There was a pause during which the hammering grew louder. 'If you must,' Neidelman replied at last. 'You'll have to come down here. We're in the midst of setting some braces.'
Hatch returned the phone to its cradle, buckled on a safety helmet and harness, then stepped outside and climbed down the tower to the staging platform. In the gathering dusk, the Pit looked even more brilliant, projecting a shaft of white light into the mists above. One of the crew members at the Pit's mouth helped him onto the electric lift. He pressed a button on the housing and the small platform lurched and descended.
He passed through the gleaming web of titanium struts and cables, marveling despite himself at the complexity. The lift descended past a team checking a set of braces at the forty-foot level. Another ninety seconds and the bottom of the Water Pit became visible. Here, activity was more pronounced. The muck and mire had been removed, and a battery of lights erected. A smaller shaft now extended down from the base of the Pit, braced on all sides. Several small instruments and measuring devices— belonging to Magnusen, or maybe Rankin—dangled from slender wires. The winch cable descended into one corner, and in the opposite corner a titanium ladder had been fitted. Stepping off the lift, Hatch went down the ladder into a roar of sound: shovels, hammers, the rush of air- filtration units.
Thirty feet below, he reached the actual floor of the excavation. Here, under the gaze of a lone closed-circuit camera, workmen were digging out the sodden earth and dumping it into the large bucket. Others were using suction hoses to vacuum up the mud and water. Neidelman stood in one corner, a construction helmet on his head, directing the placement of the supports. Streeter hovered nearby, a set of blueprints in his hand.
Malin came toward them, and the Captain nodded. 'I'm surprised you haven't been down here to see this before,' he said.
'Now that the Pit is stabilized, we've been able to proceed with the final digging at full speed.'
There was a pause in which Hatch made no answer.
Neidelman turned his pale eyes toward him. 'You know how pressed for time we are,' he said. 'I hope this is important.'
A great change had taken place in the man in the week since Wopner's death. Gone was the look of calm certainty, the equanimity that had surrounded him like a mantle from the very first day he'd sat in Hatch's office and looked out over the Charles River. Now, there was a look Hatch found hard to describe: a haggard, almost wild, determination.
'It's important,' said Hatch. 'But private.'
Neidelman looked at him a moment longer. Then he glanced at his watch. 'Listen up!' he said to the men. 'Shift ends in seven minutes. Knock off, get topside, and tell the next team to come down for an early start.'
The workers laid aside their tools and began climbing the ladder toward the lift. Streeter remained where he was, silent. The large suction hoses fell silent, and the half-filled bucket rose toward the surface, bobbing on its heavy steel cable. Streeter remained, standing silently to one side. Neidelman turned back to Hatch. 'You've got five minutes, maybe ten.'
'A couple of days ago,' Hatch began, 'I came across a stash of my grandfather's papers, documents he'd gathered about the Water Pit and Ockham's treasure. They were hidden in the attic of the family house; that's why my father never destroyed them. Some mentioned St. Michael's Sword. They hinted that the sword was some kind of terrible weapon the Spanish government planned to use against Red Ned Ockham. There were other disturbing references, too. So I contacted a researcher I know in Cadiz and asked her to do some more digging into the sword's history.'
Neidelman looked toward the muddy ground at their feet, his lips pursed. 'That could be considered proprietary information. I'm surprised you took such a step without consulting me.'
'She found this.' Hatch reached into his jacket and handed Neidelman a piece of paper.
The Captain looked at it briefly. 'It's in old Spanish,' he said with a frown.
'Below is my friend's translation.'
Neidelman handed it back. 'Summarize it for me,' he said curtly.
'It's fragmentary. But it describes the original discovery of St. Michael's Sword, and what happened afterwards.'
Neidelman raised his eyebrows. 'Indeed?'
'During the Black Plague, a wealthy Spanish merchant set out from Cadiz with his family on a barque. They crossed the Mediterranean and put ashore along an unpopulated stretch of the Barbary Coast. There they found the remains of an ancient Roman settlement. They settled down to ride out the plague. Some friendly Berber tribesmen warned them not to go near a ruined temple that lay on a hill some distance away, saying it was cursed. The warnings were repeated several times. After a while, when the plague started to abate, the merchant decided to explore the temple. Maybe he felt the Berbers had hidden something of value, and he didn't want to depart without taking a look. It seems that among the ruins he found a slab of marble behind an altar. Underneath was an ancient metal box that had been sealed shut, with an inscription in Latin. In effect, the inscription stated that the box contained a sword, which was the deadliest of weapons. Even to look upon it meant death. He had the box carried down to the ship, but the Berbers refused to help him open it. In fact, they drove him from the shore.'
Neidelman listened, still looking at the ground.
'A few weeks later, on Michaelmas—St. Michael's Day—the merchant's ship was found drifting in the Mediterranean. The yard-arms were covered with vultures. All hands were dead. The box was shut, but the lead seal had been broken. It was brought to a monastery at Cadiz. The monks read the Latin inscription, along with the merchant's own log. They decided the sword was—and I quote from my friend's translation—
Neidelman looked up at Hatch. 'Is this supposed to have some kind of bearing on our current effort?'
'Yes,' said Hatch steadily. 'Very much so.'
'Enlighten me, then.'
'Wherever St. Michael's Sword has been, people have died. First, the merchant's family. Then the monks. And when Ockham snaps it up, eighty of his crew die right here on the island. Six months later, Ockham's ship is found
