The Catch: A Novel
Page 33
Victor’s beard twitched again, and without a word he handed her the rifle. She stood watch until he returned with a sloshing bucket and a single plastic cup; stayed with him until he transferred the water into the room and secured the door again; and then she left for the bridge.
The captain was in a chair, dozing, and Khalid nodded a greeting when she entered, then returned his focus to the ocean ahead, as if the two men had been playing tag team in this way during the long last hours while the ship’s autopilot handled the navigation. Bowls of rice littered the desk space—someone else having made good on the promise Munroe had failed to deliver.
Munroe knelt in front of the captain and snapped a picture with the satellite phone. He startled awake at the resultant beep, expression blank for a second as if dusting away mental cobwebs, and then said, “Why?” Same question he’d asked when she’d taken the picture in the hotel room.
“Making good on my promise,” she said, and now that he was awake and subtlety was no longer an option, she opened drawers and dug through them, found a permanent marker, and said, “Give me your arm.”
“Why?” he said again.
“Just do it,” she said, and although he eyed her suspiciously, he offered his wrist. She scribbled the day’s date on his forearm, said, “Hold it by your face,” and when he did, she took another picture.
“What’s it for?” he said.
“Your freedom.”
He continued to study her, his face creased with exhaustion and disbelief, and rightfully so, and to break the silence and make her exit, Munroe said, “What’s our position? How many hours to arrival?”
The captain stood and walked toward the panel. Scanned the instruments and then squinted toward the ceiling as if running calculations in his head. “Ninety, more or less,” he said.
“Fuel?”
“At this rate, yes, we will make.”
“And you?” she said. “Are there any crew members capable of standing watch so you can get some proper sleep?”
He hesitated a moment before answering, as if waiting for a trick or a trap, and when none came, he nodded toward Khalid. “We do okay,” he said.
Munroe repeated the question in Somali for Khalid, whose attention was still entirely on the swath of ocean ahead. He turned only long enough to confirm agreement, so she left them for the bridge wing and a better signal.
The dhow traveled some seventy meters off port, and Joe stood shirtless under the sun by the fuel drums, siphoning fuel into a container. Munroe watched him from the rail, waiting for the satellite and phone to sync, and eventually Joe looked up, saw her, and acknowledged her with a wave, and she waved back. Marcus and Yusuf patrolled the deck below, and although Munroe couldn’t see him, she supposed that Natan, even if he slept, wasn’t far away.
The phone vibrated in her hand.
She sent the captain’s photo to the hotel’s e-mail, impatient through the slow connection, and eventually, when the transmittal was complete, she called the hotel to confirm its receipt and sweet-talked the reservationist into printing the image and having the page delivered to the Russian boss man’s room. The delay would have set him on edge and worked to her advantage.
Munroe waited another twenty minutes, then called the hotel again and asked to be transferred directly.
Anton picked up on the first ring.
“You’ve received your proof,” she said. “You have twelve hours to wire the first half of the payment. No money, no prize.”
“I understand how it works,” he said, and she hung up, cutting him off before he’d finished.
TWELVE HOURS FROM the phone call brought Munroe to four in the morning Somali time; at five hours behind Singapore, it didn’t leave much of a wait for her bank to open. At the start of business hours she made the call to verify that the transfer had arrived into her account, and then, with the knowledge that payment had been received, another piece on the chessboard moved into place and she returned to the berth to sleep until the alarm on the phone pulled her awake again at seven and she called the hawaladar.
She’d not spoken to him since they’d taken the ship, and that conversation had lasted only long enough for her to confirm that they’d secured the Favorita and ensure that he received the news directly from her because she suspected that Joe, as the hawaladar’s insurance toward getting his investment back, had his own way of communicating the details.
The hawaladar answered as if she was now long overdue. Munroe gave him their estimated time of arrival as per the captain’s calculations, and he countered with news of the Russian delegation.
“I’ve had men watching them,” he said. “They’re working with the port authorities and I fear they’re expecting the freighter. This might make it difficult to seize the ship.”
An undercurrent of accusation ran through his words, and with the accusation an unwitting confirmation that whatever had allowed the attackers to track the ship from the beginning was with the Favorita even still.
“Define difficult,” she said.
“This would depend on what they want and why they are interested,” he said, and paused. Finger-pointing permeated his silence, and when she didn’t rise to defend herself, he said, “To the Kenyans, I am Somali. It doesn’t matter that I’m a British citizen, I remain the enemy. My contacts only go so deep and they are fickle. Depending on how well these Russians are connected, or who in the government they involve, this could end badly. Personally I stand to lose an investment, but you risk losing more.”
His toying annoyed her. She said, “In what way?”
“Rumor has it that the crew and captain will be arrested as soon as they arrive. You are crew, are you not?”
“If the Russians are expecting the ship, it’s not from me,” she said. “Have you already filed?”
“I continue to wait.”
“Thank you for the warning,” she said. “I’ll make contingencies.”
“And you will bring me my vessel?”
“I gave you my word.”
The hawaladar ended the call, and Munroe closed her eyes, let the wind and the salt air fill her thoughts, then turned from the bridge wing and headed down. She dialed again for Anton.
“The money has arrived,” she said. “You fulfilled your end, so I fulfill mine. The Favorita will arrive in Mombasa port within the next seventy-two hours. Nikola is the captain. If you intend to collect your prize, you’ll need your men. All of them.”
“Nikola is with the ship?” he said, and his voice betrayed anger and disbelief, as if he’d been played the fool. “I cannot believe this.”
“You want your man and I want the rest of my money,” she said. “I’ll notify you when the ship is close. Be prepared to deliver the remainder before boarding.”
THEY WERE IN Kenyan waters, five miles off the coast, when the vessels cut power and under Natan’s guidance the Favorita’s crew reopened the hatches and all able hands offloaded the munitions. The inflatable became the raft to transfer to the dhow what few pieces were worth keeping and the rest they dumped overboard, ridding themselves of the certainty they’d go from prisoners of Somali pirates to prisoners of the Kenyan legal system. What the Russian delegation might plan was a different issue that Munroe kept to herself.
When the transfer was finished, Munroe sent Yusuf and Ali back to the dhow, where there was no opportunity for them to interfere with the pirates, who, because of indecision, were still on board the Favorita and at this juncture more likely to be handed over to the authorities when they reached Mombasa than to be dumped overboard. And with the inflatable pulled back onto the freighter and the ship under way once more, Munroe went in search of Amber.
The door to Leo’s room was closed and Munroe knocked, opened it without waiting for an answer. The berth was still rank with the stench of unwashed bodies, but not nearly as bad as it had been when she’d first stumbled into it.
Ignoring Leo, Munroe knelt beside Amber.
“You still have a two-w
ay,” she said.
Amber nodded, and Munroe handed her the satellite phone. “Hold on to this,” she said, “and always keep your radio with you.”
Amber’s expression clouded with questions.
“Just trust me,” Munroe said.
Amber reached for the phone and Munroe held on to it for emphasis, their fingers touching, connected by the chunk of metal and plastic, and when Amber nodded, Munroe let go and left the berth for the bridge, where she could time the increments of their journey as they headed toward Mombasa.
CHAPTER 44
North of Malindi, in the predawn mist, while the captain looked on from the bridge and the crew slept, Munroe and Victor secured Natan’s inflatable to the deck crane and took the boat over the side. Munroe rode the chain down to the water, then used the oars to keep the inflatable from washing into the ship while Marcus rappelled down the side to join her, and then, turning the nose of the inflatable toward shore, they continued wordlessly in the direction of the lights until they crossed the break and Marcus worked them forward with the oars.
When the bottom of the boat scraped sand, Munroe slipped over the fore gunwale and waded the rest of the way up, and by the time she glanced back, the boat and the man in it had already blended into the dark, leaving the fading hum of the engine as the only evidence they’d been there at all.
At the grass line Munroe sat; stared out toward where the Favorita drifted, invisible in the night. She’d handed the issue of the Somali captives over to Amber Marie to free Victor of the burden, then tasked him with backing up Khalid in guarding the captain. Shoes back on, she trudged inland, met a dirt road, and followed the edge south until the sun was fully over the eastern treetops, and at last a car passed and she flagged the driver. He slowed and she negotiated a ride to Malindi. Once in the city, in a near repeat of what she’d done just weeks prior, Munroe secured a ride to Mombasa and returned to the hotel where, in the aftermath of her brush with death those many nights ago, she’d found a temporary haven to shower and sleep.
She’d carried with her the Kenyan satellite phone, a two-way radio, and the bag of clothes and items that she’d bought and stolen along the way, shuffled from hotel to beach house to dhow and finally retrieved during the ferrying of light arms off the Favorita. The hot water washed away the dirt and stink of more than a week without bathing, and she scrubbed at the death in Garacad, a stain that wouldn’t wash away, until the soap was gone and her skin was raw, then she left the shower and dialed Sergey.
When he answered, she oozed sugar into her voice. “I’m back in town but only for a night,” she said. “My boss is calling me home and I fly to Nairobi tomorrow.”
“Then we must party,” he said, though from the lilt in his tone, the party had started some time ago.
“Sentrim Castle,” she said.
“I’ll be in the lobby at eight,” he said, and with a hint of playfulness added, “No, perhaps not. You will have to find me.”
“The hunt is on,” she said, and ended the call. Images of Sami, dead on the beach, bubbled back to the surface and the anger she’d set aside to utilize her pawns in a long-term strategy to checkmate became the driving force once more.
Munroe dressed again. She’d ditched the handgun—she was safer that way—strapped the knives to her thighs under the knee-length skirt, applied moisturizer and makeup over her sunburned skin. Studied the transformation in the mirror, staring into gray eyes from which the spark had long ago died, and turned away from this thing she had become.
She arrived at the hotel ahead of schedule and wound her way among large potted plants and the mostly foreign hotel guests, found Sergey and the older delegate on a patio together with a blonde, each man with two empty glasses on the table and a third in hand, Sergey flirting shamelessly with the woman while she sipped something orange.
Munroe continued on, returned to the front desk long enough to charm the number of the boss man’s room from the staff, and then resumed the hunt, approaching Sergey’s table, flashing a radiant smile, and inviting herself into the open chair.
Sergey mirrored her smile. “You found me,” he said, and drained his drink and knocked his glass hard onto the table.
Munroe crossed her legs in a long, languid movement, draped an arm over the back of her chair, made her fingers into the shape of a gun, winked, and pulled the imaginary trigger. “Bang.”
Sergey smiled again, charming and nauseating, and pushed back from the table. “Now that you are here,” he said, and stood as if they were all meant to leave. By way of a passing wave he introduced the blonde. “She is Olivie,” he said. “She only speaks French.”
As if somehow that was supposed to mean something.
They left as a group for a waiting car, only the four of them, and in response to this Munroe, playful and wide-eyed, squeezed Sergey’s biceps and said, “Where are your other friends?”
He reached to open the car door. “They come later,” he said, and ushered her into the backseat with Olivie. The driver took them to an open-air club on Nyali beach and Sergey spent the length of the trip running his fingers along the outside of Munroe’s thigh and up her rib cage, unwanted and uninvited physical contact. She batted him away in ersatz playfulness, surrogate for the urge to slit his throat.
The car stopped, and free of him and away from his touch, Munroe made for the bar under the pretext of needing a drink, would have downed a couple in quick succession had she not needed to think clearly. Instead, she drank water until the tactile overload subsided and the pounding in her chest had been pushed down into a tiny knot; she returned to Sergey’s side, drink in hand, tuning the strings of her behavior, vibrating between coy and flirt until the arrival of the rest of the delegation broke the rhythm and the alcohol flowed heavier and the night drew longer.
She’d come for conversation, for snippets and clues and nuance in the unspoken. The Favorita was tracked; she’d told them that the captain was on board. These men knew the ship would soon arrive, and alcohol was a horrible gatekeeper to secrets no matter how well they were guarded. The evening continued with smiles and come-ons, indifference and distraction, Munroe shrouded in the role that Sergey expected until, at some point between drinks, Anton took a phone call and twenty minutes later another man joined the group, bringing with him a shock of recognition and providing Munroe answers to the question of Ibrahiin.
Anton moved away from the group to a table off to the side while the hawaladar’s bodyguard, the one who’d sat inside the doorway and who’d come with the hawaladar to the freight depot, walked with him.
Laughter and conversation continued on around while silence filled Munroe’s ears and a rush of images shifted perspective and the chessboard inside her head rotated and the pieces moved into check. She avoided eye contact with the bodyguard, feigned exhaustion and the need to sit in order to move closer to the satchel that had transferred from his hand into Anton’s, and because Sergey went with her, Munroe closed her eyes to block him out, to block out all but the whispers of conversation that reached out from behind her back.
In the satchel were the hawaladar’s papers, copies of the legal filings to make the claim against the freighter for salvage. She’d expected betrayal to come from somewhere, hadn’t anticipated its coming so late. Her thumb caressed the strap beneath her skirt, and realizing what she’d done, Munroe pressed her palm flat on her thigh.
Money changed hands and then beside her Sergey’s body language shifted and for the first time in the evening he ignored the women. Focus entirely on the newcomer, he left Munroe and walked toward his boss. He stood behind Ibrahiin, and with the implied threat of Sergey’s presence, the boss man’s conversation darkened into demands for information about the captain.
Munroe turned slightly to observe the interaction. If the bodyguard was cowed, he didn’t show it. He flashed a smile and to Anton, the only one of the delegation who spoke fluent English, said, “It takes more time, but I will get you what you want.”
The bodyguard said good night and stood, and Sergey didn’t stop him. A half beat of silence and the conversation started up again. They spoke of finishing the job tomorrow, of Anton’s boss wanting to see for himself, and as easily as flicking ash off the tip of a smoldering cigarette, they reverted to the inanity of moments before and laughter followed and Sergey returned to Munroe, ran his fingers along her hairline and nuzzled at her neckline, shutting down the calculations running through her head.
Overpowering desire urged her to strike him. “I’m going to use the restroom,” she said, and scooted away, knowing he would follow.
She entered the ladies’ room and he came in after her. Ordered the other women out, and when they were alone, Munroe leaned back into the wall and smiled. Had he been less drunk, he might have seen the welcome for what it was.
He tipped in to kiss her and she drove her forehead into his face.
Knee into his groin.
Mouth gaping, he slid down the wall, and by the time she stepped over him the knife was already in her hand.
Gasping for air, he reached behind his back for the weapon holstered in his waistband. She stabbed his shoulder. Plunged the knife through. His right hand twitched and flailed and he clawed with his left. She yanked the knife up. Through cartilage. Hit bone. Stomped his groin with her foot. Took a knee up under his jaw and slammed his head back into the wall. Beyond the bathroom door, the thump of the music and the deep bass notes played on.
His eyes glassed over, alcohol mixed with trauma, and she fisted his hair. Ran the blade from ear to ear, deep enough to satiate the lust for blood and yet still let him live. Held the blade to his face so he could see the crimson that stained it, then wiped the knife across his shirt. Straightened, then stepped over him and walked out of the club and into the night.