Death Echo

25

DAY THREE

ROSARIO

1:08 P.M.

Demidov watched Temuri pace the dock, his very presence driving the techs to work faster. Temuri was a muscular, silent shadow ensuring that no one slacked off or lifted a few expensive electronics for individual profit.

Watching Temuri was like looking in a mirror.

Once, we would have worked together, Demidov thought. Now…

The world had changed. Temuri was on the other side of a deadly divide running through the Russian Federation like an earthquake fault. So far the pushing, shoving, strutting, and killing among former satellite regions had stopped short of outright civil war.

Demidov’s job was to see that didn’t change.

Temuri’s job was the opposite.

Since Blue Water Marine had lost their captain, Temuri was pushing to finish the installation of the same electronics he’d been willing to leave ashore before Tommy died.

Demidov smiled. Temuri was making the best of a situation he didn’t really control. More than once, Demidov had done the same. It was called surviving in a game whose rules changed without warning or apology.

Now that the delay his boss had wanted was accomplished, there was little left in Rosario to interest Demidov. Mentally he went through his pre-departure checklist. It had come down to a simple choice. He could go north now and wait for Blackbird, or he could stay here and watch Blackbird leave. Then he would chase her northward sea passage, but he would be on land. Roads wound around mountains and bays and waddled through towns. The course over water was as the crow-or seagull-flew.

When presented with the choice of staying or leaving, Grigori Sidorov’s message had been terse.

Go north.

Demidov put a lid on the bucket, changed all of his ID to that of a Canadian national who had been stamped through U.S. customs eight days ago, and drove out of the parking lot. He dumped the bucket in a vacant lot, left the van in long-term ferry parking, and effectively vanished.

Until Sidorov ordered otherwise, he was headed north.