Free Death Echo by Elizabeth Lowell

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.”

13

DAY TWO
    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