Rescue Boat Seven
Chapter 07 - Rescue Boat Seven
The salvage yard sat behind locked gates on the industrial side of the harbor.
Nathan used his emergency authority to enter.
Grant called within minutes.
“If you touch that boat, your career ends.”
Nathan looked at Elias.
The older man had trained him at seventeen, taught him to read waves, and once stayed beside his hospital bed after a diving accident.
Nathan had repaid him by tearing Mara’s whistle from his neck in front of cameras.
“My career already became your alibi,” Nathan said.
He ended the call.
Boat Seven rested on a steel cradle. Its engine compartment had been opened. Fuel lines were cut. The navigation computer was gone.
Mara crawled beneath the console.
She found a welded panel stamped with the same serial number from the clock house.
Elias opened it.
Inside was a mechanical recorder designed by Mara twelve years earlier. It tracked engine vibration, radio signals, and steering changes independently from the digital system.
The recorder showed Boat Seven’s engine did not fail.
A remote command shut it down.
The command originated from Grant’s commission office.
Another command moved the safe-channel beacon to the wrong side of the harbor.
Nathan’s access code authorized both actions.
He stared at the record.
Grant had copied his credentials.
The final audio channel captured Grant and Paul speaking before the exercise.
“Reed signs the inspection,” Grant said.
“And if the cadets get hurt?” Paul asked.
“Then the closure becomes easier.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
Grant had not planned a specific injury.
He had accepted one.
Mara searched the lower compartment.
The authorization ledger was missing.
A salvage worker admitted Paul removed a black waterproof tube earlier that morning.
Security footage showed him giving it to Grant at the clock house.
The clock house.
Grant had returned to the only place where a mechanical record could expose every altered timeline.
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Smoke rose over the harbor.
The old wooden tower was on fire.
