Riptide

by Douglas Preston

  "It wasn't only the ships that had twelve-inchers, if you know what I mean," Wopner leered.

  "You see what I have to endure," murmured St. John to Hatch.

  "Terribly, terribly sorry about that, old chap," Wopner replied in a travesty of an English accent. "Some people have no sense of humor," he told Hatch.

  "Ockham's success," St. John continued briskly, "became a liability. He didn't know how to bury such a large treasure. This wasn't a few hundredweight in gold coin that could be slipped quietly under a rock. That's where Macallan came in. And, indirectly, that's where we come in. Because Macallan kept his secret diary in code."

  He patted the books under his arm. "These are texts on cryptology," he said. "This one is Polygraphiae, by Johannes Trithemius, published in the late fifteen hundreds. It was the Western world's first treatise on codebreaking. And this one is Porta's De Furtivus Literarum Notis, a text all Elizabethan spies knew practically by heart. I've got half a dozen others, covering the state of the cryptographic art up to Macallan's time."

  "They sound worse than my second-year med school textbooks."

  "They're fascinating, actually," St. John said, a flush of enthusiasm briefly coloring his tone.

  "Was code writing common in those days?" Hatch asked curiously.

  St. John laughed, a kind of seal bark that gave his ruddy cheeks a brief jiggle. "Common? It was practically universal, one of the essential arts of diplomacy and war. Both the British and Spanish governments had departments that specialized in making and breaking ciphers. Even some pirates had crewmen who could crack codes. After all, ships papers included all kinds of interesting coded documents."

  "But coded how?"

  "They were usually nomenclators—long lists of word substitutions. For example, in a message, the word 'eagle' might be substituted for 'King George' and 'daffodils' for 'doubloons'—that sort of thing. Sometimes they included simple substitution alphabets, where a letter, number, or symbol replaced a letter of the alphabet, one for one."

  "And Macallan's code?"

  "The first part of the journal was written with a rather clever monophonic substitution code. The second—we're still working on that."

  "That's my department," said Wopner, pride and a trace of jealousy mixing in his voice. "It's all on the computer." He struck a key and a long string of gibberish appeared on the screen:

  AB3 RQB7 E50LA W IEW D8P OL QS9MN WX 4JR 2K WN 18N7 WPDO EKS N2T YX ER9 W DF3 DEI FK IE DF9F DFS K DK F6RE DF3 V3E IE4DI 2F 9GE DF W FEIB5 MLER BLK BV6 Fl PET BOP IBSDF K2LJ BVF EIO PUOER WB13 OPDJK LBL JKF

  "Here's the ciphertext of the first code," he said. "How did you break it?"

  "Oh, please. The letters of the English alphabet occur in fixed ratios, E being the commonest letter, X being the rarest. You create what we call a contact chart of the code symbols and letter pairs. Bang! The computer does the rest."

  St. John waved his hand dismissively. "Kerry is programming the computer attacks against the code, but I am supplying the historical data. Without the old cipher tables, the computer is hopeless. It only knows what's been programmed into it."

  Wopner turned around in his seat and stared at St. John. "Hopeless? Fact is, big mama here would have cracked that code without your precious cipher tables. It just would have taken a little longer, is all."

  "No longer than twenty monkeys typing at random might take to write King Lear," said St. John, with another brief bark of laughter.

  "Haw haw. No longer than one St. John typing with two fingers on that Royal shitwriter back there. Jeez, get a laptop. And a life." Wopner turned back to Hatch. "Well, to make a long story short, here's how it decoded."

  There was a flurry of keystrokes and the screen split, showing the code on one side and the plaintext on the other. Hatch looked at it eagerly.

  The 2nd of June, Anno D. 1696. The pirate Ockham hath taken our fleet, scuttled the ships, and butcherd every soull. Our man-of-war scandalously struck her colours without a fight and the captain went to his ende blubbering like a babe. I alone was spared, clapped in chaines and straightaway taken down to Ockham's cabin, where the blackguard drewe a saber against my person and said, Lete God build his owen damned church, I have ye a newe commission. And then he placed in front of me the articalls. Lete this journal bear witnesse before God that I refused to sign...

  "Amazing," breathed Hatch as he came to the end of the screen. "Can I read more?"

  "I'll print out a copy for you," said Wopner, hitting a key. A printer began humming somewhere in the darkened room.

  "Basically," said St. John, "the decrypted section of the journal covers Macallan's being taken prisoner, agreeing on pain of death to design the Water Pit, and finding the right island. Unfortunately, Macallan switches to a new code just when they began actual construction. We believe the rest of the journal consists of a description of the design and construction of the Pit itself. And, of course, the secret for getting to the treasure chamber."

  "Neidelman said the journal mentions St. Michael's Sword."

  "You bet it does," Wopner interrupted, hitting the keys. More text popped up:

  Ockham hath unburthened three of his ships in hopes of taking a prize along the coast. Today a long leaden coffin trimmed in golde came ashore with a dozen casks of Jewells. The corsairs say the coffin holds St. Michael's Sword, a costly treasure seized from a Spanish galleon and highly esteemd by the Captain, who swaggerd most shamefully, boasting that it was the greatest prize of the Indies. The Captain hath forbidden the opening of the casket, and it is guarded by day and night. The men are suspicious of each other, and constantly make stryfe. Were it not for the cruell discipline of the Captain, I feare every one would come to a bad end, and shortly.

  "And now here's what the second code looks like." Wopner tapped on the keys and the screen filled again:

  348345902345823944389234923409234098569023467890234905623490839342908639981234901284912340049490341208950986890734760578356849632409873507839045709234045895390456234826025698345875767087645073405934038909089080564504556034568903459873468907234589073908759087250872345903569659087302

  "The old boy got smart," Wopner said. "No more spaces, so we can't go by word shapes. All numbers, too, not a character to be seen. Just look at that fucker."

  St. John winced. "Kerry, must you use such language?"

  "Oh, I must, old thing, I must."

  St. John looked apologetically at Hatch.

  "So far," Wopner continued, "this puppy's resisted all of Chris's pretty little cipher tables. So I took the matter into my own hands and wrote a brute-force attack. It's running as we speak."

  "Brute-force attack?" Hatch asked.

  "You know. An algorithm that runs through a ciphertext, trying all patterns in the order of likelihood. It's just a matter of time."

  "A matter of a waste of time," St. John said. "I'm working up a new set of cipher tables from a Dutch book on cryptography. What's needed here is more historical research, not more CPU time. Macallan was a man of his age. He didn't invent this code out of thin air; there must be a historical precedent. We already know it's not a variant of the Shakespeare cipher, or the Rosicrucian cipher, but I'm convinced some lesser-known code in these books will give us the key that we need. It should be obvious to the meanest intelligence—"

  "Put a sock in it, willya?" Wopner said. "Face it, Chris old girl, no amount of hitting the history books is gonna break this code. This one's for the computer." He patted a nearby CPU. "We're gonna beat this puppy, right, big mama?" He swiveled around in his chair and opened what Hatch realized was a rack-mounted medical freezer normally used for storing tissue samples. He pulled out an ice-cream sandwich.

  "Anybody want a BigOne?" he asked, waving it around.

  "I'd as soon eat takeaway tandoori from a motor stop on the M-l," St. John replied with a disgusted expression.

  "You Brits should talk," Wopner mumbled through a mouthful of ice cream. "You put meat in your pies, for Chrissake." He brandished the sandwich
like a weapon. "You're looking at the perfect food here. Fat, protein, sugar, and carbohydrates. Did I mention fat? You could live on this stuff forever."

  "And he probably will, too," St. John said, turning to Hatch. "You should see how many cartons he has stored away in the ship's kitchen."

  Wopner frowned. "What, you think I could find enough BigOnes in this jerkwater town to satisfy my habit? Not likely. The skidmarks in my underwear are longer than the whole main street."

  "Perhaps you should see a proctologist about that," said Hatch, causing St. John to erupt in a string of grateful barks. The Englishman seemed glad to find an ally.

  "Feel free to take a crack, doc." Wopner stood up and, twitching his behind invitingly, made a gesture as if to drop his trousers.

  "I would, but I've got a weak stomach," said Hatch. "So you don't care for rural Maine?"

  "Kerry won't even take rooms in town," St. John said. "He prefers sleeping on board."

  "Believe you me," Wopner said, finishing the ice-cream sandwich, "I don't like boats any more than I like the damn hinterland. But there are things here I need. Electricity, for example. Running water. And AC. As in air-conditioning." He leaned forward, the anemic goatee quivering on his chin as if struggling to retain a foothold. "AC. Gotta have it."

  Hatch thought privately that it was probably a good thing Wopner, with his Brooklyn accent and flowered shirts, had little reason to visit the town. The moment he set foot in Stormhaven he would become an object of wonder, like the stuffed, two-headed calf brought out every year at the county fair. He decided it was time to change the subject. "This may sound like a stupid question. But what, exactly, is St. Michael's Sword?"

  There was an awkward silence.

  "Well, let's see," said St. John, pursing his lips. "I've always assumed it had a jeweled hilt, of course, with chased silver and parcel-gilt, perhaps a multifullered blade, that sort of thing."

  "But why would Ockham say it was the greatest prize in the Indies?"

  St. John looked a little flummoxed. "I hadn't really thought in those terms. I suppose I don't know, really. Perhaps it has some kind of spiritual or mythical significance. You know, like a Spanish Excalibur."

  "But if Ockham had as much treasure as you say, why would he place such an inordinate value on the sword?"

  St. John turned a pair of watery eyes on Hatch. "The truth is, Dr. Hatch, nothing in my documentation gives any indication of what St. Michael's Sword is. Only that it was a carefully guarded, deeply revered object. So I'm afraid I can't answer your question."

  "I know what it is," said Wopner with a grin.

  "What?" asked St. John, falling into the trap.

  "You know how men get, so long at sea, no women around, St. Michael's Sword..." he let the phrase fall off into a salacious silence, while a look of shock and disgust blossomed on St. John's face.

  Chapter 12

  Hatch opened the door on the far side of his parents' bedroom and stepped out onto the small porch beyond. It was only half past nine, but Stormhaven was already asleep. A delightful late summer breeze had gathered in the trees that framed the old house, cooling his cheek, teasing the hairs on the back of his neck. He placed two black folders on the weather-scarred rocker and stepped forward to the railing.

  Across the harbor, the town dropped away, a bracelet of lights, tumbling down the hill in streets and squares to the water. It was so still he could hear the pebbles grating in the surf, the clink of mast lines along the pier. A single pale bulb shone from above the front door of Bud's Superette. In the streets, cobbles shone with reflected moonlight. Farther away, the tall narrow form of Burnt Head Light blinked its warning from the head of the bluff.

  He had almost forgotten about this narrow second-story porch, tucked away under the front gable of the old Second Empire house. But now, from its railing, a host of memories crowded back. Playing poker with Johnny at midnight when his parents had gone to Bar Harbor to celebrate an anniversary, watching out for the lights of the returning car, feeling naughty and grown up at the same time. And later, looking down at the Northcutt house, waiting for a glimpse of Claire in her bedroom window.

  Claire. . .

  There was laughter, and a brief, quiet babble of voices. Hatch's eye came back to the present and traveled down to the town's bed-and-breakfast. A couple of Thalassa employees stepped inside, the parlor door closed, and all was silent again.

  His eyes made a leisurely stroll up the rows of buildings. The library, its red-brick facade a dusky rose in the cool nocturnal light. Bill Banns's house sprawling and sagging delightfully, one of the oldest in town. And at the top, the large, shingled house reserved for the Congregational minister, a study in shadow, the only example of stick-style architecture in the county.

  He lingered a moment longer, his gaze wandering out to sea and the veiled darkness where Ragged Island lay. Then, with a sigh, he returned to the chair, sat down, and picked up the black folders.

  First came the printout of the decrypted portion of Macallan's journal. As St. John had said, it described in terse terms the architect's capture and forced labor, designing a hiding place for Ockham's loot that would allow only the pirate to retrieve the gold. Macallan's contempt for the pirate captain, his dislike of the barbarous crew, his dismay at the rough and dissolute conditions, came through clearly in every line.

  The journal was brief, and he soon laid it aside, curious now about its second half and wondering how soon Wopner would have it cracked. Before Hatch left his cabin, the programmer had complained bitterly about having to do double duty as the computer technician. "Goddamn network setup, a job for plumbers, not programmers. But the Captain won't be happy until he whittles the crew down to just himself and Streeter. Security concerns, my left nut. Nobody's gonna steal the treasure. But you watch. By tomorrow, once the physical plant is in place, all the surveyors and assistant engineers will be gone. History."

  "Makes sense," Hatch had replied. "Why keep unnecessary staff around? Besides, I'd rather treat a bad case of necrifying madura foot than sit in a cabin like this, staring at a jumble of letters."

  Hatch remembered how Wopner's lip had curled in scorn. "Shows how much you know. A jumble of letters to you, maybe.

  Listen: On the other side of that jumble is the person who encrypted it, looking back, giving you the finger. It's the ultimate contest. You get his algorithm, you get his crown jewels. Maybe it's access to a credit card database. Or the firing sequences for a nuclear attack. Or the key to how a treasure is buried. There's no rush like cracking a code. Cryptanalysis is the only game worthy of a truly intelligent being. Which makes me feel mighty lonely in present company, believe you me."

  Hatch sighed, returning his attention to the black folders. The second contained the brief biography of Ockham, given him by St. John. Leaning back once again to let the moonlight catch the pages, he began to read.

  Chapter 13

  EXTRACT FOLLOWS

  Document Number: T14-A-41298

  Spool: 14049

  Logical Unit: LU-48

  Research associate: T. T. Ferrell

  Extract requested by: C. St. John

  COPY 001 OF 003

  This document is copyright by and trade secret to

  Thalassa Holdings, Inc.

  Unauthorized use is a tortious offense and a violation

  of the Virginia Penal Code.

  DO NOT DUPLICATE

  EDWARD OCKHAM SUMMARY BIOGRAPHY

  T. T. Ferrell, Thalassa—Shreveport

  Edward Ockham was born in 1662 in Cornwall, En- gland, the son of minor landed nobility. He was educated at Harrow and went on to spend two years at Balliol College, Oxford, before being sent down by the college dons for unspecified infractions.

  His family desired him to pursue a naval career, and in 1682 Ockham received his commission and shipped as a lieutenant with the Mediterranean fleet under Admiral Poynton. Rising quickly and distinguishing himself in several actions against the Spanish, he lef
t the navy to become captain of a privateer, having been granted a letter of marque from the British Admiralty.

  After a number of choice prizes, Ockham apparently decided that he no longer wished to share his spoils with the crown. Early in 1685 he took up slaving, running ships from Africa's Guinea Coast to Guadeloupe in the Windward Islands. After almost two years of profitable voyages, Ockham was trapped within a blockaded harbor by two ships of the line. As a diversion, Ockham set his ship afire and got away in a small cutter. Before escaping, however, he put all the slaves on deck to the sword. The rest of the four hundred slaves, shackled together in the hold, perished in the blaze. Documentary evidence attributes the nickname of "Red Ned" Ockham to this deed.

  Five of Ockham's crew were captured and returned to London, where they were hung at Execution Dock in Wapping. Ockham, however, escaped to the infamous pirate haven of Port Royal in the Caribbean, where he joined the "Brethren of the Coast" in 1687. [Cf. Thalassa document P6-B19-110292, Pirate Treasures of Port Royal (Reputed)]

  Over the next ten years, Ockham became known as the most ruthless, venal, and ambitious pirate operating in the waters off the New World. Many notorious pirate techniques—such as walking the plank, use of the skull and crossbones to strike fear into the hearts of adversaries, and rescate (ransoming of civilian prisoners)—can be traced to his innovations. When attacking towns or ships, he was quick to use torture on any and all in order to ascertain where plunder might be hidden. Imposing both physically and intellectually, Ockham was one of the few pirate captains to demand—and be granted—a much larger share of the spoils than his crew.