Death Echo (29 page)

Emma waited until she was certain they were alone before she asked, “Your cart looks like a fishing line factory threw up.”

Mac looked at the pale green, unruly mound of plastic netting that was trying to crawl out of his dock cart. “Close.”

“Anyone we know get hurt?” she asked drily.

“So far so good.”

“Mac, what the hell is in your cart?”

“Plan B,” he said. “Or maybe I just missed my yowie suit.”

“Your what?”

“You probably know it as a ghillie suit,” Mac said.

Emma wondered what a sniper’s camouflage outfit had to do with the mess in Mac’s cart.

“Partner,” she said, “you should know that I make chowder out of clams.”

“Mmmm, clam chowder” was all he said.

She ignored him and concentrated on loading supplies aboard
Blackbird.
She kept on pretending he didn’t exist until he reappeared in the cabin after stowing the explosion of net in one of the yacht’s many lockers. He took a last bite of something that smelled like a septic tank, then stuffed greasy fast food wrappers into the trash.

Buzzers told Emma that he was getting ready to fire up the big diesels. One engine turned over and began to purr. The second followed. The muscular throb of power vibrated through her in a wave of sensation she could get addicted to.

“Want anything more to eat than whatever it was you stuffed in here?” she asked, opening the trash drawer.

“You.”

“You had me last night, and then some. Dawn was…a whole new experience.”

“Same here. A woman like you gives a man a real appetite.”

“For grease?” she asked, dangling a food wrapper between two fingers.

“For more. And then more.”

Emma dropped the greasy paper and looked into Mac’s dark eyes. She knew that honesty was dangerous.

She pulled the trigger anyway. “You’re the only civilian I’ve ever been in bed with who knew what I was and what I was doing,” she said. “No lies, no games. Truly naked. Incredible.”

“Like sex without a party hat.”

She laughed briefly, almost sadly. “Never done that.”

“Neither have I.”

Silence stretched, a sensual tension that was as tempting as it was hazardous. They didn’t have time for what both of them wanted to try.

Dangerous sex.

She forced herself to turn away and check the engine temperatures. “Getting warm down there.”

Mac blinked. “You didn’t just say that.”

“Say what?” she asked absently, wondering why one engine warmed up a bit more quickly than the other.

He tried to come up with an answer that wouldn’t involve getting naked. A cell phone rang, saving him from having to think.

“Mine,” she said, patting the pockets of her cargo pants.

“Yours,” he agreed huskily.

“Good morning, St. Kilda,” she said into the phone.

“What’s happening?” Faroe demanded.

“The wind is down to fourteen knots and supposed to continue dropping to five. Or ten, depending on your weather guesser.”

“Anything new?”

Emma doubted that Faroe wanted a roundup of who did what and with which and to whom last night. Much less how many times.

“We’re leaving Discovery Harbor,” she said. “Other than that, nothing new.”

Faroe cursed. “Wish they’d pull their finger out and get on with it. Our clock isn’t getting any longer.”

“We’re aware of that.”

And she wished she wasn’t. Wished she was Jill Normal getting up with Jack Normal for some Normal daily life.

No such luck. “We found out through back channels that Temuri crossed into Canada at Blaine, Washington,” Faroe said. “They lost him. Haven’t found him yet.”

“That you know of,” Emma said crisply.

“I hear you five by five, but Alara is the only card in our hole right now.”

“Now
that’s
a visual.”

Faroe ignored her. “Our system didn’t detect any calls to you or Mac last night,” he said.

“Correct.”

“Chatty, aren’t you,” Faroe muttered. “Anyone there but Mac?”

“No.”

“Demidov’s account number went back to accounts used by the
KGB
.”

“Which no longer exists,” Emma pointed out.

“Same people, same accounts, new organization name. Information and extortion are very profitable. Ask the former KGB/present oligarchs who do it for a high-flying living in Russia.”

“Shocked here. Just shocked.”

Faroe laughed, a sound as weary as she was beginning to feel. The clock in her mind never stopped running, even when she lay tangled up with Mac. A look at Mac’s face told her that his clock was counting down along with hers.

They understood each other too well for such a short time together.

We’re in trouble, Mac.

Wonder if we’ll live long enough to enjoy it.

“Lovich and Amanar didn’t turn up for work at Blue Water Marine today,” Faroe continued. “As they’re usually unlocking the door bright and early, at six-thirty or no later than seven, Grace called the Blue Water office at official opening time. She was told a ‘family emergency’ would be keeping them busy for ‘an unknown amount of time.’”

“If those boys are smart, they’re headed for Ecuador,” Emma said.

“We’re checking outgoing passports. Rather, Alara is. She can do it faster than St. Kilda.”

“At last, something she’s good for.”

Faroe grunted. “St. Kilda will be picking the wheat out of her chaff for a long time. It will work out to our benefit.”

“If you’re lucky.”

“Make us lucky.”

The line went dead.

“Well, he’s in a sweet mood,” Emma said, putting the phone back in her pocket.

“Waiting is the hardest part of the game,” Mac said. “It’s the first thing a sniper learns and the last thing he forgets. First to flinch eats the first bullet.”

“You talk sweeter in bed.”

“That’s because you taste…” Mac’s voice faded as he listened. Somewhere close by, a seaplane droned toward landing. The sound grew closer, changed direction, went away, then started getting louder and louder.

A shadow flashed over
Blackbird.

Mac and Emma grabbed for the binoculars at the same time. He was closer. He went outside and stood deep in the shadows thrown by the cabin in the morning sun. Swiftly he put the glasses to his eyes and focused.

“Single-engine DeHavilland Beaver,” he said over the waning engine noise. “It’s flying out over the forest, turning…damn, that’s not a downwind leg setting up for landing. They’re coming back over the harbor for a better look.”

“Get under cover!”

“No need,” he said. But he stepped back into the cabin without losing the plane in the binoculars. “Anyone who cares enough to kill me would know that Faroe could be up here, running
Blackbird,
before the last echoes of gunfire died.”

“Sweet-talking man,” she said through her teeth.

Mac smiled beneath the binoculars, watching the plane grow bigger and bigger.

A quarter mile away and closing fast, the aircraft leveled off at about one hundred feet above the forest. Even without binoculars, Emma could see a man in the co-pilot’s seat. His face was turned toward them, but his eyes were concealed behind what looked like a camera with a telephoto lens.

Mac tracked the plane like the trained sniper he was. He read off a single letter followed by the five-digit registration number he could see on the tail of the plane.

Emma scribbled down the identification code and read it back to him.

The plane wagged its wings at them.

Hello, good-bye, screw you.

Without removing the binoculars, Mac flipped off the aircraft.

“Friends of yours?” Emma asked.

“More like yours.”

“Agency?”

“I’d take money on it.”

She grimaced. “I wonder why they waited until now? They must have known about us before we did.”

“Good question,” Mac said.

“Maybe. And maybe we’re wrong in our assumptions, they just discovered us, and are here to help.”

“That would make life easier, which means it ain’t gonna happen.”

Emma hoped Mac was wrong, but didn’t think he was. She flipped open her phone, hit Faroe’s speed-dial number, and began talking, knowing that every call was automatically recorded. She started with the plane’s tail numbers.

“Type of plane?” Grace asked when Emma was finished.

“Single engine, dry-and water-landing gear, DeHavilland Beaver. Don’t know the age. White plane, with a blue-green wavy stripe on a diagonal over the fuselage. They made two passes and wagged their wings at us. Mac flipped them off.”

“One hand or two?” Grace asked absently.

“One. The other was busy holding binoculars.”

“Your man is reminding me more and more of Joe. Stand by.”

“Standing by,” Emma said. Then, to herself,
My man?

It was a heady thought.

Grace wasn’t gone long. There weren’t nearly as many aircraft registrations as there were for land vehicles.

“As my husband would say, oh shit, oh, dear,” Grace muttered. “You sure about that tail number?”

“Repeat, please,” Emma said, switching the phone to its external speaker.

“Was the tail number real or a guesstimate?” Grace said.

“Real,” Mac said. “What’s up?”

“Nothing good,” Grace said. “The registration comes back to a company called Greentree Aviation at Boeing Field in Seattle.”

Emma looked at Mac, wondering if he understood. The look on his face told her that he did.

“Back when I was in special ops,” he said, “I rode Greentree aircraft a time or two. Those pilots have balls.”

“The
CIA
has never been short on
huevos,
” Grace said, using the slang of her childhood.

“They’re certainly hanging them out for God and man to see,” Emma said. “That’s unusual.”

“Inevitable,” Mac said. “From the moment Demidov showed up.”

“Yeah,” Emma agreed, disgusted. She’d really been hoping to be left alone to answer questions for St. Kilda and the razor-tongued Alara. “Well, at least we know who three of the locator bugs you found belong to.”

“St. Kilda put two on
Blackbird,
” Grace reminded her. “Redundancy in the face of fragile technology.”

“Then I’m betting the
CIA
did, too,” Emma said.

“That takes care of the five we found,” Mac said. “Two St. Kilda, two
CIA
, one Russian.”

“I’ll call the instant I have anything more,” Grace said.

“Wait,” Emma said, “is Canada in on the game?”

“All our information says no,” Grace said. “What are you going to do?”

“Head north,” Emma and Mac said together.

“Like fucking lemmings,” Mac said under his breath.

Emma felt the same way.

And she was tired of it.

“St. Kilda can track us by our special phones, right?” she asked Grace.

Mac looked at Emma, smiled, then started laughing. When it came to tactics, partnering with her was like looking in a mirror.

It was time for the other side to work blind.

“What’s the joke?” Grace asked.

“Can you find us by our phones?” Mac asked.

“Yes.”

“Good,” Emma said, watching Mac. “Because in a few minutes,
Blackbird
is going stealth.”

NORTH
OF
CAMPBELL
RIVER

10:15 A.M.

A
single locator says
Blackbird
hasn’t left Discovery Harbor,” One said. “The other locator is dead.”

Tim Harrow looked at the hard, well-built man known only as “Team One” or “One.” The other team members were also known by a numeric designation.

Don’t ask.

Don’t tell.

“One” was the leader of the team of five that had met him at public docks connected to a small, deserted resort/campground. The nearby, popular Blind Channel resort obviously siphoned off all the business. At this time of year, the ratty public docks were ignored. In any case, most cruisers were in their winter docks by mid-September. Harrow’s team had told him that fall weather was notoriously unpredictable in northern B.C.

It was hard to believe that today. Steady breeze, a few clouds, water like blue glass with artistic ripples here and there to keep things from being boring. Ringing it all was the endless mixed forest, green on green.

“Thank you, One,” Harrow said. “Let me know the instant that changes.”

“Sir.”

The man went back to his team. Part of the team was aboard the
Summer Solstice,
a sixty-foot power boat. The rest was in the Zodiac that served as the larger boat’s tender.

Harrow had no doubts about the competence of the team. He’d never met a group of better conditioned, smarter men in his life. Seasoned, too. All of them looked to be in their mid-thirties.

Or maybe they’re in their twenties with a lot of mileage on them,
Harrow thought.
Hope this assignment doesn’t pile on more.

What the hell are Emma and Durand doing on
Blackbird?
Polishing the decks with their tongues?

Harrow pulled out his special cell phone. Good satellite signal. He punched in Joe Faroe’s number.

“Who are you?” asked a male voice.

“Emma Cross used to work for me,” Harrow said.

“I care about that because…?”

“She’s working for you and St. Kilda Consulting now.”

Silence.

“Look, Faroe,” Harrow said impatiently. “
Blackbird
is sitting dead in the water in Campbell River and I want to know what the hell is going on. The clock is running hard. You know it. I know it. Cut the bullshit.”

At the other end of the connection in Rosario, Faroe kicked back in the uncomfortable motel chair and thought hard. Part of him and all of Steele had been expecting this.

And most of Faroe had hoped they both were wrong.

“What do you want?” Faroe asked.

“Blackbird
at the coordinates I’ll give you. And I want her there fast.”

“If you don’t get what you want?”

“St. Kilda Consulting is out of business. Permanently.” Harrow listened to the silence stretch. “Look, we’re taking over the running of the op. Help us and you’re golden. If you get in our way—”