“Good choice, captain. Now run.”
Tonight’s client was a problem. Meneer Van der Heijden, CEO of a logistics firm, had paid for the Premium Plus package: two cameras, a heartbeat monitor bypass, and a direct line to Finn’s ear. The exam was in twenty minutes. Van der Heijden was already sweating through his Musto sailing shirt.
The silence on the line was absolute.
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. Vaarbewijs4all
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.
Finn had a choice. Feed the answer. Keep the money. Stay safe. “Good choice, captain
Then Finn’s screen flickered.
“Meneer Van der Heijden,” he said, loud enough for the proctor to hear, “this is Finn de Vries from Vaarbewijs4all. You’re being fed answers. I’m ending this now. Tell the exam supervisor everything, or I will.” The exam was in twenty minutes
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.