Elizabeth Lowell - Death Echo

Demidov turned back to Belltown Marina. If the woman was a player, she would reappear when the yacht was delivered in Rosario. If not, it didn’t matter.

All that mattered was Blackbird .

DAY ONE

NORTH OF SEATTLE

4:15 P.M.

Emma pulled off at a rest stop and sat for a few minutes, pretending to talk into her cell phone. The people in the two cars and one long-haul rig that had followed her off the freeway got out, went into various restrooms, walked dogs, and stretched out cramped muscles. Everyone piled back into the same vehicles and left.

She watched her mirrors and told herself to stop being paranoid. Herself didn’t listen.

She blew out an impatient breath and punched two on her speed dial. The outgoing call to St. Kilda was automatically scrambled, just as incoming calls from St. Kilda were automatically decoded by her phone, which could use either satellite or cell connections. All of St. Kilda’s field agents carried the special phone. In a pinch, it could double as a camera, still or video, with or without sound.

“Faroe’s phone,” said a woman’s voice. “Grace speaking.”

“Emma Cross. Is he around?”

“Annalise has her daddy in a chokehold. Anything I can do for you?”

Emma laughed. “I’d like to see that.”

There was a brushing sound, then Faroe’s voice said, “Where are you and-”

“I’m north of Seattle, heading for a Puget Sound waterfront town called Rosario,” Emma cut in. “The captain is about six foot two inches, rangy, stronger than he looks, unusual coordination, maybe thirty-five, very dark brown eyes, short black hair and beard, no visible scars or missing digits or teeth.”

“Name?”

“MacKenzie Durand, called Mac, no ‘k,’ according to his card.”

“Impression?” Faroe asked.

“Warm smile, cold eyes. Very smart. In the right situation, I bet he’d be damned dangerous.”

Faroe grunted. “Somebody wasn’t happy to find out that Blackbird is the same vessel that left Shanghai.”

“Somebody will have to be happy with the radiation patch and business card I passed off in Seattle.”

“Somebody is never happy.”

“Yeah, I get that. The Blackbird is either owned or brokered by Blue Water Marine Group in Rosario,” she continued. “I’d like a fast run on them from research. Mac is a transit captain. Is the research in on him yet?”

“Still pulling threads. Stay on him and watch your back.”

“How carefully?”

“How many backs do you have?”

Emma closed her eyes. “Right.”

“If research turns up anything useful, it will appear on your computer or as a text on your phone.”

“Faroe…”

“Yeah?”

“I’d swear I was being followed when I left the Belltown Marina.”

“Description?”

“That’s the problem,” Emma said. “I never saw anyone. I just had this feeling I was being watched. I did all the standard things for dumping a tail, both on foot and after I got in my rental. Nothing popped.”

“How are you feeling now?”

“A little foolish for wasting time, but I’d do it all over again.”

“The dumping tail thing?” Faroe asked.

“Yes.”

“Keep it up. Everyone who ever worked with you at the Agency mentioned your good instincts. Some folks didn’t like what you found with those instincts-”

“I’m shocked,” she cut in.

“But that’s why St. Kilda hired you,” he continued. “We’re not politicians. All we want are answers. Get them.”

Faroe disconnected before Emma could say anything.

She sat, staring at the phone, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, thinking.

I left the Agency because I got tired of shadows within shadows within darkness. Every shade of black and gray.

And now all my instincts are twitching like I’m in Baghdad.

Bloody hell.

She snapped the phone shut, started her rental Jeep, and headed north on Interstate 5.

DAY ONE

BEYOND ROSARIO

8:03 P.M.

Mac Durand slid the black-hulled yacht through the narrow channel at dead idle. By dark or sunlight, Winchester Passage was beautiful, distracting, something he didn’t need while single-handing a complex new boat in the ever-changing waters of North Puget Sound. The long-lasting twilight made everything difficult-seemingly clear but actually not.

Yet Stan Amanar had insisted that Blackbird be in Rosario tonight, even if it meant running after dark.

Mac didn’t like it. Deadheads-logs that had been soaking in the saltwater so long they floated straight up and down, exposing only a few inches of themselves above the water-were a constant danger. More than one twin-prop boat had met a deadhead and limped into the nearest port on one prop. Unlucky single-prop boats were towed or came in very slowly on a small kicker engine.

Some of the boats sank.

Never underestimate the sea.

Or a woman.

Mac smiled slightly. He was looking forward to seeing Emma Cross sometime soon. It would be interesting to find out what her game was. Or to get her out of her clothes, depending.

He didn’t get naked with crooks.

He picked up a channel marker a half-mile ahead and checked the paper chart spread out on the helm station in front of him. He would turn to port when the marker was abeam on his starboard side. Then it was a straight shot in two miles of deep water to the lights that marked the channel into Rosario.

Mac set aside the joystick controller and returned to the throttles, nudging them forward. Speed had its risks. So did going too slow and feeling his way in the dark. Without radar or an electronic chart plotter, he was cutting things close. Sight navigation in full darkness was a good way to be surprised to death.

Mac made his turn at the markers and brought the speed up more. The diesels purred and the wake boiled out behind the transom, a pearl fan spreading over the black water. He headed for town at what he estimated was the most efficient rate for both speed and fuel use-about fourteen knots. Engines like the ones in Blackbird ’s belly could push the hull at more than twice that speed.

Two hundred yards outside the breakwater, he cut the throttles back to reduce his own wake. The marker at the outside end of the alley was flashing red against night-black water.

He picked up the hand-held VHF he had brought aboard. Blackbird wouldn’t have any proper electronics until after she was commissioned.

“Blue Water Marine, Blue Water Marine, Blue Water Marine, this is Blackbird outside the breakwater.”

The response was immediate.

“ Blackbird, this is Blue Water Marine, switch and answer on six-eight.”

He twisted the channel selector and punched the transmit button. “Blue Water, this is Blackbird . You have somebody down there to catch a line?”

The man-made marina looked calm in the deceptive light, but tidal currents could be a bitch.

“With those pod drives, you won’t need help,” Bob Lovich said, “but we’re coming down to watch.”

Whatever, Mac thought impatiently, and punched the send button instead of answering. The worst part of this job is owners who don’t know as much as they think they do.

No matter what the spec sheet said, Blackbird was an untried boat. It took a lot of arrogance, plus a full helping of stupidity, to assume that the spec sheets were the same as the actual boat in the water.

He pulled the engines out of gear, flipped off the engine synchronizer, and stepped out onto the main deck. Quickly he coiled bow and stern lines and placed them on the gunwale where someone on the dock could reach them. Because he was cautious, he put most of the weight of the lines on the inside half of the gunwale. If something went wrong, the lines would slide to the deck, rather than into the sea, where they could tangle with the props and cripple the boat.