Deadly Echoes by Philip Donlay

know.”
    â€œWilliam filled me in on today’s events. You are not trained to be part of a boarding party. What in the hell were you thinking?”
    â€œThinking about saving evidence.” Donovan knew Buck was angry, as he should be, but what happened couldn’t be undone. “We also know the
Triton’s
helicopter is missing.”
    â€œI’ve already spoken with Special Agent Hudson about John’s helicopter. They’re searching. What kind of range does his chopper have?” Buck asked.
    â€œWith full tanks it could easily fly three hundred miles.”
    â€œSo if they waited until they were, say, fifty miles off the coast of Kauai, they could have flown off of the
Triton
and made it to any one of the islands.”
    â€œYeah,” Donovan said. “And land anywhere. What have I missed at this end?”
    â€œSo far there haven’t been any direct threats phoned into Eco-Watch. The FBI is trying to trace who actually posted the video, and they’re also running any of the online comments that seem even remotely suspicious. All of our assets are in full defensive posture, but besides some name calling, we’re fine.”
    Donovan nodded. “Where are we staying?”
    â€œThe Kauai Beach Resort. It’s only a few miles north of the airport. Nice place, full of honeymooners, makes it hard for anyone trying to harm us to blend in. The head of security is an old Navy guy out of Pearl Harbor. He’s giving us whatever we need, which right now is access to a freight elevator so we can get you up to your room. I suggest burning those clothes.”
    They drove into the lush surroundings and parked near a loading dock. Buck walked Donovan onto the elevator, and they went up to the fifth floor. After checking the hallway, Buck escorted him to his room at the end of the hall.
    Donovan closed the door and welcomed the silence. He emptied his pockets, being especially careful with the photograph. He set it facedown on the table then stripped off his clothes and stuffed everything but his shoes and belt into a plastic laundry bag before wrapping them in a trash bag and tying off the opening. Buck was right—his clothes were history. While the water in the shower heated up, Donovan ripped the paper off all the soaps he could find and put them in the shower stall. He stood in front of the mirror, recognizing the signs of fatigue on his face, the lines around his eyes looked deeper, the circles underneath darker, more pronounced. His short-cropped brown hair was dashed with a bit of gray, as was the hair on his chest, but that was from being forty-nine years old. With all of the reconstructive facial surgery he’d undergone, he didn’t look his age. His eyes were still the same vivid blue they’d been when he was a kid, but everything else was different. He wondered what he’d look like if he was still Robert Huntington, and the answer was usually the same—Robert Huntington wasn’t on a path that promised any kind of longevity and probably would have died years ago.
    The math told him he was pushing fifty, but he still imagined he could do everything he could do in his thirties, though his body was telling him otherwise. He’d lost weight since Lauren had left and was leaner than he’d been in a decade, but his body had taken a beating in the last year. The eight-inch scar on his thigh was crimson red and throbbing from today’s activities, as was the almost identical wound on the inside of his right wrist. A small round scar near his left clavicle marked the entry wound from a nine-millimeter round. Less noticeable was a purplish puncture wound on the back of his right hand. It was round, about the diameter of a pencil with an identical scar on his palm where the screwdriver had passed all the way through. A friend had told him once he was the most scarred man she’d ever met—and she wasn’t talking about the visible