Death Echo

Demidov said.
    He walked over to a telescope on a tripod that was set up by the big window. Turning his back to her, he closed one eye and looked through the eyepiece. The point of focus wasn’t the channel where big ships came and went, but a small island perhaps a mile offshore where fir trees clung to rocky outcrops. The biggest fir’s storm-twisted crown held the immense weight of an old eagle nest.
    Nobody home.
    Gone fishing.
    Demidov’s mouth curved in amusement and envy. Once he had loved to fish Kamchatka’s wild lands. Once, a lifetime ago. He could hardly remember that boy now, only his young enthusiasms and savage ambition.
    â€œThe ships come and they go,” Lina said. “Destroyers and submarines and patrol boats from the Canadian forces, as well as games with American ships. I quit paying attention after the deposits stopped coming to my account at Bank of Hong Kong.” Her hand made a dismissing movement. “There are other ways to survive than spying. I found one that worked for me.”
    Demidov adjusted the focus on the telescope. Though decades old, the instrument was still good. Fallen feathers and unwanted boney bits leaped into focus, debris of a predator.
    â€œSo you resigned in place,” Demidov said.
    Silence answered.
    He glanced at the woman who stood, arms folded across her chest, staring out at the water.
    â€œDon’t you think it would have been wise to turn in your equipment?” he asked, his voice mild. “This house is in your name but it still belongs, technically, to the Russian people. Just as it did when your predecessor lived here.”
    Lina’s smile was a grim curve. “I took my share of the state’s assets, just like everybody with any sense. Why do you care? You’re too smart to be working for a fallen regime. Everyone who originally hired us has long since turned to civilian pursuits. Much more profitable, if equally violent.”
    Demidov watched her smallest movement. They had been lovers once, a lifetime ago, when the world was different and people were the same. Maybe she had better memories than he did of those times. She had always been more of a romantic than he was or ever would be.
    Like the generations of eagles that had built the huge nest, he survived. And like the eagles, when he became too old for the hunt, he would die.
    Soon. A handful of years, maybe more. Maybe less.
    In the end, luck rules.
    His great-grandfather had lived to be one hundred and four, but he had been a peasant, a grass-eater. His great-grandson was a predator.
    â€œI take my satisfaction from doing my job well, not from my paycheck,” Demidov said.
    She shrugged. The movement was tight, impatient, almost a flinch. “So you stayed with the spiders in the KGB web, waiting for your blood meals to come trembling to you.”
    He laughed softly. “Still the romantic. What have you done to occupy your clever mind since the fall of our great and noble Soviet Union, followed by the rise of capitalist Russia?”
    â€œOld history. All of it. I’m no longer a part of that.”
    â€œI’m disappointed, Lina. I trained you so…thoroughly.”
    She gave him a sideways look that hadn’t changed through all the years.
    â€œYou taught me to be a wise little spider, alert for the tiny vibrations at the edge of my web,” she said. “That kind of teaching doesn’t fade. Nor does the teacher. You know what I’ve been doing as well as anyone does.”
    â€œFrom spy to licensed fishing guide,” Demidov said. “Quite a good one, I hear. I’m impressed.”
    â€œStop pretending to be an old friend. What do you want?”
    â€œYou have a fast boat. When it doesn’t carry summer fishermen, it carries other cargo. B.C. Bud, yes? Marijuana. Illegal in your adopted country as well as in the country you smuggle it into.”
    Lina closed her eyes. It had been many years since she had smuggled British Columbia’s premier cash crop, but time didn’t matter. Demidov knew enough about her to crush the small, fragile world she had built for herself from the wreckage of empire.
    And he would do just that if she didn’t obey him.
    Fear left her along with choice. She would do whatever he wanted. All that remained was waiting for orders.
    â€œI was raised on the water,” she said. “That’s why I was given this assignment. As for the rest, a woman alone