Riptide

Chapter 62

Hatch tossed the now-dead Radmeter away and peered out into the darkness, toward the mouth of the tunnel and the vertical shaft of the Water Pit beyond. There had been vague sounds of voices; the flare of Clay's flashlight, silhouetting the metal skeleton of the ladder array; a gunshot, sharp and clear above the cavernous roar. He waited in an agony of uncertainty, the temptation to creep forward and take a brief look over the edge almost overwhelming. But he knew that even an instant's exposure to St. Michael's Sword meant lingering death.

He glanced back toward Bonterre. He could feel the tension in her body, hear her choppy breathing.

Suddenly, the sounds of a furious struggle erupted. There was the sound of metal striking metal, a hideous cry—whose?—followed by a strangled gibbering; then another great blow and clang of metal. Next came a terrible cry of pain and despair that receded until it, too, died into the roar of the Pit.

Hatch crouched, riveted in place by the horrifying sounds. Then came more: ragged breathing, the slap of a hand against metal, a grunt of effort. A flashlight beam flared upward, searched the wall around them, then stopped, pinpointing the mouth of their tunnel.

Someone was climbing.

Hatch tensed, options racing through his mind. He realized there was only one. If Clay had failed, somebody else had to stop Neidelman. And he was determined it would be himself.

In the darkness beside him he felt Bonterre gathering herself to move, and he realized the same thought was in her mind as well.

"Don't even think about it," he said.

"Ferme-la!" she cried. "I will not let you—"

Before Bonterre could scramble to her feet Hatch jumped forward, half running, half stumbling toward the mouth of the tunnel. He poised on the brink, steeling himself, hearing her feet behind him. He leaped forward onto the metal bridge, ready to grab Neidelman and carry him into the roaring maw beneath.

Three feet down the ladder, Clay was struggling upward, his sides heaving, a large gash across one temple.

The minister wearily placed a hand on the next rung of the array. Hatch bent down, hauling him onto the platform as Bonterre arrived. Together, they helped him into the shelter of the tunnel.

The minister stood silently, leaning forward, head lolling, arms supported on his thighs.

"What happened?" Hatch asked.

Clay looked up.

"I got the sword," he said in a faraway voice. "I threw it into the Pit."

"And Neidelman?"

"He ... he decided to go after it."

There was a silence.

"You saved our lives," Hatch said. "My God, you—" He paused and took a breath. "We'll get you to a hospital—"

Clay waved his hand wearily. "Doctor, don't. Please dignify my death with the truth."

Hatch looked at him a moment. "There's nothing medicine can do except make it less painful."

"I wish there was some way to repay your sacrifice," Bonterre said, voice husky.

Clay smiled, a strange smile that seemed partly rueful, partly euphoric. "I knew exactly what I was doing. It wasn't a sacrifice. It was a gift."

He looked at Hatch. "I have one favor to ask you. Can you get me to the mainland in time? I'd like to say good-bye to Claire."

Hatch turned his face away. "I'll do my best," he murmured.

It was time to go. They left the tunnel and crossed the shaking metal catwalk to the array. Hatch heaved Bonterre onto the ladder and waited as she began climbing into the darkness. As he looked up, lightning blazed across the sky and illuminated Orthanc, a dim specter far above, almost lost among the tracery of supports and beams. Curtains of rain, metal, and soil washed down, ricocheting through the complex matrix of the array.

"Now you!" Hatch shouted to Clay.

The minister handed him the flashlight, then turned wearily to the ladder and began to climb. Hatch watched him for a moment. Then, taking a careful grip, he leaned out over the edge of the platform and shone the flashlight down into the Pit.

He stared after the beam, almost dreading what he might see. But the sword—and Neidelman—were gone. Hatch could see a roiling cloud of mist cloaking the roaring gulf far beneath.

There was another sickening lurch, and he turned back to the array and began to climb. All too soon he caught up with Clay; the minister was clutching a titanium rung, gasping for breath. Another great wave shook the ladder, shivering the remaining struts and filling the Pit with the protest of deforming metal.

"I can't go any farther," Clay gasped. "You go on ahead."

"Take the light!" Hatch shouted. "Then wrap an arm around my neck."

Clay began to shake his head in protest.

"Do it!"

Hatch started upward again, hauling the minister up each rung. In the gleam of the flashlight he could see Bonterre above them, concern visible on her face as she looked down.

"Go, go!" he urged, willing himself upward, one rung at a time. He gained the fifty-foot platform and continued, not daring to stop for a rest. Above, he could now make out the mouth of the Water Pit, dark black against the gray of the stormy sky. His muscles screamed as he forced himself upward, lifting Clay with each step.

Then the array gave another great lurch, and a blast of wet air and spray burst up from below. With a high-pitched tearing sound, a huge piece of the array came loose below them. Knocked against the metal railing, Hatch could see the cribbing on either side of the shaft begin to split and unravel. Beside him, Clay gasped, fighting to hold on.

Hatch scrambled upward again, fear and adrenaline sending new strength coursing through him. Directly above now, Bonterre was clambering up the array, her sides heaving. He followed, hoisting Clay along, sucking air into his lungs as fast as he could.

The rungs of the ladder grew slicker. Here, nearer the surface, the roar and shriek of the collapsing Pit mingled with the howl of the storm. Rain began to lash his face, warm after the foul chill of the tunnel. There was a violent tremor from deep within the Pit, and the array gave an almost human shriek as countless supports gave way. Torn from its anchors, the ladder swung violently from side to side, slashing through a forest of twisted metal.

"Go!" Hatch roared, pushing Bonterre in front of him. As he turned to follow he saw, with horror, the bolts along the central spine of the ladder begin to burst, unzipping like a jacket. Another massive tremor and the anchor supports of Orthanc began to buckle above their heads. There was a loud popping sound and one of the great observation windows dissolved into shards, raining down into the Pit.

"Look out!" Hatch cried, closing his eyes as the rain of glass and debris came crashing past. He felt the world begin to tilt and he opened them again to see the ladder array folding in on itself. With a lurch that brought his gut into his throat, the entire structure dropped several feet, accompanied by a chorus of twisting and snapping. Clay almost broke free, his legs swinging over the void.

"Onto the cribbing!" Hatch cried. He inched across a pair of struts, still supporting Clay. Bonterre followed. Grabbing Clay around the middle, Hatch hoisted him onto a titanium anchor bolt, then onto the old wooden cribwork that braced the sides of the Pit.

"Can you make it?" he asked.

Clay nodded.

Hatch clambered up below the minister, searching for handholds along the slimy, rotten face, urging Clay on. A piece of cribbing gave way beneath Hatch's feet, then another, and he scrabbled furiously for a moment before finding another purchase. He reached up, grabbed the bottom of the staging platform, and with Bonterre's help managed to haul the minister onto the platform and then to the grassy bank beyond.

Hatch clambered to his feet. To the south, he could see the dim shape of the rising tide pouring through a gap in the cofferdam. Bloated rainclouds scudded across the shrouded moon. All around the reefs the sea had been whipped white, the riptide carrying the line of foam as far as the horizon.

A thunderous clang from above spun him around. Freed from its foundations, Orthanc was twisting around, folding in on it-self.

"To the dock!" Hatch shouted.

He grabbed Bonterre and they ran, supporting Clay between them, down the muddy trail toward Island One. Hatch glanced back to see the observation tower plunging downward, punching through the staging platform on its way into the Pit. Then the crash of a freight train gusted up from below, followed by a roar of water and a strange crackling sound: the snapping of countless wooden timbers as they pulled away from the loosening walls. A cloud of mist and water, mingled with yellow vapors and atomized mud, shot from the Pit and billowed into the night sky.

They moved as quickly as they could down the maze of trails to the deserted Base Camp and the dock beyond. The pier, sheltered by the lee of the island, was battered but intact. At its end, the launch from the Cerberus bobbed crazily in the waves.

In a moment they were aboard. Hatch felt for the key, turned it, and heard himself shout out loud as the engine roared to life. He flicked on the bilge pump and heard its reassuring gurgle.

They cast off and headed out into the storm. "We'll take the Griffin!" Hatch said, aiming for Neidelman's command boat, still stubbornly riding its anchors out beyond the reefs. "The tide's turned. We'll be going before the wind."

Bonterre nodded, hugging her sweater around her. "With a following sea and tide. Good luck, for a change."

They came alongside the Griffin and Hatch secured the launch, keeping it steady in the pitching surf while Bonterre helped Clay on board. As Hatch clambered up behind and ran to the pilothouse, lightning tore a jagged path over the island. He watched in horror as an entire section of the cofferdam collapsed. A great wall of water lunged through, pale against the dark sky as it enveloped the southern shore of the island in a mantle of white.

Bonterre brought in the anchors as Hatch primed the engines. He glanced toward the rear of the pilothouse, saw the bank of complex controls, and decided not to bother; he'd find his way back by dead reckoning. His eyes fell on the large maple table and he was irresistibly reminded of the last time he'd sat at it. Kerry Wopner, Rankin, Magnusen, Streeter, Neidelman . . . now all gone.

His gaze turned to Woody Clay. The minister sat in his chair, gaunt and wraithlike. He returned the gaze, nodding silently.

"All is secure," Bonterre said as she burst into the pilothouse, closing the wooden door behind her.

As Hatch eased the boat out of the lee, a great explosion sounded behind them, and a concussive wave rattled the rain-flecked sweep of windows. The heaving sea suddenly turned crimson. Hatch goosed the throttle, moving quickly away from the island.

"Mon dieu," Bonterre breathed.

Hatch looked over his shoulder in time to see the second fuel tank explode into a mushroom of fire that punched up through the low-lying fog, lighting the sky above the entire island and enveloping the buildings of Base Camp in a cloud of smoke and ruin.

Bonterre quietly slipped a hand into his.

A third roar came, this time seemingly from the bowels of the island itself. They watched, awestruck, as the entire surface of the island shuddered and liquefied, sending up vast plumes and waterspouts to violate the night sky. Burning gasoline spread a furious glow across the water until the waves themselves were on fire, breaking over the rocks and leaving the reef aflame.

And then, as quickly as it started, it was over. The island folded in on itself with a wrenching boom as the last section of the cofferdam gave way. The sea rushed into the open wound and met itself in the middle, rising in a great geyser whose top disappeared into the mist, falling back in a sluggish brown curtain. In a moment, all that was left was a great boiling patch of sea, worrying a cluster of jagged rocks. Plumes of dirty steam rose into the restless air.

"Ye who luste after the key to the Treasure Pitt," Bonterre murmured, "shall find instead the key to the next world, and your carcase shall rot close to the Hell where your soule hath gone."

"Yes," Clay said in a weak voice.

"It was a meteorite, you know," Bonterre added.

"And the fifth angel sounded," Clay whispered, "and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit."

Hatch glanced at the dying minister, afraid to speak, and was surprised to see Clay smiling, his sunken eyes luminous. Hatch looked away.

"I forgive you," Clay said. "And I believe I need to ask your forgiveness, as well."

Hatch could only nod.

The minister closed his dark eyes. "I think I'll rest now," he murmured.

Hatch looked back at the remains of Ragged Island. The fog was rapidly closing in again, enveloping the destruction in a gentle mist. He stared for a long moment.

Then he turned away and aimed the prow of the boat toward Stormhaven harbor.