Death Echo (41 page)

Mac shook his head hard, trying to clear it. For a few moments the world came back into something like focus.

“We can look for radiation…with tinfoil, hair, and a comb?” he asked.

“Don’t forget the floss and tape.”

“Judas H. Priest.”

Emma ignored him, put on the ear protectors, and opened the hatch. She fell as much as used the steps to get down, but landed on her feet, head ringing like a fire alarm. She lurched into the engine room. The first pipe she tried to use as a handhold was burning hot. She patted around until she found one that wasn’t.

Crouching low, she moved the makeshift Geiger counter slowly back and forth over the port fuel tank. The foil squares didn’t fall together. She leaned in and ran her crude detector in back of the tank as well as around the sides.

Nothing.

Either the tank is clean or my cut-and-tape toy isn’t working.

Both engines revved hard.
Blackbird
lurched sideways, ripping the pipe out of her hands and throwing her off balance. She went down on her hands and knees, barely avoiding the hot exhaust stack next to the port fuel tank.

The detector fell in the bilge.

“You okay?” Mac asked through her headphones.

“Who knew that yachting was a full-contact sport?” she groaned.

“The radio is full of official chatter. Coasties are out. We have to get to the freighter before we show on anyone’s radar.”

She heard the strain in his voice as he wrestled with the wheel, trying to hold his course and still meet the oncoming waves safely.

The engines made a continuous avalanche of sound.

Carefully she fumbled beneath the port fuel tank for the detector. Despite the spinning of the shaft leading to the propeller, she managed to grope around until she found the can. Gently she pulled it toward her. But not gently enough. The two pieces of foil had touched, releasing their charge. They hung limply on their tethers. Useless.

She reached into her belly bag for the comb and began rubbing it fiercely over her clothes.

The engines thundered around her, working harder than ever.

“It’s a Canadian Coastie,” Mac said. “Looking for a yacht that called in with engine failure. At least that’s what they’re putting out for the public. Hang on!”

Mac was yelling into his mic. He knew what an engine room was like, especially at full throttle.

“No,” she said loudly. “Cut power. Cut power! Go out of gear. I might have something, but I have to go beneath the port propeller shaft to be sure. We’ve got to be sure!”

At first she thought that Mac hadn’t heard her. Or was ignoring her. She started to call out to him, to explain.

The port engine’s RPMs fell off fast. The starboard engine revved to the top of its range. Mac was compromising—she could crawl around the port side without being beaten up by moving parts, but the starboard side was working flat out.

Above her, Mac battled the ocean. “Go!” he yelled into his mic. “If
Blackbird
doesn’t meet these waves right, the salon windows will blow out. Tell me when you’re clear. Hurry!”

“Copy that.”

Emma clawed her way into position with the newly charged detector in one hand. The propeller shaft leading from the port engine was no longer spinning, but she would be thrown against a burning hot engine if she lost her footing. Completely at the mercy of chance, balance, and Mac’s skill, she bent lower. Breath held, she edged the beer-can device into the space beneath the port fuel tank, careful to avoid touching the metal bottom.

There wasn’t much light beneath the tank and sweat was running in her eyes. Impatiently she swiped her face against her arm. Blood and sweat. She’d hit her head again, but her eyes worked fine. The foil leaves danced on their threads like leaves in a breeze.

Until they collapsed.

Emma stared in horror, not wanting to believe. Deliberately she created more static with the comb, charged the leaves, and held the device beneath the engine again.

The tinfoil squares fell together.

She lunged to her feet and bolted up the machine room steps, slamming the hatch door behind her.

“I’m clear!” she yelled into her mic.

But she wasn’t.

No one was.

WEST
OF
VANCOUVER
ISLAND

9:04 P.M.

B
efore Emma careened up the stairs and slammed the hatch back down, the port engine had thundered to life again.
Blackbird
hesitated, shuddering under the blow of a big wave. Water squirted in where a salon window hadn’t been tightly closed, but the window itself stayed intact. Foam and black water sleeted across the deck.

One-handed, able to rely on only one leg, Mac fought the wheel. It was better with both engines working together again, but it wasn’t easy. Blood mixed with sweat ran down his face. He glanced at her.

“So it’s hot,” he said.

She grabbed the overhead rail. “Yes.”

The boat shifted as the wave it was climbing dropped. Lights shone through the rain and spray, filling up most of the view.

“Mac, that’s—”

“A big bastard,” he said, looking away from her. “We’re in its radar shadow. Not close enough to worry the captain. Just finding a bit of shelter from the wind, now that it has backed around.”

Mac’s voice sounded like a stranger’s, rough and blurred. He cracked his splint against the wheel, shuddered, and came into focus.

The motion of
Blackbird
had changed. It was more of a continuous climb and push from the stern. They weren’t quite riding the freighter’s bow wave, but it felt a bit like it.

“What—”

“...vessel out of Tofino, heading…”

The static made it almost impossible to understand.

“The Canadian Coasties didn’t spot us,” Mac said mechanically. “In a few minutes they’ll pass between the freighter and shore going north. We’re about half an hour from the border. If there’s anything you have to know 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.

SOUTHWEST
OF
PORT
RENFREW

9:57 P.M.

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

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.