Riptide

Chapter 46

Hatch swung the nose of the Plain Jane into the channel. Behind came a rattling symphony of lines slapping masts as the boats bobbed hysterically at their moorings. The wind was cold, the sky thick with water. He took a taste: as much salt as it was fresh. He'd seen seas like this before in his childhood. But he'd never been foolhardy enough to venture out in them.

He took one final look back at the shore, then turned to sea and throttled up. They passed the floating 5 MPH and NO WAKE signs, so thrashed by the sea that they hung sideways, as if admitting defeat.

Bonterre came up beside him, clinging to the instrument housing with both hands.

"Well?" she screamed in his ear.

"Isobel, I've been a damn fool," he shouted back. "I've seen those same basic symptoms a thousand times. It was staring me right in the face. Anyone who's ever undergone radiation treatment for cancer knows what it's all about."

"Radiation treatment?"

"Yes. What happens to those patients? They get nauseated. They lose their energy. Their hair. White cell counts go through the floor. Among all the weird ailments I've seen this last week, every one had those points in common."

Bonterre hesitated, eyes wide despite the blinding surf.

"St. Michael's Sword is radioactive. Think about it. Long-term exposure to radioactivity kills your bone marrow cells, basically stops cell division. It cripples the immune system, makes you an easy mark. That's why the Thalassa crew had all those exotic diseases that kept distracting me. But the lack of cell division also stops the healing process, causes hair loss. Look at how my own hand has been so slow to heal. Severe exposure leads to osteoporosis and loss of teeth. Symptoms similar to scurvy."

"And it might also explain the computer problems."

"What do you mean?"

"Stray radiation causes havoc with microelectronics." Bonterre squinted at him, rain and seawater streaming across her face. "But why go out in this murderous storm?"

"We know the sword is radioactive. But that's all we know about it. The thing's been shut up in a lead box, and yet it's still killed everyone who's come in contact with it over the last seven hundred years. God only knows what would happen if Neidelman took it out of the casket. We can't allow that to happen."

As the boat came out of the lee of Burnt Head, the sea slammed into the Plain Jane's hull with brutal ferocity. Hatch shut up abruptly and spun the wheel, trying to take the heading sea at a diagonal. The air around the boat was filled with pulverized water and spindrift. He checked the binnacle, corrected course, and scanned the loran.

Bonterre gripped the rails with both hands, lowering her head against the driving rain. "But what is the sword, then?"

"God only knows. Whatever it is, it's hot as hell. I for one don't want to—"

He fell silent abruptly, staring ahead. A white line loomed out of the murk, towering over the top of the boat. For a moment, he wondered if it was a large ship.

"Jesus," he muttered, distantly surprised by the matter-of-fact tone in his own voice. "Look at that."

It was no ship. He realized, with horror, that it was the breaking top of a massive wave. "Help me hold the wheel!" he yelled.

Leaning forward, Bonterre clapped both hands on the wheel while he worked desperately at the throttle. The boat rose along the almost vertical face while Hatch gingerly increased the throttle, trying to keep the boat aligned. As the breaking top of the comber struck, there was an explosion of white and a tremendous hollow roar; he braced himself against the mass of water and held his breath.

The boat seemed suspended for a moment inside the wave; then it suddenly broke free and tipped over the crest with a violent corkscrew motion. He quickly eased up on the throttle and the boat sank into the following trough at a sickening speed. There was a moment of perverse, eerie calm as the boat was protected from the wind in the hollow between the waves. Then the next great face of green water, honeycombed with foam, rose up out of the dark before them.

"It'll get even worse beyond Wreck Island," he yelled.

Bonterre didn't bother to answer, clinging to the wheel as the boat lurched toward another crest with a jarring crash.

Glancing at the loran screen, Hatch saw the boat was being carried southeastward by a riptide at a good four knots. He corrected course to compensate, one hand on the throttle and the other on the wheel. Bonterre helped steady the helm through the dips.

"The professor was right," Hatch shouted. "I couldn't have done this without you."

The spray and wind had pulled Bonterre's long hair loose from her sou'wester, and it streamed behind her in a ravishing tangle of black. Her face was flushed, whether from fear or excitement he could not tell.

Another comber swept over the boat and he turned his eyes back to the fury.

"How will you convince Neidelman the sword is radioactive?" Bonterre hollered.

"When Thalassa set up my office, they included all kinds of crazy equipment. Including a radiologist's Radmeter. A high-tech Geiger counter. I never even turned the damn thing on." Hatch shook his head as they began to climb another wave. "If I had, it would have gone nuts. All those sick diggers, coming in covered with radioactive dirt. It doesn't matter how much Neidelman wants the sword. He won't be able to argue with that meter."

He could just barely hear, over the sound of the wind and his own shouting voice, the distant thudding of surf off the starboard side: Wreck Island. As they came out of the lee, the wind increased in intensity. Now, as if on cue, he could see a massive white line, far bigger than any previous wave, rising up above the Plain Jane. It loomed over their heads, water hissing along its crest. The boat fell into the silent trough and began to rise. His heart hammering in his chest, Hatch gave the boat a little more acceleration as he felt the swell begin to lift them once again.

"Hang on!" he yelled as the top of the wave reached them. Goosing the throttle, he pointed the boat straight into the roiling mass of water. The Plain Jane was thrown violently backward into a strange twilight world where both air and sea were made of water. Then, suddenly, they were through, the propeller whining helplessly as the prow fell down the foamy backside of the wave. As they slid into another glassy trough, Hatch saw a second white line materializing out of the gloom ahead, churning and shifting like a mad thing.

He struggled with the panic and despair that rose within him. That last hadn't been a freakish wave. It was going to be like this for the next three miles.

He began to feel an ominous sensation at each twist of the boat: a funny vibration, a tug at the wheel. The boat felt weighty and overballasted. He peered aft through the lashing wind. The bilge pumps had been running at full capacity since they left the harbor, but the old Plain Jane had no well meter. There was no way of knowing the depth of water in the hold without checking it himself.

"Isobel!" he roared, bracing his feet against the walls of the cabin and locking his hands around the wheel. "Go into the forward cabin and unscrew the metal hatch in the center of the floor. Tell me how much water's in the hold."

Bonterre shook the rain from her eyes and nodded her understanding. As Hatch watched, she crawled through the pilothouse and unlatched the cabin door. A moment later, she emerged again.

"It is one quarter full!" she shouted.

Hatch swore; they must have hit some piece of flotsam that stove in the hull, but he'd never felt the impact in the violent seas. He glanced again at the loran. Two and a half miles from the island. Too far out for them to turn around. Perhaps too far to make it.

"Take the wheel!" he yelled. "I'm going to check the dinghy!"

He crawled aft, hanging desperately to the gunwale railing with both hands.

The dinghy was still behind, bobbing like a cork at the end of its line. It was relatively dry, the Plain Jane's bulk having kept most of the heavy seas out of it. But, dry or not, Hatch hoped to God they wouldn't have to use it.

The moment he relieved Bonterre at the helm, he could tell that the boat had grown distinctly heavier. It was taking longer to rise through the masses of water that pressed them down into the sea.

"You okay?" Bonterre called.

"So far," said Hatch. "You?"

"Scared."

The boat sank again into a trough, into that same eerie stillness, and Hatch tensed for the rise, hand on the throttle. But the rise did not come.

Hatch waited. And then it came, but more slowly. For a grateful moment, he thought perhaps the loran was off and they had already come into the lee of the island. Then he heard a strange rumble.

Towering far above his head was a smooth, Himalayan cliff face of water. A churning breaker topped its crown, growling and hissing like a living thing.

Craning her neck upward, Bonterre saw it as well. Neither said a word.

The boat rose and kept rising, ascending forever, while the water gradually filled the air with a waterfall's roar. There was a massive crash as the comber hit them straight on; the boat was flung backward and upward, the deck rising almost to vertical. Hatch clung desperately as he felt his feet slip from the deck beneath him. He could feel the water in the hold shift, twisting the boat sideways.

Then the wheel went abruptly slack. As the roaring water fell away, he realized the boat was swamped.

The Plain Jane came to rest on its side and began to sink rapidly, too full of water to right itself. Hatch looked rearward. The dinghy had also shipped a quantity of water, but was still afloat.

Bonterre followed Hatch's eyes and nodded. Clinging to the side, up to their waists in roiling water, they began working their way toward the stern. Hatch knew that a freakish wave was usually followed by a series of smaller ones. They had two minutes, maybe three, to get into the dinghy and free of the Plain Jane before she dragged them down with her.

Clinging to the railing, Hatch held his breath as the water surged over them, first once, then a second time. He felt his hand grasp the stern rail. Already, the eyebolt was too deep underwater to reach. Fumbling about in the chill sea, he located the painter. Letting go of the rail, he reeled in the rope, kicking frantically against the tug of the water until he felt himself bump the dinghy's bow. He scrambled in, falling heavily to the bottom, then rose and looked back for Bonterre.

She was clinging to the stern, the Plain Jane now almost under. He grabbed the painter and began pulling the dinghy in toward the eyebolt. Another great wave lifted him up, smothering him with briny foam. He leaned down and grasped Bonterre under the arms, pulling her into the dinghy. As the wave subsided, the Plain Jane turned bottom up and began to sink in a flurry of bubbles.

"We've got to cut loose!" Hatch shouted. He dug into his pocket for his knife and sawed desperately through the painter. The dinghy fell back into the swell as the Plain Jane turned its stern toward the inky sky and disappeared with a great sigh of air.

Without hesitation, Bonterre grabbed the bailer, working fast to lighten the dinghy's bottom. Moving aft, Hatch gave the outboard a tug, then another. There was a cough, a snort, then a tinny rasp above the scream of the ocean. Engine idling, Hatch quickly began working the second bailer. But it was no use: with the Plain Jane gone, the little dinghy was bearing the full brunt of the storm. More water was crashing over the side than could be bailed out.

"We need to be turned against the sea," said Bonterre. "You bail. I will manage the boat."

"But—"

"Do it!"

Crawling aft, Bonterre threw the little engine into forward and jammed the throttle open, swinging the boat broadside to the sea as she did so.

"For Chrissake, what are you doing?" Hatch howled.

"Bail!" she yelled in return. The boat sagged backward and upward, the water in its bottom flowing aft. Just as a great comber bore down, she gave the throttle a sudden twist, lifting it up and over. Immediately, she turned the boat again, surfing down the wave's backside, almost parallel to the sea.

This was in direct opposition to everything Hatch had ever learned about boats. In terror, he dropped the bailer and clung to the gunwale as they gathered speed.

"Keep bailing!" Bonterre reached back and pulled the stopcock in the stern. Water drained out as the boat picked up even more speed.

"You're going to kill us!" Hatch yelled.

"I have done this before!" Bonterre shouted. "I surfed the waves as a kid."

"Not waves like this!"

The dinghy skimmed down the middle of the trough, the propeller clearing the water with a nasty whine as they began to climb the leading side of the next wave. Sprawled in the bottom and clutching both gunwales, Hatch guessed their speed at twenty knots.

"Hold on!" Bonterre yelled. The little boat skidded sideways and skipped over the foaming crest. As Hatch watched in mingled horror and disbelief, the dinghy became airborne for a sickening moment before slamming down on the far side of the wave. It leveled out, shooting down the following edge.

"Can't you slow down?"

"It does not work if one slows down! The boat needs to be planing!"

Hatch peered over the bows. "But we're heading in the wrong direction!"

"Do not worry. In a few minutes I will come about."

Hatch sat up in the bow. He could see that Bonterre was staying as long as possible in the glassy troughs, where the wind and chop didn't reach, violating the cardinal rule that you never bring your boat broadside to a heavy sea. And yet the high speed of the boat kept it stable, allowing her to look for the best place to cross each wave.

As he watched, another wave crested before them. With a deliberate jerk, Bonterre jammed the engine handle around. The dinghy skipped over the top of the crest, reversing direction as it came hurtling down into the next trough.

"Sweet Jesus!" Hatch cried, scrabbling desperately at the bow seat.

The wind dropped a little as they came into the lee of the island. Here there was no regular swell, and it became far more difficult for the little boat to ride the confused sea.

"Turn back!" Hatch cried. "The riptide's going to sweep us past the island!"

Bonterre began to reply. Then she stopped.

"Lights!" she cried.

Emerging from the storm was the Cerberus, perhaps three hundred yards off, the powerful lights on its bridge and forward deck cutting through the dark. Now it was turning toward them, a saving vision in white, almost serene in the howling storm. Perhaps it had seen them, Hatch thought—no, it had seen them. It must have picked up the Plain Jane on its scope and been coming to its rescue.

"Over here!" Bonterre yelled, waving her arms.

The Cerberus slowed, presenting its port side to the dinghy. They came to an uneasy rest as the great bulk of the ship cut them off from wind and waves.

"Open the boarding hatch!" Hatch yelled.

They bobbed for a moment, waiting, as the Cerberus remained silent and still.

"Vas-y, vas-y!" Bonterre cried impatiently. "We are freezing!"

Staring up at the white superstructure, Hatch heard the high whine of an electric motor. He glanced toward the boarding hatch, expecting to see it open. Yet it remained closed and motionless.

Twisted lightning seared the sky. Far above, Hatch thought he could see a single figure reflected against the light of the bridge instrumentation, looking down at them.

The whine continued. Then he noticed the harpoon gun on the forward deck, swiveling slowly in their direction.

Bonterre was staring at it also, puzzled. "Grande merde du noire," she muttered.

"Turn the boat!" Hatch yelled.

Bonterre threw the throttle hard to starboard and the little craft spun around. Above, Hatch saw a peripheral glow, a blue flash. There was a sharp hissing noise, then a loud splash ahead of them. A thunderous whump followed, and a tower of water rose twenty feet off their port bow, its base lit an ugly orange.

"Explosive harpoon!" Hatch cried.

There was another flash and explosion, frighteningly close. The little dinghy pitched sharply, then heaved to one side. As they cleared the side of the Cerberus, wild water took them once again. There was an explosion ahead as another harpoon hit the water. Spray stung Hatch's face as they fell backward, nearly foundering.

Without a word, Bonterre spun the boat again, throttled up, and headed straight for the Cerberus. Hatch turned to yell out a warning, then realized what she was doing. At the last moment she turned the boat sideways, slamming hard against the huge vessel. They were under the pitch of the hull, too close for the harpoon gun.

"We'll make a dash by the stern!" Bonterre cried.

As Hatch leaned forward to bail, he saw a strange sight: a narrow line in the water, sputtering and snapping, heading toward them. Curious, he paused to watch. Then the line reached the bow in front of him, and with a tearing sound the nose of the dinghy vanished in a cloud of sawdust and wood smoke. Falling into the stern, glancing up, Hatch could see Streeter leaning over the ship's rail, an ugly weapon he recognized as a flechette aimed directly at them.

Before Hatch could speak Bonterre had thrown the boat forward again. There was a sound like a demonic sewing machine as the flechette in Streeter's hands tore apart the water where the dinghy had tossed just a moment before. Then they had cleared the stern and were back out in the storm, the boat bucking, water crashing over the ruined bows. With a roar, the Cerberus began to turn. Bonterre jammed the dinghy to port, almost overturning it as she headed in the direction of the Ragged Island piers.

But in the vicious ripping sea the small outboard was no match for the power and speed of the Cerberus. Looking through the heavy squall, Hatch could see the huge boat begin to gain. In another minute, they would be cut off from the inlet that led through the Ragged Island reefs to the pier beyond.

"Head for the reefs!" he yelled. "If you time the swell, you might be able to ride right over. This boat hardly draws a foot!"

Bonterre jerked the boat to a new course. The Cerberus continued to bear down, coming inexorably at them through the storm.

"Make a feint, let him think we're going to turn at the reefs!" he shouted.

Bonterre brought them parallel to the reefs, just outside the breaking surf.

"He thinks he's got us!" Hatch said as the Cerberus turned again. There was another shattering explosion off the beam, and for a moment Hatch breathed salt water. Then they emerged from the spray. Glancing down, Hatch saw that half the port gunwale had been blown away by a harpoon.

"We'll only have a single chance!" he yelled. "Ride the next swell across!"

They bucked along the reef for an agonizingly long instant. Then he yelled: "Now!"

As Bonterre turned the ruined dinghy into the boiling hell of water that lay across the reef, there came another huge explosion. Hatch heard a strange crunching noise and felt himself hurtled violently into the air. Then everything around him was churning water and bits of planking, and the dying muffled roar of agitated bubbles. He felt himself being drawn down, and still down. There was only one brief moment of terror before it all began to seem very peaceful indeed.