Elizabeth Lowell - Death Echo

He looked out over the waterfront toward the Seattle skyline beyond. The restless sound, the rain-washed city, the evergreen islands. The beautiful silver chaos of intersecting wakes-container ships, freighters, ferries, tugs, pleasure boats zipping about like water bugs.

One of the water bugs seemed to be fascinated by the process of off-loading the yacht. Mac had seen the Zodiac while he waited for the Lotus to be nudged into its berth. The little rubber boat had weaved through the commercial traffic, circling ferries and tugs, taking pictures of everything, even the Harbor Patrol boat that had barked at it for getting too close to the Lotus.

Sightseers, Mac thought, grateful that he no longer lived a life where the little inflatable would have been an instant threat. Sweet, innocent civilians.

He did a quick check of the water near the container ship, where he would soon be dropped into the busy bay. A small coastal freighter, freshly loaded with two dozen containers destined for local delivery, pushed west toward the San Juan Islands. Two Washington State ferries, one inbound to Seattle and the other headed across to Bainbridge Island, were passing one another a few hundred yards to the north. A City of Seattle fireboat was making way toward its station at Pier 48, and a dozen pleasure craft of varying sizes were crisscrossing the heavily traveled waters in the afternoon sunshine.

The black rubber Zodiac with two people aboard lay about a hundred yards offshore, bobbing and jerking in the wakes and chop. The open craft had a shiny stainless-steel radar arch and the logo of a local tour outfit. The captain and single passenger wore standard offshore gear to protect them from wind and spray in the open boat. The passenger was busy with the camera again.

The round black eye of the long-distance lens made the fine hairs on Mac’s neck lift.

Too many memories of sniper scopes.

He shook off his past and watched as the crane operator delicately lowered Blackbird into the water. Mac signaled for a stop. The operator held the boat in place in the cradle, afloat but not adrift. Mac checked his instruments once more, then touched the port start button on the console.

Beneath him, he felt as much as heard one huge engine rattle and cough. He held the switch closed while he glanced over his left shoulder toward the stern quarter of the boat. Black smoke belched, then cleared and belched again. The stuttering sound of engine ignition smoothed out into a comforting, throaty rumble.

The starboard engine started more easily and leveled out instantly. He went to the stainless-steel railing aft of the bridge and checked. Both exhaust ports were trailing diesel smoke. Beneath it, he could see the steady flow of cooling water.

Good to go.

He signaled thumbs-up to the crane operator. The yacht slipped down a few more inches until the water took the full weight of the boat. Moments later the slings went slack. Then the operator let out enough cable to ease the lifting frame far enough aft that the yacht was free.

The big power pods took over as Mac put the engine controls into forward. She felt solid. Clean. Good. A grand yacht doing what she had been designed to do. He left the joystick controls alone and worked with the old-fashioned throttle levers. Testing himself and a new control system in the busy bay was stupid. He’d try the joystick out later, when he was away from the crowds.

Mac idled away from the container docks. He purely loved the first instants of freedom, of being responsible only for himself. Grinning, he glanced over his shoulder to check the wake.

The black Zodiac was moving with him. No faster. No slower. Same direction. Same angle.

The hair on Mac’s neck stirred again in silent warning.

This time he didn’t ignore it. He got his binoculars out of the small duffel he always carried, and took a good, long look from the cover of the cabin.

You’re being paranoid, the civilian part of himself said.

The part of him that had been honed to a killing edge years ago just kept memorizing faces, features, and boat registration numbers.

DAY ONE

BELLTOWN MARINA

AFTERNOON

Put me ashore there,” Emma said, pointing at the dock next to the Belltown Marina.

“Isn’t your car back at-”

“My problem, not yours,” she cut in.

While Josh headed for the dock, she stripped off the red Mustang suit and secured the camera in her backpack. They had wallowed behind in Blackbird’ s wake for fifteen minutes, long enough for Emma to realize that solo surveillance on the water was even trickier than on city streets. Joe Faroe would be flying in as soon as he could, disguised as a tourist. Any more obvious backup for what was supposed to be an insurance investigation would send off warning bells in the wrong places.

All she could do was pray that Alara had some trustworthy people on the ground.

Or not.

Leaks were something Emma didn’t want to share.

Josh brought the Zodiac up to the hotel dock, cutting his speed at the last moment and killing all momentum with a short burst of reverse power. Emma stood poised, one foot on the black rubber gunwale, and stepped off just a second before the Zodiac touched the dock.

“Call me if you want a different kind of tour,” Josh said, watching her hips.

With a cheerful wave, Emma went quickly up the ramp that led to Western Avenue. As she walked, she pulled out St. Kilda’s version of a sat/cell phone. The parts she most appreciated were the long-lived battery and built-in scrambler.

When she hit speed dial, she glanced over her shoulder. The Zodiac had backed out into open water and was now heading south, toward its dock next to the ferry terminal.

Blackbird had turned into the marina four hundred yards to the north and disappeared.

“Where are you and what are you doing?” her cell phone demanded.

It had become Faroe’s standard greeting when one of his operators called in. As operations director of St. Kilda Consulting, he had a lot to do and no time to waste doing it.

“Blackbird is on the wing,” she said, “headed for Belltown Marina.”

“For the night?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out.”

“Get aboard somehow. Before our guy in Singapore vanished, he left a scratch on the inside of the electrical panel cupboard. Given the dither factor on the satellite beacon, it’s a low-tech way to be certain that we’re talking about the same boat.”

Emma called up the interior of Blackbird from her mental file, located the panel, and said, “Will do.”

“Any bogies?” Faroe asked.

“So far, so good.”

“Said the skydiver as he reached for the ripcord.”

Weaving her way through herds of tourists, Emma half-smiled at the gallows humor. Vintage Faroe.

“If Blackbird is what we’re told it is,” he continued, “somebody is keeping tabs on her. Could be the man running her. Could be the man behind the tree. Find out.”

“Still getting the pings?” she asked.

Faroe covered the phone and said something she couldn’t hear.

Holding on to her backpack strap, Emma checked over her shoulder as she walked north. Old professional habits. She’d thought that quitting the Agency would strip away her professional paranoia.

It hadn’t. Maybe just being a woman alone in modern cities kept the reflexes alive. Maybe it was simply who she’d become. Whatever. It was part of her now, like dark hair and light green eyes.

Faroe’s voice came back to her ear. “Lane says the locator beacons are still coming through. The government dither must be turned way up on the satellites, because the beacon on the container ship and the one on Blackbird aren’t showing enough separation to set off our alarms.”