Riptide

Chapter 42

Hatch stood on the wide old porch of the house on Ocean Lane. What had been merely a weatherman's threat the day before was fast becoming reality. To the east, a heavy swell was coming in over the sea, creating a torn line of breakers on the reefs of Breed's Point. On the opposite side of the harbor, beyond the channel buoys, the surf flung itself again and again up the granite cliffs beyond Burnt Head Light, the boom of the rollers carrying across the bay in measured cadences. The sky was slung across with the ugly underbelly of a massive foul-weather front, the clouds churning and coiling as they raced across the water. Farther offshore, an evil patch of surf seethed about Old Hump. Hatch shook his head; if the swell was already smothering the bald rock, it was going to be a hell of a blow.

He gazed down toward the harbor, where a few vessels from the protest flotilla were already returning: smaller boats, and the million-dollar craft of the more cautious trawler captains.

Closer to home, movement caught his eye: he turned to see the familiar stubby form of a Federal Express van nosing into the lane, wildly out of place as it bumped down the old cobbles. It stopped in front of his house, and Hatch came down the steps to sign for the package.

He stepped back into the house, tearing open the box and eagerly removing the thick plastic packet inside. Professor Horn and Bonterre, standing beside one of the pirate skeletons, stopped talking when they saw the package.

"Straight from the Smithsonian's Phys Anthro lab," Hatch said as he broke the plastic seal. Pulling out the bulky computer printout within, he laid it on the table and began flipping pages. There was a heavy silence as they leaned over the results, disappointment palpable in the air. Finally Hatch sighed and flung himself into a nearby chair. The professor shuffled over, eased himself down opposite Hatch, rested his chin on his cane, and eyed Hatch meditatively.

"Not what you were looking for, I take it?" he asked.

"No," Hatch said, shaking his head. "Not at all."

The professor's brows contracted. "Malin, you were always too hasty to accept defeat."

Bonterre picked up the printout and began flipping through it. "I can not make foot or head of this medical jargon," she said. "What are all these horrible-sounding diseases?"

Hatch sighed. "A couple of days back, I sent off bone sections from these two skeletons to the Smithsonian. I also included a random sampling from a dozen of the skeletons you uncovered in the dig."

"Checking for disease," Professor Horn said.

"Yes. As more and more of our people began to get sick, I began to wonder about that mass pirate grave. I thought the skeletons might be useful in my examination. If a person dies of a disease, he usually dies with a large number of antibodies to that disease in his body."

"Or her body," said Bonterre. "Remember, there were three ladies in that grave."

"Large labs like the Smithsonian's can test old bone for small amounts of those antibodies, learn exactly what disease the person might have died from." Hatch paused. "Something about Ragged Island—then and now—makes people sick. The most likely candidate to me seemed the sword. I figured that, somehow, it was a carrier of disease. Everywhere it went, people died." He picked up the printout. "But according to these tests, no two pirates died of the same illness. Klebsiclla, Bruniere's disease, Dentritic mycosis, Tahitian tick fever—they died of a whole suite of diseases, some of them extremely rare. And in almost half the cases, the cause is unknown."

He grabbed a sheaf of papers from an end table. "It's just as mystifying as the CBC results on the patients I've been seeing the last couple of days." He passed the top sheet to Professor Horn.

COMPLETE BLOOD COUNT

TEST NAME RESULTS UMTS

ABNORMAL NORMAL

WBC S.50 THOUS/CU.MM.

RBC 4.02 MIL/CU.MM.

HGB 14.4 GM/DL

HCT 41.2 PERCENT

MCV 81.2 PL

MCH 34.1 PG

MCHC 30 PERCENT

RDW 14.7 PERCENT

MPV 8 FL

PLATELET COUNT 75 THOUS/CU.MM.

DIFFERENTIAL

POLY 900 CU.MM.

LYMPH 600 CU.MM.

MONO 10 CU.MM.

EOS .30 CU.MM.

BASO .30 CU.MM.

"The blood work's always abnormal, but in different ways with each person. The only similarity is the low white blood cells. Look at this one. Two point five thousand cells per cubic millimeter. Five to ten thousand is normal. And the lymphocytes, monocytes, basophils, all way down. Jesus."

He dropped the sheet and walked away, sighing bitterly. "This was my last chance to stop Neidelman. If there was an obvious outbreak, or some kind of viral vector on the island, maybe I could have persuaded him or used my medical connections to quarantine the place. But there's no epidemiological pattern among the illnesses, past or present."

There was a long silence. "What about the legal route?" Bonterre asked.

"I spoke to my lawyer. He tells me it's a simple breach of contract. To stop Neidelman, I'd have to get an injunction." Hatch looked at his watch. "And we don't have weeks. At the rate they're digging, we've only got a few hours."

"Can't he be arrested for trespassing?" Bonterre asked.

"Technically, he's not trespassing. The contract gives him and Thalassa permission to be on the island."

"I can understand your concern," the professor said, "but not your conclusion. How could the sword itself be dangerous? Short of getting sliced open by its blade, I mean."

Hatch looked at him. "It's hard to explain. As a diagnostician, sometimes you develop a sixth sense. That's what I feel now. A sense, a conviction, that this sword is a carrier of some kind. We keep hearing about the Ragged Island curse. Maybe this sword is something like that, only with a real-world explanation."

"Why have you discarded the idea of it being a real curse?"

Hatch looked at him in disbelief. "You're joking, right?"

"We live in a strange universe, Malin."

"Not that strange."

"All I'm asking is that you think the unthinkable. Look for the connection."

Hatch walked to the living room window. The wind was blowing back the leaves of the oak tree in the meadow. Drops of rain had begun to fall. More boats were crowding into the harbor; several smaller craft were at the ramp, waiting to be hauled out. The whitecaps flecked the bay as far as the eyes could see, and as the tide began to ebb a nasty cross-sea was developing.

He sighed and turned. "I can't see it. What could streptococcal pneumonia and, say, candidiasis, have in common?"

The professor pursed his lips. "Back in 1981 or '82, I remember reading a similar comment made by an epidemiologist at the National Institutes of Health."

"And what was that?"

"He asked what Kaposi's sarcoma and Pneumocystis carinii could possibly have in common."

Hatch turned sharply. "Look, this couldn't possibly be HIV." Then—before the professor had gathered himself for an acerbic reply—Hatch realized what the old man was getting at. "HIV kills by exhausting the human immune system," he went on. "Letting in a host of opportunistic diseases."

"Exactly. You have to filter out the pestilential noise, so to speak, and see what's left."

"So maybe we're looking for something that degrades the human immune system."

"I did not know we had so many sick on the island," Bonterre said. "None of my people are ill."

Hatch turned toward her. "None?"

Bonterre shook her head.

"There. You see?" Dr. Horn smiled and rapped his cane on the floor. "You asked for a common thread. Now you have several leads to follow."

He stood up and took Bonterre's hand. "It was very charming to meet you, mademoiselle, and I wish I could stay. But it's coming on to blow and I want to get home to my sherry, slippers, dog, and fire."

As the professor reached for his coat, there came the sound of heavy footsteps hurrying across the porch. The door was flung open in a gust of wind, and there was Donny Truitt, his slicker flapping open and rain running down his face in thick rivulets.

A flash of fire tore the sky, and the heavy boom of thunder echoed across the bay.

"Donny?" Hatch asked.

Truitt reached down to his damp shirt, tearing it open with both hands. Hatch heard the professor draw in a sharp breath.

"Grande merde du noir," Bonterre whispered.

Truitt's armpits were spotted with large, weeping lesions. Rainwater ran from them, tinged pinkish-green. Truitt's eyes were puffy, the bags beneath blue-black. There was another flash of lightning, and in the dying echo of thunder Truitt cried out. He took a staggering step forward, pulling the sou'wester from his head as he did so.

For a moment, all inside the house were paralyzed. Then Hatch and Bonterre caught Truitt's arm and eased him toward the living room sofa.

"Help me, Mal," Truitt gasped, grabbing his head with both hands. "I've never been sick a day in my life."

"I'll help," said Hatch. "But you need to lie down and let me examine your chest."

"Forget my damn chest," Donny gasped. "I'm talking about this!"

And as he jerked his head away from his hands with a convulsive movement, Hatch could see, with cold horror, that each hand now held a mat of thick, carrot-colored hair.