The Catch: A Novel (42 page)

She waited out the hour in the coaming shadows of the number three hold, back to the deck, face to the stars, occasionally catching sight of Natan and Marcus, Omar and Ali, all four of whom patrolled on high alert for the first sign of another attack, though if it came, like the ones before, they’d probably not know it until too late.

The gentle rocking of the ship pulled her in and out of sleep, and when the hour had passed, she stood and walked toward the bulwark, where, without the clutter of the deck crane, the signal was better.

Anton picked up the phone on the first ring. “We will trade you money for Nikola,” he said.

“You’ll have your proof in the morning,” she said. “Check with the front desk for a fax. After that you have twelve hours to wire the money. If it’s not there, Nikola is gone. Do you have a pen?”

“Yes,” he said.

She recited routing details from memory, swift codes and account numbers, said, “No payment, no prize.” Then the hair on the back of her neck rose, the animal instinct of being watched. The boss man grunted, acceptance and confirmation, and Munroe pressed End.

The air shifted behind her.

She said, “What now?” but spun before the words were fully out of her mouth. Blocked Natan’s blow with her forearm and felt the impact down into her chest.

“Traitor,” he hissed. “Selling us out.”

“No,” she said, and shifted, danced to slip from another blow, and then another as he struck again and again. Battle-hardened and a brutal fighter, he drove her back against the bulwark and, without the strength to do more than hurt herself if she tried to strike back without a weapon, she struggled to dodge, to block the beating, and still he pressed on.

“Stop,” she said. “There’s no point to this.”

He struck, she swerved; his follow-through connected with her cheekbone.

Munroe’s head rang, and she shook it off.

“Tonight I finish the misery I should have the first time,” he said, and in the menace beneath his words she understood that with the ship secure, he didn’t need her anymore, had every intention of succeeding where Leo had failed.

She reached for the knife without thinking, and in the heat of the moment, her hand on the blade, the jungle rose in the darkness and took her back to where weakness had made her strong. Warmth crept up her arms and the bloodlust rose, the desperate need to finish the fight, to strike before struck, to draw blood before her own was shed.

Natan kept at her, blow by blow, pain rising higher in the background of her consciousness as she dodged and blocked and sliced a blade into his arm trailing a gash that made him jerk back and pause.

Dizzying euphoria rose in answer to the connection and the war drum pounded harder, louder, drowning her senses, drowning out reason, filling her with Pavlovian need.

“I don’t want to kill you,” she panted. “If you keep at me, I won’t be able to help myself. Please stop.”

He hesitated just out of reach. Looked at his arm and the blood that flowed freely; shock, perhaps, that she’d managed to connect a blow, or shock that she’d actually cut him. She took the knife to her own shirt and sliced a ribbon off it. Grabbed his hand and wrapped the fabric tightly to stanch the flow, and there, while her hands were busy tending to his wound, he struck again.

The blow hit her chest, a punishing pain that rivaled the worst of the beating on the night she’d almost died; it dropped her to her knees. The world tilted at odd angles, the color of her vision shifted to gray. Unable to stand, she watched his feet as they approached, senses measuring time by each heartbeat, lengthening and distorting her vision, blood in her ears rushing out all else but the thirst for retaliation. Another second, another step, and he would be close enough.

He neared, and in response the blade came alive.

From behind came footsteps, and a clink of metal on metal, and Victor’s voice saying, “No warnings, Natan. Stop or I finish this.”

“Rescue with one hand,” Natan said, “stab in the back with the other.” He pivoted slightly, his face turned toward Victor. “There is more to this than you see, Victor. You should never meddle in things you don’t understand.”

When Victor didn’t answer, didn’t move, Natan flung an accusatory finger toward Munroe. “A traitor,” he said. “Using us, using Amber, to take the ship. Using us to get to something else.”

Munroe closed her eyes, drew in a long breath, and held it until her lungs burned with want of air.

“Step away,” Victor said, and his voice was closer now and Munroe could see his feet. She exhaled and pushed away the need, the fire, the death. Drew in another long breath and let the poison seep out with her exhale.

Victor stepped around Natan in Munroe’s direction. “Even if it’s true,” he said, “we would be rotting in wait with no rescue.” He knelt. Offered Munroe an arm and helped her stand.

Upright, she turned to Natan.

“He takes the wise in their own craftiness,” she said, “and the counsel of the cunning is carried headlong.”

“What is this?” Natan said.

“I told you to let me work. You in all your smartness will get us killed.”

“You are lying.”

“Think what you want,” she said, and with her arm on Victor’s, turned her back to him, fighting the pain that wouldn’t simmer.

In the passageway outside the Somalis’ berth, where two of the ship’s crew waited as guards in Victor’s place, she reached for one of the cell phones piled up outside the door. Had to kneel to collect it and, with Victor helping her, made it upright again; allowed him to lead her to an empty berth and settled on the bed, adrenaline dumping, body burning.

He lingered in the doorway as if unsure if it was safe to leave her.

“You be all right?” he said.

“Yes,” she whispered, and when he’d shut the door, Munroe powered on the Somali phone and, hands shaking, dialed the
hawaladar
.

The trajectories of the dhow and the
Favorita
converged, vessels traveling in convoy, a slow chug several miles off the Somali coastline, lights off, ship dark to avoid attracting attention, still very much within the high-risk area. Head on the pillow, Munroe closed her eyes listening to the background chatter of the two-way, following the progress until she drifted into sleep.

At some point Victor returned, and as Mary had done not so long ago, he pressed a tablet to Munroe’s lips and followed the pill with water. The opioid wrapped her in warmth and she drifted into oblivion where time ceased to exist. Then woke with a start, blinking against natural light, disoriented and gasping for air, urged to rush onward because no matter what the hour, the daylight told her she was already late in delivering her proof to the Russians.

Munroe pushed up, rolled her legs off the bed, and, wincing against the stiffness and pain, unbound the tape that braced her chest. Used her T-shirt to dry her skin, which was mottled with sweat and itching with heat rash, and pulled the shirt back on. Pushed both phones into her pockets and, still woozy, opened the door to the passageway.

Victor was on the floor several meters down, rifle across his lap, keeping guard outside the berth that housed the Somali prisoners.
He tipped his head back when she stepped out, bushy beard and wild hair turning his smile into something ghoulish. “You sleep good?” he said.

Munroe forced a half smile, the best she had to offer, and at the sound of his voice a rumble picked up from behind him: banging and shouting, muted by the door and wall. Victor slammed the butt of his rifle into the door and swore in Spanish.

“How many are in there?” Munroe said.

“Eight.”

“Have they had water?”

Victor shook his head. “There is no unity in the decision of what to do with them, so I wait.”

“Just make the decision yourself.”

He shrugged. The banging continued. Victor sighed. Stood. Opened the door and the tumult picked up volume. He motioned Munroe to have a look and she peered into the filthy room where once the crew had been kept captive and now what pirates still lived held bound hands out in the universal sign of prayer, pleading for water and for mercy.

“Amber is with Leo,” Victor said. “She is not concerned with them. Marcus and Natan call for executions.”

“And you?”

“They showed no pity to us.”

“Would you dump them overboard?”

“I would,” he said.

“That would make you the same as them.”

“I have no problem with that.”

Munroe shut the door and Victor continued to stare after it.

“It should be the captain’s decision,” she said, “as the master of the ship.”

Victor snorted.

“At least give them water,” she said.

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.

T
WELVE 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.”