Riptide

by Douglas Preston

  "Teeth gripping the ground soil," Hatch murmured.

  "What?" St. John started.

  "Nothing. A line from the Iliad."

  No one buried their dead facedown, at least not respectfully. A mass grave, Hatch thought. The bodies thrown in willy-nilly. It reminded him of something he had once been called to examine in Central America, peasant victims of a military death squad.

  Even Bonterre had fallen silent, her high spirits fading fast. "What could have happened here?" she asked, looking around.

  "I don't know," Hatch said, a strange, cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  "There do not appear to be signs of violence on the bones."

  "Violence sometimes leaves only subtle traces," Hatch replied. "Or they might have died of disease or starvation. A forensic examination would help." He looked back over the grisly sight. Masses of brown bones were now coming to light, the skeletons stacked three deep in places, sprawled across each other, their tattered bits of rotten leather darkening in the light rain.

  "Could you do such an examination?" Bonterre asked.

  Hatch stood at the edge of the grave, not answering for a moment. It was nearing the close of day and the light was fading. In the rain, mist, and growing twilight, against the mournful sound of the distant surf, everything seemed to turn gray and lifeless, as if the vitality itself was being sucked out of the landscape.

  "Yes," he said after a moment.

  There was another long silence.

  "What could have happened here?" Bonterre repeated to herself, in a whisper.

  Chapter 26

  At dawn the next morning, the senior crew gathered in the pilothouse of the Griffin. The atmosphere was far different than the subdued, demoralized atmosphere Hatch remembered after Ken Fields accident. Today there was electricity in the air, a kind of pregnant expectation. At one end of the table, Bonterre was talking to Streeter about transporting the excavation findings to the storage facility, while the team leader listened silently. At the other end, a remarkably disheveled and unkempt-looking Wopner was whispering animatedly to St. John, punctuating his sentences with wild hand gestures. As usual, Neidelman was not to be seen, remaining in his private quarters until all had assembled. Hatch helped himself to a cup of hot coffee and a massive, greasy donut, then settled into a chair next to Rankin.

  The door to the cabin opened and Neidelman emerged. As he came up the steps, Hatch could tell instantly that the Captain's mood matched that of the rest of the pilothouse. He motioned Hatch to the door of the cabin.

  "I want you to have this, Malin," he said in a low tone, pressing something heavy into Hatch's hand. With surprise, Hatch recognized the massive gold doubloon Bonterre had uncovered the day before. He looked at the Captain, mutely questioning.

  "It's not much," Neidelman said with a slight smile. "The smallest fraction of your eventual share. But it's the first fruit of our labors. I wanted you to have it as a token of our thanks. For making such a difficult choice."

  Hatch mumbled his thanks as he slipped the coin into his pocket, feeling unaccountably awkward as he walked back up the steps and took a seat at the table. Somehow, he felt an aversion to taking the doubloon off the island, as if it would be bad luck to do so before the rest of the treasure had been found. Am I growing superstitious, too? he wondered half-seriously, making a mental note to lock the coin up in the medical hut.

  Neidelman strode to the head of the table and contemplated his crew, emanating a remarkable nervous energy. Neidelman looked impeccable: showered, shaved, dressed in pressed khakis, the skin tight and clean across his bones. His gray eyes looked almost white in the warm light of the cabin.

  "I believe there's a lot to report this morning," he said, glancing around the table. "Dr. Magnusen, let's start with you."

  "The pumps are primed and ready, Captain," the engineer replied. "We've set up additional sensors in some secondary shafts, as well as inside the cofferdam to monitor water depth during draining."

  Neidelman nodded, his sharp, eager eyes moving down the table. "Mr. Streeter?"

  "The cofferdam's complete. All tests for stability and structural integrity are positive. The grappling hook's in place, and the excavating team is standing by on the Cerberus, awaiting instructions."

  "Excellent." Neidelman looked toward the historian and the programmer. "Gentlemen, I believe you have news of a rather different nature."

  "Indeed we have," St. John began. "As—"

  "Let me handle this, Chris baby," Wopner said. "We've cracked the second code."

  There was an audible intake of breath around the table. Hatch sat forward, his grip on the armrests tightening involuntarily.

  "What does it say?" Bonterre blurted out.

  Wopner held up his hands. "I said we'd cracked it. I didn't say we'd deciphered it. We've found some repeating letter sequences, we've set up an electronic contact sheet, and we've deciphered enough words that match the first half of the journal to know we're on track."

  "That is all?" Bonterre slumped back in her chair.

  "Whaddya mean, that's all?" Wopner looked incredulous. "That's the whole ball of wax! We know what kind of code it is: a polyalphabetic, using somewhere between five and fifteen cipher alphabets. Once we know the exact number, it's just a question of letting the computer do its thing. Using 'probable word' analysis, we should know that in a matter of hours."

  "A polyalphabetic cipher," Hatch repeated. "That was Christopher's theory all along, wasn't it?" This elicited a grateful look from St. John and a dark glare from Wopner.

  Neidelman nodded. "And the programs for the ladder array?"

  "I've tested the simulation on the Cerberus computer," Wopner said, flinging back a lock of limp hair. "Smooth as butter. Of course, the thing isn't in the Pit yet," he added significantly.

  "Very well." Neidelman stood and moved to the arc of window, then turned to face the group. "I don't think there's much I need add. Everything is ready. At ten hundred hours, we will start the pumps and begin draining the Water Pit. Mr. Streeter, I want you to keep a close watch on the cofferdam. Alert us at the first sign of any problem. Keep Naiad and Grampus nearby, just in case. Mr. Wopner, you'll be monitoring the situation from Island One, running final tests on the ladder array. Dr. Magnusen will direct the overall pumping process from Orthanc."

  He stepped toward the table. "If all goes according to plan, the Pit will be drained by noon tomorrow. The structure will be monitored closely while it stabilizes. During that afternoon, our crews will remove the largest obstructions from the Pit and insert the ladder array. And the following morning, we'll make our first descent."

  His voice dropped, and his eyes moved from person to person. "I don't need to remind you that, even free of water, the Pit will remain a highly dangerous place. In fact, removing the water places a much greater load on its wooden members. Until we've braced it with titanium struts, there could still be cave-ins or collapses. A small team will be inserted to make initial observations and place piezoelectric stress sensors on the critical wooden beams. Once the sensors are in place, Kerry here will calibrate them remotely from Island One. If there is any sudden increase in stress—signaling a possible collapse—these sensors will give us an early warning. The sensors will be remotely linked with the network via RF, so we'll have instantaneous response. Once they're in place, we can insert teams to begin a formal mapping process."

  Neidelman placed his hands on the table. "I've thought carefully about the composition of this first team, but in the end there's really no question about who has to go. There will be three people: Dr. Bonterre, Dr. Hatch, and myself. Dr. Bonterre's expertise in archaeology, soil analysis, and pirate construction will be vital in this first look at the Pit. Dr. Hatch must accompany us in case any unforeseen medical emergencies arise. And as for the third position on the team, I'm claiming Captain's privilege." A glint sparkled briefly in his eyes.

  "I know that most, if not all of you, are anxious to see what awaits u
s. I fully understand. And let me assure you that, in the days to come, every one of you will get the chance to become familiar—no doubt all too familiar—with Macallan's creation."

  He straightened up. "Any questions?"

  The pilothouse was still.

  The Captain nodded. "In that case, gentlemen, let's take care of business."

  Chapter 27

  The following afternoon, Hatch left the island in fine high spirits. The pumps had been chugging in tandem all the previous day and on into the night, sucking millions of gallons of brown seawater out of the Pit, piping it across the island, and dumping it back into the ocean. Finally, after thirty hours, the uptake hoses had struck silt at the bottom of the Water Pit, one hundred forty feet down.

  Hatch had waited tensely in his medical office, but by five he'd received word that high tide had come and gone without any apparent seepage of seawater into the Pit. There had been an anxious watch as the massive timbering groaned, creaked, and settled under its heavier burden. Seismographic sensors registered some small cave-ins, but they were in adjoining side tunnels and pits, not the main shaft. After a few hours the major settling seemed to cease. The cofferdam had held. Now, a crew was at work with a magnetized grappling hook, clearing out debris that had fallen into the Water Pit over the centuries and snagged on various crossbeams and timbers.

  After mooring his boat in Stormhaven, Hatch stopped by the Co-op to pick up a salmon fillet. Then, on impulse, he drove the eight miles down the coast to Southport. Driving along Route 1A, the old coastal highway, he could see a line of sullen lightning flicker jaggedly across forty degrees of sea horizon, pale yellow against the blues and pinks of the evening. A massive thunderhead had reared up beyond Monhegan Island far to the south, rising to thirty thousand feet, its steel-colored interior glinting with internal electricity: a typical summer storm, promising a heavy rain and perhaps a few bolts, but without the virulence to blow up a dangerous sea.

  Southport's grocery, though poorly stocked by Cambridge standards, carried a number of things not found in Bud's Superette. As he got out of his Jaguar, Hatch made a quick scan of the street: it wouldn't do for anyone to recognize him and report the treasonous act to Bud. He smiled to himself, thinking how alien this small-town logic would seem to a Bostonian.

  Arriving home, Hatch made a pot of coffee and poached the salmon with lemon, dill, and asparagus, then whipped up a sauce of curried horseradish mayonnaise. Most of the dining room table was covered with a large green canvas, and he cleared a space at the far end and sat down with his dinner and the Stormhaven Gazette. He was partly pleased, and partly disappointed, to see that the Ragged Island dig had been relegated to second page. Pride of place on the front page went to the Lobster Bake, and to the moose that had wandered into the storage lot behind Kai Estenson's hardware store, run amok, and been tranquilized by game officials. The article on the dig mentioned "excellent progress, despite a few unanticipated setbacks," and went on to say that the man wounded in the prior week's accident was resting comfortably at home. As Hatch had requested, his own name did not appear.

  Finishing his dinner, he dumped the dishes in the sink, then returned to the dining room and the large green canvas. Sipping a fresh cup of coffee, he pulled the canvas away, exposing a smaller canvas and, on it, two of the skeletons that had been uncovered the day before. He had chosen what he thought were the most complete and representative specimens from the staggeringly large burial group and brought the remains back to his house, where he could examine them in peace.

  The bones were clean and hard and stained a light brown by the iron-rich soil of the island. In the dry air of the house, they emitted a faint odor of old earth. Hatch stood back, arms akimbo, and contemplated the skeletons and the pathetic collections of buttons, buckles, and hobnails that had been found with them. One had been wearing a ring—a gold ring set with an inferior cabochon garnet, valuable more for historical reasons than anything else. Hatch picked it up from among the neat array of items. He tried it on his little finger, found that it fit, and left it there, somehow pleased at this connection with the long-dead pirate.

  Summer twilight lay across the meadow beyond the open windows, and frogs in the millpond at the bottom of the fields had begun their evening vespers. Hatch pulled out a small notebook, writing "Pirate A" on the left side of a page and "Pirate B" on the right. Then he scratched these out, replacing them with "Black-beard" and "Captain Kidd." Somehow, it made them more human. Underneath each heading he began jotting his first impressions.

  First, Hatch sexed the skeletons carefully: he knew there were more female pirates plying the seas in the 1700s than most people realized. Both were male. They were also nearly toothless, a characteristic shared with the other skeletons in the mass grave. Hatch picked up a loose mandible, examining it with a magnifying glass. Along the mandibular process there was scarring due to lesions of the gums, and places where the bone had been thinned and apparently eaten away. The few remaining teeth showed a striking pathology: a separation of the odontoblast layer from the dentin. Hatch laid the jawbone down, wondering whether this was due to disease, starvation, or simply poor hygiene.

  He cradled the skull of the pirate he'd labeled Blackbeard and examined it, Yorick style. Blackbeard's one remaining upper incisor was distinctly shoveled: That implied either East Asian or Amerindian stock. He replaced the skull and continued his examination. The other pirate, Kidd, had broken his leg in the past: The ends of the bone around the fracture were abraded and calcified, and the break had not knitted together well. Probably walked around with a limp and in severe pain. In life, Kidd would not have been a good-tempered pirate. The man also had an old wound in the clavicle; there was a deep score in the bone, surrounded by spurs. Cutlass blow? Hatch wondered.

  Both men appeared to be under forty. If Blackbeard was Asiatic, Captain Kidd was probably Caucasian. Hatch made a mental note to ask St. John if he knew anything about the racial makeup of Ockham's crew.

  Hatch walked around the table, musing, then picked up a femur. It seemed light and insubstantial. He bent it and, to his surprise, felt it snap like a dry twig between his fingers. He peered at the ends. Clearly a case of osteoporosis—thinning of the bone—rather than simple graveyard decay. Looking more closely now, he examined the bones of the other skeleton and found the same symptoms.

  The pirates were too young for this to be gerontological in origin. Again, it could be either poor diet or disease. But what disease? He ran through the symptoms of several possibilities, his diagnostic mind working, and then suddenly broke into a broad smile.

  He turned to his working bookshelf and plucked off the well-thumbed copy of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. He flipped through the index until he found what he was looking for, then turned quickly to the page. Scurvy, it read: Scorbutus (Vitamin C Deficiency). Yes, there were the symptoms: loss of teeth, osteoporosis, cessation of the healing process, even the reopening of old wounds.

  He shut the book and slipped it back on the shelf. Mystery solved. Hatch knew that scurvy was now rare in most of the world. Even the poorest Third World areas he had practiced in produced fresh fruits and vegetables, and in all his career he had never seen a case. Until now. He stepped back from the table, feeling uncommonly pleased with himself.

  The doorbell rang. Damn, he thought, hastily pulling the canvas cover over the skeletons before stepping into the living room. One of the prices of living in a small town was that nobody thought to telephone before dropping by. It wouldn't do, he thought, to be seen with his dining room table laid with ancient skeletons instead of the family silver.

  Stepping up to the front and glancing out the window, Hatch was surprised to see the stooped form of Professor Orville Horn. The old man was leaning on his cane, wisps of white hair standing from his head as if charged up with a Van de Graaf generator.

  "Ah, the abominable Doctor Hatch!" the professor said as the door opened. "I was just passing by and saw the lights burning
in this old mausoleum of yours." His small bright eyes roved restlessly as he spoke. "I thought perhaps you'd been down in the dungeon, cutting up bodies. Some young girls are missing from the village, you know, and the townsfolk are restless." His gaze landed on the large canvas lump on the dining room table. "Hullo! What's this?"

  "Pirate skeletons," said Hatch with a grin. "You wanted a present, right? Well, happy birthday."

  The professor's eyes went incandescent with delight as he stepped unbidden into the living room. "Marvelous!" he cried. "My suspicions were well-founded, I see. Where did you get them?"

  "Thalassa's archaeologist uncovered the site of the pirate encampment on Ragged Island a couple of days ago," Hatch replied, leading the old man into the dining room. "They found a mass grave. I thought I'd bring a couple back and try to determine cause of death."

  The professor's shaggy brows raised at this information. Hatch pulled back the canvas cover and his guest leaned forward with interest, peering closely, poking an occasional bone with his cane.

  "I believe I've figured out what killed them," said Hatch.

  The professor held up his hand. "Hush. Let me try my hand."

  Hatch smiled, remembering the professor's love of scientific challenges. It was a game they had played on many an afternoon, the professor giving Hatch a bizarre specimen or scientific conundrum to puzzle over.

  Dr. Horn picked up Blackbeard's skull, turned it over, looking at the teeth. "East Asian," he said, putting it down.

  "Very good."

  "Not terribly surprising," replied the professor. "Pirates were the first equal opportunity employers. I imagine this one was Burmese or Bornean. Might have been a Lascar."

  "I'm impressed," Hatch said.

  "How soon they forget." The professor moved around the skeletons, his beady eyes glittering, like a cat circling a mouse. He picked up the bone Hatch had broken. "Osteoporosis," he said, raising an eye in Hatch's direction.