Bonterre stared at the screen, a snarl of jittery lines underlaid by a large black stripe.
Rankin turned to her. "That black is a void underneath the Water Pit."
"Avoid?"
"A huge cavern, probably filled with water. God knows how deep."
"But—"
"I wasn't able to get a clear reading before, because of all the water in the Pit. And then, I couldn't get these sensors to run in series. Until now."
Bonterre frowned.
"Don't you understand? It's a cavern! We never bothered to look deeper than the Water Pit. The treasure chamber, the Pit itself—us, too, for Chrissake—we're all sitting on top of a goddamn piercement dome. This explains the faulting, the displacement, everything."
"Is this something else built by Macallan?"
"No, no, it's natural. Macallan used it. A piercement dome is a geological formation, an upfold in the earth's crust." He placed his hands together as if in prayer, then pushed one of them toward the ceiling. "It splits the rock above it, creating a huge web of fractures and usually a vertical crack—a pipe—that goes deep into the earth, sometimes several thousand feet. Those P-waves, that vibration earlier . . . something was obviously happening in the dome, causing a resonance. It must be part of the same substructure that created the natural tunnels Macallan—"
Bonterre jumped suddenly as the Radmeter in her hands chirped. As she stared, the blue shimmer on the screen turned yellow.
"Let me see that." Rankin punched in a series of commands, his large fingers dwarfing the keypad. The top half of the small screen cleared, then a message appeared, stark black letters against the screen:
Dangerous radiation levels detected
Specify desired measurement
(ionizations / joules / rads)
and rate
(seconds / minutes / hours)
Rankin hit a few more keys.
240.8 Rads/hour
Fast neutron flux detected
General radiation contamination possible
Recommendation: Immediate evacuation
"Merde. It's too late." "Too late for what?" "He's opened the casket."
As they watched, the message changed:
33.144 Rads/hour
Background levels hazardous
Recommendation: Standard containment procedures
"What happened?" Rankin asked.
"I do not know. Maybe he closed it again."
"Let's see if I can get a radiation signature on the source." The geologist began typing again. Then he straightened up, still staring at the little screen.
"Oh, Christ," he muttered. "You won't believe this."
He was interrupted by a thump on the observation deck. The door flew open and Streeter stepped in.
"Hey, Lyle!" Rankin said before seeing the handgun.
Streeter looked from Rankin to Bonterre, then back again. "Come on," he said, motioning the gun toward the door.
"Come on where?" Rankin began. "What's with the gun?"
"We're taking a little trip, just the three of us," Streeter answered. He nodded in the direction of the observation porthole.
Bonterre slipped the Radmeter beneath her sweater.
"You mean, into the Pit?" Rankin asked incredulously. "It's dangerous as hell down there! The whole thing's suspended over—"
Streeter placed the gun against the back of Rankin's right hand and fired.
The sound of the explosion was shockingly loud in the confined space of Orthanc. Instinctively, Bonterre looked away for a moment. Turning back, she saw Rankin on his knees, clutching his right hand. Thin streams of blood trickled between his fingers and pattered to the metal floor.
"That leaves you one hand to hold on with," Streeter says. "If you want to keep it, shut your hairy fucking mouth."
Once again he motioned them toward the door and the observation platform beyond. With a gasp of pain, Rankin hauled himself to his feet, looked from Streeter to the gun, then moved slowly to the door.
"Now you," Streeter said, nodding at Bonterre. Slowly, making sure the Radmeter was secure beneath her sweaters, she stood up and began to follow Rankin.
"Be very careful," Streeter said, cradling the gun. "It's a long way down."
Chapter 56
Hatch leaned against the wall of the chamber, his fear and his hope both spent, his throat raw from shouting. The memory of what had happened in this very tunnel, lost for so long, was now his again, but he was too exhausted even to examine the missing pieces. The air was a suffocating, foul-smelling blanket, and he shook his head, trying to clear the faint but insistent sound of his brother's voice: "Where are you? Where are you?"
He groaned and sank to his knees, dragging his cheek along the rough stone, trying to bring some clarity to his mind. The voice persisted.
Hatch drew his face away from the wall, listening now.
The voice came again.
"Hello?" he called back tentatively.
"Where are you?" came the muffled cry.
Hatch turned, felt the walls, trying to orient himself. The sound seemed to be coming from behind the stone that pressed his brother's bones into the stone floor.
"Are you all right?" it asked.
"No!" cried Hatch. "No! I'm trapped!"
The voice seemed to fade in and out of hearing. Perhaps, Hatch thought, it was himself, coming in and out of consciousness.
"How can I help?" he realized the voice was asking.
Hatch rested, thinking how he should reply.
"Where are you?" he asked at last. The rush of adrenaline had brought back a modicum of alertness; it would not last long.
"In a tunnel," the voice said.
"Which tunnel?"
"I don't know. It leads in from the shore. My boat was wrecked, but I was saved. Saved by a miracle."
Hatch rested for a moment, trying to suck in whatever air was left. There was only one possible tunnel the voice could mean: Johnny's tunnel.
"Where are you stuck?" the voice continued.
"Wait!" Hatch cried, breathing heavily, forcing himself to relive the old memories. What had he seen?
. . . There'd been a door, a door with a seal in front of it. Johnny had broken the seal and stepped through. A puff of wind from the tunnel beyond, blowing out the light. . . Johnny had cried out in surprise and pain . . . there'd been a kind of heavy dragging sound. . . he'd fumbled for a new match, lit it, seen the implacable stone wall before him, thick streaks of blood along its base and the joint where it met the left wall. The blood had seemed to almost weep from the cracks, rushing out and down like the leading edge of a red wave to creep around his knees and his sneakers.
Hatch wiped his face with a trembling hand, overwhelmed by the force of the memories.
A puff of wind had come down the tunnel when Johnny opened the door. Yet when Hatch had lit another match, there had been only a stone wall in front of him, and Johnny was gone. So the tunnel must have continued beyond the stone. Stepping into the room, or opening the door, or breaking the seal—something—had triggered Macallan's trap. A massive slab of stone moved across the tunnel, dragging Johnny with it, crushing him beneath, forcing his body into this hollow space, sealing off the rest of the watertight tunnel. There was no other explanation. The well, the chamber Hatch was trapped in, the vault room above, must all be part of the support mechanism for the trap.
And Macallan—or perhaps Red Ned Ockham—hadn't wanted anybody interfering with the trap. So the vault room itself had been booby-trapped. As Wopner had learned at the cost of his life.
"Are you still there?" came the voice.
"Please wait," Hatch gasped, trying to follow the train of thought to its conclusion. The tunnel he and Johnny discovered must have been Red Ockham's secret entrance, the one Macallan had constructed for him—the back door to the treasure. But if a treasure hunter were to find the shore tunnel, Macallan needed a way to stop them. The trap that killed Johnny was obviously his answer. A massive piece of dressed stone, rolling in from one side, crushing any intruder who did not know how to disarm the trap. The stone was so expertly fashioned that, once in place, it would look like the end wall of the tunnel, preventing further exploration . . .