Death Echo

“I’m going to put out a stern tie,” Mac said. “Bring the dinghy back here.”

Emma started to ask what a stern tie was, then shut up and brought the dinghy back. She watched while he put a reel of line on the stern rail, pulled the dinghy around to the swim step, grabbed the line, and stepped aboard the dinghy. A shove had it moving to the end of its long tether, which got Mac ashore.

He scrambled up the steep, rocky rise only until he found a good boulder to pull the line around. Then he brought the free end back to one of Blackbird’s stern cleats and tied off the reel end of the line on the opposite stern cleat. When that was done, he ran midship lines to nearby trees, tied off, and called it good.

Wind rushed and sighed and combed the trees. Pushed at the boat. Pushed harder, from a different direction.

Blackbird didn’t wander.

“I wouldn’t recommend trying this on your own,” Mac said finally. “This is an emergency kind of setup.”

“Is this an emergency?”

“Yeah. I’m fed to the teeth with being a mushroom.”

“I’m right there in the dark, spitting out shit with you,” she said.

“Good. Then you won’t mind helping me make a yowie suit for a yacht. You want to handle the pruning knife or the weaving?”

“We’ll trade off.”

Mac nodded. “Help me string the netting.”

56

DAY FIVE

NEAR DISCOVERY PASSAGE

3:00 P.M.

Tim Harrow paced the empty public docks. He thought about calling St. Kilda and chewing out whoever answered, but he didn’t. He’d already yelled at Joe Faroe, started to yell at Grace-who disconnected- and fielded calls from his own boss, who he wished he could disconnect.

No one was happy.

Blackbird had fallen completely off the scope.

Rogue agents, my ass, Harrow thought savagely, even as he appreciated the ploy from a strategic viewpoint. St. Kilda Consulting could throw up its hands and deny all responsibility.

It was what he would have done if he’d been in Steele’s place.

That didn’t mean Harrow enjoyed having it done to him. He was fresh out of that valuable commodity called deniability. The feeling of a cold wire noose tightening around his balls made him twitchy.

He picked up the binoculars hanging around his neck and scanned every bit of water he could see.

Nothing but wind and currents. Not a boat. Not a seagull. Not even a clot of seaweed.

Not one damn thing to hide behind.

Nothing to take out his frustration on.

Nothing to do but wait for something that might never happen. And listen to the cracking sound of his brilliant career falling in lethal shards around him.

57

DAY FIVE

NORTH OF DISCOVERY PASSAGE

3:35 P.M.

After a few minutes at the helm of the dinghy, Emma was in love. The fifty-horsepower outboard made the little craft fly. The controls were easy, intuitive, and wicked quick. The faster she went, the quicker the boat responded.

“Now I know why SEALs love their Zodiacs,” she said over the sound of the outboard.

“Just keep an eye out for logs,” Mac said.

He stretched, yawned, and leaned against the back of the padded bench seat next to her.

She watched him from the corner of her eye. He looked utterly relaxed as he watched the shoreline. Twice he pointed her toward the proper passes and channels. If he was antsy about not being in control, it didn’t show.

Smiling, she settled in to enjoy the ride. She had worked with men who were too insecure to let a woman be in command. Tim Harrow was one of them. But in his case, it wasn’t a gender issue. He simply didn’t want anyone of any sex to be in control but him. Her competence and independence had rubbed Harrow raw.

Mac saw those command qualities in her, appreciated them, and took them as signals he could relax a bit.

If they hadn’t spent much of the night finding out just how many stellar ways they fit together, she would have thought that Mac simply didn’t notice the physical, sexual differences between them. But he did.

Oh, yeah. In the best possible ways.

Last night had been an eye-opener for both of them.

She guided the speeding dingy into a channel that was marked by a head-high metal day-marker. The water ahead of the bow began to dance in the afternoon sunlight, as though stirred by a giant swirling school of fish. She slowed the boat, trying to read the water.

Mac pointed out a course that took them closer to the day-marker.

“Are you sure?” she asked over the sound of the outboard.

He nodded.

As she turned away from the roiled water, a whirlpool appeared and widened into a wildly spinning wheel of water revolving around a central vortex.

“Whoa,” she said. “That could ruin your day.”

“Sure could.”

“Why isn’t it marked on the chart?”

“The rock that spins out that whirlpool only does it at the strongest tides,” he said. “The rest of the time this place is just garden-variety Inside Passage water.”

“But how did you know?” She tapped the little nav computer perched up and behind the wheel. “The chart doesn’t give you a hint.”

“I learned the hard way.”

He worked the computer, dividing the small screen. The left side showed a nav chart. The right side showed what was below the boat.

“When you’re new to these narrow byways and channels,” he said, “you check the tides and currents, and watch the water and sonar for big rocks or other bottom structures that can roil the water above. But you still get surprised.”

She smiled. “Who knew? I always thought yachting would be easy to the point of boredom.”

He noted the light in her green eyes and the eager tilt of her chin.

“You really like this,” he said.

“Nope. I love it.” She grinned over at Mac and patted the dinghy’s steering wheel. “Mine.”

“Yeah, I got that feeling.”

“You’re feeling right.”

His laughter was drowned out by the engine as the dinghy skipped through a narrow slot and shot into a wider channel. He pointed toward a rocky outcropping about five miles away.