The Vessel

by Taylor Stevens

  There was no place he could run or hide that she couldn’t eventually find him, and she’d drain herself into bankruptcy to get him.

  MUNROE CLOSED HER eyes to better visualize her fingers at work. Smoothed down the ends of the tie for the fifth time and went once more through the process of knotting it.

  For all the subterfuge that had dressed her life, this was a costume rarely called upon, and her lack of practice showed. She slipped the knot tight into place again and scrutinized the image in the mirror.

  That would do.

  She tucked down the starched collar and slid into the jacket.

  The suit was off the rack, the best she could manage under the time constraint, but well tailored and costly enough to provide an aura of respectability; the shoes were worth more than some people made in a month, as was the watch; she’d opted for a Charvet shirt and tie.

  Illusion of status. Illusion of power. Symbols of wealth that might have been overkill for this same job had she done it elsewhere, but that fit in nicely with the polite privilege and expectations of the city.

  She added prescription-free glasses for facial obfuscation and studied the reflection with a mocking eye, then turned for the bathroom. The only differences between the man staring back at her today and the one who’d lived on the streets and in the slums was an adjusted attitude, a haircut, and a change of ornaments.

  She was everyone and she was no one.

  Illusion induced the human brain to function on autopilot, bypassing critical thinking; the illusion of status and wealth even more so because few people were capable of admitting, even to themselves, the degree to which such trappings influenced their behavior and so they handled their own self-delusion and spared her the effort.

  Munroe dabbed gel into her palms, ran sticky fingers through her hair, and molded the short strands. If she needed to return to the streets she’d have to shave her head or wear a hat; the recent cut would make a lie of the rest.

  SHE WAITED UNTIL after ten, allowing the office a chance to hum into its routine before walking into the building she’d spent the last two weeks haunting.

  The doors led off the street and into a foyer, stairs up the right, her target directly to the left.

  Unknowns played against facts: where Haas was against who he was.

  Risk against reward; time against alternatives.

  This was a risk, perhaps a foolish risk, relying on subterfuge and trusting cold reading as the entire means of drawing from the employees the critical piece that observation had denied her. She could lie her way out as she would lie her way in, but failure offered an invitation for reverse traps and retaliation.

  Munroe twisted the handle and let herself in.

  The front room of the office greeted her with plenty of space, lots of light, a few plants, and an air of elegant austerity. Only one door led off from the room, and it was closed, leaving her alone with the young man who sat behind a low, wide antique wooden desk—a reception of sorts.

  He glanced up when she opened the door, and his expression of curious surprise hinted toward how few visitors the business received.

  In German, he said, “Can I help you?”

  Strategy was strategy, but subterfuge was custom built for the recipient. Munroe paused, instant assessment, and then answered in English, her accent affected by the nasal tones of New York, and her posture filled with a detached condescension that stated his question was both redundant and annoying inasmuch as he should already know who she was.

  “I’m here for my appointment with Mr. Haas,” she said.

  Puzzlement etched across the young man’s face and he responded in near flawless English. “There seems to be some mistake. Mr. Haas is out of the country.”

  She answered with silence and a stare of irritation.

  The young man hesitated, then jiggled the mouse on his desk and brought the monitor to life. Clicked through to what Munroe assumed was a calendar. “I am somewhat confused,” he said. “Herr Haas has no office appointments for any day this week.”

  Using redundancy in the same way some people used volume to make a non-English speaker understand, she said, “I’m here for Patrick Haas,” and recited the business address.

  “Yes,” the man said tentatively, almost more question than answer. “That is correct, the address is correct, but—”

  “There’s no mistake,” she said.

  He darted a quick glance toward the closed door and then turned his focus back to Munroe. His body language spoke of discomfort—he was out of his element and wanted advice from someone higher up the food chain but was afraid to interrupt. “I’m sure we can fix this quickly,” he said. “You are with?”

  Munroe sighed. Fished a wallet out of the suit pocket and withdrew a business card. Made of heavy stock, embossed and gilded and generous on the white space, the card screamed of old money. She handed it to him.

  He took it, glanced at it, and after another furtive look at the door he lowered his voice conspiratorially and said, “Is it possible that the appointment was made directly with Herr Haas and not through his office?”

  Munroe flicked her wrist and checked the time, dismissing the young man in the process. “Of course,” she said. “That’s always the way it is. My assistant did inform me that Mr. Haas was out of town but scheduled to return last night from—” She glanced toward the ceiling as if trying to remember.

  Breaking the discomfort of silence, the young man filled it for her.

  “Mr. Haas is scheduled to return from Krakow, but that is tomorrow, and only for one day.” Face flushed, he looked at his monitor and added, “Perhaps there’s been …” He paused again, full of the type of uncertainty that came from knowing, but not knowing quite enough. “Perhaps there’s been some mistake in venue,” he offered.

  “Perhaps,” Munroe said. “After a twelve-hour transit from New York, I certainly hope not, though it did seem odd that after all this time he’d want a meeting at his office—” And she stopped short—as if she’d said too much.

  The young man had handed her the original opening, and in his reaction to her response, she read the next one and didn’t give him a chance to reply.

  “So Patrick isn’t here,” she said and allowed a flash of anger to surface. “Likely the mistake is on our end, I’ll sort that out with my assistant. I’ll need to have another flight booked. Where is the meeting? Bucharest?”

  She’d offered a city in Romania as a throwaway, could have picked any one from dozens of locations in Europe as a way to prompt him for more detail and he would have given it. The young man said, “Kavala.”

  Munroe raised her eyebrows in a look that was half derision, half question. “It’s been a long, long trip,” she said. “I’m being polite because the mistake isn’t yours. Please don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

  His cheeks flushed, and his hand shook slightly. He glanced at the door again, then picked up the card she’d handed him, flipped it over, and jotted down an address on the back.

  Munroe slid the card off the desk, gave a cursory look to ascertain she could read the handwriting, and said, “Huh.” Then holding eye contact, she said, “All right, I’ll sort this out,” and left him for the exit.

  She paused with her hand on the door and turned back toward him.

  His attention had already returned to his monitor.

  “Jonas,” she said, and his face jerked up at the call of his name.

  “My office made the appointment directly with Mr. Haas,” she said. “We keep business to ourselves and it was only through a mistake that I arrived here.” She paused for emphasis. “This is a mistake you should forget, Jonas.”

  The young man nodded fervently.

  Munroe said, “Good,” and, business card gripped between her fingers, she stepped out into the hall and then into the chill.

  Jesus had said it best.

  Nothing hidden that will not be known.

  CHAPTER 11

  Subterfuge as
a woman was always more complicated than subterfuge as a man; the guise of femininity required further insight, required understanding the cultural context in which the costume would be viewed.

  For a man, changes in accoutrements and clothing created changes in status perception, but, no matter the culture, a man was a man. A woman, on the other hand, was never just a woman.

  A woman was an object, a canvas, upon which society and culture painted labels and framed unspoken expectations, a collectively owned piece upon which shame, scorn, and punishment should be heaped if she failed to conform to the prescribed design. Even in the most forward-thinking countries, subconscious collusion and tacit social agreement put the value of the opinions and contributions of women at less than those of a full person—somewhere between child and adult. Subterfuge as a woman was always more complicated because a man in a suit was a man in a suit, but a woman in a dress with a hemline two inches too short was a slut, and, in the wrong part of town, a whore, and, in the wrong country, a corpse not quite yet dead.

  THE AFTERNOON FLIGHT touched down in Thessaloniki at just after one, and the easy formality of crossing a border within Europe’s Schengen Area had Munroe walking for the terminal exit less than thirty minutes later. A woman with shoulder-length jet-black hair reflected back in the plate-glass windows, matching her stride for stride. Thick layers of mascara were her only makeup, brown contacts hid the contrasting gray of her natural eye color, and a stuffed bra provided small curves beneath the neutral colors of a modest blouse worn loosely over a below-the-knee skirt.

  There was nothing here to resemble the man who’d walked into the office in Graz, nothing to resemble what Jonas might relay to his bosses—had he relayed anything at all. Even an iota of self-protective instinct would have told him that, since he had acted on his own authority, nothing good could come of telling—not even if he’d done the right thing.

  She’d left Graz on the first available flight, trusting instinct and a career built on reading and understanding people that, even if Jonas had told, because of what the Dog Man was, Patrick Haas couldn’t afford to alter his plans, whatever they might be.

  The nearly two-hour bus ride to Kavala ran along a provincial highway, traversing valleys lined by rocky hillsides and shrub-covered outcroppings; continued along lakeshores and seashores and pristine white beaches to the most beautiful of Greece’s large cities, and the address on the back of the business card.

  Munroe rented a car from the agency down the road from the bus depot and drove to the north stretch of town, where the villa was located, breathing in the ambience and meandering sleepy streets to map them in her head as she’d done in Graz.

  She’d bought time by arriving ahead of her target, and, although hotel rooms were easy to come by, she pleaded a cover story to the caretaker of the villa next door, securing a studio apartment for a week. The price was steep and paid under the table, but, given that the room had a private entrance, was annexed to the rooftop, and looked down on its neighbor, she would have given anything to have it.

  With the laptop carried in her backpack, Munroe left the villa and headed out on foot, into the evening chill and down a narrow winding road toward the shopping area she’d seen on her way in. The afternoon rest period was over, businesses would have opened again, and her quest for supplies could begin. Some she would procure locally; the remainder would come from the underbelly of the Internet, where anything could be had for a price, provided one knew where to search.

  PATRICK HAAS ARRIVED on schedule, delivered to the villa by a black Mercedes with Greek plates, and a chauffeur whose posture and actions spoke of familiarity and proximity—not a local hire, likely a staff member who traveled with him. Four days of watching provided the patterns.

  Haas rarely left the villa. When he did, it was always with the chauffeur, and Munroe followed on a rented scooter while he pursued the mundane, visiting restaurants or a sauna, only to return to the villa again. His phone calls were many, but he held no meetings and received no guests, and at night, from behind the curtains of her darkened room, Munroe watched his silhouette bathed in the glow of a computer monitor until, right at eleven, like clockwork, the lights shut out and the property settled.

  And, like clockwork, she remained in her chair by the window with her mind looping in slow soft circles, kept company by the coastal breeze that puffed the curtains inward until uneasy sleep drew her into a temporary truce.

  The first day of pattern without notable movement had tweaked Munroe’s radar. By the end of the third, she was itching on the inside. Haas hadn’t come to Kavala for rest or relaxation or to take in the sights. Time was money. Haas was burning daylight and burning profits, and, because of this, the patterns that would otherwise have caused her to move forward instead held her back.

  On the fourth night the slam of a car door jerked Munroe out of a half sleep. The windows of the neighboring villa were still dark, but in the courtyard, off the street and away from prying eyes, a car idled with its headlights off and its interior black except for the distinct glow of a cell phone screen reflected off the outside of the driver’s window.

  Silence followed for several long minutes, broken at last when the villa’s front door opened and the shadows of two men stepped into the moonlight and walked down the stone steps, around fountains and watered patches of green, toward the idling vehicle and the newcomer who leaned against it.

  What discussion passed between them was too low to be heard and lasted but a minute. The newcomer opened the rear door. Haas leaned forward to look inside, turned on a flashlight and swung a beam toward the interior, then clicked it off and, with a hand motion, ordered whoever was inside to step out.

  Munroe’s fingernails dug into the wooden armrest and the rush of blood filled her ears. This scene was déjà vu, a crude and simple repeat of what she’d survived in early spring. She didn’t want to watch, but had to bear witness and hated that she must.

  A girl, perhaps fourteen or fifteen, stepped from the car with her hands bound and a cloth secured between her lips, and the lust for violence rose higher, an inner mallet that fell hard and loud against the war drum, pounding in time to Munroe’s heartbeat, urging her to intervene: ordering the kill.

  Haas tore the ripped blouse off the girl’s shoulders, and the newcomer tugged the skirt down off her waist so that she stood naked and shivering in the late-night cold. Haas studied her a moment, then nodded.

  The newcomer pushed the girl into the backseat, threw her torn clothes in after her, and shut the door.

  Money changed hands.

  The newcomer handed the chauffeur the keys, and, when the car had pulled round again and passed through the gate and to the street, the newcomer walked behind on foot. When he was gone into the night, Haas locked the gate and returned to the house. Headlights switched on again far down the road, and the shadow of the newcomer walked in the opposite direction, to where, Munroe could only guess.

  She swiped at the tears trailing down her cheeks.

  Angry, and sick, and fighting to breathe, she squeezed her hands, pressing against the stain of blood that marked them. The girl was a delivery for the Dog Man; the girl was destined to die, and Munroe could not save her.

  A stain that would never wash away.

  She was a killer, just as he was a killer.

  CHAPTER 12

  Munroe sat in the darkness, minutes ticking on like hours, waiting for the sun to rise, waiting for the man who would know to make the next move.

  There would be a next move.

  Taking the car and keys and stranding the seller couldn’t have been part of the purchase, and the patterns of the last four days said the chauffeur hadn’t driven the girl away only to leave his boss solo.

  The hands on the clock continued their slow march along its face, and Munroe breathed back against the impatience, ready and thirsty for movement, for action. The chauffeur returned on foot shortly after dawn, proving her right, and the Mercedes finally left t
he property at high noon.

  She followed with the rental car, a Fiat 500 that handled well enough even when the lead vehicle turned off the highway for a dirt road that vanished into the hills. A kilometer in, Munroe pulled to the side and shut off the engine. The trail of dust kicked up in the distance. Tracking on this deserted stretch risked alerting the prey to her presence, and what did it matter, really, where they went? The luggage had been left behind, they’d return.

  They had no choice but to take this same road back.

  She restarted the engine and diverted up a rocky track that overlooked the city in the distance, drove on until she’d found what she wanted, then returned to the dirt road to wait. Midafternoon came and went and, with the time, only two vehicles, both of them over twenty years old at the least, rusted and dented, and carrying supplies from the big city out toward the villages. The sun had nearly reached the horizon when dust in the distance foretold the arrival of a third car.

  Munroe picked out the Mercedes through a spotting scope.

  She drove the Fiat into the road, blocking half, then propped the hood and opened the doors. Arms crossed, she leaned against the car, and, when the target neared and slowed, she stepped into its path.

  She waved a hand for hello, for attention, for help.

  The Mercedes stopped and the chauffeur’s window rolled down. Munroe smiled, sweet and friendly, and took a step forward.

  The chauffeur met her eyes and smiled back.

  The shadow of Patrick Haas filled part of the windshield from the rear seat, and there was no shadow beside him—no company, no girl.

  Trusting and genuine, Munroe continued around toward the open window.

  The chauffeur’s eyes and his smile tracked her until she nearly touched the car door, and he opened his mouth in greeting.