I released him.
He stumbled back.
On the screen, the figure blinked the light again.
Mercer leaned forward. “That signal is active. This recording is from four hours ago.”
Portman’s eyes widened. “You think whoever that is knew Dalton would recognize it?”
My voice sounded like someone else’s.
“I think he knew my father taught me.”
Raskin stared at me.
“What are you saying?”
I looked at the blurred figure on the reef.
The posture.
The stillness.
The impossible patience.
My heartbeat became slow and terrible.
“I’m saying there’s a reason the enemy chose that reef. A reason they exposed that skiff. A reason they forced a shot only I could take.”
Mercer’s voice dropped. “A trap?”
“No,” I whispered. “A message.”
The room’s secure phone rang.
Everyone froze.
Mercer answered.
His face changed.
He looked at me.
“It’s for you.”
I took the receiver.
Static breathed in my ear.
Then a voice came through.
Old.
Ragged.
Familiar in a way that destroyed me.
“Meera.”
The room tilted.
I gripped the table.
No one moved.
No one dared.
The voice coughed, then continued.
“You still listen to the wind.”
I could not breathe.
My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Raskin looked like he might collapse.
“Dad?” I finally whispered.
A long silence followed.
Then the voice said, “I’m sorry, little lighthouse.”
That was what he used to call me when I was small and stubborn and afraid of the dark.
Portman covered her mouth.
Mercer stared at the floor.
I pressed the receiver so hard against my ear it hurt.
“You’re dead.”
“I was supposed to be.”
“Where are you?”
“Close enough to warn you. Not close enough to come home.”
Tears blurred everything, but my voice turned sharp.
“Who did this?”
Static cracked.
Then my father said, “The route never stopped. It moved into military channels. Someone aboard your ship is protecting it.”
Every eye in the room shifted.
Slowly.
To Raskin.
The general lifted both hands. “No. I buried the report. I did not protect traffickers.”
My father’s voice rasped through the line.
“Not him.”
Mercer went still.
Portman turned toward the door.
A soft click sounded behind us.
The young communications officer standing by the panel raised a pistol.
His hand shook, but his eyes did not.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “They said this would end before she saw the signal.”
Everything happened in less than two seconds.
Portman lunged.
Mercer slammed the table aside.
Raskin stepped between the gun and me.
The shot cracked inside the small room like lightning.
Raskin jerked backward and hit the wall.
Portman tackled the officer to the floor.
Mercer kicked the weapon away.
I dropped beside Raskin as blood spread across his uniform, darkening the medals he had once worn like armor.
He looked up at me, gasping.
“I owed him,” he whispered.
“Stop talking,” I said, pressing both hands to the wound.
A weak smile touched his mouth.
“Still giving orders.”
My father’s voice was still calling through the receiver on the floor.
“Meera? Meera!”
I grabbed it with one bloody hand.
“I’m here.”
“Listen carefully,” Dad said. “Coordinates are embedded in the old lighthouse log. Page thirty-seven. The page I told you never to tear out.”
My old notebook.
The one on my rack.
The one filled with wind charts and pressure notes and equations everyone thought were madness.
My father had not just taught me to shoot.
He had taught me to carry evidence.
By nightfall, Naval Criminal Investigative Service had control of the ship. The communications officer confessed before midnight. The smuggling route broke open within forty-eight hours, exposing contractors, officers, brokers, and two admirals who had built fortunes behind classified silence.