Death Echo

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Be damned,” Mac said softly.

  He repeated the sequence, nine, then three. Blackbird edged regally sideways, then stopped. He pushed a little longer toward nine. The boat sucked in toward the dock.

  Mother of all miracles. It really works.

  Some of the pod drives he had used were clumsy. This one was sweet.

  He checked forward and aft. The anchor mounted on the overhanging bowsprit of the powerboat ahead of him would whittle his margin for error down to inches, so he pushed the joystick toward six o’clock. Blackbird slid a few feet out from under the threat. He pushed toward nine again, twice. Each time the boat moved sideways, against the current, as though on rails.

  “Really sweet,” he said, loud enough for the men on the dock to hear.

  Amanar and Lovich laughed.

  The stranger showed the emotions of a cement slab.

  Mac nudged the black hull closer and closer until he felt the fenders touch the rail of the dock.

  “Just punch the button that says ‘Maintain,’” Amanar called.

  Mac did. The twin propellers took over automatically. Blackbird held nearly motionless against the dock.

  Amanar took the bowline, then the stern line, and secured Blackbird to the dock.

  Mac leaned on the rail and looked down. “You’re going to put me out of business. Nobody will need a captain anymore. A baby could do it.”

  “Have to be a damn rich baby,” Amanar said. “Pod drives ain’t cheap. Shut it down. You’re good.”

  Mac stepped back to the helm long enough to shut down the big engines.

  Lovich said something to the stranger.

  Mac watched the third man, a heavy-set male with a wide Slavic face, black eyes, shoulder-length brown hair, and a well-combed mustache. He looked a lot younger than Lovich and Amanar, who were well advanced on the downhill slide to fifty. All in all, despite the longer hair, the stranger could have been Lovich’s nephew.

  And he was colder and more confident than anyone Mac had ever met outside of a sniper reunion.

  He caught a word or two of a language that could have been Eastern European or even Russian. Mac couldn’t be sure. Languages hadn’t been a specialty of his. He had been the backup medic and sniper for his team.

  Memories stirred in him, black and red, screaming. He shoved them down and bolted the hatch.

  Lose the replay, he told himself roughly. Long ago, far away, and nobody cares about it but you.

  Mac shoved a line through one of the midship hawseholes and leaped onto the dock. As he bent to tie the line to a dock cleat, he deliberately brushed against the stranger.

  Beneath the soft brown leather jacket there was solid muscle.

  “Sorry,” Mac said. “Just need to get this line.”

  The man stared at him with blank, black eyes.

  Lovich murmured something in the stranger’s language.

  The man watched Mac.

  Suddenly the night was quiet, only the gentle lapping of water against the boats and the faint ringing sound of a loose stay hitting the mast on a nearby sailboat.

  The third man said something.

  Lovich nodded. “Let’s go aboard,” Amanar said, looking at his partner.

  Mac watched the third man move. Though he had an athlete’s coordination, slight hesitations and adjustments in balance told Mac that the man wasn’t used to the transition between land and water. Yet his confidence was superb. He catalogued his surroundings with a few sweeping glances.

  “You’re working late,” Mac said, glancing at his watch. He still had plenty of time to go to Tommy’s place for the promised drink.

  Unfortunately.

  Drinking and talking about the good old days weren’t Mac’s favorite ways to spend time.

  Amanar hesitated, then said quickly, “We want to get a good look at her tonight. There’s going to be a rigging crew all over her soon. We have to turn her around fast.”

  Mac nodded toward the dark stranger. “Is this your new owner?” Amanar didn’t answer. “If he is, tell him I know how he might double his money overnight,” Mac added.

  The stranger stared at him rudely. He was a few inches under Mac’s height and perhaps forty pounds heavier. Muscle, not fat. He seemed to resent the English conversation.

  Lovich quickly translated.

  The stranger squinted at Mac, as though weighing him. “There’s a woman who got all wet and bothered over Blackbird the first time she saw the boat,” Mac explained casually, talking to the third man while Lovich translated. “She’s a qualified buyer with money sizzling in the pockets of her very tight jeans.”

  Lovich was a good translator. He accompanied his words with hand gestures that outlined a shapely female butt.

  The third man answered with a sharp string of words that took the smile off Lovich’s face.

  “He says he’s not interested in selling.”

  “Are you going to be around for a few days, or do you have another job?” Amanar asked Mac.

  “I’m getting my boat ready for a cruise. I’ll be around.”

  “Great. We don’t have anything right now, but you never know.”

  Mac heard what wasn’t being said: Now get lost.

  “You have my cell number,” Mac said. “I’d like my check. I’ve got some bills to take care of.”

  “Stop by tomorrow morning,” Amanar said. “The bookkeeper is gone now.”

  Mac nodded, not worried. Blue Water Marine Group had always paid him on time.

  As he started to gather his charts and stow his gear in a red canvas duffel, the three men disappeared down into the engine room. He could hear their murmured conversation. All were speaking the third man’s language.

  Mac heard someone rap a piece of metal on the side of the heavy, sheet-steel fuel tank on the port side. Then Amanar muttered a single word. If his tone could be trusted, it was praise rather than curse.

  Duffel in hand, Mac stepped onto the dock. The marina parking lot was full of empty cars. The nearby streets had the usual traffic for a small town on a working night.

  And Mac felt like he was being watched.

  Shove that along with the memories.

  The back of his neck didn’t listen.

  He paused at the top of the marina ramp and looked around, trying to find a reason for his unease.

  It wasn’t the cement-cold stranger. He was still below decks with the owners of Blue Water Marine.

  Mac swept the front ranks of the parked vehicles on the marina lot, searching out spots where someone could see without being easily seen. There were pickup trucks, a few panel vans, and plenty of rusted-out urban beaters worth less than the gas in their tank. Nothing unusual.

  Except the hair on his neck wouldn’t lie down.

  Get over it. You’re in the good old U. S. of A., not on a mission. You promised Tommy you’d meet him. Quit looking for excuses to stay in town.

  But I need a shower. Fact, not excuse.

  His own boat was docked on the other side of the marina, a mile closer than the little house he owned. Mac cut across a corner of the parking lot, punched in a code at another gate, and vanished down the gangway.

  8

  DAY ONE

  MANHATTAN

  11:30 P.M.

  Ambassador Steele turned away from the wall of television screens in his office/home. A quick push with his hands sent his wheelchair humming across the polished tile floor. He had a motorized wheelchair but preferred the modest exercise he got rolling himself around his large office.

  He hit the button blinking on his phone and spoke so that the microphone could pick up his voice. “Steele.”

  “Emma Cross, as requested.”

  “Thank you, Dwayne.”

  In the next room, his assistant transferred the call and went back to talking in a low voice into the headset he wore.

  “You requested information on MacKenzie Durand, called Mac,” Steele said, forcing himself not to look at his watch.

&n
bsp; “Yes.”

  “I’ll tell Grace as soon as we’re finished, but I wanted you to know right now that Durand could be a valuable ally or a lethal enemy. Until five years ago, he and his Special Ops team were deployed into some of the world’s nastiest places. On the last op, he was the only survivor. He quit and never looked back. Rumor is that the CIA hung his team out to dry with bad intel.”

  At the other end of the line, Emma drew in her breath and stared out over the marina parking lot. “Mac wouldn’t be the first that happened to.”

  “Or the last. The political back-stabbing among American intel agencies is St. Kilda’s biggest recruiting boost. That and the built-in lack of competence that comes from political hacks being appointed to high office.”

  Emma wanted to laugh, but it hurt too much. “Amen. Been there, got screwed without being kissed, didn’t go back for seconds.”

  Steele’s laugh was as unexpected as sunrise at midnight. “As I said, St. Kilda is more than happy to pick up the talented survivors. You’re one of them. Durand is another. As much of his background as I could get without ringing alarms is in a file waiting to be downloaded to your computer.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I want you to recruit Durand. You have all the skills.”

  Emma blinked. She indeed had been trained by the Agency in recruiting locals. She had been very good at it.

  And she had hated it.

  “What if he doesn’t want to be recruited?” she asked.

  “Buy him.”

  “From what I’ve seen of him, I doubt that would work. He’s too self-confident, not needy or greedy.”

  Steele let the silence lengthen before he said, “If Blackbird leaves port, you’ll have to follow. Durand is a transit captain. Connect the dots.”

  “Yes, sir,” Emma said through her teeth.

  Steele laughed again. “Why am I hearing echoes of ‘screw you, sir’?”

  “Good ears?” she asked dryly.

  “Don’t be surprised to see Grace and Annalise with Joe.”

  “Family vacation,” she said. “Always heartwarming.”

  “Joe loves the Pacific Northwest when it isn’t raining,” Steele said. “Ask anyone who knows him.”

  “Fickle man. I hear it rains a lot here. That’s how it got so green.” But Emma understood what hadn’t been said—Faroe was traveling with his wife and daughter under cover of a vacation.

  “Research is still digging,” Steele said. “We’ll get back to you.”

  He broke the connection.

  Emma rubbed her forearms, feeling chilled. She hoped it wasn’t her grave St. Kilda was digging.

  She settled into the cold Jeep, booted up her laptop, and began reading—keeping one eye out for Mac to reappear. Living aboard a boat was illegal at the marina.

  According to Mac’s file, he had a little cottage in town.

  All she had to do was freeze her butt off waiting for him to go home.

  9

  DAY ONE

  ROSARIO

  10:19 P.M.

  Taras Demidov shifted in the plastic lawn chair he had put in the back of the beat-up van. He had purchased the vehicle for $850 cash and driven it off a dead lawn in front of a badly kept house. The panel van was a long way from the bulletproof limos and high-tech listening posts once available to Demidov, but he accepted it as he had accepted other changes.

  Survivors adapted.

  Demidov had survived by making himself as useful to the twenty-first century’s political/criminal oligarchs as his father once had been to unashamed dictators. Information never went out of style. Neither did extortion and execution. Demidov was adept at whatever had to be done.

  The van fit in well with the ragged assortment of vehicles in the marina parking lot. Hidden by the interior shadows of the vehicle, taking care to stay well back from the windshield and the lights of the parking lot, Demidov scanned the gate closing off the Blue Water Marine Group gangway.

  Nothing moving.

  Even the feral cats had vanished into the shadows. He’d last seen one of them chasing a rat around the big refuse bins at the edge of the parking lot, right next to the portable toilet that had been set out for marina visitors. Like the animals, the visitors had disappeared into the night.

  The captain, who had docked Blackbird with admirable economy, had climbed the Blue Water ramp, crossed the parking lot, and disappeared into another arm of the marina. The view straight through the van’s windshield didn’t tell Demidov if the captain had stayed wherever he had gone.

  He could get a better view by moving to the front of the van, but that would reveal his presence to anyone walking by. Better to limit both his exposure and his view to the top of the Blue Water ramp. In any case, the captain wasn’t his assignment.

  Shurik Temuri was.

  Perhaps I’ll just kill him now and end the game.

  A pleasant dream, but Demidov knew it was unrealistic. His employer wanted to catch Temuri with enough evidence to thoroughly discredit him. Temuri dead was worth five thousand dollars. Temuri caught with his pants down was worth more than a million dollars in a bank on the Isle of Man.

  That kind of math wasn’t hard to do. Even in the modern world of recession and inflation, a million dollars was a good payday.

  Demidov sighed and set aside the glasses. The van stank of the slops bucket he used rather than revealing himself by crossing the open parking lot to a portable toilet each time he needed one. He ignored the ripe smell just as he ignored the uncomfortable lawn chair set behind the driver’s seat. An ear bug in his right ear monitored the Blue Water office. He monitored the VHF channel to the marina with his portable radio. He would eat, doze, and watch from the van until Temuri appeared.

  Standard surveillance—exhausting, boring, and risky for a man working alone. At this point Demidov didn’t have a choice. He must wait, watch, and collect information. Information was his weapon of choice, although he preferred a silenced pistol for close work.

  The bug he had put in the Blue Water office before it closed was transmitting nothing but static.

  I should have bugged Lovich.

  It had tempted Demidov, but the risk wasn’t worth the reward. The office of Blue Water Marine Group gave him much of the information he needed. If and when that changed, he would consider the problem again.

  Until then, he would watch Blackbird more closely than a hen with one chick.

  As he had every thirty minutes, Demidov checked his cell phone for a text message from his employer.

  Nothing.

  He switched screens to check on movement. The upper lat/long numbers hadn’t changed. The lower set reflected the location in Rosario.

  He settled in for a long, uncomfortable night.

  10

  DAY ONE

  ROSARIO

  10:35 P.M.

  Carrying a bottle of bourbon in a paper bag, Mac climbed to the top of the marina gangway, pushed open the gate, and headed for the old pickup he used when he was in town. Marina parking was too expensive for anyone but tourists. He always left his truck in a lot a few blocks away, close to the commercial docks favored by fishing boats. As a rule, commercial boats didn’t play well with private marinas and yachties.

  Before Mac got a block away from Blue Water Marine Group, he heard a car engine start up in the parking lot he’d left behind.

  Just someone going home late, he told himself.

  He turned right and headed for his truck. A minute later he stopped to fiddle with one of his shoes—and look over his back trail.

  A white Jeep idled in the mouth of an alley. The headlights weren’t on, but the streetlight glanced off the windshield and grille, giving away the vehicle’s location. A shadow figure sat behind the wheel. The driver had been forced to expose himself in order to keep Mac in sight.

  Okay, not someone going home late.

  Mac stood and walked briskly toward his pickup truck. If someone was dying to talk to him, he’d take ca
re of it after he saw Tommy. Until then, it would be easy enough to lose a watcher among the heaped seine nets and crab traps that stood watch over the commercial docks.

  The dark hulls of fully rigged fishing boats tied off at the docks closed in around Mac. He moved lightly down another ramp, took a spur dock, and climbed back to the parking lot via a third ramp. Nobody noticed him. The fishermen who slept aboard were already deep in their dreams of nets filled with seething silver wealth.

  When Mac surfaced at the parking lot, there was no sign of the white Jeep. He waited anyway, taking a long look at the shadows surrounding his truck. The only sound was his own heartbeat and the sudden scream of cats fighting or mating in the rough boulders that lined the working marina’s waterways.

  Mac unlocked his truck. No light came on when he opened the door. He had spent too many years dodging bullets to ever feel comfortable about spotlighting himself when he climbed into a vehicle at night.

  No headlights showed up in the parking lot. No lights came on in any of the moored boats. No one walked or waited near the parking lot exit.

  Good to go.

  Mac started the truck, wincing at the noise. But there was no help for it. A diesel engine was one loud son of a bitch. Not to mention the whine of a water pump that he should have replaced by now, but he had been too busy driving yachts for Blue Water and other brokers to manage any truck work on his own.

  After a last look around, Mac put the truck in gear and headed across the lot, headlights off.

  No car lights came on in front or in back of him.

  He drove slowly through the jumble of cars, work trucks, crab and prawn pots, gill and seine nets, and the large metal drums designed to pull and store nets during the fishing season. He didn’t vary his speed, easing his way through the obstacle course without flashing his brake lights. He entered the street the same way. When he turned onto a more heavily used street, he flipped on his headlights and began driving like a regular citizen.

  There wasn’t much flash and glitter in Rosario to distract Mac as he drove. It was a blue-collar, sweat-stained working town. Or it had been. Those glory days were more than a half-century gone, but the town refused to adjust to the new reality of tourists and boutiques. It was a battle that had been fought through the city council and mayor’s office for as long as Mac could remember.