Washington State.”
Harrow made a sound that said he was paying attention.
“By the time we got someone on Temuri, he’d ditched the rental. We’re going through the records of nearby car rentals as fast as we can get to them, but it will take time. We don’t have time.”
The Scotch looked more like nectar with every word Harrow’s boss spoke.
“Is there anything I’ve missed in Temuri’s file?” Harrow asked carefully.
“No.”
“But we’re upset that he’s in Canada.”
“Yes. He’s on our ticket, now,” Duke said.
Harrow didn’t say anything out loud, just waited, hoping his boss would say something useful.
Duke was an old hand at the silence game.
Harrow gave up and asked, “What’s the op?”
“It’s an old sting that went south,” Duke said. “A few years back, a political golden-boy decided that it would be useful to catch a well-connected Russian dirty in the U.S.”
It was a time-honored way to recruit double agents. Nothing new. Certainly nothing to send Harrow’s boss roaming wealthy D.C. suburbs when he should be home having a drink.
“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.”
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
“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…”
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.
50
DAY FOUR
CAMPBELL RIVER
8:15 P.M.
The thirty-five-knot wind ripping through Campbell River’s Discovery Harbor made
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
