"Perhaps if you'd be willing to sign our nondisclosure agreement—"
"For Chrissakes!" Hatch cried. "He's a damn sea lawyer as well as a sea captain. If we're to be partners—an ever-receding possibility—we'll have to trust each other. I'll shake your hand and give you my word, and that will be sufficient, or else you lose all hope of ever digging on the island."
Neidelman never lost his composure, and now he smiled. "A handshake. How quaint."
Hatch held the boat steady as she roared ahead, eating through the remains of wake laid down just minutes before. The dark bluff of Burnt Head came gradually into focus again, followed by the rooftops of the town.
"Very well then," Neidelman said mildly. "Turn the boat around, please. Here is my hand."
They shook. Hatch eased the engine into neutral and let the Plain Jane coast for a long moment. At last, engaging the throttle again, he nosed her seaward, gradually accelerating once more toward the hidden rocks of Ragged Island.
A period of time passed in which Neidelman gazed eastward, puffing on his pipe, seemingly in deep contemplation. Hatch stole a glance at the Captain, wondering if this was some kind of delaying tactic.
"You've been to England, haven't you, Dr. Hatch?" Neidelman said at last.
Hatch nodded.
"Lovely country," Neidelman went on, as coolly as if he was reminiscing for pleasure. "Especially, to my taste, the north. Ever been to Houndsbury? It's a charming little town, very Cotswolds, but all in all rather unremarkable I suppose, if it weren't for its exquisite cathedral. Or have you visited Whitstone Hall in the Pennines? The Duke of Wessex's family seat?"
"That's the famous one, built like an abbey?" Hatch said.
"Exactly. Both delightful examples of seventeenth-century ecclesiastical architecture."
"Delightful," echoed Hatch with a trace of sarcasm. "So what?"
"They were both designed by Sir William Macallan. The man who also designed the Water Pit."
"Designed?"
"Yes. Macallan was a very great architect, perhaps England's greatest next to Sir Christopher Wren. But a far more interesting man." Neidelman was still gazing eastward. "In addition to his buildings and his work on Old Battersea Bridge, he left behind a monumental text on ecclesiastical architecture. The world lost a true visionary when he disappeared at sea in 1696."
"Lost at sea? The plot thickens."
Neidelman pursed his lips, and Hatch wondered if he was finally nettled.
"Yes. It was a terrible tragedy. Except. . ." He turned toward Hatch. "Except, of course, he was not lost at sea. Last year, we uncovered a copy of his treatise. In the margins were what seemed to be a pattern of spottings and discolorations. Our laboratory was able to confirm that the discolorations were actually notes, written in invisible ink, just now becoming visible through the corruption of time. Chemical analysis showed the ink to be an organic compound derived from vinegar and white onions. Further analysis dated this 'stain'—as invisible inks were then known—to approximately 1700."
"Invisible ink? You've been reading too many Hardy Boys stories."
"Invisible inks were very common in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries," Neidelman said calmly. "George Washington used one for his secret dispatches. The colonists referred to it as writing with white ink."
Hatch tried to phrase another sarcastic response, but was unable to articulate a reply. Against his will, he found himself half believing Neidelman's story; it was almost too incredible to be a lie.
"Our laboratory was able to recover the rest of the writing, using a chemical wash. It turned out to be a document of around ten thousand characters written in Macallan's own hand in the margins of his book. The document was in code, but a Thalassa specialist decrypted the first half relatively easily. When we read the plaintext, we learned that Sir William Macallan was an even more intriguing architect than the world had previously believed."
Hatch swallowed. "I'm sorry, but this whole story sounds absurd."
"No, Dr. Match, it is not absurd. Macallan designed the Water Pit. The coded writing was a secret journal he kept on his last voyage." Neidelman took a moment to draw on his pipe. "You see, Macallan was Scottish and a clandestine Catholic. After William Ill's victory at the Battle of the Boyne, Macallan left for Spain in disgust. There, the Spanish Crown commissioned him to build a cathedral, the greatest in the New World. In 1696 he set sail from Cadiz, bound for Mexico, on a two-masted brig, escorted by a Spanish man-of-war. The ships vanished and Macallan was never heard from again. It was assumed they were lost at sea. However, this journal tells us what really happened. Their ships were attacked by Edward Ockham. The Spanish captain struck his colors and was tortured into revealing the nature of his commission. Then Ockham put everyone to the sword, sparing only Macallan. The architect was dragged to Ockham in chains. The pirate put a saber to his throat and said—here I quote from the journal—Lete God build his owen damned church, I have ye a newe commission."
Hatch felt a strange stirring of excitement.
The Captain leaned against the gunwale. "You see, Red Ned wanted Macallan to design a pit for storing his immense treasure. An impregnable pit, to which only Ockham would have the secret. They cruised the Maine coast, picked out Ragged Island, the pit was constructed, and the treasure was buried. But, of course, shortly thereafter Ockham and his crew perished. And Macallan, no doubt, was murdered as soon as the pit was finished. With them died the secret to the Water Pit."
Neidelman paused, his eyes almost white in the brightness coming off the water. "Of course, that's no longer true. Because the secret did not die with Macallan."
"Explain."
"Midway through his journal, Macallan switched codes. We think he did so specifically to record the secret key to the Water Pit. Of course, no seventeenth-century code is a match for highspeed computers, and our specialists should have it cracked any day now."
"So how much is supposed to be down there?" Hatch managed to ask.
"Good question. We know the cargo capacity of Ockham's ships, we know they were fully laden, and we have manifests from many of the ships he attacked. Did you know that he was the only pirate to successfully attack the Spanish plate fleet?"
"No," murmured Hatch.
"When you add it all up, the most conservative estimate places the contemporary value of the treasure at"—Neidelman paused, a trace of a smile on his lips—"between 1.8 and 2 billion dollars."
There was a long silence, filled by the throbbing of the engine, the monotonous wheeling of the gulls, and the sound of the boat moving through the water. Hatch struggled to grasp the enormity of the sum.
Neidelman lowered his voice. "That is, not including the value of St. Michael's Sword, Ockham's greatest prize."
For a moment, the spell was broken. "Come on, Captain," Hatch said with a laugh. "Don't tell me you believe such a mossy old legend."
"Not until I read Macallan's journal. Dr. Hatch, it is there. Macallan watched them bury it with the treasure."
Hatch stared unseeing at the deck, his mind a turmoil. This is incredible, almost beyond belief. . .
He glanced up and felt the muscles of his gut tighten involuntarily. The countless questions that had risen within him suddenly evaporated. Across the expanse of sea, he could now make out the long, low fog that concealed Ragged Island, the same fog bank that had lain on the island more than twenty-five years before.
He heard Neidelman next to him, saying something. He turned, breathing shallowly, trying to quiet his beating heart.
"I'm sorry?"
"I said, I know you have little interest in the money. But I wanted you to know that in the agreement I've proposed here, you would receive half the treasure, before expenses. In return for my undertaking all the financial risk, I will receive St. Michael's Sword. Your share would therefore be in the vicinity of one billion dollars."