Riptide

by Douglas Preston

  "Dr. Hatch?" Streeter asked.

  "What?" Hatch replied, head inches from the stump, using tweezers to fish out a medium-sized vein that had already retracted.

  "When you have a moment, Captain Neidelman would like to talk to you."

  Hatch nodded, tied off the vein, checked the tourniquets, and rinsed the wounds. He picked up the radio. "Yes?"

  "How is he?" Neidelman asked.

  "He's got a fair chance of survival," Hatch said. "Provided there's no screwup with the helicopter."

  "Thank God. And his legs?"

  "Even if they recover them, I doubt there's much chance of reattachment. You better review some basic safety procedures with your team leader here. This accident was entirely avoidable."

  "I understand," said Neidelman.

  Hatch switched off the phone and looked toward the northeast and the nearest Coast Guard station. In three minutes, perhaps four, they should see the bird on the horizon. He turned to Streeter. "You'd better drop a marker flare. And get this area cleared, we don't want another accident on our hands. When the chopper comes in, we'll need four men to lift him onto the stretcher, no more."

  "Right," said Streeter, his lips tightening.

  Hatch saw that the man's face was unnaturally dark, blood throbbing angrily in a vein on his forehead. Tough luck, he thought. I'll repair that relationship later. Besides, he's not the guy who's going to live without legs for the rest of his life, He glanced again at the horizon. A black speck was approaching fast. In a few moments, the dull thud of heavy rotors filled the air as the helicopter shot across the island, banked sharply, then approached the small group gathered around the pit. The backwash from the blades whipped the sawgrass into a frenzy and kicked dirt into Hatch's eyes. The door of the cargo bay slid back and a rescue platform came bobbing down. The injured man was strapped aboard and sent up, and Hatch signaled for the platform to be sent down again for himself. Once he was safely on board, the waiting paramedic shut the door and gave the pilot a thumbs-up. Immediately, the chopper banked to the right and dug its nose into the air, heading for the southwest.

  Hatch looked around. There was saline already hung, an oxygen bottle and mask, a rack of antibiotics, bandages, tourniquets, and antiseptics.

  "We didn't have any O negative, Doctor," the paramedic said.

  "Don't worry," Hatch replied, "you've done okay. But let's get an IV into him. We've got to expand this guy's blood volume." He noticed the paramedic looking at him strangely, then realized why: shirtless, covered in a crust of mud and dried blood, he didn't look much like a Maine country doctor.

  There was a moan from the stretcher, and the thrashing began again.

  An hour later, Hatch found himself alone in the silence of an empty operating room, breathing in the smell of Betadine and blood. Ken Field, the wounded man, was in the next bay, being cared for by Bangor's best surgeon. The legs could not be recovered, but the man would live. Hatch's work was over.

  He fetched a deep breath, then let it out slowly, trying to drain the day's accumulated poisons out with it. He took another breath, then another. At last he sank heavily onto the operating table, leaned forward, and pressed his balled fists tightly against his temples. This didn't have to happen, a cold voice was whispering inside his head. The thought of how he'd sat there on the Plain Jane, idly eating lunch and playing with the seagulls, made him ill. He cursed himself for not being on the island when the accident happened, for letting them proceed before his office and equipment were in place. This was the second time he'd been unprepared, the second time he had underestimated the power of the island. Never again, he thought, raging: Never again.

  As calm slowly returned, another thought insinuated itself into his mind. Today was the first time he had set foot on Ragged Island since the death of his brother. During the emergency, there had been no time to think. Now, in the darkened operating theater, alone with his thoughts, it took all the self-control Hatch could muster to control the fit of shaking that threatened to overwhelm him.

  Chapter 9

  Doris Bowditch, licensed Realtor, strode briskly up the front steps of 5 Ocean Lane. The old boards of the porch groaned beneath the unaccustomed weight. As she bent forward to try the front door key, a vast assortment of silver bracelets cascaded down her forearm with a jingling that reminded Hatch of sleigh bells. There was a brief struggle with the key, then she turned the knob and threw the front door open with a little flourish.

  Hatch waited until she had stepped through the door, muumuu billowing out behind, then followed her into the cool, dark interior of the house. It hit him immediately, like a blow to the gut: the same smell of old pinewood, mothballs, and pipesmoke. Though he hadn't inhaled that scent for twenty-five years, it was all he could do not to step back into the sunlight as the intense scent of childhood threatened to bypass all his defenses.

  "Well!" came Doris's bright voice as she shut the door behind them. "It's a beautiful old thing, isn't it? I've always said, what a shame it was shut up for so long!" The woman swept into the center of the room in a swirl of pink. "What do you think?"

  "Fine," said Hatch, taking a tentative step forward. The front parlor was just as he remembered it, the day his mother had finally given up and they'd left for Boston: the chintz easy chairs, the old canvas sofa, the print of the HMS Leander over the mantelpiece, the Herkeimer upright piano with the circular stool and braided rug.

  "The pump's been primed," Doris continued, oblivious. "The windows washed, electricity turned on, propane tank filled." She ticked off the items on long red fingernails.

  "It looks very nice," Hatch said distractedly. He moved to the old piano and ran his hand along the fallboard, remembering the wintry afternoons he had spent struggling over some Bach two-part invention. On the shelf beside the fireplace was an old Parcheesi set. Next to it lay a Monopoly board, its cover lost long ago, the pink and yellow and green rectangles of play money worn and creased from countless contests. On the shelf above lay several grimy packs of cards, held together by rubber bands. Hatch felt a fresh stab as he remembered playing poker with Johnny, using wooden matches as chips, and the vigorous arguments about which was higher, a full house or a straight. Everything was here, every painful reminder still in place; it was like a museum of memory.

  They had taken nothing but their clothes when they left. They were only supposed to stay away a month, at first. Then the month turned into a season, then a year, and soon the old house receded to a distant dream: shut up, unseen, unmentioned, but waiting nevertheless. Hatch wondered again why his mother had never sold the place, even after they'd fallen on hard times in Boston. And he wondered at his own, deeply buried, reasons for a similar reluctance, long after his mother's death.

  He passed into the living room and stepped up to the bow window, letting his gaze fall on the infinite blue of the ocean, sparkling in the morning sun. Somewhere out on the horizon lay Ragged Island, at rest now after claiming its first casualty in a quarter century. In the wake of the accident, Neidelman had called a one-day halt to the operation. Hatch's eyes dropped from the sea to the meadow in the foreground, a green mantle that fell away from the house toward the shoreline. He reminded himself that he didn't have to do this. There were other places to stay that didn't come with the added burden of memory. But those places wouldn't be in Stormhaven; driving to the house that morning, he'd seen perhaps a dozen Thalassa employees clustered outside of the town's sole bed-and-breakfast, all eager to book the five available rooms. He sighed. As long as he was here, he had to do it all.

  Dust motes drifted in the banners of morning sunlight. As he stood before the window, Hatch could feel time dissolving. He remembered camping out in that meadow with Johnny, their sleeping bags sprawled across the damp and fragrant grass, counting shooting stars in the dark.

  "Did you get my letter last year?" the voice of Doris intruded. "I was afraid it had gone astray."

  Hatch turned away from the window, tried to make sense of wha
t the woman was saying, then gave up and moved back in time again. There in the corner was a half-finished needlepoint seatcover, faded to pastel. There was the shelf of his father's books—Richard Henry Dana, Melville, Slocum, Conrad, Sand-berg's life of Lincoln—and two shelves of his mother's English mysteries. Below were a stack of tattered Life magazines and a yellow row of National Geographics. He drifted into the dining room, the Realtor rustling along in his wake.

  "Dr. Hatch, you know how expensive it is to keep up an old house like this. I've always said, this is just too much house for one person . . ." She let the thought die away into a bright smile.

  Hatch walked slowly round the room, his hand trailing on the drop-leaf table, his eyes roaming the Audubon chromolithographs on the walls. He passed into the kitchen. There was the old Frigidaire, trimmed in thick round pieces of chrome. A piece of paper, curled and faded, was still stuck to it with a magnet. Hey Mom! Strawberries please! it read in his own teenage hand. He lingered in the breakfast nook, the scarred table and benches bringing back memories of food fights and spilled milk; memories of his father, straight-backed and dignified in the midst of friendly chaos, telling sea stories in his slow voice while his dinner went cold. And then later, just he and his mother at the table, his mother's head bent with grief, the morning sun in her gray hair, tears dropping into her teacup.

  "Anyway," came the voice, "what I wrote you about was this young couple from Manchester, with two children. A lovely couple. They've been renting the Figgins place for the last few summers, and are looking to buy."

  "Of course they are," Hatch murmured vaguely. The breakfast nook looked out over the back meadow, where the apple trees had grown wild and heavy. He remembered the summer mornings when the mist lay on the fields and the deer came up from the woods before sunrise to eat apples, stepping through the timothy with nervous precision.

  "I believe they'd pay upwards of two hundred fifty. Shall I give them a call? No obligation, of course—"

  With great effort, Hatch turned toward her. "What?"

  "I was wondering if you had any intention of selling, that's all."

  Hatch blinked at her. "Selling?" he asked slowly. "The house?"

  The smile remained on Doris Bowditch's face, undented. "I just thought that, you being a bachelor and all... it seemed, you know, impractical." She faltered a bit, but stood her ground.

  Hatch repressed his first impulse. One had to be careful in a small town like Stormhaven. "I don't think so," he said, keeping his voice neutral. He moved back into the living room, toward the front door, the woman following.

  "I'm not talking about right away, of course," she called brightly. "If you find the—the treasure, you know . . . Well, it couldn't possibly take that long, could it? Especially with all that help you have." Her expression clouded for a moment. "But oh, wasn't it awful! Two men being killed yesterday, and all."

  Hatch looked at her very slowly. "Two men? Two men weren't killed, Doris. Not even one. There was an accident. Where did you hear this?"

  Doris looked slightly bewildered. "Why, I heard it from Hilda McCall. She runs the beauty parlor, Hilda's Hairstyling. Anyway, once you get all that money you're not going to want to stay here, so you might as well—"

  Stepping forward, Hatch opened the front door for her.

  "Thank you, Doris," he said, trying to muster a smile. "The house is in wonderful shape."

  The woman stopped well short of the frame. She hesitated. "About this young couple. The husband's a very successful lawyer. Two children, you know, a boy and a—"

  "Thank you," said Hatch, a little more firmly.

  "Well, you're welcome, of course! You know, I don't think two hundred fifty thousand would be unreasonable for a summer—"

  Hatch stepped out on the porch, far enough so that she would have to follow if she wanted to be heard. "Real estate prices are up right now, Dr. Hatch," she said as she appeared in the doorway. "But like I've always said, you never know when they'll drop. Eight years ago—"

  "Doris, you're a love, and I'll recommend you to all my many doctor friends who want to move to Stormhaven. Thanks again. I'll be expecting your bill." Hatch quickly stepped back inside and shut the door quietly but firmly.

  He waited in the parlor, wondering if the woman would have the audacity to ring the bell. But she only stood irresolutely on the porch for a long moment before returning to her car, the muumuu floating behind her, the irrepressible smile still plastered across her face. A six percent commission on two hundred and fifty thousand, Hatch thought, was quite a lot of money in Stormhaven. He vaguely remembered hearing that her husband was a drinker who'd lost his boat to the bank. She cant possibly know how I feel, he thought, managing to find some compassion in his heart for Doris Bowditch, Realtor.

  He settled on the little stool in front of the piano and softly struck the first chord of Chopin's E-minor prelude. He was surprised and pleased to find the piano had been tuned. Doris had at least followed his instructions carefully: Clean the house, get everything ready, but don't touch or move anything. He played the prelude dreamily, pianissimo, trying to empty his mind. It was hard to comprehend that he had not touched these keys, sat on this stool, or even walked across these floorboards for twenty-five years. Everywhere he looked, the house eagerly offered up memories of a happy childhood. After all, it had been happy. It was only the end that was unendurable. If only . . .

  He stepped down hard on this chill, persistent voice.

  Two men dead, Doris had said. That was pretty imaginative, even for a small-town rumor mill. So far, the town seemed to be accepting the visitors with a kind of hospitable curiosity. Certainly it would be good for the merchants. But Hatch could see that someone would have to step in as community spokesman for Thalassa. Otherwise, there was no telling what bizarre stories might spring from Bud's Superette or Hilda's Hairstyling. With a sinking feeling, he realized that there was really only one person for the job.

  He sat at the piano for another long minute. With any luck, old Bill Banns would still be editor in chief of the local paper. Sighing heavily, he stood up and headed for the kitchen, where a can of instant coffee and—if Doris hadn't forgotten—a live telephone were waiting.

  Chapter 10

  The group that gathered around the antique maple table in the pilothouse of the Griffin the following morning was a far cry from the noisy, eager crowd that had encircled the boat with their cheers three evenings before. As Hatch walked in for the scheduled meeting, he found most of the small group looking subdued, even demoralized, after the accident.

  He looked around at the nerve center of Neidelman's boat. The curving sweep of windows gave an unimpeded view of island, sea, and land. The pilothouse was constructed of Brazilian rosewood and brass, beautifully restored, with intricate bead-board ceilings. What looked like an eighteenth-century Dutch sextant stood in a glass case next to the binnacle, and the wheel itself was carved of an exotic black wood. Rosewood cabinets on either side of the wheel held a discreet array of high-tech equipment, including loran and sonar screens and a geo-positioning satellite grid. The back wall of the pilothouse housed a massive array of unrecognizable electronics. The Captain himself had not yet emerged from his private quarters below: a low wooden door, set into the electronics of the back wall, was closed. An old horseshoe hung upside down on a nail above the doorway, and a brass plaque on the door itself read PRIVATE in discreet but unmistakable letters. The only sounds in the room were the creaking hawsers and the soft slap of water against the hull.

  Taking a seat at the table, Hatch glanced at the people around him. He had met a few of them informally the first night, but others remained strangers. Lyle Streeter, the crew foreman, looked pointedly away from Hatch's smile of greeting. Obviously, he was not a man who enjoyed being yelled at. Hatch made a mental note to remember that although every first-year resident knew that yelling, screeching, and cursing during a medical emergency was standard procedure, the rest of humanity did not.


  There was a sound from below, then the Captain stooped through the pilothouse door. All eyes shifted as he walked to the head of the table and leaned on it with both hands, looking into each person's face in turn. There was a noticeable decrease in tension, as if everyone was drawing strength and control from his arrival. When Neidelman's eyes landed on Hatch, he spoke. "How is Ken?"

  "Serious, but stable. There's a small chance of an embolism, but it's being monitored closely. I guess you know they couldn't recover the legs."

  "So I understand. Thank you, Dr. Hatch, for saving his life."

  "I couldn't have done it without the help of Mr. Streeter and his crew," Hatch replied.

  Neidelman nodded, letting a silence build. Then he spoke, quiet and assured. "The survey crew was following my orders, taking every precaution I deemed necessary. If anyone is to blame for the accident, it is myself, and we have overhauled our safety procedures as a result. There can be sorrow at this unfortunate development. There can be sympathy for Ken and his family. But there are to be no recriminations."

  He stood up and placed his hands behind his back. "Every day," he said in a louder voice, "we'll be taking risks. All of us. Tomorrow, you or I could lose our legs. Or worse. The risks are very real, and they are part of what we do. If it were easy to lift two billion from a watery grave, it would have been done years ago. Centuries ago. We are here because of the danger. And already, we've been dealt a blow. But we must not allow this to dampen our resolve. No treasure has ever been buried with such skill and cunning. It will take even more skill and cunning to retrieve it."