Death Echo

by Elizabeth Lowell

  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.”

  40

  DAY FOUR

  NANAIMO

  1:20 P.M.

  The 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.

  The channel looked even more narrow on paper.

  “Tell me this is safe,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “Shoving this whacking great boat through the eye of a small damn needle.”

  “Bigger boats go through without problem.”

  “Knowing there are bigger fools on the water isn’t comforting.”

  Mac laughed. “Have I mentioned that I like you, Emma Cross?”

  “That’s me, Ms. Congeniality.”

  But she smiled at him before she stared at the water swirling around the nearly exposed tip of the second rock in the channel. She told herself that it was all good. If Mac wasn’t worried, she wasn’t worried. And he wasn’t worried.

  Alert, yes. Worried, no.

  The second shadow slid by beneath the water, chained to another buoy. She let out a relieved breath when the channel opened up in front of them. They dodged through the flotilla of small craft running for harbor.

  As soon as they were out of the lee of the islet, the wind whooshed over the yacht and the water changed, becoming rougher. Out in the strait, whitecaps were turning over.

  “In a few minutes we’ll be using the fourth chart,” Mac said. While she replaced the chart she’d been looking at with a new one, he stepped close to her and added, “Faroe passed on a blast from Alara. Temuri is very well connected to Georgia’s most-secret service.”

  Her hands stilled as he stepped back to the wheel. “About all this sweet talk, Mac. I don’t think my heart can take it.” But even as she spoke, she was running possibilities in her mind. It was one of the things she did best. None of the possibilities made their life easier.

  “Bloody hell,” she said as she smoothed out the chart.

  “Yeah.”

  “Mac…”

  He looked at her.

  She closed her eyes for an instant, then met his dark glance. “I’d rather have dealt with international crime lords.”

  “Why? Killers are killers.”

  “With crime, motivation is a lot easier to discover. Money is the primary mover. Everything else follows, including power. If you know motivation, you know your enemy’s weak point and can plan accordingly. But politics is like building something on the tip of a flame. Every breeze changes the lay of the land. Motivation follows the breeze.”

  The curve of his mouth changed. “Pretty much how Faroe and I feel about it.”

  “God, I hate politics and politicians. Give me a gang-banger any day. How good is Alara’s intel?”

  “Your guess is better than mine. You were in the business more recently than I was,” he said, coming up on the throttles.

  Open water lay ahead.

  She fiddled with her phone. “Has Steele put Alara through research?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  Emma hit speed dial.

  “Got a problem?” Faroe asked by way of greeting.

  “What do St. Kilda’s data banks say about Alara?”

  “Nothing you couldn’t get by searching a few very academic magazines and some former State Department types who have online blogs.”

  “What does the gossip side of research say?” Emma asked.

  “Twice divorced, various lovers at various times, never married a third time, three children, eight grandchildren, career government in departments whose names mean nothing and whose funding isn’t questioned by Congress. Retired nine years ago.”

  “Someone’s file needs updating.”

  “Someone didn’t retire,” Faroe agreed.

  “What did Steele tell you?”

  “That she’s one of the shining ones still left playing a tarnished game.”

  “Huh.”

  “Yeah, huh. Grace thinks that any ambitions Alara has are related to making sure her grandchildren don’t inherit a world where every balcony has a dictator with a suitcase full of secondhand nukes.”

  Emma let out a slow breath. “Then we have the same goal.”

  “Now pray that you have the same path to that goal.”

  41

  DAY FOUR

  STRAIT OF GEORGIA

  1:45 P.M.

  Lina Fredric, who wanted very much to forget that she had started life as Galina Federova, watched Taras Demidov from the corner of her eye. Though the water was choppy, headed toward outright rough, the motion didn’t appear to bother his stomach.

  But of course, Lina thought. Nothing short of a nuclear blast would upset that man.

  At least he is paying me well. Quite well.

  It could have been much worse. Whether in the “free world” or the FSU, money and violence talked very clearly. She preferred money. So far, Demidov seemed to share her preference. If that changed…

  Mentally Lina shrugged. Even though she had learned that he carried a knife rather than a gun, she didn’t fancy her chances against D
emidov in physical combat. She’d grown soft over the years. He hadn’t.

  The static and snatches of words from the VHF radio made a familiar background for her thoughts.

  “…Sun Raider.”

  “Sun Raider to XTSea 4EVR, switch to channel…”

  The only good news about the shifting weather was that the clouds were being blown out by the northwest wind. Clear skies were nice but the price was wind, which meant rougher water, especially when the tide changed and the wind pushed against the flooding water.

  A gust of wind, a small trough, and the Redhead II lurched beneath Demidov. Though he was sitting down, the sudden motion jerked him like a puppet. He muttered a Russian curse, lowered the binoculars, and rubbed his eyes. With barely veiled impatience, he switched his attention from binoculars to his special cell phone. Relieved not to be viewing a world that jumped about like water drops in a hot skillet, he keyed in a number.

  After a few moments, two sets of latitude and longitude numbers appeared on the small screen. A cold, thin smile stretched his lips as he checked, then checked the lower numbers again.

  Blackbird was out of Canadian customs and working her way north from Nanaimo.

  North, where Demidov lay in wait.

  42

  DAY FOUR

  STRAIT OF GEORGIA

  2:03 P.M.

  When Emma glanced up from making a late lunch in the galley, she was glad she’d ditched the eye-candy look. The waters north of Nanaimo were colder somehow, even though the temperature reading on Blackbird’s many gauges had shifted only a few degrees down after leaving the harbor.

  “Brrrr,” she said.

  Mac gave her a fast look. “Brrrr? The temperature inside the cabin hasn’t changed that much.” He half-smiled. “I’ll turn up the heat if you go back to the tube top.”

  She shook her head. “Men.”

  “That would be me.”

  She laughed and sliced cheese. “It’s just that the water seems different out here. Like the whole world is colder.”

  “Until now, we’ve been pretty much sheltered by either the San Juan Islands or Canada’s Gulf Islands. The Strait of Georgia is long enough and wide enough for the wind to work the water. It’s a good fetch from Campbell River to the Gulf Islands. The wind is free to play. So it does.”