but he’d always had a fondness for the loudmouthed, garbage-swilling birds. He flicked a piece of lobster
into the air; the gull caught it and then soared off, chased by two other gulls. Soon, all three had returned and were perched
on the taffrail, staring him down with hungry black eyes.
Now I’ve done it,
Hatch thought, good-naturedly plucking another piece of lobster from the roll and tossing it toward the middle bird.
In an instant, all three birds tore into the air with a desperate beating of wings. Hatch’s amusement turned to surprise as
he noticed they weren’t after the lobster, but were instead fleeing the boat as fast as they could, heading toward the mainland.
In the sudden hush left by their departure, he heard the chunk of lobster hit the deckboards with a soft splat.
As he gazed after the birds, frowning, he felt a convulsive shudder pass under his feet. He leaped out of the chair, thinking
the anchor cable had parted and the
Plain Jane
had run aground. But the cable was still taut. Except for the thin veil of mist that girdled the island, the sky overhead
was clear; there was no lightning. Quickly, he scanned the surroundings for any unusual activity. Had they been dynamiting?
No, it was too early for that….
Then his eyes fell on a patch of ocean, just inside the reef about a hundred yards away.
In an area some thirty feet in diameter, the placid surface of the water had suddenly broken into chop. A roiling mass of
bubbles crested the surface. There was a second shudder, another explosion of bubbles. As they died away, the surface of the
water began to move counterclockwise: slowly at first, then faster. A dimple appeared in its center, almost immediately imploding
into a funnel.
A whirlpool,
Hatch thought.
What the hell—?
A burst of static on the scanner brought Hatch to the railing. There was hysterical shouting on the bands: first from one,
then many voices. “… Man down!” broke through the riot of sounds. “… Get the rope around him!” cried another voice. Then:
“Look out! Those beams are about to go!”
Suddenly, Hatch’s private radio burst to life. “Hatch, do you copy?” came Neidelman’s clipped tones. “We’ve got a man trapped
on the island.”
“Understood,” Hatch said, firing up the big diesels. “I’m bringing the boat to the pier now.” As a puff of wind blew shreds
of mist from the island, he could make out a cluster of white-suited men near the island’s center, scurrying frantically.
“Forget the pier,” Neidelman broke in again, a fresh note of urgency coloring his voice. “No time. He’ll be dead in five minutes.”
Hatch glanced around for a desperate moment. Then he cut the engines, grabbed his medical bag, and pulled the
Plain Jane’s
dinghy alongside. Tearing the rope free of its cleat, he tossed it into the dinghy, then leaped over the side after it. The
dinghy heeled crazily under his sudden weight. Half-kneeling, half-falling onto the stern seat, Hatch pulled at the starter
rope. The outboard leaped into life with an angry buzz. Grabbing the throttle, he pointed the little boat toward the circle
of reefs. Somewhere near the south end, there were two narrow gaps in the jagged underwater rocks. He hoped to hell he remembered
where they were.
As the shoreline drew nearer, Hatch watched the water beneath the bow turning from a bottomless gray to green.
If only there was a bigger swell,
he thought,
I could see the rocks through the breaking water.
He glanced at his watch: no time to play it safe. Taking a deep breath, he opened the throttle wide with a flick of his wrist.
The boat sprang forward eagerly, and the green outline of the submerged reefs grew lighter as the water became rapidly shallower.
Hatch braced himself against the throttle, preparing himself for the impact.
Then he was past the reef and the ocean floor sank away again. He aimed the boat at a small pebbled area between the two Whalebacks,
keeping the throttle wide open until the last second. Then he cut the engine and swiveled the outboard upward, raising the
propeller above the wake. He felt the shock as the bow of the dinghy hit the shore and skidded up across the shingles.
Before the boat came to a halt, Hatch had grabbed his kit and was scrambling up the embankment. He could now hear the shouts
and cries directly ahead. At the top of the rise, he stopped. Ahead stretched an unbroken mass of sawgrass and fragrant tea
roses, swaying in the breeze, concealing the deadly ground below. This wild southern end of the island had not yet been mapped
by the Thalassa team.
It’s suicide to run across there,
he thought even as his legs began to move and he was crashing through the brush, jumping over old beams and skittering across
rotten platforms and around gaping holes.
In a minute he was among the group of white-suited figures clustered around the ragged mouth of a pit. The smell of sea-water
and freshly disturbed earth rose from its dark maw. Several ropes were wrapped around a nearby winch. “Name’s Streeter,” shouted
the nearest figure. “Team leader.” He was the same man who had stood behind Neidelman during his speech—a lean figure with
compressed lips and a marine-style haircut.
Without a word, two of the others began buckling a Swiss Seat harness around Hatch.
Hatch glanced into the pit, and his stomach contracted involuntarily. Dozens of feet down—it was impossible to tell exactly
how far—he could see the yellow lances of flashlight beams. Two roped figures were frantically working at a thick beam. Beneath
the beam, Hatch was horrified to see another figure, moving feebly. Its mouth opened. Over the roar of water, Hatch thought
he could hear an anguished scream.
“What the hell happened?” Hatch cried, grabbing a medical kit from his bag.
“One of the dating team fell into this shaft,” Streeter replied. “His name’s Ken Field. We sent a rope down, but it must have
snagged on a beam. Triggered some kind of cave-in. His legs are pinned by the beam, and the water’s rising fast. We’ve got
three minutes, no more.”
“Get him a scuba tank!” Hatch yelled as he signaled the winch operator to lower him into the pit.
“No time!” came Streeter’s reply. “The divers are too far offshore.”
“Nice way to lead the team.”
“He’s already roped,” Streeter continued after a moment. “Just cut him loose and we’ll haul him up.”
Cut him loose?
Hatch thought just as he was shoved off the edge of the pit. Before he could think, he was swinging in space, the roar of
water almost deafening in the confines of the shaft. He dropped for a moment in near free fall, then the Swiss Seat jerked
him to a rude halt beside the two rescuers. Swinging around, he found a purchase, then glanced down.
The man lay on his back, the massive beam lying diagonally across his left ankle and right knee, pinning him tightly. As Hatch
watched, the man opened his mouth again, crying out with pain. One rescuer was scrabbling rocks and dirt away from the man,
while the other was chopping at the beam with a heavy ax. Chips flew everywhere, filling the pit with the smell of rotten
wood. Beneath them, Hatch could see the water, rising at a terrifying rate.
He knew immediately that it was hopeless; they could never chop through the beam in time. He glanced at the rising water and
made a quick mental calculation: no more than two minutes before the man would be covered, even less than Streeter had guessed.
He mentally reviewed his options, then realized there were none. No time for painkiller, no time for an anaesthetic, no time
for anything. He rummaged desperately through his kit: a couple of scalpels long enough for a hangnail repair, but that was
it. Tossing them aside, he began shrugging out of his shirt.