Riptide (13 page)

He paused. “We know what lessons can be learned from this. And I think we all know what our next duties must be. Tomorrow,
we begin preparations for dye-testing the Water Pit in order to locate the hidden flood tunnel to the sea. We’ll need to have
the primary computer systems up and running by that point. The hardbody sonar array, the seismometers, tomographic systems,
and the proton magnetometers must be assembled before work begins. The diving equipment should be inspected and ready to go
by fifteen hundred hours. Most importantly, I want the tandem pumps up and ready for testing by end of day.”

Neidelman glanced briefly at each in turn. “As my core team, each person at this table will receive a share in the treasure
instead of salary. You know that if we succeed, each of you will become enormously wealthy. That may not seem bad for four
weeks’ work, until you consider what happened to Ken Field. If any of you are contemplating leaving, now is the time to do
it. You’ll get the standard Thalassa compensation package, but no share. There will be no bad feelings, no questions asked.
But don’t come to me later, saying you’ve changed your mind. We’re seeing this through, no matter what. So speak now.”

The Captain turned to a cabinet and extracted an old briar pipe. He removed a tin of Dunhill tobacco from the cabinet, pinched
out a bowlful and placed it in the pipe, tamped it thoughtfully, and lit up with a wooden match. All this was done with deliberate
slowness, while the silence around the table deepened. Outside, the omnipresent Ragged Island mist had grown denser, curling
around the
Griffin
with an almost sensuous caress.

At last, the Captain looked back and spoke through a wreath of blue smoke. “Very good. Before we adjourn, I’d like to introduce
you all to the newest member of the expedition.” He glanced at Hatch. “Doctor, I was hoping to have you formally meet my senior
staff under more pleasant circumstances.” He took in the group with a sweep of his hand. “As most of you know, this is Malin
Hatch, owner of Ragged Island and partner in this operation. He will be our medical officer.”

Neidelman turned. “Dr. Hatch, this is Christopher St. John, the expedition’s historian.” He was the plump-faced man Hatch
had seen looking back at him from the launch two nights before. A shock of unruly gray hair topped his round head, and the
man’s rumpled tweed suit displayed the telltale traces of several breakfasts. “You’ll find him an expert on all areas of Elizabethan
and Stuart history, including piracy and the use of codes. And this”—Neidelman indicated the slovenly looking man in Bermuda
shorts, who was picking at his nails with a look of intense boredom, one leg thrown over an arm of the chair—“is Kerry Wopner,
our computer expert. Kerry is highly adept at network design and cryptanalysis.” He stared hard at the two men. “I don’t need
to tell you the paramount importance of cracking the second half of the journal, especially in light of this tragedy. Macallan
must not keep any more of his secrets from us.”

Neidelman continued around the table. “You met our team foreman, Lyle Streeter, yesterday. He’s been with me ever since our
days cruising the Mekong. And here”—he pointed to a small, severe, prickly looking woman in sensible clothes—“is Sandra Magnusen,
Thalassa’s chief engineer and remote sensing specialist. At the end of the table is Roger Rankin, our geologist.” He indicated
a broad, hirsute brute of a man who sat in a chair that looked two sizes too small for him. His eyes met Hatch’s, his blond
beard parted in a spontaneous grin, and he tipped two fingers to his forehead.

“Dr. Bonterre,” Neidelman continued, “our archaeologist and dive leader, has been delayed and should arrive late this evening.”
He paused a moment. “Unless there are any questions, that’s all. Thank you, and I’ll see you all again tomorrow morning.”

As the group broke up, Neidelman came around the table to Hatch. “I’ve kept a special team on the island, preparing the net
grid and the Base Camp,” he said. “Your medical area will be stocked and ready by dawn.”

“That’s a relief,” said Hatch.

“You’re probably eager for some more background on the project. This afternoon would be a good time. How about coming by the
Cerberus
around fourteen hundred hours?” A thin smile appeared on his lips. “Starting tomorrow, things are liable to get a little
busy around here.”

A
t 2:00
P.M.
precisely, the
Plain Jane
, moving slowly in the calm water, pulled free of the last tendrils of mist surrounding Ragged Island. Ahead, Hatch could see
the white outlines of the
Cerberus
riding at anchor, its long, sleek superstructure low in the water. Near the waterline, he made out a boarding hatch, with
the tall, thin shape of the Captain silhouetted within it, awaiting his arrival.

Cutting the throttle, Hatch angled in alongside the bulk of the
Cerberus
. It was cool and still under the vessel’s shadow.

“Quite a little boat you’ve got here,” Hatch called out as he came to a stop opposite the Captain. The ship dwarfed the
Plain Jane
.

“Biggest in Thalassa’s fleet,” Neidelman replied. “She’s basically a floating laboratory and back-office research station.
There’s only so much equipment we can off-load to the island. The big stuff—the electron microscopes and C14 particle accelerators,
for example—will stay on the ship.”

“I was curious about the harpoon gun up in the bows,” Hatch said. “Do you spear a blue whale every now and then, when the
deckhands get peckish?”

Neidelman grinned. “That betrays the ship’s origins, my friend. It was designed as a state-of-the-art whaler by a Norwegian
company about six years ago. Then the international ban on whaling happened, and the ship became a costly white elephant even
before it was fitted out. Thalassa got it for an excellent price. All the whaling davits and skinning machinery were removed,
but nobody ever got around to dismantling the harpoon gun.” He nodded over his shoulder. “Come on, let’s see what the boys
are up to.”

Hatch secured the
Plain Jane
to the side of the
Cerberus
, then ran the gangplank across to the ship’s boarding hatch. He followed Neidelman through the hatch and into a long, narrow
corridor, painted a light gray. The Captain led him past several empty laboratories and a wardroom, then stopped outside a
door marked
COMPUTER ROOM.

“We’ve got more computing power behind that door than a small university,” Neidelman said, a trace of pride in his voice.
“But it’s not just for number crunching. There’s also a navigational expert system and a neural-net autopilot. In emergencies,
the ship can practically run itself.”

“I was wondering where all the people were,” Hatch said.

“We keep only a skeleton crew on board. It’s the same with the rest of the vessels. It’s Thalassa’s philosophy to maintain
a fluid resource pool. If necessary, we could have a dozen scientists here tomorrow. Or a dozen ditchdiggers, for that matter.
But we try to operate with the smallest, ablest team possible.”

“Cost containment,” Hatch said jokingly. “Must make the Thalassa accountants happy.”

“Not only that,” Neidelman replied, quite seriously. “It makes sense from a security perspective. No point tempting fate.”

The Captain turned a corner and walked past a heavy metal door that was partially ajar. Glancing in, Hatch could make out
various pieces of lifesaving equipment attached to wall cleats. There was also a rack of shotguns and two smaller weapons
of shiny metal he couldn’t identify.

“What are those?” he asked, pointing to the stubby, fat-bellied devices. “They look like pint-sized vacuum cleaners.”

Neidelman glanced inside. “Fléchettes,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“A kind of nail gun. It shoots tiny, finned pieces of tungsten-carbide wire.”

“Sounds more painful than dangerous.”

Neidelman smiled thinly. “At five thousand rounds per minute, fired at speeds over three thousand feet per second, they’re
plenty dangerous.” He closed the door and tested the handle. “This room shouldn’t be left open. I’ll have to speak to Streeter
about it.”

“What the hell do you need them around for?” Hatch frowned.

“Remember, Malin, the
Cerberus
isn’t always in such friendly waters as rural Maine,” the Captain replied, ushering him down the corridor. “Often, we have
to work in shark-infested areas. When you’re face to face with a Great White, you’ll quickly come to appreciate what a fléchette
can do. Last year, in the Coral Sea, I saw one shred a shark from snout to tail in a second and a half.”

Hatch followed the Captain up a set of steps to the next deck. Neidelman paused for a moment outside an unmarked door, then
rapped loudly.

“I’m busy!” came a querulous voice.

Neidelman gave Hatch a knowing smile and eased open the door, revealing a dimly lit stateroom. Hatch followed the Captain
inside, tripped over something, and looked around, blinking, as his eyes became accustomed to the low light. He saw that the
far wall and its portholes were entirely covered by banks of rack-mounted electronic equipment: oscilloscopes, CPUs, and countless
pieces of dedicated electronics whose purpose Hatch couldn’t begin to guess. The floor was ankle-deep in crumpled papers,
dented soda cans, candy wrappers, dirty socks, and underwear. A ship’s cot set into one of the far walls was a whirlpool of
linen, its sheets strewn across mattress and floor alike. The smell of ozone and hot electronics filled the room, and the
only light came from numerous flickering screens. In the midst of the chaos sat the rumpled-looking figure in flowered shirt
and Bermuda shorts, his back to them, typing feverishly at a keyboard.

“Kerry, can you spare a minute?” Neidelman said. “I’ve got Dr. Hatch with me.”

Wopner turned away from the screen and blinked first at Neidelman, then Hatch. “It’s your party,” he said in a high, irritated
voice. “But you need everything else done, like, yesterday.” He pronounced the word
yestidday
. “I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours setting up the network and haven’t done jack shit with the code.”

Neidelman smiled indulgently. “I’m sure you and Dr. St. John can spare a few minutes for the expedition’s senior partner.”
He turned to Hatch. “You couldn’t tell from appearances, but Kerry is one of the most brilliant cryptana-lysts outside the
NSA.”

“Yeah, right,” said Wopner, but Hatch could see he was pleased by the compliment.

“Quite a rig you’ve got here,” Hatch said as he closed the door behind him. “Is that a CAT scan I see there on the left?”

“Very funny.” Wopner pushed his glasses up his nose and sniffed. “You think this is something? This is just the backup system.
They shipped the main rig off to the island yesterday morning. Now
that’s
something.”

“Are the on-line tests complete?” Neidelman asked.

“Doing the last series now,” Wopner replied, shaking a lock of greasy hair from his eyes and swiveling back to the monitor.

“A team’s completing the installation of the island network this afternoon,” Neidelman said to Hatch. “Like Kerry said, this
is the redundant system, an exact duplicate of the Ragged Island computer grid. Expensive way of doing things, but a real
time saver. Kerry, show him what I mean.”

“Yassuh.” Wopner tapped a few keys and a blank screen winked to life overhead. Hatch looked up to see a wireframe diagram
of Ragged Island appear on the screen, rotating slowly around a central axis.

“The backbone routers all have redundant mates.” A few more keystrokes, and a fine tracery of green lines was superimposed
on the rendering of the island. “Linked by fiberoptic cables to the central hub.”

Neidelman gestured at the screen. “Everything on the island—from the pumps, to the turbines, to the compressors, to the derricks—is
servo-linked into the network. We’ll be able to control anything on the island from the command center. One instruction, and
the pumps will fire up; another command will operate a winch; a third will turn off the lights in your office; and so forth.”

“What he said,” Wopner added. “Totally extensible, with thin OS layers on the remote clients. And everything’s tweaked up
the wazoo, believe you me, miniature data packets and all the rest. It’s a huge net—a thousand ports in one collision domain—but
there’s zero latency. You wouldn’t believe the ping time on this bad boy.”

“In English, please,” Hatch said. “I never learned to speak Nerd. Hey, what’s that?” He pointed to another screen, which showed
an overhead view of what appeared to be a medieval village. Small figures of knights and sorcerers were arrayed in various
attitudes of attack and defense.

“That’s
Sword of Blackthorne
. A role-playing game I designed. I’m dungeon master for three on-line games.” He stuck out his lower lip. “Got a problem
with that?”

“Not if the Captain doesn’t,” said Hatch, glancing at Nei-delman. It was clear that the Captain gave his subordinates a fair
amount of freedom. And it seemed to Hatch that—however unlikely—Neidelman was genuinely fond of this eccentric young man.

There was a loud beep, then a column of numbers scrolled up one of the screens.

“That’s it,” Wopner said, squinting at the data. “Scylla’s done.”

“Scylla?” Hatch asked.

“Yeah. Scylla is the system on board the ship. Charybdis is the one on the island.”

“Network testing’s finished,” Neidelman explained. “Once the island installation is complete, all we have to do is dump the
programming to Charybdis. Everything is tested here first, then downloaded to the island.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve
got some odds and ends to attend to. Kerry, I know Dr. Hatch would like to hear more about your and Dr. St. John’s work on
the Macallan codes. Malin, I’ll see you topside.” Neidelman left the stateroom, closing the door behind him.

Wopner returned to his manic typing, and for a minute Hatch wondered if the youth planned to ignore him completely. Then,
without looking away from the terminal, Wopner picked up a sneaker and hurled it against the far wall. This was followed by
a heavy paperback book entitled
Coding Network Subroutines in C++
.