Dark Moon Walking (38 page)

“God, I hope they get them!” Claire shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “They killed Robbie.”

Dan leaned over and put his hand on her arm. “They'll get them,” he said, and as if to confirm his words the radiotelephone peeled a demand.

“
Dreamspeaker
.”

“Dan, it's Mike. We've got them. Picked them up in Port Hardy. They were headed for Vancouver and stopped in there to refuel.”

“You talking about the chopper or the crew boat?”

“The crew boat. Haven't tracked the chopper yet. We think it's a charter from West Coast Helicopters. They've got four different bases and it could have come from any of them, so it's taking a while to sort it out.”

“Huh. Hope you find it. The main guys are probably on it.”

“Well, we've got ten of them in Port Hardy and one of them has real short white hair. The guys up there say he might be German. Got a German name, anyway.”

From the corner of his eye, Dan saw the flash of Claire's smile.

“Hey, that's great news. He's one of the kingpins. Anyone have a ponytail? Black hair, pulled back tight?”

“Nope. The rest look like poster boys for a mercenary-recruiting campaign. We think one guy might be from the Middle East somewhere, and maybe a couple more are Hispanic. No ponytails.”

“Huh. So Ponytail is still on the loose, and he's the one who shot Harry.”

“We're looking, believe me.” The intensity in Mike's voice reinforced what he was saying.

“You get the canisters?” Dan asked.

“Yeah. You were right. They had weapons, but here's the really weird thing. The guys are checking them all out now, but it looks like most of them were fakes.”

“Fakes?” Jesus, he was doing the repeating thing with Mike now.

“Yeah. The guns are the real thing—AK47s mostly. But the bullets are blanks. Don't know about the grenades yet. They've got the bomb squad coming in to check those.”

“Shit! That's crazy. Doesn't make any sense. Why would they go to all this trouble for fakes?”

Behind him he heard Claire say, “It wasn't a fake bullet that killed Harry.”

“Yeah. Good point. Did you hear that? Claire says that it wasn't a fake bullet that killed Harry. Wasn't an accident that got her boss Robbie either.”

“Claire? Jesus, you having a party up there? First Walker, now Claire. How many people you got with you?”

Dan smiled. “Just the three of us. But back to the bad guys. You've got to find a way to hold them even if the stuff is fake.”

“Oh, we'll be holding them. The white-haired guy and two of his pals had the real thing on them, guns and bullets, and none of the weapons are registered. Plus, that guy the coast guard found has an interesting story to tell. We're flying him down now.”

“He the captain of the black ship?
Snow Queen
?”

“That's what he says. Guess we'll find out soon enough.”

“Yeah. Doesn't sound good, them heading down your way and that
UN
thing going on. But those fake weapons . . . I dunno about that. Glad I'm not you though.”

“Gee, thanks!” Mike signed off with yet another caution about not going anywhere, and Dan turned to find Walker looking at him oddly.

“They were in a crew boat?” he asked.

Dan nodded. “Yeah. Don't know where they'd been because there wasn't any crew boat with the black ship when we saw it, but Claire and I saw it head in to Shoal Bay just after the coast guard got there.”

“Couldn't have been the same crew boat.”

“Why the hell not? Had to be. How many crew boats are there around here this time of year?”

Walker was shaking his head. “Don't know about that, but the boys took care of the one that was tied up to the black ship.”

Dan sat down carefully, working hard to bite off the urge to repeat Walker's words yet again.

“Really. And just how did they do that? Please tell me they didn't just swim out and sink it.”

Walker's face crinkled into that same aggravating grin. “Nope. Said they just climbed on board and put a little seawater in the gas tanks. Gonna take a pretty big overhaul before those engines run again.”

Dan sighed. “Right. Of course. Why didn't I think of that?”

A peal of laughter raced around the sunlit space and the men both turned to look at Claire.

“What's so damned funny?” Dan asked.

“You!” she answered, fighting for breath. “You should have seen your face when Walker was talking.”

“Yeah, well . . .” He struggled between indignation and justification, searching for the words he needed to convey what he was feeling. Finally, he had to settle on simple amusement.

“You've got to admit it
is
a pretty amazing story. Here I am, trying to get the marine guys in here, trying to figure out how to call in markers and arrange satellite surveillance and all kinds of high-tech shit, using some fancy restricted radio to contact some pretty important people, and Walker and his friends paddle over in a bunch of goddamn canoes, jump into the ocean, and solve the problem.” He chuckled. “I guess there's some kind of moral to this story—maybe ‘the simplest way is the best way' or ‘don't use a cannon to swat a fly,' or something.”

Walker shrugged. “We just did what we needed to.”

Dan nodded. “And it worked.”

“But they still have to catch that other guy.” Claire's smile had disappeared. “He could still be planning something.”

“Pretty hard to do anything without your crew and your weapons,” Walker said.

“Yeah,” Dan agreed. “But I keep thinking about those damn blanks.” He looked back at the stuff spread out on the chart table, rolled a bullet around with his finger, and then picked up a spray bottle and held it up to the light. “What if that whole crew of men and all their weapons were just to create a diversion? Maybe cause a little panic and take attention away from the main event? Don't need real stuff to do that and there's no risk of getting caught before the main event. The men wouldn't even have to know. Probably wouldn't. But it would create panic and pull all the security and cops out to deal with it. Then one guy on his own could deal with the real target.”

There was complete silence in the wheelhouse as they all considered the idea, and then Dan voiced what they were all thinking.

“Oh shit!” he said and pushed himself up from the table to run for the radio.

THIRTY-THREE

Nasiri sat at the desk in his hotel room, watching the slow dusk creep over the city, muting the colors of cars and pedestrians and trees and buildings till it all took on the soft gray haze of evening. There was nothing left to be done. He was ready. Yesterday he had broken down his weapon, cleaned and reassembled it, and broken it down again. He had then carefully placed the various parts into the specially designed compartments of his Italian leather briefcase. That same briefcase was now stored in a very secure “safe” room at the offices of Mr. Jason Bainbridge, the financial broker with whom he had an appointment the next morning. The beautifully groomed secretary who had put it there for him had even taken him in to show him just how safe it was. It was not an unusual request, she reassured him. Many of their clients asked that their important documents be placed somewhere for safekeeping until they could meet with their broker. It was a service they were glad to offer and certainly not an imposition.

“Actually,” she had said, her voice taking on a note of disapproval, “we probably should have asked all tomorrow's clients to do the same. We've been told there's going to be security screening for everyone coming into the building.” She moved from disapproval to indignation. “They're even going to check the staff !”

“For what reason?” Nasiri had injected an appropriate amount of surprise into the question. “Has there been some kind of problem?”

“Oh, no! Nothing that is of concern,” she'd reassured him. Lifting a thin, pale hand, she'd pointed a red-tipped finger out toward the wood-and-glass building across the street. “There's a big international conference going on over there and they have some
VIP
s coming in. Probably politicians.” The disapproval had returned. “It's just the inconvenience! I can't imagine how we can possibly keep all our appointments on schedule if they're going to check everyone.”

“I see. Well, perhaps I will make sure that I arrive a little early,” Nasiri had said. “I would not want to be late for my appointment.”

Thinking about the conversation, Nasiri smiled. He would indeed be early. He needed a little extra time to take care of Mr. Bainbridge before Fernandez's men began their little charade out front and the panic started. He needed to be ready when all those security forces rushed to evacuate their important guests.

The Bell 206 helicopter skimmed over the turbulent waters of Seymour Narrows and turned toward the long spit of land that curved out into Discovery Channel just north of the city of Campbell River. It hovered briefly over a strip of marshy grassland, then settled gently onto the tarmac in front of a squat gray building. A sign out front announced it as the home of West Coast Helicopters.

The pilot removed his headset and turned to address his passengers. “We'll be on the ground for about twenty minutes, folks. There's coffee and snacks inside. I'll come and get you as soon as we're finished refueling. Should be about an hour's flying time down to Vancouver.”

Fernandez opened his door and nodded for the other two to join him. The sooner they reached the sprawling metropolis that was their destination, the better. More than enough things had gone wrong today. He didn't need anything else.

He scanned the heliport as they walked toward the building. The place looked almost deserted. There was a single chopper way over on the other side of the tarmac in front of another building, but other than that all he could see were some float planes at a dock out on the water. Either business was booming and everybody was out or they were shutting down for the season. He pushed open the door and entered the office. It consisted of one large open space that, like the runway and aprons outside, was mostly empty except for a single agent working behind the counter. The man looked up at them briefly and then returned to what he had been doing.