Riptide

by Douglas Preston

  He gazed down toward the harbor, where a few vessels from the protest flotilla were already returning: smaller boats, and the million-dollar craft of the more cautious trawler captains.

  Closer to home, movement caught his eye: he turned to see the familiar stubby form of a Federal Express van nosing into the lane, wildly out of place as it bumped down the old cobbles. It stopped in front of his house, and Hatch came down the steps to sign for the package.

  He stepped back into the house, tearing open the box and eagerly removing the thick plastic packet inside. Professor Horn and Bonterre, standing beside one of the pirate skeletons, stopped talking when they saw the package.

  "Straight from the Smithsonian's Phys Anthro lab," Hatch said as he broke the plastic seal. Pulling out the bulky computer printout within, he laid it on the table and began flipping pages. There was a heavy silence as they leaned over the results, disappointment palpable in the air. Finally Hatch sighed and flung himself into a nearby chair. The professor shuffled over, eased himself down opposite Hatch, rested his chin on his cane, and eyed Hatch meditatively.

  "Not what you were looking for, I take it?" he asked.

  "No," Hatch said, shaking his head. "Not at all."

  The professor's brows contracted. "Malin, you were always too hasty to accept defeat."

  Bonterre picked up the printout and began flipping through it. "I can not make foot or head of this medical jargon," she said. "What are all these horrible-sounding diseases?"

  Hatch sighed. "A couple of days back, I sent off bone sections from these two skeletons to the Smithsonian. I also included a random sampling from a dozen of the skeletons you uncovered in the dig."

  "Checking for disease," Professor Horn said.

  "Yes. As more and more of our people began to get sick, I began to wonder about that mass pirate grave. I thought the skeletons might be useful in my examination. If a person dies of a disease, he usually dies with a large number of antibodies to that disease in his body."

  "Or her body," said Bonterre. "Remember, there were three ladies in that grave."

  "Large labs like the Smithsonian's can test old bone for small amounts of those antibodies, learn exactly what disease the person might have died from." Hatch paused. "Something about Ragged Island—then and now—makes people sick. The most likely candidate to me seemed the sword. I figured that, somehow, it was a carrier of disease. Everywhere it went, people died." He picked up the printout. "But according to these tests, no two pirates died of the same illness. Klebsiclla, Bruniere's disease, Dentritic mycosis, Tahitian tick fever—they died of a whole suite of diseases, some of them extremely rare. And in almost half the cases, the cause is unknown."

  He grabbed a sheaf of papers from an end table. "It's just as mystifying as the CBC results on the patients I've been seeing the last couple of days." He passed the top sheet to Professor Horn.

  COMPLETE BLOOD COUNT

  TEST NAME RESULTS UMTS

  ABNORMAL NORMAL

  WBC S.50 THOUS/CU.MM.

  RBC 4.02 MIL/CU.MM.

  HGB 14.4 GM/DL

  HCT 41.2 PERCENT

  MCV 81.2 PL

  MCH 34.1 PG

  MCHC 30 PERCENT

  RDW 14.7 PERCENT

  MPV 8 FL

  PLATELET COUNT 75 THOUS/CU.MM.

  DIFFERENTIAL

  POLY 900 CU.MM.

  LYMPH 600 CU.MM.

  MONO 10 CU.MM.

  EOS .30 CU.MM.

  BASO .30 CU.MM.

  "The blood work's always abnormal, but in different ways with each person. The only similarity is the low white blood cells. Look at this one. Two point five thousand cells per cubic millimeter. Five to ten thousand is normal. And the lymphocytes, monocytes, basophils, all way down. Jesus."

  He dropped the sheet and walked away, sighing bitterly. "This was my last chance to stop Neidelman. If there was an obvious outbreak, or some kind of viral vector on the island, maybe I could have persuaded him or used my medical connections to quarantine the place. But there's no epidemiological pattern among the illnesses, past or present."

  There was a long silence. "What about the legal route?" Bonterre asked.

  "I spoke to my lawyer. He tells me it's a simple breach of contract. To stop Neidelman, I'd have to get an injunction." Hatch looked at his watch. "And we don't have weeks. At the rate they're digging, we've only got a few hours."

  "Can't he be arrested for trespassing?" Bonterre asked.

  "Technically, he's not trespassing. The contract gives him and Thalassa permission to be on the island."

  "I can understand your concern," the professor said, "but not your conclusion. How could the sword itself be dangerous? Short of getting sliced open by its blade, I mean."

  Hatch looked at him. "It's hard to explain. As a diagnostician, sometimes you develop a sixth sense. That's what I feel now. A sense, a conviction, that this sword is a carrier of some kind. We keep hearing about the Ragged Island curse. Maybe this sword is something like that, only with a real-world explanation."

  "Why have you discarded the idea of it being a real curse?"

  Hatch looked at him in disbelief. "You're joking, right?"

  "We live in a strange universe, Malin."

  "Not that strange."

  "All I'm asking is that you think the unthinkable. Look for the connection."

  Hatch walked to the living room window. The wind was blowing back the leaves of the oak tree in the meadow. Drops of rain had begun to fall. More boats were crowding into the harbor; several smaller craft were at the ramp, waiting to be hauled out. The whitecaps flecked the bay as far as the eyes could see, and as the tide began to ebb a nasty cross-sea was developing.

  He sighed and turned. "I can't see it. What could streptococcal pneumonia and, say, candidiasis, have in common?"

  The professor pursed his lips. "Back in 1981 or '82, I remember reading a similar comment made by an epidemiologist at the National Institutes of Health."

  "And what was that?"

  "He asked what Kaposi's sarcoma and Pneumocystis carinii could possibly have in common."

  Hatch turned sharply. "Look, this couldn't possibly be HIV." Then—before the professor had gathered himself for an acerbic reply—Hatch realized what the old man was getting at. "HIV kills by exhausting the human immune system," he went on. "Letting in a host of opportunistic diseases."

  "Exactly. You have to filter out the pestilential noise, so to speak, and see what's left."

  "So maybe we're looking for something that degrades the human immune system."

  "I did not know we had so many sick on the island," Bonterre said. "None of my people are ill."

  Hatch turned toward her. "None?"

  Bonterre shook her head.

  "There. You see?" Dr. Horn smiled and rapped his cane on the floor. "You asked for a common thread. Now you have several leads to follow."

  He stood up and took Bonterre's hand. "It was very charming to meet you, mademoiselle, and I wish I could stay. But it's coming on to blow and I want to get home to my sherry, slippers, dog, and fire."

  As the professor reached for his coat, there came the sound of heavy footsteps hurrying across the porch. The door was flung open in a gust of wind, and there was Donny Truitt, his slicker flapping open and rain running down his face in thick rivulets.

  A flash of fire tore the sky, and the heavy boom of thunder echoed across the bay.

  "Donny?" Hatch asked.

  Truitt reached down to his damp shirt, tearing it open with both hands. Hatch heard the professor draw in a sharp breath.

  "Grande merde du noir," Bonterre whispered.

  Truitt's armpits were spotted with large, weeping lesions. Rainwater ran from them, tinged pinkish-green. Truitt's eyes were puffy, the bags beneath blue-black. There was another flash of lightning, and in the dying echo of thunder Truitt cried out. He took a staggering step forward, pulling the sou'wester from his head as he did so.

  For a moment, all inside the house
were paralyzed. Then Hatch and Bonterre caught Truitt's arm and eased him toward the living room sofa.

  "Help me, Mal," Truitt gasped, grabbing his head with both hands. "I've never been sick a day in my life."

  "I'll help," said Hatch. "But you need to lie down and let me examine your chest."

  "Forget my damn chest," Donny gasped. "I'm talking about this!"

  And as he jerked his head away from his hands with a convulsive movement, Hatch could see, with cold horror, that each hand now held a mat of thick, carrot-colored hair.

  Chapter 43

  Clay stood at the stern rail of his single-diesel dragger, the megaphone upended in the fore cabin, drenched and useless, shorted out by the rain. He and the six remaining protestors had taken temporary shelter in the lee of the largest Thalassa ship—a ship they had originally tried to blockade.

  Clay was wet to the bone, but a feeling of loss—of bitter, hollow loss—penetrated far deeper than the damp. The large ship, the Cerberus, was inexplicably vacant. Either that, or the people on board had orders not to show themselves: despite boat horns and shouts, not a single figure had come on deck. Perhaps it had been a mistake, he thought miserably, to target the largest ship. Perhaps they should have headed for the island itself and blockaded the piers. That, at least, was tenanted: about two hours before, a series of launches had left the island, loaded with passengers, angling directly away from the protest flotilla toward Stormhaven at high speed.

  He looked toward the remnants of his protest flotilla. When they had left the harbor that morning, he'd felt empowered with the spirit: as full of conviction as he'd ever felt as a young man, maybe more. He had been certain that, finally, things would be different for him and the town. He could do something at last, make a difference to these good people. But as he gazed about at the six bedraggled boats heaving in the swell, he admitted to himself that the protest, like everything else he had tried to do in Stormhaven, seemed doomed to failure.

  The head of the Lobsterman's Co-op, Lemuel Smith, threw out his fenders and brought his boat alongside Clay's. The two craft heaved and bumped against each other as the rain lashed the sea around them. Clay leaned over the gunwale. His hair was plastered to his angular skull, giving his already severe appearance a death's-head cast.

  "It's time to head in, Reverend," the lobsterman shouted, grasping the side of his boat. "This is going to be one humdinger of a storm. Maybe when the mackerel run's over we can try again."

  "By then it'll be too late," Clay cried over the wind and rain. "The damage will be done."

  "We made our point," said the lobsterman.

  "Lem, it's not about making a point," said Clay. "I'm cold and wet, just like you. But we have to make this sacrifice. We have to stop them."

  The lobsterman shook his head. "We're not going to stop them in this weather, Reverend. Anyway, this little Nor'easter may do the job for us." Smith turned a weather eye upward and scanned the sky, then turned to the distant land, a mere ghost of blue vanishing into the driving rain. "I can't afford to lose my boat."

  Clay fell silent. I can't afford to lose my boat. That was it in a nutshell. They didn't see that some things were more important than boats or money. And perhaps they never would see. He felt a strange tight sensation around his eyes and realized, vaguely, that he was crying. No matter; two more tears in an ocean. "I wouldn't want to be responsible for anybody losing his boat," he managed to say, turning away. "You go on back, Lem. I'm going to stay."

  The lobsterman hesitated. "I'd sure feel better if you came in now. You can fight them another day, but you can't fight the ocean."

  Clay waved his hand. "Maybe I'll land on the island, talk to Neidelman myself..." He stopped, hiding his face as he pretended to busy himself about the boat.

  Smith gazed at him for a moment with creased, worried eyes. Clay wasn't much of a seaman. But telling a man what to do with his boat was an unforgivable offense. Besides, Smith could see something in the Reverend's face, a sudden uncaring recklessness, that told him anything he said would be useless.

  He slapped the gunwale of Clay's boat. "I guess we'd better shove off, then. I'll be monitoring the ten point five channel, case you need help."

  Clay hugged the lee of the Cerberus, engine idling, and stared as the remaining boats headed into the heaving sea, the sound of their diesels rising and falling on the wind. He pulled his slicker tighter and tried to hold himself steady against the deck. Twenty yards away, the curving white hull of the Cerberus rose up, rock solid in the water, the swell sliding noiselessly past.

  Clay mechanically checked his boat. The bilge pumps were running smoothly, jetting fine streams of water over the side; the engine was purring nicely, and he still had plenty of diesel fuel. Now that it had come to this—now that he was alone, the Almighty his sole companion—he felt an odd sense of comfort. Perhaps it was a sin of presumption to expect so much from the people of Stormhaven. He couldn't rely on them, but he could rely on himself.

  He would wait a little before heading toward Ragged Island. He had boat and time enough. All the time in the world.

  He watched the remains of the fleet head back toward Stormhaven harbor, his arms braced hard upon the helm. Soon, they were nothing but distant, ghostly shapes against a sodden background of gray.

  He did not see the Thalassa launch that pulled away from the island, pitching and yawing, the outboard cavitating with each plunge as it struggled toward the boarding hatch on the far side of the Cerberus.

  Chapter 44

  Donny Truitt lay on the sofa, breathing more calmly now that the one-milligram IM dose of lorazepam had started to take effect. He stared at the ceiling, blinking patiently, while Hatch examined him. Bonterre and the professor had retreated to the kitchen, where they were talking in hushed tones.

  "Donny, listen to me," Hatch said. "When did the symptoms begin to show?"

  "About a week ago," Truitt replied miserably. "I didn't think anything of it. I started waking up nauseated. Lost my breakfast a couple of times. Then this rash thing appeared on my chest."

  "What did it look like?"

  "Red splotches at first. Then it got kind of bumpy. My neck started to hurt, too. On the sides, like. And I started noticing hair in my comb. First just a little, but now it's like I could pull it all out. But there's never been a touch of baldness in my family; we've always been buried with a full head of hair. Honest to God, Mally, I don't know how my wife'd take it if I went bald."

  "Don't worry. It's not male pattern baldness. Once we figure out what's wrong and take care of it, it'll grow back."

  "I sure as hell hope so," said Truitt. "I got off the midnight shift last night and went straight to bed, but I only felt worse in the morning. Never been to a doctor before. But I thought, hell, you're a friend, right? It wasn't like going to a clinic or something,"

  "Anything else I should know about?" Hatch asked.

  Donny grew suddenly embarrassed. "Well, my—it kind of hurts around my hind end. There's sores back there, or something."

  "Roll to one side," Hatch said. "I'll take a look."

  A few minutes later, Hatch sat by himself in the dining room. He had called an ambulance from the hospital, but it would take at least another fifteen minutes to arrive. And then there would be the problem of getting Donny into it. A rural Mainer, Truitt had a horror of going to the doctor, and an even greater horror of the hospital.

  Some of his symptoms were similar to what other crew members had complained of: apathy, nausea. But, as with the others, there were symptoms Donny presented that were maddeningly unique. Hatch reached for his battered copy of the Merck manual. A few minutes of study gave him a depressingly easy working diagnosis: Donny was suffering from chronic granulomatous disease. The widespread granular lesions of the skin, the suppurative lymph nodes, the all-too-obviously painful perianal abscesses made diagnosis almost unavoidable. But CGD is usually inherited, Hatch thought to himself. An inability of the white blood cells to kill bacteria
. Why would it be showing up only now?

  Putting the book down, he walked back into the living room. "Donny," he said, "let me take another look at your scalp. I want to see if the hair is coming out in clean patches."

  "Any cleaner, and I'd be Yul Brynner." Truitt touched his head with his hand, gingerly, and as he did so Hatch noticed an ugly cut he hadn't seen before.

  "Lower your hand a moment." He rolled up Truitt's sleeve and examined the man's wrist. "What's this?"

  "Nothing. Just a scratch I got in the Pit."

  "It needs to be cleaned." Hatch reached for his bag, rummaged inside, irrigated the cut with saline solution and Betadine, then smeared on some topical antibacterial ointment. "How did this happen?"

  "Got cut by a sharp edge of titanium, setting that fancy ladder thing into the Pit."

  Hatch looked up, startled. "That was over a week ago. This wound looks fresh."

  "Don't I know it. Damn thing keeps opening up. The missus puts liniment on it every night, I swear."

  Hatch took a closer look at it. "Not infected," he said. Then: "How are your teeth?"

  "Funny you should mention it. Just the other day, I noticed one of my buck teeth was a bit loose. Getting old, I guess."

  Hair loss, tooth loss, cessation of the healing process. Just like the pirates. The pirates had other, unrelated diseases. But they all had those three things in common. As did some of the digging crew.

  Hatch shook his head. They were all classic symptoms of scurvy. But all the other exotic symptoms made scurvy impossible. And yet something about it all was damnably familiar. Like the professor said, forget the other diseases, subtract them all, and see what's left. Abnormal white blood cell count. Hair loss, tooth loss, cessation of the healing process, nausea, weakness, apathy. . .