Death Echo

you,” Faroe muttered. “Anyone there but Mac?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDemidov’s account number went back to accounts used by the KGB.”
    â€œWhich no longer exists,” Emma pointed out.
    â€œSame people, same accounts, new organization name. Information and extortion are very profitable. Ask the former KGB/present oligarchs who do it for a high-flying living in Russia.”
    â€œShocked here. Just shocked.”
    Faroe laughed, a sound as weary as she was beginning to feel. The clock in her mind never stopped running, even when she lay tangled up with Mac. A look at Mac’s face told her that his clock was counting down along with hers.
    They understood each other too well for such a short time together.
    We’re in trouble, Mac.
    Wonder if we’ll live long enough to enjoy it.
    â€œLovich and Amanar didn’t turn up for work at Blue Water Marine today,” Faroe continued. “As they’re usually unlocking the door bright and early, at six-thirty or no later than seven, Grace called the Blue Water office at official opening time. She was told a ‘family emergency’ would be keeping them busy for ‘an unknown amount of time.’”
    â€œIf those boys are smart, they’re headed for Ecuador,” Emma said.
    â€œWe’re checking outgoing passports. Rather, Alara is. She can do it faster than St. Kilda.”
    â€œAt last, something she’s good for.”
    Faroe grunted. “St. Kilda will be picking the wheat out of her chaff for a long time. It will work out to our benefit.”
    â€œIf you’re lucky.”
    â€œMake us lucky.”
    The line went dead.
    â€œWell, he’s in a sweet mood,” Emma said, putting the phone back in her pocket.
    â€œWaiting is the hardest part of the game,” Mac said. “It’s the first thing a sniper learns and the last thing he forgets. First to flinch eats the first bullet.”
    â€œYou talk sweeter in bed.”
    â€œThat’s because you taste…” Mac’s voice faded as he listened. Somewhere close by, a seaplane droned toward landing. The sound grew closer, changed direction, went away, then started getting louder and louder.
    A shadow flashed over Blackbird.
    Mac and Emma grabbed for the binoculars at the same time. He was closer. He went outside and stood deep in the shadows thrown by the cabin in the morning sun. Swiftly he put the glasses to his eyes and focused.
    â€œSingle-engine DeHavilland Beaver,” he said over the waning engine noise. “It’s flying out over the forest, turning…damn, that’s not a downwind leg setting up for landing. They’re coming back over the harbor for a better look.”
    â€œGet under cover!”
    â€œNo need,” he said. But he stepped back into the cabin without losing the plane in the binoculars. “Anyone who cares enough to kill me would know that Faroe could be up here, running Blackbird, before the last echoes of gunfire died.”
    â€œSweet-talking man,” she said through her teeth.
    Mac smiled beneath the binoculars, watching the plane grow bigger and bigger.
    A quarter mile away and closing fast, the aircraft leveled off at about one hundred feet above the forest. Even without binoculars, Emma could see a man in the co-pilot’s seat. His face was turned toward them, but his eyes were concealed behind what looked like a camera with a telephoto lens.
    Mac tracked the plane like the trained sniper he was. He read off a single letter followed by the five-digit registration number he could see on the tail of the plane.
    Emma scribbled down the identification code and read it back to him.
    The plane wagged its wings at them.
    Hello, good-bye, screw you.
    Without removing the binoculars, Mac flipped off the aircraft.
    â€œFriends of yours?” Emma asked.
    â€œMore like yours.”
    â€œAgency?”
    â€œI’d take money on it.”
    She grimaced. “I wonder why they waited until now? They must have known about us before we did.”
    â€œGood question,” Mac said.
    â€œMaybe. And maybe we’re wrong in our assumptions, they just discovered us, and are here to help.”
    â€œThat would make life easier, which means it ain’t gonna happen.”
    Emma hoped Mac was wrong, but didn’t think he was. She flipped open her phone, hit Faroe’s speed-dial number, and began talking, knowing that every call was