Death Echo Read online

  “Gotta be the most boring job in the world.”

  She glanced quickly at him. “What?”

  “Driving that pig between ports. Tugs do all the fun bits close in. The ship’s captain mostly just talks on the radio.”

  She looked at the little boat that had carried her out to meet the Lotus. Twenty feet long, six feet wide and powered by two outboard engines. She touched the fabric of the Zodiac’s inflated side tube. It was only slightly thicker than the rubberized off-shore suit she wore. All that supported the boat was the breath of life, twenty pounds per square inch of air pressure.

  And one of the biggest ships ever built was bearing down on them, carrying bad news in the shape of a yacht called Blackbird.

  She lifted the binoculars again. The huge ship overwhelmed her field of view. Everything was a fast-forward slide show. Stacks of shipping containers in various company colors. The windshield of the bridge deck. The hammerhead crane next to the forward mast.

  The black-hulled yacht perched in a cradle on top of stacks of steel boxes.

  Hello, Blackbird. So you made it.

  If that’s really you.

  “How close can you get to the Lotus?” she asked.

  “How close do you need?”

  She pulled a camera from the waterproof bag at her feet. Unlike the binoculars, the camera had a computerized system to keep the field of view from dancing with every motion of the boat.

  “I have to be able to see detail on a yacht sitting on top of the containers. A two-hundred-millimeter lens is the longest I have.”

  That and intel satellite photos, courtesy of Uncle Sam. Too bad I don’t really trust Alara.

  For all Emma could prove, the photos St. Kilda had been given could have been taken on the other side of the world a year ago. Or three years. Or twelve. Not that she was paranoid. It was just that she preferred facts that she’d checked out herself. Thoroughly. Recently.

  “Two-hundred-millimeter lens.” Josh whistled through his teeth and narrowed his eyes. “And the lady wants details.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  He held up one finger. “That great pig up ahead is throwing a ten-foot bow wave.” A second finger uncurled. “The Coast Guard patrol boats would be on us like stink on a cat box. After 9/11, they lost their sense of humor about bending the rules.”

  No news there for Emma. “You saying it can’t be done?”

  “Depends. How bad do you want to swim or go to jail?”

  “Not so much, thanks.” She let out a long breath and reminded herself that impatience was a quick way to die, and she was chasing nothing more dangerous than luxury yachts.

  At least she had been, until Alara appeared like a puff of darkness.

  “I can wait until the tugs are nudging that ‘great pig’ against a dock,” Emma said.

  “If you’re working on a really short clock,” Josh said, “I’ll be glad to take a run at the Lotus right now.” He grinned suddenly. “It beats my usual gig—hauling seasick tourists out to chase whales.”

  She thought about it, then shook her head. “It’s not life or death.”

  I wish.

  She laughed silently, bitterly. That was why she’d quit the CIA and taken an assignment from St. Kilda to investigate yacht thefts. No alarms with this job. No adrenaline exploding through her body.

  No blood.

  No guilt.

  And best of all, no corrupt politics.

  Guess again, she told herself. Then get over it.

  “Back to shore?” Josh asked. “Not yet. Keep the Lotus in sight while you give me a sightseeing tour of the famous and beautiful Elliott Bay.”

  “Legal distance maintained at all times?”

  “Until I say otherwise.”

  2

  DAY ONE

  ELLIOTT BAY

  AFTERNOON

  Standing on top of seventy-foot-high stacks of containers, with only the unforgiving steel deck below to catch him, MacKenzie Durand wrestled with the cargo sling that would lift the yacht off Shinhua Lotus. He looked up to the glassed-in cab of the deck crane, where the operator was waiting for directions.

  Hope he knows what he’s doing, Mac thought as he held up his right hand and made a small circle in the air. Sign language for giving more slack to the cable that held the lifting frame.

  The operator dropped the frame six inches at a time until Mac’s hand clenched into a fist.

  The cable stopped instantly.

  Damn, but it’s sweet to work with professionals, Mac thought as he began positioning the sling on the yacht’s black, salt-streaked hull. The man in the cab might be a miserable son of a bitch who beat his wife and was an officer in the most corrupt labor union on the waterfront, but when he was at the controls of his pet hammerhead crane, he could be as sure and gentle as a mother cradling a newborn.

  Mac manhandled a wide strap into position just ahead of the spot on the hull where twin prop housings on Blackbird thrust out like eggbeaters. Lift points were crucial in controlling a vessel that weighed almost thirty tons.

  Besides, if anything went wrong, he was going to be splat on ground zero. He’d been there, done that, and vowed never to be there again. He’d been the lucky one who survived.

  At least he had been told that he was the lucky one. After a few years, he even believed it. During daylight.

  At night, well, night was always there, waiting with the kind of dreams he woke from cold, sweating, biting back howls of fury and betrayal.

  Long ago and far away, Mac told himself savagely. Pay attention to what’s happening now.

  When he was satisfied with the position of the lifting strap, he signaled the crane operator to pick up cable. The frame went from slack to loaded. The aft strap was in front of the propellers and the forward strap was even with the front windshield. Both straps visibly stretched as the overhead cable tightened.

  Just before Blackbird lifted out of its cradle, Mac clenched his fist overhead. Instantly the crane operator stopped bringing in cable.

  Mac checked everything again before he scrambled up the ten-foot ladder that stood against the swim step at the stern of the yacht. When he was aboard Blackbird, he gave the crane operator a palm-out hand signal with fingers spread.

  Take a break, five minutes.

  The operator nodded and reached for a cigarette.

  A Lotus deckhand appeared and took the ladder away from the yacht’s swim step.

  Mac opened the salon door and went inside. He had been a professional transport skipper for five years. He was regularly dropped on the deck of a boat he had never seen before and was expected to take command of immediately. Since he didn’t plan on going down with any ship, he had developed a mental checklist as rigorous and detailed as an airline captain’s.

  He liked the idea that if he died, it was his own screwup, not someone else’s.

  The engine hatch was on the main deck, just behind the pilot seat and the galley. He opened the heavy, sound-proofed hatch and secured it.

  The engines were at the stern, leaving an open area below waiting to be used for storage of extra equipment, parts, whatever—a real luxury on a forty-one-foot boat. He walked quickly through the anteroom to the engines. He had to duck a bit, but it was a lot easier access to the engines than he was accustomed to.

  The first thing on his mental list was the big batteries. He snapped on their switches and checked the output. They had kept enough charge on the ten-day trip from Singapore to start the yacht’s engines and operate its various systems.

  Next, he opened the seacocks that supplied saltwater to the cooling systems of the two shiny new diesel engines that drove the boat. Oversized engines, a special order that made for a cramped engine room.

  Gotta love those yachties with more money than sense, Mac told himself.

  Quickly but thoroughly, he checked the hose clamps on the through-hull fittings to make sure none had vibrated loose at sea. Cooling water was required. Gushers of saltwater in
the bilge weren’t.

  The through-hull fitting that normally supplied cooling water to the generator had been left open to drain rainwater or ocean spray out of the yacht during the voyage. Mac closed the seacock so the yacht wouldn’t sink minutes after it touched the waters of Elliott Bay.

  He checked the through-hull fittings for the septic and water-maker systems, then the fuel lines that fed the two six-cylinder diesel engines. He had been assured there was enough fuel aboard to make Rosario, sixty miles to the north, but he was suspicious by nature.

  It had saved his life more than once.

  A shipping crew in Singapore, where the yacht had begun its voyage, could make hundreds of dollars by shorting the fuel tanks. Mac didn’t want to come into the Rosario rigging yard at the end of a tow line.

  The sight gauges for both fuel tanks showed less than an inch of fuel.

  Ah, human nature. All for me and screw you.

  The good news was that the diesel fuel in the feed lines from the tanks looked clear. The bad news was that he would be visiting the fuel dock on the Elliott Bay waterfront.

  With quick, economical motions he checked both fuel filter housings for water.

  All good. At least the greedy sucks put in clean fuel.

  What there was of it.

  He looked carefully around the engine room. Salt water was as corrosive as acid to metal parts and systems. Even with the best care and maintenance, time and use and the sea would mark the yacht. But right now, she was bright and clean, shining with promise.

  Mac loved taking a new boat on its first real cruise. It was like meeting a really interesting woman. Challenging. That was where the reward came—getting the best out of himself and an unknown boat.

  No one else at risk, no one else to die, no one else to survive alone and sweat through nightmares the same way.

  When Mac had finished his checklist, he climbed the inner steps back up out of the engine compartment into the salon. Plastic wrapped the upholstered furnishings and protected the narrow, varnished teak planks that were technically a deck but were too beautiful to be called anything but a floor. When he closed the hatch, it fit almost seamlessly into the floor in front of the sofa.

  Opposite the sofa was another, bigger, L-shaped sofa. Nestled in the angle of the L was a teak dining table, also protected by plastic and cardboard. Polished black granite curved around the galley. It was tucked underneath wrappings. Everything was, except the wheel itself. Varnished teak gleamed with invitation.

  Mac opened the teak panel that concealed two ranks of electrical circuit breakers and meters. He noted a scratch on the inside of the door. Cosmetic, not a problem. He checked each carefully labeled meter and breaker, going down the ranks, engaging breakers and energizing the circuits he expected to need.

  The last two breakers he threw were marked Port and Starboard Engine start/stop. When he engaged them, two loud buzzers signaled that the diesels in the engine room were ready to go.

  With a final check of the batteries, he went back through the salon, into the well, and up the narrow six-step stairway to the flying bridge. He checked the switch settings on bridge controls, then lifted his hand and twirled his fingers in a tight circle.

  The overhead crane operator smoothly picked up five feet of cable, lifting the yacht up and out of its cradle. The fresh afternoon breeze off Puget Sound tried to turn Blackbird perpendicular to the container ship, but the operator had anticipated the wind and corrected for it. The overhead crane arm swung the yacht toward the huge ship’s outside rail.

  For a second Mac felt like the boat was adrift, flying. This was the part of the job he didn’t like, when he had to trust his life to the crane operator’s skill.

  He looked out over the waterfront toward the Seattle skyline beyond. The restless sound, the rain-washed city, the evergreen islands. The beautiful silver chaos of intersecting wakes—container ships, freighters, ferries, tugs, pleasure boats zipping about like water bugs.

  One of the water bugs seemed to be fascinated by the process of off-loading the yacht. Mac had seen the Zodiac while he waited for the Lotus to be nudged into its berth. The little rubber boat had weaved through the commercial traffic, circling ferries and tugs, taking pictures of everything, even the Harbor Patrol boat that had barked at it for getting too close to the Lotus.

  Sightseers, Mac thought, grateful that he no longer lived a life where the little inflatable would have been an instant threat. Sweet, innocent civilians.

  He did a quick check of the water near the container ship, where he would soon be dropped into the busy bay. A small coastal freighter, freshly loaded with two dozen containers destined for local delivery, pushed west toward the San Juan Islands. Two Washington State ferries, one inbound to Seattle and the other headed across to Bainbridge Island, were passing one another a few hundred yards to the north. A City of Seattle fireboat was making way toward its station at Pier 48, and a dozen pleasure craft of varying sizes were crisscrossing the heavily traveled waters in the afternoon sunshine.

  The black rubber Zodiac with two people aboard lay about a hundred yards offshore, bobbing and jerking in the wakes and chop. The open craft had a shiny stainless-steel radar arch and the logo of a local tour outfit. The captain and single passenger wore standard offshore gear to protect them from wind and spray in the open boat. The passenger was busy with the camera again.

  The round black eye of the long-distance lens made the fine hairs on Mac’s neck lift.

  Too many memories of sniper scopes.

  He shook off his past and watched as the crane operator delicately lowered Blackbird into the water. Mac signaled for a stop. The operator held the boat in place in the cradle, afloat but not adrift. Mac checked his instruments once more, then touched the port start button on the console.

  Beneath him, he felt as much as heard one huge engine rattle and cough. He held the switch closed while he glanced over his left shoulder toward the stern quarter of the boat. Black smoke belched, then cleared and belched again. The stuttering sound of engine ignition smoothed out into a comforting, throaty rumble.

  The starboard engine started more easily and leveled out instantly. He went to the stainless-steel railing aft of the bridge and checked. Both exhaust ports were trailing diesel smoke. Beneath it, he could see the steady flow of cooling water.

  Good to go.

  He signaled thumbs-up to the crane operator. The yacht slipped down a few more inches until the water took the full weight of the boat. Moments later the slings went slack. Then the operator let out enough cable to ease the lifting frame far enough aft that the yacht was free.

  The big power pods took over as Mac put the engine controls into forward. She felt solid. Clean. Good. A grand yacht doing what she had been designed to do. He left the joystick controls alone and worked with the old-fashioned throttle levers. Testing himself and a new control system in the busy bay was stupid. He’d try the joystick out later, when he was away from the crowds.

  Mac idled away from the container docks. He purely loved the first instants of freedom, of being responsible only for himself. Grinning, he glanced over his shoulder to check the wake.

  The black Zodiac was moving with him. No faster. No slower. Same direction. Same angle.

  The hair on Mac’s neck stirred again in silent warning.

  This time he didn’t ignore it. He got his binoculars out of the small duffel he always carried, and took a good, long look from the cover of the cabin.

  You’re being paranoid, the civilian part of himself said.

  The part of him that had been honed to a killing edge years ago just kept memorizing faces, features, and boat registration numbers.

  3

  DAY ONE

  BELLTOWN MARINA

  AFTERNOON

  Put me ashore there,” Emma said, pointing at the dock next to the Belltown Marina.

  “Isn’t your car back at—”

  “My problem, not yours,” she cut in.

 
While Josh headed for the dock, she stripped off the red Mustang suit and secured the camera in her backpack. They had wallowed behind in Blackbird’s wake for fifteen minutes, long enough for Emma to realize that solo surveillance on the water was even trickier than on city streets. Joe Faroe would be flying in as soon as he could, disguised as a tourist. Any more obvious backup for what was supposed to be an insurance investigation would send off warning bells in the wrong places.

  All she could do was pray that Alara had some trustworthy people on the ground.

  Or not.

  Leaks were something Emma didn’t want to share.

  Josh brought the Zodiac up to the hotel dock, cutting his speed at the last moment and killing all momentum with a short burst of reverse power. Emma stood poised, one foot on the black rubber gunwale, and stepped off just a second before the Zodiac touched the dock.

  “Call me if you want a different kind of tour,” Josh said, watching her hips.

  With a cheerful wave, Emma went quickly up the ramp that led to Western Avenue. As she walked, she pulled out St. Kilda’s version of a sat/cell phone. The parts she most appreciated were the long-lived battery and built-in scrambler.

  When she hit speed dial, she glanced over her shoulder. The Zodiac had backed out into open water and was now heading south, toward its dock next to the ferry terminal.

  Blackbird had turned into the marina four hundred yards to the north and disappeared.

  “Where are you and what are you doing?” her cell phone demanded.

  It had become Faroe’s standard greeting when one of his operators called in. As operations director of St. Kilda Consulting, he had a lot to do and no time to waste doing it.

  “Blackbird is on the wing,” she said, “headed for Belltown Marina.”

  “For the night?”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out.”