Death Echo

by Elizabeth Lowell

  She shrugged. “Sort of like a raised middle finger.”

  “Like I said. Twisted. And yes, I read a book called The Black Swan. Along with about a million other people in the U.S.”

  “Pretty much what St. Kilda said.” She sighed. “Wish Blue Water would call and hire you.”

  “Don’t like your little bunk?”

  He’d offered to share the stateroom with her, but she’d had an attack of common sense and taken the tiny second cabin with its cramped bed.

  “I don’t like waiting,” she said. “I’m used to it, but I’ll never enjoy it.”

  Before Mac could answer, his cell phone rang. He looked at the incoming message ID: Blue Water Marine Group.

  “Your wait just might be over,” Mac said.

  25

  DAY THREE

  ROSARIO

  1:08 P.M.

  Demidov watched Temuri pace the dock, his very presence driving the techs to work faster. Temuri was a muscular, silent shadow ensuring that no one slacked off or lifted a few expensive electronics for individual profit.

  Watching Temuri was like looking in a mirror.

  Once, we would have worked together, Demidov thought. Now…

  The world had changed. Temuri was on the other side of a deadly divide running through the Russian Federation like an earthquake fault. So far the pushing, shoving, strutting, and killing among former satellite regions had stopped short of outright civil war.

  Demidov’s job was to see that didn’t change.

  Temuri’s job was the opposite.

  Since Blue Water Marine had lost their captain, Temuri was pushing to finish the installation of the same electronics he’d been willing to leave ashore before Tommy died.

  Demidov smiled. Temuri was making the best of a situation he didn’t really control. More than once, Demidov had done the same. It was called surviving in a game whose rules changed without warning or apology.

  Now that the delay his boss had wanted was accomplished, there was little left in Rosario to interest Demidov. Mentally he went through his pre-departure checklist. It had come down to a simple choice. He could go north now and wait for Blackbird, or he could stay here and watch Blackbird leave. Then he would chase her northward sea passage, but he would be on land. Roads wound around mountains and bays and waddled through towns. The course over water was as the crow—or seagull—flew.

  When presented with the choice of staying or leaving, Grigori Sidorov’s message had been terse.

  Go north.

  Demidov put a lid on the bucket, changed all of his ID to that of a Canadian national who had been stamped through U.S. customs eight days ago, and drove out of the parking lot. He dumped the bucket in a vacant lot, left the van in long-term ferry parking, and effectively vanished.

  Until Sidorov ordered otherwise, he was headed north.

  26

  DAY THREE

  ROSARIO

  1:30 P.M.

  Ready?” Mac asked, squeezing Emma’s shoulder and pulling her closer to his side.

  She slid her left hand into his left back jeans pocket and leaned into him. The radiation patch he had in his jeans poked her finger. “More than.”

  Just a game, Mac told himself.

  Yeah. Right.

  He settled Emma’s lithe body closer against him, and envied the patch she wore inside her bra.

  I’ll enjoy the fringe bennies of our cover, Mac thought. But not too much.

  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

  Emma rubbed his butt lightly.

  “Watch it, woman,” he muttered.

  She tilted her head back and glanced down to where her hand was in his pocket. “Worth watching.”

  Mac set his back teeth.

  She pinched him. “Loosen up, big guy. We’re supposed to be friends, remember?”

  “Friends?” he retorted.

  “With benefits.”

  She gave him a look that made his jeans feel tighter. But then, she always made him feel that way.

  “You’re good at this,” he breathed into her ear. “Too good.”

  “You make it easy. The last dude I had to play the benefits game with was twice my age, four times my weight, and had breath like a donkey fart.”

  Mac fought it, but he laughed.

  And relaxed.

  She stood on her tiptoes and breathed in his ear. “Much better. When you smile, it’s easy to see how you hooked up so fast with a woman who doesn’t have donkey breath.”

  Still smiling, Mac punched in the marina gate code, ushered her through, and let the metal gate clang loudly shut behind them. Down on the dock, Lovich and Amanar looked up and waved.

  The third man just stared at them.

  Mac dropped a nibbling kiss on Emma’s bare neck. “Watch Stoneface. He’s murder on two feet.”

  “Got it. I’m all big eyes, big smile, and tiny mind.”

  “Keep your mouth shut and they just might believe that.”

  Making like Siamese twins, Mac and Emma strolled down the gangway.

  The three men waiting for them were the only people on the dock near the Blackbird who weren’t moving fast. A half-dozen technicians and riggers swarmed over the boat like pirates on a prize. On the flying bridge, two men shoved electronics leads down through the stainless-steel tubes of the radar arch. A flat ten-mile radar antenna and domes for satellite television and telephone were already in place. Inside, at the helm, a tech installed the multipurpose screen for a chart plotter, radar receiver, and depth sounder.

  “You meant it when you said you were in a hurry,” Mac drawled as he looked at the controlled frenzy.

  “The boat’s gotta sail tomorrow,” Amanar said. “First light. We’ve already been delayed by losing a captain. We asked for more time and didn’t get it. We’ve been running double shifts and then some, but she’ll be ready. You’ll have to do sea trials along the way.”

  Mac didn’t point out that he hadn’t been hired. All he said was, “New owner must have lots of green if he’ll underwrite that fast a commissioning.”

  “The perfect customer,” Lovich said. “Cost is no object.” He ran his hand over the close-cropped, graying beard on his chin and looked around. “Let’s go to the office.”

  “Whatever,” Mac said mildly, even as he slid in the knife. “We’re in kind of a hurry ourselves. Taking my boat out for a week or so.”

  Let Amanar chew on that.

  Frowning, Amanar looked at Emma. He started to say something, then shrugged and led the way up the ramp to the Blue Water dealership office. Lovich followed.

  Stoneface watched them from the dock.

  Both brokers were unusually quiet until they were inside the office with the door closed behind them. Amanar stood behind the desk, keeping an eye on the activity on the dock. Lovich pulled the tabs on three cans of light beer. He set one each in front of Amanar and Mac, then took one for himself.

  Apparently Emma was invisible.

  “Thanks,” Mac said, pretending to drink. He hated light beer. “Getting Autonomy ready is thirsty work.”

  He tilted the can toward Emma. She sipped, made a throaty noise, sucked, and licked her lips like a porn star with a bratwurst.

  “What’s on your mind?” Mac asked Amanar.

  Amanar looked over Mac’s latest girlfriend.

  Emma admired her freshly painted fingernails. She’d learned that the ropes—lines—ate manicures, but there was the image thing to uphold. A dumb piece of ass without scarlet finger-and toenails? Ain’t happening.

  “We want to talk business,” Amanar said curtly. “Lose the candy.”

  “Her candy is my business,” Mac said. “She knows when to close her mouth.”

  “Over your cock,” Lovich muttered.

  Emma leaned harder into Mac. The tension snaking through his body reminded her of just how strong he was. It also told her that he didn’t like her being the target of trash talk.

  “Are they talking cash?” she asked
Mac, just loud enough for the other two men to overhear.

  He looked at Amanar and Lovich. “You talking cash?”

  The cousins looked at each other. Neither liked it, but they were getting the game plan. Play with the candy or play without a captain.

  “Yes,” Amanar said. “Twenty thousand, up front. Twenty on delivery. Expenses are on you.”

  At that pay rate, Mac wasn’t surprised. “How long, which boat, where, and when?”

  “Blackbird. Tomorrow before dawn. You head up the Inside Passage toward Broughton Island. You’ve got five days to get there. If the buyer can’t take it over somewhere along the way, you’ll get more instructions.”

  Mac lifted his black eyebrows. But he didn’t say anything. The brokers knew just how unusual the cash assignment sailing to nowhere specific was.

  Amanar’s lips thinned when Mac didn’t grab the money and kiss him on all four cheeks.

  “The new owner is involved in negotiations to sell one of his businesses. His schedule is hour-to-hour, so yours has to be, too,” Amanar said impatiently. “That’s why the boat will be in your name, in case things fall through and you have to bring Blackbird back here. It all depends on the negotiations. The money’s good, so what’s your problem?”

  “I was looking forward to some time off,” Mac said easily. He tucked Emma closer to his side. “But we can take a ride on your boat instead of mine.”

  The broker snatched up a colored pencil and started drumming the end on the desk blotter.

  “Look,” Amanar finally said, “just drive Blackbird north, follow directions, fly home when the owner takes over, and then take your pussy cruise.”

  “If money was all I wanted out of life, I’d be working another job,” Mac said. “See you around, boys.”

  Holding Emma close, Mac headed for the door.

  “Hey, ease up,” Lovich said quickly. “You want to take some cock-rider along, we don’t care.” He stared at Amanar. “Do we?”

  “C’mon, Mac,” Emma said, pouting. “I have a passport. I’m between jobs, between husbands, between everything. I just want to finally have a little fun.”

  “Your family won’t mind?” Amanar acted like he had just noticed that Emma was in the room.

  “You talking to me?” she asked.

  “Am I looking anywhere else?” Amanar retorted.

  “Babe,” she said, smiling and stretching slowly, “I’m here because I don’t want a steady man, don’t want a steady job, don’t want two kids, and don’t want a white picket fence in the ’burbs. You feeling me?”

  The two cousins looked at each other. They spoke quickly in the old-country language.

  All Mac understood was the word Temuri, because it was repeated several times, in a louder voice each time.

  A curse? A name? Stoneface, maybe? Mac wished he knew, but languages hadn’t been his area of expertise.

  Emma looked bored, but the tension in her body told Mac that she was listening to every word. He hoped she understood more than he did.

  “I hear you,” Amanar said finally to his cousin, “but I don’t like it.”

  Lovich nodded and looked at Mac. “You in?”

  “If you’re smuggling anything to Canada, tell me now,” Mac said.

  His voice said that this demand wasn’t negotiable.

  “Nah,” Lovich said. “We leave that to the Indians.”

  “Bullshit,” Mac said. “I grew up here, remember?”

  “Hey, we changed,” Lovich said. “Money’s not as good, but we sleep a lot better.”

  “If I find any extra cargo,” Mac said, “it’s going to the bottom.”

  “Blackbird is clean,” Amanar said. “You want to go over it, you’ll have plenty of time before you hit Canadian waters. How you use your time is your problem.”

  Mac thought about it, then nodded. “I want twelve thousand now, eight thousand when we board tomorrow. For expenses. I’m not signing off on any fuel slips for a yacht I don’t really own, haven’t chartered, and haven’t been hired as a transit captain on.”

  Amanar smiled at Lovich, who headed for the office safe.

  “Cash is smart,” Amanar said. “The new owner is the eccentric kind. Wants his privacy. So don’t be hitting the bars tonight, bragging about this job.”

  “Men in bars are looking for women,” Mac said. “I’ve got mine.”

  Emma stretched up and nibbled on his ear. “Sure do, babe.”

  Mac returned the favor, with interest, as Amanar counted out the money Lovich had fetched. While Mac counted bills, Emma went back to her invisible act.

  The bills were hundreds. Nonsequential, used hundreds, anonymous as dirt and a lot more valuable.

  The hell they’ve cleaned up, Mac thought.

  But he kept his mouth closed, finished his own counting, and stuffed twelve thousand dollars in hundreds into his front jeans pocket. After the round of mutual nibbling, it was a tight fit.

  When he was done, Mac put his arm around Emma, her hand returned to his back pocket like a homing pigeon, and they headed for the door as a unit.

  “Before first light tomorrow,” Amanar said.

  “Eight thousand on the dock,” Mac said.

  “Don’t count it until you’re inside,” Lovich called out.

  “If you think I’m that stupid,” Mac said without turning around, “you’re a dickhead for hiring me.”

  The door closed behind them.

  Voices erupted in the office.

  “Walk slower,” Emma said, nibbling on his ear. “It’s hard to hear.”

  “You understand that racket?”

  “Enough to get words here and there. Sounds like bastard Russian of some kind. Almost a dialect. For sure those yutzes haven’t been to Moscow lately.”

  Slowly, nibbling between every other step, Emma and Mac walked out to the parking lot. The more she heard, the less she understood.

  It can’t be the same Shurik Temuri. Last I saw a bulletin about him, he was selling arms to a separatist splinter group in the Ukraine.

  Nobody had known which side of the war games Temuri had been on. All they knew was that he was making a lot of money playing.

  “What’s wrong?” Mac asked softly.

  “I don’t know. But I know something is.”

  “We knew that already.”

  “There’s knowing and then there’s knowing,” she said. “Let’s move. If Faroe hasn’t already taken a surveillance photo of Stoneface, it just went to the top of St. Kilda’s must-do list.”

  27

  DAY THREE

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  6:08 P.M.

  Tim Harrow glanced idly around the tapas bar. It was small, plush, and preferred by congressmen meeting lobbyists for a little off-the-record monkey business. Just one of the many open secrets of Washington, D.C., that the press corps never got around to “discovering” until one of the congressmen pissed on some editor’s private crusade for truth, justice, and headlines.

  Don’t ask. Don’t tell.

  Happy hour begins at 10:00 A.M.

  Although Harrow’s expression didn’t show it, he was annoyed at being there. Usually his contact was happy with coded emails or black-box telephone calls.

  Maybe she was looking for a little action.

  The thought eased a lot of Harrow’s irritation. Carin Richards was as good on her knees as she was in back-channel communications.

  The beveled glass and mahogany bar door opened. A woman dressed in the D.C. uniform—good quality business suit in a subdued blue, leather briefcase, short dark hair, medium heels, and simple jewelry—walked through the crowded bar area to the quiet booth where Harrow waited.

  No one hit on her. She wasn’t dressed for it, wasn’t swinging her ass for it, and wasn’t looking around for it. Just one more lobbyist having a drink after a long day.

  Except this lobbyist was an FBI agent and an old friend. With benefits.

  Harrow smiled as she slid into the small booth opposi
te him. She toasted him silently with the drink he had ordered for her. As she did, she leaned forward and said a name.

  “Shurik Temuri.”

  Harrow’s expression didn’t change.

  “Mean anything to you?” Carin asked.

  “In what context?”

  “Rosario, Washington, state of.”

  “The rez murder?” Harrow asked.

  “Big coincidence otherwise.”

  Harrow sipped his neat Scotch. “As far as we’re concerned, that’s not a familiar context for him.”

  “No shit. My boss—and his boss, and the one above, all the way up to top of the mountain—is stroking out over the fact that your people didn’t warn them that your good buddy is on U.S. soil. Where you, by the way, are specifically not permitted to act under the laws we all know and love. This is an unofficial warning. The official one will land as soon as my people can speak in language fit to print on a memo. We want Temuri. Bad.”

  “How certain are you of the identity?” Harrow asked.

  “Ninety-three point six probability, based on a surveillance photo that came through back channels. And yes, we trust the source.”

  Harrow sipped when he wanted to hurl the heavy glass into the booth across the bar. “I’ll look into it.”

  “You do that. Real fast.” She waved a server over. “I’m hungry. How about you?”

  He’d just lost his appetite, but he knew he might as well eat. He had a long night of work ahead. Silently he damned all informants who couldn’t be trusted to stay bought.

  Not that anyone with two brain cells expected Temuri to do anything but what he was best at. Betrayal.

  “Knock yourself out,” Harrow said. “I’m buying.”

  “You bet you are. My expense account gets maxed out at a soda machine.”

  28

  DAY FOUR

  ROSARIO

  BEFORE DAWN

  Showtime.

  Emma took a long, hidden breath and walked next to Mac. Both of them were carrying a duffel and wearing wind jackets. It might be one of the rare, almost warm dawns the Pacific Northwest got after summer, but experience told her that the water was always cooler than the land. Direct sunlight was different. She planned on a little sunning on a sheltered part of the yacht. No reason she couldn’t read files outside.