Death Echo

55

DAY FIVE

NEAR DISCOVERY PASSAGE

11:30 A.M.

Dragging chain behind it, Blackbird’s anchor dropped out of sight in the cold green water.

“I can’t see any docks,” Emma said.

“We’re more than a crow-flying mile from Harrow’s coordinates.”

“I’m pulling out my chowder recipe and wondering how small I’ll have to chop a tough clam like you.”

The look in Emma’s eyes told Mac that he could tell her what he had in mind, or find a new first mate.

“If I don’t tell you-” he began.

“That’s bullshit, Mac. Just bullshit. I’m with you all the way to the guillotine.”

He blew out an unhappy breath. “The only thing we have that everybody wants is the Blackbird.”

She nodded.

“We’re going to hide her before I go-”

“We,” she said curtly.

“-to meet Harrow.”

“News flash. The Agency has more than one satellite in orbit. No matter where we park Blackbird, the Agency geeks will be able to count the hawseholes on this baby’s stern.”

“That’s where the yowie suit comes in.”

“How is putting you in a ghillie suit…” Her eyes widened. “Jesus, Mac. You really think we can hide Blackbird from the Eyes in the Sky?”

“I think we’re going to try. You have a better idea?”

Emma smiled, then she laughed out loud, a full belly laugh that made Mac join in.

“We’re crazy, you know that,” she said when she had her breath back.

“Or maybe we’re the only sane ones in the asylum.”

“Chilling thought. So you bought enough netting to make a ghillie suit for Blackbird?”

“Not one that I’d trust my life to.”

“But one that’s good enough for government work? A lunch-hook job, as it were.”

“Yes.”

Not knowing whether to laugh some more or shake her head, Emma followed Mac out onto the deck. The air was cooler here, the quality of the water seemed different, and the forest mix had changed-only a handful of leafy trees against an endless brocade of mixed evergreens.

Well, not endless, she thought wryly.

Beyond a decorative ribbon of forest perhaps fifty feet deep along the waterline, the rugged land rose in a stark scenery made of stumps, rock, and dirt-hallmark of recent logging. The green waterline ribbon hanging over gray rock cliffs made the newly exposed dirt look naked, almost embarrassed.

“It may not be pretty,” Mac said, “but the industrial harvesting means that tourists won’t be coming up here for a few years.”

His voice came from the flying bridge, yet way to the stern, rather than the bow, as she expected.

“What are you doing?” she called up.

“Launching the dinghy.”

A gust of wind made the green ribbon of trees sway. Water lifted and whispered against rocky bluffs and sheer, high cliffs.

“Wait,” she said. “I want to learn how.”

“Sure. I don’t mind missing our mandated time and putting Harrow’s knickers in a twist.”

“I’m not that slow,” she said, bounding up the stairs.

“No, but his, um, knickers are easily twisted.”

“I thought you didn’t know him.”

“I know the type of person who wears thin after a short time,” Mac said.

Wind gusted, held, gusted again, then settled to a steady rush of air over land and water. Blackbird swayed lightly.

Mac showed her the electric swing-arm controller that would lower the dinghy into the water. With easy motions, he put the dinghy’s lifting straps in the steel ring at the end of the arm’s steel line, released the dinghy restraints, and talked Emma through the process of launching the dinghy.

“RIB?” she asked. “As in military usage?”

“Rigid, inflatable boat.”

“Gotcha.”

She was a quick study. Before the dinghy was all the way down, she had a feel for the changing dynamic of swing arm and wind. The dinghy met the water with a delicate splash.

“Good,” Mac said. “Now bring in the arm so I can tie the dinghy to Blackbird.”

Emma looked over the edge of the upper aft deck, waited until the dinghy was tethered, and asked, “You want to take it off the lifting tackle now?”

“Yes. Give me a foot of line.”

The lifting arm spit out a bit of steel cable, Mac unhooked the tackle from three rings on the dinghy, and told Emma to bring it up.

“Slow!” he said, ducking the swinging, heavy snap rings at the end of the lifting tackle.

“Sorry.”

“No problem. When the cable is in, unhook the tackle and stow it in the box to your left. Then-real carefully-pull the controller plug out of its socket and stow the controller on top of the straps for now.”

Emma struggled a bit with the trio of straps and the heavy snap ring on the lift arm, but got everything put away as Mac wanted.

“Ready,” she said.

“Put on something with long sleeves and legs. Gloves, if you have some. We’ve got some brush to cut before we’re done.”

She looked over the side. Mac was loading an ax, a pruning saw, a big reel of green netting, and a bunch of spare netting into the dinghy.

“Now what?” she asked.

“We back Blackbird in there.”

He pointed over his shoulder at a small indentation in the shoreline close to where they had anchored. The little “dog hole” was nearly concealed by the buffer of trees and brush that arched out over it like a lanai.

“It won’t fit,” she said flatly.

“Like I said last night, trust me.”

She shut up.

For a minute.

“Is that hole deep enough?” she asked.

Mac’s laughter floated up.

“MacKenzie, get your mind out of your pants!”

“Don’t worry, babe. I can multitask. The water next to the rock face is thirty feet deep. More than enough ‘hole.’”

“Whatever you say, Captain Babe.”

“Change clothes, then come down here and hold the dinghy while I back Blackbird into the hole.”

Emma heard the big engines fire up while she pulled on long pants and a long-sleeved T. By the time she stepped out onto the deck, Mac had the pod control in his hand and was heading for the bow. He worked the foot pedal to ease out anchor chain and backed Blackbird with the pod control at the same time.

He wasn’t kidding about multitasking, she thought.

“Bring the dinghy forward as I back us in,” he said, without looking away from the stern of Blackbird.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

And she meant it. No sarcasm, no joke. The man was damn good with a boat.

She dragged the dinghy alongside Blackbird in the water until she was at the bow. “This is as far as the dinghy goes.”

“Good. I’m backing in.”

Mac touched the throttle, let off, touched, let off, until Blackbird slowly, carefully, backed into its rocky berth. Tree limbs, saplings, and springy, low-growing brush gave way, then flowed back over the boat like water. When the swim step was about ten feet from shore, he put the pod controls in neutral and dumped a hundred feet of anchor chain down on the bottom to hold the boat.

Then he waited.

“It’s a jungle up here,” Emma said, looking at the enfolding vegetation. “Tell me nothing is poisonous.”

“Nothing is poisonous,” Mac repeated dutifully.

She wasn’t reassured.

“I’m going to put out a stern tie,” Mac said. “Bring the dinghy back here.”

Emma started to ask what a stern tie was, then shut up and brought the dinghy back. She watched while he put a reel of line on the stern rail, pulled the dinghy around to the swim step, grabbed the line, and stepped aboard the dinghy. A shove had it moving to the end of its long tether, which got Mac ashore.

He scrambled up the steep, rocky rise only until he found a good boulder to pull the line around. Then he brought the free end back to one of Blackbird’s stern cleats and tied off the reel end of the line on the opposite stern cleat. When that was done, he ran midship lines to nearby trees, tied off, and called it good.

Wind rushed and sighed and combed the trees. Pushed at the boat. Pushed harder, from a different direction.

Blackbird didn’t wander.

“I wouldn’t recommend trying this on your own,” Mac said finally. “This is an emergency kind of setup.”

“Is this an emergency?”

“Yeah. I’m fed to the teeth with being a mushroom.”

“I’m right there in the dark, spitting out shit with you,” she said.

“Good. Then you won’t mind helping me make a yowie suit for a yacht. You want to handle the pruning knife or the weaving?”

“We’ll trade off.”

Mac nodded. “Help me string the netting.”