Birds.
Whisper of sea breeze edged with salt and cold.
Engine ticking.
More birds.
Silently he got out, eased the door shut, and looked through the trees toward the saltwater. A big, gray-hulled service vessel with a large white number painted on its side slid through the chain of islands at the mouth of the bay. There were other boats on the water, smaller boats, civilians rushing around, ignoring the official naval installation that had become an accepted, if sometimes irritating, part of their daily lives.
The sweeping view on the cliff was the reason for putting a sleeper in place at this spot. The ships coming and going were mostly Canadian naval vessels, with regular visits from U.S. vessels for joint actions in Whiskey Gulf. Each ship that paid a visit to the wharves tucked into the blind end of the bay had to pass beneath the wooded bluff. The sleeper logged the movements and duly reported to her homeland.
Or she once had. The reports had stopped a few years after the government stopped sending payments to her Hong Kong account.
Demidov walked to the other vehicle that was parked beneath the trees. He touched the hood of the car. Cold.
He listened for a time and finally picked out the sound of a radio or television underneath the natural sounds. It was coming from the cabin. Swiftly, silently, he walked up the overgrown path and knocked on the door.
Footsteps approached. The door opened.
The trim, aging woman with the unlikely red hair wasn’t the same as his memories, but there was no doubt of her identity. The female wearing a gray fisherman’s sweater and lightweight wool pants was the same agent he had put in place a lifetime ago.
The world had changed a lot since then. But not enough to free Galina Federova, known to her Canadian friends as Lina Fredric.
She stared at him for a long three count. Understanding—and a deep current of wariness—darkened her blue eyes.
“Galina,” Demidov said. “Invite in an old friend.”
She started to slam the door. Then she noticed his left hand deep in his jacket pocket, sensed as much as saw the deadly weight his fingers were wrapped around. Fear streaked through her, followed by anger.
So many years.
So many, and still not enough.
She had finally believed she was free. And now he stood in front of her, holding a weapon hidden in one pocket.
“And what do you have in your other pocket, Taras?” she asked coldly. “Money? Another weapon?”
“A different kind of shot, Galina.” He smiled, deepening the lines in his face. “Vodka. Much preferred, yes?”
“My name is Lina.”
“But of course. Let me in, Lina.”
The dark hair she remembered was steel gray now, thinner, but the deadly grace of the man himself hadn’t changed. In a physical confrontation with him, she would lose.
Without a word she turned her back on him and walked into her small house, leaving him to stay or follow as he wished.
It is always what he wishes, she thought bitterly. So much changes, but that never changes.
Damn Taras for the devil he is.
Demidov shut the door and followed his unhappy hostess down a short hallway into a living room with three big picture windows that faced out onto the water. The gray ship entering the harbor was in the middle of the view.
“I see the Americans are still using the torpedo test range,” Demidov said.
He walked over to a telescope on a tripod that was set up by the big window. Turning his back to her, he closed one eye and looked through the eyepiece. The point of focus wasn’t the channel where big ships came and went, but a small island perhaps a mile offshore where fir trees clung to rocky outcrops. The biggest fir’s storm-twisted crown held the immense weight of an old eagle nest.
Nobody home.
Gone fishing.
Demidov’s mouth curved in amusement and envy. Once he had loved to fish Kamchatka’s wild lands. Once, a lifetime ago. He could hardly remember that boy now, only his young enthusiasms and savage ambition.
“The ships come and they go,” Lina said. “Destroyers and submarines and patrol boats from the Canadian forces, as well as games with American ships. I quit paying attention after the deposits stopped coming to my account at Bank of Hong Kong.” Her hand made a dismissing movement. “There are other ways to survive than spying. I found one that worked for me.”
Demidov adjusted the focus on the telescope. Though decades old, the instrument was still good. Fallen feathers and unwanted boney bits leaped into focus, debris of a predator.
“So you resigned in place,” Demidov said.
Silence answered.
He glanced at the woman who stood, arms folded across her chest, staring out at the water.
“Don’t you think it would have been wise to turn in your equipment?” he asked, his voice mild. “This house is in your name but it still belongs, technically, to the Russian people. Just as it did when your predecessor lived here.”
Lina’s smile was a grim curve. “I took my share of the state’s assets, just like everybody with any sense. Why do you care? You’re too smart to be working for a fallen regime. Everyone who originally hired us has long since turned to civilian pursuits. Much more profitable, if equally violent.”
Demidov watched her smallest movement. They had been lovers once, a lifetime ago, when the world was different and people were the same. Maybe she had better memories than he did of those times. She had always been more of a romantic than he was or ever would be.
Like the generations of eagles that had built the huge nest, he survived. And like the eagles, when he became too old for the hunt, he would die.
Soon. A handful of years, maybe more. Maybe less.
In the end, luck rules.
His great-grandfather had lived to be one hundred and four, but he had been a peasant, a grass-eater. His great-grandson was a predator.
“I take my satisfaction from doing my job well, not from my paycheck,” Demidov said.
She shrugged. The movement was tight, impatient, almost a flinch. “So you stayed with the spiders in the KGB web, waiting for your blood meals to come trembling to you.”
He laughed softly. “Still the romantic. What have you done to occupy your clever mind since the fall of our great and noble Soviet Union, followed by the rise of capitalist Russia?”
“Old history. All of it. I’m no longer a part of that.”
“I’m disappointed, Lina. I trained you so…thoroughly.”
She gave him a sideways look that hadn’t changed through all the years.
“You taught me to be a wise little spider, alert for the tiny vibrations at the edge of my web,” she said. “That kind of teaching doesn’t fade. Nor does the teacher. You know what I’ve been doing as well as anyone does.”
“From spy to licensed fishing guide,” Demidov said. “Quite a good one, I hear. I’m impressed.”
“Stop pretending to be an old friend. What do you want?”
“You have a fast boat. When it doesn’t carry summer fishermen, it carries other cargo. B.C. Bud, yes? Marijuana. Illegal in your adopted country as well as in the country you smuggle it into.”
Lina closed her eyes. It had been many years since she had smuggled British Columbia’s premier cash crop, but time didn’t matter. Demidov knew enough about her to crush the small, fragile world she had built for herself from the wreckage of empire.
And he would do just that if she didn’t obey him.
Fear left her along with choice. She would do whatever he wanted. All that remained was waiting for orders.
“I was raised on the water,” she said. “That’s why I was given this assignment. As for the rest, a woman alone does what she must to survive. The training passed on to us from Lubyanka Street was rather useful in my new life, at first. Today, my boat isn’t a racehorse. I chase salmon, not outrun police.”
Demidov reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the bottle of Grey Goo
se that he had purchased in the duty-free shop on his ride north. He held the bottle by its neck with his thumb and forefinger. In his other fingers he held a fan of photos. They showed a modified trawler style boat with a black hull.
“If you would just produce two glasses, my old love,” Demidov said, “we will toast one another as we used to do. So much more civilized. Then I will tell you why I request your help.”
Lina stared at him for a long time, seeing the young wolf beneath the older, harder exterior. If anything, he was more dangerous than he had been so many years ago.
“You’re very good,” she said. “I almost believe my cooperation is a voluntary matter. Almost.”
Demidov waited, one hand holding out the vodka and photos, the other in his pocket holding a knife.
“Two glasses,” she agreed. “I prefer vodka to blood.”
33
DAY FOUR
LANGLEY
MORNING
Timothy Harrow hadn’t personally met the FBI agent in front of him until two minutes ago. That didn’t keep the man from chewing out Harrow’s ass.
“—bad enough, don’t you think?” the agent demanded.
Harrow didn’t have a chance to answer, because the agent kept on speaking with hard, clipped words.
“No, you had to go and keep Temuri’s presence on U.S. soil from us, when you bloody well knew we’ve been chasing him for seven years!”
Harrow told himself that he wouldn’t show his impatience by fiddling with his pen, his notebook, or anything else on his desk.
The ranting FBI agent was wearing a sports jacket, open-necked shirt, jeans, loafers, and an expression of acute irritation. He looked like he’d been hauled in from the relaxed West Coast through a wormhole and then plugged into a live electrical socket.
Harrow felt the same way, but hid it better. Old School versus New Wave.
“We’ve been chasing Temuri ever since we busted a shipment of vials headed for Afghanistan,” Harrow said evenly.
“Vials? Biological stuff? Not nukes or chemicals?”
“He’s an equal opportunity vendor,” Harrow said. “You need it, Temuri will deliver it. For a price.”
“What he is or isn’t selling overseas is no excuse for not telling the FBI that Temuri was in the U.S. where he could be detained and questioned!”
Harrow looked at the younger man. Still eager. Still a believer. Every agency and bureau needed them, but Harrow just didn’t have time or patience for the dance right now.
The interoffice phone buzzed, reminding Harrow of his next appointment—a senator fishing for a headline to shove up the present administration’s ass. Harrow’s boss hadn’t decided whether to play or pass, so effusive stalling was in order. Harrow could do that half-asleep. In fact, he often did.
After the interview he was packing for a fast trip to western British Columbia, Canada. At least, he hoped it would be fast.
Slow would mean the end of careers and lives.
“Your department will have a formal apology as soon as I find the proper security clearance for it,” Harrow said.
“That’s not—”
“The op,” Harrow cut in, “has moved out of the U.S, as your boss already knows. It has been turned over to us. If we discover anything we can share, you’ll be right behind Congress on our show-and-tell list.”
In other words, you’ve been cut out of the game.
The agent got the message. It was one he had passed out a lot on his own turf. That didn’t mean he liked getting it.
Vibrating with anger, he stalked out of the office.
When the senior senator from Minnesota walked into Harrow’s office, passing by a tight-lipped FBI agent, Harrow was mentally plotting various approaches to former CIA officer Emma Cross.
It would help if he knew what the soured op had been about, but all Duke had told him was to be prepared to fly out on a moment’s notice.
Harrow rose to his feet, smiled, and greeted the senator.
34
DAY FOUR
SAN JUAN ISLANDS
MORNING
Emma sat in a swivel armchair on the flying bridge next to Mac. She watched the radar sweeping over the electronic chart on the computer’s wide screen. Nothing—land, boat, or seaplane—was close enough to worry about, yet Mac’s dark eyes kept probing the blue water ahead.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Floating debris, logs, deadheads, clumps of seaweed, anything that can put a dent in my day.”
She frowned and looked out at the water. “Is there a lot of that going around?”
“It’s worse in spring, when the melt comes and scours the riverbanks and vomits out dead forests to clutter up the sound. But we’ve been having big tides, the ones that lift centuries-old logs off beaches and send them out in the currents to play with anything else that floats.”
She glanced at the various boats within sight. “I can see why the ferry and the big freighter aren’t worried about a few random chunks of wood, but why are all those pleasure craft racing around? And I do mean racing.”
“Some of the captains are playing the odds. Most are watching as carefully as I am. Even then,” he shrugged, “shit happens. That’s why pleasure boats don’t run at night out here, unless they have a steel hull and skegs protecting their props. Pod drives like ours just have to take their chances.”
“No protection?”
“We have skegs, but no guarantees. Like commuting on a freeway—sooner or later there will be a wreck. You just hope it’s not yours, because you have to keep on driving to make a living.”
“The waterhole theory of life at work,” Emma said.
He looked at her in silent question.
“Think of grazers approaching a waterhole at the end of the day,” she said. “They know lions are lying in wait, but there’s no choice. Water is just behind oxygen in our drive for life. So the grazers sweat and snort and shy and sidle closer to the water, knowing an individual blood sacrifice must be paid so that the rest of the herd can drink. Can survive.”
Mac smiled like a hungry lion. “And everybody’s hoping it isn’t his turn to die.”
“Yeah.” She frowned and rubbed her hands over her arms. “I just wish I didn’t feel like Blackbird is a floating sacrifice for the good of the human herd.”
He didn’t argue with her, which didn’t make her feel better.
“So, we won’t be running at night?” Emma asked.
“Not unless we have to. Take the controls. Let’s see how much you learned. And be grateful you already knew how to plot a course on paper.”
“Basic training,” she said. “Like riding a bike. Never goes away.”
Unfortunately, knowing how to plot paper courses and run the boat’s computer and understanding the theory of throttle movements wasn’t the same as actually driving all those tons of yacht on a fluid, shifting, unmarked road.
“Pod drive?” she asked hopefully. She’d played more than her share of video games.
“Too easy. Better you learn the hard way so you can appreciate the easy way.”
She grimaced. “You sure? Theory is one thing….”
“You’d rather practice with me dead on the deck and bullets screaming around?”
“God, Mac. You should write a book on sweet talk.”
“Tell me that tomorrow morning.”
She looked at his dark, dark eyes and felt like she was soaring off a cliff, flying high, no land in sight.
She liked it.
He said something under his breath, gestured to the controls, and slid out of the wheel seat.
Steering the boat suddenly seemed safer than looking in Mac’s eyes. Emma took the controls and concentrated on something besides the unnerving pulse of heat in her blood.
He watched silently, letting her learn firsthand the difference between driving a car and a boat. Once she caught on to correcting for tide and currents, he told her to plot a point ahead and lock it into the
autopilot. She touched the screen quickly, answered the computer’s prompts, and let go of the wheel.
Blackbird sailed on, correcting its course via satellite, uncaring whether it was under human or electronic control.
“You’re a quick study,” Mac said.
“I’ve had to be.” She smiled suddenly. “Besides, I like challenges.” Mac wished he could take this challenging woman down to the master suite and see what each could teach and learn.
Bad time.
Right woman.
“We’ll be crossing over the international line in an hour,” Mac said, looking at the computer.
“What’s our border protocol?”
“In the old days, we’d call Canadian customs, give them our stats, and hope the waterhole theory holds.”
“Meaning?” she asked.
“Meaning they would log Blackbird into their computers, give us an entry number to stick in the window by the pilot seat downstairs, and we would sail on without a pause.”
“Old days, huh? Would that be pre-9/11?”
“Pretty much.”
“And today?” she asked.
“The lion always pounces.”
“Meaning?”
“Technically we probably should go through the closest customs,” he said. “But what we’re going to do is take the protected run through the Gulf Islands to Nanaimo, and get inspected there. For going to Campbell River, it’s quicker.”
It definitely was a smoother ride. Until he knew more about how Emma’s stomach took rough water, he’d stick to the easy route.
“How detailed is the inspection?” she asked.
“Depends on how nice the U.S. is feeling toward Canada, and vice versa. If we’ve been giving Canadian yachties a special look-see at our border, we get the same in return. Or if the Canadians are miffed about a U.S. import tax on their lumber, they squeeze tourists. Same for our side. There can be any number of reasons for dicking with border crossings that have zero to do with anyone’s security—except the politicians’.”
“How unsurprising,” she said.
“Yeah. Humans.”
In silence Mac watched Emma handling the boat, altering course on instruction, entering waypoints into the plotter, checking tides in Nanaimo at various possible arrival times, watching gauges for problems, and doing all the other things that added up to driving a boat.
Death Echo Page 15
