Vaarbewijs4all ⟶

Then Van der Heijden whispered, “My children.”

Finn pulled up the exam interface on his secondary monitor. He’d hacked the CBR’s practice environment years ago—knew every question, every trick image, every poorly translated buoy question designed to fail foreigners and stressed-out executives.

Question one appeared on Van der Heijden’s screen: A starboard hand buoy with a red light flashing at 60 flashes per minute indicates which side of the channel?

He hated it. But it paid for his son’s therapy sessions. Vaarbewijs4all

“Good choice, captain. Now run.”

Finn had a choice. Feed the answer. Keep the money. Stay safe.

Finn de Vries, 42, ex-ferry captain, current one-man online exam factory, leaned back and rubbed his eyes. Vaarbewijs4all was his third act after the shipping company went bankrupt and his wife left—taking the dog and the decent cutlery. The business was simple: help rich hobby boaters cheat their way to a Dutch boating license. For €299, you got a tablet, an earpiece, and Finn’s voice murmuring answers from a rented storage unit three kilometers away. Then Van der Heijden whispered, “My children

Van der Heijden’s mouse clicked. Next question. And the next. Twelve minutes in, the CEO was almost laughing with relief.

The rain hadn’t stopped for three days. Not the gentle coastal drizzle the locals joked about, but a hard, slanting downpour that turned the IJsselmeer into a slab of hammered lead. Inside the cramped office of Vaarbewijs4all, the world had shrunk to the glow of two monitors and the ticking of a radiator that hadn't worked since the '90s.

“I can’t do this, Finn. My hands are shaking,” the CEO whispered through the encrypted channel. He hated it

He closed his laptop. The woman in the raincoat was gone from the security feed. But his phone buzzed one last time.

“You’re not here to sail, meneer. You’re here to point at a screen. I’m the captain. You’re the autopilot.”