Douglas Preston - Riptide

Along one wall rose a stack of small wooden crates. The sides of the topmost crates had fallen away and Hatch could see the butt ends of rough gold bars—hundreds, perhaps thousands of them—stacked back to back. Ranged along the fourth wall were crates and bags in odd shapes and sizes, some of which had tumbled over and broken open, revealing ecclesiastical treasures: gold crosses encrusted with pearls and gemstones, elaborately decorated gold chalices. Beside them, another bag had burst open, revealing a bundle of braided gold epaulettes taken from unfortunate sea captains.

Atop the center of this fantastic hoard was a long, lead coffin, trimmed and edged with gold, strapped with iron bands that anchored it to the vault's floor. A massive brass lock was attached to its top face, partly concealing the golden image of an unsheathed sword etched into its lid.

As Hatch stared, barely able to breathe, he heard a clink, then a rush, as a rotten sack burst and a stream of gold doubloons poured out, running in rivulets among the piled treasures.

Then he was jerked to his feet and the wondrous, nightmarish sight was gone.

"Get everything ready on the surface," Neidelman was saying. "Sandra will winch the treasure up in the bucket. Two trailers are attached to the ATV, correct? We should be able to get the bulk of the treasure out to the Griffin in half a dozen trips. That's all we can chance."

"And what do I do with him?" Streeter asked.

Neidelman simply nodded. A smile creased Streeter's features as he raised his gun toward Hatch's head.

"Not here," Neidelman murmured. The sudden rage had passed, and he was calm again, looking down toward the treasure chamber, his expression far away. "It must look like an accident. I wouldn't like to think of his rotten corpse drifting in on the tide with a bullet in its brainpan. Take him into a side tunnel, or ..."

He paused.

"Put him with his brother," he said, his eyes drifting toward Streeter for the briefest of seconds before returning to the flickering hole at his feet. "And Mr. Streeter—"

Streeter paused in turning Hatch toward the ladder.

"You said there's a chance Isobel survived. Eliminate that chance, if you please."

Chapter 52

As Bonterre clambered cautiously up to the observation post, ready to leap for the ground at a moment's notice, Rankin turned and saw her. His beard split into a huge grin, then fell almost comically as he got a better look.

"Isobel!" he cried, coming forward. "You're soaked. And what the hell—your face is all bloody!"

"Never mind," said Bonterre, stripping off her wet slicker and sweaters and wringing them out.

"What happened?"

Bonterre looked at him, wondering how much she should say. "Boat wreck," she replied after a moment.

"Jesus. Why didn't the—"

"I will explain later," she interrupted, shrugging back into the damp clothes. "Have you seen Malin?"

"Dr. Hatch?" Rankin asked. "Nope." A small beeping sounded on a far console and he hurried over to take a look. "Things have gotten pretty weird around here. The digging crew reached the iron plate over the treasure chamber around seven. Neidelman dismissed them, sent them home because of the storm. Then he called me up here to relieve Magnusen and monitor the major systems. Only most everything is down. The generators are offline, and the backup batteries can't support the whole load. I've had to shut down all noncritical systems. Communications have been out since lightning trashed the uplink. They're on their own down there."

Bonterre walked toward the center of the structure and stared down through the glass porthole. The Water Pit was dark, a glowing ember of light deep at its core. The skeletal tracery of struts and braces that filled the Pit shone dimly in the reflected emergency lamps.

"So who's down there?" she asked.

"Just Neidelman and Magnusen, far as I know. Haven't seen anybody else on the monitors, anyway. And they went out when the generators failed." He jerked a thumb in the direction of the closed-circuit monitors, now awash in snow.

But Bonterre continued to stare down toward the faint light at the base of the Pit. "How about Streeter?"

"Haven't seen him since we had all that company in the lobster boats, earlier in the day."

Bonterre stepped away from the glass floor. "Has Neidelman broached the chamber?"

"Like I said, I lost the video feeds. All I got left are the instruments. At least the hardbody sonar is giving clearer signals now that all the dirt's been removed. I've been trying to get a cross section of. . ."

His voice died as Bonterre became aware of a faint vibration, a tremor at the edge of perceptibility. She glanced out the windows, sudden fear washing over her. But the battered cofferdam was still holding back the fury of the sea.

"What the hell?" breathed Rankin, staring at the sonar screen.

"Do you feel that?" Bonterre asked.

"Feel it? I can see it right here."

"What is it?"

"Damned if I know. Way too shallow to be an earthquake, and anyway it isn't throwing out the right P-waves." He tapped briefly on a keyboard. "There, it's stopped again. Some tunnel caving in somewhere, I'll bet."

"Look, Roger, I need your help." Bonterre set the sopping nylon bag onto an instrument panel and unzipped it. "Ever seen a machine such like this one?"

Rankin kept his eyes on the monitor. "What is it?"

"A Radmeter. It is for—"

"Wait a minute. A Radmeter?" Rankin looked over from the monitor. "Well, what the hell. Yeah, I know what it is. Those puppies aren't cheap. Where'd you get it?"

"You know how to work it?"

"More or less. Mining company I worked for used one for tracing strikes of pitchblende deposits. Wasn't as fancy as this one, though."

Coming over, he snapped it on and typed a few instructions on the miniature keyboard. A glowing, three-dimensional grid appeared on the screen. "You aim this detector," he said, moving the microphonelike device, "and it traces a map of the radioactive source on the screen. The intensity is color-coded. Blues and greens for the lowest-level radiation, then up through the spectrum. White's the hottest. Hmmm, this thing needs calibration." The screen was streaked with dashes and spots of blue.

Rankin tapped a few keys. "Damn, I'm getting a hell of a lot of background noise. The machine's probably on the fritz. Just like everything else around here."

"The machine is working just fine," said Bonterre evenly. "It is picking up radiation from St. Michael's Sword."

Rankin glanced at her, squinting his eyes. "What did you say?"

"The sword is radioactive."

Rankin continued looking at her. "You're jiving me."

"I do not jive. The radioactivity has been the cause of all our problems." Bonterre quickly explained while Rankin stared at her, his mouth working silently behind his thick beard. When she finished, she braced herself for the inevitable argument.

But none came. Rankin continued staring, his hirsute face perplexed. Then it cleared and he nodded suddenly, great beard wagging. "Hell, I guess it's the only answer that explains everything. I wonder—"

"We do not have time for speculation," interrupted Bonterre sharply. "Neidelman cannot be allowed to open the casket."

"Yes," said Rankin slowly, still thinking. "Yes, it would have to be radioactive as hell to be leaking all the way to the surface. Shit, he could fry us all. No wonder the equipment's been acting up. It's a wonder the sonar's cleared up enough to..."

The words died on his lips as his gaze turned back to the bank of equipment.

"Christ on a bicycle," he said wonderingly.

Chapter 53

Neidelman stood motionless at the base of the Water Pit. Above his head, the lift hummed as it carried Streeter and Hatch up the array until they were lost from view in the forest of struts.