The heat of the cabin evaporated the moment the iron hatch clanged shut behind them. Up on the deck of the *Caffè Aurora II*, the Atlantic was no longer a vast emptiness; it was a wall of black water and blinding, horizontal sleet. The air temperature had plummeted into the single digits, and the wind screamed through the trawler’s rigging like a chorus of the unindexed.
High above the mast, the blood-red coordinates in the sky had sharpened, casting a surreal, crimson glare through the freezing fog. Below that unnatural light, the ocean was boiling.
"Giulia! Matteo!" Alessandro shouted from the open door of the wheelhouse, his voice cracking against the wind. He was throwing switches on a backup console, his face illuminated by the green glow of a sonar screen that was flickering violen
