Douglas Preston - Riptide

"Look," said Hatch. "All along, we've assumed that there was some key to the treasure chamber. Now we learn that there isn't. In fact, it's just the opposite. We've been here three weeks already. August is almost over. Every day we stay increases the chance of a storm bearing down on us."

Neidelman made a dismissive gesture. "We're not building with Tinkertoys here. We can ride out any storm that comes along. Even a hurricane, if it comes to that."

"I'm not talking about hurricanes or sou'westers. Those kinds of storms give three or four days' warning, plenty of time to evacuate the island. I'm talking about a Nor'easter. They can swoop down on this coast with less than twenty-four hours' notice. If that happened, we'd be lucky just to get the boats into port."

Neidelman frowned. "I know what a Nor'easter is."

"Then you'll know it can bring crosswinds and a steep-walled sea even more dangerous than the swell of a hurricane. I don't care how heavily it's been reinforced—your cofferdam would be battered down like a child's toy."

Neidelman's jaw was raised at a truculent angle; it was clear to Hatch that none of his arguments was making any headway. "Look," Hatch continued, in as reasonable a tone as he could muster. "We've had a setback. But it isn't a showstopper. The appendix may be inflamed, but it hasn't burst. All I'm saying is that we take the time to really study the Pit, examine Macallan's other structures, try to understand how his mind worked. Forging blindly ahead is simply too dangerous."

"I tell you we may have a saboteur among us, that we can't afford to slow down, and you talk to me of blindness?" Neidelman said harshly. "This is exactly the kind of pusillanimous attitude Macallan counted on. Take your time, don't do anything risky, piss your money away until nothing's left. No, Malin. Research is all very fine, but"—the Captain suddenly lowered his voice, but the determination in it was startling—"now's the time to go for the man's jugular."

Hatch had never been called pusillanimous before—had never even heard the word used, outside of books—and he didn't like it much. He could feel the old hot anger rising within him, but he mastered it with an effort. Fly off the handle now, and you'll wreck everything, he thought. Maybe the Captain's right. Maybe Wopner's death has me rattled. After all, we've come this far. And we're close now, very close. In the tense silence, he could make out the faint whine of an outboard coming over the water.

"That must be the coroner's launch," Neidelman said. He had turned back toward the window, and Hatch could no longer see his face. "I think I'll leave this business in your hands." He stepped away and headed toward the door.

"Captain Neidelman?" Hatch asked.

The Captain stopped and turned back, hand on the knob. Although Hatch could not make out his face in the dark, he could feel the extraordinary force of the Captain's gaze, directed inquiringly toward him.

"That sub full of Nazi gold," Hatch went on. "What did you do? After your son died, I mean?"

"We continued the operation, of course," Neidelman answered crisply. "It's what he would have wanted."

Then he was gone, the only mark of his visit the faint smell of pipe smoke, lingering in the night air.

Chapter 31

Bud Rowell was not a particularly churchgoing man. He'd become even less of one in the years following Woody Clay's arrival; the minister had a severe, fire-and-brimstone manner rarely found in the Congregational church. Frequently, the man would lace his sermons with calls for his parishioners to take up a spiritual life rather more exacting than Bud cared for. But in Stormhaven, the ability to gossip fluently was required of a shopkeeper. And as a professional gossip, Rowell hated to miss anything important. Word had gone round that Reverend Clay had prepared a special sermon—a sermon that would include a very interesting surprise.

Rowell arrived ten minutes before the service to find the little church already wall-to-wall with townspeople. He worked his way toward the back rows, searching for a seat behind a pillar, from which he could escape unnoticed. Unsuccessful in this, he settled his bulk near the end of a pew, his joints complaining at the hardness of the wooden seat.

He gazed slowly around the congregation, nodding at the various Superette patrons who caught his eye. He saw Mayor Jasper Fitzgerald up near the front, gladhanding the head of the city council. Bill Banns, the editor of the paper, was a few rows back, his green visor as firmly on his head as if it had been planted there. And Claire Clay was in her usual position of second-row center. She'd become the perfect minister's wife, right down to the sad smile and lonely eyes. There were also a couple of strangers scattered about that he assumed were Thalassa employees. This was unusual; nobody from the excavation had shown up in church before. Maybe the bad business that had taken place out there shook them up a bit.

Then his eyes fell on an unfamiliar object, sitting on a small table next to the pulpit and covered with a crisp linen sheet. This was decidedly odd. Ministers in Stormhaven didn't make a practice of using stage props, any more than they made a practice of yelling or shaking their fists or thumping Bibles.

The church was standing room only by the time Mrs. Fanning arranged herself primly on the pipe organ bench and struck up the opening chords to "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." After the weekly notices and the prayers of the people, Clay strode forward, his black robe loose on his gaunt frame. He moved into position behind the pulpit and looked around at the congregation, a humorless, fiercely determined expression on his face.

"Some people," he began, "might think that a minister's job is to comfort people. Make them feel good. I am not here today to make anyone feel good. It is not my mission, or my calling, to blind with consoling platitudes, or soothing half-truths. I'm a plain-speaking man, and what I'm going to say will make some people uncomfortable. Thou hast showed thy people hard things."

He looked about again, then bowed his head and said a short prayer. After a moment of silence, he turned to his Bible and opened it to the text of his sermon.

"And the fifth angel sounded," he began in a strong, vibrant voice,

". . . And I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon. The beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the streets. But the rest of the men repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship idols of gold, and silver."

Clay raised his head and slowly closed the book. "Revelation, chapter nine," he said, and let an uncomfortable silence grow.

Then he began more quietly. "A few weeks ago, a large company came here to begin yet another doomed effort to recover the Ragged Island treasure. You have all heard the dynamite, the engines running night and day, the sirens, and the helicopters. You have seen the island lit up in the dark like an oil platform. Some of you are working for the company, have rented rooms to its employees, or benefited financially from the treasure hunt." His eyes roved the room, stopping momentarily on Bud. The grocer shifted in his seat and glanced toward the door.

"Those of you who are environmentally concerned might be wondering what effect all the pumping, the muddy water, the gas and oil, the explosions, and the unceasing activity is having on the ecology of the bay. And those fishermen and lobstermen among you might wonder if all this has anything to do with the lobster catch being off twenty percent recently, and the mackerel run down almost as much."