Death Echo

Emma let out a slow breath. “Then we have the same goal.”

“Now pray that you have the same path to that goal.”

41

DAY FOUR

STRAIT OF GEORGIA

1:45 P.M.

Lina Fredric, who wanted very much to forget that she had started life as Galina Federova, watched Taras Demidov from the corner of her eye. Though the water was choppy, headed toward outright rough, the motion didn’t appear to bother his stomach.

But of course, Lina thought. Nothing short of a nuclear blast would upset that man.

At least he is paying me well. Quite well.

It could have been much worse. Whether in the “free world” or the FSU, money and violence talked very clearly. She preferred money. So far, Demidov seemed to share her preference. If that changed…

Mentally Lina shrugged. Even though she had learned that he carried a knife rather than a gun, she didn’t fancy her chances against Demidov in physical combat. She’d grown soft over the years. He hadn’t.

The static and snatches of words from the VHF radio made a familiar background for her thoughts.

“…Sun Raider.”

“Sun Raider to XTSea 4EVR, switch to channel…”

The only good news about the shifting weather was that the clouds were being blown out by the northwest wind. Clear skies were nice but the price was wind, which meant rougher water, especially when the tide changed and the wind pushed against the flooding water.

A gust of wind, a small trough, and the Redhead II lurched beneath Demidov. Though he was sitting down, the sudden motion jerked him like a puppet. He muttered a Russian curse, lowered the binoculars, and rubbed his eyes. With barely veiled impatience, he switched his attention from binoculars to his special cell phone. Relieved not to be viewing a world that jumped about like water drops in a hot skillet, he keyed in a number.

After a few moments, two sets of latitude and longitude numbers appeared on the small screen. A cold, thin smile stretched his lips as he checked, then checked the lower numbers again.

Blackbird was out of Canadian customs and working her way north from Nanaimo.

North, where Demidov lay in wait.

42

DAY FOUR

STRAIT OF GEORGIA

2:03 P.M.

When Emma glanced up from making a late lunch in the galley, she was glad she’d ditched the eye-candy look. The waters north of Nanaimo were colder somehow, even though the temperature reading on Blackbird’s many gauges had shifted only a few degrees down after leaving the harbor.

“Brrrr,” she said.

Mac gave her a fast look. “Brrrr? The temperature inside the cabin hasn’t changed that much.” He half-smiled. “I’ll turn up the heat if you go back to the tube top.”

She shook her head. “Men.”

“That would be me.”

She laughed and sliced cheese. “It’s just that the water seems different out here. Like the whole world is colder.”

“Until now, we’ve been pretty much sheltered by either the San Juan Islands or Canada’s Gulf Islands. The Strait of Georgia is long enough and wide enough for the wind to work the water. It’s a good fetch from Campbell River to the Gulf Islands. The wind is free to play. So it does.”

Emma measured the increasingly choppy water. The whitecaps that had looked so tiny from the harbor weren’t all that small-they were riding the backs of steep-sided, wind-stacked waves that looked to be three feet high.

“Is it always like this?” she asked.

“It can be calm as a cup of tea. It can be six-foot razor waves. It can be like now, two or three foot waves with some wind chop on top. A little snotty, but hardly noticeable on a boat the size of Blackbird.”

“So what happened between here and Nanaimo. Just the wind?”

“Partly wind, partly the water itself, and a good bit that we’re heading right into it,” Mac said. “The tide is pushing to the north and the wind is shoving to the south. Irresistible force meets immovable object, and we’re caught between.”

She reached for crackers, braced herself against an unexpected motion, and waited. The next motion was equally unexpected.

“There’s no rhythm to the waves,” she said.

“We’re in the strait, not out on the ocean. The period between waves is shorter in the strait, less rhythmic. Unreliable. Makes for a spine-hammering ride if you’re in a small boat.”

Carefully she stacked crackers, cheese, celery, and sliced sausage on a plate with a rim around the top and a rubber ring on the bottom. Then she looked through the windows at a world of water, wind, and sky.

“You don’t think of Blackbird as small?” she asked.

“Compared to a ferry or a containership, yes. Compared to most of the pleasure craft on the water, no. We’re big enough that we’re officially allowed to decide if we want to play in gale force winds, which would make these winds look like a baby’s breath.”

“Pass,” she muttered.

“Me, too.”

She looked at him, surprised. “It wouldn’t be safe?”

“Safe ain’t the same as fun,” he said. “I’d rather be tied up snug in port listening to rigging lines slap and sing than out hammering my spine through a storm. On my own time I’m a pleasure boater, not a masochist.”

A few of the waves that broke against the bow sprayed over the decks and dotted the windshield with saltwater. Emma was aware of a change in motion, but she didn’t feel any need to hang on to things when she moved around the galley.

Yet.

“Will it get rougher?” she asked.

“If the wind doesn’t drop, yes. It’s supposed to fall off as we go to the north. That’s why we’re running for Campbell River.”

“What if it gets worse?”

“Depends,” he said.

“That’s an all-around, universally unsatisfactory answer. You want tea?”

He gave her a sideways glance. “Depends.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“Yes.”