Death Echo

71

DAY SIX

TOFINO

7:08 P.M.

You need us!” Lovich shouted. “You can’t just-”

Blackbird’s engines roared to life, drowning out Lovich.

He started to run toward the boat, but the fuel attendant grabbed him and demanded to be paid. When Lovich struggled, other men ran from nearby tie-ups to help the dockhand. Blackbird’s boat-tossing arrival hadn’t won Lovich any friends in the harbor.

“Stop cutting,” Mac said. “Wait for my signal.”

Emma yanked back the knife.

It was the only warning she had before Blackbird’s stern swung hard away from the dock, only to slam up against the restraint of the stern line. The braided line vibrated with tension.

“Now,” Mac said.

Emma laid the serrated knife against the shivering line. It leaped apart beneath the blade.

“Go!” she said before the cut line splashed into the water.

As Amanar ran past Lovich and the angry dock attendant, the underwater side-thruster growled. The stern of the Blackbird jumped sideways a few feet, then yards.

“Clear,” she said. “Go. Go. Go.”

Amanar stared at Emma, shook his head sharply in disbelief. “You!”

He started to lunge for her, then realized that the stern swim step was already too far away from the dock. If he tried to leap for the boat, he’d be swimming real quick. He windmilled for balance, found it, and saw his best chance.

Blackbird’s bow was still held to the dock.

The aft side-thruster snarled while Mac slammed as much power as he could against the stubborn nylon threads.

Amanar ran toward the bow, balanced on the dock’s bull-rail, and leaped for Blackbird’s chrome railing. With a strength born of desperation, he swung his body sideways, scrambling for purchase on the varnished wooden cap of the gunwale. One foot slipped and almost spun him loose. His second foot and both hands barely kept him clinging to Blackbird.

As desperate as his cousin, Lovich shook off grabbing hands and sprinted for Blackbird.

The last threads of the bowline snapped.

“I’ll handle Amanar,” Mac said. “Come up and take the wheel.”

“No time. Lovich is almost here.”

Mac slapped the controls. Blackbird shuddered sideways, farther from the dock with each second.

Emma didn’t wait to see Lovich learn that the boat was too far away. She sprinted for the bow, where Amanar still struggled to throw his weight aboard rather than hanging off the rail over the water.

The diesels roared as Mac poured on the power. Big propellers bit into the water. Blackbird surged out well away from the docks, but he had to fight for control. Despite the obvious health of the engines, this version of Blackbird wasn’t as responsive as the previous one had been.

Staggering to keep her feet against Blackbird’s unpredictable changes in direction, Emma closed in on Amanar. He had hooked one foot over the cap rail and was slowly levering himself up to safety. He saw her, dismissed her as a threat, and kept trying to get the majority of his weight aboard.

“We’re repossessing the boat for its original insurer,” Emma said clearly. “If you stick to that story when you get ashore, you probably won’t go to jail.”

Amanar saved his breath for inching his weight onto the rail.

A knife sliced through the lace of his deck shoe, his most secure hold on the boat. His footing shifted and the shoe spun away into the dark.

“If you let go before Blackbird gains speed,” she said calmly, “you’ll survive the swim. Either way, you’re letting go.”

“My family!” he snarled. “He’ll kill them!”

Amanar released one hand from the rail and grabbed for Emma. She ducked back, then leaped forward before he could recover.

The knife blade flashed in the harbor lights.

Amanar screamed and dropped into the black water. Five seconds later he surfaced, cursing and shouting loud enough to be heard over Blackbird’s engines.

All Emma understood was “Temuri will kill you!”

He’ll have to catch me first, she thought.

As Amanar started swimming toward the fuel dock, she opened the door to the pilot house and slipped inside behind Mac.

“You always play with your food?” he asked, steering and tugging off his gloves at the same time.

“I didn’t know he was stupid to the bone.”

“Huh. What was that about Temuri and family?”

She frowned. “Something about killing them. And me.”

“That would explain it.”

“What?” she asked, stripping off her gloves.

“As crooks go, Stan and Bob aren’t even close to Temuri’s league,” Mac said. “But if their families are being held hostage, both cousins would do whatever they had to however they could to keep their families safe.”

“I’ll mention possible hostages in my report,” Emma said.

Her fingers worked over the waterproof belly bag that was fastened to her waist. Her phone was in there somewhere. And her head itched beneath the knit cap. She had never gotten along well with wool.

Mac’s hands worked over switches and buttons, changing the readouts on the nav chart, depth sounder, and engine to what he was familiar with. One of the trim tabs was set oddly. He started to change it, felt the boat stagger, and quickly returned the starboard setting to its previous position.

Something in the galley rattled, then settled.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Trash can. Those boys love their beer.”

The radio spit static, then words.

“Don’t touch it,” Mac said quickly. “We listen, but we don’t answer.”

Emma scratched beneath the snug-fitting cap. “I told Amanar that we were repossessing the boat. If he gets smarter by the time he swims to the dock, he’ll go with that story.”

“Maybe,” Mac said.

“I hope St. Kilda is able to help the cousins’ families.”

So did Mac, but all he said was “Not our part of the op.”

“How long will it take to get us to U.S. waters?” Emma asked, finally freeing her phone.

“This version of Blackbird is more sluggish than ours was. No wonder they didn’t want to push her past twenty knots.” He frowned. “Tell St. Kilda more than two hours, less than three.”

“Gotcha.” Emma punched her favorite cell phone button and stretched her neck, trying to relieve the tension that had built as they stalked and then stole Blackbird from the fuel dock.

“Report,” Faroe’s voice said in her ear.

“We have another Blackbird. We suspect that Temuri or someone working for him is holding Lovich and Amanar’s families as hostage for the men’s good behavior. They were running Blackbird when we took her.”

“Wait,” Faroe said.

Emma scratched her head, then yanked off the cap. No need to disguise her profile any longer.

Within twenty seconds Faroe was back on the phone.

“St. Kilda will do what we can for the families,” he said. “Where are you?”

“Hauling ass out of Tofino.” She rubbed her scalp. “We didn’t pull off a total sneak, but no one got killed and so far I don’t see any lights behind us.”

“Radio traffic is quiet, too,” Mac said, loud enough to be picked up by her cell phone.

“But someone might want to tell Canada that ours was a legal seizure rather than an act of piracy,” she added.

“The insurance company is working through layers of bureaucracy as we speak,” Faroe said. “How long until you get to U.S. waters?”

Emma made a startled sound as Blackbird shifted and surged with the feel of the open water beyond the rocks at the harbor mouth.

“What?” Faroe demanded.

“The ocean is a lot bumpier than the strait,” she said.

“No shit. When and where will you cross into U.S. waters?” Faroe repeated.

“Where do we cross to the U.S.?” she asked Mac.

As she spoke, she put the phone on speaker and held it toward him.

“Juan de Fuca Strait,” Mac said, without looking away from the dark water ahead. “Somewhere between Neah Bay in the U.S. and Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island. Two hours, maybe three.”

“You check the weather?” Faroe asked.

“What good would that do?” Mac said. “We sure as hell can’t go ashore again in Canada.”

“Storm coming” was all Faroe said.

“I can feel it in the waves,” Mac said. “That’s why I’m heading for Juan de Fuca rather than trying to put ashore anywhere near Cape Flattery, which is closer. The water around Flattery will be too damned rough. Graveyard of many a good ship, and this version of Blackbird is a bit of a pig.”

“Why? What’s different?” Faroe’s voice was hard, demanding.

“Answering that is on my to-do list,” Mac said. “After I find a handy freighter to hide behind and keep us off coastal radar.”

“Call when you have something new.”

Faroe disconnected.

With one hand Emma grabbed on to the overhead handrail that ran the length of the salon. She used the other to stuff the phone back into its waterproof home.

Mac pushed the radar’s reach out to maximum and studied the echoes on the screen. As he’d hoped, there were big boats plying the shipping corridor down the west coast of North America.

None were close.

This Blackbird had the same electronic setup as the other one. He called up the vessel identification function on the computer and studied the specs of the first three ships that were heading south. Two were going faster than he wanted to push this incarnation of Blackbird. He set an interception course with a tanker that was traveling at about eighteen knots. It would take at least an hour, but once he got on the far side of it, he would be screened from coastal radar.

Hell, if it gets any rougher, the swells will conceal us most of the time anyway. Unless we get really unlucky, we’ll slide by.

The Canadian government didn’t have even a handful of ships stationed on the west coast that could handle big weather safely, much less comfortably. Too much coastline, too few machines, money, and manpower.

All he needed was decent luck.

Mac glanced at Emma. “You doing all right?”

“A little buzzed.”

Mac nodded. He’d taken the Coastguard Cocktail before he’d learned he didn’t need it. Some of the people he’d gone through training with had been sick no matter what meds they had.

Thank God Emma isn’t one of them.

So far.

The water ahead would test any meds.