The Informationist: A Thriller (23 page)

Beyard stood on the prow. He faced the approaching ship, and Munroe stood behind him at a distance; it was her position, the observant, silent shadow. He was an outline, tall, shoulders squared, a shape blending with the night, a man in control and secure in his surroundings. She knew that his mind ran strategy, a giant chessboard to be played in real life. To watch him and stand in awe of him was familiar from the past, but the emotion running beneath the admiration took her by surprise. In Beyard’s confidence was a power, a force that lesser men could never hope to imitate, and she was drawn to that power.

From over the darkened waves, the other ship loomed, not as large as the trawler but sleeker and no doubt faster. Munroe watched as a Zodiac bearing five men closed the distance between the two ships. She waited until she could gauge the extent to which they were armed, then, as the first began to climb the ladder, retreated into the shadows. Three of the Zodiac’s five boarded, and Beyard strode toward them.

Their leader was a short, heavy figure in battle fatigues. His men stood silent where they’d stepped onto the deck, and he moved forward, greeting Beyard with a strong handshake that implied a shared
camaraderie. He handed Beyard a briefcase, and the banter between the two was easy and familiar. The commander’s English was perfect, absent any indication of pidgin, and crisp with enunciation that contrasted sharply with Beyard’s bastardized English.

The wind stifled the sounds of their conversation, and so Munroe turned her focus to the trawler’s crew, confirming their positions in relation to one another. She moved around a railing near the side of the ship, and it was then that she heard the low, nearly inaudible whine of an electric engine. She glanced at Beyard, who was nodding in approval over the open briefcase, then up toward Lupo, invisible on the pilothouse roof.

The sound of the engine cut. Munroe turned toward the ladder, saw that the commander’s men were no longer there, and in that instant a burst of gunfire shattered the night.

She dropped, palms to the deck, and the first rush of adrenaline coursed through her veins. She waited. Listened. And then inched toward the side of the ship, peered over, and confirmed a second Zodiac, empty. She swore under her breath. The commander and his men were familiar with the trawler and its layout; she’d seen that in their interaction with Beyard. This wasn’t a handoff at sea but a goddamn hijacking—the pilothouse and the hold with its cache of weapons, those would be their targets.

On deck, Beyard was gone, as was the commander, and the ship had turned driftwood silent. Munroe took a deep breath, mentally placed the crew, then knelt and took off her boots. The cold of the ship’s metal spread from her toes to the marrow of her bones. There would be no halfway tonight, no truce. If the trawler were to be taken, she and the crew would be executed, and should they succeed in defending it, the enemy must die. It was the cold-blooded reality of treachery: One way or the other, the ocean would claim her dead. Munroe stood, bare feet fueling the savage ecstasy of the hunt to come.

Another burst of gunfire erupted aft, followed by the muted clap of the sniper. Munroe hugged the wall and moved toward the foredeck, where Wheal had been. There was another hiss from the sniper, followed by a padded thud, then an exchange of gunfire.

Silence.

Munroe slid around the corner. Wheal, crouched low, signaled in
her direction, motioned fore, then held up three fingers. She nodded and gestured for a knife. He slid one to her, and Munroe took it, retreating the way she’d come. With the blade between her teeth, she slipped over the side of the trawler.

The Zodiacs had been left empty. Stupidity or overconfidence, Munroe wasn’t sure, but their failure to guard egress would cost them. She sliced at the fabric of the first Zodiac, eyeing the silhouette of the enemy ship less than three hundred meters away. The Zodiac collapsed under the knife, took on water, and sank while the ghost rising out of the waves stood sentinel, no doubt waiting for a signal to close the distance. Munroe slit the material on the second boat, scurried up the ladder, and slithered onto the deck, cautious not only of the intruders but of moving into the kill zone of one of the crew.

A fusillade of bullets from one of the submachine guns ricocheted off the stairwell that led to the pilothouse. There was return fire, silence, and then another thud on the deck. Hidden as he was with a night-vision scope, Lupo had a temporary advantage. Against how many, though? That was the question.

Munroe moved amidships to a hatch that would feed away from the deck with its high probability of getting caught in the crossfire, then to the hold, the only direction in which Beyard could have disappeared. She dropped down into the dank belly of the ship, and the black swallowed her. Disoriented by the lack of light, Munroe’s fingers traced the railing, and, sightless, she moved forward, one cautious step at a time.

Awareness of a presence came finally, not from the front as she expected but from behind, an expulsion of breath so soft it raised the hair along her arms. In a fluid movement, she slipped over the top of the railing and held herself in place while a whiff of body odor and soap, cigarettes and cooking oil, passed by. There was no way to gauge his height or even the strike distance, rendering the surprise of a knife useless. But there were legends and superstitions. Here in the dark, they were a weapon.

Unable to pinpoint her location in relation to the items in the hold or ascertain the length of the drop, Munroe hung to the bottom rail, turned to face the opposite wall, pitched her voice an octave higher, and in accented pidgin English hissed, “Who dares disturb my sleep?”

Hesitant footfalls mixed with the chambered echoes of her voice, and so she said again, this time more forcefully, “Who dares disturb my sleep?”

The presence swore, mumbling under his breath just clearly enough that she could discern his language. In Ibo she repeated the phrase once more. She traced his reaction by the elevated breathing. Soft and singsong and slightly louder, she said, “Leave me.”

He did not turn but faltered, and she persisted, reaching out into the dark until she snagged his bootlace.
“Mek you no woreemee,”
she wailed.
“Or I go kee you.”

His breathing became frantic. She could follow him now, knew the direction he faced, gauged the height of his head, knew that she must strike, and as she slid over the railing, the man bolted back the way he’d come. Munroe followed only far enough to guarantee that he’d gone through the hatch. With any luck, Lupo would have him as soon as he hit the deck.

Munroe returned to the railing where it joined the stairs. Whatever others were in the hold—and she was certain that at the least this was where the commander remained—they had heard the voices, and she would draw on that to flush them out. Following the stairs to the floor of the hold and moving cautiously through the dark, she cycled through Hausa, Ibo, and Yoruba, calling and taunting, gradually becoming aware of more than one presence through the footsteps and shuffling.

Halfway across the floor, she bumped into one of the enemy, startling him more than she startled herself. He yelped, swung wildly, but before he could fire his weapon, she’d plunged the knife into his throat, cursing inwardly at the speed, at the instinct, at one more death she would never be able to wash clean. She dropped his body softly, setting his arms and legs spread-eagled.

Passing the keel of one of the cigarette boats, she picked up a whisper from Beyard, perfectly spoken to blend with the chamber’s echo of ghostly wails. She belly-crawled in his direction.

“There were five,” he whispered.

“We need starlight,” she said. “Can you get the top open?”

“Take me three minutes.”

She moved from under the boat to the front of the hold, and there
she waited until the first ambient rays of the cloud-covered moon began to seep in. Shrill and harsh, she yelled, “See your dead! I have taken him! Leave now and live!”

The response was a rapid report of assault weapons, which came in sporadic bursts, punctuated by yells and curses, all filling the cavernous hold with an ear-shattering din. And then from the rim of the opening gap came the repeated hiss of the sniper. The hold fell silent.

At last the commander’s voice reached out from the darkness. “Even I have heard the legends,” he said. “We will leave.”

Munroe followed the sound of his voice and, silent through the shadows, came behind him, put the knife to his throat, and removed his weapons. The commander’s call to his men was followed by the sound of their rifles falling, and from within the hold two stepped into the center.

All lights off, Beyard turned the trawler northwest, putting a slow distance from the enemy ship, and then the commander and the four men who remained were left to swim while the dead were dumped overboard. With so much blood, chance dictated that sharks would finish the fight. The briefcase—now emptied—in which the lure of payment had been delivered was also dumped, and the crew swept the ship for tracking devices and explosives. As a precaution they would rotate the guard until dawn.

I
T WAS FOUR
in the morning when Munroe knocked on Beyard’s door. He called out an answer, and when she opened the door, he stood by the bed, a thick towel around his waist, his hair and body still wet. She froze silent for a moment and, realizing that she stared, blushed. His physique had improved with age—either that or she had never appreciated it the way she should have. What was he now—thirty-seven, thirty-eight? “I need to make another call to the United States,” she said.

“If you give me a minute,” he said, “I’ll go up with you. Augustin is in the wheelhouse, I’ll take over for him until you’re finished.” He patted the bed, an invitation for her to sit, and returned to the bathroom. When he came back, he was dressed, and he sat beside her.

“It was nice having you with us,” he said.

She nodded. Smiled.

“Would you come back if I asked?”

“Knowing that I’ve built a good life for myself beyond this,” she said, “would you ask it?”

“I don’t know.”

She ran a palm across his clean-shaven face. “What if I asked you to come with me, to be part of my life?” It was a rhetorical question meant to challenge, not to invite, but he ignored the undertone, took her palm, and kissed it.

“If I could, I would spend every waking moment of every day as a part of your life,” he said. “But there’s nothing out there for me, Essa. I already know that.”

He leaned over and kissed her forehead, then stood. She took the hand he offered and followed him to the pilothouse, where she put in a call to Logan.

L
OGAN SOUNDED RELIEVED
when she said hello. “I’m glad to hear your voice,” he said. “It means you’re still alive, still safe.”

“You worry too much,” she said. “I’m in good hands.” She glanced at Beyard, whose back was to her.

“Do you have the supply list?” he asked.

“Actually, no. That’s why I’m calling. I might not need it—things may be more straightforward than I’d thought. But don’t go anywhere, I’ll check back in a few days.”

“Michael, before you go—I got a call from Miles Bradford last night. I think you need to talk to him.”

“Say again?”

Logan drew in a breath. “It will take too long for me to explain it all, and it’s convoluted. I just think you need to call him.”

“I suppose that means he knows I’m alive?”

“He knows it now because of me. Before that it was just speculation on his part. Apparently he’s tried to talk to Kate and she won’t give him the time of day.”

“Fine, give me the number.” She jotted it down as he spoke. “Thanks, Logan, I’ll be in touch.”

She stared at the paper and then dialed. When Bradford picked up, she said, “It’s Michael. You wanted to talk with me.”

A second of silence on the other end, and then Bradford’s voice: “Are you okay?”

“I am now.” And then, “This call is costing me five bucks a minute. Make it fast, make it good, and make it worth my time. What the hell is going on, and what’s this bullshit about my body washing up on shore?”

“Until I spoke with Logan last night,” he said, “I had only believed you were alive, wasn’t sure, couldn’t know. It’s a relief to have it confirmed, to hear your voice.” His tone was full of genuine sincerity. “I’ve been trying to get in contact with Kate Breeden,” he said. “She won’t take my calls.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Listen, Michael, there are several things I think you should know. First, it was the U.S. embassy that informed me you had drowned and washed up on shore. Second, the local officials never produced a body, and when I got too demanding about it, I was informed that my stay in the country was over and I was put under guard until the next flight out. I’d had reservations about your disappearance from the beginning: I knew I’d been drugged and thought it was you who did it. When I went to your room to confront you, there were signs of foul play. I searched the hotel and the area around it and nearly had my skull cracked by a police officer when I got into a fight with some of the hotel staff, who wouldn’t or couldn’t give me straightforward answers about whether or not you’d left.

“I’ve had more than one conversation with Richard about the situation, laid out the scenario of Emily’s being in Equatorial Guinea as you’d given it to me. He has latched onto the issue of the death certificate and refuses to acknowledge the strangeness of it. Says he’s tired and that this is closure for him.”

Munroe was quiet and then said, “I have an eyewitness who’s placed Emily alive on the Equatorial Guinean mainland within the past three years.”

Silence.

“You there?” she asked.

“Yeah.” His voice was tight, strained. “I’m just thinking about what you said, the possibility of what it means. What are you planning to do?”

“I spoke with Kate several days ago. She told me Burbank pulled the plug on the assignment. My contract gives me a year to locate Emily, and if he rescinds, I’m guaranteed a shitload of money, which I will happily take. But I’m not leaving. Someone tried to kill me, Miles, and you know as well as I do that it’s because of my search for Emily. I have no idea why it was me and not you or both of us, but I
will
find out. I’m going to Bata with or without Burbank’s blessing, and I’ll keep going until I find her or find my killer, whichever comes first.”