Julian turned away from the wooden cable spool and looked up the sheer granite face of the headland.
High above the crashing Atlantic breakers, perched forty feet up the dark rock wall, the armored bay window of Studio B glowed with a warm, amber brilliance. The light spilled from the glass jackets of two dozen transmitter tubes, casting long golden rectangles across the wet, black stone of the slipway.
Above the studio, rising six hundred feet into the churning night sky, the triangular steel lattice of the broadcast mast swayed slightly in the gale, its guy-wires thrumming like bass strings in the freezing wind.
Inside the booth, two silhouettes were framed against the warm glow of the equipment racks. Elena Rostova stood near the archive light-table, and Clara Vance sat tall before the master console as they patched the coaxial umbilical down to standby tug Marrow-09.
Julian turned to his companions. “Mac, get Lin Mei and the doctor up beside the gangway brow with Silas.
Keep the boarding passes dry inside your coats. I need four minutes before Elena and Clara come down the freight lift to board Marrow-09.”
Mac nodded, his heavy brass diving spanner catching the sodium mist as he gestured toward the iron slipway gate. “Take your time, kid. The boat’s diesels are still idling in neutral, and the ten-fifty-two embarkation bell hasn’t rung yet.”
