Death Echo

38

DAY FOUR

NANAIMO

12:05 P.M.

Mac let the boat idle for a moment, feeling what the tidal currents and the wind were doing to Blackbird. The brisk northwest wind was strong enough that even the yacht felt its push and pull. The customs dock and its claustrophobic modular shed waited for them. It didn’t look like there was anyone in the small office yet, but someone was strolling down the long ramp that went up and away from the water to much larger headquarters.

Mac tapped the battery-operated headset he wore. The microphone was the size of a bumblebee hovering just beyond reach of his lips. Low tech compared to what he’d used in war zones, but it got the job done.

Ate nine-volt batteries, though.

“Ready?” he asked.

“No, but I’m awaiting detailed instructions.”

Though they couldn’t see each other, the headphones they wore made it seem like they were standing side by side.

“You have your PFD cinched tight?” he asked.

Emma fingered the straps of the flat life vest she wore. It wouldn’t inflate unless she hit the water, which she really didn’t want to do.

“I’m good,” she said. “The lines are all coiled and ready to go.”

“This landing is going to be different,” Mac said. “Bowline first, then stern, then forward spring line. Don’t worry about pretty or efficient. Just get it done. Step off onto the dock when I bring her alongside. Ready?”

Frowning, she thought through the steps.

“Unless you want to take the controls?” he invited.

“Pod drive?”

She’d learned to like it in the few minutes he’d let her play with it before they got into real traffic near the harbor. Then he’d made her switch to old-fashioned throttles for control. The pod drive was sexy and easy, but it wasn’t something he really trusted.

“Nope,” Mac said.

“Then it’s all yours,” she said.

After a few moments he heard her counting, “Three, two, one-I’m on the dock.”

He saw the flash of colorful shirt and long legs as Emma took the bowline and brought it partway back on the dock before she went to tie off. Using a wooden bull nose to tie off on rather than a big metal cleat threw off her rhythm, but she secured the line with the double half-hitch knot Mac had taught her.

“I like cleats better,” she said, tugging hard on the line.

“So do I. Easier on the lines. But when in Canada…”

“Do as the Canadians,” she finished.

Despite the headset that kept wanting to fall into the water every time she leaned over, she got the bow tied off.

“Secure, Captain,” she said.

Wind gusted across the dock, catching Emma by surprise.

“Yikes,” she said. “The wind is trying to shove me off the dock. You, too. The boat’s butt-stern-is too far away for me to reach that line.”

“It won’t be.”

The bow came up against the line that was already tied off to the dock. Gently Mac applied the throttle. Despite the wind and tide, the stern swung majestically back in line with the dock. He didn’t even bother to use special thrusters. He wanted to know how Blackbird would act if some of the fancy electronics cut out.

As Emma watched the big boat snuggle against the dock, she had a gut understanding of the multiple forces at work, and the elegance of Mac’s skill. He could have used the pod drives so that he could hold the boat against the dock and handle the lines himself.

But he loved the feel of the currents and wind, weight and momentum, the sound of line creaking as it took Blackbird’s weight and brought the stern back to kiss the dock.

“Beautiful,” she said.

His grin was a flash of white against his dark skin. “Don’t forget the stern line.”

“Oops.” She sprinted to the stern, grabbed the line, and tied it off without losing her headset.

Mac walked back to the stern and looked over the rail. “Good work.”

“I just had a gut insight that Blackbird always lives at the intersection of two huge forces, water and atmosphere, and we hope to control it all with a third force called the engine. Plus momentum, did I mention that?”

He gave her an unnecessary hand getting aboard.

“Kind of like us,” she said, “sliding around between forces we can’t really control, only staying afloat for as long as we can. And docking, coming to stasis with all those forces? Whole other thing entirely.”

He looked at her, traced her mouth with his thumb, and said, “Stay aboard until you’re told otherwise.”

She nodded.

He switched off his headphones, handed them to her, and stepped onto the dock carrying various papers in his big hand. There was a short ramp up to a modular building that had suffered a severe outbreak of official signage. In its earnest desire not to favor the English language over French-which was spoken by a minority of citizens in the eastern provinces-Canada had doubled the paperwork of the government bureaucracy.

Mac wondered if Canada would make the same accommodation for the big, and rapidly growing much bigger, population of Chinese in the western provinces. Somehow he doubted it. Forced parity seemed reserved for those of European descent living along the Atlantic Coast.

The dark-skinned customs clerk walked past Mac and unlocked the door to the cramped modular. He stood behind the counter, looked at Mac with the dispassionate eyes of a loan officer or a hit man, and spoke English oddly mixed with a Bombay lilt and British precision.

“Papers, please.”

Mac presented his passport and Emma’s, along with the newly issued U.S. Coast Guard documentation for Blackbird.

The clerk, whose nameplate said he was Singh, Edward, left the counter and went to a computer, whose screen was angled away from the counter. Singh’s fingers raced over the keyboard. He yanked the mouse across the desk like he was drilling down through a multilevel secured website.

Singh read, then reread the screen message, then deliberately killed it and came back to the counter.

“Where is this boat, exactly?” he asked.

“Right outside, sir, tied to the dock.”

“Superintendent!”

Singh gathered up the documents like he was afraid Mac would snatch them back. The clerk marched stiffly toward an office beyond the end of the counter.

A balding Caucasian male in a uniform shirt with epaulettes and extra patches appeared in the doorway of the office that had seemed empty from the dock. Singh briefed his boss in hushed tones. As he spoke, both men glanced over at Mac from time to time.

Mac kept his game face on and cursed the flag that the FBI had tucked into the border-watch computers.

After a moment, the boss issued a clipped set of orders and turned away. Singh walked back smartly, grabbed a uniform hat from beneath the counter, and came through the swinging gate.

“Your boat must be inspected,” he told Mac without meeting his eyes. “Come with me now.”

Like Mac had a choice. “Sure.”

As he followed the small bureaucrat, Mac cursed the FBI’s middle-finger salute. Wasted time.

They didn’t have it to waste.

Deliberately Mac didn’t do the math in his head, the countdown to disaster that beat in his brain and blood and heart. He did the only thing he could do at the moment, which was to follow a Canadian border bureaucrat down the short ramp to Blackbird.

Emma was standing in the cockpit, talking on Mac’s phone. She took one look and ended the call with a terse, “Later, babe.”

“You are the passenger?” the inspector demanded. He consulted the two passports in his hand. “Emma Cross?”

Emma nodded. “Yes, is-”

“Come with me,” he interrupted, leading the way off Blackbird and down the dock. When Mac started to follow, the inspector stopped him with one hand. “I wish to speak with her alone.”

She looked at Mac, shrugged, and stepped onto the dock to follow the inspector. As she walked, she quickly organized her thoughts for a more formal interrogation than they had been expecting. Agency training had focused on border crossings and customs inspections because those were the areas that most often tripped up agents and handlers. St. Kilda had already composed a backstory of her relationship with Mac that told the truth whenever possible.

Emma approved of that. The truth was much easier to remember than an intricate web of lies.

“Miss, uh, Cross,” the inspector began, checking her face against the photo in her passport. “Where do you live?”

“Seattle, Washington,” she said.

Though she had an address memorized and documented, thanks to St. Kilda, she didn’t offer any more information because Singh hadn’t asked for it.

Truth and lies, separation and balance.

Survival.

“Where are you going in Canada?” he asked quickly, watching her eyes and body language for signs she might be lying.

“I don’t know. It was one of those spontaneous things. We’re just heading north up the Inside Passage for as long as it works for us.”

“What is your relationship to”-he checked the other passport in his hand-“Mr. Durand?”

Emma wanted to make a smart remark about Adam and Eve, but she knew better. “He’s the captain. I’m training to be a first mate.”

“How long have you known Mr. Durand?”

She smiled like a woman remembering a satisfying, steamy night. “Not long. We met at a fuel dock in Seattle, liked what we saw, and decided to hook up as long as it lasted.”

The inspector’s eyes changed. He gave her an up-and-down look that suggested he might enjoy hooking up with her. Then he blinked and his training kicked in.

“Are you bringing any alcohol or firearms with you?” he asked.

She frowned. “I haven’t seen any, but you’ll have to ask Mac. He’s the owner. I’m just along for the ride.”

“I saw you handling the lines when you arrived at the dock. You seemed too competent for a recent ‘hook up.’”

“Mac is a good teacher,” she said with a slow smile. “He doesn’t yell or anything. I’d never even been on a boat this size, but he makes everything easy. All I have to do is listen and follow instructions.”

Again, the truth…as far as it went.

“Wait here,” Singh ordered, handing her passport over.

He marched down the dock to confront Mac and, undoubtedly, ask the same questions all over again.

Emma examined her manicure, which was being rapidly deconstructed by handling lines. She didn’t worry about what was happening at the other end of the dock. Mac was a solid partner. In an odd way, they were closer than if they were simply vacation lovers. They clicked under pressure, anticipating one another’s moves like cops in a squad car.

She shoved her passport into one hip pocket and pulled her cell phone out of the other. She dialed into the St. Kilda secure network. Faroe answered on the first ring.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Hey, girlfriend. I told you not to worry. Mac’s one of the good guys. Even if we have to stand on the dock for a few hours while they look for whatever we shouldn’t have on board.”

“Girlfriend?” Faroe made a sound that could have been a laugh. “So the customs dude is still hassling you?”

“You know Canada’s motto: Good government and plenty of it.”

“Given that one of you is supposed to be a rich yachtie, you probably won’t get a body cavity search.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet,” she said, making sure she was loud enough to be heard at the other end of the dock.

“Obviously you’ve never had one,” Faroe retorted.

“Wanna compare notes?”

“No,” he said. “We found out from back-channel sources, not Alara’s, that, among other no-nos, Temuri is an active member of the suitcase nuke trade. Especially in the last three years.”

“Gee, where have I heard that before?”

“And you didn’t want to go back to hearing about portable nukes. That’s why you quit the Agency.”

“April Fool on me,” she said, watching Mac and the inspector from the corner of her eye.

Neither one looked upset.

“The same source that mentioned suitcase nukes floated the idea that you’d never really left Uncle Sam.”

Emma got the point very quickly. Someone was trying to separate her from St. Kilda, in trust if not in fact.

“You have to stop believing the Internet gossip sites,” she said. “Pretty soon you’ll believe that Elvis was Michael Jackson’s son.”

There was a beat of silence, then swallowed laughter. “Um, I think you have that the wrong way around.”

“Actually, I think the sites do.”

“I know they do. St. Kilda backs their people, Emma. All the way to the wall.”

“And if you find out you’re wrong?” she asked cheerfully, smiling at Mac.

“We bury our mistakes under that wall.”

“I hear you, girlfriend. Sounds good to me.”

Mac and the inspector went aboard Blackbird.

Emma stopped calling her boss girlfriend. Turning so that no microphone or lip-reader could gather information, she spoke quickly.

“If the Agency thought there was a radioactive threat moving through Canada to the U.S.,” she said, “they’d add as many layers of deniability as they could, and then they’d flat clean house, no matter which side of which border.”

“That kind of robust foreign policy is out of favor right now.”

“Only in public.”

“Alara mentioned something about that,” Faroe said drily. “She’s outmaneuvered the FBI for now, but they really want Temuri. Alara is more polite-”

Emma snorted.

“-but she’d like Temuri’s ass on a spear. Steele said Temuri’s ass didn’t interest him, but if St. Kilda’s operatives got hurt by any of Uncle Sam’s players, he’d air some political underwear that would make Watergate look like a potluck at a small-town Lutheran church.”

“Okay, I’m impressed. St. Kilda’s version of nuclear détente. Mutual annihilation.”

“You’re quick. So is Alara. She’s no longer kicking our butt every half hour. And she’s sending less bullshit files. The Cover Your Ass part of the program is over.”

“So the bloodletting begins,” Emma said under her breath.

“Pretty much. Our job is to make sure it’s the bad guys who bleed.”

“Which ones?”

“If they get in our way, they bleed.”