Death Echo

The radar didn’t have a problem. It showed an endless gold mass stretching across the western half of the screen. Occasionally, just at the edge of the inlet where the waves weren’t nearly as big, she saw a separate flicker that was Demidov’s boat.

Death echo.

“Okay, Mac. We’re going to see if we can’t make that name come true.”

She picked up the dangling microphone and switched to 64.

“Hello?” she asked raggedly. “Anyone there?”

“Black Swan?” came the instant answer.

Demidov.

“Here,” Emma said. “What s-should I d-do? The waves are b-big and the rain and Mac-” Her voice broke. It wasn’t difficult to sound shaky, a woman in over her head, at the edge of drowning.

“Turn the wheel toward the light I’ll show you.”

“S-sure…”

After a few moments, she saw a faint flicker, like a flashlight whose illumination was being blotted out between waves.

“I s-see you,” she said in relief.

“Very good. Be calm. You will be safe. When you get close, we’ll go farther into the harbor, where it isn’t as rough.”

Emma made a panicked sound and let the hand microphone drop and dangle noisily, banging against the console.

She’d heard all she needed to.

“This is it, Mac. Wish us luck.”

Silence answered her.

Waves humped up beneath Blackbird’s stern, but rarely came apart in a thunder of foam anymore. The swells pushed the boat toward shore with a surge and a swoosh, almost like surfing. She kept Blackbird’s speed up, but was careful not to overrun the waves. Childhood boating on the Great Lakes had taught her the dangers of dropping off a wave too fast and burying the bow in the water. It was a sure way to flip a craft end over end.

Kayaks could recover.

Blackbird wouldn’t.

Mac lay on the varnished teak floor, half-wedged beneath the dinette, unmoving except for the boat’s motions.

“Mac?”

In the past thirteen minutes she’d called his name many times. He hadn’t answered then. He didn’t answer now.

The only way she knew he was still alive was the continued, slow ooze of blood onto the polished teak floor.

She talked to him anyway.

“Faroe keeps calling. I suppose I should answer, but really, what is there to say? It either works or it doesn’t. If it does, he can fire me at his leisure. If it doesn’t…well, it won’t be my problem anymore. Or yours. That’s all I’m really sorry about. You didn’t get a vote. You deserve at least that. You’re a good man, MacKenzie Durand. The best. I waited a lifetime to find you.”

Mac didn’t answer.

She didn’t expect him to.

Windshield wipers kept the glass clear for about one second. She looked down at the radar screen that overlaid the nav chart.

“Won’t be long now. That echo is less than half a mile away. No lights showing but for the flashlight popping in and out. We don’t even have that. We’re an accident waiting to happen.”

She laughed.

The sound made her skin crawl. She swallowed hard, fighting to keep it together for a few more minutes.

A wave began breaking sooner than she’d expected. She pulled back on the throttles, then speeded up as another swell arrived. This close to shore the waves were losing any rhythm. Rollers slammed into cliffs, reverberated, and sent part of their force back out to sea, meeting incoming waves. Sometimes this had the effect of smoothing the water. Sometimes it made everything worse. Most of the time it was just an unpredictable mess of conflicting forces.

The echo on the screen came closer, closer, closer.

“Black Swan! Black Swan! Steer to the right of us!” Demidov yelled through the radio. “And slow down!”

Emma jerked the wheel as though to avoid the boat she still couldn’t see with her eyes. Abruptly she pulled back on the throttles. That should make whoever was aboard the other boat feel better.

For about five seconds. Four. Three.

Two.

“Turn more!” the radio screamed.

One.

Now.

She jerked the wheel back toward the other boat and slammed the throttles to the max. Blackbird heeled, then roared forward. The radar echo leaped closer. On the next sweep it would merge with Blackbird.

“So what are you made of, Demidov?” she asked. “Will you die with your bomb like a soldier or jump and swim like a mercenary?”

Blackbird lurched, a horrible sound came from the bow, and something holding a flashlight spun aside, then vanished beneath the wild water.

No more sounds came from the radio.

She slowed Blackbird, turned back toward the open sea, and searched the radar and the water as she retraced her course. All she saw was the pale outline of a boat.

Upside down.

She firewalled the throttles and headed back out to sea, angling so that she could meet the waves and still put Vancouver Island behind her, racing for the international boundary, expecting each second to be her last.

Just a few miles.

Just a few.

After several miles she relaxed her grip on the wheel; if Demidov had carried a radio trigger, he wasn’t using it. There were no ships in sight, no one else at immediate risk. The international boundary was close.

Fingers shaking, she punched in St. Kilda’s number.

“Emma?” Faroe asked, a prayer in his voice.

“I sideswiped Demidov’s boat. It flipped. I didn’t look for survivors. I firewalled it. Now I’m several miles west of something called Port Renfrew. If you can’t reach me, call the Canadians. Mac needs help now.”

“Keep on your course. We’re closer than any Canadian boat. You’ll hear a helicopter real soon. Stay on the phone. Someone will give you instructions.”

“Send a medic down the rope first. Mac needs…needs…”

“We’re coming, Emma. We have you on radar. Hang on.”

Emma wrapped her hands more tightly around the wheel.

And hung on.

79

THREE DAYS LATER