Riptide

Chapter 17

The fort was dark and chill with damp. Swallows flitted about the interior of the granite tower, whipping back and forth like bullets in the sunlight that angled sharply through the ancient gunports.

Hatch entered through the stone archway and paused, breathing heavily, trying to recover his composure. Despite himself, he'd allowed the minister to provoke him. Half the town had seen it, and the half that hadn't would soon know about it.

He took a seat on an outcropping of the stone foundation. No doubt Clay had been talking to others. Hatch doubted most people would listen, except perhaps the lobstermen. They could be a superstitious lot, and talk about curses might weigh heavily. And then that remark about the dig ruining the lobstering... Hatch just hoped it was going to be a good season.

Slowly he calmed down, letting the peace of the fort wash away his anger, listening to the faint clamor of the festival across the meadow. He really had to control himself better. The man was an obnoxious prig, but he wasn't worth flying off the handle over.

It was a tranquil, womblike space, and Hatch felt he could stay there, enjoying the coolness, for hours. But he knew he should be returning to the festival, putting up a nonchalant front, smoothing things over. In any case, he needed to be back before the inevitable speeches began. He stood up and turned to go, and saw with surprise a stooped figure waiting in the shadows of the archway. It stepped forward into a shaft of light.

"Professor Horn!" Hatch cried.

The man's canny old face crinkled with delight. "I wondered when you'd notice me," he said, advancing with his cane. He shook Hatch's hand warmly. "That was quite a little scene back there."

Hatch shook his head. "I lost my temper, like an idiot. What is it about that man that gets my goat?"

"No mystery there. Clay is awkward, socially inept, morally rigid. But beneath that bitter exterior there beats a heart as big and generous as the ocean. As violent and unknowable, too, I'll bet. He's a complex man, Malin; don't underestimate him." The professor grasped Hatch's shoulder. "Enough about the reverend. By God, Malin, you're looking well. I'm prodigiously proud of you. Harvard Medical School, research position at Mount Auburn. You were always a smart boy. Too bad it didn't always equate to being a good student."

"I owe a lot of it to you," Hatch said. He remembered afternoons in the professor's huge Victorian house in the back meadows—poring over his collections of rocks, beetles, and butterflies—in those last years before leaving Stormhaven.

"Nonsense. I still have your bird nest collection, by the way. Never knew where to send it after you left."

Hatch felt a twinge of guilt. It had never occurred to him that the august professor would have wanted to hear from him. "I'm surprised you didn't throw that junk away."

"Actually, it was a remarkably good collection." He shifted his hand to Hatch's arm and held it in a bony clasp. "See me out the fort and across the meadow, would you? I'm a little shaky on my wheels these days."

"I would have gotten in touch . . ." Hatch's voice trailed away.

"Not a word, not even a forwarding address," the professor said acidly. "Then I read about you in the Globe last year."

Hatch turned away, feeling shame burning his face.

The professor gave a gruff snort. "No matter. According to the actuarial tables I should be dead. I'll be eighty-nine next Thursday, and damn you if you don't bring me a present."

They emerged into the sunlight of the meadow. Voices raised in laughter drifted toward them on the breeze.

"You must have heard why I came back," Hatch said tentatively.

"Who hasn't?" was the tart reply. The professor offered nothing further, and they walked on in silence for a moment.

"So?" Hatch said at last.

The old man looked at him inquiringly.

"So drop the other shoe," Hatch continued. "What do you think of this treasure hunt?"

The professor walked on for a minute, then stopped and turned toward Malin, lowering his arm as he did so. "Remember, you asked," he said.

Hatch nodded.

"I think you're a goddamned fool."

There was a moment of stunned surprise. He'd been prepared for Clay, but not for this. "What makes you say that?"

"You, of all the people on this earth, should know better. Whatever's down there, you won't get it out."

"Look, Dr. Horn, we've got technology those old treasure hunters never even dreamed of. Hardbody sonar, proton magnetometers, a photo-reconnaissance satellite downlink. We've got twenty million dollars in funding, and we even have the private journal of the man who designed the Pit." Hatch's voice had risen. He suddenly realized that it was very important for him to have this man's good opinion.

Dr. Horn shook his head. "Malin, for almost a century I've seen them come and go. Everyone had the latest equipment. Everyone had gobs of money. Everyone had some crucial piece of information, some brilliant insight. It was always going to be different. And they all ended up the same. Bankruptcy, misery, even death." He glanced at Hatch. "Have you found any treasure yet?"

"Well, not yet," Hatch said. "There's been one small problem. We knew that the Pit must have an underground flood tunnel leading to the sea, that's why it's always filled with water. We used dye to locate the flood tunnel's exit on the sea floor. Only, it seems there's not one flood tunnel, but five, and—"

"I see," Dr. Horn interrupted. "Just one small problem. I've heard that before, too. Maybe you'll solve your problem. Only then there will be another problem, and another, until you're all bankrupt. Or dead. Or both."

"But this will be different," Hatch cried. "You can't tell me it's impossible to raise the treasure. What man created, man can defeat."

The professor suddenly gripped Hatch's arm again. He had alarmingly strong hands, corded like ancient tree roots, sinewy and dry. "I knew your grandfather, Malin. He was a lot like you: young, smart as hell, promising career ahead of him, terrific enthusiasm for life. What you just said is exactly what he said to me, word for word, fifty years ago." He lowered his voice to a fierce whisper. "Look at the legacy he left your family. You asked my opinion. So here it is in a nutshell. Go back to Boston before history repeats itself."

He turned brusquely and hobbled off, his cane flicking irritably through the grass, until he had disappeared over the brow of the hill.