Mac understood the words that the woman was too well-trained to say:
The woman who spoke wasn’t from the rez, but people gave way to her just the same.
Silence descended as she strode into the harsh light of the clearing.
She was on the downhill side of forty-five and didn’t give a damn. Her blond-gray hair wasn’t dyed and she wore no makeup. She was dressed in a pale windbreaker and dark slacks. As she walked up to the firemen, the floodlights caught three large block letters on the back of her jacket.
FBI.
He eased back into thicker cover and silently, quickly made his way to Emma. A curt signal had her wriggling backward. When he was certain her retreat hadn’t attracted any attention, he followed.
Once they were well back into the forest, hidden by the night and the restless wind, he signaled for her to stand. Silently he led the way deeper into the trees. Neither of them spoke until they were in the Jeep and had driven down the road, out of sight of the cluster of vehicles. He flipped on the headlights.
“You okay?” Mac asked.
“Swallowing hard,” Emma said tightly.
“Tell me if you need to pull over.”
“Tough guy, huh? The smell didn’t get to you.”
“You learn not to throw up. Too much noise will get you dead real quick.” His hands flexed on the wheel, as hard as his voice. “FBI was on the fire scene.”
Emma’s head hit the back of the seat. “This just gets better and better.”
“Let’s go wake up Faroe. I’m signing on.”
20
DAY THREE
ROSARIO
3:15 A.M.
Mac, Emma, and Grace Silva-Faroe sat at a small dinette table in the motel suite Faroe had rented. Nobody spoke while Mac read and signed the papers that would make him a contract agent for St. Kilda Consulting, assigned to missing yachts in general and one called
From a nearby bedroom came the pealing laughter of Annalise Faroe as her daddy took her for a shoulder-high tour of the suite. His “Shhhh, sweetie, let the civilians sleep” was ignored by Annalise.
Grace watched out the window toward the Blue Water Marine Group. People were still crawling over
She had been as relieved as Faroe when Mac turned up at their door in the middle of the night. With a silent sigh, she stacked papers Mac had signed and handed him a St. Kilda sat/cell phone.
“You’ll continue working with Emma,” Grace said. “She’ll be the senior partner.”
“Except if we’re on a boat,” Mac said. “I know more about the water than she does.”
Grace looked at Emma.
“No problem,” Emma said. “If it floats, I’m junior partner.”
Grace stashed the papers in her briefcase and looked at Mac. “What do you know about Bob Lovich and Stan Amanar?”
“They’re descended from a long line of hardworking fishermen and part-time smugglers.”
“Arrests?”
Mac shook his head. “You have to understand how it is in Rosario. There are three major factions. One is the Eastern European immigrants and their descendants who still speak the mother language. Or languages. They’re a hard-headed, suspicious clan. Damn few marry out, especially if you’re talking about the smugglers.”
“Common enough for immigrant communities,” Grace said. “Particularly those who make a living outside the law.”
“Like the Sicilians,” Emma said.
Grace nodded. “Or the Asian tongs.”
“The second faction is the white businessmen who have been here long enough to own the mayor and city council,” Mac continued. “They have a lot of the official, legal power, but they don’t mess with the immigrants and their ways. The white power structure ignores nearly all the smuggling, gambling, prostitution, after-hours bottle clubs, and the like.”
“What about the police?” Emma asked.
“Anyone who tries to do real cop work finds himself out of a job pretty quick.” Mac shrugged. “Basically, the police keep the streets clean for the businessmen and yachties.”
“Again, pretty standard,” Grace said.
“Except for the murder rate,” Mac said. “This sweet little town holds the lowest U.S. record for unsolved murders per capita.”
Grace lifted her dark eyebrows. “Like the one on the rez tonight?”
“Most aren’t that obvious. Just people who go missing when there’s a shift in the immigrant power structure. Low-level smugglers, usually.”
“You were one of them, weren’t you?” Emma guessed.
“I ran away when I was seventeen,” Mac said. “Hated the ever-stinking guts of this place. One of my best friends died in a ‘fishing accident’ after I left. The body was never found. He was moving cigarettes north and weed south in a small, hell-fast boat. Tommy was, too, but he survived. Until last night.”
“The rez is the third faction?” Grace asked.
“Yeah. There’s some pushing and shoving at the smuggling trough between the rez and the clan, but nothing like between the Sicilians or the Asian tongs or the Russian
“Where do the Mexicans come in?” Grace asked. “I’ve seen more than a few since we got here.”
“The ones who are illegal keep their head down,” Mac said. “The legal ones invest in Mexican food joints, the mayor, and the city council.”
“In other words, the Mexicans are pretty much ignored, except to be milked,” Grace said.
“They came too late to the Pacific Northwest to have much traction in local crime,” Mac pointed out.
“Unlike the southern border states,” Grace said wearily. “Nice to know that the Pacific Northwest is holding up its end of the twenty percent of world Gross Domestic Product that is the result of crime.”
“Also known as the shadow economy,” Emma said. “Does anything ever change?”
“I can’t fix the world,” Grace said. “But I can fix what I trip over.”
Faroe passed the dinette, stroking Grace’s cheek on the way by. Annalise was blissfully slack in his arms. Laughing one minute, sleeping deep the next. A look passed between man and wife. He shook his head in answer to the unspoken question and vanished into Annalise’s room.
Grace looked at Mac. “You’ve given me a general picture. What about Bob Lovich and Stan Amanar in particular?”
“First cousins,” Mac said. “Closer than most brothers. When their ancestors emigrated, it was from the part of Russia we call Georgia, with a lot of Ukrainian cousins thrown in. Close cousins.”
“No love for Russia,” Grace said.
