Riptide

vain.'

He bowed his head a brief moment, then stepped back from the railing. There was a scattering of applause, a thin waterfall of sound skipping over the waves, and then in an instant the company erupted into a spontaneous cheer, arms lifted above heads, caps thrown in the air, a cry of excitement and eagerness and jubilation rising in a joyous circle around the Griffin. Hatch realized he was cheering too, and as a single tear trickled down his cheek he had the absurd feeling that Johnny was peering over his shoulder, watching the proceedings with wry interest, longing in his youthful way to finally be laid to rest.

Chapter 8

A day later, Hatch stood at the helm of the Plain Jane, watching the preparations going on around him. Almost despite himself, he felt a sense of mounting excitement. At his side, two communications monitors—a closed-band scanner covering all the expedition's channels, and a radio tuned to the dedicated medical frequency—emitted occasional chirps and squawks of conversation. The ocean was calm, with only the barest swell, and there was a gentle offshore breeze. The perpetual mist was thin today, gauzy linen loosely encircling the island. It was a perfect day for off-loading, and Captain Neidelman was making the most of it.

Although the Plain Jane was anchored in the same spot as the night before—just outside the Ragged Island reef—the landscape had changed dramatically. Setup had begun shortly after sunset and escalated at daybreak. The huge sea barge was now anchored two points off the eastern shore by massive chains, bolted into the rocky sea floor by Neidelman's dive team. As Hatch watched, the hundred-ton floating crane was being moored off the western end of the island, its long hydraulic rig hanging over the shoreline like a scorpion's tail, ready to pluck off the wrack of two hundred years of treasure hunting. Lying in its shadow was the Griffin, Neidelman's command ship. Hatch could just make out the Captain's stiff, narrow figure on the flying bridge, closely supervising the proceedings.

The large research vessel, the Cerberus, remained beyond the circle of mist, silent and still, as if not deigning to approach land. The two launches, named the Naiad and the Grampus, had dropped crews on the island early in the morning. Now the boats were busy offshore. From the pattern of the Naiad's movements, Hatch could tell she was plotting the sea floor. The Grampus was taking readings of the island itself, using equipment he was not familiar with.

Hatch continued scanning the activity around him until his gaze fell at last upon the island itself. He still felt a kind of sickness in his gut when he looked at it. Perhaps it was a sickness that would never go away. But he had made his decision, and that in itself lifted a huge burden from his shoulders. Every morning now, he awoke more certain that his decision had been the right one. The night before, he'd even caught himself speculating over what he could do with close to a billion dollars. Then and there, he'd made up his mind: He would put all of it, every penny, into a foundation in his brother's name.

A sudden flicker of white on the island briefly caught his eye before disappearing again into the mists. Somewhere, he knew, crews were already on the move, locating old pits, roping safe trails, tagging ancient junk hidden by the tall brush for later removal. 'Tall nettles,' Hatch quoted to himself,

Cover up, as they have done These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough Long worn out, and the roller made of stone.

Other teams, he knew, were taking corings from beams in the countless cribbed shafts. These corings would be carbon 14 dated in the Cerberus lab to determine their age in an attempt to pinpoint which shaft was the original Water Pit. He pulled out his binoculars and swung them slowly across the terrain until he located one of the teams, pale apparitions in the mist. They were spread out in a ragged line, moving slowly, hacking away at the chokecherries with brush hooks and axes, stopping occasionally to take photographs or scribble notes. One man swept a metal detector in an arc ahead of him; another probed the ground with a long, narrow instrument. At the head of the group, he noticed a German shepherd, diligently sniffing the ground. Must be trained to smell high explosive, Hatch thought to himself.

There were, all told, perhaps fifty people bustling on and around the island. All Thalassa employees, and all highly paid: Neidelman had told him that—outside of the core half-dozen or so that would receive actual shares of the profits instead of salary—the average worker would earn twenty-five thousand dollars. Not bad, considering that the majority would be gone from the island within a fortnight, once the various installations were complete and the island stabilized.

Hatch continued scanning the island. At the safe northern end of the island—the only area one could walk without fear—a pier and dock had gone up. Beside it, the tug was off-loading a welter of equipment: crated generators, acetylene tanks, compressors, electronic switching equipment. Already onshore were orderly piles of angle iron, corrugated tin, lumber, and plywood. A tough-looking little all-terrain vehicle with bulbous tires was towing a trailerload of equipment up the improvised path. Nearby, a group of technicians was beginning the work of wiring an island phone system, while another was erecting Quonset huts. By tomorrow morning, one of them would be Hatch's new office. It was amazing how fast things were happening.

Still, Hatch was in no hurry to set foot on Ragged Island. Tomorrow's plenty soon enough, he thought.

A loud clatter echoed toward him as a heavy piece of equipment was loaded onto the pier. Sound carried well across water. Hatch knew that, even without Bud Rowell's assistance, all of Stormhaven must now be buzzing with news of his return and the sudden flurry of activity on the island. He felt a little guilty that he hadn't been able to tell Bud the whole story two days before. By now, he'd certainly figured it out. Idly, Hatch wondered what people were saying. Perhaps some of the townspeople suspected his motives. If so, let them; he had nothing to be ashamed of. Even though his grandfather's bankruptcy had relieved his family of legal responsibility, his father had paid off—painfully, over many years—all the family's local debts. There had been no finer man than his father. And that fineness of character made his grotesque, pathetic end that much more painful. . . . Hatch turned away from the island, refusing to follow the line of thought any further.

He checked his watch. Eleven o'clock: the Maine lunch hour. He went belowdecks, raided the gas-powered refrigerator, and returned with a lobster roll and a bottle of ginger ale. Climbing into the captain's chair, he propped his feet on the binnacle and dug avidly into the roll. Funny thing about sea air, he thought to himself. Always makes you hungry. Maybe he ought to research that particular nugget for the Journal of the American Medical Association. His lab assistant Bruce could use a good dose of salt air. Or any air, for that matter.

As he ate, a seagull landed on the thrumcap and eyed him quizzically. Hatch knew lobstermen hated seagulls —called them wharf rats with wings—but he'd always had a fondness for the loudmouthed, garbage-swilling birds. He flicked a piece of lobster into the air; the gull caught it and then soared off, chased by two other gulls. Soon, all three had returned and were perched on the taffrail, staring him down with hungry black eyes. Now I've done it, Hatch thought, good-naturedly plucking another piece of lobster from the roll and tossing it toward the middle bird.

In an instant, all three birds tore into the air with a desperate beating of wings. Hatch's amusement turned to