The Catch: A Novel (41 page)

“Interrogating the pirates, collecting weapons and phones.”

“And the others?”

“Emmanuel is dead. David is missing—we don’t know.”

“Victor? Marcus?”

“Somewhere,” Amber said. “I lost track after we secured the ship.”

“We’re going to have to arm the crew,” Munroe said. “They can fight or die. There won’t be second chances.”

Amber said, “I’ll take the upper decks,” and with rifle in hand she headed for the ladder at a run. Munroe started down, strode berth to berth, opening hatchways, seeking out the crew, who had already scattered throughout the ship, and with the urgency of another fight bearing down on them sent them to the deck, where Natan was at work.

Victor, weapon in hand, found her in the helmsman’s quarters, and although his eyes expressed delight at seeing her, gratitude that she’d come for them, they had no time for sentiment. Through him, Munroe learned the damage: The first mate was dead; the second mate had been tortured for information on where the captain was hiding. Rodel, the second engineer, and one of the crew were also dead, and of Leo’s original team, only Marcus had made it through unwounded.

Several of the cell phones that Omar had left piled up in the passageway rang and vibrated, their screens lit up like flashlight beams in the dim corridor, omens warning of what was to come from the shoreline. Uncertain of the alliances among the
hawaladar
’s men, unwilling to allow the opportunity for one of them to let loose the pirates they’d just captured, Munroe sent Omar to the deck and left Victor in his place, guarding the berth where they were now stashed.

O
N THE DECK
outside, splotches of shadow milled around the number one hatch, and from the tower, the last of the crewmen well enough to walk spilled out the hatchway, unwillingly mustered into service by Amber’s rifle.

Natan had already brought up Yusuf from his inflatable, and together with Marcus, they’d utilized the deck crane to improvise a davit to haul all three hundred pounds of wet rubber and engine onto the ship. If Munroe could have spared the manpower, she would have sent Yusuf and Ali to retrieve the other craft, but in the moment, collecting the boat wasn’t worth the risk.

On the two-way radio she attempted to raise Joe on the dhow. Reached his boatman. “The counterattack is on the way,” she said.

The reply came delayed, the message having been passed one man to the next.

“We confirm to follow the plan,” the boatman said.

The dhow would move in closer, prepare to rescue whoever managed to escape the ship if jumping overboard was what it came to.

From the dark, in the direction of the shoreline, the first muzzle flashes sparked against the black, light followed by the distant clap of gunfire that carried easily over the water.

Another five minutes and the boats would be within lethal distance.

The crew, spurred into action by the noise, worked to raise the anchor, scrambled down into the hold, where, under Natan’s direction and aiding the deck crane, which couldn’t do the job fast enough or with enough precision, they created a chain to remove the bags of rice and uncover the munitions.

Munroe stood still for a moment, watching, processing, strategizing, and in that moment of quietness, pain that had dulled in the adrenaline of the fight returned, ramping higher, and then higher still, leaving her hands shaking. She turned from the action and slipped toward the stern, into shadow. She had put the captain in position. Gotten Janek to where he needed to be, and the oil pumps now built pressure somewhere beneath her feet.

The staccato on the ocean was closer now. Three minutes, maybe.

She drew a long inhale to settle the trembling. She was empty, fading; stumbled for the ladder to take her down to the engine room for one last strategy reassessment.

Janek’s face jerked up when she opened the hatchway. His face and arms were covered in grease, and parts surrounded him on the floor.

“What?” she said.

“The engine,” he said. “Repairs.” The stress in his voice told her what she needed. Munroe closed her eyes and slid down the wall
and into the calm of finality. Not defeat, not surrender, simply the acknowledgment that for now, her job was finished. In the state she was in, she’d be useless up on deck—a casualty waiting to happen—and no matter how hard the men above her fought, if Janek couldn’t get the pieces reassembled and the engine operational, all was for naught anyway.

The broken speaker buzzed again. Janek reached for the phone. Grunted monosyllabic answers and then in response to what could only have been the captain’s alert that the attack was closing in said, “I’m moving as fast as I can. I will have her for you by the time the oil is ready.”

Munroe drew slow breaths, focused on her extremities, on the rumble of the oil pumps, on the sound of Janek’s methodical assembly; and in the minutes that ticked out long the pain dulled to a constant throb and the shaking subsided and she opened her eyes. Half the parts on the floor were gone, and Janek, focused on the task at hand, remained oblivious when she stood and left him for the war above her head.

On the deck the floodlights were off and under the clouded sky the musical score of combat came in fitful bursts, weapon reports that lit the night in all directions, an orchestration that kept the attack boats from drawing too close, kept them circling like sharks waiting for weakness while the music rose higher, faster, and in crescendo came the whoosh expulsion of a rocket-propelled grenade, and then another, and Munroe smiled and slid down the wall and closed her eyes while the symphony played on.

The first two grenades missed their targets, but the explosion of the third lit up the night with timpani and crashing cymbals, and a frantic answer rose from afar. Another roar from the percussion section, another flash of light, visible even with her eyes closed. As long as the attackers didn’t have a way to get close to the ship, as long as the RPGs and ammunition supplies held out, as long as none of the attack boats managed to sneak men on board, as long as Janek could get the engine running, they would make it out.

The booming of the symphony rose higher as the minutes extended far beyond the twenty that Janek had promised, and in the music of war Munroe found the patterns. Too much focus in some directions, not enough in others. She stood. Braced for pain and ran the deck to the number three hold. Followed the shelter of the coaming until she reached the first shooters and, through hand signals, was pointed toward the rifles and ammunition they’d unburied. Found a weapon. Loaded a magazine, seated it, charged the rifle, and returned to the shadows, watching and waiting for the inevitable.

Munroe scanned the length of the ship, waited three minutes, four, before the first head peered up from the ladder: starboard, facing away from shore, away from where Natan and Marcus worked target practice with the grenade launchers—a replay of the maneuver from the first night of attack, when the men had come silently while distraction lit up the night on the opposite side of the ship.

Munroe slid through the shadows, crept closer for accuracy, pain intensity returning with each foot gained. She pulled the two-way off her belt, risked detection, gave notice of the impending boarding. Amber responded from the bow; was farther from the targets than Munroe. No response from Natan.

The first man slipped onto the deck, silhouette of a rifle in hand. Two heads rose behind him. Pushing forward against shortened breaths, Munroe crab-walked nearer; knelt for stability and, hands shaking with a trembling she couldn’t control, depressed the trigger. In response to the fusillade, the first man retreated back over the gunwale. Munroe crawled forward again. Gave up another five rounds. Didn’t make a hit, but the suppressive fire drove all three men farther down the ladder.

And then the shudder.

Noise. Movement. The ship groaning as the propeller kicked on.

Munroe called for Natan again.

No response.

Emboldened by the minimal defense, spurred on by the ship’s movement, the men slipped back up and rushed the deck. Munroe didn’t have the accuracy to take them down one hit at a time, sniper-style, had no strength to track after them, hunting through shadows to kill before they killed. Rifle stock to her shoulder, eye lined up to the sight, Munroe gave up another three rounds and scored a torso hit on one of the targets. He jerked, twisted, fell. The others scattered toward the holds, and she lost them in the dark, where they would be confused for her own men, set free to sneak among and kill the unsuspecting.

Without options, with no response from Natan, Munroe stood to follow after them. A rip of gunfire answered her movement: bullets tracing the night, aimed not at her but in the direction the attackers had fled. From the shadows an outline of arms and legs flailed into a heap and the second figure bolted from its hiding place. The gunfire continued. The runner yelled, twisted a near full circle, and stumbled; crawled forward, rifle swinging from one point to the next spraying ammunition, trying to find his enemy, until his gun went silent and Amber stepped from the shadows and stalked forward, firing one deliberate round after the next until she reached him. Stood over him. Plugged a last bullet into his head; moved to the next man and did the same. Stood over the dead for a half moment and then, face turned up into the dark in Munroe’s general direction, tipped fingers to her forehead, turned, and strode back toward her position on the bow.

T
HE SHIP TOOK
up speed slowly and the attack boats gave chase, a mile or two or three, kept at a distance by the RPGs until, after what felt like a century, the muzzle flashes stopped, the rocket fire ceased, the air fell silent, and the water went dark with the symphony’s end.

Munroe stood on deck breathing in the night, the collective sigh
on the ship, and the dawning realization that, though there could yet be new attacks as word of the
Favorita
’s recapture spread, they truly had a chance of making it to a port of safety. She turned toward the bridge and, with legs and hands still shaking, started up.

The captain nodded when she entered.

“What’s the situation with the fuel?” she said.

“We travel slow, we make to Mombasa.”

“How slow is slow?”

“Six, seven knots,” he said, and she groaned. At that speed, they’d be targets for the entire length of the journey.

“Khalid will stay with you,” she said. “As soon as we figure out what supplies are left, I’ll have food sent up, but you can’t leave the bridge.”

He looked at her fully then, wore an expression that wasn’t quite pain or concern but came close, and offered silent questions in place of words.

“They’re dead,” she said.

“Both of them?”

The second mate had been blinded in the torture. She simply nodded.

“They weren’t the only ones,” she said, and turned from him. Paused at the door but had nothing with which to articulate the spite stuck inside her throat. He’d taunted fate by using blackmail to get the weapons, taunted fate again by attempting to deliver them to a buyer off the Somali coast. Men without options had died for his failed conceit.

Hands resting on the control panel, face to the broken window so that he avoided eye contact, the captain said, “You keep your promise?”

“Yes,” she said, and left him. Returned to the deck, where the crew, released from duty by Natan, trudged back toward the tower, two of them dragging a bag of rice, perhaps the only food left on the ship. By the railing, Amber shoved the bodies of the men she’d killed and with her feet pushed them one by one beneath the bottom rail
and dumped them overboard. Munroe came to stand beside her, and together they stared down at the water, where in place of the ladder and inflatable there was only blackness and a river of red ink on Amber’s balance sheet, everything likely torn loose when the ship began to move and the damaged boat became a trawl.

“Do we have the fuel to get us all the way?” Amber said.

“Supposedly.”

“Leo is paralyzed,” she said. “No feeling from the waist down. He needs medical care.”

“Will you get help in Mombasa?”

“I don’t know,” Amber said, and then leaving the conversation unfinished, turned for the tower. Munroe followed, slower, craving rest and a way to allow the pain to subside. Instead, she pulled the satellite phone and powered it on. Caught a signal. Waited until she was certain she wouldn’t be overheard and dialed the Sentrim Castle, the hotel Sergey and the Russian delegation had moved to after she’d dropped off the first picture of the captain.

At her request, the front desk connected her to the room of Anton, the boss man, and, voice groggy and angry, he answered after several long rings.

“Hello,” she said. Used English because it would give him the fewest clues to her identity. “Did you enjoy my gift, the photo of the friend you have been so desperate to find?”

“Who is this?” he said, his words thick with sleep.

“Nikola Goran,” she said, mimicking his accent.

“You are not.”

“I do have him,” she said. “If you still want him.”

“Yes,” he said, and the sleep was gone, his tone alert and wary.

“We should make a trade.”

“What do you want?”

“Five hundred thousand in U.S. dollars by wire transfer. Half now, half upon delivery.”

“Is not possible,” he said, but his voice betrayed a measure of doubt, which she had expected. In the grand scheme of things she’d
not asked for a lot, and their calculations would be based on the upfront money—they’d never plan to pay the rest.

“You should speak with your boss about it,” she said. “If he says no, then your friend will be given a passport and put on the next flight out of Nairobi. You will never find him again.”

A pause and the heavy breathing of thought. “I need time,” he said.

“I’ll give you an hour.”

“If I can make an arrangement, then I must have proof that you do have this man.”

“Not a problem,” she said, and ended the call.