The Informationist: A Thriller

by Taylor Stevens

  And then the world went black.

  Every muscle, every fiber shrieked the command to get to him. She lunged. Strong arms held her back. A hand was over her mouth. Someone was screaming, the agony of a person burned alive, surreal and horrible, the howls, all of them coming from inside her head. And then there was silence followed by words, calm words, reassuring, coming from her mouth. And a hand, her hand, pulling herself from Bradford’s grasp and the other hand reaching for the silenced rifle and slamming the butt of it across Bradford’s face, knocking him to the ground.

  On the other side of the truck, a soldier reached for Francisco’s body. Through the scope, Munroe set the mark for the man’s forehead, let off a shot, and was gone from where she’d lain before the body crumpled on top of Francisco.

  Touch him and die.

  There was confusion now. Orders. Commands. The others dropped and found cover, searched out the direction of the shot. In the lapsed seconds of chaos, Munroe moved into the bush, silent, invisible, fast, the hunted now the hunter. Two more of the enemy moved toward Francisco’s body. She fired two rounds that pierced body armor, then for good measure two more, each accurately aimed.

  Touch him and die.

  They knew this now, and their confusion segued to structure. She searched the faces and uniforms for the commander; she would find him and take his life from him the way he had taken Francisco’s; nothing else mattered.

  There was movement on the periphery. Shadows crept in the direction of where she’d left Bradford. The trail. The boat. Munroe paused. Concentration shifted from the commander to the path and back again until the decision to keep the way clear was forced. Each round let off a spit, found its mark, silenced, but in the stillness audible. Gunfire returned in her direction; the bullets kicked dirt inches from where she lay. She moved again, circled around, stopped on the edge of the clearing behind the truck, and began again to search out the commander. There, only yards away, Francisco’s lifeless body watched with unseeing eyes, beckoned, and the world went silent.

  Munroe crept toward him, oblivious to everything but the smile on his face and the power of his call. There was a staccato of gunfire from the direction of the shore and a rain of bullets over her head that took down two men behind her. She paused only to look back and then, feral and catlike, crouched again along the ground toward Francisco. She reached for him, could almost touch him, and then in the bush, there across the clearing in the line of sight beyond her hand, was a ghost of movement. She paused. Among those shadows was the commander, and he must die.

  She drew away from Francisco and with patient relish cut off the commander’s escape by taking out the tires on each black vehicle. And then, out of ammunition, she pulled the knife from Francisco’s belt, left the rifle beside his body, and returned to the edge of the clearing to wait.

  In the silence, adrenaline flowed, and with the focus of each passing minute, bloodlust heightened. Within the foliage across the clearing, shadows played against shadows until recognition formed: four of the enemy. One mattered, and she would have him.

  She moved again, tracked them through the bush, closed her eyes and listened to the whispers of the landscape. Understood and smiled. They were circling, hunting for her. She would play the game of cat and mouse, eliminate the three, and take him down alone.

  To hide, to hunt along the damp and dim of the rain-forest floor, was familiar, natural. The musk of living things permeated the air; it mixed with the inner cauldron of rage and fed the urge to strike, to kill. The knife was warm, an extended part of her body, and she stalked with patience, creating diversion to draw gunfire and deplete ammunition until their weapons were useless. And then, an apparition, she moved from the shadows long enough to kill before disappearing again.

  Until there was only him.

  He was there, waiting; she could feel his eyes and the figment of his breath along her spine. She was loud, careless, tempting as she moved through the bush, and then it came, the lunge from behind. She twisted to avoid the impact of his knife and in one drawn-out movement brought Francisco’s blade across his neck. She forced the commander to the ground and, with fingers clenched in his hair, held his head, pulled the knife from his hand, and plunged his own blade into his throat. She jerked it around through tendon and veins, and when the crunch of his severed spinal column vibrated in her hand, the rush of euphoria flowed. She continued until his head separated from his body, held it high in gratified triumph, rose to her feet, and, trailing blood and fluid, carried it out of the forest.

  For a quiet moment, Munroe stood over Francisco, droplets staining the ground at her feet, and then she struck out at the bodies that lay on him and near him, kicking in blind fury until he was free of the defilement of their touch. She knelt over him, dripping a mixture of sweat and blood onto his body, and in a picture of sacrificial offering placed the commander’s head in front of open eyes that stared lifelessly into nothing. She reached for him, fingers shaking until they touched his forehead, pulled him close, cradled his shoulders, and closed his eyes. Then lifted her head to the sky and screamed.

  It was primal, pain and rage, fury and pain again. Her body shook while tears that had not been shed for nearly a decade racked their way to the surface, and she buried her head in Francisco’s chest.

  LIGHT CAME SLOWLY into the fog that was in her mind, awareness brought first by the sound of Bradford’s boots and then by his hand on her shoulder as he knelt beside her. Munroe raised her face to look at him, saw the carnage that surrounded them and the commander’s head on the ground, and realized then for the first time what it was that she had done.

  “We need to go,” Bradford said.

  Munroe cradled Francisco and said, “I’m not leaving him.”

  “Together we can carry him.”

  …

  BRADFORD STARED OVER the ocean, hand to rudder, and glanced at the coordinates on the transponder. It had been three hours since they’d left the coast. They were running low on fuel, and as far as he could tell, there was nothing but ocean for miles to come.

  He glanced at Munroe. She was seated between the benches, cross-legged, with Francisco in her arms and nothing but blankness on her face, the same as it had been since they’d shoved off from shore. She looked up for a half second, met his gaze, then returned to Francisco, and Bradford returned to the water, pushing back the crushing ache that came every time he stole a glance in her direction.

  Nothing he’d read, none of the interviews he’d sat through in researching Munroe’s past, could have prepared him for what she’d done. He understood now the fear others had described. She had been brutally efficient, accurate, had wasted no movement, misspent no energy, and she was fast, terrifyingly fast.

  Bradford checked the coordinates again and then the horizon and saw it there, very faint, a black blemish against the blue, and he understood what it meant. He looked again at Munroe and then at Francisco and what little remained of his skull and the brain that had driven the genius of the man. What a waste. What a goddamn fucking waste.

  The vastness of the ocean was dizzying, and over time the ship loomed large on the horizon, until finally they reached its bulk and Bradford brought the boat alongside. From the deck a crane swung over the water. Cables and sling lowered. Munroe sat motionless and gave no indication that she was aware of being shipside. Bradford knelt beside her and touched her hand; she looked up with such hollowness that it took his breath away. And then the fog in her eyes cleared and she turned toward the trawler, then back to him and pointed and said, “Hooks go there.”

  She bent over Francisco and kissed his forehead. “When my enemies and foes came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though wars should rise against me, in this will I be confident …” Her voice trailed from a mumble to silence, then she stood and went up the ladder on the side of the ship.

  Bradford fought back the lump forming in his throat, moved quickly to secure the sling, grabbed an AKM, and followed
her, his foot touching the first rung of the ladder seconds after she went over the top. There was a whir of motor as the deck crane began to hoist, and when the small boat was about eight feet out of the water, it stopped. He moved faster, his feet finding a rhythm against the steel until he reached the deck and was hit by panic.

  chapter 22

  Munroe was fifteen feet ahead and stood facing a large man whose face Bradford couldn’t see. Her mouth moved, and although Bradford couldn’t hear the words, her eyes held the same empty glaze that had swept in when Francisco’s body had dropped to the ground. Bradford watched her muscles tense and knew that if she went after the big guy, there would be another death, possibly two. He shouted her name, and her focus shifted slowly until she stared directly at him. Bradford maintained eye contact until the tension of the moment diffused, and then he turned toward the man, and when he did, a shock of recognition ran through him. He could see the same written on the other man’s face.

  Bradford nodded. “George.”

  Wheal said, “Miles.”

  And Munroe said, “Fuck.”

  And then she spoke again, the lucidity in the stream of words a stark contrast to her behavior of the past hours. “We’re taking the ship to Douala,” Munroe said to Wheal. “After that, you can have it back.” And then to Bradford, “I’m going to the control deck. Have Wheal get the boat into the hold and then keep him away from me and from the ship controls. If he even twitches in the wrong direction, shoot him.” And then she walked off.

  There was five feet of silent space between the two men. Bradford stood with the rifle still pointed toward the deck; neither moved. Wheal stared down at him as if unsure whether Bradford would use the gun or how deep the shit pile was, until finally he broke the silence. “Want to tell me what the hell’s going on?”

  Bradford sighed, his shoulders slumped, and he nodded in the direction of the small boat still hanging over the ocean. “Take a look, and then I’ll explain,” he said.

  Before Wheal had a chance to return to the crane controls, the trawler’s engines kicked up and the ship began to move. Bradford glanced at the pilothouse and said, “Does she know what she’s doing up there?” Wheal nodded, then brought the small boat over the deck and, like lowering a coffin into the grave, let it down into the hold.

  Both men stood beside the boat. Wheal stared in silence and then with a heavy sigh turned and reached for a tarp. “I had a bad feeling about this,” he said, and he opened the plastic and laid it over Francisco. His face twisted through a range of emotions and then hardened, became expressionless. He turned toward Bradford. “The explanation better be good, or I’m going to kill her.”

  Bradford described the events that had led to Beyard’s death and the bloody aftermath that followed, and when he finished, the hold fell silent except for the sound of their breathing. Wheal said, “I’ll take care of him, finish his business, do what I know he would have wanted.” He walked toward the stairs. “I won’t attempt to stop you from going to Douala—it’s the easiest way to get you both the fuck off my ship. But I still hold her responsible.”

  Bradford ran a grimy hand through his hair and said, “George, whatever’s going on in your head right now, don’t engage her. You’re both likely to end up dead.” His back turned, Wheal waved him off with a gesture that could have been a middle finger, and as he stepped across the threshold, Bradford moved to the stairs. He needed to get to Munroe, get her sorted out, find out what the hell was wrong, and most of all keep Wheal out of sight. What a fucking nightmare.

  He headed for the pilothouse, and when he entered it, Wheal was already there and Munroe was not. “Where is she?” Bradford said.

  “Fuck if I know. If we’re lucky, she jumped overboard.”

  Bradford left the pilothouse and took the stairs at a near run, paused long enough to confirm that Munroe wasn’t anywhere on deck, and found the door to the interior. He opened it to silence, called her name, and received no response. He moved down the dark, narrow hallway, opening doors and flipping on room lights, going quickly from one to the next until he found the light switch for the hallway, slammed his fist against it, and when the darkness emptied, froze for a half second.

  She lay on the floor at the end of the hall, her body partly through the threshold of a door. His throat closed, and he moved forward like someone running through deep water. He knelt beside her, checked her breathing and pulse; then his eyes rose to take in the room itself, and he whispered, “Oh, shit.” The place breathed Francisco Beyard. Parts of his persona marked the room like a pen-scrawled signature, and whatever had driven her to enter it had not been strong enough to sustain her. As best he could tell, she had vomited before passing out.

  He stared at the blood and mud and now the stomach juices that coated her skin and clothing, sighed deeply, stood, and went back through the bunkrooms searching for clothing that would fit, anything that didn’t belong to Francisco. And then he carried her out of Francisco’s room to the narrow hallway bathroom and with reverent tenderness sponged off the filth.

  A BUNKROOM ON the trawler.

  Munroe knew it by the familiar movement of a ship on calm water and the woody dankness of the air. Her eyelids were weighted, and she fought to open them, succeeded, and then, seeing nothing, closed them again in exhaustion. She was laid out flat with her arms to her sides, her head slightly elevated, her mouth dry. There were flashes of illumination against the blackness of her mind: the macabre sight of her reflection in the pilothouse windows; a walk down the hallway to Francisco’s cabin to take a shower; the chessboard, the unmade bed, the fragrance of his presence; nausea and then darkness.

  Time had passed. Maybe an hour. Or a day. Or a week. She struggled to lift a hand against the wall, to place the other against the side of the bed and create support to sit up, but found no strength, let go, and drifted back into the void.

  It was light when she opened her eyes next, the source a low-wattage bedside lamp turned against the opposite wall. The room was unfamiliar—not Francisco’s, not the holding cell—and her clothes were clean and foreign and without the stench of death. She shifted, and her eyes moved to take in the room.

  Focus returned in small waves, and with awareness came tension, nausea, and the iron vise inside her chest that fractured each second and made life a waking death. In a wall niche was a bottle of water; she sat up and reached for it, emptied it in several long swallows, and then rested her forearms on her knees.

  From the hall came the sound of footsteps, and the door opened. George Wheal entered carrying a tray of food, and he placed it on the narrow table between the bunks, gave a curt nod, and sat opposite so that their knees were nearly touching. “We’re in Douala,” he said. “I guess you’ll want to get moving soon.”

  Munroe drew away until her back was against the wall, pulled her knees to her chest, and stared silently at the tray.

  “Look,” he said, “for what it’s worth, the period you were here was the happiest I’d seen Francisco. If I know anything, I know he died content, at peace.” Wheal paused as if calculating the weight of his words and then stood. “That doesn’t change anything between you and me, but I owe it to Francisco to make sure that you know. He loved you, and it’s what he would have wanted.” Wheal opened the door, then looked back for a silent moment before he stepped out and shut it behind him.

  The room went silent and then claustrophobic, and in an effort to hold on to sanity Munroe reached for the boots at the foot of the bunk, put them on, and laced them up. She struggled to stand; her vision folded inward to a pinprick of light, and she braced herself through the first wave of dizziness. Then she turned, leaned into the wall, and somehow one step at a time made it out the cabin door. She’d gone only a couple of feet when Bradford was beside her, arm around her shoulders holding her up, walking her forward.

  Munroe moved in a daze, aware but not, body present and mind somewhere else, shut down. Sounds, sights, and smells filtered into her brain as if
through gauzy film while Bradford ushered her through the motions and took care of logistics. They entered Douala at the southern edge of the port where Francisco’s driver waited to take them into the city and, at Bradford’s instruction, bypassed Francisco’s flat for Akwa Palace, the crown jewel of the city’s hotels, a place where one could almost forget what part of the world this was.

  At the hotel-room door, awareness kicked in, and Munroe realized that Bradford intended for them to share the room. She stopped in the foyer, propped against the wall for support while Bradford entered and dropped his things on one of the chairs. He looked back to where she continued to stand.

  “I’m staying here with you whether you like it or not,” he said.

  Munroe nodded and moved toward the closest bed and, with her legs still on the floor, tilted over onto the pillows. With her back to Bradford, she whispered, “We need to get tickets out of here, need to get to Houston.”

  “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

  She wrapped an arm around a pillow and pulled it to her chest. “You’re worried about leaving me?”

  He walked to the edge of the bed and sat behind her, angled so that he could see the side of her face. “Very.”

  A long silence filled the space until Munroe said, “I play it over and over, and no matter what direction I take, there’s nothing I could have done to save him.”

  “I know,” he said, and he brushed a finger along her forehead.

  “It doesn’t make it any easier,” she whispered. “Somehow it should, but it doesn’t.” She grasped the pillow tighter and pulled her knees to her chest, while tears spilled down her cheeks.

  Bradford shifted to lie behind her, wrapped his arms around her, and drew her close.

  The tears flowed faster, and Munroe shook with silent sobs until the shadows in the room deepened and the hush of evening settled, and there was nothing left to cry. And when the water of emotion had dried and all that remained was a hollow emptiness, she said, “You know, you’re the first to live through what my demons are capable of doing.”