“Yo, Tommy! You there?” Mac called.
“Who cares?” Tommy called back, opening the front door a crack and peering out.
“Hey, it’s me,” Mac said. Tommy looked a little wild-eyed, but it could just be a hangover.
Hope it isn’t crank. He’s snake-mean on that poison.
“Thought you might like food and a beer, my treat,” Mac said. “We didn’t get much time to talk last night.”
The broken screen leaned drunkenly, halfway covering the front door. Tommy kicked the bent frame out of the way.
“Last night?” Tommy stared and shook himself hard, like a dog coming out of water. “You here last night?”
“That bourbon really tanked you.”
Tommy blinked, rubbed the dense beard shadow on his face, and blinked again. His hazel eyes began to clear. With his chestnut hair, Tommy looked less Native American than Mac did. They used to joke about it.
These days, Tommy didn’t have much sense of humor.
“Oh. Yeah. You were here.” Tommy cleared his throat. “Guess I had a little too much.” He looked behind Mac. “You alone?”
Mac nodded and wondered why Tommy cared. He was giving off a deadly-edgy kind of vibe.
“You tweaking?” Mac asked.
“Nah. Got any more bourbon?”
“They have beer at the bowling alley.”
“Can’t leave,” Tommy said roughly.
“Problem with the town cops?”
“No. Just waiting. Got a job coming down. Supposed to be tomorrow, but could be sooner. Dude’s going to pick me up here. I have to be ready to roll.”
“It won’t be today.” Mac watched Tommy without seeming to. “Blackbird is still being fitted out.”
Tommy flinched and looked away. “What the hell you talking about?”
“Your job. Blue Water Marine Group wants a boat moved. The boat’s name is Blackbird.”
“Who told you about that?” Tommy snarled, flushing. “They told me they’d beat the crap out of me if I—” He stopped abruptly. “They wanted it real quiet, you know? How’d you find out?”
“I brought Blackbird from Seattle.”
It wasn’t really an answer, but Tommy nodded.
“You want it quiet,” Mac said, “it’s quiet.”
Tommy made a visible effort to calm himself. He dug a limp cigarette out of his T-shirt pocket, lit it with a match, and took a long draw.
“Quiet. Yeah. Dead quiet.” He laughed wildly, then looked around the dark clearing as though expecting people to be listening behind every tree. “Let’s go inside. Better there.”
Mac doubted it, but followed Tommy into the trailer. Mac didn’t know if the man’s paranoia was a side effect of tweaking or based in reality.
“You never used to worry about Stan,” Mac said easily.
“Screw him.” Tommy slammed and locked the door. “It’s his buddy I worry about.”
“His cousin?”
“That pussy?” Tommy waved his cigarette in dismissal. “Nah. The other one. Temuri. At least I think that’s the bastard’s name. Blood brother to a shark.”
Mac filed the name and went back to fishing for information. The instincts he had tried to leave behind in Afghanistan had taken a single look at Temuri and come to a quivering point.
That was one stone killer.
“Wonder why Bob and Stan got in bed with someone like that,” Mac said.
Tommy went to the window, stood to the side, and looked out. “Money, dude. What else?”
“Are they hurting?”
“Isn’t everyone?” Tommy kept squinting out the window, searching the dim forest. “Besides, I heard Stan talking about it in the inner office with Bob. The Temuri dude is a prick, but he’s some kind of family.”
Mac shrugged. “So long as they pay.”
“Oh yeah. Half up front. Half on delivery. Forty big ones. Supposed to go tomorrow. Having trouble with some of the electronics. Wrong size or some such crap.”
“Forty thousand American?” Mac asked, black eyes narrowed. That was a lot for the kind of short-haul transit the other man did.
Tommy nodded, making his lank hair jerk.
“Sweet,” Mac said. “Want another hand aboard?”
Tommy turned on him with a snarl. “No. And you never heard of the job, hear me?”
“Sure,” Mac said easily. Unless Tommy was taking the boat across the ocean to Vladivostok, it was an outrageous payday. “Long trip, huh?”
Tommy took a hard drag before he ground the cigarette out under his shoe. “Don’t know.”
Mac didn’t push it anymore. “You hear anything from Jeremy?” he said, asking after the last of the wild ones who once had run together as a teenage pack.
“What do you care?”
“Shove the attitude. It’s me, Mac, the dude you used to steal crabs and boost beer with. Sometimes Jeremy went along, remember?”
Tommy blinked, seemed to refocus. “Sorry, man. I’m a little tweaked, waiting for this job. I really need it.”
“I get that.”
“Jeremy’s pulling pots for some white guy.”
“Thought crabbing was closed.”
Tommy lit another cigarette. “The white guy’s a sport crabber.”
Mac didn’t need to hear the details. If Jeremy got caught—unlikely, given that the fish cops couldn’t afford to put gas in their boat—he played the Indian card. White courts couldn’t touch him. Tribal courts wouldn’t.
“It’s a living,” Mac said.
“Pays shit.”
“And all the crab you can eat or sell on the side.”
With a jerky movement, Tommy flicked ash onto the floor of the trailer. “It’s still shit. That’s all we ever get. Fucking whites.”
“Present company excepted,” Mac said neutrally.
“Huh?” Tommy blinked, focused again. “You know I don’t think of you as white.”
“And I don’t think of you as not white. Ain’t we the rainbow pair.”
Reluctantly Tommy smiled, then laughed, the kind of laugh that reminded Mac of all the good times they’d had as kids, running wild in a ragged land. They hadn’t been innocent, but they hadn’t believed in death.
If that isn’t innocence, what is?
He and Tommy had come a long way since then. They hadn’t ended up at the same place.
16
DAY TWO
NEAR ROSARIO
4:10 P.M.
The Learjet turned in the late afternoon sunlight and lined up for its final approach to the asphalt strip at the Lopez County Airport. The co-pilot stuck his head through the open cockpit doorway.
“Short-runway landing coming up,” he called back into the cabin. “Come and get this sweet little thing before she ends up as part of the electronics.”
“I’m on it,” Joe Faroe said before his wife could get up.
He put aside his laptop and went forward to grab his daughter, who was examining every ripple and shadow on the plane’s floor. He swung her up easily into the crook of one long arm.
“Did you find any yummy cigarette butts or globs of things better left unidentified?” he asked her.
She drooled and patted his mouth.
“Haven’t you ever heard of don’t ask, don’t tell?” Grace said without looking up from the computer on her lap.
“Don’t you listen to her, sweetie,” Faroe said. He lowered Annalise into the special airline seat and fastened her restraint. “You always want to come to Daddy and tell all, especially about boys.”
Grace shook her head. “You just keep dreaming, darling. You’re cute.”
Faroe stretched, then sat in the seat next to Annalise and fastened his own seatbelt. “You’re the only one who thinks so.”
She flashed him a look out of dark eyes that made him wish he was alone with her. In bed.
“That’s because I know you so well,” Grace said.
He smiled slowly. “I love you.”
“Sam
e goes. And the light of your life is chewing on her restraint.”
He looked over at Annalise. “Gumming it, actually.”
“Bleh.”
“Good for her immune system,” Faroe said.
Grace rolled her eyes. “Give her a cracker.”
“She’ll just turn it into mush and smear it over everything in reach, including her loving daddy. They’ll bill us extra for cleaning the plane. Why don’t they make kids’ chewies as tough as the ones for dogs?”
“Do you know what dog chewies are made of?”
“Pig ears.”
“And bull pizzles.”
“What?” Faroe asked.
“Penises. From male bovines.”
“Tell me you’re joking.”
“Not.”
“Cover your ears, sweetie,” Faroe said to Annalise as he reached into the bag beneath her seat. “Your mama’s talking dirty. Here you go, beautiful.”
Chubby fingers wrapped around the thick cracker Faroe held out. She shoved a corner of it into her drooling mouth and gummed blissfully.
“You strapped in?” he asked Grace.
“The instant I got back from the head.” She finished the document page and went on to the next as the pilot announced the upcoming landing. She had one more recommendation to file before she could devote her full attention to the brushfire presently burning St. Kilda’s ass. “Someone should just blow that place to the darkest reaches of hell.”
“Which place?”
“Silnice hanby.”
“The Highway of Shame,” Faroe said.
“Where young girls sell themselves to old men and sadists for a handful of rotten food,” Grace said wearily. “Then there are all the weapons, nuclear and otherwise, that trundle along that freeway to hell. Not to mention the traffic in children destined for foreign whorehouses.”
Faroe looked at his daughter and silently vowed it would never happen to her.
“It’s why we keep working bad hours,” Grace said, understanding her husband.
“It’s never enough.”
“No,” she agreed. “It’s never enough. But it’s all we have.”
“I still want you the hell away from Seattle.”
“We’ve been over this so often I feel like a digital recording. If you’re here without me and Annalise, it’s news to anyone who’s watching you. Deal with it, Joe. A lot of bad people care about where you are and what you’re doing.”
“But—”
“As the unforgettable Alara said, if we go in soft, we have a fallback position.”
“I don’t like it having you and Annalise here. If Alara is right, it’s too damn dangerous.”
“You think I like having Annalise here?” Grace looked at their sleeping child. “But liking it doesn’t matter.” She let out a long breath. “I believe in St. Kilda. So we do what we can do. If that goes to hell, we do something else.”
“Fast,” Faroe muttered.
And pray that fast was quick enough.
17
DAY TWO
ROSARIO
5:30 P.M.
Emma kept one eye on her watch and the other on Blackbird. It was still crawling with techs, but there were a lot less boxes waiting on the dock to be installed on the boat.
Damn it, Mac. Where are you?
She sensed he was out there, somewhere, watching as she was watching. But she couldn’t keep an eye on Blackbird and MacKenzie Durand at the same time.
I’ll be nearby.
She grimaced as she remembered his words. Yeah. Right. We have an appointment, big boy. You don’t know where or when.
Her cell phone rang. Faroe. She picked it up.
“He’s not here,” she said.
“But he kept his promise,” Faroe said. “He’s nearby. You can’t see him from where you are. I can. Come toward the second marina ramp. He’s talking with the lady in the shrimp shack. Which is a boat. When Captain Di of the No Shrimp is lucky, she sells fresh prawns off the back deck to locals who know how to find her. You’re going to buy some.”
“You’re telling me to leave Blackbird uncovered.”
“Grace can see into the marina from our motel room. Annalise is sleeping like the innocent she is. We’re covered.”
“See you at the shrimp shack.”
Emma disconnected, got out, locked the Jeep, and walked across the parking lot toward the second marina ramp. As she went down the ramp, she discovered that the “shrimp shack” was indeed a scow tied off just below the ramp. The idea of eating fresh, never-frozen, never–chemically altered shrimp made her stomach growl.
“I hope Captain Di was lucky,” Emma said, licking her lips as she walked up to Mac.
Mac watched her tongue and decided prawns were the least he could do for her.
Captain Di’s laugh was as big as she was. It echoed up the ramp. “Mac there has a hungry look about him.”
He smiled. “Nothing better than prawns. Well, almost nothing.” The woman laughed again, grabbed a small net, and headed for the live tanks at the stern of her boat. “How many pounds?”
“Coon-stripe or spot?” he asked.
“Spot.”
“Two pounds.” Mac looked at her. “I’ll cook aboard the Autonomy.”
“Make it four,” Emma said in a low voice. “I crave prawns after days of fast food. And there will be at least one more eating with us.”
“That explains why I’ve been feeling like I have crosshairs on the back of my neck,” Mac said, his voice equally soft. Then, in a carrying tone, “Make it a heavy four, Captain Di. The lady is hungry.”
The sound of Di’s laugh covered any noise Faroe might have made coming down the marina ramp. Mac turned around anyway, warned by the vibration of the dock beneath his feet.
Faroe nodded at him, but walked right past toward the Autonomy. Without hesitation he swung aboard Mac’s boat.
“He has his own boat,” Emma said softly.
“Looks like it.”
“Is your boat locked?”
“Would it make a difference?”
She almost smiled. “Probably not.”
She walked back on the dock until she was even with the stern of No Shrimp. Captain Di was weighing and wrapping prawns. Their bodies snapped and rustled against the clear plastic bag. Emma recognized the tails, but the whole animal was something she hadn’t seen alive. She paid for the prawns and walked back to Mac carrying dinner squirming in a plastic bag.
“Modern woman,” Captain Di said, nodding and pocketing the cash with approval.
“You have no idea,” Mac said.
Captain Di’s laughter followed them down the dock.
“Does that mean you’ll clean them?” Mac asked. “Or are we eating them Asian style?”
She raised her eyebrows in silent question.
“Whole,” Mac said.
“Forget it. I’ll help clean them.”
“Ever done it before?”
“No. Is it tricky?”
He glanced at her. “Basically, you just rip their little heads off.”
“I think my skill level is up to that.”
“How about your stomach?”
“Beats eating them whole.”
Mac was still trying not to laugh as he helped Emma aboard the Autonomy. When he opened the salon door, Faroe was sitting at the shadowed banquette, watching the readout on a palm-sized electronic device.
Nobody spoke until Mac closed the door.
“Boat’s clean,” Faroe said, coming to his feet. “So are both of you.” He held out his hand to Mac. “Joe Faroe. Sorry about the informality.”
Mac looked at Faroe, shook his hand, and said, “Usually I dump people over the side when they come aboard without permission.”
Faroe nodded. “It’s the same on my boat. The TAZ is my own private place.”
“TAZ?” Emma asked.
“As in Temporary Autonomous Zone,” Faroe said.
She looked at Mac. “I sense an area of a
greement here.”
“Autonomy,” Faroe said. “Nice thing to have.”
“Or to think you have,” Mac said neutrally.
Faroe’s smile made him look younger, less like a man you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. His intense green eyes gleamed with humor. “Like she said, an area of agreement.”
“We’ll see.” Mac took the plastic bag from Emma. “Why don’t we clean these while your boss explains why I shouldn’t treat him like a big prawn?”
“Rip his head off?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He took her to the galley and emptied the prawns into the sink.
She looked at the seething, snapping mass, like Halloween with ebony eyes and countless orange bodies. “Now what?”
“Grab the head in one hand and the body in the other and twist, like wringing a washrag,” Mac said. “But be careful. Spot prawns have pointy parts that draw blood.”
“So does Joe.”
Mac remembered Faroe’s relaxed yet fully balanced moves as he boarded the boat. “That’s why I’m cleaning prawns instead of him.”
“Good choice.”
Faroe looked from one to the other and shook his head. “Grace was right about you.”
“Who?” they said simultaneously.
“Move over,” was all Faroe said. “I’ll help rip heads.”
“Keep your hands clean and open one of the New Zealand whites I have in the fridge,” Mac said. “Glasses are in the cupboard next to the sink.” To Emma he said, “Put the tails in the blue plastic bowl to your right.”
“This is going to be interesting,” Faroe said, opening the tiny fridge.
“What?” Mac asked.
“You like to give orders. So do I. Could be interesting when we work together.”
“If, not when.”
Faroe ignored him.
Before they had cleaned half the prawns, Faroe had the wine opened, poured, and was rummaging through the galley for a big pot to heat water in. While the water came to a boil, the men finished cleaning dinner and talked about the joys and drawbacks of boat ownership.