Douglas Preston - Riptide

"And it might also explain the computer problems."

"What do you mean?"

"Stray radiation causes havoc with microelectronics." Bonterre squinted at him, rain and seawater streaming across her face. "But why go out in this murderous storm?"

"We know the sword is radioactive. But that's all we know about it. The thing's been shut up in a lead box, and yet it's still killed everyone who's come in contact with it over the last seven hundred years. God only knows what would happen if Neidelman took it out of the casket. We can't allow that to happen."

As the boat came out of the lee of Burnt Head, the sea slammed into the Plain Jane's hull with brutal ferocity. Hatch shut up abruptly and spun the wheel, trying to take the heading sea at a diagonal. The air around the boat was filled with pulverized water and spindrift. He checked the binnacle, corrected course, and scanned the loran.

Bonterre gripped the rails with both hands, lowering her head against the driving rain. "But what is the sword, then?"

"God only knows. Whatever it is, it's hot as hell. I for one don't want to—"

He fell silent abruptly, staring ahead. A white line loomed out of the murk, towering over the top of the boat. For a moment, he wondered if it was a large ship.

"Jesus," he muttered, distantly surprised by the matter-of-fact tone in his own voice. "Look at that."

It was no ship. He realized, with horror, that it was the breaking top of a massive wave. "Help me hold the wheel!" he yelled.

Leaning forward, Bonterre clapped both hands on the wheel while he worked desperately at the throttle. The boat rose along the almost vertical face while Hatch gingerly increased the throttle, trying to keep the boat aligned. As the breaking top of the comber struck, there was an explosion of white and a tremendous hollow roar; he braced himself against the mass of water and held his breath.

The boat seemed suspended for a moment inside the wave; then it suddenly broke free and tipped over the crest with a violent corkscrew motion. He quickly eased up on the throttle and the boat sank into the following trough at a sickening speed. There was a moment of perverse, eerie calm as the boat was protected from the wind in the hollow between the waves. Then the next great face of green water, honeycombed with foam, rose up out of the dark before them.

"It'll get even worse beyond Wreck Island," he yelled.

Bonterre didn't bother to answer, clinging to the wheel as the boat lurched toward another crest with a jarring crash.

Glancing at the loran screen, Hatch saw the boat was being carried southeastward by a riptide at a good four knots. He corrected course to compensate, one hand on the throttle and the other on the wheel. Bonterre helped steady the helm through the dips.

"The professor was right," Hatch shouted. "I couldn't have done this without you."

The spray and wind had pulled Bonterre's long hair loose from her sou'wester, and it streamed behind her in a ravishing tangle of black. Her face was flushed, whether from fear or excitement he could not tell.

Another comber swept over the boat and he turned his eyes back to the fury.

"How will you convince Neidelman the sword is radioactive?" Bonterre hollered.

"When Thalassa set up my office, they included all kinds of crazy equipment. Including a radiologist's Radmeter. A high-tech Geiger counter. I never even turned the damn thing on." Hatch shook his head as they began to climb another wave. "If I had, it would have gone nuts. All those sick diggers, coming in covered with radioactive dirt. It doesn't matter how much Neidelman wants the sword. He won't be able to argue with that meter."

He could just barely hear, over the sound of the wind and his own shouting voice, the distant thudding of surf off the starboard side: Wreck Island. As they came out of the lee, the wind increased in intensity. Now, as if on cue, he could see a massive white line, far bigger than any previous wave, rising up above the Plain Jane. It loomed over their heads, water hissing along its crest. The boat fell into the silent trough and began to rise. His heart hammering in his chest, Hatch gave the boat a little more acceleration as he felt the swell begin to lift them once again.

"Hang on!" he yelled as the top of the wave reached them. Goosing the throttle, he pointed the boat straight into the roiling mass of water. The Plain Jane was thrown violently backward into a strange twilight world where both air and sea were made of water. Then, suddenly, they were through, the propeller whining helplessly as the prow fell down the foamy backside of the wave. As they slid into another glassy trough, Hatch saw a second white line materializing out of the gloom ahead, churning and shifting like a mad thing.

He struggled with the panic and despair that rose within him. That last hadn't been a freakish wave. It was going to be like this for the next three miles.

He began to feel an ominous sensation at each twist of the boat: a funny vibration, a tug at the wheel. The boat felt weighty and overballasted. He peered aft through the lashing wind. The bilge pumps had been running at full capacity since they left the harbor, but the old Plain Jane had no well meter. There was no way of knowing the depth of water in the hold without checking it himself.

"Isobel!" he roared, bracing his feet against the walls of the cabin and locking his hands around the wheel. "Go into the forward cabin and unscrew the metal hatch in the center of the floor. Tell me how much water's in the hold."

Bonterre shook the rain from her eyes and nodded her understanding. As Hatch watched, she crawled through the pilothouse and unlatched the cabin door. A moment later, she emerged again.

"It is one quarter full!" she shouted.

Hatch swore; they must have hit some piece of flotsam that stove in the hull, but he'd never felt the impact in the violent seas. He glanced again at the loran. Two and a half miles from the island. Too far out for them to turn around. Perhaps too far to make it.

"Take the wheel!" he yelled. "I'm going to check the dinghy!"

He crawled aft, hanging desperately to the gunwale railing with both hands.

The dinghy was still behind, bobbing like a cork at the end of its line. It was relatively dry, the Plain Jane's bulk having kept most of the heavy seas out of it. But, dry or not, Hatch hoped to God they wouldn't have to use it.

The moment he relieved Bonterre at the helm, he could tell that the boat had grown distinctly heavier. It was taking longer to rise through the masses of water that pressed them down into the sea.

"You okay?" Bonterre called.

"So far," said Hatch. "You?"

"Scared."

The boat sank again into a trough, into that same eerie stillness, and Hatch tensed for the rise, hand on the throttle. But the rise did not come.

Hatch waited. And then it came, but more slowly. For a grateful moment, he thought perhaps the loran was off and they had already come into the lee of the island. Then he heard a strange rumble.

Towering far above his head was a smooth, Himalayan cliff face of water. A churning breaker topped its crown, growling and hissing like a living thing.

Craning her neck upward, Bonterre saw it as well. Neither said a word.

The boat rose and kept rising, ascending forever, while the water gradually filled the air with a waterfall's roar. There was a massive crash as the comber hit them straight on; the boat was flung backward and upward, the deck rising almost to vertical. Hatch clung desperately as he felt his feet slip from the deck beneath him. He could feel the water in the hold shift, twisting the boat sideways.

Then the wheel went abruptly slack. As the roaring water fell away, he realized the boat was swamped.