"Riptide" - читать интересную книгу автора (Preston Douglas)

"Is this where you do most of your work, Doctor?" he asked, shifting a leather portfolio from one hand to the other. He was so thin he would have seemed spectral, were it not for the intensity of calm assurance he radiated.
"It's where I do just about all of it."
"Lovely view," Neidelman murmured, gazing out the window.
Hatch looked at the man's back, mildly surprised that he felt unoffended by the interruption. He thought of asking the man his business but decided against it. Somehow, he knew Neidelman had not come on a trivial matter.
"The water of the Charles is so dark," the Captain said. "'Far off from these a slow and silent stream/Lethe the river of oblivion rolls.'" He turned. "Rivers are a symbol of forgetfulness, are they not?"
"I can't remember," Hatch said lightly, but growing a little wary now, waiting.
The Captain smiled and withdrew from the window. "You must be wondering why I've barged into your laboratory. May I ask a few minutes of your indulgence?"
"Haven't you already?" Hatch indicated a vacant chair. "Have a seat. I'm about finished for the day here, and this important experiment I've been working on"Чhe waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the incubatorЧ"is, how shall I put it? Boring."
Neidelman raised an eyebrow. "Not as exciting as fighting an eruption of breakbone fever in the swamps of Amazonia, I imagine."
"Not quite," Hatch said after a moment.
The man smiled. "I read the article in the Globe"
"Reporters never let the facts stand in the way of a story. It wasn't nearly as exciting as it seems."
"Which is why you returned?"
"I got tired of watching my patients die for lack of a fifty-cent shot of amoxycillin." Hatch spread his hands fatalistically. "So isn't it odd that I wish I were back there? Life on Memorial Drive seems rather tepid by comparison." He shut up abruptly and glanced at Neidelman, wondering what it was about the man that had gotten him talking.
"The article went on to talk about your travels in Sierra Leone, Madagascar, and the Comoros," Neidelman continued. "But perhaps your life could use some excitement right now?"
"Pay no attention to my grousing," Hatch replied with what he hoped was a light tone. "A little boredom now and then can be tonic for the soul." He glanced at Neidelman's portfolio. There was some kind of insignia embossed into the leather that he couldn't quite make out.
"Perhaps," came the reply. "In any case, it seems you've hit every spot on the globe over the last twenty-five years. Except Stormhaven, Maine."
Hatch froze. He felt a numbness begin in his fingers and move up his arms. Suddenly it all made sense: the roundabout questions, the seafaring background, the intense look in the man's eyes.
Neidelman stood very still, his eyes steady on Hatch, saying nothing.
"Ah," Hatch said, fighting to recover his composure. "And you, Captain, have just the thing to cure my ennui."
Neidelman inclined his head.
"Let me guess. Does this, by any freak of chance, have to do with Ragged Island?" A flicker in Neidelman's face showed that he had guessed right. "And you, Captain, are a treasure hunter. Am I right?"
The equanimity, the sense of quiet self-confidence, never left Neidelman's face. "We prefer the term 'recovery specialist.'"
"Everyone has a euphemism these days. Recovery specialist. Sort of like 'sanitary engineer.' You want to dig on Ragged Island. And let me guess: Now, you're about to tell me that you, and only you, hold the secret to the Water Pit."
Neidelman stood quietly, saying nothing.
"No doubt you also have a high-tech gizmo that will show you the location of the treasure. Or perhaps you've enlisted the help of Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyant?"
Neidelman remained standing. "I know you've been approached before," he said.
"Then you'll know the common fate of those who've approached me. Dowsers, psychics, oil barons, engineers, everybody with a foolproof scheme."
"Their schemes may have been flawed," Neidelman replied, "but their dreams were not. I know about the tragedies that befell your family after your grandfather bought the island. But his heart was in the right place. There is a vast treasure down there. I know it."
"Of course you do. They all do. But if you think you're the reincarnation of Red Ned himself, it's only fair to warn you that I've heard from several others who already claim that distinction. Or perhaps you purchased one of those old-looking treasure maps that occasionally come up for sale in Portland. Captain Neidelman, faith won't make it true. There never was, and there never will be, any Ragged Island treasure. I feel sorry for you, I really do. Now, perhaps you should leave before I call the guardЧI beg your pardon, I mean the security specialistЧ to escort you to the door."
Ignoring this, Neidelman shrugged, then leaned toward the desk. "I don't ask you to take it on faith."
There was something so self-confident, so utterly detached, about the Captain's shrug that a fresh flood of anger swept Hatch. "If you had any idea how many times I've heard this same story, you'd be ashamed for coming here. What makes you any different from the rest?"
Reaching inside the leather portfolio, Neidelman withdrew a single sheet of paper and wordlessly pushed it across the desk.
Hatch looked at the document without touching it. It was a simplified financial report, notarized, indicating that a company named Thalassa Holdings Ltd. had raised a sum of money to form the Ragged Island Reclamation Corporation. The sum was twenty-two million dollars.
Hatch glanced from the paper back to Neidelman, then began to laugh. "You mean you actually had the nerve to raise this money before even asking my permission? You must have some pretty pliant investors."
Once again, Neidelman broke into what seemed to be his trademark smile: reserved, self-confident, remote without arrogance. "Dr. Hatch, you've had every right to show treasure hunters the door for the last twenty years. I perfectly understand your reaction. They were underfunded and underprepared. But they weren't the only problem. The problem was also you." He leaned away again. "Obviously, I don't know you well. But I sense that, after more than a quarter century of uncertainty, maybe at last you're ready to learn what really happened to your brother."
Neidelman paused for a moment, his eyes still on Hatch. Then he began again, in a tone so low it was barely audible. "I know that your interest is not the financial reward. And I understand how your grief has made you hate that island. That is why I come to you with everything prepared. Thalassa is the best in the world at this kind of work. And we have equipment at our disposal that your grandfather could only have dreamed of. We've chartered the ships. We have divers, archaeologists, engineers, an expedition doctor, all ready to go at a moment's notice. One word from you, and I promise you that within a month the Water Pit will have yielded up its secrets. We will know everything about it." He whispered the word "everything" with peculiar force.
"Why not just leave it be?" Hatch murmured. "Why not let it keep its secrets?"
"That, Dr. Hatch, is not within my nature. Is it within yours?"
In the ensuing silence, the distant bells of Trinity Church tolled five o'clock. The silence stretched on into a minute, then two, and then five.
At last, Neidelman removed the paper from the desk and placed it back in his portfolio. "Your silence is sufficiently eloquent," he said quietly, no trace of rancor in his voice. "I've taken enough of your time. Tomorrow, I'll inform our partners that you have declined our offer. Good day, Dr. Hatch." He rose to go, and then just before the door he stopped, half turning. "There is one other thing. To answer your question, there is something that makes us different from all the rest. We've uncovered a small piece of information about the Water Pit that nobody else knows. Not even you."
Hatch's chuckle died in his throat when he saw Neidelman's face.
"We know who designed it," the Captain said quietly.
Involuntarily, Hatch felt his fingers stiffen and curl in toward his palms. "What?" he croaked.
"Yes. And there's something more. We have the journal he kept during its construction."
In the sudden silence, Hatch fetched a deep breath, then another. He looked down at his desk and shook his head. "That's beautiful," he managed to say. "Just beautiful. I guess I underestimated you. After all these years, I've heard something original. You've made my day, Captain Neidelman."
But Neidelman had gone, and Hatch realized he was talking to an empty room.
It was several minutes before he could bring himself to rise from the desk. As he shoved the last of his papers into his briefcase, hands still trembling a little, he noticed that Neidelman had left his card behind. A telephone number had been scribbled across the top, presumably the hotel he was staying in. Hatch brushed the card into the wastebasket, picked up his briefcase, left the lab, and briskly walked back to his town house through the dusky summer streets.
At two o'clock that morning, he found himself back in the laboratory, pacing before the darkened window, Neidelman's card grasped in one hand. It was three before he finally picked up the phone.
Chapter 3