Douglas Preston - Riptide

Whether it had been Streeter in the launch, or someone else, she did not know. But she did know one thing: however advanced the research vessel, a person could not pilot and man the harpoon at the same time. And that meant that, whatever was happening here, it was not the work of a single madman. Streeter had help.

She shivered, drawing the waterlogged slicker closer around her. There was still no sign of Hatch. If he'd survived the destruction of the dinghy, chances were he'd have washed up along this stretch of beach. But he hadn't, she was now sure of that. The rest of the coastline was rockbound, unprotected from the fury of the sea...

She stepped down hard on the terrible feeling that threatened to grip her heart. No matter what, she had to finish what they'd started.

She began heading toward Base Camp the long way, the careful way, skirting the black stretch of shoreline. The wind had increased its fury, whipping white spume off the crests of the waves and throwing it far inland. The roar of the surf on the reefs was so loud, so continuous, that Bonterre barely heard the cracks of thunder above the constant booming.

She slowly approached the cluster of huts. The communications tower was dark, the microwave horns hanging loose, swinging in the wind. One of the island generators had fallen silent, while the other was shaking and shuddering like a live thing on its steel platform, screaming in protest at the load. She crept up between the dead generator and the fuel tanks and scanned the camp. In its center, she could make out a series of small glowing rectangles: the windows of Island One.

She crept forward cautiously, keeping to the shadows that knitted the ground between the huts. Reaching Island One, she peered in the window. The command center was deserted.

She flitted across the rutted roadway to the window of the medical hut. It, too, looked deserted. She tried the door, cursing when she found it locked, then crept to the rear of the structure. She reached down for a rock, raised it toward the small rear window, and rammed it through, knowing there was no chance of being heard over the storm. Reaching through the shards of glass, she unlocked the window from the inside and swung it open.

The room she slithered into was Hatch's emergency quarters. The narrow cot was unused, as pristine and rumple-free as the day it had been first installed. She moved quickly through the room, rummaging through drawers, looking for a gun, a knife, any kind of weapon. She found only a long, heavy flashlight.

Snapping on the light and keeping its beam toward the ground, she moved through the doorway into the medical facility beyond. To one side was Hatch's private office, and to the other was a corridor leading to the waiting area. Along the far wall of the corridor was a door marked MEDICAL SUPPLIES. It was locked, as she knew it would be, but it seemed flimsy, constructed with a hollow core. Two well-placed kicks split it down the middle.

The small room was filled on three sides by glass-fronted cabinets, drugs above, equipment below. Bonterre had no idea what the Geiger counter would look like; she only knew that Hatch had called it a Radmeter. She broke the glass front of the nearest cabinet with the flashlight and rummaged through the lower drawers, spilling the contents to the floor. Nothing. Turning, she broke the glass of the second cabinet, pulling out the drawers, stopping briefly to slip something into her pocket. In the lowest drawer she found a small black nylon carrying case with a large Radmetrics logo sewn to its front. Inside was a strange-looking device with foldable handles and a leather strap. Its upper surface held a vacuum fluorescent display and a tiny keyboard. Extending from the front was a small boom similar to a condenser microphone.

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.