“Did we get the kidnap victim out in one piece?” Dwayne asked.
“I’ll tell you in ninety-one minutes.”
Dwayne pursed lips that more than one woman had openly lusted after. He blew out a long breath that was also a curse. “So the government was in on it after all?”
“Crotch-deep and still sinking.” Steele sped toward another station, another screen. “That’s why factions are useful, though slippery. It’s the ones that aren’t getting a cut of the ransom money that get chatty.”
“And then they go to another faction and sell the same information.”
Steele shrugged. “If we can buy someone, we can be assured that someone else can and will. Just a matter of who gets to the finish line alive. Has Alara returned my call?”
“Twice.” Dwayne glanced at a bank of lights on his desk. Number Four was still blinking. “Transferring line four to your headset.”
Before Dwayne had finished speaking, Steele was.
“Alara. Thank you for getting back so quickly. What have you discovered?”
The voice on the other end of the line was as clear and precise as Steele’s. “Somebody in the FBI stuck a screw-you flag on
“Any reason, other than the usual?”
“An inter-agency pissing contest.”
“That would be the usual,” Steele said.
“The FBI was quite unhappy that they weren’t made aware of Temuri’s presence within U.S. jurisdiction.”
“According to Joe Faroe, Temuri left Rosario shortly after
“The FBI was notified as soon as Temuri’s car turned onto Interstate 5, heading north or south,” Alara said blandly. “Our informant couldn’t be certain of the direction. In fact, he wasn’t certain that it was Temuri’s car until we traced the plates back to a rental agency. As soon as we were certain, one of my co-workers shared the information with the FBI.”
“Pity it was too late to catch him,” Steele said, his voice deadly neutral. “Any sign of other computer tags on
“None.”
“Any new information?”
“I’ve sent many files to your computer,” Alara said.
“My dear, if I were a farmer, I would be ecstatic at the amount of fertilizer you’ve given to me.”
Alara beat Steele to the disconnect button.
36
DAY FOUR
NANAIMO
11:40 A.M.
After being at full throttle, or even at sixteen knots, four to six knots was a yawning crawl. Emma felt like giving back the controls to Mac, who had let her take over as soon as they were through Dodd Narrows.
She wouldn’t have touched the controls in the narrows. The current had been running at six knots and the slot looked like a churning, foaming invitation to disaster.
Mac had brought
“Very,” Mac said. “Enjoy the slow-motion scenery.”
She shook her head, but didn’t argue, just kept easing off the throttles. After some time at
She spared the scenery a few admiring glances. Nanaimo was a surprising gem set about halfway up to Campbell River on the east side of Vancouver Island, right in the middle of boating paradise-green and blue and white, rocky islets, whipped-cream clouds, and picturesque shoreline. The water was alive with workboats and cruisers, water taxis and the single-and twin-engine seaplanes of three different airlines. Not enough commerce to totally destroy the ambience, yet enough to sustain a small city.
Except…
“That smell,” she said.
“Pulp mill,” Mac answered. “Used to be the perfume of the Pacific Northwest, the engine of growth. Now, so few lumber operations are active that the smell is almost nostalgic.”
“Nostalgic.” She cleared her throat. “That’s one word for it. I suppose you get nostalgic over the odor of fish canneries.”
“Me? No. But a lot of old men who used to provide a good living for their children and grandchildren sure would.”
“The world still eats boatloads of fish.”
“Processed by factory ships on the high seas, ships fed by trawlers clear-cutting the ocean bottom far away from shore,” Mac said. “Out of sight, out of mind, the way clear-cutting forests used to be.”
As he spoke, he kept a wary eye on a nearby sailboat struggling with the Pacific Northwest’s famously fickle winds. But he couldn’t decide if it was the on-and-off wind or the captain’s inexperience that was causing the bigger problem.
Then there were the young kayakers larking about in chunky, wide-bottomed plastic craft, ignoring shouted directions from the leader of their colorful little flock.
Not to mention the aluminum workboat that thought speed limits were for tourists. It was leaving a wake steep enough to cap-size a careless or inexperienced kayaker.
Emma had also noticed the sudden complications of her life as newbie captain. Trying to figure out where the sailboat, kayakers, and speeding workboat would/might intersect with
“I just surpassed my pay grade,” she said. “The wheel is yours.”
“Sure?”
“Positive. It’s not an emergency, so I’m outta here.”
She switched places with Mac.
After a few moments she got twitchy. To everyone else, she and Mac looked like a couple on an autumn vacation, but they weren’t on vacation. The gap between appearance and reality kept smacking her in the face. She just wasn’t used to the double game. Or triple. Maybe more.
“When I was in training,” she said, “we spent hundreds of hours preparing for border crossings. Potentially, they’re always the most dangerous part of any operation.”
“You aren’t crossing from Casablanca to Lisbon, sweetheart,” he said, doing a reasonable impression of Humphrey Bogart.
She smiled in spite of her restlessness. “You’re saying the natives really are friendly? Even after Steele’s heads-up call?”
“Oh, we’ll probably get tossed, thanks to the FBI ass clown who put a flag in the Canadian customs’ computer.” Mac’s dark eyes checked gauges. “But I doubt if it will be a rubber-hose experience. America as a nation may be genially despised, but our money is always welcome.”
“If the government isn’t the problem, why did Lovich and Amanar send you on
“Same question Faroe asked. And I asked,” Mac said.
“And the answer is?”
He shrugged and adjusted the throttles so that the sailboat and the most foolish kayakers could get tangled up
