Riptide (38 page)

Hatch nodded. “That would explain why Macallan was so adept at using codes and secret inks in his journal.”

“And why his second code was so devilish. Not many people would have the presence of mind to plan a double cross as elaborate
as the Water Pit.” St. John fell silent a moment. “I mentioned this to Neidelman when we spoke yesterday afternoon.”

“And?”

“He told me it was interesting, and that we should look into it at some point, but that the priority was stabilizing the Pit
and retrieving the gold.” A pale smile moved quickly across his features. “That’s why there’s little reason to show him those
documents you uncovered. He’s simply too involved with the dig to think of anything that isn’t directly related.”

They arrived at the storage shed. Since the initial finds at the pirate encampment, the shed had been beefed up from its original
ramshackle appearance. Now, bars had been placed at the two small windows, and a Thalassa guard sat inside the entrance, logging
everything that went in and out.

“Sorry about this,” St. John said with a grimace as Hatch requisitioned Macallan’s decrypted journal and showed Neidelman’s
note to the guard. “I’d be happy just to print you off a copy, but Streeter came by the other day and had all the cryptological
material downloaded onto disks. All of it, including the log. Then everything was erased from the servers, and the backups
wiped. If I knew more about computers, I might have—”

He was interrupted by a shout from the dim interior of the shed. A moment later Bonterre emerged, a clipboard in one hand
and a curious circular object in the other. “My two favorite of men!” she said with a wide smile.

St. John, suddenly embarrassed, fell abruptly silent.

“How are things down at Pirateville?” Hatch asked.

“The work is almost done,” Bonterre replied. “This morning we finish the last grid. But, as with lovemaking, the best comes
at the end. Look at what one of my diggers unearthed yesterday.” She held up the object in her hand, grin widening.

Hatch could see it was intricately worked, seemingly made of bronze, with numbers etched finely into the outer edge. Two pointed
lengths of metal ran out from its center like the hands of a clock. “What is it?” he asked.

“An astrolabe. Used to determine latitude from the altitude of the sun. Worth ten times its weight in gold to any mariner
in Red Ned’s day. Yet it too was left behind.” Bonterre ran her thumb caressingly along its surface. “The more I find, the
more I am confused.”

Suddenly, a loud cry sounded nearby.

“What was that?” St. John said, starting.

“Sounded like a howl of pain,” Hatch said.

Bonterre pointed. “I think it came from the hut of the
géologiste.
”

The three sprinted the short distance to Rankin’s office. To Hatch’s surprise, the blond bear of a man was not collapsed in
agony, but was instead sitting in his chair, looking from a computer monitor to a lengthy printout, then back to the screen
again.

“What’s up?” Hatch cried.

Without looking at them, Rankin held out a palm, commanding silence. He checked the printout again, his lips moving as if
counting something. Then he set it down. “Checks out both ways,” he said. “Can’t be a glitch this time.”

“Has the man turned
fou?
” Bonterre asked.

Rankin turned toward them. “It’s right,” he said excitedly. “It’s got to be. Neidelman’s been ragging me to get data on what
was buried at the bottom of the Pit. When the thing was finally drained, I thought maybe all the weird readings would vanish.
But they didn’t. No matter what I tried, I kept getting different readings every run. Until now. Take a look.”

He held up the printout, an unintelligible series of black blobs and lines along with one fuzzy dark rectangle.

“What is it?” Hatch asked. “A Motherwell print?”

“No, man. It’s an iron chamber, perhaps ten feet on a side and fifty feet below the cleared part of the Pit. Doesn’t seem
to have been broached by water. And I’ve just managed to narrow down its contents. Among other things, there’s a mass of perhaps
fifteen, maybe twenty tons of dense, nonferrous metal. Specific gravity just over nineteen.”

“Wait a minute,” Hatch said. “There’s only one metal with that specific gravity.”

Rankin’s grin widened. “Yup. And it ain’t lead.”

There was a brief, electrifying silence. Then Bonterre shrieked with glee and bounded into Hatch’s arms. Rankin bellowed again
and pounded St. John’s back. The foursome tumbled out of the hut, shouting and cheering.

As more people heard the commotion and came running, word of Rankin’s discovery quickly spread. Immediately, a spontaneous
celebration erupted among the dozen or so Thalassa employees still working on the island. The oppressive aftermath of the
Wopner tragedy, the continuous setbacks, and brutally hard work were forgotten in a frantic, almost hysterical, jubilation.
Scopatti capered around, removing his boat shoes and tossing them into the air, clutching his diving knife between his teeth.
Bonterre ran into Stores and emerged with the old cutlass excavated from the pirate encampment. She ripped off a strip of
denim from the base of her shorts and tied it around her head as an eyepatch. Then she pulled her pockets inside out and tore
a long gash in her blouse, exposing a dangerously large swath of breast in the process. Brandishing the cutlass, she swaggered
around, leering horribly, the image of a dissolute pirate.

Hatch was almost surprised to find himself shouting with the rest, hugging technicians he barely knew, cavorting over proof—at
last—of all that gold lying beneath them. Yet he realized this was a kind of release everyone desperately needed.
It’s not about the gold,
he thought to himself.
It’s about not letting this damned island defeat us.

The cheering faltered as Captain Neidelman strode quickly into Base Camp. He looked around, his tired eyes cold and gray.

“What the hell is going on here?” he said in a voice tight with suppressed rage.

“Captain!” Rankin said. “There’s gold, fifty feet below the bottom of the shaft. At least fifteen tons!”

“Of course there is,” the Captain snapped. “Did you all think we were digging for our health?” He looked around in the sudden
hush. “This isn’t a nursery school field trip. We’re doing serious business here, and you are all to treat it as such.” He
glanced in the direction of the historian. “Dr. St. John, have you finished your analysis?”

St. John nodded.

“Then let’s get it loaded into the
Cerberus
computer. The rest of you should remember that we’re on a critically tight schedule. Now get back to work.”

He turned and strode down the hill toward the boat dock, St. John at his heels, scurrying to keep up.

T
he following day was Saturday, but there was little rest on Ragged Island. Hatch, uncharacteristically oversleeping, dashed
out the door of 5 Ocean Lane and hurried down the front walk, stopping only to grab Friday’s neglected mail from the box before
heading for the pier.

Heading out through Old Hump Channel, he frowned at the lead-gray sky. There was talk on the radio of an atmospheric disturbance
forming over the Grand Banks. And it was already August 28, just days away from his self-imposed deadline; from now on, the
weather could only get worse.

The accumulated equipment failures and computer problems had put work seriously behind schedule, and the recent rash of illnesses
and accidents among the crew only added to the delays: when Hatch showed up at the medical office around quarter to ten, two
people were already waiting to see him. One had developed an unusual bacterial infection of the teeth; it would take blood
work to determine exactly what kind. The other, alarmingly, had come down with viral pneumonia.

As Hatch arranged transportation to a mainland hospital for the second patient and prepared blood work on the first for testing
on the
Cerberus,
a third showed up; a ventilation pump operator who had lacerated his shin on a servo motor. It wasn’t until almost noon that
Hatch had time to boot up his computer, access the Internet, and e-mail his friend the marquesa in Cádiz. Sketching out the
background in two or three brief paragraphs, he attached transcripts of a few of his grandfather’s most obscure documents,
asking her to search for any additional material on St. Michael’s Sword she could find.

He signed off, then turned to the small packet he’d grabbed from his mailbox that morning: the September issue of
JAMA;
a flyer advertising a spaghetti dinner at the fire-house; the latest issue of the
Gazette;
a small cream-colored envelope, without name or stamp.

He opened the envelope and recognized the handwriting instantly.

Dear Malin,

I don’t quite know how to say these things to you, and sometimes I’m not so good at expressing myself, so I will just write
them as plainly as I can.

I’ve decided to leave Clay. It’s something I can’t avoid any longer. I don’t want to stay here, growing more bitter and resentful.
That would be wrong for both of us. I’ll tell him after the protest ends. Maybe then it will be a little easier for him to
take. No matter what, it’s going to hurt him terribly. But I know it’s the right thing to do.

I also know that you and I are not for each other. I have some wonderful memories, and I hope you do, too. But this thing
we almost started is a way of clinging to that past. It will end up hurting us both.

What almost happened at Squeaker’s Glen—what I almost allowed to happen—scared me. But it also clarified a lot of vague ideas,
feelings, that had been knocking around in my head. So I thank you for that.

I guess I owe you an explanation of what I plan to do. I’m going to New York. I called an old friend from the Community College
who runs a small architectural firm down there. She offered me a secretarial job and promised to train me in drafting. It’s
a new start in a city I’ve always longed to see.

Please do not answer this letter or try to change my mind. Let’s not spoil the past by something stupid we might do in the
present.

Love,

Claire

The interisland telephone rang. Moving slowly, as if in a dream, Hatch picked up the receiver.

“It’s Streeter,” came the brusque voice.

“What?” said Hatch, still in shock.

“The Captain wants to see you in Orthanc. Right away.”

“Tell him I’ll—” Hatch began. But Streeter had hung up and there was nothing, not even a dial tone, on the line.

H
atch stepped over the last series of ramps and bridges to the base of Orthanc. The newly installed ventilation housing rose
up above the Pit: three massive ducts that sucked foul air out of the depths and ejected it skyward, where it condensed into
great plumes of fog. Light from the Pit itself spilled into the surrounding fog.

Stepping forward, Hatch grasped the ladder, then climbed to the observation railing that circled Orthanc’s control tower.

Neidelman was nowhere to be seen. In fact, the tower was empty of anyone except Magnusen, scanning the sensor arrays that
monitored the loads on the timbers in the Pit. The sensors were banked in rows of green lights. Any increase in strain on
one of the timbers, the slightest shifting of a brace, and the appropriate light would turn red to the shrill sound of an
alarm. As the bracing and buttressing had continued, the alarms had steadily decreased in frequency. Even the bugs that perpetually
plagued the island’s computer systems had, in this case, seemingly been ironed out. The complex placement of sensors that
had its beginning in Wopner’s last hours was now complete.

Hatch moved to the center of the room and gazed through the glass porthole into the Pit below. There were numerous side tunnels
and shafts that were still extremely dangerous, but they had been marked with yellow tape and were off limits to all but the
remote mapping teams.

A gust of wind blew the plumes of fog away from the Pit’s mouth, and the view cleared. The ladder array plunged downward,
three gleaming rails from which numerous platforms branched. Radiating out from the array was an extraordinary pattern of
titanium struts. The visual effect was breathtaking: the polished struts, struck by countless lights, threw sprays of light
around the mossy shaft, reflecting and re-reflecting the welter of titanium, stretching down into infinity.