Death Echo (8 page)

“Remember when we ran that load of cigarettes to Vancouver?” Tommy asked, swiping hair out of his face with a dirty hand.

“Long time ago. We were young and stupid.”

“Sweet money.” Tommy drank and swallowed, drank and swallowed, his Adam’s apple working like a piston. “That’s smart.”

“Karl died.”

“Lucky Karl. He didn’t have to live rat-turd poor on the rez.”
Neither do you.
But Mac kept that truth to himself. A man in Tommy’s shape could teeter from normal to enraged in a heartbeat.

“But I’m getting out,” Tommy said after another long drink. “Gonna take my money from my next job and head for white man’s land. Live like a fuckin’ sheik.”

“Sounds good.”
As always.

Too bad it never came through.

The half bottle of booze that Tommy had bolted hit him suddenly. He shook his head and slumped back into the chair.

“Just the beginning,” Tommy mumbled. “And here I thought old Granny was just a mama’s boy. Turns out he’s a big swinging dick. Got rich friends.” Tommy frowned. “Mean bastard.” A shiver shook his wiry frame. “Goddam, he’s one mean son of a bitch.”

Mac frowned. Tommy wasn’t making any sense. He looked close to panic, eyes wide, sweating although the room was cold.

“You okay?” Mac asked.

Tommy took another long gulp. “Nothin’ wrong that a bottle of good bourbon won’t cure.”

Mac kept his mouth shut and wished he’d gone straight home from the marina.

Like the old saying—no good deed goes unpunished.

Before Tommy could swig again, Mac retrieved the bottle. “Careful, buddy,” Mac said. “That’s a load of alcohol hitting your system all at once.”

“Ain’t no pussy.”

“Somebody say you were?” Mac asked.

“A pussy wouldn’t take
Blackbird
out. Bad shit going down. Really bad. Gonna be rich. Gimme the bottle.”

Mac pretended to drink. Anything to keep the bourbon out of Tommy’s reach. He always had loved booze, but at the rate he was drinking, he was going to kill himself tonight.

“So when does your job begin?” Mac asked, trying to keep Tommy out of the bottle.

“What job?”

“The one that’s going to make you rich.”

“Need a drink.”

“Wait your turn.” Mac pretended to drink. The good news was that Tommy was going down fast, floating facedown in a bourbon sea.

“They been smuggling forever. Even before they got here.”

“Who?” Mac asked.

“Granny’s kind.”

Lovich,
Mac realized, understanding.

Grant Robert Lovich, known as Bobby to his cousins and Granny to the kids who hated him in school. Like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather. Outsiders to the whites and Indians alike. Determined outsiders.

“Thought we agreed a long time ago that what our parents believed was bullshit,” Mac said.

“Then how come they own Blue Water and I don’t have nothing? Only crooks make out in Rosario.”

The sullen cast to Tommy’s face was more warning than Mac needed.

Time to go.
“Gimme the bottle,” Tommy snarled. “Fuckin’ foreigners. We was here first, now we got dirt.”

And casinos.

And smuggling.

The kind of hopeless existence that destroys souls.

Mac went to the sink and poured out all but a taste of the bourbon. He gave the bottle to Tommy and walked out into the night.

Mac hoped whoever was following him caught up again. He felt like hitting something.

ROSARIO

11:30 A.M.

E
mma hated parking in the open for a surveillance, but there wasn’t any choice. The Blue Water marina parking lot didn’t have so much as a leaf to hide behind. The best she could do was wedge the Jeep between two rumpled pickups and pretend not to be there at all. The puddles and mud she’d deliberately taken the Jeep through helped it to blend in. She was no longer driving a shiny white rental.

And she had a lovely view of
Blackbird.

People wearing tool belts were swarming over the yacht. A man whose picture was on the billboard advertising Blue Water Marine Group was overseeing, shouting and waving his arms. If the billboard could be trusted, it was Bob Lovich himself giving orders. Another man stood nearby—above medium height, stocky build, wraparound sunglasses, and a coat cut to fit over a shoulder holster. He didn’t look like Stan Amanar, also featured on the billboard, but he might have been.

If Stan had dyed his hair recently. And grown a mustache.

Plastic sheeting and other protective materials had been yanked out of
Blackbird
and piled up on the dock. Colored wires were coiled on the deck and what looked like electronics were stacked in boxes inside the cabin.

She lowered her small binoculars and remembered what the elusive Mac Durand had said about expensive toys and yachts. It looked like
Blackbird
was being wired to the max.

Her cell phone vibrated against her waist. She looked at the ID window and almost groaned.

Faroe.

All she had for him was nothing. Oh—and a sore back from the motel bed. Hey, that was something, right?

Too bad it wasn’t anything useful.

“Cross,” she said, answering the phone.

“Where is he?”

“Who?”

“Durand.”

“Good question,” she said. “I’ll get back to you with the answer.”

“Soon.”

“Which is primary—
Blackbird
or MacKenzie Durand?”

“Both.”

“Then you better send more bodies,” she said. “I can only be in one place at a time.”

“Lost him, huh?”

Emma took a deep breath and a better grip on her temper. “Yes. He ditched me out on the rez last night. There are multiple exits on the rez, so I got a motel room near the marina and had a bad night’s sleep keeping an eye on
Blackbird
.”

“Did Durand make you?”

“Define ‘make.’”

“ID,” Faroe said impatiently.

“Doubt it. The Jeep, quite probably. Me, no.”

“Steele is on my ass like a rash.”

“Try baby powder.”

Faroe laughed. “We’re flying in to meet Durand personally. We’ll be there tomorrow. Sooner if we can manage it without tripping wires and alarms.”

This going in soft is too damn slow,
Emma thought, but didn’t say anything. Faroe knew the time limit as well as she did.

“Have you read Durand’s file?” Faroe asked.

“Three times.” And she’d wondered if Mac Durand had the same kind of nightmares she did.

“Steele wants him. So do I.”

“A hard man is good to find,” she shot back. “I’m working on it. That man you’re interested in is a ghost. He flat vanished into the rez. Early this morning I went by the address in his files. A nineteen-twenties cottage. His truck was in the driveway. By all external signs, he was sleeping at home like a good citizen. Now, I can cover MacKenzie or
Blackbird,
take your pick.”

“Long night?” Faroe asked.

Emma made a disgusted noise. “Yeah.”

“Anything happening on
Blackbird
right now?”

“She’s swarming with technicians.”

“So she won’t be leaving the dock in the next hour or two,” Faroe said.

“It looks that way. Want to bet on it?”

“For an hour or two, yes. Go track down Durand and make your pitch.”

“You’re the boss.”

She closed the phone and reached for the ignition key.

The passenger door opened. MacKenzie Durand slid into the seat next to her.

“Breakfast or lunch?” he asked. “You’re buying.”

ROSARIO

11:34 A.M.

T
he vibration of a cell phone against his ribs woke Demidov from his doze. Without moving anything but his eyelids, he looked around. It was hard to see out through the smoked windows in the front of the van, and the rear door windows were even darker. Demidov approved. People had an even harder time looking in than he did looking out.

The parking lot had tourists and boat owners coming and going. At the moment, nobody was walking nearby.

Most important,
Blackbird
was still at the dock.

People were still busy ripping things out of the yacht and putting other things in. Binoculars had told him that everything being installed on the boat came from a legitimate commercial source.

The bug in Blue Water Marine Group’s office had told him the same thing. Even so, he’d checked every name on the boxes. His computer told him that each was a common supplier for Blue Water boats.

His ribs vibrated again.

Demidov reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the cell phone. Since only one man had this number, he knew who he would be talking to.

“Yes?” he said in quiet Russian.

“I need more time. Get it for me.”

“How much?”

“The boat can’t leave until after tomorrow, at the earliest.”

“Nothing of interest has been put on board yet,” Demidov said. “Even at night, when you would expect it. They have the ship lit up like a stage. It would take a fool or a very, very clever man to sneak by while anyone could be watching. Temuri is not that clever.”

“My source tells me the exchange will be made in Canada.”

“Where?”

“If I knew that, fool, I wouldn’t need you to follow the ship. Make sure
Blackbird
does not leave until Thursday. Friday would be better.”

Demidov bit back a curse. He was safer working alone—no one to betray him—but being alone on a job this complex wasn’t easy.

“Then I will sabotage the boat so—”

“No! Too unpredictable.
Blackbird
must fly. Later than Saturday isn’t acceptable. Earlier than Thursday isn’t acceptable.”

The connection ended, leaving Demidov alone in the sun-struck, stinking van. He didn’t notice the smell or the heat or the random Blue Water Marine Group office noise bleeding through his ear bug. Like a computer programmed to find certain words, he wouldn’t focus on the bug until it said something interesting.

Thinking of various ways to make certain the
Blackbird
didn’t leave the dock until Thursday, Demidov dozed, catlike, both resting and alert. For a man working alone, death was the most reliable way of carrying out a mission. The only question was whose death would get the job done.

RESERVATION
OUTSIDE
ROSARIO

11:57 A.M.

E
mma drove into the casino’s parking lot in the same silence she’d maintained since Mac had invited himself into the Jeep. She still hadn’t decided whether to slug him for his attitude or hug him for making her mission easier.

She turned off the engine and faced him.

“Dealer’s choice,” she said. “For now, you’re the dealer.”

Mac smiled slowly. “You decided that two seconds after I opened the door. Why the silent treatment?”

“Poor baby. Are you used to nervous chatter?”

“I won’t get that from you, will I?”

“I’m told the food is edible here.” She opened the door and got out. “Breakfast or lunch.”

Mac slid out and faced her over the top of the Jeep. “Food is better at the bowling alley.”

“A local’s place?”

Mac nodded.

“I don’t do local when I’m working a small town. I don’t fit it in.”

He nodded again, as though he’d expected the answer.

“I haven’t been to the casino,” she said, “but I’m guessing I won’t be all that unusual.”

“Good-looking women are always noticed.”

Emma took a mental inventory of herself—jeans, a loose T-shirt, rugged sandals that would have been at home on a hiking trail—and said, “In this outfit, I’ll pass without a second glance.”

“Probably. I liked the crop top better.”

Ignoring him, she locked the Jeep and headed toward the casino entrance, leaving Mac to follow or not, his choice.

He followed, smiling to himself. Ms. Emma Cross didn’t like having the initiative taken out of her hands. He could understand that. He felt exactly the same way.

Mac caught up with her before she reached the casino’s double doors. Unlike Nevada casinos, this one lacked the clamor and clang and razzle-dazzle of slot machines. Without that kind of relentless, come-and-bet-your-life atmosphere, the casino echoed like the nearly empty warehouse it was. The only action was at the poker machines, where retirees old enough to know better and too bored to care fed the electronic monsters.

“How can they take the excitement?” Emma said under her breath.

“Clean living and constant prayer.”

She smiled in spite of herself. “Good to know.”

“Two,” Mac said to the unsmiling hostess.

The woman waved her hand toward ranks of empty tables. “Sit anywhere you want. Someone will be over to take your order.”

Mac led Emma to a corner and chose a seat next to the wall. She selected a nearby chair and moved it slightly, keeping an eye on the entrance.

“Talk,” she said to him.

“After you.”

“What do you want?”

“Why are you following me?” he countered.

Emma sighed. She’d guessed he wouldn’t make it easy. That didn’t mean she liked being right.

The server appeared and said, “Coffee.”

It was a take-it-or-leave-it kind of offer.

Emma looked at the server. She had the same dark, expressionless face and bad hair that the hostess did, plus all the welcome of a No Parking sign.

“Coffee,” Emma said.

The server started to leave.

“Coffee and menus,” Mac said.

The woman walked off without a word.

“Are they always this friendly or is it a special effort?” Emma asked.

“They’re tribe. They won’t be fired.”

Emma glanced at her watch. The time she could safely ignore
Blackbird
was ticking away. Since Mac kept pushing the ball into her court, she’d take it and ram it down his coy throat.

“My boss would like to hire you,” she said.