Chapter 2. Strange Flags Over the Water

The light on the horizon turned out to be a searchlight. The searchlight turned out to belong to a ship that closed to visible range by dawn — close enough to make out without binoculars, but far enough not to count, technically, as a provocation. The vessel was white, long, and too clean for a working ship — it looked built purely to make an impression, and it made one.

MERIDIAN SALVAGE was stenciled across the hull in large letters. Below it, smaller, a license number — one that took Saskia less than ten minutes to verify and that turned out to be entirely genuine, which was worse than any forgery could have been.

"Meridian Salvage," she read aloud, eyes still on the screen. "Private salvage company, registered in Valmara, owned by a holding company with offices in four countries. They've got two active salvage contracts in this region and one — old, from '96 — that apparently they've just decided to remember."

"A contract for what, exactly?" Rafael asked.

"'Historic and commercial cargo within the designated quadrant of Valmara's coastal waters,'" Saskia quoted. "Broad enough to cover anything from a fishing net to the lost city of Atlantis, if someone happened to find it here."

Morten, hunched over his own monitor, gave a low whistle.

"The designated quadrant overlaps ours almost entirely."

"Of course it does," Eva said. "Otherwise they wouldn't be here."

The question of how Meridian Salvage had learned about the expedition at all — when Eva's crew had kept the location secret even from most of their own investors — hung in the air and went unanswered that morning, or any morning after. But there wasn't time to ask it now, watching a motor launch bearing the company's emblem close in on the Kestrel.

The launch pulled alongside without a signal, without warning, and the man who climbed aboard by the boarding ladder without an invitation moved with the confidence of someone used to never being told no. He was medium height, graying at the temples, in a uniform shirt without a single wrinkle, as if it had just come out of its packaging, and he smiled the way people smile when a smile is a tool rather than an expression of feeling.

"Victor Hale," he introduced himself, extending a hand first to Rafael, mistaking him for the captain in the command sense rather than merely the legal one. "Head of security for Meridian Salvage in this region. Apologies for the unannounced visit, but I'm afraid we've run into a small conflict of interest."

"We're conducting an archaeological survey," Eva said, stepping forward. "Under a permit issued by the government of Valmara."

"I don't doubt your permit's in perfect order," Hale replied, still smiling. "The problem isn't the permit, Ms. —"

"Colfax."

"Ms. Colfax. The problem is that any commercial cargo found within the designated quadrant of coastal waters belongs, under the '96 contract, to my employers, regardless of who found it. I'm sorry you weren't informed of this beforehand. I'm sure it can be chalked up to an oversight in someone's legal department."

He said it so smoothly the phrase sounded almost like a favor — as though he were doing Eva a kindness simply by not pressing the claim harder. She recognized the tone: the tone of people who've already won an argument in their own head and are simply waiting for the other side to notice.

"As far as I'm aware," Saskia said, stepping closer, her voice as level as ever, "the '96 contract covered commercial fishing and cargo shipping. Not archaeological finds of historical significance."

Hale's smile didn't waver.

"Contract language is open to interpretation, Ms. —"

"Kowalski."

"Ms. Kowalski. And I'm afraid the interpreting will be done by our lawyers, not yours, since the contract is ours." He let his gaze sweep the deck, lingering on Leyla's gear laid out near the rail and on Owen's submersible control console with the attentiveness of a man who knew exactly what he was looking at. "In any case, I'm not here to argue jurisprudence. I'm here to ask you, politely, to vacate the designated quadrant within forty-eight hours. After that, Meridian Salvage will be forced to consider your continued presence here a violation of our contractual rights — with all that implies."

"And if we refuse?" Owen asked, speaking for the first time.

Hale looked at him the way one looks at a question asked out of politeness rather than necessity.

"Then I suppose we'll find out whose lawyers are more persuasive. Good day."

He climbed back down into the launch as calmly as he'd come up, and the boat departed the way it arrived, leaving a white wake and six people staring silently after it.

"Forty-eight hours," Morten repeated. "That's barely enough to break into the hold, let alone raise all the gold."

"Then we have forty-eight hours for what can be done legally," Eva said, "and unlimited time for what'll have to be done not quite legally."

Rafael gave her a long look.

"You understand he's not going to leave. Men like Hale don't threaten to scare people off. They threaten because they're ready for the next step if the threat doesn't work."

"I understand," Eva said. "Which is exactly why we're not going to wait for him to take it."

She turned to the others, and something in her voice hardened in a way that made even Saskia, the most skeptical of the group, believe for a moment that the plan might still work.

"Leyla, are the charges ready?"

"By tonight."

"Then we're not waiting forty-eight hours. We start tonight."

No one objected. But when the crew dispersed to prepare for the dive, Owen lingered at the rail longer than the others, watching where Hale's launch had disappeared, thinking about how easily the man had known every one of their names without asking — as if the Kestrel's crew list had already been in his pocket before he'd ever stepped aboard.

That night, when most of the crew had gone below to prep their gear, Rafael called Eva into his cramped captain's cabin and spread out his own chart — old, worn, marked over in his own handwriting atop the printed lines.

"I know Hale," he said without preamble. "Not personally, but by reputation. He used to work for a company salvaging cargo off the Maghreb coast. There was an incident — a rival crew didn't leave by the deadline Hale set. Three days later their ship turned up with its anchor lines cut, adrift in a storm. Officially, an accident."

"And unofficially?"

"Unofficially, the people who worked that salvage never touched maritime work again. Not one of them."

Eva stared at the chart for a long time without seeing it, thinking instead of Hale's face — of how evenly he'd smiled while saying the word politely.

"You're telling me this to scare me into pulling the crew out?"

"I'm telling you this," Rafael said, "so you understand exactly who we're dealing with now, and plan accordingly. Being scared is your business. My business is bringing this ship and everyone on it back to port in one piece, with the gold or without it. Preferably with."

She nodded, rolling up the chart.

"Then let's not waste forty-eight hours waiting."

"We won't," he agreed. "But let's not pretend Hale's forty-eight hours are the only hours that matter. A man like him always has a plan B for when the polite request doesn't work. Our job is to finish before he moves to it."