Death Echo

28

DAY FOUR

ROSARIO

BEFORE DAWN

Showtime.

Emma took a long, hidden breath and walked next to Mac. Both of them were carrying a duffel and wearing wind jackets. It might be one of the rare, almost warm dawns the Pacific Northwest got after summer, but experience told her that the water was always cooler than the land. Direct sunlight was different. She planned on a little sunning on a sheltered part of the yacht. No reason she couldn’t read files outside.

Mac pushed a marina cart filled with enough food and water to get them to Campbell River in a day. It would be a long haul and a fast way to determine if Blackbird had any kinks to work out, especially with all the electronics that had been wired in by harried techs.

The bulkiest item Mac had was a box of paper charts that covered the Inside Passage all the way to southeast Alaska.

The twelve thousand in cash was in St. Kilda’s care. Mac wouldn’t leave until he had a fresh eight thousand for his pocket. In Canada, fuel was priced like liquid gold. He wanted to be certain he had plenty of cash for the ride, no matter how fast he pushed Blackbird.

The only thing lacking in their equipment was any kind of radiation detector, chemical sniffer, or even a bug detector. St. Kilda didn’t want to risk tipping off anyone that the transit captain suspected this was more than a somewhat dodgy delivery.

Better to assume they were bugged and act accordingly.

The radiation patches they had worn to the Blue Water office yesterday had showed zero exposure above the expected norm. No one in the Blue Water office had unusual exposure, so they hadn’t been handling fissionable material. Chemical and biological were still on the suspect list, and would stay there until there was a reason to cross them off.

There weren’t any room lights on in any of the motels that serviced the marina. Emma didn’t need that kind of signal to be certain Faroe or Grace was watching.

She had turned her gun over to Faroe. A girlie.22 purse pistol might have been explained away as a city girl’s paranoia, but the Glock? Way too much firepower. Illegal to carry in Canada, too.

Mac had kept his knife. Male necessity, apparently, expected and accepted by all but the airlines.

A restless night in separate beds hadn’t done either of them any good. Today Mac kept watching her, catching himself, and looking away.

It will be even more fun aboard Blackbird, she thought. Sharing a bed. God. Never saw that one coming.

Faroe had. So had Grace. They had told her-and Mac-to suck it up and do the job.

Mac had made it clear he would rather do Emma.

It was mutual.

While she waited, he punched in Blue Water’s code at the gate. The techs were gone, but portable work lights set up on the dock still flooded the yacht. A cool breeze rose with the distant dawn, ruffling the marina’s polished black surface.

Lovich waited for them at the bottom of the ramp. Silently he passed keys and a thick envelope to Mac, ignored Emma, then followed them aboard Blackbird. Heavy privacy screens shielded the salon. Light gleamed faintly through various cracks.

Mac opened the stern door into the salon. When he saw that someone was waiting for them, he shouldered Emma aside and went in first.

A blunt-faced man with dark shoulder-length hair and a darker mustache was seated on one of the salon sofas. Even in the filtered light, his black eyes glittered. He had no expression.

“Are you going to introduce us,” Mac said to Amanar, “or should I just call him Stoneface?”

The third man said something that sounded rude, crude, and insulting. Then he gestured bluntly toward the cargo they had carried aboard.

Amanar’s face seemed to flatten, but he did as he was told. He searched everything Mac and Emma had carried onto the boat, including the seams of the duffels. He found nothing unexpected.

Stoneface grunted and gestured.

“Sorry,” Lovich said in a low voice. “I have to search you. Mr. Paranoid over there thinks you might be wearing a wire.”

Score one for Faroe’s own paranoia, Mac thought. A great big one.

Without Faroe’s mandate that they go in as soft as possible, they would have brought along something that could detect bugs, radiation, and certain chemicals.

And they would have been busted before they even left the dock.

“No problem,” Mac said calmly, holding out his arms. “But you touch her and you’ll be eating your own hands.”

Amanar said something quickly to Stoneface.

Stoneface looked at Emma and said something.

“Um…” Amanar cleared his throat. “He says it’s not optional.”

Calmly Emma began stripping.

Four men stared at her, not knowing what she knew-she’d worn her string bikini under her clothes. Though there were clouds racing across the stars, she had hopes of sitting on a sunny deck.

When she was done removing clothes, she lifted her hair off her neck with both hands, pirouetted, and then stood with her hands on her hips in unsubtle female challenge.

If she was wearing anything but skin, it would take more than a strip search to reveal it.

“Put your clothes on,” Mac said gruffly.

She gave him a real slow smile. “You sure, big guy?”

Mac’s eyelids lowered. “Babe. You need spanking.”

She licked her lips and lowered her eyelids right back at him. “Works for me.”

He forced himself to look at Stoneface. “You feel more like a man now?”

Lovich cleared his throat, went through Emma’s clothes like they burned, and threw them at her.

She wiggled into her jeans, slid into her snug black pullover and ignored the wind jacket. She clipped on her cell phone and smoothed everything in place with slow hands as she waited for orders like a good little girl.

Or a really bad one.

Mac didn’t know whether to cheer or strangle her. She’d taken what could have been an ugly situation and turned it into a farce. He glanced over at Amanar. The yacht broker’s cheekbones were flushed. With jerky motions he searched the stuff they had brought aboard. Toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, condoms, clothes, cooking supplies.

Emma watched indifferently. She knew there was nothing more deadly than hot sauce in the provisions.

Stoneface saw that Emma and Mac both had computers and fired off fast questions.

Lovich asked, “Why the computers?”

She rolled her eyes like a four-year-old. “Same reason I have a cell phone. Just because I’m on vacation doesn’t mean I’m unplugged. How else can I keep up with the latest Hollywood sex swaps?” Before Lovich could ask, she added, “Mac uses his as a backup nav system. He’s real cautious.”

Lovich translated.

Stoneface let them keep the computers. And the camera Emma had brought with her. Their cell phones drew a look, but he didn’t touch them. In the modern world, cell phones were like oxygen, a required part of living.

Silently Mac kept counting the money he’d been given. Accurate to the last rumpled bill. Nice to work with professional crooks. They paid up front and on time, in cash.

“Sorry about the search,” Lovich said roughly. “He’s from the old country. Doesn’t even trust his reflection in a mirror.”

“I’m surprised he has a reflection,” Mac said. “We finished with the party games now?”

“Uh…”

Stoneface got to his feet and stalked out the door. Seconds later he reappeared on the dock. With smooth, powerful strides, he went up the gangway and vanished.

Both cousins let out a silent breath.

“The fuel tanks are full,” Amanar said to Mac. “When you get to Campbell River, top up the tanks. Then motor north like you’re going to the Broughton Archipelago. You’ll hear from us if and when we want you to change course. You have five days to get to the Broughtons, max. The owner could be ready to pick up even sooner.”

“Weather permitting,” Mac said neutrally.

“That boat will take anything the Inside Passage can dish out,” Amanar said.

“That boat hasn’t had a shakedown cruise. You know as well as I do that something will go wrong. Likely more than one thing. Just a fact of life and complex electronic and mechanical systems.”

“Yeah. Whatever.” Amanar glanced quickly at his cousin, and just as quickly away. “Get going. Don’t spare the fuel-you’re sure as hell being paid for it. You’ll hear from us.”

Mac stuffed the money into the front pocket of his jeans. “Any preferences in Campbell’s fuel docks or is it captain’s choice?”

Emma swallowed laughter. She hadn’t known Mac long, yet she had no doubt that he was pissed.

“Uh…no,” Lovich said. “All the documentation you need for crossing the border is in that ring binder,” he added, waving a hand to the wide, padded pilot’s bench.

Mac picked up the binder, read through the documentation, and looked up. “Anything else I need to know? Radio codes, rules of the sea, Canadian nav markers?”

Amanar’s mouth flattened at the unsubtle mockery. “You’re being well paid.”

“Did I complain about the money?” Mac asked.

Lovich grabbed his cousin’s arm. “C’mon. I’m ready for breakfast. It will be good for what ails us.”

With a final glare at Mac, Amanar allowed himself to be led out the door.

Emma was careful not to say anything she wouldn’t mind having overhead. “What a dickhead.”

“Amanar?”

“Him, too.

Mac smiled. “I’ll start the engines. You pick up all the lines that are loose.”

“Loose.”

“As in not under tension holding the boat against the dock.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I’m still back with dickhead.”

“Come here a minute and put those sexy lips to work.”

She gave him a startled look, but did as he asked.

His mouth brushed over hers, lingered, then he breathed against her ear, “You did good, partner. Real good. Nice bathing suit. Now get that beautiful butt out on the dock.”

“I like your butt, too.”

Mac laughed out loud.

Smiling, Emma sauntered out the door and onto the dock. She heard various buzzers, bells, and engine noises while she picked up two of Blackbird’s four dock lines. By the time she got the loose lines coiled and tossed onto the deck, the engines had farted happily and settled in to a muscular purring.

She ignored the three men watching from the top of the gangway.

Mac signaled for her to pick up the forward spring line and toss it aboard. When she was finished, he stepped out on deck with a portable joystick controller.

“Leave a half-loop around the cleat on the aft springer and hand me the line,” Mac said.

Emma had already gone over this maneuver several times before on Autonomy. She understood that the loop was backup in case something went south with the joystick or the engines. She passed the line up to him and hopped aboard via the black swim step and stern gunwale gate.

He gave the joystick the lightest of nudges. Blackbird tugged against the line. He nudged the stick in the opposite direction, nodded to Emma, and handed her the line. She flipped it off the cleat and brought it safely aboard while Mac maneuvered the big boat away from the dock and into the fairway. With a wary eye to wind and current, he turned Blackbird in its own length and motored slowly out of the marina.

“Where to, besides north?” Emma asked.

“James Island. We’ll put down a lunch hook and give everything a going over.”

“Ah, sure thing.” She leaned close and murmured, “What’s a lunch hook?”

“Get a wind jacket and come up to the bow. With this toy,” he waved the joystick at her, “I can hang out up there and see everything on the water.”

And not be overheard by any salon bugs.

“Gotcha,” she said, grabbing her wind jacket.

When both of them were on the bow, Mac began talking to Emma without looking at her.

“A lunch hook is a small anchor with a short scope,” he said, pointing to the smaller of the two anchors resting on the bowsprit. “In other words, short work for a short stay.”

She fought against a smile. “Not asking what a short scope is. Guys get unhappy talking about duration or length or heft.”

Mac shook his head and laughed. He didn’t want to like Emma. He just wanted to get the job done. But she made being together easy.

Too easy.

“Did you see the look on Lovich’s face when you stripped?” Mac asked.

“I was too busy watching Amanar swallow his tongue.”

“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

“Hey, I was stationed way too long in cultures that spent so much time ignoring and suppressing sex that a man couldn’t breathe air within ten feet of a woman and not get hard.” Emma shrugged. “If they’re thinking about tits and ass, they’re not thinking about the job, are they?”

“What about me?”

“You have enough wattage to do two things at once.”

“Babe, I hope so,” he said, blowing out a breath. She had looked way too edible in a bikini. “What does a captain have to do for a cup of coffee?”

“Let me think about all the delicious possibilities.”

“Make coffee while you think.”

“You like yours with sugar or salt?” she asked.

He grabbed her, kissed her hard, and growled, “Sugar on the side.”

“Not touching that,” she said, retreating hastily.

“That’s what they all say.”

She muffled a laugh. “Should I toss the galley while I make coffee?”

“Only if you’re bored. We’ll have plenty of time at James Island.”

Mac didn’t look away from the water until he heard the salon door close. Then he let out another long breath and forced his mind back to the job at hand. It was hard.

Way too hard.

Faroe, are you nucking futz? She’s too much woman for this game.

Then Mac thought of Grace. That, too, was a lot of woman. And it didn’t get in the way of her brains one bit. Or Faroe’s.

Count backward by sevens.

Ninety-three, eighty-six, seventy-nine…