about taking Blackbird home, ask now.”

She could barely hear him. His voice was nothing but a harsh whisper.

“I’m good,” she said, “but you-”

Emma grabbed the wheel as Mac slumped back against the pilot seat. He kept on sliding, thumping down until he was stretched out on the wooden flooring between the sofa and dinette.

Quickly she bent, found the pulse in his neck, yanked off a sofa cushion and wedged it beneath his feet. There was no time to do more. The motion of the ship had become erratic.

Blackbird had fallen off the sweet spot.

Clenching her teeth, she took the wheel and tried to hold the yacht on course. No matter how hard she worked, she couldn’t get the bow headed in the right direction at the right time. The ride became a brain-bashing, stomach-wringing, arm-yanking roll, lurch, climb, lurch, roll, fall, lurch, until the world was nothing but the scream of wind and hammering of waves.

How did Mac do it with only one hand?

Amphetamines were good, but not that good, especially when fighting injuries and blood loss. Mac had done what he had to so she could play Geiger games. Now he was paying the price.

So was Emma. Even without the relentless throbbing of her headache, she simply didn’t have the skill to get enough speed out of Blackbird to cling to the freighter’s radar shadow longer than a few minutes. She turned up the volume on the radio and listened, listened, listened…

The Coast Guard vessel she couldn’t see on the radar apparently couldn’t see her either. Nobody hailed her.

Using every bit of her strength and concentration, she held to the freighter’s radar shadow as long as she could. Finally she was forced to cut speed a little, then a little more. It was the only way she could begin to control Blackbird’s stubborn wheel.

She thought about the joystick and discarded the idea as quickly as it came. If it would have worked, Mac would have used it.

The big freighter pulled away, leaving Blackbird alone on a lightless sea.

She fumbled her cell phone out. The screen was cracked and the battery was low. It would have to do. She couldn’t leave the wheel long enough to get Mac’s. The ride was easier now that she had cut back speed, but it wasn’t that easy.

She punched a button.

“What’s up?” Faroe’s voice demanded.

Blackbird’s hot, wired to blow,” she said tersely. “Mac is alive, but down. Amphetamine crash and blood loss. I’m going to head straight out to sea, deepest water I can find, and-”

The sudden crackle of the radio overrode her words. “Black Swan, Black Swan, switch to six-four.”

The call repeated several times.

“It has to be Demidov,” she said to Faroe. “No one else knows about Blackbird’s twin.”

“Find out what he wants.”

Numbly Emma fumbled with the radio until she had switched channels. “Black Swan here. Who are you?”

“Someone who understands the radiant core of your problem,” Demidov said.

Beautiful. Just fucking beautiful.

She hissed out her breath between her teeth, then put an edge of hysteria in her voice.

“You do? Then help me! Mac slipped and knocked himself out and the water’s awful and I keep throwing up and I have to steer and I don’t know how!”

The last words were a definite wail.

“Be calm,” Demidov said. “Angle the bow east, toward shore. I’ll meet you and bring you in. Everything will be fine. Just do as I tell you. In fifteen minutes you’ll see me.”

“R-really?” Emma asked, throwing in a sniff.

“Of course. You’re only fifteen minutes from safety. Come to me. I will help you.”

“Oh, God. Thank you, I’m so-” She banged her fist against a window, yelped, and bashed the radio on the wheel. “Damn this cord! It keeps-”

Emma switched to an inactive channel and let the microphone dangle from its cord. “Okay, we’re alone again.”

“Do you believe Demidov?” Faroe asked.

“Do I have a choice other than going toward shore?” she asked in her normal voice. “Obviously Demidov has a locator bug aboard Blackbird. We have to assume that he also has a radio trigger for the bomb.”

Silence, a curse. “Agreed.”

“I can’t outrun a radio signal,” she said. “If I head for deeper water and Demidov hits the button, likely at least one freighter will be taken out with us. Same thing if you call in the Coasties who almost caught us.”

“Agreed.”

“But if I go toward shore, there’s at least a chance I can catch Demidov off guard. Each time we’ve been in contact with him, I’ve been in arm-candy mode. He thinks I’m dumber than tofu.”

Faroe grunted.

“If I can’t get the job done,” Emma said, “you and Harrow will have time to set up an ambush and take Blackbird out before Demidov gets to Seattle.”

“What makes you think Demidov will wait until then to pull the trigger?”

“He wants a big American city to hold hostage, not a nameless hunk of Canadian coast. Publicity is the whole point of ops like this.”

“Can you disarm the bomb?” Faroe asked.

She laughed a little wildly. “Can you beam bomb techs aboard?”

“Do you know how to sink Blackbird?”

“Hit a big rock. No rocks around here. I’m miles offshore.”

“Can you launch the dinghy?” he asked.

“Alone? In this water?” She laughed again, then stopped. She really didn’t like the sound of it. “Even if I could, and I somehow managed to drag Mac aboard, my fifteen minutes would be more than gone. Then Mac and I would get one hell of a sendoff.”

“How long has Mac been out?”

“Not long enough to recover,” she said flatly. “He’s lost too much blood. If he hasn’t already gone into shock, he’s headed there on a fast train. I’ve done what I can, but somebody has to be at the wheel all the time.”

Faroe said something blistering.

She laughed oddly. “Good-bye, Faroe. It was fun while it lasted.”

“Wait! What are you going to do?”

“Find out if Demidov is a soldier or a mercenary.”

And scream.

She really wanted to do that. But if she started, she didn’t think she would stop.

78

DAY SIX

SOUTHWEST OF PORT RENFREW

9:57 P.M.

Emma strained into the darkness. If there were any lights out there, she couldn’t see them through the hammering rain.

Вы читаете Death Echo
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату