Death Echo

ownership transition if you simply hijack the bitch and run for the border.”

“Possession being nine-tenths of the law.”

“Faroe knew you would understand.”

Emma laughed.

“We’ve arranged for a rental car,” Grace continued, “and silent water transportation.”

“Come again?”

“Kayaks.”

Emma made a strangled sound.

“According to your files, both you and Mac have some past experience with them,” Grace said.

“Past being the operative word.”

“Would you rather do an underwater approach? In the dark?”

“Kayaks it is,” Emma said, remembering the look of the water north of Nanaimo. “Unless Mac objects.”

“He won’t. This kind of kayak is easier to get into and out of than diving gear. The rental car papers, necessary personal items, cash, and repossession papers will be at the airport.”

“We’re on a float plane. Water, not paved runways.”

“Joe assured me that your plane does solid as well as liquid landings,” Grace said. “Call Steele when you control Black Swan masquerading as Blackbird.”

“What if-”

“Then call me.”

Grace disconnected.

68

DAY SIX

PORT RENFREW

5:25 P.M.

Lina Fredric paid the truck driver in cash, then watched as he racked the fuel hose after refueling the boat. Fuel in Port Renfrew was by arrangement only, and trucked to the water’s edge; rather like an undeveloped country or a step back in time. The tourist-oriented waterfront was the most modern element of the town. The rest was mostly shacks, rocks, evergreens, water, and the sense of a vast ocean waiting beyond the rocks guarding the harbor.

The boat Lina had rented from the friend of a cousin of a friend-or perhaps an enemy, considering the dirty interior-was topped off and ready to run. Except for having a bigger kicker and extra fuel cans lashed inside the stern gunwale, the boat was essentially like the Redhead II, with all the benefits of speed and drawbacks of a boat run by anyone with the cash to rent her.

At least the chart plotter worked. Because most users of the boat had been sport fishermen chasing salmon, radar wasn’t required. In the dense fogs that haunted the west side during summer, pleasure fishermen stayed within view of shore, or went out in packs following someone who had reliable radar.

“Well?” Demidov prodded.

Lina stepped down into the boat. “There is a light for night running, if you insist. I can’t recommend it. We have no radar.”

Demidov looked at the screen of his phone. “I’ll guide us.”

Right into a tanker, she thought sourly.

But she was through arguing with Demidov. As far as he was concerned, he had his orders, he had her, and the boat she had scrounged up was fueled and ready to go. Discussion over.

“Do we leave now?” she asked.

He looked from the numbers on his phone to the paper chart he had found aboard the Sea Tiger. The scow was more like an alley cat than a tiger, but he’d had worse transportation in his career. The van in Rosario came immediately to his mind. At least the slops bucket on the boat could be emptied overboard with each use.

“We have an opportunity for food,” Demidov said. “Is that pub still open?”

“Partially. It seems that some people will endure any kind of weather to avoid crowds. Hikers and kayakers, particularly. The fact that it’s after the first week in October and the weather is dodgy…” She shrugged. “It keeps the summer mobs away.”

Demidov glanced around. Crowd wasn’t a word he would have thought of in the same sentence as Port Renfrew. It was the end of the road. Literally. Like the car they had driven here, the town had a weary, hard-used air. He had parked the vehicle in an empty lot with keys inside. If someone wanted to steal the car, Demidov wished him luck. There was almost no petrol in the tank.

“Bring back enough food and water for a day,” he said.

Without a word, Lina climbed onto the dock and went in search of provisions. Like loose wiring, she clicked in and out of touch with reality. Constant fear was numbing.

Except when it wasn’t.

69

DAY SIX

TOFINO

6:42 P.M.

The evening air was cold, damp, with an edge that told of winter rolling down from the Aleutians. The harbor itself was slick and quiet, a black satin that reflected pieces of the pastel sky when the clouds and local lighting allowed.

The wide, blunt, plastic kayaks bobbing gently by the rental dock were a scuffed-up red. The color didn’t worry Mac or Emma. At night, red disappeared easily into black, which was why many emergency crews preferred a neon kind of yellow-green.

Mac watched the pocket harbor of Tofino with the same binoculars he had been using since dawn. Only one fuel dock was still open. It was a fairly large place with an attached store and chandlery. For someone needing fuel and charts, it was a magnet.

Emma prayed that the store and fuel would draw in Black Swan or Blackbird, whichever nameplate was on the boat. She had a legal document that allowed them to repossess Blackbird’s twin. All they had to do was sneak aboard and take over the ship.

Yeah, right.

But that was the best plan anyone had come up with. Certainly the only one that had a chance of keeping a lid on all the need-to-know-only possibilities that Blackbird was the center of.

She lifted her own binoculars and focused on the gloaming beyond the chain of islets and rocks that protected Tofino from the open ocean. If her memory still worked, another element had been added to the scene.

A spot on the horizon had become a black-hulled ship.

“Mac.”

“I see her. Damn, but she’s a pretty boat.”

“Too bad she’s gone over to the dark side.”

He smiled grimly. “We’re about to take care of that. Come on. By the time we get in position, Amanar and Lovich should be fueling.”

Emma lowered the binoculars and saw Mac frowning at the kayaks.