Part 2
The flare dropped toward the water, painting the waves red before it vanished.
“Bring the engines back,” Rourke ordered. “Slow approach. Eyes on the light.”
Kade moved to the controls without arguing. I stayed beside the receiver, trying to catch another transmission. The boat rolled hard, and the edge of the console struck my ribs. Pain flared, but I held on.
“Who was that?” Rourke asked.
“Lieutenant Sam Dwyer,” I said. “He was aboard the ferry during the Astoria collision.”
Kade looked at me. “The one from your report?”
“The same.”
Three years earlier, Sam had been a junior officer on a rescue launch. I’d heard the tapping through a damaged acoustic channel and insisted someone was trapped. The team found him alive beneath a collapsed deck panel. A second rescue boat had taken a dangerous detour to reach us. The inquiry cleared my call, but the report criticized the delay. By the time the story spread, people remembered only that I’d “sent everyone chasing ghosts.”
“Why would Dwyer be out here?” Kade asked.
“I don’t know.”
Rourke kept his eyes on the flare’s last position. “Then we ask him when we find him.”
The radio came alive again. “We’re taking water. Two aboard. Engine’s dead.”
“Sam, this is Rourke’s team. Keep talking,” the Master Chief answered.
Static swallowed the reply.
A few minutes later, the red flare appeared again, closer now. It came from a small aluminum workboat riding low between the swells. Its cabin lights were out. A man clung to the stern rail, one arm wrapped around a line. The other figure was nowhere in sight.
Kade leaned forward. “That’s not the Morrow.”
“No,” I said. “But it’s the source.”
Rourke directed the team to hold a safe distance while they assessed the water and called for Coast Guard support. Kade stayed at the controls. When a wave shoved us sideways, I slid across the deck and struck my hip against a bench. Kade caught my shoulder before I fell over the low rail.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“Bruised.”
He let go. “I’m sorry about earlier.”
“Save it until we know they’re safe.”
He nodded and turned back to the boat.
“Sam,” I called into the radio. “Can you hear me?”
A weak answer came through. “Nora?”
“Yes.”
“I knew you’d hear it.”
The words hit harder than the water. Rourke looked at me. “What does he mean?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Tell him to explain.”
I took the radio. “Sam, why are you calling me?”
“We were told your team would ignore the regular beacon. The backup signal uses the pattern from Astoria.”
My fingers went cold around the handset. “Who told you that?”
“The dispatcher. Said you’d understand.”
Rourke’s expression sharpened. “Which dispatcher?”
Before Sam could answer, the workboat’s cabin door opened. A second man appeared, soaked and pale, holding a waterproof case to his chest.
Kade stared at him. “That’s Chief Ellis. He was reported off duty.”
The man lifted the case toward us. “Don’t let them take this back to shore,” he shouted. “The distress log was changed.”
A larger wave rolled between our boats. The workboat vanished behind it.
“Chief!” Kade shouted.
Rourke ordered everyone to hold position while the wave passed. I reached for the receiver, but the signal disappeared completely. The screen showed only static.
Then our own radio crackled. A calm voice from shore gave a new instruction: “Disregard the flare. Resume the search for the Morrow.”
Rourke looked at me. “That came from dispatch?”
“Yes.”
Kade looked toward the darkness where the workboat had vanished. “They know we found them.”
Rourke’s hand tightened around the rail. “And now we need to find out why.”
Part 3
The order to leave sat in the radio like a dare.
Rourke did not answer it. He asked communications to repeat the message and log the time, then turned to me. “Can you recover the signal?”
“I can try.”
Kade steadied the receiver while I adjusted the audio. My hands shook from the cold and from the familiar dread of being the only person who believed a sound mattered. I kept breathing, listening past the static.
Three knocks. A pause. Two quick ones.
“Got them,” I said. “They’re drifting east.”
Rourke looked at the shore display. “That’s away from our assigned search lane.”
“It’s also where the current is carrying them.”
He gave the order to follow the signal and notified the Coast Guard. The shore voice called again, sharper this time. “Unit, confirm you are returning to the designated grid.”
Rourke answered evenly. “We have an active distress signal and a visual flare. We are rendering assistance.”
No reply came.
The workboat reappeared beyond the swells, now broadside to us. Sam was still at the stern. Chief Ellis was crouched beside the cabin hatch, trying to keep it from shifting. Behind him, I saw a third figure—a young deckhand—trapped inside.
Kade called out to Sam, who pointed toward the cabin. The Coast Guard crew was still several minutes away. Rourke coordinated a cautious rescue, keeping the boat steady while the team prepared to help. No one rushed blindly into the water.
“Sam,” I said into the radio, “the deckhand—can he answer?”
A pause. Then a weak tapping came through the receiver, faster now.
“He’s awake,” Sam said. “The hatch is jammed.”
Kade looked at me. “Same signal?”
“Same pattern. He’s trying to tell us he’s conscious.”
The cabin door shifted with the next swell. Sam stumbled, and Kade grabbed the rail as if he could reach across the water by force. Rourke held him back.
“Wait for the rescue crew,” he ordered. “We keep them in sight and keep talking.”
Kade’s face tightened, but he stayed in place. “Sam, look at me. Keep your hand on the rail. We’re here.”
The Coast Guard vessel arrived, and its crew took the lead. With the two boats held steady, the responders reached Sam and Ellis first. The deckhand was freed from the cabin and brought aboard alive, shaken and cold. When Sam reached our boat, Kade grasped his shoulder.
“You’re safe,” he said.
Sam looked past him at me. “You heard the signal.”
“I did.”
“Somebody wanted it ignored.”
Once everyone was secure, Rourke asked the Coast Guard to preserve the radio traffic and dispatch logs. The records revealed a serious mistake: the workboat’s scheduled equipment test had been copied into the live dispatch system, and its emergency signal was labeled as a duplicate. A later instruction to disregard the flare came from someone relying on that mistaken entry.
The case was referred for review. No one claimed the error had been deliberate, but the crew had nearly been left unseen because a form said they shouldn’t be there.
Later, Kade found me at the rail. The mark on my wrist had faded, but the memory of his grip hadn’t.
“I heard the story about Astoria,” he said. “I believed the version where you sent people chasing noise.”
“I know.”
“I should’ve asked you.”
“Yes.”
He looked out at the dark water. “I called you bad luck because I was nervous and wanted someone else to blame.”
I didn’t rescue him from the admission. “Then don’t do it again.”
“I won’t.”
Rourke joined us as the Coast Guard boat headed toward shore. “For the record, the engines were cut because we needed to hear the signal,” he said. “But I also wanted the whole crew to stop and listen—to each other as well as the water.”
Kade nodded. “Understood, Chief.”
On our next patrol, he handed me the receiver before we left the harbor. It wasn’t a grand apology, but it was a start.
The boat cleared the breakwater. The engines rose beneath our feet, steady and strong. I watched the water, listened to the signal, and felt no need to prove I belonged there.
“Anything?” Rourke called.
“Not yet,” I said.
This time, nobody called me unlucky.
