Riptide

by Douglas Preston

  A car door slammed behind him, and he glanced back to see Gerard Neidelman emerge from an International Scout and stride down the pier, erect, brimming with high spirits, a spring of steel in his step. Smoke wafted from a briar pipe clamped between his teeth, and his eyes glimmered with a carefully guarded but unmistakable excitement.

  "Good of you to meet me here," he said, removing the pipe and grasping Hatch's hand. "I hope this hasn't been too much trouble."

  He hesitated slightly before saying the last word, and Hatch wondered if the Captain had guessed his own private reasons for wanting to see the town—and the island—before making any commitment. "No trouble," Hatch replied coolly, accepting the brisk handshake.

  "And where is our good boat?" Neidelman said, squinting out at the harbor, sweeping it appraisingly with his eyes.

  "It's the Plain Jane, over there."

  Neidelman looked. "Ah. A stout lobster boat." Then he frowned. "I don't see a dinghy in tow. How will we land on Ragged Island?"

  "The dinghy's at the dock," Hatch said. "But we're not going to land. There's no natural harbor. Most of the island is ringed with high bluffs, so we wouldn't be able to see much from the rocks anyway. And the bulk of the island is too dangerous to walk on. You'll get a better sense of the place from the water." Besides, he thought, I for one am not ready to set foot on that island.

  "Understood," said Neidelman, placing the pipe back in his mouth. He gazed up at the sky. "The fog will lift shortly. Wind quartering to the southwest, a light sea. The worst we can expect is some rain. Excellent. I'm looking forward to this first look, Dr. Hatch."

  Hatch glanced at him sharply. "You mean you've never seen it before?"

  "I've restricted myself to maps and surveys."

  "I'd have thought a man like you would make the pilgrimage long ago. In days past, we used to get crackpots sightseeing around the island, even some attempts to land. I'm sure that hasn't changed."

  Neidelman turned his cool gaze back to Hatch. "I didn't want to see it unless we'd have the chance to dig it." A quiet force lay beneath his words.

  At the end of the pier, a wobbly gangplank led down to a floating dock. Hatch untied the Plain Jane's dinghy and grabbed the starter.

  "Staying in town?" Neidelman asked as he stepped nimbly into the dinghy, taking a seat in the bow.

  Hatch shook his head as he started the engine. "I've booked a room in a motel in Southport, a few miles down the coast." Even the boat rental had been done by an intermediary. He wasn't ready yet to be recognized by anyone.

  Neidelman nodded, staring over Hatch's shoulders toward land as they motored out to the boat. "Beautiful place," he said, smoothly changing the subject.

  "Yes," Hatch replied. "I suppose it is. There may be a few more summer homes, and there's a bed-and-breakfast now, but otherwise the world has passed Stormhaven by."

  "No doubt it's too far north, off the beaten track."

  ''That's part of it," Hatch said. "But all the things that look so quaint and charming—the old wooden boats, the weather-beaten shacks, the crooked piers—are actually the result of poverty. I don't think Stormhaven ever really recovered from the depression."

  They came alongside the Plain Jane. Neidelman boarded the boat while Hatch tied the dinghy to the stern. He clambered aboard and was relieved to hear the diesel start up on the first crank with a nice, smooth rumble. Might be old, he thought as he eased out into the harbor, but it's well kept up. As they cleared the no-wake zone, Hatch throttled up and the Plain Jane surged forward, slicing through the gentle swell. Overhead, the sun was struggling through the cloud cover, glowing in the remaining mist like a cold lamp. Hatch gazed southeastward, beyond Old Hump Channel, but could see nothing.

  "It's going to be chilly out there," he said, glancing at Neidelman's short-sleeved shirt.

  Neidelman turned and smiled. "I'm used to it."

  "You call yourself Captain," Hatch said. "Were you in the navy?"

  "Yes," came the measured response. "Captain of a minesweeper cruising off the Mekong Delta. After the war I bought a wooden dragger out of Nantucket and worked Georges Bank for scallops and flounder." He squinted out to sea. "It was working that dragger that got me interested in treasure hunting."

  "Really?" Hatch checked the compass and corrected course. He glanced at the engine hour meter. Ragged Island was six miles offshore; they'd be there in twenty minutes.

  Neidelman nodded. "One day the net brought up a huge bolus of encrusted coral. My mate struck it with a marlin spike, and the thing fell apart like an oyster. There, nestled inside, was a small, seventeenth-century Dutch silver casket. That started my first treasure hunt. I did a little digging through records and figured we must have dragged over the wreck site of the Cinq Ports, a barque commanded by the French privateer Charles Dampier. So I sold the boat, started a company, raised a million in capital, and went from there."

  "How much did you recover?"

  Neidelman smiled slightly. "Just over ninety thousand in coins, china, and antiquities. It was a lesson I never forgot. If I'd bothered to do my research, I'd have looked up the manifests of the Dutch ships that Dampier attacked. They were mostly carrying lumber, coal, and rum." He puffed his pipe meditatively. "Not all pirates were as skillful as Red Ned Ockham."

  "You must have been as disappointed as the surgeon who hopes for a tumor and finds gallstones."

  Neidelman glanced at him. "I guess you could say that."

  Silence fell as they headed seaward. The last wisps of fog disappeared and Hatch could clearly make out the inner islands, Hermit and Wreck, green humps thickly covered with spruce trees. Soon, Ragged Island would become visible. He glanced at Neidelman, looking intently in the direction of the hidden island. It was time.

  "We've been chitchatting long enough," he said quietly. "I want to hear about the man who designed the Water Pit."

  Neidelman remained silent for a moment, and Hatch waited.

  "I'm sorry, Dr. Hatch," Neidelman said. "I should have made myself clear on that point in your office. You haven't yet signed the agreement. Our entire twenty-two-million venture stands on the information we've obtained."

  Hatch felt a sudden surge of anger. "I'm glad you have so much faith in me."

  "You can understand our position—" Neidelman began.

  "Sure I can. You're afraid I might take what you've discovered, dig up the treasure myself, and cut you out."

  "Not to put too fine a point on it," Neidelman said. "Yes."

  There was a brief silence. "I appreciate your directness," said Hatch. "So how's this for a reply?" He swung the wheel, heeling the boat sharply to starboard.

  Neidelman looked at him inquiringly as he gripped the gunwale for support.

  Coming about 180 degrees, Hatch pointed the Plain Jane back toward port and throttled up.

  "Dr. Hatch?" Neidelman said.

  "It's quite simple," said Hatch. "Either you tell me all about this mysterious find of yours, and convince me you're not just another nut, or our little field trip ends right now."

  "Perhaps if you'd be willing to sign our nondisclosure agreement—"

  "For Chrissakes!" Hatch cried. "He's a damn sea lawyer as well as a sea captain. If we're to be partners—an ever-receding possibility—we'll have to trust each other. I'll shake your hand and give you my word, and that will be sufficient, or else you lose all hope of ever digging on the island."

  Neidelman never lost his composure, and now he smiled. "A handshake. How quaint."

  Hatch held the boat steady as she roared ahead, eating through the remains of wake laid down just minutes before. The dark bluff of Burnt Head came gradually into focus again, followed by the rooftops of the town.

  "Very well then," Neidelman said mildly. "Turn the boat around, please. Here is my hand."

  They shook. Hatch eased the engine into neutral and let the Plain Jane coast for a long moment. At last, engaging the throttle again, he nosed her seaward, gradually accelerating once more to
ward the hidden rocks of Ragged Island.

  A period of time passed in which Neidelman gazed eastward, puffing on his pipe, seemingly in deep contemplation. Hatch stole a glance at the Captain, wondering if this was some kind of delaying tactic.

  "You've been to England, haven't you, Dr. Hatch?" Neidelman said at last.

  Hatch nodded.

  "Lovely country," Neidelman went on, as coolly as if he was reminiscing for pleasure. "Especially, to my taste, the north. Ever been to Houndsbury? It's a charming little town, very Cotswolds, but all in all rather unremarkable I suppose, if it weren't for its exquisite cathedral. Or have you visited Whitstone Hall in the Pennines? The Duke of Wessex's family seat?"

  "That's the famous one, built like an abbey?" Hatch said.

  "Exactly. Both delightful examples of seventeenth-century ecclesiastical architecture."

  "Delightful," echoed Hatch with a trace of sarcasm. "So what?"

  "They were both designed by Sir William Macallan. The man who also designed the Water Pit."

  "Designed?"

  "Yes. Macallan was a very great architect, perhaps England's greatest next to Sir Christopher Wren. But a far more interesting man." Neidelman was still gazing eastward. "In addition to his buildings and his work on Old Battersea Bridge, he left behind a monumental text on ecclesiastical architecture. The world lost a true visionary when he disappeared at sea in 1696."

  "Lost at sea? The plot thickens."

  Neidelman pursed his lips, and Hatch wondered if he was finally nettled.

  "Yes. It was a terrible tragedy. Except. . ." He turned toward Hatch. "Except, of course, he was not lost at sea. Last year, we uncovered a copy of his treatise. In the margins were what seemed to be a pattern of spottings and discolorations. Our laboratory was able to confirm that the discolorations were actually notes, written in invisible ink, just now becoming visible through the corruption of time. Chemical analysis showed the ink to be an organic compound derived from vinegar and white onions. Further analysis dated this 'stain'—as invisible inks were then known—to approximately 1700."

  "Invisible ink? You've been reading too many Hardy Boys stories."

  "Invisible inks were very common in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries," Neidelman said calmly. "George Washington used one for his secret dispatches. The colonists referred to it as writing with white ink."

  Hatch tried to phrase another sarcastic response, but was unable to articulate a reply. Against his will, he found himself half believing Neidelman's story; it was almost too incredible to be a lie.

  "Our laboratory was able to recover the rest of the writing, using a chemical wash. It turned out to be a document of around ten thousand characters written in Macallan's own hand in the margins of his book. The document was in code, but a Thalassa specialist decrypted the first half relatively easily. When we read the plaintext, we learned that Sir William Macallan was an even more intriguing architect than the world had previously believed."

  Hatch swallowed. "I'm sorry, but this whole story sounds absurd."

  "No, Dr. Match, it is not absurd. Macallan designed the Water Pit. The coded writing was a secret journal he kept on his last voyage." Neidelman took a moment to draw on his pipe. "You see, Macallan was Scottish and a clandestine Catholic. After William Ill's victory at the Battle of the Boyne, Macallan left for Spain in disgust. There, the Spanish Crown commissioned him to build a cathedral, the greatest in the New World. In 1696 he set sail from Cadiz, bound for Mexico, on a two-masted brig, escorted by a Spanish man-of-war. The ships vanished and Macallan was never heard from again. It was assumed they were lost at sea. However, this journal tells us what really happened. Their ships were attacked by Edward Ockham. The Spanish captain struck his colors and was tortured into revealing the nature of his commission. Then Ockham put everyone to the sword, sparing only Macallan. The architect was dragged to Ockham in chains. The pirate put a saber to his throat and said—here I quote from the journal—Lete God build his owen damned church, I have ye a newe commission."

  Hatch felt a strange stirring of excitement.

  The Captain leaned against the gunwale. "You see, Red Ned wanted Macallan to design a pit for storing his immense treasure. An impregnable pit, to which only Ockham would have the secret. They cruised the Maine coast, picked out Ragged Island, the pit was constructed, and the treasure was buried. But, of course, shortly thereafter Ockham and his crew perished. And Macallan, no doubt, was murdered as soon as the pit was finished. With them died the secret to the Water Pit."

  Neidelman paused, his eyes almost white in the brightness coming off the water. "Of course, that's no longer true. Because the secret did not die with Macallan."

  "Explain."

  "Midway through his journal, Macallan switched codes. We think he did so specifically to record the secret key to the Water Pit. Of course, no seventeenth-century code is a match for highspeed computers, and our specialists should have it cracked any day now."

  "So how much is supposed to be down there?" Hatch managed to ask.

  "Good question. We know the cargo capacity of Ockham's ships, we know they were fully laden, and we have manifests from many of the ships he attacked. Did you know that he was the only pirate to successfully attack the Spanish plate fleet?"

  "No," murmured Hatch.

  "When you add it all up, the most conservative estimate places the contemporary value of the treasure at"—Neidelman paused, a trace of a smile on his lips—"between 1.8 and 2 billion dollars."

  There was a long silence, filled by the throbbing of the engine, the monotonous wheeling of the gulls, and the sound of the boat moving through the water. Hatch struggled to grasp the enormity of the sum.

  Neidelman lowered his voice. "That is, not including the value of St. Michael's Sword, Ockham's greatest prize."

  For a moment, the spell was broken. "Come on, Captain," Hatch said with a laugh. "Don't tell me you believe such a mossy old legend."

  "Not until I read Macallan's journal. Dr. Hatch, it is there. Macallan watched them bury it with the treasure."

  Hatch stared unseeing at the deck, his mind a turmoil. This is incredible, almost beyond belief. . .

  He glanced up and felt the muscles of his gut tighten involuntarily. The countless questions that had risen within him suddenly evaporated. Across the expanse of sea, he could now make out the long, low fog that concealed Ragged Island, the same fog bank that had lain on the island more than twenty-five years before.

  He heard Neidelman next to him, saying something. He turned, breathing shallowly, trying to quiet his beating heart.

  "I'm sorry?"

  "I said, I know you have little interest in the money. But I wanted you to know that in the agreement I've proposed here, you would receive half the treasure, before expenses. In return for my undertaking all the financial risk, I will receive St. Michael's Sword. Your share would therefore be in the vicinity of one billion dollars."

  Hatch swallowed. "You're right. I couldn't care less."

  There was a long pause, then Neidelman raised his binoculars and examined the island of fog. "Why does it remain fogbound?"

  "There's a good reason," Hatch said, grateful for the change of topic. "The island's powerful riptide deflects the frigid Labrador Current into the warm Cape Cod Current, and where they mix you get a large eddy of fog. Sometimes only a thin ring of fog surrounds the island, other times it's totally socked in."

  "What more could a pirate ask for?" Neidelman murmured.

  It won't be long now, Hatch thought. He tried to lose himself in the hissing of water racing along the chine, the briny scent of the air, the cool brass of the wheel against his palms. He glanced at Neidelman, and saw a muscle twitching in his set jaw. He was also experiencing a powerful emotion, of another though no less private kind.

  The patch of fog drew closer. Hatch struggled in silence, willing himself to keep the boat pointed in the direction of the creeping fingers of mist, so strangely alien on a horizon that had oth
erwise grown clear. He eased down the throttle as the boat nosed its prow into the murk. Suddenly, clamminess surrounded them. Malin could feel droplets of condensation begin to form on his knuckles and along the back of his neck.

  He strained to see through the fog. A dark, distant outline seemed to appear, only to vanish again. He cut the throttle further. In the relative quiet, he could now hear the sound of surf, and the ringing of the Ragged Island bell buoy, warning mariners away from its treacherous reefs. He swung the boat in a more northerly course, to bring it around the leeward end of the island. Suddenly, a ruined iron derrick loomed above the mists about two hundred yards off the port side, twisted by storms, streaked with rust.

  With a short intake of breath, Neidelman swiftly raised the binoculars to his eyes, but the boat had plunged into another patch of fog and the island disappeared once again. A chill wind had picked up and a light drizzle began to fall.

  "Can we get closer?" Neidelman murmured.

  Hatch steered the boat toward the reefs. As they entered the lee of the island, the surf dropped along with the wind. Abruptly, they broke through the circle of mist and the island stood revealed in its entirety.

  Hatch brought the boat parallel to the reef. In the stern, Neidelman kept the binoculars glued to his face, forgotten pipe clenched between his teeth, his shoulders darkening in the rain. Bringing the bow into the sea, Hatch threw the boat into neutral and let it drift. Then at last he turned toward the island to face it himself.

  Chapter 4

  The dark, terrible outline of the island, so persistent in memory and nightmare, was now once again before him in reality. It was little more than a black silhouette etched hard against the gray of sea and sky: shaped like a peculiar, tilted table, a gradual incline rising from the leeward to sharp bluffs on the seaward coast, punctuated by a hump of land in the center. The surf pounded the bluffs and boiled over the sunken ledges that ringed the island, leaving a scurf of foam that trailed like the wake of a boat. It was, if anything, even bleaker than he remembered: windswept, barren, a mile long and eight hundred yards wide. A single deformed spruce stood above the cobbled beach at the lee end of the island, its top exploded by an old lightning strike, its crabbed branches raised like a witch's hand against the sky.