Tank Seven

[SFX: Suction cup. Bubbles underwater]

NARRATOR: Tank seven could not transmit a radio signal, but a maintenance intercom ran beside it. Its call button had jammed down, replaying the final seconds stored in the bridge buffer whenever seawater shifted the cable.

MARR'S RECORDING: Check tank seven. Rowan, stop. There are people in—

NARRATOR: The sentence ended in the hiss of gas. Rowan said the name proved only that Marr had called the bridge. Nia said it proved the captain had been listening.

CAPTAIN ROWAN PIKE: I receive fifty calls a watch. I never heard this one.

ELSIE TRAN: The bridge buffer was manually cleared at twelve fourteen.

NIA CROSS: By whose code?

ELSIE TRAN: The captain's.

[SFX: Underwater metal knocks. Dive light clicks]

NARRATOR: Samir entered tank seven through an inspection trunk. It was half full of seawater and contained bundles of refined cobalt strapped beneath the baffles. The metal was worth more than the declared cargo and had been mined under sanctions. One broken strap explained the grounding: cobalt slid to port, the automatic system flooded opposite tanks to correct the list, and the ship sank onto a reef.

DR SAMIR VALE: There is a second thing down here. A breathing hose.

NARRATOR: The hose led to a sealed void beside the tank. Inside were blankets, water bottles, and identification cards from previous voyages. The undocumented workers in the container were not an isolated crime. The Meridian Crown had carried people in its ballast spaces for months.

OWEN KELP: That changes the legal character of the salvage.

NIA CROSS: Is that grief I hear?

OWEN KELP: It is arithmetic. Courts seize ships used for trafficking. Nobody gets paid.

NARRATOR: On the hose coupling, Nia found a crescent of red paint. The same paint covered the emergency wheel inside the locked room. Someone had moved the hose after Marr died and then handled the wheel.