"The gold," Marley said, and she didn't sound scared. She sounded the way a woman sounds when she's watched two years of work become exponentially more dangerous and has already started recalculating. "They're after the gold."
"Confederate treasury reserves have significant value as a laundering asset," Cal confirmed. "Untraceable, pre-federalcurrency standards. If your research is accurate about the cargo—"
"My research is accurate."
"—then the wreck represents somewhere between eight and twenty million in laundering potential."
Her hand found the compass necklace, and this time she didn't catch herself. Her thumb ran over the worn silver edge while she stared at the water past my shoulder, where the morning light was shifting the channel toward pale green.
"They photographed everything," she said. "My sonar logs. My bathymetric overlays. My archival cross-references. They have my entire search grid."
"Which means they can find the wreck without you," I said.
"Not without my interpretation." Her chin came up. "The data is useless without context. A sonar anomaly at sixty-two feet could be a hundred different things. I know it's a hull because I've learned how to read this specific stretch of ocean floor."
"And now someone with cartel funding and no permit concerns has a copy of your roadmap."
"They have a copy of the directions. I'm the one who reads the language."
Something about the way she said it—absolute certainty delivered barefoot on a ransacked boat, chin up, compass in her fist—settled behind my ribs and stayed there. Not admiration, exactly. Closer to the feeling I got watching someone hold a line they had no business holding, and holding it anyway, and being right.
She was the job. That was the frame. I needed the frame.
I turned back to the phone. "Cal. We need to talk about the scope."
CAL ARRIVED AT THEmarina forty minutes later, driving the matte-black Tacoma that served as S&S's unofficial command vehicle. He stepped onto the dock in his standard uniform, faded olive tee and canvas work pants, the same tactical watch he'd worn since Coronado, and surveyed Reckoning with an expression I recognized from hundreds of mission briefs.
"Dr. Heyward." He offered his hand. She took it.
"You're Beau's boss."
"I'm everyone's boss." He said it without inflection, which was how you knew he meant it. "I've spoken with the Preservation Office this morning. Given the security development, they've agreed to restructure the assignment."
Marley's eyes flicked to me. I kept my face neutral.
"The order is suspended," he continued. "New scope: Salt and Steel provides security and dive support for a legal documentation effort on the wreck site. We partner with you, provide tactical overwatch, and ensure the site is properly catalogued before anyone else reaches it. In return, your documentation meets federal archaeological standards and the Preservation Office gets jurisdiction over the site."
"And I get what, exactly?"
"Your wreck. Properly documented. Legally protected. Your name on the research." He paused one beat. "And you don't do it alone against a crew with cartel funding."
"I've been handling things alone for two years."
"Someone boarded your boat last night and copied two years of work while you were sleeping twenty feet away." His voice didn't shift, but the statement landed anyway. "This morning they have your search grid. Next week they could have divers on the site stripping it for cargo. The question isn't whether you need a partner. It's whether you'll choose one before the choice gets made for you."
I watched Marley run the calculation. I could see it happening: pride fighting pragmatism, independence grinding against the reality of what had walked off that boat last night. Her hand had gone to her throat. A mullet jumped in the channel behind us, and a brown pelican folded itself onto the nearest piling, and the whole marina kept going about its morning while her world rearranged itself.
"I lead the research," she said.
"You lead the research," Cal confirmed.
"My methodology. My documentation standards. My call on what gets excavated and when."
"Agreed."
"And he"—she pointed at me—"doesn't touch my data without asking."
"I don't want your data, Doc."
