Riptide

Chapter 37

Hatch stepped over the last series of ramps and bridges to the base of Orthanc. The newly installed ventilation housing rose up above the Pit: three massive ducts that sucked foul air out of the depths and ejected it skyward, where it condensed into great plumes of fog. Light from the Pit itself spilled into the surrounding fog.

Stepping forward, Hatch grasped the ladder, then climbed to the observation railing that circled Orthanc's control tower.

Neidelman was nowhere to be seen. In fact, the tower was empty of anyone except Magnusen, scanning the sensor arrays that monitored the loads on the timbers in the Pit. The sensors were banked in rows of green lights. Any increase in strain on one of the timbers, the slightest shifting of a brace, and the appropriate light would turn red to the shrill sound of an alarm. As the bracing and buttressing had continued, the alarms had steadily decreased in frequency. Even the bugs that perpetually plagued the island's computer systems had, in this case, seemingly been ironed out. The complex placement of sensors that had its beginning in Wopner's last hours was now complete.

Hatch moved to the center of the room and gazed through the glass porthole into the Pit below. There were numerous side tunnels and shafts that were still extremely dangerous, but they had been marked with yellow tape and were off limits to all but the remote mapping teams.

A gust of wind blew the plumes of fog away from the Pit's mouth, and the view cleared. The ladder array plunged downward, three gleaming rails from which numerous platforms branched. Radiating out from the array was an extraordinary pattern of titanium struts. The visual effect was breathtaking: the polished struts, struck by countless lights, threw sprays of light around the mossy shaft, reflecting and re-reflecting the welter of titanium, stretching down into infinity.

There was a complex pattern to the struts. That morning, Neidelman's crew had been hard at work replacing the missing members of Macallan's original bracing with additional titanium members, following St. John's specifications. Other struts had been added, based on the results of a computer model run on the Cerberus computer. They might be ready to begin digging the final fifty feet to the treasure chamber by the end of the day.

As he stared into the brilliant depths, still struggling with the reality of Claire's letter, Hatch noticed movement: it was Neidelman, ascending in the mechanical lift. Bonterre stood beside him, hugging herself as if chilled. The sodium-vapor lights of the Pit turned the Captains sandy hair to gold.

Hatch wondered why the Captain wanted to meet him there. Maybe he's got a canker sore, he thought bitterly. Actually, he wouldn't be surprised if it did turn out to be health-related. He'd never seen a man work so hard, or go so long without sleep, as had Neidelman during these last days.

The Captain swung up to the staging platform, then climbed the ladder into Orthanc, his muddy boots marking the metal floor. He faced Hatch wordlessly. Bonterre stepped up onto the deck, then entered the chamber behind the Captain. Hatch glanced at her, then tensed suddenly, alarmed by the expression on her face. Both were strangely silent.

Neidelman turned to Magnusen. "Sandra, may we have some privacy for a moment?"

The engineer stood up, walked out onto the observation deck, and shut the door behind her. Neidelman drew a deep breath, his tired gray eyes on Hatch.

"You'd better steady yourself," he said quietly.

Bonterre said nothing, looking at Hatch.

"Malin, we found your brother."

Hatch felt a sudden sense of dislocation, almost as if he was pulling away from the world around him, into a remote and shrouded distance.

"Where?" he managed.

"In a deep cavity, below the vaulted tunnel. Under the grate."

"You're sure?" Hatch whispered. "No chance of mistake?"

"It is the skeleton of a child," Bonterre said. "Twelve years old, perhaps thirteen, blue dungaree shorts, baseball cap—"

"Yes," Hatch whispered, sitting down suddenly as a wave of dizziness passed over him, leaving his knees weak and his head light. "Yes."

The tower was silent for the space of a minute.

"I need to see for myself," Hatch said at last.

"We know you do," Bonterre said, gently helping him to his feet. "Come."

"There's a tight drop down a vertical passage," said Neidelman. "The final cavity's not fully braced. There's a certain danger."

Hatch waved his hand.

Shrugging into a slicker, stepping onto the small electric lift, descending the ladder array—the next minutes passed in a gray blur. His limbs ached, and as he gripped the lift railing his own hands looked gray and lifeless in the stark light of the Pit. Neidelman and Bonterre crowded in at either side, while members of the bracing crews looked on from a distance as they went past.

Reaching the hundred-foot level, Neidelman stopped the lift. Stepping off the metal plate, they crossed a walkway to the mouth of the tunnel. Hatch hesitated.

"It's the only way," said Neidelman.

Hatch stepped into the tunnel, past a large air-filtration unit. Within, the ceiling was now braced by a series of metal plates, held up by a row of titanium screw jacks. A few more nightmare steps and Hatch found himself back in the octagonal stone chamber where Wopner had died. The great rock lay against the wall, seemingly undisturbed, a chilling memorial to the programmer and the engine of death that destroyed him. A twin set of jacks still braced the rock at the place where the body had been removed. A large stain coated the inside of the rock and the wall, rust-colored in the bright lights. Hatch looked away.

"It's what you wanted, isn't it?" Neidelman said in a curious tone.

With a tremendous effort, Hatch willed his feet forward, past the stone, past the rust-colored stain, to the well in the center of the room. The iron grating had been removed and a rope ladder led down into darkness.

"Our remote mapping teams only started working the secondary tunnels yesterday," Neidelman said. "When they returned to this vault, they examined the grating and calculated the shaft beneath it intersected the shore tunnel. The one you discovered as a boy. So they sent someone down to investigate. He broke through what seems to have once been some kind of watertight seal." He stepped forward. "I'll go first."

The Captain disappeared down the ladder. Hatch waited, his mind empty of everything but the chill breath from the well before him. Silently, Bonterre took his hand in hers.

A few minutes later, Neidelman called up. Hatch stepped forward, bent down, and gripped the rails of the narrow ladder.

The well was only four feet in diameter. Hatch climbed down, following the smooth-walled shaft as it curved around a large rock. He stepped off the bottom rung, sank his foot into foul-smelling ooze, and looked around, almost drowning in dread.

He was in a small chamber, cut into the hard glacial till. It had the look of a cramped dungeon, massive rock walls on all sides. But then he noticed that one of the walls did not reach the floor. In fact, what he thought was a wall was a massive piece of dressed stone, hewn square.

Neidelman angled his light beneath the stone. There was a dim flash of white.

The pulse pounding at his temples, Hatch took a step forward, then bent down. He unhooked his flashlight from the harness and snapped it on.

Jammed beneath the stone was a skeleton. The Red Sox cap still hung on the skull, clumps of brown hair peeking out from beneath. A rotten shirt clung to the rib cage. Below was a pair of ragged dungaree shorts, still attached by a belt. One bony knee peered out from the denim. A red, high-top Keds sneaker covered the right foot, while the left was still trapped behind the rear of the stone, ground into a rubbery mass.

The distant part of Hatch could see that the legs and arms were massively fractured, the ribs sprung from the breastplate, the skull crushed. Johnny—for this could only be Johnny—had fallen victim to one of Macallan's traps, similar to that which killed Wopner. But without the helmet to slow the movement of the rock, death had been much quicker. At least, Hatch could always hope so.

He reached out, gently touching the brim of the cap. It was Johnny's favorite, signed by Jim Lonborg. Their father had bought it for him on that trip down to Boston, the day the Red Sox won the pennant. His fingers moved down to caress a lock of hair, then traced the curve of the mandible, past the chin to the crushed rib cage, along the arm bones to the skeletonized hand. He noticed every detail as if in a dream: distant, yet with that peculiar intensification that sometimes occurs in dream, every detail etched into his brain with jewellike clarity.

Hatch remained motionless, cradling the cold, birdlike bones in his own hand, in the sepulchral silence of the hole.