Deadly Echoes

by Philip Donlay

  “Wait!” Lauren gasped as she wriggled her other arm free.

  “What are you doing?” Donovan said as he raised himself up.

  Lauren rolled onto her side and used both hands on the strap, kneading the fabric with her fingers. She held the inch-wide strap up to the light and then examined the stitching. “There’s something in here. I can feel it, and the thread here is newer than the adjoining stitches.”

  “She never let that out of her sight.” Donovan slid off the bed and found his suitcase and the small knife he carried. He opened the sharpest blade and handed it to Lauren.

  Lauren carefully opened up half a dozen stitches, separated the fill, and removed a small jump drive.

  “The files?” Donovan said as he retrieved his laptop.

  While the computer booted up, Lauren began going through the contents of Erica’s bag.

  “What else is in there?” Donovan asked.

  “There’s a wallet, a hat, tissues, birth control pills, a small makeup bag, tampons, and a gun.” Lauren held it up for him to see.

  Donovan took the subcompact pistol from Lauren. It was a large-caliber Beretta, yet it almost disappeared in his hand. It only had a three-inch barrel, but up close would be lethal.

  “Charming,” Lauren said. “I guess everyone carries a gun these days.”

  “The computer’s up.” Donovan set the gun aside and opened the menu, Lauren inserted the jump drive into the USB port, and they both waited. The prompt finally appeared, Donovan clicked to open the drive, and a page of individual files spread across the screen. Each line of text was written in German, followed by a seven-digit number. Donovan shrugged and clicked on the first one only to discover that the file required a password.

  “I was afraid of that. For all we know, there could be twenty-three different passwords.”

  “Wait,” Donovan quickly counted the files and came up with the same number. “Erica said there were seventeen men and five women who wanted her dead. That’s twenty-two. What’s the other file?”

  “No clue.”

  “Do you think someone you trust at the DIA or the CIA could break the code?”

  “I’m sure someone could, but not tonight.” Lauren stood. “I have to think about what it is we think we have. I’m not so sure we should let anyone see what’s inside right now. I’m in big trouble with Langley for my part in getting one of their agents killed in Paris. Add that to the fact that I’m obstructing an open investigation by not reporting my information about Erica Covington.”

  Donovan ejected the jump drive and handed it to Lauren. “You hold onto it, you’re the spy.”

  Lauren put it in her purse. “This spy is going to take a shower.”

  Donovan nodded and began to stow his laptop when he looked up and noticed Lauren standing in the doorway.

  “Well,” Lauren asked, “are you joining me or not?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  It was a few minutes before five in the morning when the da Vinci climbed out of Anchorage and made a sweeping turn to the east. Michael set a course toward the small town of Valdez, the terminus of the Alaska pipeline. Lauren gazed out the window, but all she could see below were clouds. An early season cold front, rain mixed with snow, had enveloped Prince William Sound. High winds dominated the entire area. The only land she could spot were the snow-covered peaks surrounding the Harding Icefield, each jagged peak rising up into the first light of the day. Lauren wished she were of a mind to drink in the sheer beauty of the moment, but she couldn’t. Last night had been a mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar.

  She’d helped Donovan undress, studied each of his new wounds up close, felt his familiar embrace, but his body felt different, leaner and harder, as if he’d become tougher to survive his new reality. Quick work with a shower cap kept most of the water from his stitches. After the shower, they didn’t talk, they simply fell into bed and made love with an urgency she had never experienced with him before. Afterward, she’d lain in his arms, and for the first time since she could remember, he slept quietly, without his demons. She and Donovan had always had a great physical connection, but something was different. Finally, she’d drifted off despite a cyclone of thoughts swirling in her head.

  They were still entwined when she awoke. She’d slipped out of bed, taken a shower, dressed, gathered her things, and left him there. She had Erica’s bag along with her own, the jump drive safely tucked into her purse.

  “Lauren,” Michael’s voice came over her headset. “We’re coming up on Valdez. Confirm all surveillance systems are up and functioning.”

  “Stand by,” Lauren replied as she checked the panel and made sure each independent system was in the green. The synthetic-aperture radar dominated the twenty-eight inch-high-definition monitor in front of her, giving her the ability to dial in on objects as they flew eight miles overhead. The resolution was good enough for her to read a license plate off a moving vehicle despite the weather. She also had at her fingertips the newly developed full-spectrum infrared imaging system that gave her day or night capability to lock in and follow multiple targets. She also had a high-definition color or black-and-white camera that could be overlaid and blended with the other systems to give her a real time, day or night, rain or shine, picture of the world below. With the few strokes of the keyboard, she transferred each image to the twenty-eight-inch monitor.

  If she saw anything, a click of the mouse would zoom in and track the object until it could be identified. To test that all the moving parts were functional, she located a moving heat source nearly eight miles away. She zoomed in, locked the computer to track the object, then brought the high-resolution video camera to bear. As the software fine-tuned the object, she recognized a bald eagle, a fish in its talons. Satisfied, she reset the range to forty miles and locked in on the pipeline. She switched the image to display white-hot, meaning the oil, which was far warmer than the surrounding ground, glowing like a white-hot cylinder snaking north from Valdez. Lauren wasn’t worried about the half of the eight-hundred-mile-long pipeline that was buried underground. If Garrick wanted to rupture the pipeline, he’d want to do it above ground. Images of the oil covering the Alaskan wilderness would make the kind of statement he was after.

  “Everything’s up and running back here,” Lauren reported. “I’m going to get a cup of coffee before we start. Anyone else want some?”

  “Stay put, I’m coming back there,” Michael replied.

  Lauren had a small repeater of the da Vinci’s primary flight display. She could see that they were level at thirty-nine thousand feet, about to cross over Valdez and turn north. She squinted out the window again, noting nothing but clouds below them. To the east, however, the brilliant morning sun silhouetted the sixteen-plus-thousand-foot-high Wrangel Mountains. But the sun washed out her display screen, and despite the scenery, she reluctantly powered down the window shade just as Michael came back with coffee.

  “Here you go.” Michael handed her a cup. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure anyone got much sleep last night.”

  Lauren chose to ignore Michael’s comment; she could tell he was digging. “How far north do you want to follow the pipeline?”

  “From a tactical standpoint, a small plane or a helicopter would give them the most flexibility to attack the pipeline and also give them the best chance of escape. My thinking is we travel fast, go all the way north to Fairbanks, then turn back, like a swimmer doing laps. Buck and Donovan will move toward Valdez in the Eco-Watch helicopter. Hopefully, with all of our assets, we’ll find what we’re looking for.”

  “I have another question, nonmission related.” Lauren couldn’t help but bring up the question that plagued her since last night.

  “Sure.”

  “You, more than anyone else, know what a solitary creature Donovan can be. Does he seem more content without the daily pressure of being married and having a family to worry about?”

  “Come on, Lauren.” Michael shook his head
in dismay. “First of all, there’s no way he doesn’t worry. You know that as well as anyone. His concern for you and Abigail is off the charts. Secondly, in the years I’ve known him, I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’d say he was truly content—and they all involve either you or Abigail. So, to answer your question, no.”

  “But he seemed less stressed yesterday than I’ve seen him in a long time.”

  “You didn’t take many psychology classes at MIT, did you? Just math and stuff? One of the benefits of having been married for twenty-five years is that I have a vague working knowledge of how the female brain works. Have you somehow churned yourself up into a froth thinking that his perceived contentment is due to factors that you can’t combat?”

  Lauren realized that Michael had managed to cut to the center of her concern. She regretted her question. Now she wanted the conversation to end.

  “The reason he may or may not seem as stressed at the moment is simply because you’re here. You’re the source of any perceived contentment. There’s no other explanation.”

  “Thank you, Michael. I wish I could believe that were the case.”

  “So do I,” Michael replied. “You know, sometimes you need to get out of your own way and quit overprocessing everything.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  “I should probably get back up front. How’s everything looking so far?”

  Lauren turned and studied the monitor. Her trained eye took a few seconds to scan each display for anything out of the ordinary. “All normal so far. I’m also monitoring several radio frequencies. Who knows, we might get lucky and hear something.”

  Michael turned to go, then stopped. “The workload in the cockpit is pretty light. If you need a break, let me know, and I can come back and keep an eye on things.”

  “Thanks.” Lauren nodded. She didn’t know what to think. Had she made a mistake last night? Should she have slept in the other bedroom instead of confusing the issue? Did the things that Michael said mean anything—or everything? She was still debating the questions when a radio transmission caught her attention. She sat up straight and adjusted the volume.

  “Vigilant, this is Valdez Traffic, come in please.”

  Lauren listened for a response from the Vigilant, but there was nothing. She double-checked the audio panel. Everything was in order.

  “Vigilant, this is Valdez Traffic. How do you read?”

  Again Lauren waited for a reply, but there was only dead air.

  “Valdez Traffic calling vessel North Star. How do you read?”

  A long twenty seconds passed, and there was no reply from the second vessel.

  “Valdez Traffic calling vessel Guardian. How do you read?”

  Lauren was perplexed. Out of three ships, not a single one was answering the radio calls. Another voice came on the frequency, and she knew she wasn’t the only one with rising concerns.

  “This is Coast Guard Station Valdez calling vessel Vigilant, how do you read?”

  Lauren swiveled in her chair to a separate keyboard and began typing. The first data that came up on the secondary screen was for the tugboat Vigilant. She was a ten-year-old, one-hundred-forty-foot long, steel-hulled ship out of Valdez. Her primary task was listed as a towing vessel. She typed in Guardian and a similar vessel popped up on her screen. They were both owned by the same shipping company.

  “Coast Guard Station Valdez calling vessel North Star. How do you read?”

  Lauren typed in North Star and when the image appeared on her screen her apprehension rose. The North Star was a nine-hundred-and-twenty-foot-long supertanker, one of seven Constellation-class tankers built by Avondale Shipyard in Louisiana; all ships in the class were named after prominent celestial bodies. The North Star was owned and operated by Constellation Marine, a subsidiary of Huntington Oil. Lauren looked under capacities; the North Star carried a million barrels of Alaskan crude, which equated to forty-two million gallons. How could a vessel like that not respond to a radio call?

  “Vessel North Star, this is Coast Guard Anchorage calling. We’ve lost your AIS beacon. Please respond any channel.”

  Lauren knew that AIS stood for Automatic Information System, basically a transponder that sent out the vessel’s name, type, position, course, and speed to other ships as well as land-based operators.

  Lauren keyed the microphone. “Michael, I think we need to turn around.”

  “What do you have?”

  “I’m listening to radio chatter in Prince William Sound. The Coast Guard is trying to make radio contact with two tugs and a supertanker, but no one is answering.”

  “There are three different ships not answering?” Michael asked.

  “That’s what it sounds like.”

  “I know that these days, two tugs escort each tanker out of Prince William Sound, one of the changes they made after the Exxon Valdez spill. Are we sure we’re not out of range? We’re almost two hundred miles north of Valdez. The ships could be another fifty or sixty miles south. That’s a long way for VHF.”

  “It’s not that we’re not receiving them—no one can make contact. Even the Coast Guard sector command center in Anchorage gave it a try,” Lauren explained. “How long would it take us to be over Prince William Sound?”

  “Thirty, forty minutes at the most, but it means abandoning the pipeline mission over a few lost communications.”

  “I know, but I think we should investigate.”

  “I’m coming back. Why don’t we contact the Coast Guard on the satellite phone, offer our assistance? Maybe they have this under control. In the meantime, I’m going to stick to our original plan.”

  Lauren typed in the Coast Guard Station for Valdez and pulled up a phone number. She was dialing when Michael came hurrying down the aisle. “I’m ringing the Coast Guard now. You want to talk or should I?”

  “You talk. I’ll keep an eye on the screen.”

  Lauren nodded as the phone picked up.

  “Coast Guard Station Valdez. Lieutenant Brody speaking.”

  “Lieutenant Brody, this is Dr. Lauren McKenna. I’m aboard an Eco-Watch Gulfstream two hundred miles north of your position. We’ve been monitoring the situation involving the loss of communications with the tanker North Star. May we be of assistance?”

  “I can’t comment on any ongoing operations.”

  “I understand, just so you’re aware, we’re a research aircraft with surveillance equipment including infrared sensors and synthetic-aperture radar. We can be overhead in less than an hour and stream real-time video to your operations center.”

  “Uh, stand by, Dr. McKenna.”

  “What’s going on?” Michael asked. “What are they saying?”

  “He’s checking with someone.”

  “Dr. McKenna, thank you for holding. Due to the current situation surrounding Eco-Watch, we ask that you remain well clear of Prince William Sound airspace. Failure to do so will result in you being intercepted and escorted to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage.”

  Lauren disconnected the call without responding and looked up at Michael. “We basically just got told to go screw ourselves.”

  “So your response was to hang up on them?”

  “If anyone asks, we lost the connection. I never actually heard him say that any interference would result in us being intercepted and escorted to Elmendorf Air Force Base.”

  “Clever, but now I’m starting to agree that something’s up,” Michael said. “Have you heard anything more on the open radio frequencies?”

  “Just the same. No answer from any of the three ships.”

  “Can you put what you’re hearing on speaker?”

  Lauren flipped a switch and the scratchy VHF transmissions filled the cabin.

  “This is Coast Guard 45009, underway out of Valdez Harbor.”

  “Roger Coast Guard 45009. Visibility in the sound is one mile or less with intermittent rain mixed with snow. Wind out of the south at ten to fifteen knots. Swells report
ed at three to six feet.”

  “Roger, our ETA on site is one four five two.”

  “Okay. A Coast Guard response boat just left Valdez to go find out what happened to those ships. They’ll be there in fifty-two minutes. Call Donovan and tell him what’s going on. I have a bad feeling there’s a tanker loose in Prince William Sound. I’m turning us around. We can be there before the Coast Guard.”

  “What about the Air Force?”

  “Don’t worry,” Michael shot her a crooked grin. “They’ll never see this old Navy pilot coming.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Donovan pressed the satellite phone tightly against his ear to seal out the rotor noise.

  “It’s Lauren, can you hear me? Where are you?”

  “I’m in the helicopter. We just made it through Portage Pass near Whittier. The weather sucks. We’re down on the deck, headed east. What’s going on?”

  “We’ve turned around and we’re heading toward Prince William Sound. I’ve been monitoring Coast Guard communications, and as it stands now, they can’t seem to find three ships. Two tugs and the ship they were escorting. Donovan, it’s a fully laden tanker, the Huntington Oil ship North Star.”

  “Oh, no. It’s not the pipeline—I was wrong. Do you have any idea where the tanker is now?”

  “The AIS transponders are all off-line. I don’t think anyone really knows. They scrambled a Coast Guard surface vessel from Valdez to go investigate. It’ll take them almost an hour to arrive at the last known position.”

  “Contact the Coast Guard. Offer them our services.”

  “I already did. They turned us away and warned us to stay away from Prince William Sound or we’d be escorted to Elmendorf. We’re suspected criminals it seems.”

  “What did Michael say about that?”

  “Michael’s flying this thing as fast as it will go. He said something about the Air Force never seeing this old Navy pilot coming.”

  “Gotta love him. Find that ship.”

  “Will do,” Lauren replied.