Riptide (37 page)

“That’s incredible,” she said.

“Yes, it is.”

“Then why aren’t you more excited?”

Hatch paused. “Is it that obvious?” he laughed quietly. “Despite everything that’s happened, I guess there are times when
I still feel a little ambivalent about the whole project. Gold, or the lure of gold, does strange things to people. I’m no
exception. I keep telling myself this is all about finding out what happened to Johnny. I’d planned to put my share into a
foundation in his memory. But every now and then I catch myself thinking about what I could do with all that money.”

“That’s only natural, Malin.”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t make me feel any better about it. Your Reverend gave all his away, remember?” He sighed. “Maybe he’s
a little bit right about me, after all. Anyway, he doesn’t seem to have caused much damage with his opposition.”

“You’re wrong about that.” Claire looked at him. “You know about the sermon last Sunday?”

“I heard something about it.”

“He read a passage out of Revelation. It had a huge effect on the fishermen. And did you hear he brought out the Curse Stone?”

Hatch frowned. “No.”

“He said the treasure was worth two billion. That you’d lied, telling him it was worth much less. Did you lie to him, Malin?”

“I—” Hatch stopped, uncertain of whether to feel more angry at Clay or at himself. “I guess I got defensive, the way he cornered
me at the lobster festival like that. So, yes, I lowballed the number. I didn’t want to arm him with more information than
necessary.”

“Well, he’s armed now. The haul is down this year, and in the minds of the fishermen he’s linked that to the dig. He really
was able to split the town over this one. He’s finally found the issue he’s been looking for these twenty years.”

“Claire, the haul is down
every
year. They’ve been over-fishing and overlobstering for half a century.”

“You know that, and I know that. But now they’ve got something to blame it on. Malin, they’re planning some kind of protest.”

Hatch looked at her.

“I don’t know the details. But I’ve never seen Woody so charged up, not since we were first married. It’s all come together
over the last day or two. He’s gotten the fishermen and lobstermen together, and they’re planning something big.”

“Can you find out more?”

Claire fell silent, looking at the ground. “I’ve told you this much,” she said after a moment. “Don’t ask me to spy on my
husband.”

“I’m sorry,” Hatch said. “I didn’t mean that. You know that’s the last thing I’d want.”

Suddenly, Claire hid her face in her hands. “You don’t understand,” she cried. “Oh, Malin, if only I
could ...
” Her shoulders sagged as she began to sob.

Gently, Malin pulled her head to his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m acting like such a child.”

“Shhh,” Malin whispered quietly, patting her shoulders. As her sobs died away, he smelled the fresh apple scent of her hair,
felt the moistness of her breath through his shirt. Her cheek was smooth against his and as she mumbled something indistinct
he felt the hot trickle of a tear touch his lips. His tongue came forward to it. As she turned toward him he pulled his head
back just enough to let his lips graze hers. He kissed her lightly, feeling the smooth line of her lips, sensing the looseness
in her jaw. He kissed her again, tentatively, then a little harder. And then, suddenly, their mouths were locked together
and her hands were tangled in his hair. The strange noise of the surf, the warmth of the glade, seemed to recede into nothingness.
The world was instantly bounded by themselves. His heart raced as he slid his tongue into her mouth and she sucked on it.
Her hands were clutching his shoulder blades now, digging into his shirt. Dimly, he was aware that, as kids, they had never
kissed with this kind of abandon.
Or was it just that we didn’t know how?
He leaned toward her hungrily, one hand gently teasing the fine hairs of her neck while the other slid almost involuntarily
down the curve of her blouse, to her waist, to her loosening knees. A moan escaped her lips as her legs parted. He felt the
narrow line of sweat that creased the inside of her knee. The apple-heavy air became tinged with a scent of musk.

Suddenly she pulled away from him. “No, Malin,” she said huskily, clambering to her feet and brushing at her dress.

“Claire—” he began, reaching out one hand. But she had already turned away.

He watched her stumble back up the path, disappearing almost immediately into the green fastness of the glen. His heart was
pounding, and an uncomfortable mixture of lust, guilt, and adrenaline coursed through his veins. An affair with the minister’s
wife: Stormhaven would never tolerate it. He’d just done one of the stupidest things he had ever managed to do in his life.
It was a mistake, a foolish lapse of judgment—yet as he rose to his feet and moved slowly down a different path, he found
his hot imagination turning to what would have happened if she had not pulled herself away.

E
arly the next morning, Hatch jogged up the short path toward Base Camp and opened the door to St. John’s office. To his surprise,
the historian was already there, his aged typewriter pushed to one side, a half dozen books open before him.

“I didn’t think I’d find you here so early,” Hatch said. “I was planning to leave you a note asking you to stop by the medical
hut.”

The Englishman sat back, rubbing weary eyes with plump fingers. “Actually, I wanted a word with you anyway. I’ve made an interesting
discovery.”

“So have I.” Wordlessly, Hatch held out a large sheaf of yellowed pages, stuffed into several folders. Making space on his
cluttered desk, St. John spread the folders in front of him. Gradually, the tired look on his face fell away. In the act of
picking up an old sheet of parchment, he looked up.

“Where did you get these?” he asked.

“They were hidden in an old armoire in my attic. They’re records from my grandfather’s own research. I recognize his handwriting
on some of the sheets. He became obsessed with the treasure, you know, and it ruined him. My father burned most of the records
after my grandfather’s death, but I guess he missed these.”

St. John turned back to the parchment. “Extraordinary,” he murmured. “Some of these even escaped our researchers at the
Archivos de los Indios
in Seville.”

“My Spanish is a little rusty, so I wasn’t able to translate everything. But this was the thing I found most interesting.”
Hatch pointed to a folder marked
Archivos de la Ciudad de Cádiz.
Inside was a dark, blurry photograph of an original manuscript, much soiled by handling.

“Let’s see,” St. John began.
“Records from the Court of Cádiz, 1661 to 1700. Octavo 16.
Hmm.
Throughout the reign of the Holy Roman Emperor Carolus II—
in other words Charles II
—we were sorely troubled by pirates. In 1690 alone, the Royal Plate Fleet—or
the silver fleet, although the Flota de Plata also carried a great deal of gold…”

“Go on.”

“…
Was seized and plundered by the heathen pirate, Edward Ockham, at a cost to the crown of ninety million reales. He became
our greatest plague, a pestilence sent by the very devil himself. At length, upon much debate, privy counselors allowed us
to wield St. Michael’s Sword, our greatest, most secret, and most terrible treasure. In nomine patre, may God have mercy on
our souls for doing so.”

St. John put the folder down, his brow furrowed in interest. “What does this mean,
our greatest, most secret, and most terrible treasure?”

“No idea. Maybe they thought the sword had magical properties. That it would scare away Ockham. Some kind of Spanish Excalibur.”

“Unlikely. The world was poised at the Age of Enlightenment, remember, and Spain was one of the most civilized countries in
Europe. Surely the emperor’s privy counselors would not have believed a medieval superstition, let alone hung a matter of
state on it.”

“Unless the sword was truly cursed,” Hatch murmured facetiously, widening his eyes dramatically.

St. John did not smile. “Have you shown these to Captain Neidelman yet?”

“No. Actually, I was thinking of e-mailing the transcriptions to an old friend who lives in Cádiz. Marquesa Hermione Concha
de Hohenzollern.”

“Marquesa?” St. John asked.

Hatch smiled. “You wouldn’t know it to look at her. But she loves to bore you with her long and distinguished pedigree. I
met her when I was involved with
Médecins sans Frontières.
She’s very eccentric, almost eighty but a topnotch researcher, reads every European language and many dialects and archaic
forms.”

“Perhaps you’re right to look outside for assistance,” St. John said. “The Captain’s so involved with the Water Pit I doubt
he’d spare the time to look at this. You know, he came to me yesterday after the insurance adjustor left, asking me to compare
the depth and width of the Pit to various cathedral spires. Then he wanted to sketch out more bracing that could act as the
internal support system of a cathedral, recreating the stresses and loads of Macallan’s original spire. Essentially, defuse
the Pit.”

“So I understand. Sounds like a hell of a job.”

“The actual construction won’t be very involved,” St. John said. “It was the background research that was so complex.” He
spread his hands at the flurry of books. “It took me the rest of the day and all night just to sketch things out.”

“You’d better rack out for a while, then. I’m headed down to Stores to pick up Macallan’s second journal. Thanks for your
help with the translation.” Hatch gathered the folders and turned to go.

“Just a moment!” St. John said.

As Hatch looked back, the Englishman stood up and came around the desk. “I mentioned I’d made a discovery.”

“That’s right, you did.”

“It has to do with Macallan.” St. John played with his tie knot self-consciously. “Well, indirectly with Macallan. Take a
look at this.” He took a sheet of paper from his desk and held it out. Hatch examined the single line of letters it contained:

ETAONISHRDLCUGMWFPYBKVJXZQ

“Looks like gibberish,” Hatch said.

“Look more closely at the first seven letters.”

Hatch spelled them out loud. “E, T, A, O… hey, wait a minute. Eta Onis! That’s who Macallan dedicated his book on architecture
to.” He paused, looking at the sheet.

“It’s the frequency table of the English language,” St. John explained. “The order that letters are most likely to be used
in sentences. Cryptanalysts use it to decrypt coded messages.”

Hatch whistled. “When did you notice this?”

St. John grew even more self-conscious. “The day after Kerry died, actually. I didn’t say anything about it to anyone. I felt
so stupid. To think it had been staring me in the face all this time. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed
to explain. I realized Macallan had been much more than just an architect. If he knew about the frequency table, it means
he was probably involved with London’s intelligence community, or at the very least some secret society. So I did some wider
background checking. And I stumbled across some bits of information too intriguing to be coincidental. I’m now sure that,
during those missing years of Macallan’s life, he worked for the Black Chamber.”

“The what?”

“It’s fascinating, really. You see—” St. John stopped suddenly and looked over his shoulder. Hatch realized, with a sympathetic
pang, that St. John had been looking in the direction of Wopner’s room, anticipating a caustic remark about what the dusty
old antiquarian found fascinating.

“Come on,” Hatch said. “You can explain as I walk down to Stores.”

“The Black Chamber,” St. John continued as they stepped out into the morning mist, “was a secret department of the English
post office. Their duty was to intercept sealed communications, transcribe the contents, then reseal them with forged seals.
If the transcribed documents were in code, they were sent to something called the deciphering branch. The plaintext was eventually
sent on to the king or certain high ministers, depending on the communication.”

“That much cloak-and-dagger stuff went on in Stuart England?”

“It wasn’t just England. All European countries had similar set-ups. It was actually a popular place for highly intelligent,
well-placed young aristocrats to work. If they made good cryptanalysts, they were rewarded with high pay and positions at
court.”

Hatch shook his head. “I had no idea.”

“Not only that. Reading between the lines of some of the old court records, I believe Macallan was most likely a double agent,
working for Spain because of his Irish sympathies. But he was found out. I think the real reason he left the country was to
save his life. Perhaps he was being sent to America not only to construct a cathedral for New Spain, but for other, clandestine,
reasons.”

“And Ockham put a stop to those plans.”

“Yes. But in Macallan, he got much more than he ever bargained for.”