Death Echo

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.

49

DAY FOUR

WASHINGTON, D.C.

9:10 P.M.

The 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