The digital counter above the Cameron console clicked over with a sharp dry snap.
02:13:00 AM.
Sixty seconds. Sixty seconds until dead-low slack tide, when the Atlantic current stopped dead in the shoals and the abyssal gate swung on its hinges.
The cellar deck hung motionless in the black water. Without the four mooring chains dragging her down, Rig Twelve swayed with a gentle roll. Her semi-submersible pontoons took the ocean swell, rising two feet higher in the foam.
“Deck is level, Jules,” Mac Cole said. His heavy boots gripped the grating.
“No list, no drag. She’s floating on her own tanks.”
“Keep your weight centered,” Julian Vance said. “Don’t let the play in that floor fool you.”
Julian didn’t ease his grip for an instant. His right palm was clamped over Key A, the municipal shear-pin wrench his father had machined back in nineteen ninety-six.
