Riptide

by Douglas Preston

  "What the hell?" breathed Rankin, staring at the sonar screen.

  "Do you feel that?" Bonterre asked.

  "Feel it? I can see it right here."

  "What is it?"

  "Damned if I know. Way too shallow to be an earthquake, and anyway it isn't throwing out the right P-waves." He tapped briefly on a keyboard. "There, it's stopped again. Some tunnel caving in somewhere, I'll bet."

  "Look, Roger, I need your help." Bonterre set the sopping nylon bag onto an instrument panel and unzipped it. "Ever seen a machine such like this one?"

  Rankin kept his eyes on the monitor. "What is it?"

  "A Radmeter. It is for—"

  "Wait a minute. A Radmeter?" Rankin looked over from the monitor. "Well, what the hell. Yeah, I know what it is. Those puppies aren't cheap. Where'd you get it?"

  "You know how to work it?"

  "More or less. Mining company I worked for used one for tracing strikes of pitchblende deposits. Wasn't as fancy as this one, though."

  Coming over, he snapped it on and typed a few instructions on the miniature keyboard. A glowing, three-dimensional grid appeared on the screen. "You aim this detector," he said, moving the microphonelike device, "and it traces a map of the radioactive source on the screen. The intensity is color-coded. Blues and greens for the lowest-level radiation, then up through the spectrum. White's the hottest. Hmmm, this thing needs calibration." The screen was streaked with dashes and spots of blue.

  Rankin tapped a few keys. "Damn, I'm getting a hell of a lot of background noise. The machine's probably on the fritz. Just like everything else around here."

  "The machine is working just fine," said Bonterre evenly. "It is picking up radiation from St. Michael's Sword."

  Rankin glanced at her, squinting his eyes. "What did you say?"

  "The sword is radioactive."

  Rankin continued looking at her. "You're jiving me."

  "I do not jive. The radioactivity has been the cause of all our problems." Bonterre quickly explained while Rankin stared at her, his mouth working silently behind his thick beard. When she finished, she braced herself for the inevitable argument.

  But none came. Rankin continued staring, his hirsute face perplexed. Then it cleared and he nodded suddenly, great beard wagging. "Hell, I guess it's the only answer that explains everything. I wonder—"

  "We do not have time for speculation," interrupted Bonterre sharply. "Neidelman cannot be allowed to open the casket."

  "Yes," said Rankin slowly, still thinking. "Yes, it would have to be radioactive as hell to be leaking all the way to the surface. Shit, he could fry us all. No wonder the equipment's been acting up. It's a wonder the sonar's cleared up enough to..."

  The words died on his lips as his gaze turned back to the bank of equipment.

  "Christ on a bicycle," he said wonderingly.

  Chapter 53

  Neidelman stood motionless at the base of the Water Pit. Above his head, the lift hummed as it carried Streeter and Hatch up the array until they were lost from view in the forest of struts.

  Neidelman did not hear the lift recede. He glanced at Magnusen, face pressed again to the hole in the iron plate, her breathing rapid and shallow. Without a word, he eased her aside—she moved sluggishly, as if exhausted or half asleep—grasped his lifeline, hooked it to the ladder, and lowered himself through the hole.

  He landed next to the sword casket, knocking loose a dozen rattling streams of precious metal. He stood there, gazing at the casket, blind to the dazzling wealth that filled the chamber. Then he knelt, almost reverently, his eyes caressing its every detail.

  It was about five feet long and two feet wide, the sides made of engraved lead chased with silver, the corners and edges decorated with elaborate gold work. The entire casket was strapped to the iron floor of the treasure crypt by four crossed bands of iron: a strangely crude cage to hold such a magnificent prisoner.

  He looked more closely. The casket was supported by claw legs of pure gold. Each leg was formed as an eagle talon gripping an orb: obviously of Baroque origin and added much later. Indeed, it seemed the entire casket was an amalgam of styles, dating from the thirteenth century to the early Spanish Baroque. Evidently the lead casket had been added to over the ages, each decoration more sumptuous than the last.

  Neidelman reached out and touched the fine metalwork, surprised to find it almost warm. He slipped his hand inside the iron cage and traced the workmanship with a slender fingertip. Over the years, no day passed in which he hadn't imagined this moment. He had often pictured what it would be like to see this casket, to touch it, to open it—and, in the fullness of time, draw out its contents.

  Countless hours had been spent musing on the sword's design. Sometimes, he imagined a great Roman sword of beaten electrum, perhaps even the Sword of Damocles itself. At other times, he imagined a barbarous Saracen weapon of chased gold with a silver blade, or a Byzantine broadsword, encrusted with gems and too heavy even to lift. He had even imagined that perhaps it was the sword of Saladin, carried back by a knight from the Crusades, made of the finest Damascene steel inlaid in gold and set with diamonds from King Solomon's mines.

  The possibilities, the speculations, filled him with an intense emotion, more overwhelming than anything he had known. This must be how it feels to behold the face of God, he thought.

  He remembered there was not much time. Removing his hands from the silky metal of the casket, he placed them on the steel bands that surrounded it. He tugged, first gingerly, then with force. The cage that surrounded the casket was solid, immovable. Odd, he thought, that the bands went through slots in the iron floor and seemed to be attached to something below. The extraordinary security with which the casket was guarded confirmed its incalculable value.

  Digging into a pocket, he drew out a penknife and gouged it into the rust that coated the nearest band. A few flakes came away, showing bright steel underneath. To free the chest, he would have to cut through the bands with the torch.

  The sound of loud breathing disturbed his thoughts. He looked up to see Magnusen peering down through the opening.

  Her eyes looked dark and fevered in the swinging glow of the basket lamp.

  "Bring down the torch," he said. "I'm going to cut this chest loose."

  In less than a minute she landed heavily beside him. Falling to her knees, the torch forgotten, she stared at the sea of riches. She picked up a fistful of gold doubloons and fat louis d'ors, letting them slide through her fingers. Then she picked up another handful, more quickly; and then another, and another. Her elbow bumped against a small wooden casket and it ruptured into powder, spilling diamonds and carnelians. Then a momentary panic overwhelmed her and she scrabbled for them, stuffing the winking gems indiscriminately into her pockets, lurching forward and breaking additional bags in her haste. At last she fell facedown into the priceless mass, arms buried in the loose gold, legs spread, softly laughing, or crying, or perhaps both.

  As he reached for the acetylene cylinder, Neidelman paused to watch her for a moment, thinking it was time she winched the bucket down into the chamber and began hauling the treasure to the surface. Then his eyes fell once again on the casket and Magnusen was instantly forgotten.

  He wrapped his fingers around the thick brass lock that held the box shut. It was an ugly piece of work, heavy-looking and stamped with ducal seals, some of which Neidelman recognized as dating back to the fourteenth century. The seals were unbroken. So Ockham never opened his greatest treasure, he thought. Strange.

  That honor would be reserved for him.

  Despite its size, the lock held the box shut loosely; using the blade of his penknife, he found he was able to lift the lid a few millimeters. He removed the knife, lowered the lid, and again inspected the metal bands that were threaded through the lock, determining the most efficient places to make his cuts.

  Then he twisted the cylinder's stopcock and struck the sparker: There was a small pop, and an intense pinpoint of white a
ppeared at the end of the nozzle. Everything seemed to be happening with glacial slowness, and for that he was grateful. Each moment, each movement, gave him exquisite pleasure. It would take some time—perhaps fifteen minutes, perhaps twenty—before he could free the casket from its bands and actually hold the sword in his hand. But he knew that he would remember every second as long as he lived.

  Carefully, he brought the flame to the metal.

  Chapter 54

  Hatch lay in the bottom of the small stone well, half conscious, as if waking out of a dream. Above, he could hear rattling as Streeter drew the collapsible ladder up the shaft. The dim beam of a flashlight briefly illuminated the groined ceiling, forty feet overhead, of the chamber where Wopner had died. Then there was the sound of Streeter's heavy boots walking back down the narrow tunnel toward the ladder array, dying along with the light until silence and blackness fell upon him together.

  For several minutes, he lay on the cold, damp stone. Perhaps it was a dream, after all, one of those ugly claustrophobic nightmares one woke from with infinite relief. Then he sat up, hitting his head on the low overhang of ceiling. It was now pitch black, without even the faintest glimmer of light.

  He lay down again. Streeter had left him without a word. The team leader hadn't even bothered to bind his arms. Perhaps it was to make his death look less suspicious. But deep down, Hatch knew that Streeter had no need to tie him up. There was no way he could climb thirty feet up the slippery sides of the well back to the vaulted room. Two hours, maybe three, and the treasure would be out of the pit and safely stowed aboard the Griffin. Then Neidelman would simply collapse the already weakened cofferdam. Water would rush back to flood the Pit, the tunnels and chambers . . . The well. . .

  Suddenly, Hatch felt his muscles spasm as he struggled to keep panic from washing his reason away. The effort exhausted him and he lay gasping, trying to slow his pounding heart. The air in the hole was poor, and getting poorer.

  He rolled away from the overhanging ceiling toward the base of the well, where he could sit up and rest his back against the cold stone. He stared upward again, straining for the least hint of light. But there was only blackness. He considered standing, but the very thought was exhausting and he lay down again. As he did so, his right hand slipped into a narrow cavity beneath a heavy stone slab, closing over something cold, wet, and rigid.

  And then the full horror of where he was flooded through him, startling him to full consciousness. He released Johnny's bone with an involuntary sob.

  The air was cold, with a suffocating clamminess that cut through his soggy clothes and felt raw and thick in his throat. He remembered that heavier gases, like carbon dioxide, sank. Perhaps the air would be a little better if he stood up.

  He forced himself to his feet, hands against the side of the well for balance. Gradually, the buzzing in his head began to fade. He tried to tell himself that nothing was hopeless. He would systematically explore the cavity with his hands, every square inch. Johnny's bones had ended up in this chamber, victim of Macallan's fiendish engine of death. That meant the shore tunnel had to be nearby. If he could figure out how Macallan's trap worked, maybe he could find a way to escape.

  Pressing his face against the slimy stone wall, he reached his hands as high above his head as he could. This was where he would start, working his way down the stones systematically, quadrant by quadrant, until he had examined every reachable square inch of the chamber. Lightly, like a blind man's, his fingers explored every crevasse, every protuberance, probing, tapping, listening for a hollow sound.

  The first quadrant yielded nothing but smooth stones, well mortised. Lowering his hands, he went on to the next section. Five minutes went by, then ten, and then he was on his hands and knees, feeling around the floor of the chamber.

  He had scanned every reachable spot in the well—except the narrow crack along the floor into which his brother's bones had been pressed—and there was nothing, not a thing, that indicated an avenue of escape.

  Breathing choppily, snorting the stale air into his nostrils, Hatch reached gingerly beneath the heavy stone. His hands encountered the rotting baseball cap on his brother's skull. He jerked back, heart thudding in his chest.

  He stood again, face upward, striving for a breath of sweeter air. Johnny would expect him to do his goddamnedest to survive.

  He yelled out for help; first tentatively, then more loudly. He tried to forget how empty the island was; tried to forget Neidelman, preparing to open the casket; tried to forget everything except his cries for help.

  As he yelled, pausing now and again for breath, some last hidden chink of armor loosened within him. The bad air, the blackness, the peculiar smell of the Pit, the proximity of Johnny, all conspired to tear away the one remaining veil from that terrible day, thirty-one years before. Suddenly, the buried memories burned their way back, and he was once again on his hands and knees, match sputtering in his hand, as a strange dragging sound took Johnny away from him forever.

  And there, in the thick dark, Hatch's yells turned to screams.

  Chapter 55

  What is it?" Bonterre asked, her hand frozen on the Radmeter.

  Rankin held up his hand for silence. "Just a minute. Let me compensate for any trace radiation." His head was mere inches from the screen, bathed in an amber glow.

  "Jesus," he said quietly. "There it is, all right. No mistake, not this time. Both systems agree."

  "Roger—"

  Rankin rolled back from the screen and ran one paw through his hair. "Look at that."

  Bonterre stared at the screen, a snarl of jittery lines underlaid by a large black stripe.

  Rankin turned to her. "That black is a void underneath the Water Pit."

  "Avoid?"

  "A huge cavern, probably filled with water. God knows how deep."

  "But—"

  "I wasn't able to get a clear reading before, because of all the water in the Pit. And then, I couldn't get these sensors to run in series. Until now."

  Bonterre frowned.

  "Don't you understand? It's a cavern! We never bothered to look deeper than the Water Pit. The treasure chamber, the Pit itself—us, too, for Chrissake—we're all sitting on top of a goddamn piercement dome. This explains the faulting, the displacement, everything."

  "Is this something else built by Macallan?"

  "No, no, it's natural. Macallan used it. A piercement dome is a geological formation, an upfold in the earth's crust." He placed his hands together as if in prayer, then pushed one of them toward the ceiling. "It splits the rock above it, creating a huge web of fractures and usually a vertical crack—a pipe—that goes deep into the earth, sometimes several thousand feet. Those P-waves, that vibration earlier . . . something was obviously happening in the dome, causing a resonance. It must be part of the same substructure that created the natural tunnels Macallan—"

  Bonterre jumped suddenly as the Radmeter in her hands chirped. As she stared, the blue shimmer on the screen turned yellow.

  "Let me see that." Rankin punched in a series of commands, his large fingers dwarfing the keypad. The top half of the small screen cleared, then a message appeared, stark black letters against the screen:

  Dangerous radiation levels detected

  Specify desired measurement

  (ionizations / joules / rads)

  and rate

  (seconds / minutes / hours)

  Rankin hit a few more keys.

  240.8 Rads/hour

  Fast neutron flux detected

  General radiation contamination possible

  Recommendation: Immediate evacuation

  "Merde. It's too late." "Too late for what?" "He's opened the casket."

  As they watched, the message changed:

  33.144 Rads/hour

  Background levels hazardous

  Recommendation: Standard containment procedures

  "What happened?" Rankin asked.

  "I do not know. Maybe he closed it again."


  "Let's see if I can get a radiation signature on the source." The geologist began typing again. Then he straightened up, still staring at the little screen.

  "Oh, Christ," he muttered. "You won't believe this."

  He was interrupted by a thump on the observation deck. The door flew open and Streeter stepped in.

  "Hey, Lyle!" Rankin said before seeing the handgun.

  Streeter looked from Rankin to Bonterre, then back again. "Come on," he said, motioning the gun toward the door.

  "Come on where?" Rankin began. "What's with the gun?"

  "We're taking a little trip, just the three of us," Streeter answered. He nodded in the direction of the observation porthole.

  Bonterre slipped the Radmeter beneath her sweater.

  "You mean, into the Pit?" Rankin asked incredulously. "It's dangerous as hell down there! The whole thing's suspended over—"

  Streeter placed the gun against the back of Rankin's right hand and fired.

  The sound of the explosion was shockingly loud in the confined space of Orthanc. Instinctively, Bonterre looked away for a moment. Turning back, she saw Rankin on his knees, clutching his right hand. Thin streams of blood trickled between his fingers and pattered to the metal floor.

  "That leaves you one hand to hold on with," Streeter says. "If you want to keep it, shut your hairy fucking mouth."

  Once again he motioned them toward the door and the observation platform beyond. With a gasp of pain, Rankin hauled himself to his feet, looked from Streeter to the gun, then moved slowly to the door.

  "Now you," Streeter said, nodding at Bonterre. Slowly, making sure the Radmeter was secure beneath her sweaters, she stood up and began to follow Rankin.

  "Be very careful," Streeter said, cradling the gun. "It's a long way down."

  Chapter 56

  Hatch leaned against the wall of the chamber, his fear and his hope both spent, his throat raw from shouting. The memory of what had happened in this very tunnel, lost for so long, was now his again, but he was too exhausted even to examine the missing pieces. The air was a suffocating, foul-smelling blanket, and he shook his head, trying to clear the faint but insistent sound of his brother's voice: "Where are you? Where are you?"