Emma felt the same way.
And she was tired of it.
“St. Kilda can track us by our special phones, right?” she asked Grace.
Mac looked at Emma, smiled, then started laughing. When it came to tactics, partnering with her was like looking in a mirror.
It was time for the other side to work blind.
“What’s the joke?” Grace asked.
“Can you find us by our phones?” Mac asked.
“Yes.”
“Good,” Emma said, watching Mac. “Because in a few minutes, Blackbird is going stealth.”
53
DAY FIVE
NORTH OF CAMPBELL RIVER
10:15 A.M.
A single locator says Blackbird hasn’t left Discovery Harbor,” One said. “The other locator is dead.”
Tim Harrow looked at the hard, well-built man known only as “Team One” or “One.” The other team members were also known by a numeric designation.
Don’t ask.
Don’t tell.
“One” was the leader of the team of five that had met him at public docks connected to a small, deserted resort/campground. The nearby, popular Blind Channel resort obviously siphoned off all the business. At this time of year, the ratty public docks were ignored. In any case, most cruisers were in their winter docks by mid-September. Harrow’s team had told him that fall weather was notoriously unpredictable in northern B.C.
It was hard to believe that today. Steady breeze, a few clouds, water like blue glass with artistic ripples here and there to keep things from being boring. Ringing it all was the endless mixed forest, green on green.
“Thank you, One,” Harrow said. “Let me know the instant that changes.”
“Sir.”
The man went back to his team. Part of the team was aboard the Summer Solstice, a sixty-foot power boat. The rest was in the Zodiac that served as the larger boat’s tender.
Harrow had no doubts about the competence of the team. He’d never met a group of better conditioned, smarter men in his life. Seasoned, too. All of them looked to be in their mid-thirties.
Or maybe they’re in their twenties with a lot of mileage on them, Harrow thought. Hope this assignment doesn’t pile on more.
What the hell are Emma and Durand doing on Blackbird? Polishing the decks with their tongues?
Harrow pulled out his special cell phone. Good satellite signal. He punched in Joe Faroe’s number.
“Who are you?” asked a male voice.
“Emma Cross used to work for me,” Harrow said.
“I care about that because…?”
“She’s working for you and St. Kilda Consulting now.”
Silence.
“Look, Faroe,” Harrow said impatiently. “Blackbird is sitting dead in the water in Campbell River and I want to know what the hell is going on. The clock is running hard. You know it. I know it. Cut the bullshit.”
At the other end of the connection in Rosario, Faroe kicked back in the uncomfortable motel chair and thought hard. Part of him and all of Steele had been expecting this.
And most of Faroe had hoped they both were wrong.
“What do you want?” Faroe asked.
“Blackbird at the coordinates I’ll give you. And I want her there fast.”
“If you don’t get what you want?”
“St. Kilda Consulting is out of business. Permanently.” Harrow listened to the silence stretch. “Look, we’re taking over the running of the op. Help us and you’re golden. If you get in our way—”
“Yeah,” Faroe cut in, “I heard you the first time.” He paused, thought of Alara, and wished he felt better about cutting in a third party. Or was it a fourth?
“Faroe?”
“Give me the coordinates,” he said curtly. “Then call me back in ten minutes.”
As soon as Harrow gave the numbers the connection went dead.
Faroe, you son of a bitch, you’re everything your file told me to expect.
54
DAY FIVE
DISCOVERY PASSAGE
10:21 A.M.
Seymour Narrows was behind them. It had been a treacherous surge and boil of cold green and nearly black water sucking around Blackbird. They had powered through the rough, heavy currents and tidal whorls without waiting for slack water, something that many pleasure boats couldn’t or wouldn’t do.
It had been an exhilarating ride. Once Emma had realized that Mac was watchful rather than worried, she had enjoyed the feel of Blackbird meeting conditions that changed from second to second. She was discovering that she liked challenging water.
“I keep thinking the boat should feel lighter after you off-loaded all that junk,” Emma said.
“Locator bugs don’t weigh much.”
“Still…Do you think they’re waterproof?”
“I think the plastic bag I tacked below the edge of the dock will get wet whenever a big enough boat goes by.”
“But until then,” she said, “the bugs will send reassuring signals of Blackbird tied to the dock in Discovery Harbor, Campbell River, B.C.”
“Too bad it isn’t true. That was the most fun I’ve ever had in Discovery Harbor.”
She didn’t hide the grin that spread over her face. “No wonder yachting is so popular.”
Mac made a sound of strangled laughter. “Never heard it called that before.”
“My turn,” she said, reaching for the wheel.
“You said that last night.”
She gave him a sideways look. “Turn about and all that.”
“Did I complain?” He turned the wheel over to her.
“Is that what all the groaning was?”
“So I’m noisy. Sue me.”
“I’d rather take you to the stateroom and—” she began.
Both their cell phones rang.
“I’ll get mine,” he said. “Let yours go. This water can shove you around before you know what’s happening.”
Emma eyed the deceptively calm surface of a huge circle of water nearby and kept both hands on the wheel. After the openness of the Strait of Georgia, Discovery Passage was like running upstream against a cold, deep, muscular river.
“Mac here,” he said into his phone.
Emma’s phone stopped ringing instantly. She didn’t like thinking about what might be important enough for St. Kilda to light up both of their phones at the same time.
“Faroe. Is Emma nearby?”
“Yes,” Mac said.
“Put your phone on speaker. It will save time.”
“On speaker…now.”
“Okay. You both hear me?” Faroe asked.
“Yes,” they said together.
“A man called Timothy Harrow—” Faroe said.
“Oh shit,” Emma said.
“—called. I guess Emma knows him,” Faroe said.
“We worked together when I was new to everything spooky,” she said. “We worked real close for a few months, but he didn’t wear well.”
“It took about thirty seconds for me,” Faroe said.
“You’re a man. If he’d been a hot woman, I wouldn’t have been in the same room with him for longer than it took to say good-bye.”
Faroe laughed.
Mac shook his head.
“Did good old Tim tell you anything we didn’t already know?” Emma asked.
“Nope,” Faroe said. “According to him, we have no need to know.”
“Okay. This really is an official cluster,” she said. “What little gems did he share with you?”
“Harrow, who never admitted to being with the Agency—”
Emma made a rude sound.
“—told us that it’s all very hush-hush, Canada isn’t in on the whisper circuit, and there could be some heavy lifting ahead. So St. Kilda is supposed to shut up, get down with the opposition, and report every little fart and burp to Harrow, who, by the way, is now running this op.”
Emma shook her head.
“Bullshit,”
Mac said.
“He’s high on the crap quotient,” Faroe agreed. “But he’s in charge.”
“What?” Mac demanded.
“I’ll bet Harrow made an offer St. Kilda couldn’t refuse,” Emma said. “Like Alara.”
“Pretty much,” Faroe said. “When Steele told her about the new player, Alara started speaking in foreign tongues, and I’m betting she wasn’t describing flowers. Steele stuck to Urdu, which means we’re well and truly in the toilet, and someone is fondling the flush lever.”
“Can we trust Harrow?” Mac asked her.
“Depends,” Emma said. “He’s real far up the feeding chain, not like I was. I was a regular mushroom—kept in the dark and fed horse apples. I got tired of it and left the Agency.”
“If Harrow is high on the food chain, I don’t trust him,” Mac said.
“That’s my boy,” Faroe agreed. “Steele is the only Big Man In Charge I trust, period. And some days, I wonder about even him. He’s had a rough day or two. We had a rescue operation go south. Everyone got out alive, but not without blood. Shit happens and all that.”
“Emma, would you trust Harrow as a working partner?” Mac asked.
Silence, then, “He knows where a lot of bodies are buried, and he’s buried a few on our side. If I had a choice about trusting him, I’d keep him in front of me.”
“But we don’t have a choice,” Mac said. “And we don’t trust him.”
“Amen,” she said beneath her breath.
“You can be as touchy-feely as you like with him,” Faroe said, “but he’s giving the orders. He made that deadly clear.”
“What does he want?” Emma asked.
“You and Mac at the following coordinates, and he wants it all yesterday.”
Mac wrote while Faroe read numbers.
“Oh,” Faroe added. “He thinks you’re still in Campbell River.”
“We are,” Emma said instantly.
“I’ve been chasing electrons,” Mac added.
“Any luck?” Faroe asked. “I hear they’re quick little buggers.”
“I’ve caught enough that we can be at Harrow’s coordinates between one and two this afternoon. More or less.”
“Depending on weather, and we won’t know until we get there, right?” Emma added.
“Harrow is going to have a litter of green lizards,” Faroe said.
“Sweet. I’ll make a video and put it on YouTube,” she said.
“Does Steele care how we deal with Harrow?” Mac asked.
“Short of getting caught committing murder, no,” Faroe said. “What do you have in mind?”
“If I tell you,” Mac said, “St. Kilda Consulting will be responsible for my actions. If I don’t tell you, then you have a rogue agent causing you grief, and really, who can blame you for what you can’t control? It’s called deniability. The Agency should understand.”
Emma gave Mac a sidelong look.
“Don’t get caught,” Faroe said, and disconnected.
55
DAY FIVE
NEAR DISCOVERY PASSAGE
11:30 A.M.
Dragging chain behind it, Blackbird’s anchor dropped out of sight in the cold green water.
“I can’t see any docks,” Emma said.
“We’re more than a crow-flying mile from Harrow’s coordinates.”
“I’m pulling out my chowder recipe and wondering how small I’ll have to chop a tough clam like you.”
The look in Emma’s eyes told Mac that he could tell her what he had in mind, or find a new first mate.
“If I don’t tell you—” he began.
“That’s bullshit, Mac. Just bullshit. I’m with you all the way to the guillotine.”
He blew out an unhappy breath. “The only thing we have that everybody wants is the Blackbird.”
She nodded.
“We’re going to hide her before I go—”
“We,” she said curtly.
“—to meet Harrow.”
“News flash. The Agency has more than one satellite in orbit. No matter where we park Blackbird, the Agency geeks will be able to count the hawseholes on this baby’s stern.”
“That’s where the yowie suit comes in.”
“How is putting you in a ghillie suit…” Her eyes widened. “Jesus, Mac. You really think we can hide Blackbird from the Eyes in the Sky?”
“I think we’re going to try. You have a better idea?”
Emma smiled, then she laughed out loud, a full belly laugh that made Mac join in.
“We’re crazy, you know that,” she said when she had her breath back.
“Or maybe we’re the only sane ones in the asylum.”
“Chilling thought. So you bought enough netting to make a ghillie suit for Blackbird?”
“Not one that I’d trust my life to.”
“But one that’s good enough for government work? A lunch-hook job, as it were.”
“Yes.”
Not knowing whether to laugh some more or shake her head, Emma followed Mac out onto the deck. The air was cooler here, the quality of the water seemed different, and the forest mix had changed—only a handful of leafy trees against an endless brocade of mixed evergreens.
Well, not endless, she thought wryly.
Beyond a decorative ribbon of forest perhaps fifty feet deep along the waterline, the rugged land rose in a stark scenery made of stumps, rock, and dirt—hallmark of recent logging. The green waterline ribbon hanging over gray rock cliffs made the newly exposed dirt look naked, almost embarrassed.
“It may not be pretty,” Mac said, “but the industrial harvesting means that tourists won’t be coming up here for a few years.”
His voice came from the flying bridge, yet way to the stern, rather than the bow, as she expected.
“What are you doing?” she called up.
“Launching the dinghy.”
A gust of wind made the green ribbon of trees sway. Water lifted and whispered against rocky bluffs and sheer, high cliffs.
“Wait,” she said. “I want to learn how.”
“Sure. I don’t mind missing our mandated time and putting Harrow’s knickers in a twist.”
“I’m not that slow,” she said, bounding up the stairs.
“No, but his, um, knickers are easily twisted.”
“I thought you didn’t know him.”
“I know the type of person who wears thin after a short time,” Mac said.
Wind gusted, held, gusted again, then settled to a steady rush of air over land and water. Blackbird swayed lightly.
Mac showed her the electric swing-arm controller that would lower the dinghy into the water. With easy motions, he put the dinghy’s lifting straps in the steel ring at the end of the arm’s steel line, released the dinghy restraints, and talked Emma through the process of launching the dinghy.
“RIB?” she asked. “As in military usage?”
“Rigid, inflatable boat.”
“Gotcha.”
She was a quick study. Before the dinghy was all the way down, she had a feel for the changing dynamic of swing arm and wind. The dinghy met the water with a delicate splash.
“Good,” Mac said. “Now bring in the arm so I can tie the dinghy to Blackbird.”
Emma looked over the edge of the upper aft deck, waited until the dinghy was tethered, and asked, “You want to take it off the lifting tackle now?”
“Yes. Give me a foot of line.”
The lifting arm spit out a bit of steel cable, Mac unhooked the tackle from three rings on the dinghy, and told Emma to bring it up.
“Slow!” he said, ducking the swinging, heavy snap rings at the end of the lifting tackle.
“Sorry.”
“No problem. When the cable is in, unhook the tackle and stow it in the box to your left. Then—real carefully—pull the controller plug out of its socket and stow the controller on top of the straps for now.”
Emma struggled a bit with the trio of straps and the heavy snap ring
on the lift arm, but got everything put away as Mac wanted.
“Ready,” she said.
“Put on something with long sleeves and legs. Gloves, if you have some. We’ve got some brush to cut before we’re done.”
She looked over the side. Mac was loading an ax, a pruning saw, a big reel of green netting, and a bunch of spare netting into the dinghy.
“Now what?” she asked.
“We back Blackbird in there.”
He pointed over his shoulder at a small indentation in the shoreline close to where they had anchored. The little “dog hole” was nearly concealed by the buffer of trees and brush that arched out over it like a lanai.
“It won’t fit,” she said flatly.
“Like I said last night, trust me.”
She shut up.
For a minute.
“Is that hole deep enough?” she asked.
Mac’s laughter floated up.
“MacKenzie, get your mind out of your pants!”
“Don’t worry, babe. I can multitask. The water next to the rock face is thirty feet deep. More than enough ‘hole.’”
“Whatever you say, Captain Babe.”
“Change clothes, then come down here and hold the dinghy while I back Blackbird into the hole.”
Emma heard the big engines fire up while she pulled on long pants and a long-sleeved T. By the time she stepped out onto the deck, Mac had the pod control in his hand and was heading for the bow. He worked the foot pedal to ease out anchor chain and backed Blackbird with the pod control at the same time.
He wasn’t kidding about multitasking, she thought.
“Bring the dinghy forward as I back us in,” he said, without looking away from the stern of Blackbird.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
And she meant it. No sarcasm, no joke. The man was damn good with a boat.
She dragged the dinghy alongside Blackbird in the water until she was at the bow. “This is as far as the dinghy goes.”
“Good. I’m backing in.”
Mac touched the throttle, let off, touched, let off, until Blackbird slowly, carefully, backed into its rocky berth. Tree limbs, saplings, and springy, low-growing brush gave way, then flowed back over the boat like water. When the swim step was about ten feet from shore, he put the pod controls in neutral and dumped a hundred feet of anchor chain down on the bottom to hold the boat.
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