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someone in the store, always someone on the dock,
either setting out if it was early or coming in if the hour was
late.
    It was
only after a long and busy day that she thought of Liam
again.
     
    ***
     
    Liam
Kimball trolled slowly from lake to lake, up and down the river,
studying what any casual observer would have thought was a fish
finder. This was clamped to the gunwale at a convenient height and
distance. What the casual observer might not see was below the
surface. With the monitor plugged into the trailing aquatic sensor
array, he could follow a pattern and survey the bottom, looking for
anomalies. But a bigger problem right now was what to do about the
opposition.
    His
instinct was very strong about these two. They kept popping up, not
that some of the other guests didn’t as well. Some of those other
parties made much more noise, they were animated in a way these two
weren’t. These two didn’t even seem to like fishing. It was like
they just couldn’t act. They lacked enthusiasm in everything, even
in barbecuing and drinking beer. They sat there beside their
campfire at night, hardly speaking, and yet hyperaware of
everything he was doing. When coming and going, one of them always
stayed around to keep an eye on him. They took turns doing their
small errands.
    This
spoke of duty, and an unwelcome one at that.
    The pair
of males, of curiously similar features and stature, speaking an
obscure dialect of Farsi whenever anyone was in earshot, had dogged
him all over the lake the day before. They had gone past him half
an hour previously, studiously ignoring his wave and smile. This
attitude alone would have drawn attention to themselves, but they
had quickly returned to his little end of a much larger bay. He had
the rod hanging, a spinner bait out on a couple of hundred feet of
line. This was mostly for show. He didn’t much care if he caught
anything or not—he had already found a hole along the south shore,
not too far from The Pines, where he was pretty sure to pull out a
couple of fat rainbow trout whenever he needed them. He was getting
a lot more action than his observers.
    For
surely that’s what they were. The one on the rear seat sat there
glowering at him, and the other one couldn’t help but turn and look
at Liam from time to time. The action was visible five hundred or a
thousand metres away to his keen eyes. It was interesting to look
through binoculars, and see a man staring right back at you, also
through binoculars. As things stood now, they were less than two
hundred metres off. The problem was that Liam had gotten a
hit.
    There was
something down below, just a few metres below the surface. Getting
a look at it with them there was going to be a bit of a problem. It
was now plotted on the map, for better or worse. On impulse, he
turned the prow and opened up the throttle. Cutting back to the
east, heading farther up the river and lake complex that was the
Spanish River system, his line circled back around and under the
boat. For whatever the reason, the silver sides of a big fish broke
the surface. It came down sideways, head and gills clearly visible
from the belly side, and it seemed like he had another one on the
line.
    He
throttled back.
    First,
pull in the fish, second, head up the lake…wait a while and
possibly come back.
    He was
only going to put up with so much of their interference.
     
     
    Chapter Four
     
     
    Liam’s
search pattern wasn’t as random as it might first appear, only
enough to keep any opposition guessing. He doubted if they even
knew why they were there—only having orders to keep an eye on the
tall Englishman and report any suspicious activities. All overseas
stations had such low-level operatives. They were often naturalized
citizens, stringers called in on odd jobs, where known embassy
staff would stick out like a sore thumb. They watch us, and sooner
or later reveal themselves, and then we watch them.
    Sooner or
later we catch one. If they’re small fry, we