Riptide

muttered.

'Turn the boat!' Hatch yelled.

Bonterre threw the throttle hard to starboard and the little craft spun around. Above, Hatch saw a peripheral glow, a blue flash. There was a sharp hissing noise, then a loud splash ahead of them. A thunderous whump followed, and a tower of water rose twenty feet off their port bow, its base lit an ugly orange.

'Explosive harpoon!' Hatch cried.

There was another flash and explosion, frighteningly close. The little dinghy pitched sharply, then heaved to one side. As they cleared the side of the Cerberus, wild water took them once again. There was an explosion ahead as another harpoon hit the water. Spray stung Hatch's face as they fell backward, nearly foundering.

Without a word, Bonterre spun the boat again, throttled up, and headed straight for the Cerberus. Hatch turned to yell out a warning, then realized what she was doing. At the last moment she turned the boat sideways, slamming hard against the huge vessel. They were under the pitch of the hull, too close for the harpoon gun.

'We'll make a dash by the stern!' Bonterre cried.

As Hatch leaned forward to bail, he saw a strange sight: a narrow line in the water, sputtering and snapping, heading toward them. Curious, he paused to watch. Then the line reached the bow in front of him, and with a tearing sound the nose of the dinghy vanished in a cloud of sawdust and wood smoke. Falling into the stern, glancing up, Hatch could see Streeter leaning over the ship's rail, an ugly weapon he recognized as a flechette aimed directly at them.

Before Hatch could speak Bonterre had thrown the boat forward again. There was a sound like a demonic sewing machine as the flechette in Streeter's hands tore apart the water where the dinghy had tossed just a moment before. Then they had cleared the stern and were back out in the storm, the boat bucking, water crashing over the ruined bows. With a roar, the Cerberus began to turn. Bonterre jammed the dinghy to port, almost overturning it as she headed in the direction of the Ragged Island piers.

But in the vicious ripping sea the small outboard was no match for the power and speed of the Cerberus. Looking through the heavy squall, Hatch could see the huge boat begin to gain. In another minute, they would be cut off from the inlet that led through the Ragged Island reefs to the pier beyond.

'Head for the reefs!' he yelled. 'If you time the swell, you might be able to ride right over. This boat hardly draws a foot!'

Bonterre jerked the boat to a new course. The Cerberus continued to bear down, coming inexorably at them through the storm.

'Make a feint, let him think we're going to turn at the reefs!' he shouted.

Bonterre brought them parallel to the reefs, just outside the breaking surf.

'He thinks he's got us!' Hatch said as the Cerberus turned again. There was another shattering explosion off the beam, and for a moment Hatch breathed salt water. Then they emerged from the spray. Glancing down, Hatch saw that half the port gunwale had been blown away by a harpoon.

'We'll only have a single chance!' he yelled. 'Ride the next swell across!'

They bucked along the reef for an agonizingly long instant. Then he yelled: 'Now!'

As Bonterre turned the ruined dinghy into the boiling hell of water that lay across the reef, there came another huge explosion. Hatch heard a strange crunching noise and felt himself hurtled violently into the air. Then everything around him was churning water and bits of planking, and the dying muffled roar of agitated bubbles. He felt himself being drawn down, and still down. There was only one brief moment of terror before it all began to seem very peaceful indeed.

Chapter 47

Woody Clay lost his footing on a patch of seaweed, banged his shin, and came close to using the Lord's name in vain. The rocks along the shore were slippery and algae-covered. He decided it was safer to crawl.

Every limb of his body ached; his clothes were torn; the pain in his nose was worse than he could have ever imagined; and he was cold to the point of numbness. Yet he felt alive in a way that he had not in many, many years. He'd almost forgotten what it was like, this wild exhilaration of the spirit. The failed protest no longer had any significance. Indeed, it had not failed. He had been delivered onto this island. God worked in mysterious ways, but clearly He had brought Clay to Ragged Island for a reason. There was something he had to accomplish here, something of prime importance. Exactly what, he did not yet know. But he was confident that, at the right time, the mission would be revealed to him.

He scrambled beyond the high tide mark. Here the footing was better, and he stood up, coughing the last of the seawater from his lungs. Every cough sent a hideous pain shooting through his ruined nose. But he did not mind the pain. What was it St. Lawrence had said, when the Romans were roasting him alive over a brazier of hot coals? 'Turn me over, Lord. Cook me on the other side.'

As a child, when other boys had been reading Hardy Boys mysteries and biographies of Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, Clay's favorite book had been Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Even today, as a Congregational minister, he saw nothing wrong in quoting liberally from the lives of the Catholic saints, and even more liberally from their deaths. Those were people who had been blessed with visions, and with the courage to see them through, no matter what the cost. Clay was reasonably certain he had the courage. What he'd been lacking recently, he knew, was the vision.

Now he had to take shelter, get warm, and pray for the revelation of his purpose.

He scanned the shoreline, gray against a black sky, blasted and pelted by the fury of the storm. There were some large rocks off in the dimness to his right—the kind fishermen called Whale-backs. Beyond was the unnatural dry lagoon formed by Thalassa's cofferdam. Except the exposed seabed was not entirely dry. He noted, with a grunt of satisfaction, that the surf was battering the cofferdam relentlessly. Several of the stanchions were bent and one of the reinforced concrete slabs had warped. Every blow of the waves sent massive plumes of spray over the top of the wall.