Riptide (55 page)

3217.89 Rads/hour
Fast neutron flux detected
IMMEDIATE EVACUATION CRITICAL

Christ,
he thought,
it’s redlined.
They were still within safety limits, shielded by the rock and dirt of the Water Pit. But Neidelman was closer now, and soon
not even the intervening earth would—

“Hatch!” came the hoarse, ragged voice.

Hatch paused.

“I found Lyle’s body.”

Still Hatch said nothing. Could Neidelman know where he was? Or was he merely bluffing?

“Hatch! Don’t be coy, it doesn’t suit you. I saw your light. I’m coming for you. Do you hear me?”

“Neidelman!” he yelled in return.

There was no answer. He glanced back at the Radmeter. The whitish blob on the screen kept ascending the grid, flickering in
and out with the waning power of the battery.

“Captain! Stop! We need to talk.”

“By all means. We’ll have a
nice
little talk.”

“You don’t understand!” Hatch cried, inching even closer to the edge. “The sword is highly radioactive. It’s killing you, Captain!
Get rid of it,
now!”

He waited, straining to hear above the uprushing roar.

“Ah, the endlessly inventive Hatch,” came Neidelman’s voice, faint and unnaturally calm. “You planned this disaster very well.”

“Captain, for Chrissakes, drop the sword!”

“Drop it?” came the answer. “You set this trap, wreck the Water Pit, kill my crew, deprive me of my treasure. And now you
want me to drop the sword? I don’t think so.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Don’t be diffident. Take credit for your fine work. A few well-placed explosives did the trick, right?”

Hatch rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling, searching for options. “You’re a sick man, Captain,” he called out. “If
you don’t believe me, ask your own body. The sword is a powerful emitter of fast neutron radiation. It’s already stopped all
cell mitosis and DNA synthesis in your body. Soon you’ll be suffering from cerebral syndrome. The most severe form of radiation
poisoning.”

He listened. Except for the roar of the great gulf beneath, the only sound he heard was the dying chirp of the Radmeter. He
took a deep breath.

“You’re already in the prodromal period!” he called out. “First, you’ll begin to feel nauseated. You probably do already,
don’t you? Next will come confusion, as inflammatory foci sprout up in your brain. Then tremors, ataxia, convulsions, and
death.”

There was no answer.

“For God’s sake, Neidelman, listen to me!” he cried. “You’re going to kill us all with that sword!”

“No,” came the voice from below. “No, I think I’ll use my gun.”

Hatch sat up fast. The voice was closer now, very close: no more than fifteen feet away. He retreated down the tunnel to the
others.

“What is happening?” Bonterre cried.

“He’ll be here in a few seconds,” Hatch replied. “He’s not going to stop.” As he spoke, he realized with grim finality that
there was nothing they could do. They had no escape route. Another moment or two, and Neidelman would appear over the lip
of the tunnel, sword in hand. And they would all be dead.

“Is there no way to stop him?” Bonterre cried.

Before Hatch could answer, Clay spoke. “Yes,” he said, in a strong, clear voice. “Yes, there is.”

Hatch turned. The look on Clay’s cadaverous face was not only triumphant—it was ecstatic, beatific, otherworldly.

“What—?” Hatch began, but Clay had already brushed past him, light in hand. In a flash, Hatch understood.

“Don’t do it!” he cried, grabbing for Clay’s sleeve. “It’s suicide! The sword will kill you!”

“Not until I’ve done what I came to do.” Clay jerked his arm free and raced to the lip of the tunnel. Then—skirting Rankin’s
body—he leaped across the metal bridge to the array and descended quickly out of view.

C
linging to the rungs of the array, Clay climbed down a few feet, then paused to steady himself. A great roar was coming from
the depths of the Pit: the sounds of collapsing caverns and thunderous water, of violent chaos churning in the unguessable
depths. An uprush of damp air tugged and worried at the collar of his shirt.

He angled his flashlight downward. The ventilation system had shut down when the emergency power failed, and the air was heavy.
The shaking spars were dripping with condensation, striped with clots of falling dirt. The beam licked through the fog, settling
at last on the form of Neidelman, perhaps ten feet below.

The Captain was toiling painfully up the ladder, grasping each rung in the crook of his arm before hauling himself up to the
next, his face contorted with effort. With every shudder of the ladder he paused, hugging the rungs in both hands. Tucked into
Neidelman’s back harness, Clay saw the flash of a jeweled hilt.

“Well, well,” croaked Neidelman, staring up toward the flashlight.
“Et lux in tenebris lucet.
The light does shine in the darkness, indeed. Why am I not surprised to find the good reverend part of this conspiracy?”
His voice dissolved into a hacking cough and he clung to the ladder with both hands through another nasty shudder.

“Toss the sword,” Clay said.

Neidelman’s answer was to reach into his belt and remove a handgun. Clay ducked to the far side of the array as the gun roared.

“Out of my way,” Neidelman rasped.

Clay knew he couldn’t confront Neidelman on these narrow rungs: he’d have to find a place with better footing. Quickly, he
scanned the array with his flashlight. A few feet below, at the 110-foot mark, was a narrow maintenance spar. He put the flashlight
in his pocket and used the darkness to descend one rung, then another. The array was trembling more violently now. Clay knew
that Neidelman couldn’t climb as long as he held the gun. But he also knew that the shaking came in waves, and as soon as
the vibration ended Neidelman would put a bullet in him.

He dropped two more rungs in the blackness, feeling his way with his hands and feet as the shaking eased. A faint flare of
reflected lightning showed Neidelman a few feet below him, hoisting himself toward the maintenance spar with one hand. He
was already off balance and Clay, with a desperate movement, dropped another rung and with all his energy kicked out at the
Captain’s hand. There was a roar and a clatter as his foot connected and the gun fell away into darkness.

Clay slid down onto the spar, his feet slipping on the narrow metal grating. Neidelman, dangling below, howled with inarticulate
rage. With a sudden flurry of energy he scrambled onto the narrow platform. Keeping the frame of the array between them, Clay
took out his flashlight and shone it at the Captain.

Neidelman’s face was streaked with sweat and dirt, skin frighteningly pallid, eyes sunken in the pitiless beam of the light.
He seemed wasted, drawn, his body fueled only by the hard core of some inner will, and his hand trembled slightly as he reached
behind him and drew out the sword.

Clay stared at it with a mixture of dread and wonder. The hilt was mesmerizingly beautiful, studded with huge gem-stones.
But the blade itself was an ugly, mottled violet, a pitted and scarred piece of metal.

“Step aside, Reverend,” the Captain croaked. “I’m not going to waste my energy with you. I want Hatch.”

“Hatch isn’t your enemy.”

“Did he send you to say that?” Neidelman coughed again. “I had Macallan soundly defeated. But I underestimated Hatch’s treachery.
Him and his operatives. No wonder he wanted Truitt on the dig team. And I suppose your protest was a ruse to distract my attention.”
He stared at Clay, eyes glittering.

“You’re a dead man,” Clay said calmly. “We’re both dead men. You can’t save your body. But perhaps you can still save your
soul. That sword is a weapon of the devil. Cast it into the depths where it belongs.”

“Foolish man,” Neidelman hissed, advancing. “A weapon of the devil, you say? Hatch may have cost me the treasure. But I still
have
this.
The sword I’ve spent the better part of my life preparing to claim.”

“It’s been the instrument of your death,” Clay replied evenly.

“No, but it may be the instrument of yours. For the last time, Reverend, stand aside.”

“No,” said Clay, clinging to the shaking platform.

“Then die,” cried Neidelman, bringing the heavy blade around and swinging it toward Clay’s head.

H
atch tossed the now-dead Radmeter away and peered out into the darkness, toward the mouth of the tunnel and the vertical shaft
of the Water Pit beyond. There had been vague sounds of voices; the flare of Clay’s flashlight, silhouetting the metal skeleton
of the ladder array; a gunshot, sharp and clear above the cavernous roar. He waited in an agony of uncertainty, the temptation
to creep forward and take a brief look over the edge almost overwhelming. But he knew that even an instant’s exposure to St.
Michael’s Sword meant lingering death.

He glanced back toward Bonterre. He could feel the tension in her body, hear her choppy breathing.

Suddenly, the sounds of a furious struggle erupted. There was the sound of metal striking metal, a hideous cry— whose?—followed
by a strangled gibbering; then another great blow and clang of metal. Next came a terrible cry of pain and despair that receded
until it, too, died into the roar of the Pit.

Hatch crouched, riveted in place by the horrifying sounds. Then came more: ragged breathing, the slap of a hand against metal,
a grunt of effort. A flashlight beam flared upward, searched the wall around them, then stopped, pinpointing the mouth of
their tunnel.

Someone was climbing.

Hatch tensed, options racing through his mind. He realized there was only one. If Clay had failed, somebody else had to stop
Neidelman. And he was determined it would be himself.

In the darkness beside him he felt Bonterre gathering herself to move, and he realized the same thought was in her mind as
well.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said.

“Ferme-la!”
she cried. “I will not let you—”

Before Bonterre could scramble to her feet Hatch jumped forward, half running, half stumbling toward the mouth of the tunnel.
He poised on the brink, steeling himself, hearing her feet behind him. He leaped forward onto the metal bridge, ready to grab
Neidelman and carry him into the roaring maw beneath.

Three feet down the ladder, Clay was struggling upward, his sides heaving, a large gash across one temple.

The minister wearily placed a hand on the next rung of the array. Hatch bent down, hauling him onto the platform as Bonterre
arrived. Together, they helped him into the shelter of the tunnel.

The minister stood silently, leaning forward, head lolling, arms supported on his thighs.

“What happened?” Hatch asked.

Clay looked up.

“I got the sword,” he said in a faraway voice. “I threw it into the Pit.”

“And Neidelman?”

“He… he decided to go after it.”

There was a silence.

“You saved our lives,” Hatch said. “My God, you—” He paused and took a breath. “We’ll get you to a hospital—”

Clay waved his hand wearily. “Doctor, don’t. Please dignify my death with the truth.”

Hatch looked at him a moment. “There’s nothing medicine can do except make it less painful.”

“I wish there was some way to repay your sacrifice,” Bonterre said, voice husky.

Clay smiled, a strange smile that seemed partly rueful, partly euphoric. “I knew exactly what I was doing. It wasn’t a sacrifice.
It was a gift.”

He looked at Hatch. “I have one favor to ask you. Can you get me to the mainland in time? I’d like to say good-bye to Claire.”

Hatch turned his face away. “I’ll do my best,” he murmured.

It was time to go. They left the tunnel and crossed the shaking metal catwalk to the array. Hatch heaved Bonterre onto the
ladder and waited as she began climbing into the darkness. As he looked up, lightning blazed across the sky and illuminated
Orthanc, a dim specter far above, almost lost among the tracery of supports and beams. Curtains of rain, metal, and soil washed
down, ricocheting through the complex matrix of the array.