Riptide

by Douglas Preston

  Everywhere, great ruined hulks of infernal machines rose from the waving sawgrass and tea roses: ancient steam-driven compressors, winches, chains, boilers. A cluster of weather-beaten shacks sat to one side of the old spruce, listing and roofless. At the far end of the beach, Hatch could make out the smooth rounded forms of the Whalebacks that he and Johnny had clambered over, more than twenty-five years before. Along the nearest rocks lay the shattered carcasses of several large boats, dashed and battered by countless storms, their decks and ribbing split and scattered among the granite boulders. Weather-beaten signs, posted every 100 feet above the high water mark, read:

  WARNING! EXTREME DANGER NO LANDING

  For a moment Neidelman was speechless. "At last," he breathed.

  The moment stretched into minutes as the boat drifted. Neidelman lowered his binoculars and turned toward Hatch. "Doctor?" he inquired.

  Hatch was bracing himself on the wheel, riding out the memory. Horror washed over him like seasickness as the drizzle splattered the pilothouse windows and the bell buoy tolled mournfully in the mists. But mingled with the horror was something else, something new: the realization that there was a vast treasure down there—that his grandfather had not been a complete fool who destroyed three generations of his family for nothing. In a moment, he knew what his decision had to be: the final answer that was owed to his grandfather, his father, and his brother.

  "Dr. Hatch?" Neidelman asked again, the hollows of his face glistening with the damp.

  Hatch took several deep breaths and forced himself to relax his desperate grip on the wheel. "Circle the island?" he asked, managing to keep his voice even.

  Neidelman stared at him another moment. Then he simply nodded and raised the binoculars again.

  Easing the throttle open, Hatch swung seaward, coming out of the lee and turning into the wind. He proceeded under low engine, keeping the boat at three knots, looking away from the Whalebacks and the other, more dreadful landmarks he knew would lie just beyond.

  "It's a hard-looking place," Neidelman said. "Harder than I'd ever imagined."

  "There's no natural harbor," Hatch replied. "The place is surrounded by reefs, and there's a wicked tiderip. The island's exposed to the open ocean, and it gets hammered by Nor'easters every fall. So many tunnels were dug that a good part of the island is waterlogged and unstable. Even worse, some of the companies brought in explosives. There's unexploded dynamite, blasting caps, and God knows what else beneath the surface, just waiting to go off."

  "What's that wreck?" Neidelman said, pointing at a massive, twisted metal structure rearing above the seaweed-slick rocks.

  "A barge left over from my grandfather's day. It was anchored offshore with a floating crane, got caught in a Nor'easter, and was thrown on the rocks. After the ocean got through with it, there wasn't anything left to salvage. That was the end of my grandfather's effort."

  "Did your grandfather leave any records?" Neidelman asked.

  "My father destroyed them." Hatch swallowed hard. "My grandfather bankrupted the family with this island, and my father always hated the place and everything about it. Even before the accident." His voice trailed off and he gripped the wheel, staring straight ahead.

  "I'm sorry," Neidelman said, his face softening. "I've been so wrapped up in all this that I sometimes forget your personal tragedy. Forgive me if I've asked any insensitive questions."

  Hatch continued gazing over the ship's bow. "It's all right."

  Neidelman fell silent, for which Hatch was grateful. Nothing was more painful than hearing the usual platitudes from well-meaning people, especially the one that went Don't blame yourself, it wasn't your fault.

  The Plain Jane rounded the southern end of the island and went broadside to the swell. Hatch gave it a little more throttle and plunged ahead.

  "Amazing," Neidelman muttered. "To think that only this small island of sand and rocks separates us from the largest fortune ever buried."

  "Careful, Captain," Hatch replied, putting what he hoped was a playful tone on the warning. "That's the kind of rapturous thinking that bankrupted a dozen companies. Better to remember the old poem:

  Because, though free of the outer court

  I am, this Temple keeps her shrine

  Sacred to Heaven; because, in short

  She's not and never can be mine."

  Neidelman turned to him. "I see you've had time to do a little extracurricular reading beyond Gray's Anatomy and the Merck manual. Not many bonecutters can quote Coventry Patmore."

  Hatch shrugged. "I enjoy a bit of poetry, here and there. I sip it like a fine port. What's your excuse?"

  Neidelman smiled briefly. "I spent more than ten years of my life at sea. Sometimes there's precious little else to do but read."

  A coughing sound suddenly broke from the island. It grew louder, turning into a low rumble and finally breaking into a throaty heaving groan, like the dying sound of some deep-sea beast. Hatch felt his skin crawl.

  "What in blazes is that noise?" Neidelman asked sharply.

  "Tide's changing," Hatch replied, shivering slightly in the raw, wet air. "The Water Pit is apparently connected to the sea by a hidden flood tunnel. When the rip current changes and the flow in the tunnel reverses, you hear that noise. At least, that's one theory."

  The moan continued, slowly subsiding into a wet stutter before dying away completely.

  "You'll hear another theory from the local fishermen," Hatch said. "Maybe you noticed that there aren't any lobster pots around the island. Don't think that's from any lack of lobsters."

  "The Ragged Island curse," Neidelman said, nodding, a sardonic look in his eyes. "I've heard of it." There was a long silence while Neidelman looked down at the deck. Then he slowly raised his head. "I can't bring your brother back to life," he said. "But I can promise you this: we will learn what happened to him."

  Hatch waved his hand, made speechless by a sudden overflow of emotion. He turned his face to the open pilothouse window, grateful for the concealing presence of the rain. Quite suddenly, he realized he could not bear to spend any more time at the island. He nosed the boat westward without explanation, opening the throttle as they once again entered the encircling mantle of mist. He wanted to return to his motel room, order an early lunch, and wash it down with a pitcher of Bloody Marys.

  They broke through the mist into the welcoming gleam of daylight. The wind picked up, and Hatch could feel the droplets of moisture begin to evaporate from his face and hands. He did not look back. But the simple knowledge that the fogbound island was quickly shrinking into the horizon eased the constricting feeling in his chest.

  "You should know that we'll be working closely with a first-rate archaeologist and a historian," Neidelman said at his side. "The knowledge we'll gain about seventeenth-century engineering, high seas piracy, and naval technology—perhaps even about Red Ned Ockham's mysterious death—will be of incalculable value. This is as much an archaeological dig as a treasure reclamation."

  There was a brief silence. "I'd want to reserve the right to stop the whole show if I felt conditions were growing too dangerous," Hatch said.

  "Perfectly understandable. There are eighteen clauses in our boilerplate land-lease contract. We'll just add a nineteenth."

  "And if I become part of this," Hatch said more slowly, "I don't want to be a silent partner, looking over anyone's shoulder."

  Neidelman stirred the dead ashes of his pipe. "Salvage of this sort is an extremely risky business, especially for the layman. What role do you propose to play?"

  Hatch shrugged. "You mentioned that you'd hired an expedition doctor."

  Neidelman stopped stirring his pipe long enough to look up and raise his eyebrows. "As required by Maine law. Are you suggesting a change of personnel?"

  "Yes."

  Neidelman smiled. "And you're comfortable taking leave from Mount Auburn Hospital at such short notice?"

  "My research can wait. Besides, we aren't talking about all t
hat long. It's already the end of July. If you're going to do this, it'll have to be over and done within four weeks—for better or worse. The dig can't continue into storm season."

  Neidelman leaned over the side of the boat and knocked the dottle from his pipe with a single hard stroke. He straightened up again, the long dark line of Burnt Head framing the horizon behind him.

  "In four weeks, it will be over," he said. "Your struggle, and mine."

  Chapter 5

  Hatch parked the car in the dirt lot next to Bud's Superette. It was his own car this time, and it was strangely unsettling to be viewing his past life through the windshield of a vehicle so much a part of his present. He glanced at the cracked leather seats, at the faded coffee stains on the burled walnut of the gearbox. So familiar, and somehow so safe; it took a supreme effort to open the door. He plucked the sunglasses from the dash, then put them back. The time for dissembling was over.

  He looked around the small square. More stone cobbles were peeping up through the worn asphalt of the street. The old newsstand at the corner, with its wobbly wire racks of comic books and magazines, had given way to an ice-cream shop. Beyond the square, the town fell away down the hill, as impossibly picturesque as ever, the slate and cedar-shingled roofs gleaming in the sunlight. A man walked up from the harbor in rubber boots, a slicker over his shoulder: a lobsterman coming back from work. The man glanced at Hatch as he passed, then disappeared down a side lane. He was young, no more than twenty, and Hatch realized the man wasn't even born when he had left town with his mother. An entire generation had grown up in his absence. And no doubt an entire generation had died, too. He suddenly wondered if Bud Rowell was still alive.

  Superficially, Bud's Superette looked exactly as he remembered it: the green screen door that didn't shut properly, the ancient Coca-Cola sign, the weathered, tilting porch. He stepped inside, worn floorboards creaking under his feet, and pulled a cart from the small rack by the door, grateful for the emptiness of the place. Moving down the narrow aisles, he began picking up some food for the Plain Jane, where he'd decided to stay until the old family house could be readied for him. He poked around, dropping necessities into the cart here and there, until at last he realized he was just delaying the inevitable. With an effort he pushed the cart toward the front of the store and found himself face-to-face with Bud Rowell: large, bald, and cheerful, in a crisp butcher's apron. Many times, Hatch remembered Bud slipping him and Johnny forbidden red licorice sticks under the counter. It drove their mother crazy.

  "Afternoon," said Bud, his glance moving over Hatch's face and then drifting to the car parked outside, checking the plates. It wasn't often that a vintage Jaguar XKE pulled into the Superette's lot. "Up from Boston?"

  Hatch nodded, still uncertain how best to do this. "Yup."

  "Vacation?" Bud asked, carefully placing an artichoke into the bag, arranging it with deliberation, and ringing it up on the old brass machine with his usual glacial slowness. A second artichoke went into the bag.

  "No," said Hatch. "Here on business."

  The hand paused. Nobody ever came to Stormhaven on business. And Bud, being the professional gossip that he was, would now have to find out why.

  The hand moved again. "Ayuh," said Bud. "Business."

  Hatch nodded, struggling with a reluctance to drop his anonymity. Once Bud knew, the whole town would know. Shopping at Bud's Superette was the point of no return. It wasn't too late to just gather up his groceries and get out, leaving Bud none the wiser. The alternative was painful to contemplate: Hatch could hardly bear to think about the whispered revival of the old tragedy, the shaking of heads and pursing of lips. Small towns could be brutal in their sympathy.

  The hand picked up a carton of milk and inserted it into the bag.

  "Salesman?"

  "Nope."

  There was a silence while Bud, going even slower now, placed the orange juice next to the milk. The machine jingled with the price.

  "Just passing through?" he ventured.

  "Got business right here in Stormhaven."

  This was so unheard-of that Bud could stand it no more. "And what kind of business might that be?"

  "Business of a delicate nature," Hatch said, lowering his voice. Despite his apprehensions, the consternation that gathered on Bud's brow was so eloquent that Hatch had to hide a smile.

  "I see," Bud said. "Staying in town?"

  "Nope," Hatch said, taking a deep breath now. "I'll be staying over across the harbor. In the old Hatch place."

  At this Bud almost dropped a steak. The house had been shut up for twenty-five years. But the steak went in, the bags were finally filled, and Bud had run out of questions, at least polite ones.

  "Well," said Hatch. "I'm in a bit of a hurry. How much do I owe you?"

  "Thirty-one twenty-five," Bud said miserably.

  Hatch gathered up the bags. This was it. If he was going to make a home in this town, even temporarily, he had to reveal himself.

  He stopped, opened one bag, and poked his hand in. "Excuse me," he said, turning to the second bag and rummaging through it. "Haven't you left something out?"

  "I don't b'lieve so," Bud said stolidly.

  "I'm sure you have," Hatch repeated, taking things back out of the bags and laying them on the counter.

  "It's all there," Bud said, a shade of Maine truculence creeping into his voice.

  "No, it's not." Hatch pointed at a small drawer just below the countertop. "Where's my free licorice stick?"

  Bud's eyes went to the drawer, then followed Hatch's arm back up to his face, and for the first time really looked at him. Then the color drained from his face, leaving it a pale gray.

  Just as Hatch tensed, wondering if he'd gone too far, the old grocer exhaled mightily. "I'll be damned," he said. "I'll be God damned. It's Malin Hatch."

  The color in the grocer's cheeks quickly returned to normal, but his expression remained that of a man who has seen a ghost.

  "Well," said Hatch. "How've you been, Bud?"

  Suddenly, the grocer lumbered around the counter and crushed Hatch's right hand in both of his. "Look at you," he said, grasping Hatch's shoulders and holding him at arm's length, a huge grin lighting up his plump face. "To think you've grown up into such a fine, big young man. I don't know how many times I wondered what happened to you, wondered if we'd ever see you again. And by God, here you are, plain as day."

  Hatch inhaled the grocer's scent—a mixture of ham, fish, and cheese—and felt both relieved and embarrassed, as if he were suddenly a boy again.

  Bud gazed up at him a little longer, then glanced back at the licorice drawer. "You son of a gun," he laughed. "You still eating licorice? Here's one on the house." And he reached in, pulled one out, and slapped it down on the counter.

  Chapter 6

  They sat in rocking chairs on the back porch of the store, drinking birch beer pop and gazing out over a meadow to a dark row of pines. Under Bud's probing, Hatch had related some of his adventures as an epidemiologist in Mexico and South America. But he had successfully steered the conversation away from his own reasons for returning. He didn't feel quite ready to start the explanations. He found himself anxious to get back to the boat, hang his portable grill over the taffrail, throw on a steak, and sit back with a sinfully dry martini. But he also knew that smalltown etiquette required his spending an hour shooting the breeze with the old grocer.

  "Tell me what's happened in town since I left," he said to stopper a gap in the conversation and forestall any probing questions. He could tell Bud was dying to know why he'd returned, but that Maine politeness forbade him to ask.

  "Well, now," Bud began. "There've been some pretty big changes here." He proceeded to relate how the new addition was built onto the high school five years ago, how the Thibodeaux family home burned to the ground while they were vacationing at Niagara Falls, how Frank Pickett ran his boat into Old Hump and sank it because he'd had a few too many. Finally, he asked if Hatch had seen the nic
e new firehouse.

  "Sure have," said Hatch, secretly sorry that the old wooden one-berth house had been torn down and replaced with a metal-sided monstrosity.

  "And there's new houses springing up all over the place. Summerpeople." Bud clucked disapprovingly, but Hatch knew perfectly well there wasn't any complaining at the cash register. Anyway, Bud's idea of houses springing up everywhere translated to three or four summer houses on Breed's Point, plus some renovated inland farmhouses and the new bed-and-breakfast.

  Bud concluded with a sad shake of his head. "It's all changed around here since you left. You'll hardly recognize the place." He rocked back in his chair and sighed. "So, you here to sell the house?"

  Hatch stiffened slightly. "No, I've come to live here. For the rest of the summer, anyway."

  "That right?" Bud said. "Vacation?"

  "I already told you," Hatch said, trying hard to keep his tone light, "I'm here on a rather delicate business matter. I promise you, Bud, it won't be a secret long."

  Bud sat back, slightly offended. "You know I wouldn't have any interest in your business affairs. But I thought you said you were a doctor."

  "I am. That's what I'll be doing up here." Hatch sipped his birch beer and glanced surreptitiously at his watch.

  "But Malin," the grocer said, shifting uncomfortably, "we've already got a doctor in town. Dr. Frazier. He's healthy as an ox, could live another twenty years."

  "That's nothing a little arsenic in his tea wouldn't fix," said Hatch.

  The grocer looked at him in alarm.

  "Don't worry, Bud," Hatch replied, breaking into a smile. "I'm not going into competition with Dr. Frazier." He reminded himself that his particular brand of wit wasn't especially common in rural Maine.