Dark Moon Walking (25 page)

The lineup for customs and immigration at the main terminal at the Vancouver International Airport was slowly thinning. The passengers from the big Cathay Pacific arrival had mostly been processed and were now milling around the luggage carousels while the next group, off an Air Canada flight from Mexico City, moved steadily forward, passports in hand. Jason Colwood glanced up at the clock on the wall of his booth. He had been on duty for almost three hours and was due for a coffee break. He beckoned to the next person standing in the line. The man was dressed in a slightly rumpled business suit and was obviously traveling alone. He had his passport ready in his hand, open to the photo page, and as he approached, Jason could clearly see the cover: Mexico. Well, that made sense seeing as the flight had originated there. Jason reached out a hand for the passport as he took in the face of the man who now stood in front of him: dark eyes, sharp nose and high cheekbones, black hair and light-brown skin. He glanced down at the photo and then back up again. Definitely the same man, and he appeared to be totally at ease, perhaps even a little bored, certainly a bit impatient. Who wouldn't be after a long flight and then standing in line for half an hour or so? He slid the passport into the reader and watched the screen as the data appeared: Juan Luis Rodriguez Vargas. Age 42. Married. Born in Tapalpa in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. Businessman. There were no cautions. Juan Luis had visited Vancouver twice before.

Jason looked back up from his screen at the man standing across from him and made his decision. “Good evening, Señor Vargas.
Bienvenido a Vancouver.
”

The man smiled. “
Gracias, señor.
”

Jason handed the passport back, nodded, and turned to look at the next people in line: a family with two fractious young children. Juan Luis Vargas, more properly known as Mohammed ibn Saleh ibn Tariq al-Nasiri, took the passport and slid it into the inside pocket of his jacket. He would not be needing it again.

A car, its windows darkened, was waiting for Nasiri outside the terminal. The driver lowered his sign, bowed his head in deference, took the suitcase and stowed it in the trunk, then waited while Nasiri slid through the open door onto the back seat. He wouldn't be needing the suitcase again either. The Mexican clothing he had filled it with would be worn by whoever was returning there with the passport he had used. A fresh set of clothes lay on the seat beside him and he used the drive into downtown Vancouver to change. He was booked into the same hotel he had used on his last two visits, Days Inn Vancouver. It was perfect for his needs: not high-end enough to attract clients requiring their own security details, not low-end enough to attract trouble, and only two blocks to the massive Vancouver Convention Centre, with its glass walls and picturesque views across the harbor. With the main event starting in just three days, the hotel would be full of bureaucrats, civil servants, and journalists. He would blend in perfectly. The message light on his phone was already blinking when he entered his room.

Mike Bryant moved out onto the walkway in front of the Vancouver Convention Centre and gazed out over Burrard Inlet. Across the water the lights of West and North Vancouver glittered brightly. Even after an exhausting seven hours spent organizing the inspection of every square inch of the more than two hundred thousand square feet of meeting space, plus an almost equal amount of service rooms and kitchens, he was still refreshed by the salt air and the luminous glow of the snow-covered mountain peaks that formed a backdrop to the cities that stretched along the North Shore. A warm square of light creeping up one of the steep slopes marked the path of the Grouse Mountain gondola, and the lights on the ski runs on both Mount Seymour and Cypress Mountain were clearly visible. He made himself a promise to visit one of them as soon as this damn meeting was over.

“Hey, Mike. We need you in here.”

He dragged himself away from the view and turned to see the broad bulk of Sergeant Grant Fraser standing in the doorway. “Yeah. Coming.”

The team had assembled in the wide concourse that ran the length of the main building. Sets of blueprints were spread out over almost every available surface. Mike glanced around, performing a quick head count as he did so. Everyone accounted for.

“So where are we at?” he asked.

Grant answered. “We've checked everything. It's clean.”

“Do we have uniforms on duty tonight?”

“Yeah. Three in and four out. Door checks every hour.”

“Anyone checked the alarms?”

“Yep. Richards and Ferguson sat in while the manager ran through the system. Everything checks out.”

“So we good to go?”

Grant turned to the group. “Guys?”

There was the rustle of paper as notebooks were opened and pages checked, then one by one the men reported.

“Yeah.”

“I'm clear.”

“All good.”

“Same here.”

By midnight, the convention center lay quiet and dark. Mike made his way back to his hotel, stripped down to his underwear, and fell into bed. Even if he was able to sleep—something he doubted—he would be back up at five the next morning to monitor the check-in procedures for participants in the preliminary meetings. So far it had all been routine. Everything had checked out fine and he thought they had all the bases covered. But he still couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Javier Fernandez sat quietly in the salon of
Snow Queen
, legs stretched out in front of him and a glass of single-malt scotch by his side. He had acquired a taste for the stuff on one of his trips abroad and knew he would never go back to the aguardiente of his native land. It was two hours since he had placed his call to the hotel in Vancouver. Nasiri should be calling him back very soon.

Things had gone well in Shoal Bay. Despite the problem with the girl, whom they still hadn't found, he had been pleased with the day's rehearsals. The men had shown they were ready and they had no problems assembling or handling the various weapons. Fernandez's mouth narrowed in a thin smile as he thought about it. Except for the gas canisters, which Alex and Carlos would fill at the last minute, everything was ready to go. Tomorrow they would load the crew boat and head south.

He stood up and moved to the window. The weather forecast had predicted a front moving in overnight with strong northwest winds and rain, easing by late morning. The men would have to take the crew boat back over early to beat the seas, but once they left Shoal Bay and turned south, they would have the wind and waves behind them. And as soon as they had crossed the open waters of Queen Charlotte Sound, they would gain some protection in the narrow stretch of water that ran down the east side of Vancouver Island. It would all work as he had planned. He could picture the route on the chart he had memorized. The boat would refuel at Port Hardy, then run at full speed down the Inside Passage. It would then turn into Johnstone Strait and pass through the throat of Seymour Narrows, out into the Strait of Georgia, and across to the southern mouth of the Fraser.

The rest was easy. Once in the river they would become invisible. The Fraser was lined with wharves and docks, and constant traffic moved in and out of them. A crew boat's arrival at the public wharf at Steveston was a common event in the working life of the river. They would not even be noticed, and the vans he had arranged to meet them would also be lost in the normal chaos of loading and unloading.

His thoughts were interrupted as Alex entered the salon. He had been monitoring the radio on the bridge. “Nasiri called. He is in place and he has the rifle.”

Fernandez nodded. All the pieces were coming together, exactly as he had planned it. The big man would be pleased.

TWENTY-ONE

Walker's idea was crazy, but maybe it was worth a try. It had to be better than doing nothing, and even if they didn't succeed in stopping the men on the black ship, they might delay them long enough to allow Dan time to contact Mike and get Hargreaves back.

Walker had explained his idea—Dan wouldn't grace it by calling it a plan—as they motored back to Annie's boat, and now the two of them were heading out yet again. They were on their way to some island that didn't have a name, that sat in a river that wasn't shown on any chart, and that was on the other side of two sets of narrows, one at each end of a tidal lake that was reached by a narrow inlet. It would be dark by the time they got there. If he ever tried to explain this to anyone back in the city, Dan thought as he watched the inlet narrow ahead of him, they would have him certified and locked up. They had nothing with them: no charts, no compass, and no supplies, although Annie had lent him a flashlight and an old jacket that he could barely fit his arms into but which she said might come in handy if it got cold. She had also given him a box of chocolate-chip cookies.