Death Echo (27 page)

“Did you learn anything new?” Steele asked bluntly.

“Ah, old friend, you are in pain.”

“That’s how I know I’m alive. Answer my question.”

“The sum of fifteen thousand dollars has been transferred from an account funded by one of the many arms of Russian intelligence to a St. Kilda Consulting account. Demidov has the connections to move very quickly, as apparently the order came through barely an hour ago.”

Steele’s black eyebrows rose. “Impressive. Your connections, as well as his.”

“Thank you.”

“So Demidov is indeed working for some aspect of the Russian government.”

“They are paying him,” Alara said. “It isn’t always the same thing. You will tell me immediately if your agent calls about contact by or from Shurik Temuri.”

Steele waited for several beats, then nodded. “As we agreed. Speaking of which…”

Alara waited, poised like a falcon ready to fly.

“Since when are Russia and the United States working the same side of the street?” Steele asked. “Did I miss the memo? Or is it the usual case of politics making ridiculous bedmates?”

“We have cooperated with Russia in the past, when both parties had the same goal.”

“Do you trust Demidov?”

Alara laughed in genuine amusement. “Do you?”

Steele rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Have Demidov and Temuri ever worked together in the past?”

She looked thoughtful. “Possible, but unlikely. Demidov is of another generation, political not criminal. Temuri came up through the
mafiya
. His family is rabidly against Russia. Temuri is simply rabid.”

“He has a lot of competition,” Steele said.

“That is the nature of life among the ruins. It suits Temuri. The most recent intel we have puts him with Chechen separatists, many of whom draw support from Wahabbi fundamentalists in the Middle East. Money, to be precise. A great deal of petro dollars.”

“Is Temuri selling them nukes?” Steele asked.

“Not the finished product. Not yet. Fissionable materials only. More suited to blackmail than to bombs. He is the middleman for more ordinary weapons, as well. We also believe he is responsible for at least one of the outbreaks of bubonic plague that have occurred on the fringes of former empire. One instance of plague served to keep the Russians out of a strategic area.”

“What if we take Temuri alive?”

“The Russians have offered a million dollars American to anyone who turns him over to them alive,” Alara said. “Dead? Perhaps he would be useful to Russia as fertilizer, nothing more.”

“Does Uncle Sam have any preferences about Temuri?”

“We would…enjoy…talking with him. But it is not required. Proof of death is. He has several rewards on his head. In fact, he is worth more dead to us than alive to Russia.”

“I’m not a bounty hunter.”

“Yet St. Kilda has collected bounties in the past.”

“Any bodies on our ticket were made on the way to a different goal,” Steele said. “Did you trace the telephone number Demidov gave our agent as a contact?”

“Useless. The phone was probably recently purchased and won’t be in anyone’s electronic files for a week or so. Too late to do us any good.”

“Do you know any more about what is actually at risk than Demidov does?”

Alara’s mouth tightened. “No. We are unhappy to find out he knew that much. It means there are more loose ends than we thought.”

“And the time limit?”

“Unchanged.” She stood up. “I wish your agents luck. We all will need it.”

STRAIT
OF
GEORGIA

4:50 P.M.

B
lackbird
rose on the breast of the creaming wave. Wind combed salt spray from the sea and dashed it over the windshield. Hands light on the wheel, Emma held the yacht’s bow into the weather, enjoying the swell and rush of water. Mac was at the dining table, awash in charts. He kept them corralled with a casual ease she envied. She was just learning to be at home on the restless strait.

He
was
at home.

Her phone rang.

“I’ll get it,” Mac said, reaching into her purse. “It’s Faroe.”

“So talk to him. I’m busy.”

Mac answered the phone. “We’re about an hour south of Campbell. Where are you?”

“Hello to you, too,” Grace said.

“Sorry. I was expecting your husband. Hello, how are you, how is Annalise, and why are you calling?”

“Faroe is looking at reports from various Canadian marine weather stations on his computer. He’s making unhappy noises.”

“We’re fine.
Blackbird
may be beautiful, but she’s not just a pretty face. She’s built for this part of the world.”

“How is Emma taking to it?”

“Fish to water,” Mac said. “Quick and smart. You may not get her back.”

“Thinking about keeping her?” Grace asked, amused.

“Yes.”

“What does she think about it?”

“No screaming yet,” Mac said.

“Give yourself time. It doesn’t always happen for new lovers the first few rounds.”

Mac made a choked sound. “Joe wants to know if you’re going to run through the night,” Grace continued.

“No. Even if the water was calm and my first mate had all the appeal of moldy concrete, I wouldn’t run in the dark past all those coastal log yards unless something bigger and meaner than me was closing in fast.”

“See any cruise ships?” Grace asked.

“Four of them so far, but none are headed toward Campbell. You expecting trouble from a bunch of retired folks on their dream vacations?”

“No. I just always wanted to see a cruise ship from a distance. All those lights and glamour.”

“Only at night. Close up in daylight, at the end of a season, cruise ships look like hookers after a hard night.”

“You and Faroe. Not happy unless you’re captain. Let us know if anything changes. We’ll do the same. Hello and good-bye to your first mate.”

Mac closed the phone and answered the question Emma hadn’t asked. “Faroe is following the weather up here and got nervous.”

“Is this the kind of water you call snotty?” Emma asked.

“Getting there,” Mac said. “If I want to use the electronic charts, are you happy steering by compass for a few minutes?”

“Better that than autopilot. It doesn’t correct fast enough for this kind of water.”

“Told you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said without heat. “So I’m a slow learner.”

Suddenly she felt his heat and sheer bulk along the left side of her body. The warm, slightly rough surface of his fingertips traced from her left cheekbone to her jaw, her throat, and lingered on her pulse. Her heart stopped, then beat double time. His breath brushed her ear.

“Emma-love, you are anything but slow.”

She plucked at her sweater and let out a long breath. “Getting hot in here, Captain.”

Teeth closed gently on her earlobe. “If the water was calm, it’d be a whole lot hotter. But I want to be in Campbell before dark, so medium warm is as good as it gets for now. Hot comes later.”

She cleared her throat. “You keep nibbling like that, you’re going to distract me.”

“My hands are in my pockets,” he pointed out.

She moved her head quickly, caught one of his fingertips, and sucked it into her mouth for a thorough tasting. She released it slowly, enjoying the flush of color high on his cheekbones.

“My hands are on the wheel,” she said.

He took a long breath, then another. “Point taken. Damn it.”

She laughed softly and moved aside so that he could get to the chart plotter while she steered. “All yours, Captain.”

“Promises promises.”

“I keep mine,” Emma said.

“So do I.”

She cleared her throat. “So…good. I won’t have to date myself tonight.” She shook her head hard, trying to clear the haze of lust.

“God, Mac. Is it something you were born with, or did you take classes?”

“In what?”

“Sexual heat.”

He blinked, then smiled slowly. “I’m learning from my first mate. One hell of a teacher. Can’t wait for night school to begin.”

She blew out her breath and ignored him. It was that or jump him, and
Blackbird
really did need a guiding hand. Two hands, actually. The waves were building with the wind. And the wind had teeth in it, forewarning of the cold autumn gales Mac had talked about.

“Is this weather as bad as it looks?” she asked after a time.

Mac didn’t even glance up from the electronic chart plotter he was putting through its paces. “Not for us. If we were in a small boat, yes, I’d already be ashore or real close to it. Out here, size matters.”

“Not touching that.”

“Ever?” he asked.

“Not hearing you. La la la la. Not a single tempting word.”

Mac laughed and quit teasing her—and himself—for the moment. He checked the boat’s position, the tide, the currents, and the time to Campbell River. It would be an interesting ride. They were right on schedule for a beating from the steep tidal currents just south of Campbell River. The wicked water would slow them down, but they should make Campbell before dark.

Mac could hardly wait.

But he kept at work on the chart plotter, trying out various possibilities for the next day of running. The beauty of a boat like
Blackbird
was that speed opened up so many choices that a six-knot boat didn’t have. The downside was that choices led to more opportunities to screw up.

That’s how you learn,
Mac reminded himself.
And along the learning way, you try real hard not to make the kind of mistakes that are fatal.

Not to mention praying that somebody else didn’t make those mistakes for you.

WASHINGTON
, D.C.

9:10 P.M.

T
he front door closed behind Timothy Harrow with a weighty restraint that whispered of money. As he walked down the echoing marble foyer, he pulled off his suit coat, yanked his tie loose, looked at the muted gleam of bottles in the home bar, and sighed.

He’d rather have a woman. Unfortunately, his wife—soon to be ex-wife—had discovered that sometimes any woman would do for him. It wasn’t anything against her, certainly nothing personal. It was just the way he was.

He looked around the suburban home that had become a house with the divorce decree and decided all over again that his career was a relationship killer. He should have stuck with serial affairs. Or found a wife who understood the demands of his career. Marrying a beautiful, ambitious lawyer had been a head-banging mistake, one he’d be making payments on for the rest of his life. Unless the clever bitch remarried.

And speaking of clever bitches…

He picked his cell phone off the table and looked at his contacts, searching for the personal number of his
FBI
contact. Information or a hookup, either would be fine with him. Both would be better. But before he could find the number, someone knocked at the front door.

Harrow locked and set aside the phone before he pulled out the drawer in the end table by his chair, saw that his pistol was in its usual place, and picked it up. He checked the load and flicked the safety off. Holding the weapon more or less out of sight along his right leg, he went to the security screen at the end of the foyer leading to the front door.

The surveillance camera showed Duke standing at the front door, but far enough back to make ID easy. What everyone hoped would be the final heat wave of the year had left Duke’s expensive suit wrinkled and his bald head sweating in the porch light.

He was alone. Even his driver-bodyguard wasn’t in sight. Suddenly the Scotch looked more likely to Harrow than a hookup. With a subdued curse, he opened the door and let his boss into the mechanically cooled air of the house.

“You look like you could use a drink,” Harrow said.

Duke ran a palm over his head. “You alone?”

“Yes.” Harrow put the safety on his pistol and led the way to the living room.

“Nice place,” Duke said.

“It will be Pam’s in a few weeks.” The end table drawer shut with emphasis.

Duke grunted. “Yeah, she’s a shark.”

“And a bitch. You want some bourbon?”

“No time.”

“What’s up?” Meaning:
What’s too hot to talk about over the phone?

“I don’t know.”

Harrow didn’t ask any more. Whether Duke didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t share wasn’t the point. The point was that something had sent a jolt through intelligence networks, a shot hot enough to burn some very important butts.

“How can I help?” Harrow asked.

It was the question that had taken him very near the top of the pyramid at an age when most people were still wondering what they would do when they grew up.

“One of Shurik Temuri’s aliases entered Canada through Blaine,” Duke said. “That’s on the northern border of Washington State.”

Harrow made a sound that said he was paying attention.

“By the time we got someone on Temuri, he’d ditched the rental. We’re going through the records of nearby car rentals as fast as we can get to them, but it will take time. We don’t have time.”

The Scotch looked more like nectar with every word Harrow’s boss spoke.

“Is there anything I’ve missed in Temuri’s file?” Harrow asked carefully.

“No.”

“But we’re upset that he’s in Canada.”

“Yes. He’s on our ticket, now,” Duke said.

Says who?
Harrow thought.
Nobody told me about an op, especially good old Duke.

Harrow didn’t say anything out loud, just waited, hoping his boss would say something useful.

Duke was an old hand at the silence game.

Harrow gave up and asked, “What’s the op?”

“It’s an old sting that went south,” Duke said. “A few years back, a political golden-boy decided that it would be useful to catch a well-connected Russian dirty in the U.S.”

It was a time-honored way to recruit double agents. Nothing new. Certainly nothing to send Harrow’s boss roaming wealthy D.C. suburbs when he should be home having a drink.