I followed him, the air in the room dry and hot from the electrical equipment.

I smelled copper and hot plastic.

“Over there,” I said, pointing to a gray metal box mounted on the back wall.

It was the main fiber-optic junction box for the pier lines.

The cover panel had been completely removed.

It lay on the floor, its screws scattered across the concrete.

Inside the box, a small black device about the size of a deck of cards was taped to the main distribution rail.

Two blue fiber patch cables ran from the device directly into the high-speed transmitter lines.

“That’s it,” I said.

“Is it still running?” Hayes asked.

I stepped closer, my tablet scanning the local wireless frequencies.

“The status LED is solid blue,” I said. “It’s still transmitting to the *Vanguard*.”

“Can you stop it?” Hayes asked.

“If I just pull it, the system might trigger a hard reset on the submarine’s receiver,” I said. “They’ll know we found it, and they might destroy the receiving drive before we can secure it.”

“We need the receiver intact,” Hayes said.