Death Echo

unlikely, of Black Swan. Another team has joined them. They are highly specialized and so secret that I’m the lowest ranking officer who knows of their existence. Every sign of Blackbird’s scuttling is being mopped up.”

“The environment thanks you.”

Duke swore. “If I could get away with giving you men and material, I would. But until you give me a Swan sighting, my hands are tied. You sure your agents haven’t really gone rogue and are playing for the other team? You know it happens.”

“Unlike you, I’m very certain of my employees.”

“Hackers, then.”

“I’ll note your suggestions for the feasible deniability file.”

“Steele, if I…” Duke’s voice died.

There was nothing to say.

Both men knew it.

65

DAY SIX

NORTHERN VANCOUVER ISLAND

3:16 P.M.

Emma lowered the binoculars for a moment and closed her eyes to rest them. Both she and Mac had been in the air, staring through binoculars since dawn. She had seen some breathtakingly wild places-evergreens clinging to rocky cliffs, moss in more shades of green and brown than she could name, water both fresh and salt, calm and roiled, colors of gray and silver and blue impossible to describe.

Then there were the boats. Some small freighters or tankers, cruise ships shifting locations for the winter season, fishing boats, crabbing boats, prawning boats, sailboats, tugboats, log barges, freight barges, inflatables, rowboats, skiffs, power cruisers both dainty and extravagant. She and Mac had examined everything that could float and a few that shouldn’t have.

They hadn’t seen anything that looked like Blackbird.

Mac hung up his cell phone and spoke through the headphone link to Emma. “Steele says Harrow has at least two planes working south, covering Seattle and the San Juan Islands. Faroe wants us to stay north of Campbell River in case Black Swan is still up here somewhere under wraps.”

“But-” Emma began.

“The problem is,” Mac continued, “she could appear anywhere, because she could have been hidden anywhere from Southeast Alaska to the B.C. coast above Vancouver Island.”

“Wouldn’t that cause a stir? That’s an expensive boat to be left for months at a time.”

“It’s not unusual for summer yachties to leave their boats stashed in safe ports up north for the winter, fly out to Florida or Mexico, and fly back in the spring or summer. Some people hire transit captains to bring their baby north to south and back again.”

Emma digested that as she tried to ignore the growling, low-frequency grind of the big radial engine sitting a few feet in front of her. Even with the headset to dampen the bone-deep, droning roar, she felt like she was inside a metal coffin that was being beaten with baseball bats.

She hadn’t liked small planes before she stepped aboard this one. Now she respected the sturdy DeHavilland for its ability to rise and fall with the terrain and wind, and land in hair-raising places; but she still didn’t like it.

“Give me a boat any day,” she muttered.

“What?” Mac said.

“It’s noisy in here.”

“Try the engine room of Blackbird, when she was running.”

“No thanks.”

“You sure?” he asked. “I have extra ear protectors.” Or had.

“The pilot must be deaf.”

“Only in the lower ranges.”

The pilot was a man of indeterminate age and complete control of his airplane. Whatever his per-hour rate was, he earned it.

“There’s Chatham Point,” the pilot said over the intercom, pointing ahead through the windshield at a bright, white-and-red-striped lighthouse on a finger of land. “No noncommercial black, approximately forty-feet-long hulls on the water that I can see. I’ll make a lower pass to be certain.”

Mac put down his binoculars. He’d learned that the pilot’s eye was so good it was almost eerie, reflecting a combination of expertise and a sixth sense. He could tell the difference between a forty-and a fifty-foot cruiser at a thousand feet.

The plane banked, drifted lower, and circled as though looking for a place to land.

Emma scanned the water through her glasses.

“Anything?” Mac asked.

“Nothing we want.” She sighed and lowered the glasses. “The Inside Passage is an extraordinary, beautiful maze. And maddening. Did I mention that? You could lose an armada down there.”

The radio crackled.

“We’ll need to refuel soon,” the pilot said. “You want me to do it at Campbell River or Port Hardy?”

“Port Hardy,” Mac said. “We’re going to give the far northern stretch another look.”

“Roger Port Hardy.”

Emma listened, put the binoculars back to her eyes. She refused to let despair creep over her as she watched the countless, intricate waterways of the Inside Passage and listened to the clock ticking relentlessly in her head.

We’ll find Blackbird’s twin.

We have to.

66

DAY SIX

PORT HARDY

4:35 P.M.

The seaplane splashed down fifty yards off the breakwater that protected the boat basin at Port Hardy. In choppy water, the plane taxied to the aviation section of the fuel docks. The pilot went to work filling the plane’s tank and cleaning the windshield just like a ground-based gas jockey.

Emma called Faroe as soon as her hearing returned to normal.

“We’re refueling in Port Hardy,” she said quietly, relieved to be free of the hammering engine sounds. “No joy so far.”

“Frack,” Faroe muttered savagely.

“Frack?”

“I’m holding Annalise. No F-bombs allowed.”

Emma smiled, reaching for the sane and normal. “Someday soon, she’s going to ask her mommy what ‘F-bomb’ means.”

“Yeah, and by then her big brother will probably have taught her ten other nasty words, right, sweetie?”

Annalise cooed.

“She’s the only joy on my end,” Faroe said. “If Harrow’s searchers have had any more luck than St. Kilda has,