Death Echo

into a rough sling. She arranged it on Mac and eased his wrist into place. Since he didn’t pass out during the process, she figured the numbing shot was working. Or maybe it was the steel tool clenched between his teeth.
    He spat out the rod, caught it, then placed it carefully in the sling.
    â€œTake the wheel,” he said, grabbing the big ear protectors from the seat. One-handed, he fumbled them into place. Like Emma, he didn’t bother removing his own communications headset first. “Keep the same angle into the waves.”
    She slid by him and took over steering. She didn’t have his instinctive understanding of waves and bow angles, but she could keep Blackbird keel side down.
    She hoped.
    â€œI could use some headlights to see what’s coming,” she said.
    â€œWhy not call the Canadian Coasties while you’re at it? I don’t even have the running lights on.”
    Whatever she might have said in reply was drowned out by the blast of engine noise as Mac heaved the hatch open and secured it. He put all his weight on his left hand and dropped into the machine space. Taking a chance, he flicked on the engine-room light.
    On his left thigh, blood gleamed against his black waterproof gear and ran down his leg to the floor. More blood than he’d hoped, less than he’d feared. Either way, it was what it was.
    He limped down the passageway between the two diesel engines that were identical to the ones he’d checked out in the other Blackbird.
    One-handed, it took him three times as long to go over the engines. The fact that they were hot didn’t help, but being below waterline at least minimized the boat’s motion. Not that he didn’t burn himself more than once. Compared to what he’d already been through, the burns were nothing.
    There was a slight leak from one of the packing boxes connecting the starboard engine with the pod drive. He caught a drop of the fluid, smelled it, tasted it. Saltwater from the cooling system. It was the kind of minor leak that came with new engines and usually fixed itself.
    He went to the bulkhead wall and inspected the fuel manifold, a complicated set of high-pressure lines, gauges, and switches. Diesel engines weren’t as simple as gasoline, since diesels had a constant return flow of unused fuel. The gauges and levers told him that everything was working as expected.
    There were no big blocks of lead or gold or anything else heavy strapped along the port side of the engine room. The extra weight had to be in the port fuel tank itself.
    The big stainless-steel boxes of the fuel tanks were painted white. They were equipped with brass fittings and sight gauges that gave a direct measure of the level inside. The starboard engine registered full. So did the port.
    He rapped his knuckles against the metal sides of each tank, but couldn’t be sure of anything through the ear protectors. He pushed against the metal of the starboard tank with his left hand. It gave ever so slightly, just as he expected.
    But the port tank was like trying to flex a steel girder.
    He dragged himself back to the manifold and studied its scheme again. It took him too long to figure out what was wrong because his eyesight kept going dark at the edges. But enough blinking and squinting told him that the lines that returned unburned diesel from the engines had been rearranged. The fuel return from the port engine had been rerouted to the starboard tank.
    No wonder it didn’t take them long to refuel.
    He limped heavily to the machine space, selected a wrench, and went to work on the inspection port welded to the top of the port fuel tank. By stretching and balancing on his good leg, he could peer into the tank just enough to see red diesel fuel sloshing around.
    And bang his head a few times, making it ring along with the insidious dizziness that kept trying to bring him down.
    With a savage curse he pulled the telescoping rod out of his sling. There was a magnet on one end for retrieving tools that fell into the bilge. He didn’t need the magnet, but he needed the extending rod. After a few misses thanks to waves rolling the deck beneath his feet, and his own eyesight taking holidays, he got one end of the rod in the inspection port. He hit the button that released the sections.
    The rod went only six inches below the level of the fuel in the “full” tank.
    Mac leaned against the tank while he closed the inspection port.