Chapter 117 - The Harbor of Shadows
We didn't shoot. Through the open door, we saw only an old man in oil-stained surveyor's coveralls, his back already turned to us as he trudged away into the whiteout toward the coastline. He offered no fight, no words, only a silent retreat into the freezing fog.
The keys belonged to a heavy Swedish-built Hagglunds tracked vehicle half-buried beneath an insulated tarp behind the shed. Its diesel engine coughed to life with a heavy, reliable roar, spitting black smoke into the gray sky.
Vance took the controls, his teeth gritted against the pain, while I strapped Clara into the rear bench. For three grueling hours, the tracked vehicle plowed through deep drifts and across frozen river deltas, bypassing the main roads where the Archon patrols from the submarine would be establishing checkpoints.
By mid-afternoon, we crested the jagged ridge overlooking Hammerfest—the northernmost town on the edge of the Barents Sea. Below us, the port lay choked with rusted trawlers, oil-rig service vessels, and shipping containers coated in salt spray and frozen sludge.
"We have twenty minutes before the harbor master's logs ping our registration," Vance said, checking a tactical tablet wired to the dashboard. "The submarine hasn't moved, which means their primary operational team is still setting up the deep-sea dive bells. If we're going to hit Sanctuary Zero before they secure it, we need a vessel capable of diving."
"We don't need a submarine," I said, staring down at the docks. "We need a ship that can deploy an industrial ROV. An oil surveyor."
We abandoned the tracked vehicle in an alley behind a fish processing plant. The town was quiet, the residents kept indoors by the bitter Arctic freeze. Holding Clara's hand tightly, my coat collar pulled high to hide the bruising along my jaw, I followed Vance toward the furthest pier.
Tied to the concrete slip was an aging, ice-strengthened oceanographic vessel, the *Nordic Sovereign*. Its deck was cluttered with winch drums, diving bells, and a heavy crane capable of lowering five-ton equipment into the abyss.
Standing at the gangway was a man I recognized from the Zurich files—Lukas Finch, a former deep-sea engineer who had vanished from corporate records five years ago after refusing to sign a non-disclosure agreement for the Archon foundation.
As we approached, Finch didn't ask for our passports. He looked at my face, then at the blood staining Vance’s side, and finally down at the iron key held loosely in my left hand.
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"The radio from the offshore shelf went dead three hours ago," Finch said, his voice raw from tobacco and salt air. "They said a ghost walked out of the mountain."
"Not a ghost," I told him, stepping onto the gangway. "The daughter who came to collect the debt."
