Death Echo

what Grace said.”
    â€œYeah, I’d like to have heard it. That’s a no-assing-around kind of woman.” He smiled grimly.
    â€œShe’s a former federal judge.”
    â€œMust have been hell on the bench,” Mac said.
    But they weren’t really listening to each other. He was focused on the fading sound of the Zodiac. She was frowning over the nav computer.
    The black craft roared up a different channel and vanished. The men aboard were pros. Not once did any of them look toward Mac and Emma.
    â€œHow much time before the seaplane arrives?” he asked.
    â€œAt least an hour. It will probably be flying up from Rosario or Seattle, maybe farther north if we’re lucky. The CIA has more assets to call on than St. Kilda.”
    â€œThen we have time to take a look around.”
    She shrugged. “Can’t hurt and we might even find something.”
    â€œElephants might fly.”
    â€œThought that was pigs.”
    â€œPigs are easy,” he said.
    Any other time she would have laughed. Now she just guided the little boat closer to the place where they had left Blackbird .
    â€œAt least we know odds are good it wasn’t Harrow,” Mac said. “He was too eager to co-opt us.”
    â€œWhich leaves Demidov.”
    â€œOr the mysterious, stupidly rich owner who was going to contact us somewhere along the way on this Inside Passage snipe hunt.”
    â€œIf he exists,” she said.
    â€œPlenty of stupidly rich exist. Temuri might be one of them.”
    â€œWhy would he steal his own boat?”
    â€œGood question. I’ll ask him the next time we see him.”
    While Emma motored them closer to the clutter of beached and tangled debris, Mac watched through the binoculars.
    The gillnet camouflage floated in the rocky niche like the empty cocoon of a giant insect. Lines that had secured the boat dangled uselessly in the water. Two of the lines were already beginning to unwind where they had been slashed through, removing their whipped ends.
    â€œIt looks like somebody just cut the net loose, peeled it back, cut the lines, and motored away,” Mac said. “Ten minutes work, at most.”
    Emma’s cell phone went off. It wasn’t Faroe, which left Harrow—unless somebody else had squeezed her number out of St. Kilda. She cut power and answered.
    â€œWhat,” she said curtly.
    â€œDo you expect me to believe you’ve lost that fucking boat?” Harrow yelled.
    â€œBelieve what you want. Blackbird is gone.”
    Harrow’s response told her that he had been hanging out with sailors long enough to expand his salty vocabulary.
    No news there, she thought bitterly. At least half of his team are probably SEALs. Why have water specialists if you don’t use them?
    â€œGet that goddamned boat back and do it fast,” Harrow snarled, “or I’ll hang your ass so high you’ll think you’re walking on the moon.”
    â€œWe’re working on it,” you stupid strutting bureaucrat, “which is more than you can say,” she said. “We’ll be airborne in an hour. I’m already plotting search grids. There aren’t that many places nearby where you could hide a boat as big as Blackbird . Get your satellite recon techs on it. We’ll see who finds her first.”
    She ended the call.
    â€œThat was fast,” Mac said, still studying the debris.
    â€œI don’t have to take his abuse anymore.”
    â€œI hope Harrow alerted Border Protection in the San Juan Islands,” Mac said without looking away from the binoculars. “If they’ve already loaded the currency, or whatever the goods are, Blackbird could be running for international boundary waters right now.”
    â€œYou’re back to sweet talk again.”
    â€œPushed to the firewall, Blackbird can do close to thirty knots on decent water,” Mac said. “If the captain is willing to risk running at night, he could be across the international boundary and headed for Seattle by dawn.”
    â€œDo you want to look at the crime scene or keep depressing me?”
    Mac started swearing, a toneless stream of words that made Emma wince.
    â€œWhat now?” she asked. “Did you find a nasty-gram in a floating bottle?”
    â€œOil slick ahead.”
    Emma pulled the throttle back to idle. “Will it hurt the dinghy?”
    â€œNo. It’s the death cry of a