Death Echo (22 page)

Tight-lipped, Dwayne went to the locked door of Steele’s office, opened it, and ushered Alara inside. She was wearing one of her old-school dark suits, dark pumps, dark blouse against dark-toast skin. If her straight, short hair hadn’t been silver, she would have been a study in darkness.

“Coffee, tea, water, soda, something stronger?” Dwayne asked.

“Water, thank you. And privacy.”

“We’ve been through this before,” Steele said. “Unless you know something about Dwayne that I don’t—and have proof—he stays.”

In silence, Alara took a seat across from Steele’s desk and waited until he wheeled into place opposite her. Dwayne put a bottle of water in front of her, refreshed Steele’s water supply, and went back to his own office, which was an extension of the main office whose heavy doors could be shut if Steele required privacy. Steele had made it clear that he didn’t.

Two of the five phones in front of Dwayne showed calls on hold. All three of his computer screens showed message alerts. He put on his headset and went back to work.

Alara listened to the low murmur of Dwayne’s voice and the muted, hollow clicks of his computer keyboard.

“It is a dangerous luxury,” Alara said.

“What is?”

“Trusting your assistant.”

“Again, we have had this conversation before. If you have nothing new to add, I have calls waiting.”

She raised her eyebrows at Steele’s unusually curt manner. She almost asked if he was in pain, then stopped herself. The bullet that had taken Steele’s legs so long ago still echoed through other lives.

So many things that might have been.

But are not.

“Do you have anything new for me?” Alara asked.

“Did I call you?” Steele countered.

She nodded once, conceding the point. “Like pulling hen’s teeth.”

“To pull teeth, there must be teeth to pull.”

“Exactly. Shurik Temuri is a member of Georgia’s most secret government security agency,” she said evenly. “A very high-ranking member.”

“Is his trade in death and destruction private and personal, or an aspect of state business?”

“Unknown. However, most men in his position within the Russian Federation have lucrative quasi-personal sidelines—drugs, extortion, human traffic, and so on.”

“That would complicate, rather than simplify, this matter,” Steele said. “At the very least, it adds a layer of deniability to Temuri’s employer if its employee is caught with his hand in the wrong cookie jar.”

“I noted the same thing.”

“And?” Steele asked.

“Nothing. Just one more piece added to the puzzle we must solve.”

“Delightful. No wonder I anticipate your visits.” He drank from his water glass. “Anything else?”

“Where is
Blackbird
?”

“In Canadian customs, being vetted.”

She hissed with impatience. “Idiots.”

Steele didn’t ask if she was referring to Canadian customs, the crew of
Blackbird,
or the
FBI
agent who had whispered suspicions into an international ear. There was more than enough idiocy to go around.

“Time is wasting,” she said.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I loved you once.”

In the sudden silence, the hollow tapping coming from Dwayne’s office sounded like ghostly Morse code.

Alara stood, her smile caught between sorrow and amusement, and said huskily, “It was a long time ago. Call me when
Blackbird
sails again. We must find those teeth to pull.”

NANAIMO

1:20 P.M.

T
he northwest wind had gone from gusty to full-time blow. The only clouds left were those clinging to the mountain peaks on Vancouver Island and the mainland. The radio in
Blackbird
‘s cockpit spit static and a small-craft wind warning. Ten to twenty knots with occasional gusts up to twenty-five.

Emma looked outside doubtfully. If the wind got much worse, the Strait of Georgia was going to be more white than blue or gray.

Mac listened to the radio, looked at the computer, measured the state of the water beyond the sheltered marina, sensed the muscular rumble of big diesels beneath his feet, and remembered Amanar’s confidence that
Blackbird
could take anything the Inside Passage could dish out.

Easy to say when you aren’t on deck.

But it would be much better to find out in twenty-five-knot winds than in forty-five.

“Stand by, Emma,” he said through the headphones when she reached for the stern line. “I’m calling my special weather guesser.”

The door to the customs modular slammed hard behind Singh. The wind-assisted closing made the small building shudder.

“Standing by,” Emma said.

Mac flipped the mic away from his mouth as he punched the speed dial of his cell phone. The call was answered immediately.

“Faroe here. Where are you?”

“Nanaimo customs dock,” Mac said, “getting ready to leave.”

“I hear a ‘but’ in your voice.”

“The wind is kicking up. Small-craft warning just went out for Nanaimo on south. I’m holding
Blackbird
against the dock with the pod drive as we speak.”

“Bad?”

“If I knew
Blackbird
better,” Mac said, “I’d already be heading north with a grin on my face. But we really haven’t had a shakedown cruise.”

“You pushed her to get to Nanaimo so fast. Had to be doing more than twenty knots,” Faroe said.

“Nothing came loose. But the water was pretty much glass.”

All Mac heard for a few moments was silence infused by the rush of wind over the cell phone’s small microphone.

“Is it dangerous if you go now?” Faroe asked.

“If I thought it was, I wouldn’t have called. I’d have found dock space in one of the marinas. But it could get dodgy if something cuts out because a cap or a screw or a fitting wasn’t tightened down.”

“As you said, shakedown cruise. Any worries with her on the way up?”

“No, she’s a really sweet boat. I’m tempted to sail off into the sunset with her, because I sure never could afford to buy a ride like this.”

Faroe laughed. “What does your gut say about going north?”

“I trust
Blackbird
. It’s the weather-guessers I’m iffy about.”

“How’s Emma doing?”

“She’s a first-rate first mate,” Mac said.

“Say that ten times fast without stumbling and I’ll know you haven’t been drinking.”

“I don’t drink when I’m working, unless it’s a cover. And then it only looks like I’m drinking.”

“One of the things I really like about you,” Faroe agreed. He paused, swore under his breath, and said, “Alara visited Steele again. Temuri not only has criminal connections, he’s a top member of Georgia’s secret service.”

“This is getting all the earmarks of a really grand cluster.”

“Yeah.”

“We’ve wasted a lot of water time in Nanaimo.”

“Alara said the same thing.”

“What did Steele say?” Mac asked.

“He hires people he trusts. When it comes to sailing conditions, it’s your call, Captain.”

“We’re going north. If the wind drops the way it should, we’ll be in Campbell River well before dark.”

“If not?” Faroe asked.

“We’ll get to see how Emma likes being aboard
Blackbird
when its plowing into the wind at speed.”

“Let me know.”

Faroe ended the call.

Mac flipped the headphone mic back into place and signaled Emma to release the line. He watched her leap lightly onto the swim step, stern line in hand. He eased off the pod drive and waited to see if the yacht would respond as expected to the twin forces of water and wind.

The wind peeled the bow away from the customs dock. The stern followed, but not so quickly that the swim step banged against the dock. The wind was doing more pushing sideways than turning the boat.

Mack took a quick look around the marina, making certain that nothing had popped up on the water that hadn’t been there the last time he looked.

“Clear,” Emma said calmly into the mic.

He stepped into the cabin and let the boat drift until he was certain that turning the bow more wouldn’t slam the stern into the dock. Then he shut off the joystick, picked up the throttles, checked that the engines were in sync, and put them in gear.

“Pick up all the lines and fenders and stow them the way I showed you,” Mac said. “If you need help—”

“No help. Just time.”

“—let me know,” he finished.

He divided his attention between the course and Emma. She worked over the four lines, only had to coil one of them twice, tied each off neatly, and stowed them in an on-deck locker. Then she began dragging fenders into another area and hanging them out of the way by their own lines.

Mac had handled a lot of fenders. He knew that they were heavier than they looked, especially when you were holding them at arm’s length half the time. It would have been easier if there had been fender holders on the rails, but there weren’t.

Emma had caught on fast to the role of first mate. She didn’t question why he wanted the deck clear of lines and fenders now and not on the way to Canada, or why he did things one way and not another. When she’d said that he was the boss on the water, she’d meant it.

Mac saw the blinking yellow channel light that warned of a float-plane coming in or taking off. He stepped out long enough to get a visual, then went back into the cabin.

Emma looked up when the roar of a small plane drowned out everything else. She could see the pilot as he thundered by, floats barely forty feet overhead.

Another plane came a minute behind the first. Since she knew what the sound was now, she ignored it and continued wrestling with cold fenders and cranky lines. As she did, she tried to imagine what it would be like doing the job on a heaving deck in a sleet storm.

I’ll pass, thanks.

She made a mental note to ask Mac if sleet was in their immediate future. She didn’t think her deck shoes were up to that kind of traction.

By the time Emma was finished with first-mate duties, she was ready to add layers to her eye-candy outfit. She went into the salon, hurried past the pilot station, and ducked below to the master stateroom with its big bed, closet, and drawers, all built into the hull. She could walk around three sides of the bed, which Mac had assured her was a real luxury. When she thought about making a bed with only one open side, she had to agree.

The clothes she’d brought in her duffel didn’t fill up a tenth of the space allotted to the “first mate.” She swapped shorts, boat sandals, and crop top for jeans, a T-shirt, and boat shoes with socks. She yanked a black sweater over her head, pulled her hair out from under the collar, put her cell phone on her belt, and called it good.

When she climbed the short stairway up into the galley, Mac was watching the electronic chart with unusual attention. She looked out the window and saw why. The big harbor had vanished. There was a tiny island off their right—
starboard
—side that looked close enough to touch. The miniature marina on the port side wasn’t nearly as close.

Instead of asking why they were scraping an islet when there was plenty of water on the other side, she studied the chart and their projected course.

“Yikes,” she said.

“Yeah, it’s a narrow channel out of the north end of the harbor, but it saves time and dodging ferries coming in from the strait.”

Silently she looked through the windows, comparing the electronic chart to what she could see. Nearby, just off the bow, a bright buoy swung in the current at the end of its anchor chain.

“What’s that?” she asked. “A weird channel marker?”

Mac punched a button, zooming in on the chart symbol for the buoy.

She leaned in to look at the chart, then looked outside, and listened to Mac. She could learn from books, but she’d discovered long ago that she was what was called a “directed” learner—if she experienced it physically as well as intellectually, she learned much faster.

“That marks Oregon Rock,” he said. “At low tide, it’s only a few feet below the water, right at the entrance to the Nanaimo Yacht Club,” he said. “There’s another rock forty yards north. I could run us over it—”

“No thanks,” she cut in.

“—but I’d like to stay afloat.”

“Good plan.”

On the islet that crowded the narrow channel, trees bent to the wind. Watercraft of all sizes poured into the far end of the channel, chased off the strait by the growing wind. She stood on tiptoe, peered into the water, and saw a shadow beneath the surface. The buoy was connected to it by a slimy green chain.

“I prefer deeper water,” she said, measuring the size and closeness of the hazard. “And plenty of it.”

Mac’s smile flashed beneath his short beard. “I hear you.”

“You’d think an ohmygod-rock like that one would be marked with bells, whistles, bonfires, and brass bands,” she said.

“The farther north you go, the less bells and whistles there are. You have to pay attention to your charts and whatever nav markers exist. Go far enough north, and you’re lucky to find nav markers in a harbor, much less away from it.”

“Are the electronic charts as good as paper?”

“Mostly. Often better. But like paper, it’s all information that someone on the ground—or water, in our case—has supplied.”

“Good intel, good result,” she said. “Bad intel, or none, and you’re hung out to dry.”

Mac went still, fighting memories. It took a few moments to shove the bloody past back into the basements of his mind.

“Nice thing about paper charts,” he said, “is they don’t go down if a circuit trips.”

“Where is the paper chart of this channel?”

“In my mind. I’ve done this a few times,” he said.

“What if I have to do it by myself?”

“Top chart.” He pointed.

She went to the pile of folded charts that were to the left of the galley sink, took the first chart, and started to orient herself. Since the electronic chart was on the “heads-up” mode—whatever was on the chart in front of the triangle that represented the boat was also what was visible beyond the bow—she turned the chart until it showed what was in front of her, rather than true north.