"Okay, but a crew member on a cargo ship?They'd need connections to sell this kind of hardware.You don't just show up at a pawn shop with military weapons."
"Maybe they had those connections," James countered."Or maybe they were planning to contact the intended buyers and cut out the middleman.Hijack the shipment and negotiate directly."
Isla considered this, then shook her head."It doesn't track.If you're hijacking a shipment, you have an exit strategy.You have a buyer lined up, a transport plan, somewhere to hide the merchandise.This scene looks chaotic—like something went wrong."
"Look at the anchor chain," James said, pointing toward the bow where a Coast Guard technician was examining the windlass."Clean cut, not hauled in properly.They were anchored somewhere—probably doing the weapons transfer—when something went wrong.Had to cut the chain to get away fast."
Isla moved forward to examine the chain.The cut was indeed clean, made with heavy bolt cutters or a hydraulic cutter."So they're mid-transfer.Weapons are being moved from theNorthern Dawnto another vessel.What triggers a massacre?"
"Betrayal?"James suggested."One side decides to take everything without paying.Or maybe the buyers weren't who they claimed to be."
"Or maybe someone unexpected showed up," Isla added."A third party.Pirates, essentially, attacking what they knew was a vulnerable transaction."
James rubbed his jaw, thinking."If it was pirates, we'd expect to see more evidence of their presence.Different weapons, different approach, and they’d definitely take all the weapons.This feels more personal."
"The knife wounds support that," Isla agreed."If you're conducting a military-style raid, you use guns.Knives are for close quarters, for when you need to be quiet, or when things get desperate."
"Or when you're making a point," James said darkly.
The implications were disturbing.Arms smuggling on the Great Lakes represented a serious national security threat, moving weapons through a border region that had traditionally been considered low-risk.The St.Lawrence Seaway connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, meaning weapons could flow from international sources through the heartland of America with relatively little oversight.And now someone had turned that operation into a bloodbath.
James's phone buzzed with an incoming call, and Isla saw him frown at the display before answering."Sullivan...What?...Are you sure?...Copy that.We'll be right there."
He ended the call and turned to her with an expression that mixed excitement with dread."Coast Guard found something with their sonar sweep.Looks like a body."
"Where?"
"About two hundred yards off the stern.Deep water."
***
Isla stood at the edge of the dock, watching the dive team's support vessel maneuver into position above the sonar contact.The lake's surface was deceptively calm, reflecting the lights from the harbor like scattered diamonds.Beneath that placid exterior lay hundreds of feet of cold, dark water that had claimed countless lives over the centuries—sailors lost in storms, victims of maritime accidents, and now, possibly, the casualties of a weapons deal gone catastrophically wrong.
"Body recovery in these conditions is tricky," the dive supervisor explained as his team prepared their equipment.He was a thick-set man in his fifties named Crawford, with the weathered face of someone who'd spent most of his life on or under water."Water's still close to freezing, visibility's limited to maybe ten feet on a good day, and the bottom's rocky enough to snag equipment.If there's evidence down there, we'll find it, but it's going to take time."
The first diver went over the side at eleven-fifteen, descending on a weighted line toward the sonar contact.The wait was always the worst part of these operations—standing on the surface while someone else did the dangerous work of confronting what violence had left behind.Isla found herself thinking about the crew of the Northern Dawn, wondering if they'd known what they were carrying, if they'd been complicit in the smuggling operation, or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"What if they didn't know?"she said to James, who was standing beside her with his hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets.
"The crew?"
"Yeah.What if this was above their pay grade?Captain and maybe one other person in on it, rest of the crew just doing their jobs?"
James considered this."Makes the body count more tragic.But it also complicates our motive theory.If most of the crew were innocent, why kill them all?"
"Witnesses," Isla said simply."Can't leave witnesses if you're stealing military weapons.Especially if the crew could identify the buyers."
"Or if someone on the crew saw something they shouldn't have," James added."Maybe the deal was going fine until one of the innocent crew members stumbled onto the transaction.Then everyone becomes a liability."
Twenty minutes later, the diver surfaced with confirmation that made Isla's stomach clench."Got a body down here," his voice crackled through the surface radio."Adult male, looks like he's been in the water several hours.Sending up a recovery basket now."
The process of bringing up a drowning victim was methodical and respectful, but it never got easier to watch.The body that emerged from Lake Superior's depths was clearly one of the Northern Dawn's crew—he wore work clothes stained with engine grease and steel-toed boots, the kind of practical gear that commercial sailors favored.His face was swollen from hours in the cold water, skin pale and waxy, but his wallet had survived immersion well enough to provide identification.The leather was waterlogged, but the laminated driver's license was still legible.
"Arnold Jones," James read from the sodden license, water dripping from the plastic."Age forty-two, address in Two Harbors.Let me run him."He pulled out his phone, fingers moving quickly across the screen."Clean record, commercial fishing license, maritime safety certifications.Looks like a legitimate crew member, not a smuggler."
"So, probably one of the innocent ones," Isla said quietly.
But it was the medical examiner's preliminary assessment that transformed their understanding of the situation completely.Dr.Patricia Henley had worked maritime fatalities for years, and her verdict was delivered with the clinical precision that came from examining too many violent deaths.She was a small woman with steel-gray hair and latex gloves that snapped crisply as she worked.
