Riptide (15 page)

Hatch thought privately that it was probably a good thing Wopner, with his Brooklyn accent and flowered shirts, had little
reason to visit the town. The moment he set foot in Stormhaven he would become an object of wonder, like the stuffed, two-headed
calf brought out every year at the county fair. He decided it was time to change the subject. “This may sound like a stupid
question. But what, exactly, is St. Michael’s Sword?”

There was an awkward silence.

“Well, let’s see,” said St. John, pursing his lips. “I’ve always assumed it had a jeweled hilt, of course, with chased silver
and parcel-gilt, perhaps a multifullered blade, that sort of thing.”

“But why would Ockham say it was the greatest prize in the Indies?”

St. John looked a little flummoxed. “I hadn’t really thought in those terms. I suppose I don’t know, really. Perhaps it has
some kind of spiritual or mythical significance. You know, like a Spanish Excalibur.”

“But if Ockham had as much treasure as you say, why would he place such an inordinate value on the sword?”

St. John turned a pair of watery eyes on Hatch. “The truth is, Dr. Hatch, nothing in my documentation gives any indication
of
what
St. Michael’s Sword is. Only that it was a carefully guarded, deeply revered object. So I’m afraid I can’t answer your question.”

“
I
know what it is,” said Wopner with a grin.

“What?” asked St. John, falling into the trap.

“You know how men get, so long at sea, no women around, St. Michael’s
Sword
…” he let the phrase fall off into a salacious silence, while a look of shock and disgust blossomed on St. John’s face.

H
atch opened the door on the far side of his parents’ bedroom and stepped out onto the small porch beyond. It was only half
past nine, but Stormhaven was already asleep. A delightful late summer breeze had gathered in the trees that framed the old
house, cooling his cheek, teasing the hairs on the back of his neck. He placed two black folders on the weather-scarred rocker
and stepped forward to the railing.

Across the harbor, the town dropped away, a bracelet of lights, tumbling down the hill in streets and squares to the water.
It was so still he could hear the pebbles grating in the surf, the clink of mast lines along the pier. A single pale bulb
shone from above the front door of Bud’s Superette. In the streets, cobbles shone with reflected moonlight. Farther away,
the tall narrow form of Burnt Head Light blinked its warning from the head of the bluff.

He had almost forgotten about this narrow second-story porch, tucked away under the front gable of the old Second Empire house.
But now, from its railing, a host of memories crowded back. Playing poker with Johnny at midnight when his parents had gone
to Bar Harbor to celebrate an anniversary, watching out for the lights of the returning car, feeling naughty and grown up
at the same time. And later, looking down at the Northcutt house, waiting for a glimpse of Claire in her bedroom window.

Claire…

There was laughter, and a brief, quiet babble of voices. Hatch’s eye came back to the present and traveled down to the town’s
bed-and-breakfast. A couple of Thalassa employees stepped inside, the parlor door closed, and all was silent again.

His eyes made a leisurely stroll up the rows of buildings. The library, its red-brick facade a dusky rose in the cool nocturnal
light. Bill Banns’s house sprawling and sagging delightfully, one of the oldest in town. And at the top, the large, shingled
house reserved for the Congregational minister, a study in shadow, the only example of stick-style architecture in the county.

He lingered a moment longer, his gaze wandering out to sea and the veiled darkness where Ragged Island lay. Then, with a sigh,
he returned to the chair, sat down, and picked up the black folders.

First came the printout of the decrypted portion of Macallan’s journal. As St. John had said, it described in terse terms
the architect’s capture and forced labor, designing a hiding place for Ockham’s loot that would allow only the pirate to retrieve
the gold. Macallan’s contempt for the pirate captain, his dislike of the barbarous crew, his dismay at the rough and dissolute
conditions, came through clearly in every line.

The journal was brief, and he soon laid it aside, curious now about its second half and wondering how soon Wopner would have
it cracked. Before Hatch left his cabin, the programmer had complained bitterly about having to do double duty as the computer
technician. “Goddamn network setup, a job for plumbers, not programmers. But the Captain won’t be happy until he whittles
the crew down to just himself and Streeter. Security concerns, my left nut. Nobody’s gonna steal the treasure. But you watch.
By tomorrow, once the physical plant is in place, all the surveyors and assistant engineers will be gone. History.”

“Makes sense,” Hatch had replied. “Why keep unnecessary staff around? Besides, I’d rather treat a bad case of necrifying madura
foot than sit in a cabin like this, staring at a jumble of letters.”

Hatch remembered how Wopner’s lip had curled in scorn. “Shows how much you know. A jumble of letters to you, maybe. Listen:
On the other side of that jumble is the person who encrypted it, looking back, giving you the finger. It’s the ultimate contest.
You get his algorithm, you get his crown jewels. Maybe it’s access to a credit card database. Or the firing sequences for
a nuclear attack. Or the key to how a treasure is buried. There’s no rush like cracking a code. Cryptanalysis is the only
game worthy of a truly intelligent being. Which makes me feel mighty lonely in present company, believe you me.”

Hatch sighed, returning his attention to the black folders. The second contained the brief biography of Ockham, given him
by St. John. Leaning back once again to let the moonlight catch the pages, he began to read.

This document is copyright by and trade secret to
Thalassa Holdings, Inc.

Unauthorized use is a tortious offense and a violation
of the Virginia Penal Code.

T. T. Ferrell, Thalassa—Shreveport

Edward Ockham was born in 1662 in Cornwall, England, the son of minor landed nobility. He was educated at Harrow and went on
to spend two years at Balliol College, Oxford, before being sent down by the college dons for unspecified infractions.

His family desired him to pursue a naval career, and in 1682 Ockham received his commission and shipped as a lieutenant with
the Mediterranean fleet under Admiral Poynton. Rising quickly and distinguishing himself in several actions against the Spanish,
he left the navy to become captain of a privateer, having been granted a letter of marque from the British Admiralty.

After a number of choice prizes, Ockham apparently decided that he no longer wished to share his spoils with the crown. Early
in 1685 he took up slaving, running ships from Africa’s Guinea Coast to Guadeloupe in the Windward Islands. After almost two
years of profitable voyages, Ockham was trapped within a blockaded harbor by two ships of the line. As a diversion, Ockham
set his ship afire and got away in a small cutter. Before escaping, however, he put all the slaves on deck to the sword. The
rest of the four hundred slaves, shackled together in the hold, perished in the blaze. Documentary evidence attributes the
nickname of “Red Ned” Ockham to this deed.

Five of Ockham’s crew were captured and returned to London, where they were hung at Execution Dock in Wapping. Ockham, however,
escaped to the infamous pirate haven of Port Royal in the Caribbean, where he joined the “Brethren of the Coast” in 1687.
[Cf. Thalassa document P6-B19-110292, Pirate Treasures of Port Royal (Reputed)]

Over the next ten years, Ockham became known as the most ruthless, venal, and ambitious pirate operating in the waters off
the New World. Many notorious pirate techniques—such as walking the plank, use of the skull and crossbones to strike fear
into the hearts of adversaries, and
rescate
(ransoming of civilian prisoners)—can be traced to his innovations. When attacking towns or ships, he was quick to use torture
on any and all in order to ascertain where plunder might be hidden. Imposing both physically and intellectually, Ockham was
one of the few pirate captains to demand—and be granted—a much larger share of the spoils than his crew.

During his reign as pirate captain, Ockham won his victories with a rare blend of psychology, tactics, and ruthlessness. When
attacking the heavily fortified Spanish city of Portobello, for example, he forced the nuns from a nearby abbey to place the
siege engines and ladders themselves, reasoning that the strong Catholicism of the Spaniards would constrain them from firing.
His weapon of choice became the musketoon, a short-barreled weapon that fired a lethal spray of lead pellets. Frequently,
under pretense of a parley, he would gather the town fathers of a besieged city or the commanding officers of an opposing
ship before him. Then—raising the weapons in both hands—he would destroy the group with a double blast.

As his thirst for prizes grew stronger, Ockham’s brazenness grew proportionately. In 1691 he tried an overland siege of Panama
City, which ultimately failed. While retreating across the Chagres River, he saw a galleon in the nearby bay, heading for
the open sea and Spain. When he learned that the ship was carrying three million pieces of eight, Ockham reputedly swore never
to let another galleon escape his grasp.

In the years that followed, Ockham turned his attention ever more strongly toward Spanish gold, the towns that hoarded it, and
the ships that carried it. So adept did he become at anticipating the shipments of gold that some scholars believe he was
able to crack the ciphers of Spanish captains and envoys
[Cf. Thalassa restricted document Z-A4-050997]
. In a single month’s plundering spree of Spanish settlements in the fall of 1693, each of Ockham’s eight hundred crew received
six hundred pieces of eight as their share of the booty.

As Ockham became more powerful and more feared, his sadistic tendencies seemed to gain ascendency. Reports of barbarous cruelty
became legion. Frequently, after overwhelming a ship, he would cut off the ears of the officers, sprinkle them with salt and
vinegar, and force the victims to consume them. Rather than keep his men in check when despoiling a town, he would instead
whip them into a lustful fury and then let them loose upon the helpless populace, reveling in the acts of violence and abandon
that resulted. When victims could not provide him with the ransom he demanded, he would order them to be roasted slowly on
wooden spits, or disemboweled with heated boathooks.

Ockham’s single greatest accomplishment came in 1695, when his small armada of ships successfully captured, plundered, and sank
the Spanish
flota de plata
bound for Cadiz. The sheer volume of treasure he acquired—in gold bars and cakes, silver wedges and pigs, undrilled pearls,
and jewels—has been estimated at over a billion dollars in face value alone.

Ockham’s eventual fate remains a mystery. In 1697, his command ship was found off the Azores, drifting free, all hands dead
of an unknown affliction. No treasure was found on board, and scholars of the period agree he had concealed it along the east
coast of the New World sometime shortly before his death. Although many legends of varying credibility have arisen, the strongest
evidence points to one of three potential sites: Île à Vache off Hispaniola; South Carolina’s Isle of Palms; or Ragged Island
off the Maine Coast, seventy miles north of Monhegan.