Death Echo

he’s sitting on it.”

“I hope he gets hemorrhoids. Mac says we’ve covered all the back ways up to the Queen Charlotte Sound and back down to twenty miles below Campbell River.”

Mac reached for the phone.

Emma gave it to him.

“Mac, here,” he said. “I gather you’ve come up as empty as we have.”

“Double handful of F-bombs.”

Mac shook his head. “As far as we can tell, no Blackbird twin has turned off through the Thurlows or gone sneaking around the back side of Quadra. Do you have any contacts other than Harrow and Alara?”

“Steele knows Harrow’s boss.”

“Twist his nuts,” Mac said.

“Already done. No go. Until everyone at the top of the feeding chain is dead-solid certain that Harrow can’t get the job done before the bad news sails into Seattle, we’re stuck up north sucking the Devil’s, uh, thumb.”

Annalise burbled in the background.

Mac smiled despite the anger, fear, and sheer frustration raging beneath his calm surface.

“If the Agency lets it all hang out in public,” Emma said impatiently, reclaiming the phone, “everyone’s lifetime of experience, decades of effort, overt and covert contacts, and international knowledge in general is in the sewer or dead by execution. If the top of the food chain keeps a lid on Blackbird, they might survive, and with them whatever ops and covert sources they have running outside this one particular op. For them, it’s not just careers at stake. It’s actual human lives overseas. Until they’re certain there’s no other way out, they’ll zip it and keep it zipped. This can’t be news to anyone with the IQ of a pile worm.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Faroe shot back.

“Did somebody ask you to?”

Faroe said something Annalise wasn’t supposed to hear. Then, “You sound like Grace.”

“Thank you.”

There was the rush of Faroe releasing a long breath. “Sorry. Last few hours, my AQ is off the charts.”

“AQ?”

“Asshole Quotient.”

He disconnected.

Emma looked at the phone with a bemused expression.

“What?” Mac asked.

“My boss just apologized. To me.”

“Savor it,” he said absently.

She followed his glance. He was watching the fuel dock where boats orbited like moths waiting for their chance in the flames.

“What?” she asked.

“Having a ‘duh’ moment,” he said.

“Speak.”

“Assume Swan came off a compliant containership somewhere between Southeast Alaska and the northern tip of Vancouver Island.”

“Where we are now.”

Mac nodded. “When I picked up Blackbird, she had about enough fuel to make Rosario, if I trusted the sight gauges.”

Emma cocked her head and listened.

“But I know better than to trust anything coming right off a containership,” Mac said, “so I got some reliable fuel aboard before I ran to Rosario.”

“That’s where I met you. At the fuel dock.”

He turned and smiled. “Sometimes a man gets lucky. Real lucky.”

“So does a woman. Which leaves us with a probably thirsty Swan somewhere between way north and here.”

“Port Hardy is a magnet.”

“Why?” she asked, looking around at the unassuming little harbor.

“First reliable fuel-”

“You keep mentioning ‘reliable,’” she interrupted.

“Some places don’t sell enough fuel to keep their storage tanks clean.”

She started to ask another question but didn’t. The intricacies of good diesel fuel weren’t her problem. Yet.

“North coast of B.C. has some of the first reliable fuel after crossing Queen Charlotte Sound from Alaska,” Mac said.

“Or being off-loaded from a container ship at sea. Is that possible, by the way?” she asked. “Off-loading at sea?”

“Depends. If the weather is decent, and the container ship’s deck crane operator is mostly sober, you can off- load a boat like Blackbird pretty much where you want to. Takes maybe half an hour.”

“What about all the outfitting that was done in Rosario?” she asked.

“They’ve had a year to work on Swan. They could have done it in pieces without making any waves at all.”

“But no matter what,” she said, “if Swan was off-loaded north of here, she would likely make a call at Port Hardy?”

Mac nodded. “I’m going to talk to the fuel jockey.”

She fell in step beside him. “If Port Hardy is such a magnet, what makes you think anyone would remember a single boat?”

“The opposition made a mistake when they stole a beautiful, black-hulled ship. She’s memorable.”

“And can’t be painted over.”

“Nearly impossible. Besides”-he shrugged-“despite being a magnet, the amount of traffic Port Hardy sees isn’t spit compared to Port of Vancouver or Elliott Bay. The farther north you go, the smaller civilization becomes, until a handful is a crowd.”

“We’re grabbing at straws, aren’t we?”

“Depends.”

She sighed. “Next to what we have, straws look like logs.”

“Pretty much.”

Mac and Emma closed in on the lean woman who was giving orders while a younger man pumped fuel into boats as fast as the fat, heavy hoses allowed. Emma let Mac engage the woman-the owner, as she quickly pointed out to him-in talk about grades and purity of fuel, virtues of gas versus diesel, various filters, taxes, taxes on taxes, licensing fees, environmental fees and restrictions, fishing restrictions, the silliness of sailboats in a place when the wind was rarely constant, and the weather. In between words, the owner was directing her dockhand.

By the time Mac and the owner got around to yachts coming and going, Emma was having a hard time swallowing all her yawns.

“…and a black hull. Seen anything like that?” Mac asked.

Emma snapped into focus and mentally reviewed the past few sentences. Mac had been describing Blackbird.

The owner removed a grubby fishing cap, scratched through an explosion of silver hair, and said, “Matter of fact, the cousin you’re asking about came through here around dawn today. Made such a fuss, I opened the fuel dock early.”

“Yeah?” Mac said idly, but his eyes were like black ice. “He have his wife with him?”

“Didn’t see her. There was another man, though. Maybe it was a different boat.”

Mac shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Sounds like my dear old cuz. He takes buddies fishing a lot. Leaves the wife behind. Pisses her off, I’ll tell you.”