Riptide (17 page)

They were approaching Base Camp, and as if on cue Hatch could hear Wopner’s querulous voice floating out of Island One. “You
woke me up because you had
a feeling?
I ran that program a hundred times on Scylla and it was perfect.
Perfect
. A simple program for simple people. All it does is run those stupid pumps.”

Magnusen’s answer was lost in the rumble of the
Naiad
’s engine as it slid into the slip at the end of the dock. Hatch ran to get his medical kit, then jumped aboard the powerful
twin-engine outboard. Beyond lay its sister, the
Grampus
, waiting to pick up Neidelman and assume its position on the far side of the island.

Hatch was sorry to see Streeter at the helm of the
Naiad
, expressionless and severe as a granite bust. He nodded and flashed what he hoped was a friendly smile, getting a curt nod
in return. Hatch wondered briefly if he had made an enemy, then dismissed the thought. Streeter seemed like a professional;
that was what counted. If he was still sore about what happened during the emergency, it was his problem.

Forward, in the half-cabin, two divers were checking their gear. The dye would not stay on the surface for long, and they’d
have to act quickly to find the underwater flood tunnel. The geologist, Rankin, was standing beside Streeter. On seeing Hatch
he grinned and strode over, crushing Hatch’s hand in a great hairy paw.

“Hey, Dr. Hatch!” he said, white teeth flashing through an enormous beard, his long brown hair plaited behind. “Man, this
is one fascinating island you’ve got.”

Hatch had already heard several variants of this remark from other Thalassa employees. “Well, I guess that’s why we’re all
here,” he answered with a smile.

“No, no. I mean
geologically
.”

“Really? I always thought it was like the others, just a big granite rock in the ocean.”

Rankin dug into a pocket of his rain vest and pulled out what looked like a handful of granola. “Hell, no.” He munched. “Granite?
It’s biotite schist, highly metamorphosed, checked, and faulted to an incredible degree. And with a drumlin on top. Wild,
man, just wild.”

“Drumlin?”

“A really weird kind of glacial hill, pointed at one side and tapered at the other. No one knows how they form, but if I didn’t
know better I’d say—”

“Divers, get ready,” came Neidelman’s voice over the radio. “All stations, check in, by the numbers.”

“Monitoring station, roger,” squawked the voice of Magnusen.

“Computer station, roger,” said Wopner, sounding bored and annoyed even over the radio.

“Spotter alpha, roger.”

“Spotter beta, roger.”

“Spotter gamma, roger.”

“Naiad
, roger,” Streeter spoke into the radio.

“Grampus
affirms,” came Neidelman’s voice. “Proceed to position.”

As the
Naiad
picked up speed beneath him, Hatch checked his watch: 8:20. The tide would turn shortly. As he stowed his medical kit, the
two divers came out of the cabin, laughing at some private joke. One was a man, tall and slender, with a black mustache. He
wore a wetsuit of thin neoprene so tight it left no anatomical feature to the imagination.

The other, a woman, turned and saw Hatch. A playful smile appeared on her lips. “Ah! You are the mysterious doctor?”

“I didn’t know I was mysterious,” said Hatch.

“But this is the dreaded Island of Dr. Hatch,
non?
” she said pointing, with a peal of laughter. “I hope you will not be hurt if I avoid your services.”

“I hope you avoid them too,” said Hatch, trying to think of something less inane to say. Drops of water glistened on her olive
skin, and her hazel eyes sparkled with little flecks of gold. She couldn’t be more than twenty-five, Hatch decided. Her accent
was exotic—French, with a touch of the islands thrown in.

“I am Isobel Bonterre,” she said, pulling off her neoprene glove and holding out her hand. Hatch took it. It was cool and
wet.

“What a hot hand you have!” she cried.

“The pleasure is mine,” Hatch replied belatedly.

“And you are the brilliant Harvard doctor that Gerard has been talking about,” she said, gazing into his face. “He likes you
very much, you know.”

Hatch found himself blushing. “Glad to hear it.” He had never really thought about whether Neidelman liked him, but he found
himself unaccountably pleased to hear it. He caught, just out of the corner of his eye, a glance of hatred from Streeter.

“I am glad you are aboard. It saves me the trouble of tracking you down.”

Hatch frowned his lack of understanding.

“I will be locating the old pirate encampment, excavating it.” She gave him a shrewd look. “You own this island,
non?
Where would you camp, if you had to spend three months on it?”

Hatch thought for a moment. “Originally, the island was heavily wooded in spruce and oak. I imagine they would have cut a
clearing on the leeward side of the island. On the shore, near where their boats were moored.”

“The lee shore? But would that not mean they could be seen from the mainland on clear days?”

“Well, I suppose so, yes. This coast was already settled in 1696, though sparsely.”

“And they would need to keep watch on the windward shore,
n’est-ce pas?
For any shipping that might chance on them.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Hatch said, secretly nettled.
If she knows all the answers, then why is she asking me?
“The main shipping route between Halifax and Boston went right past here, across the Gulf of Maine.” He paused. “But if this
coast was settled, how would they have hidden nine ships?”

“I too thought of that question. There is a very deep harbor two miles up the coast, shielded by an island.”

“Black Harbor,” said Hatch.

“Exactement.”

“That makes sense,” Hatch replied. “Black Harbor wasn’t settled until the mid seventeen hundreds. The work crew and Macallan
could have lived on the island, while the ships sheltered unseen in the harbor.”

“The windward side, then!” Bonterre said. “You’ve been most helpful. Now I must get ready.” Any lingering annoyance Hatch
felt melted away under the archaeologist’s dazzling smile. She balled up her hair and slid the hood over it, then donned her
mask. The other diver sidled over to adjust her tanks, introducing himself as Sergio Scopatti.

Bonterre glanced up and down the man’s suit appraisingly, as if seeing it for the first time.
“Grande merde du noir,”
she muttered fervently. “I did not know Speedo made wetsuits.”

“Italians make everything fashionable,” Scopatti laughed. “And
molto svelta
.”

“How’s my video working?” Bonterre called over her shoulder to Streeter, tapping a small camera mounted on her mask.

Streeter ran his hand down a bank of switches and a video screen popped to life on the control console, showing the jiggling,
grinning face of Scopatti.

“Look somewhere else,” said Scopatti to Bonterre, “or you’ll break your camera.”

“I shall look at the doctor then,” said Bonterre, and Hatch saw his own face appear on the screen.

“That wouldn’t just break the camera, it would implode the lens,” Hatch said, wondering why this woman kept him at a loss
for words.

“Next time,
I
get the comm set,” said Scopatti, in a joking whine.

“Never,” said Bonterre. “I am the famous archaeologist. You are just cheap hired Italian labor.”

Scopatti grinned, not at all put out.

Neidelman’s voice broke in: “Five minutes to the turn of the tide. Is the
Naiad
in position?”

Streeter acknowledged.

“Mr. Wopner, is the program running properly?”

“No problemo, Captain,” came the nasal voice over the channel. “Running fine now. Now that I’m here, I mean.”

“Understood. Dr. Magnusen?”

“The pumps are primed and ready to go, Captain. The crew reports that the dye bomb is suspended over the Water Pit, and the
remote’s in place.”

“Excellent. Dr. Magnusen, you’ll drop the bomb on my signal.”

The people on the
Naiad
fell silent. A pair of guillemots whirred past, flying just above the surface of the water. On the far side of the island,
Hatch could make out the
Grampus
, riding the even swell just beyond the ledges. The air of excitement, of something about to happen, increased.

“Mean high tide,” came Neidelman’s quiet voice. “Start the pumps.”

The throb of the pumps came rumbling across the water. As if in response, the island groaned and coughed with the reversal
of the tide. Hatch shuddered involuntarily; if there was one thing that still gave him a shiver of horror, it was that sound.

“Pumps at ten,” came Magnusen’s voice.

“Keep it steady. Mr. Wopner?”

“Charybdis responding normally, Captain. All systems within normal tolerances.”

“Very well,” said Neidelman. “Let’s proceed.
Naiad
, are you ready?”

“Affirmative,” said Streeter into the mike.

“Hold steady and keep an eye out for the spot where the dye appears. Spotters ready?”

There was another chorus
of ayes
. Looking toward the island, Hatch could see several teams ranged along the bluffs with binoculars.

“First one who spots the dye gets a bonus. All right, release the dye bomb.”

There was a momentary silence, then a faint
crump
sounded from the vicinity of the Water Pit.

“Dye released,” said Magnusen.

All hands peered across the gently undulating surface of the ocean. The water had a dark, almost black, color, but there was
no wind and only the faintest chop, making conditions ideal. Despite the growing rip current, Streeter kept the boat stationary
with an expert handling of the throttles. A minute passed, and another, the only sound the throb of the pumps pouring sea-water
into the Water Pit, driving the dye down into the heart of the island and out to sea. Bonterre and Scopatti waited in the
stern, silent and alert.

“Dye at twenty-two degrees,”
came the urgent voice of one of the spotters on the island.
“One hundred forty feet offshore.”

“Naiad
, that’s your quadrant,” said Neidelman. “The
Grampus
will come over to assist. Well done!” A small cheer erupted over the frequency.

That’s the spot I saw the whirlpool
, Hatch thought.

Streeter swung the boat around, gunning the engine, and in a moment Hatch could see a light spot on the ocean about three
hundred yards away. Both Bonterre and Sergio had their masks and regulators in place and were already at the gunwales, bolt
guns in their hands and buoys at their belts, ready to go over the side.

“Dye at 297 degrees, one hundred feet offshore,”
came the voice of another spotter, cutting through the cheering.

“What?” came Neidelman’s voice. “You mean to say that dye is appearing in
another
place?”

“Affirmative, Captain.”

There was a moment of shocked silence. “Looks like we’ve got two flood tunnels to seal,” said Neidelman. “The
Grampus
will mark the second. Let’s go.”

The
Naiad
was closing in on the swirl of yellow dye breaking the surface just inside the reefs. Streeter cut the throttle and sent
the boat in a circling idle as the divers went over the side. Hatch turned eagerly to the screens, shoulder-to-shoulder with
Rankin. At first the video image consisted only of clouds of yellow dye. Then the picture cleared. A large, rough crack appeared
at the murky bottom of the reef, dye jetting out of it like smoke.

“Le voilà!”
came Bonterre’s excited voice over the comm channel. The image jiggled wildly as she swam toward the crack, shot a small
explosive bolt into the rock nearby, and attached an inflatable buoy. It bobbed upward and Hatch looked over the rail in time
to see it surface, a small solar cell and antenna bobbing at its top. “Marked!” said Bonterre. “Preparing to set charges.”

“Look at that,” breathed Rankin, swiveling his gaze from the video to the sonar and back again. “A radiating fault pattern.
All they had to do was tunnel along existing fractures in the rock. Still, incredibly advanced for seventeenth-century construction—”

“Dye at five degrees, ninety feet offshore,”
came another call.

“Are you certain?” Disbelief mixed with uncertainty in Neidelman’s voice. “Okay, we’ve got a third tunnel.
Naiad
, it’s yours. Spotters, for God’s sake keep your scopes trained in case the dye spreads before we can get to it.”

“More dye! Three hundred thirty-two degrees, seventy feet offshore.”

And then the first voice again:
“Dye appearing at eighty-five degrees, I repeat, eighty-five degrees, forty feet offshore."

“We’ll take the one at 332,” said Neidelman, a strange tone creeping into his voice. “Just how many tunnels did this bloody
architect build? Streeter, that makes two for you to deal with. Get your divers up as soon as possible. Just mark the exits
for now and we’ll set the plastique later. We’ve only got five minutes before that dye dissipates.”

In another moment Bonterre and Scopatti were up and in the boat, and without a word Streeter spun the wheel and took off at
a roar. Now Hatch could see another cloud of yellow dye boiling to the surface. The boat circled as Bonterre and Scopatti
went over the side. Soon another buoy had popped up; the divers emerged, and the
Naiad
moved to the spot where the third cloud of dye was appearing. Again Bonterre and Scopatti went over the side, and Hatch turned
his attention to the video screen.

Scopatti swam ahead, his form visible on Bonterre’s headset, a ghostly figure among the billowing clouds of dye. They were
already deeper than at any point on the first two dives. Suddenly, the jagged rocks at the bottom of the reef became visible,
along with a square opening, much larger than the others, through which the last tendrils of dye were now drifting.