Riptide

She hunted for a power switch, found it, and snapped it on, praying the battery was charged. There was a low beep and a message appeared on the display:

RADMETRIC SYSTEMS INC.

RADIATION MONITORING AND POSITIONING SYSTEM

RUNNING RADMETRICS RELEASE 3.0.2(a) SOFTWARE

WELCOME, NEW USER

DO YOU NEED HELP? (Y/N)

'All that I can get,' she muttered, hitting the Y key. A terse series of instructions scrolled slowly across the screen. She scanned them quickly, then shut the machine off, realizing it was a waste of time to try to master it. The batteries were working, but there was no way of knowing how much of a charge they held.

She zipped the machine back into its carrying case and returned to Hatch's quarters. Suddenly, she froze. A sound, sharp and foreign, had briefly separated itself from the dull howl of the storm: a sound like the report of a gun.

She slung the carrying case over her shoulder and headed for the broken window.

Chapter 49

Hatch lay on the rocks, drowsy and comfortable, the sea washing around his chest. One part of his mind was mildly annoyed at having been plucked from the bosom of the sea. The other part, small but growing, was horrified at what the first part was thinking.

He was alive, that much he knew; alive, with all the pain and misery that came along with it. How long he had lain there he could only guess.

Now he gradually became aware of aches in his shoulders, knees, and shins. As he thought about them, the aches quickly grew into throbs. His hands and feet were stiff with cold, and his head felt waterlogged. The second part of his brain—the part that was saying all this was a good thing—was now telling him to get his sorry ass out of the water and up the rocky beach.

He wheezed in a breath full of seawater and was seized with a fit of coughing. The spasm brought him to his knees; his limbs collapsed and he fell again to the wet rocks. Struggling to a crawl, he managed to make the few feet out of reach of the water. There he rested on a large outcropping of granite, the rock cool and smooth beneath his cheek.

As his head cleared, memories began to return, one by one. He remembered Neidelman, and the sword, and why he'd returned to the island. He remembered the crossing, the Plain Jane capsizing, the dinghy, Streeter . . .

Streeter.

He sat up.

Isobel had been on the boat.

He tottered to his feet, fell back, then rose again, determined now. He'd fallen out the bow end of the dinghy, and the freakish riptide had pulled him to this rocky shore around the end of the island. Ahead, dark against the angry sky, he saw the low bluffs that guarded the pirate encampment. Bonterre would have landed nearer the beach. If she landed at all.

Suddenly, he could not bear the thought of her being dead.

He moved forward unsteadily, croaking Bonterre's name. After a moment he stopped to look about, realizing that, in his confusion, he was walking away from the beach toward the low bluffs. He staggered partway up the rise, then turned seaward. There was no sign of Bonterre, or of the dinghy's remains. Beyond the shore, the ocean was pounding the cofferdam relentlessly, every blow sending seawater shooting at high pressure through a web of cracks.

There was a brief flicker of light, fingering its way along the dark shore. He looked again, and it was gone: a flash of lightning, reflected off the rocks. He began to climb back down the bluff.

Suddenly the light was back again, closer this time, bobbing along the shoulder of the island. Then it swung upward, the powerful pale light of a halogen beam stabbing into the dark. It moved back and forth along the shore, then raked inland past him. Instinctively, Hatch began backing up the slope.

Then it was flaring in his eyes, blinding him. He dropped and turned, scrabbling up the bluff. The light licked the ground around him, searching. There was a glare, and he saw his shadow rise away up the hill in front of him. He'd been targeted.

The strange, stuttering sound he'd heard from the Cerberus came again, rattling over the roar of the surf and the howl of the wind: the clatter of giant knitting needles. To his right, small puffs of dirt and mud rose madly into the air in a jagged line. Streeter was behind him, in the dark, shooting at him with the flechette.

Quickly, Hatch rolled to his left, angling desperately for the top of the bluff. There was another demonic clatter as the weapon tore into the spot where he'd lain a few seconds before, a hundred tungsten nails stitching ruin into the earth.

Half crawling, half rolling, Hatch crossed the top of the bluff and tumbled down the embankment on the far side, slipping on the wet grass. He righted himself and glanced around wildly. There was no tree cover, just a long exposed run across the meadow and up the rise of land toward Orthanc. Ahead, he could see the small equipment shed Bonterre used for fieldwork, and beside it a precise dark rectangle cut into the ground: the pirate grave.

His glance settled on the equipment shed. He could hide inside, or perhaps beneath. But that would be the first place Streeter looked.

Hatch hesitated another second. Then he sprinted down the meadow and leaped into the grave.

He staggered under the impact of the three-foot drop, then steadied himself. A tongue of lightning briefly illuminated the pit around him. Some of the pirate skeletons had been removed from the mass grave. But most remained in situ, covered with tarps. The excavation was scheduled to be filled in the following week; Bonterre, he knew, had removed only enough skeletons to get a unique cross section.

A shattering clap of thunder galvanized him into action. Quickly, he crawled beneath one of the tarps. There