Death Echo

19

DAY THREE

ROSARIO

2:37 A.M.

The sirens had already awakened Emma. She was just getting back to sleep when her cell phone vibrated and warbled on the motel’s end table. With an impatient movement she snagged the phone.

“What,” she snarled.

“I’m out front in your Jeep,” Mac said. “In three minutes I leave without you.”

“I have the keys.”

“I don’t need them.”

The line went dead.

Emma had slept fully clothed-shoes, socks, jeans, and a black pullover-too exhausted after her turn watching Blackbird to care about undressing. She grabbed her purse and a jacket and ran out.

Twenty seconds after Mac had hung up on her, she was in the parking lot of the motel.

Sure enough, he was sitting at the wheel of her Jeep. Wires dangled from the console. She got in the passenger seat, threw him the keys, and shut the door very quietly when she really wanted to slam it.

“Is it Blackbird?” she asked as he drove out of the parking lot without benefit of headlights.

“Not directly.”

He went down a side street, turned onto an eastbound feeder street, and flipped on the lights.

“Where’s your truck?” she asked.

“Crapped out, waiting for a new water pump.”

Silence.

Emma turned toward him. “You have about ten seconds to tell me what the hell is going on. If I don’t like what I hear, I’m going to reach into my girly purse, pull out a Glock, and turn you into splatter patterns.”

Mac gave her a sideways look and started talking. “I have a police scanner at my house. There was a fire on the rez. They’re talking about arson. One crispy critter in the ashes.”

She grimaced. She’d seen-and smelled-enough of that kind of death in Iraq to last her a lifetime.

“I don’t know how firemen stand it,” she said.

Mac didn’t have to ask what she meant.

“Some of them turn vegetarian for a while,” he said. “Then they get over it and go back to rare beef.”

“Glad to know I wasn’t the only one.”

“Where?” he asked.

“Baghdad. You?” she asked, wondering if he would lie.

Or if his file had.

“Afghanistan,” he said shortly, accelerating onto the highway, “well beyond any city.”

“Out with the tribes?” she asked casually.

“Not much else out there but rock. Got a lot of that, all of it standing on end.”

“How long were you there?”

“Why do you care?”

“Call me curious,” she said.

“Call me classified.”

Behind them an official vehicle came on fast, light bar flashing and siren screaming the need for speed.

Mac pulled over like a good citizen.

The sheriff’s car blew past them into the darkness.

“Guess he’s late to the barbeque,” Mac said.

She grimaced, thought about calling Faroe, and decided against it until she knew more. There was no point in waking her boss up to share the ignorance.

“I’ll wait until the sheriff’s car is out of sight,” Mac said. “Then I’m going to speed like a dirty bastard. Every official in a twelve-mile radius will already be at the fire.”

Mac hit the accelerator hard. Being a rental, the Jeep took its time getting up to eighty.

And that was all it had. Eighty.

“What a piece of crap,” he muttered.

“Wheels need alignment or balancing,” Emma said. “Or both.”

“What it needs is another engine.”

“That, too. Sweet thing is, the mileage really sucks.”

Mac almost smiled. Emma was that rare find in a partner, male or female-easy to be with.

Especially when she pulled a Glock from her purse and checked it over with the motions of someone who knew which end of a gun bit and which didn’t.

“Think we’ll need that?” he asked.

“I think I’d rather be ready than point my index finger and say ‘bang.’” She put the weapon back into her purse.

They drove in silence until they rounded the long curve half a mile from Tommy’s lane. Instantly Mac lifted his foot off the accelerator and began losing speed fast.

At least sixteen official vehicles were parked on both sides of Tribal Road, light bars wheeling. The lane to Tommy’s trailer was choked with more vehicles. Their lights stabbed through the woods in flashes of blue and red and spotlight-white.

Wary of making a loud screeching noise, Mac slowly engaged the emergency brake.

“Tommy’s place,” he said.

“How did you know?” Emma asked tightly, reaching for her cell phone. “Was the address on the scanner?”

“Not in so many words. But even on the rez, most people have addresses. The place that burned didn’t.” He glanced at her phone. “Don’t bother waking Faroe up yet. We don’t know what’s going on.”

Dead slow, the Jeep bumped along the verge of the road. After about sixty feet, Mac stopped, reversed, cranked the wheel, and started backing up. Once there had been another nameless lane here, but someone had moved on or died and everything was completely overgrown now.

As the Jeep backed in, it bent brush and small saplings away from the vehicle. Branches shivered and scraped. Most of the undergrowth sprang back upright after the Jeep passed.

When they were invisible from the road, Mac turned and looked Emma over, taking in her outfit.

Before he could open his mouth, she started removing her watch and small earrings, things that could reflect light, giving away her position. It had been years since she had been trained in covert ops, but it was coming back to her. Along with a wave of adrenaline.

“Any mud nearby?” she asked.

“I don’t think I’ll need it for camouflage. I don’t want to get that close.”

“If you think I’m staying here, you’re not smart enough to sign on with St. Kilda.”

Mac had been expecting that since he’d seen the Glock. He didn’t waste time arguing with her. He just fished around on the floor and tossed her one of the black knit caps he had stuffed under the seat.

“Pull it on,” he said, reaching down again for his own cap.

“You carrying?”

“Knife,” he said. “Quieter than a gun.”

“Range bites.”

His lips quirked. “I’ve got a good arm.”

Together they eased out into the night. Emma followed him as he angled through brush and around bigger trees, always holding his course to the same general direction. When the moonlight was bright enough, she could see the faint line of the overgrown trail Mac was following. She tried to make as little noise as he did, but it had been a long time since she’d gone through night training.

They walked for ten minutes before they began to catch the smell of burning excrement and garbage, bitter and foul and disgusting, like a trash fire jacked on steroids. Through a screen of trees and brush, they saw flashes of bright red lights on emergency vehicles and the steady white spears of headlights parked at all angles.

Emma didn’t need Mac’s signal to freeze and drop. She was already on her belly, wriggling as close as she could. A hand on her ankle halted her. Mac slithered along her left side and breathed into her ear.

“Eyes.”

For an instant she didn’t understand. Then it came back to her in a rush of memory and knowledge. She nodded. She wouldn’t get close enough to the action that her eyes reflected light.

What remained of the trailer was a sullen, stinking pile of twisted wreckage. Firemen circled it in turnout gear. They called back and forth, kicking at rubble and bent metal, looking for anything that still was hot enough to produce flames. Occasional bursts of water from their hoses added to the stench.

She leaned close enough to Mac’s ear to feel the heat of his body. “Overgrown wreck,” she breathed. “Two o’clock.”

Eyes narrowed, Mac judged the possibilities. His face looked grim in the pulsing light from the clearing. His black gaze switched to hers, then vanished as his lips brushed her ear.

“Wait here. You’re out of practice.”

She went stiff, then relaxed. When it came to slithering through the woods, he was better than she was. A lot better. She’d been trained for city work, recruiting rather than recon.

She signaled for him to go. Then she got as close to the pungent forest floor as she could and still peer through the undergrowth into the clearing.

Mac set off at an angle to a place where there was a group of rez types talking and gesturing. They were so engrossed by the grisly scene that Mac could have walked right up to them.

He didn’t. He just got close enough to eavesdrop.

“…was always looking for trouble.”

“Sure found it.” The man spat on the churned ground.

Mac saw the glint of a badge at the man’s belt and recognized him as a tribal cop.

“Arson. Damn.” The smaller man almost danced in place with excitement. “Wonder who did it?”

“Half the rez hated Tommy’s ass.” The cop spat again, as though the taste of the air was getting to him. “Besides, he might be out on a boat. Might be someone else was sleeping in his trailer.”

Mac hoped the cop was right but doubted it. Tommy hadn’t had any other place to go while he waited for Blackbird.

And he’d been scared.

Floodlights from two fire engines played back and forth over the lumpy, twisted rubble like stiff white fingers combing the wreckage.

“There,” called one of the firemen.

The floodlights paused, then converged on a corner of the ruins. The wind swirled, increasing the unmistakable odor of barbeque gone wrong.

Ugly memories drenched Mac, men burning, dying, dead. Long ago, far away, and as fresh as the bile rising up his throat. He’d hoped never to smell that particular kind of death again.

“Jesus Christ,” the fireman said. “Half his skull is gone. I mean, just flat gone. What the-”

“Knock it off!” said a woman’s voice. “This is a crime scene.”

Mac understood the words that the woman was too well-trained to say: Civilians around. Shut up.

The woman who spoke wasn’t from the rez, but people gave way to her just the same.

Silence descended as she strode into the harsh light of the clearing.

She was on the downhill side of forty-five and didn’t give a damn. Her blond-gray hair wasn’t dyed and she wore no makeup. She was dressed in a pale windbreaker and dark slacks. As she walked up to the firemen, the floodlights caught three large block letters on the back of her jacket.

FBI.

Hold your ankles and brace yourselves, boys and girls, Mac thought bitterly. This just became an official Mongolian goat-fuck.

He eased back into thicker cover and silently, quickly made his way to Emma. A curt signal had her wriggling backward. When he was certain her retreat hadn’t attracted any attention, he followed.

Once they were well back into the forest, hidden by the night and the restless wind, he signaled for her to stand. Silently he led the way deeper into the trees. Neither of them spoke until they were in the Jeep and had driven down the road, out of sight of the cluster of vehicles. He flipped on the headlights.

“You okay?” Mac asked.

“Swallowing hard,” Emma said tightly.

“Tell me if you need to pull over.”

“Tough guy, huh? The smell didn’t get to you.”

“You learn not to throw up. Too much noise will get you dead real quick.” His hands flexed on the wheel, as hard as his voice. “FBI was on the fire scene.”

Emma’s head hit the back of the seat. “This just gets better and better.”

“Let’s go wake up Faroe. I’m signing on.”