Friday came in with black clouds and a wind that screamed in the stairwell. Mara had gathered the island’s fishermen in the keeper’s kitchen; Teodor had brought a borrowed camera, and Nora had linked a satellite phone to a laptop in the lamp room. At nine o’clock, the grey trawler dropped anchor beyond the shoals, and the barge slid alongside like a shadow.
“Now,” said Elias. Nora threw the great switch. The lens woke up, and a white beam sheared across the water, catching the barge in a blaze of light. Men on its deck froze with barrels in their arms. Cameras clicked. On the laptop, a live feed went out to every newsroom and regulator Nora and Mara had listed.
Pruitt’s truck roared up the hill; he hammered at the door, shouting, but the fishermen stood shoulder to shoulder in the hallway and did not move. Out at sea the trawler’s engines coughed to life and the barge cut loose, but it was too late. Every boat in the fleet had turned on its own lamps. The whole bay was suddenly daylight.
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