The Caffè Aurora II cut through the swelling black waves of the open Atlantic with a heavy, laboring shudder. Behind them, the Mediterranean was a memory locked behind the Straits of Gibraltar; ahead lay only the vast, cold emptiness of the ocean and the blood-red coordinates burning through the fog. The jammers Alessandro had rigged to the trawler’s mast hummed with a low, bone-deep vibration, a continuous wall of white noise designed to shield them from the tracking eyes of the trench bunker.
Down in the cramped crew quarters below deck, the world was reduced to the size of a single wood-paneled cabin. The engine's rhythmic thrum vibrated through the floorboards, a steady heartbeat against the volatile crash of the sea outside.
Giulia stood by the small porthole, watching the black wat
