Death Echo

blackbird.”
    â€œMac—”
    â€œThe bastards sank her,” Mac said bleakly. “A fuel slick is a ship’s grave marker.”
    â€œWhat?”
    He pointed toward the plume of the fuel spill. “See that?”
    â€œYes. Smell it, too.”
    â€œFollow the slick back to its source.” And pray that I’m wrong.
    She traced the slick, saw that it led toward the mangled camouflage netting, and said, “You want to get closer.”
    â€œYeah.” He reached past her and began making the little nav computer sit up and do tricks. “Don’t worry. The slick is no worse than what you find near a fuel dock in a commercial marina.”
    â€œBeautiful.”
    â€œGo slow. I want to watch the bottom. This could be just a smokescreen. If we think Blackbird is here, we won’t look for her anywhere else.”
    Emma idled forward, following the rainbow sheen of fuel to its end, maybe fifty yards from where Blackbird had been concealed.
    Mac watched the display. The sonar gave a garish, two-toned picture of the uneven, rocky bottom. Emma crisscrossed the area, amazed to see that only a few yards away from where they had concealed Blackbird, the bottom went from seventy feet deep to three hundred.
    â€œCliffs above water usually mean steep drop-offs below,” Mac said, when she commented.
    â€œYou really think Blackbird ’s still here?” Emma asked, glancing over the side.
    Not that she could have seen bottom, with or without the shimmer of fuel. The green water was rich, nearly opaque with plankton.
    â€œEither that or there’s a petroleum pipeline running right under a nameless little dog hole, and while we were gone, the line just happened to pop a leak.”
    â€œNot likely,” she said.
    â€œNo, it—wait. Go out of gear.”
    She put the shifter in neutral and watched Mac. He gave her some terse directions and watched the wildly colorful screen. The dinghy doubled back on its course, then turned again, and again, painting images of the bottom on the screen with each yard of motion.
    â€œThere,” he said, pointing at the screen. “Bloody bastards. She was a good boat.”
    She stared at the bright colors. It was hard for her to translate them into anything useful. But that was why people hired experts.
    â€œYou’re sure,” she said. It was a statement, not a question.
    â€œShe’s sitting on her keel in one hundred and fifty-four feet of water.” He stabbed the screen with one index finger. “That’s the top of the cabin, twenty feet above the waterline—if she was floating. What I’ve had you doing is the equivalent of flying over her from bow to stern.”
    â€œGuess we’ll need that seaplane just to get home.”
    Mac grunted.
    Emma started to say something, shook her head, and tried again. “Why? Why would anyone sink millions of dollars’ worth of new yacht?”
    â€œThey didn’t need her anymore.”
    â€œIf the smugglers found out that the Agency was closing in, it’s possible that they buried the evidence and ran. But…”
    â€œBut that doesn’t explain Black Swan, the missing twin.”
    â€œYeah,” she said unhappily.
    She thought hard, fast, silently offering and rejecting explanation after explanation for the scuttling of Blackbird. None of the things that made sense gave her a smile.
    â€œMaybe Demidov got impatient,” she said finally.
    â€œWould we?”
    She sighed. “No. Maybe they’re planning to salvage her and start again. A different way of hiding her, as it were.”
    â€œA ship that has been on the bottom is pretty well ruined. You’re not going to just float her, pump her out, and take off.”
    Emma stared at the deceptively beautiful rainbows in the slick. The most likely conclusion made her stomach clench. She looked at Mac.
    He looked as grim as she felt.
    â€œYou’re thinking what I don’t want to think,” she said
    â€œI’m not real happy about it, either.”
    â€œIt’s a crazy idea. Premature. Unsupported.”
    â€œAnd it fits the facts as we know them,” he said bleakly. “You can paint over almost every color hull but black.”
    â€œI didn’t know that.”
    â€œIt comes as a surprise to a lot of people.” He shrugged. “You want to call or should I?”
    â€œI will.”
    She dug out her phone, hit speed