Death Echo

over Grace’s head and said, “I’ll take it until six. You haven’t slept well since you met Alara.”
    â€œWho could?” Grace asked under her breath.
    Faroe looked at Mac. “You’ve signed on, so we can tell you why we’re after Blackbird . You can access Emma’s computer for facts, guesses, estimates, and updates about this whole nasty cluster, so I’ll give you the short form.”
    Mac measured Faroe’s grim expression and braced himself.
    â€œBlackbird is a dead ringer for Black Swan ,” Faroe said. “That yacht went missing somewhere between Vladivostok and Portland a year ago. Yet Blackbird was built from the hull up in Singapore after that and shipped safely to Elliott Bay.”
    Mac waited.
    Faroe almost smiled. The more he was around Mac, the better he liked him.
    â€œA woman who is no longer known as Alara,” Faroe said, “came to St. Kilda and requested in the most forceful possible way that we assist Uncle Sam in following Blackbird and finding out whether her hidden or intended cargo is biological, chemical, or fissionable.”
    Mac closed his eyes as his breath hissed out in a savage curse. “So this Alara woman has a network full of leaks and a stinking rose she wants pinned somewhere else. She pass along any other helpful little hints?”
    Grace smiled. “Ambassador Steele was right. You have a top quality, bottom line mind. She gave us seven days. This is day three.”
    â€œAnd after seven?”
    â€œWe risk losing a major city,” Emma said.
    Mac didn’t ask which one. No matter where this dirty deal wentdown, civilians would die. A lot of them. The fact that they were innocent wouldn’t make them any less dead.
    Seven days? Christ. Seven months wouldn’t be enough.
    But Mac didn’t say anything aloud. Complaining about the huge serving of shit on your plate just wasted time. All you could do was grab a spoon and start eating.
    Fast.
    â€œI’m going to be spending a lot of time with your computer,” Mac said to Emma.
    â€œWhile you do,” Faroe said, “she can work on learning how to handle boat lines, fenders, and other matey stuff.”
    Emma made a startled sound.
    With a dark-eyed smile, Grace said, “If I can learn how to be a first mate to my snarling Captain Joe, you can learn from sweet, gentle Captain Mac.”
    â€œSweet? Gentle?” Emma glanced sideways at Mac.
    He tried to look sweet and gentle. Given the information he’d just received, it wasn’t possible.
    â€œTell me lines aren’t as heavy as fuel hoses,” Emma said.
    â€œThey aren’t as heavy.” He lowered his eyelids to half mast. “And I can be very gentle.”
    She shook her head. She’d walked right into that one.
    â€œEmma has her cover story,” Grace said, no longer trying not to yawn. “Mac came with his intact. As for why you’re suddenly joined at the hip, I suggest going with the tried and true.”
    â€œSex,” Emma said, grimacing.
    â€œSex,” Grace agreed. “Start practicing snuggling and snogging in public.”
    Mac and Emma looked at each other and said simultaneously, “Snogging?”
    â€œLook it up,” Grace said. “It will grow on you.”

21
    DAY THREE
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
8:05 A.M .
    T imothy Harrow ignored the inbox marked Urgent on his desk. Pragmatically speaking, it was a low designation of priority. Everything that came across his desk was urgent. The only question was of degree.
    At the moment, he was frowning over an email that was a good deal more than urgent. Somebody’s ass was going to get burned. His job was to make sure it didn’t belong to the Deputy Director of Operations, his immediate boss. Hopefully he could save his boss by putting the fire out. If that didn’t work, some serious finger-pointing was going down.
    And if the op blew up…
    Don’t think about it. Just make sure it doesn’t happen.
    At the highest levels, politics was a blood sport.
    Harrow hit the intercom button. “Duke? Got a minute?”
    â€œMake it fast. I have to brief the DO over the mess in Caracas in five and then brief his boss on the uncivil war heating up between the narcos and elected Mexican politicians. You have anything that’s going to make my life easier?”
    Harrow sincerely doubted it. “You told me to keep you current on anything coming out of