Death Echo (28 page)

“What was the contraband?” Harrow asked.

“A hundred million in counterfeit cash.”

Harrow didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “That’s a lot of dirty to set someone up with. A million would have been more than enough.”

Duke shrugged. “It wasn’t my op. It was political from the get-go. Politicians don’t notice a million here or there. Not anymore. To make a splash in the headlines you need a splashy amount of money, plus the threat of levering a corner of the U.S. economy off the rails, which would yank the rest of the economy down into the train wreck, one financial sector at a time. People are still goosey about 2008.”

“Old news.”

“Not to the politicians who were voted out and went back to mowing lawns for a living,” Duke said. “They won’t forget until they die. Neither will their children. Hell, the last thing my grandpa said to me was ‘Don’t trust banks or the stock market. Don’t forget the Great Depression.’ Turns out he had wads of cash buried in the rose garden.”

Harrow’s interest in Scotch turned into the stabbing of a migraine beginning behind his right eye.

“Anyway,” Duke said, “Temuri somehow made off with the really good-looking bad cash our side had used to set up the sting. Temuri is getting ready to run it into the U.S.”

This just gets better and better,
Harrow thought unhappily,
heading toward a grade-A cluster.

He rubbed his right eyelid and asked bluntly, “Is Emma Cross a willing or unwilling participant in all this?”

“Unknown. Personally, I suspect she’s former Agency with an ax to grind. Think how bad we’ll look if it’s revealed that we helped a foreign national get hold of a hundred million in good-looking fake cash.”

“I thought this was a political ploy, not one of our ops.”

Duke gave him a disgusted look. “It’s all politics, boy. Thought you’d figured that out by now.”

Harrow grimaced. “So do you want the bad money or Temuri or Emma Cross?”

“All three would be gravy.”

“What’s the meat?”

“Get that money any way you can,” Duke said. “Destroy it. No money, no headlines. No headlines, everyone goes back to playing in their own national sandbox.”

“Where’s the cash?”

“Hidden aboard a yacht called
Blackbird,
which is somewhere in British Columbia. Campbell River is what we were told. Somebody up the line has a locator on the boat and is keeping a watch.”

“How soon can you get me there with a good, quiet team?” Harrow asked.

“The team is already in place. As soon as the storm along Vancouver’s east coast dies down, we’ll fly you on recon. Once you ID the boat, you get the team and find a way to take the boat. Then you find the money, destroy it, and everybody goes home. Questions?”

“Are you worried about witnesses?”

“Go in soft,” Harrow said. “No need to worry. And if you go in hard…”

Shoot, shovel, shut up. Everybody’s favorite fallback solution when money and threats don’t work.

Harrow’s right eyeball felt like it was being gouged out of its socket. “Does Canada know?” he asked.

“No.”

“Am I using my own name?”

“She’s going to recognize you anyway, right?” Duke asked.

The headache shot through Harrow’s right eye socket and along the back of his skull. It didn’t take a bureaucratic genius to see that he’d been nominated the sacrificial goat in this game of tin gods.

“The team I got you is really good,” Duke said. “They won’t talk no matter what goes down.”

Harrow just looked at him.

“Shit.” Duke sighed. “I’m sorry. I tried to take it myself. They said no and then switched my bodyguard. I’m locked down.” He looked at his watch. “In two minutes my new ‘bodyguards’ will drag my ass out of here. I’ll do everything I can to help you. I’m sorry, Tim. Really sorry.”

So was Harrow.

CAMPBELL
RIVER

8:15 P.M.

T
he thirty-five-knot wind ripping through Campbell River’s Discovery Harbor made
Blackbird
flinch and her fenders rub against the dock. The water in even the most protected fairways sported small whitecaps. All through the marina, loose stays rang against masts, keeping an odd sort of time with the wail of rushing air. The docks were filled to capacity, a man-made forest of metal masts and small boats leaning away from the wind.

Emma felt the seat give as Mac slid in next to her on the couch behind the dining table.

“Anything new on the weather?” she asked, glancing up from her computer.

“General consensus is that the wind should die down around dawn.”

“If it doesn’t?”

“We go out against the floodtide,” he said. “That way the wind and the water will both be moving the same way.”

“Which means less wind chop?” she asked.

“And more fuel expenditure. Fortunately, we can afford it.”

Emma made a sound. “I’m still in shock over what it cost to fill this baby up. Both tanks.”

“They’re cross-connected, so that you end up drawing down both.” The leather banquette seat creaked as he moved closer. “The generator runs off the starboard tank.”

She felt his body heat and automatically moved to give him more room. When he took that, and more, she smiled. And stayed put.

“You get through to Faroe?” Mac asked, glancing at her cell phone.

“By way of Grace, who had to pry a cooing Annalise from her daddy’s arms.”

Mac grinned. “Gotta admit, watching him with that little charmer makes me smile. A really unlikely combination.”

“You and smiling?” she asked, wide-eyed.

He leaned close enough to nip her ear. “Someone as deadly as Faroe with a drooling, cooing, cracker-smeared toddler in his arms.”

She gave him a nip right back. “Grace and Faroe both agreed that Demidov could have been lying.”

“From hello to good-bye and most spots in between,” Mac agreed, watching her lips.

“He probably was telling the truth about his government’s relationship with the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia,” she said. “They’ve been at one another’s balls since the Berlin Wall came down.”

“And the U.S. has been playing ‘Let’s you and him fight’ for just as long,” Mac said. “What doesn’t make sense is that Georgia would sponsor an attack of any sort inside the borders of its most powerful ally, the U.S.A. That moves straight down from stupid to suicidal.”

“You know that because you’re intelligent and you follow international news from time to time. I know the truth about the Republic of Georgia for reasons that national security prevents me from listing.”

Mac stole the last sip of coffee from her cup.

She ignored him and kept talking. “But how much would the average transit captain/dope smuggler and his arm candy know? Demidov made an educated guess that we’re as self-centered and internationally ill informed as the average American. For Jack and Jill Average, the Caucasus Mountains are a long way from anything meaningful, like finding a parking place or paying the bills.”

Mac wished he could disagree, but he couldn’t. Too many citizens were happily uninformed about the larger world.

For a moment, Emma looked wistful. “I wanted to be Jill Average. That’s why I quit the Agency.”

“And I hoped to be Jack.”

Mac put his hand on top of hers on the varnished teak table. She wove their fingers together.

“I guess that makes us stupid,” she said, sighing.

“Foolish.”

“Same difference.”

“Not always.” He lifted their joined hands and sucked one of her fingertips into his mouth. “I’ve decided I’ll take foolish over lies. Rather than lie, I’ll be blunt. I want you, which under some circumstances could be really, really stupid.”

Her eyes met his. “What if I want you, too?”

Mac felt his pulse increase. “Then we’re only foolish.”

“Foolish,” she said neutrally.

“Isn’t that supposed to be what happens when you combine business and pleasure? Foolish?” he asked.

“Under some circumstances, yes,” she said. “Now, what would be stupid is trying to get naked while stuffed behind this dining table. Makes the front seat of a sports car look like a limousine.”

Mac’s slow grin transformed his face. “I like a woman who doesn’t lie.”

“Prove it.”

He slid out of the banquette, pulling her after him. “Your condoms or mine?”

“Yours. I had to guess at size.”

He gave a crack of laughter and headed for the master stateroom with long strides. “Not going to touch that.”

“No problem. I’ll take care of it for you,” she said slyly as they went into the stateroom.

With a swift movement he lifted her and stretched her out on top of the bed. Then he looked at her.

Just looked.

“Mac?” she asked uncertainly.

“I’m trying to decide where to start.”

“That’s easy. Take off your clothes.”

“I wasn’t thinking about my clothes,” he said.

“I was.” Her hands worked at his jeans.

His fingers returned the favor on hers.

Despite side trips for kissing and laughing and tasting, they managed to get naked and locked together from tongues to tangled legs.

“You taste good,” she said, when her mouth was free.

His tongue circled the tip of her breast, making her breath break. “Same for you. Really good.”

“Yes,” she gasped.

“Yes, what?”

She wrapped her hand around his erection. “Yes,
this
.”

She rubbed the drop of moisture around his hard tip, making him lose track of their game of words. Her hand slipped down, then up, then down, until all he wanted was to be inside her, feeling all of her closing around him at once.

“Good thing we’re using your condoms,” she said huskily.

“What?” he managed.

“I was always told the bigger the man, the smaller the package. I was told wrong. If I’d stuffed you into the kind of condom I bought, you’d have been singing falsetto.”

Laughing, groaning, Mac made a blind grab for his condoms in the bedside drawer. She straddled him and leaned down, giving him a full-body kiss, dragging her nipples through his chest hair. Then she replaced her hand with the wet ache between her legs. Slowly, she slid up, then down him, enjoying every bit of what she could reach.

“You’re not—helping,” he said, breathing hard, working the condom box open one-handed.

“Am I doing—something wrong?” she said, her voice as breathless as his.

“No. That what’s wrong. Unless you want me going commando inside you in about three seconds, help me with this damn thing.”

After one long, slow, reluctant glide, she shifted to take the condom package from him, opened it, and rolled it down him. Then her fingertip traced him from tip to root.

“Glad this thing fits one of us,” she said.

His eyelids went to half mast. “We’ll fit.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah.” He flipped both of them over and pushed slowly into her. “See?”

Her breathing unraveled. “I love a man of his word.”

He smiled, kissed her, tasted her, felt her tasting him. Their hands learned the feel of muscle and softness, cool hair and hot skin. He looked at her eyes, stormy green, and she laughed, biting his shoulder, sucking on him.

Then it was too late for words or for anything but the steamy slide of flesh over flesh, the rushing climb and dizzying fall into satisfaction.

When they recovered, they began all over again, slower, learning about themselves and one another and the kind of pleasure that created a whole world from two interlocked bodies.

ROSARIO

9:15 P.M.

S
tan Amanar hung up the phone and concentrated on breathing past the rage and fear in his throat. When he no longer felt like he was at the dark end of a long downward spiral, he punched in his favorite cousin’s phone number.

“What’s cooking?” Bob Lovich asked when he picked up the phone.

“Our asses.”

Lovich yawned into the phone. “Look, we’ve been pulling too many back-to-back shifts for games.”

“This isn’t a game. Is Janet home?” Amanar asked. “And the kids?”

“Yeah. What’s up with you?”

Amanar let out a long breath. “Good. Good. Throw some clothes in an overnight bag and meet me at the public dock. A seaplane will pick us up in half an hour.”

“Are you drunk?”

“No, and you better not be.”

“Stan? What’s wrong? Is Susie okay? The kids?”

“They’re fine. And they’ll stay that way as long as we meet that plane in thirty minutes.”

“You’re not making sense,” Lovich said.

“Shurik Temuri, you remember him?”

“Hell, yes. I was never so glad to see the back of a dude as when he left for—”

“Shut up and listen,” Amanar shouted. “Listen good. The lives of our families depend on it!”

“What the—”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Lovich took a harsh breath.

And shut up.

“I got a call,” Amanar said. “Don’t know who. He had an accent like Temuri’s. Told me the names of my wife, kids, your wife, your kids, our addresses, our individual schedules, where the kids get on the school bus, our license plates, every damn thing but what kind of toilet paper we use.”

Lovich made a rough sound.

“Then,” Amanar said, “he said that you and me had to be on that seaplane or he’d kill the kids in front of us, after he raped everyone.”

“Did…” Lovich’s voice dried up. He swallowed several times and tried again. “You believe him?”

“What choice is there? You think either of us can stand against weight like Temuri?”

“Shit,” Lovich said. Then he repeated it like a litany.

“I’ll pick you up in five.”

“Shit,” Lovich said.

Amanar punched out and started packing.

DISCOVERY
HARBOR

8:58 A.M.

M
ac and Emma rolled separate carts down the marina ramp and over sprawling dock fingers until they reached
Blackbird
. When the wind had begun to ease shortly after eight this morning, they had divided chores and gone different ways. She had picked up some quick supplies while he went to the chandlery on some mysterious captain’s errand.