The Vessel

by Taylor Stevens

  Munroe drew the handgun and, at near point-blank, she fired.

  Double tap to the head.

  The smile drooped into a half twist of shock.

  She reached into the car before his foot dropped off the clutch. In a fluid movement that stretched into three, she slammed the gear stick into neutral, yanked the emergency brake, and popped the door locks. Then stepped to the rear door and wrenched it open.

  The man who would know blinked and stared.

  “Steig aus,” she said. “Sofort.”

  Haas stared another half second before the mental gears shifted.

  He lunged for the opposite door.

  Munroe fired into the seat. “Open that door,” she said, “and I’ll put a bullet in your spine.”

  He paused with his arm still stretched for the handle.

  Never taking the sights off him, Munroe stepped back, picked up the roll of duct tape from the side of the road, and slid into the seat beside him.

  She put the muzzle to his temple. “Hände,” she said.

  His eyes and the creases near his lips thinned into repressed rage. He turned slowly, offered his wrists, and glared.

  Weapon pushed to his forehead, she stretched a length of tape out with her teeth and with her left hand wound a mass around his forearms in a slow and laborious process. When the bonds were enough to keep him somewhat immobile, she placed the gun on the seat behind her and finished with both hands, making a tight figure eight around his wrists, wrapping his fingers so that they were worthless to scratch and pry or get to a weapon, if he had one. When he was secure, she taped wrists and ankles together so that he was doubled over, head between his knees.

  She stretched a strip across his face for good measure, slid out of the car, and another wave of déjà vu caught in her throat.

  Munroe paused and studied him.

  The last time she’d used this technique for securing a prisoner, it had been a girl quite like the one he’d purchased last night, a girl whose sale he’d likely brokered.

  Fate could be an ironic motherfucker.

  She slammed the door with more force than necessary.

  In the front seat the chauffeur stared unblinking. She shoved him over the center console. His head and shoulders slumped deadweight to the floorboards, and she heaved his legs out of the way, then took his place behind the wheel. Slipped the car back into gear and continued on, a few hundred meters to the track that diverted up the hills.

  She drove just far enough that the vehicle wasn’t visible from the road, then walked back for the Fiat and took the smaller car another hundred meters beyond, parked off the side with the emergency blinkers flashing, locked the doors, and returned to the Mercedes.

  In the rear seat, Patrick Haas struggled and lurched against the tape. Munroe didn’t stop him. Duct tape being what it was, the harder he fought, the more secure his bonds would be. She drove into the hills to the place she’d found during the wait, a place where they wouldn’t be disturbed, and, when she shut off the ignition, muffled cries from the backseat filled the silence.

  Munroe stepped out and opened the rear door. Haas turned his face up toward hers, and, for the first time, a hint of fear crept beyond the defiance and rage. She pulled him to the ground, then, leaning over him, yanked the tape off his mouth, taking lip skin with it.

  He gasped greedy gulps of oxygen and said, “Please, anything you want. Money? Is that it? I can give you money.”

  “Shut up,” Munroe said.

  She cut the bonds off his ankles, and he sighed and stretched out.

  She shoved him.

  He lost his balance and rolled down the incline, hitting jutting rocks along the way. By the time he’d stopped and she stood over him again, his left cheek was cut and bleeding and his shirt was torn on both arms.

  She waited a moment, then shot him in the foot.

  His scream pierced the air. He gritted his teeth and said, “For the love of God, what do you want?”

  “I want to know where to find the Omicron II,” she said. “I want your master.”

  He looked at her again, this time truly seeing. His eyes widened and he tried to scoot away. Munroe stomped a foot onto his chest.

  “The driver,” he stammered. “You’re the driver.”

  The rush of blood filled Munroe’s head again, heartbeat pounding in her ears, the ocean in a shell, drowning out all else. He knew. This man who had made the kidnapping and killing possible, knew what his master was, knew who she was, what she’d been forced to deliver, and the price she had paid.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “So you know what I want.”

  His eyes stayed wide and he shook his head violently, as if that would somehow make a difference, put an end to the madness and send her on her way.

  Munroe pulled the knife from the sheath strapped to her thigh.

  She took the blade up close, moving the knife from one side of his face to the other. The man who would know cried out, his eyes tracking the point as she traced it just above his skin: fear of the blade, fear of the knife—the same fear so many innocent girls and women had felt before him, because of him, because of the man who’d made him rich.

  She tipped the point toward his nose and nicked, a movement so fast and clean he didn’t feel it until after the blood had begun to pool, and then he winced and said, “Please don’t.”

  Pain from the blade, pain from the knife—a token of what the innocents had felt because of him, because of the monster he served and protected.

  Munroe flicked the knife again, a clean slice against the unwounded cheek. He cried out again, and she leaned in close, her face up against his, her mouth to his ear, and she whispered, Where is he?

  THE MAN WHO would know lost two fingers and the tip of his nose before he finally told her all. She took another two fingers as a way to be certain he hadn’t lied and, in the process, also learned the location of the girl he’d purchased the night before. Had she spent the next week cutting him slice by slice, the pain and agony wouldn’t have come close to retribution for the horrors he’d inflicted in facilitating his master’s need, but she had no stomach for torture, no pleasure in his torment. When she had what she wanted, she put him out of his misery with a bullet to the head.

  She stared down at him now, bloodied and lifeless, hurting for the sons who would grow up without a father. This death could never undo the damage already done or erase the pain already inflicted, and in preventing future suffering at his hands she’d guaranteed that the cycle of pain would continue on in other lives. Even the worst of men was someone else’s brother, child, parent, lover.

  She was the hangman’s noose, the guillotine blade, the executioner’s ax.

  Munroe knelt beside him, hung her head, and closed her eyes.

  She was the prosecutor, and the hand that injected the needle.

  This was her burden. One she could never atone for or wash away.

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

  CHAPTER 13

  In the dark of early night, Munroe followed plastered stone walls along the property’s edge to the rear of a small farmhouse. She searched out the door key from beneath a potted plant, found it, as Patrick Haas had said she would, and unlocked the rear door.

  Speed was life and speed was death and she had a very narrow window of opportunity to track the Omicron II before the Dog Man, through missed calls and missed appointments, caught wind of his lieutenant’s fate and moved the yacht.

  This was a detour, maybe a path to ruin, yet she had to walk it.

  The interior was dark and cool, and a short tiled hallway led from the outside to an open living space that ended at a veranda. In the kitchen she found the old wooden door and continued down. Stairs turned and hugged the contour of the hillside to a lower level without windows or light, and she groped through the dark for the steel door with a metal bar thrown across it.

  She found the girl in the damp basement, a single dim bulb secured to the ceiling, lying o
n a mattress with thin sheets and a small blanket and dried muddy tear streaks down her face. There were bottles of water in the corner and the remnants of whatever meal she’d last eaten on a plate beside her. The girl bolted upright when the door opened, clutching at the blanket to hide her naked body.

  Munroe knelt in the doorframe, keeping distance between them, putting herself at the same level as the girl to appear less threatening. She tried English first, then Greek, cycling through languages until she hit a partial match with Russian. Not perfect, but close enough that the girl understood.

  Munroe stretched a hand out and beckoned. “I’m here to set you free,” she said, but the girl shook her head, and clutched harder at the blanket.

  Munroe punched down rising anxiety and ignored the inner clock that ticked a loud warning. She knew the girl’s fear, the need to protect, knew it as something stronger than any physical chain, and in this knowledge understood that somewhere north was a family, a child, a sibling—someone the girl loved and was loyal to—who would suffer, possibly die, if the girl tried to run.

  “The men who paid for you are dead,” Munroe said, and she beckoned again. “If someone does come for you, they’ll kill you. If you go now and never return home, they’ll never know.”

  The girl’s eyes were wide and full of comprehension, but still she didn’t move. Munroe thrust her hand forward one last time, and the girl shook her head again and crawled back, tight against the wall.

  Every moment spent here was a moment the Dog Man might yet live.

  Munroe took off her shoes, removed a thousand euros stuffed in the toes, unfolded the bills, and placed them on the floor. She followed with her sweater, blouse, and skirt. Pulled the sweater back on and left the remaining clothing with the money, then turned and ran up the stairs, into the kitchen and to the open room, through the hall, out the door, and into the dark.

  Teeth chattering, she bolted for the Fiat parked beside the retaining wall and slipped behind the wheel. Lights off, heater on, she crept the car far away from the house and the spots of light that marked the village down the hill, then returned to the dirt road, and Kavala, and the villa with its private rooftop entryway.

  In the dark of her apartment, Munroe tossed into her bag what few things she’d left unpacked. She removed the wig and the contacts and re-dressed by moonlight, exchanging femininity for black cargo pants, boots, T-shirt, and a leather jacket. She wiped down the room, left the key on the desk, and, as she’d done in Rome, in Florence, in every location from which she’d stalked her prey, she vanished into the night.

  SHE WAITED THROUGH the morning on the eastern edge of Thessaloniki’s commercial port, where the shipping lanes were clear and the sand lay bleached against the blue, and at last the prize arrived. The man who would know had known and had told and had shown her the way to the Omicron II.

  She’d started with a face and a city and now had the yacht clear in the spotting scope, its deep cobalt hull reflecting sunlight off the water—the same water that lapped against the seawall that fronted the café where she sat. Munroe placed the scope in her lap, took a bite of pastry, and swallowed without tasting. She stared at a book, turning pages for the sake of appearance, while strategy ran and twisted inside her head.

  Without private moorings to berth a vessel the size of the Dog Man’s yacht, the Omicron II would remain anchored offshore waiting for the merchandise to arrive—an arrangement that limited access to the yacht, and thus limited her options. There was no cat-and-mouse planned for the suppliers, none of the Dog Man’s audacity, flaunting himself beneath the noses of the powers that be as he’d done when she’d been the one delivering the package.

  This was a low-key pickup for a low-value item.

  The girl would be transferred to the yacht by tender. That had been the plan before Patrick Haas had died. She would have been cleaned up, dressed up, and lied to; promised freedom in exchange for silence because Haas and his chauffeur needed the merchandise passive and willing in order to deliver her without drugs and without bruises.

  No drugs. No bruises.

  Those were the rules, and, because of the rules, the Dog Man would die.

  No drugs, no bruises, because he wanted his victims aware and afraid and undamaged; wanted them to feel the power of their lives in his hands; wanted to be the first to mar the skin, the first to cut. Without the rules, there’d have been no need for Munroe’s own kidnapping. Without the rules, she would never have known he existed.

  She stayed in the café a few hours more, noting movement on the decks and behind the glass of the bridge. She counted a captain, three crew members, and what appeared to be a cook—fewer bodies than she’d expected a vessel that size should need. And there were no staff, no hurried bustle to indicate that anyone of importance was with the yacht.

  Munroe put away the scope. Took a final sip of coffee, closed the unread book, and slipped it into her bag. They were still one day out from the prearranged drop—one more day before the Dog Man was scheduled to show—though he wouldn’t. If he didn’t already know that plans had gone awry, he would soon, and as a precaution he’d stay away from the yacht until the need burned so hot he couldn’t help but return.

  A BLOCK UP from the coast, not far from the port and within walking distance from rail freight, thumping music bled out from behind concrete walls and heavy doors.

  Two floors of nightclub made this the biggest party venue in a party town, made it easy to blend in and disappear among crowds of the young and loud, and Munroe stood beside the wall at the rear of the building, glancing through a backpack held open for inspection by a man who called himself Loup.

  He was in his late twenties with curly black hair and a thick goatee, and he’d arrived on a motorbike together with a friend, delivering gifts from the recesses of the Deep Web.

  Munroe noted equipment, counted pieces, and then, with both hands, pawed through to the bottom for the storage case and snapped it open to be certain the suppressor was included. Satisfied, she kept a grip on the bag and handed Loup an envelope.

  He counted the money, then let go of the backpack and tucked the envelope into a jacket pocket. He backed away in the direction of the street and, a meter out, turned, and in quick fluid strides went from curb onto the bike behind his helmeted friend, and the wheels peeled away into traffic.

  Munroe slipped the strap over her shoulder and watched them go.

  The electronics, suppressor, and ammunition had been easy because they’d mostly been legal. What she still needed was more difficult—explosives and detonators—the type of material that had the potential to turn her into sting fodder for undercover law enforcement.

  There were easier ways to secure what she lacked than to rely on strangers and the Web. A single phone call would be enough, but sometimes the simplest solutions were the most impossible. The moral reprehension of murdering in cold blood was hers to bear and hers alone. It was better this way, without emotional entanglements or pangs of conscience or the burden of caring for others who could be used to control her.

  This was why she’d made no contact with those she loved since leaving Dallas. This was why, just as she’d done in the cities she’d haunted following the trail to the Dog Man, she’d walked away and disappeared. No one knew where she was or what she intended—though surely Miles Bradford had suspected even before she’d kissed him that night.

  He’d held on to her then as if this would be the last time.

  Strange, how life’s twists and turns had taken her to that—them to that—when she’d wanted nothing to do with him when they first met. She’d been forced to work with him, couldn’t trust him, had threatened to kill him, and had drugged him to cut him loose—not necessarily in that order. And then two years later she’d kissed him good-bye and he’d spared her the agony of having to tell him she wasn’t coming home, because he already knew.

  Home.

  If there could ever be such a thing as home, Bradford was that thing.


  Not the house, not the job, not the country or the city or the land or the things built upon it. Home was him and he was home and she had left home to slay a monster because she was comfortable living in pain, and because death was a familiar friend. She’d left home because she’d finally known happiness, and she loved him, and because, for the first time in a life spent rushing into the arms of fear, she ran from what terrified her.

  Munroe leaned back into the wall with one boot kicked up behind her for support, watching the crowds, waiting for the telltale tingle of instinct to raise the hair along her neck and provide the warning of being observed, and, when the notice never came, she turned her attention toward the partygoers at the front.

  Somewhere in the crowd that filled the two floors in the building at her back were the boys and girls who would become tomorrow’s subterfuge.

  CHAPTER 14

  Technology that was a curse to some was a gift to others, and the same reason Munroe refused to carry a cell phone was another reason the Dog Man would die.

  StingRay was the generic term for IMSI catchers, though the name belonged to a specific brand in the same way Kleenex and Windex did for tissue and glass cleaner. StingRay was what law enforcement in the United States used to bypass wiretap and search and seizure laws, allowing them to utilize cell phone signals as GPS tracking devices and, with additional software, to listen in on conversations without the messy need for probable cause or the constitutional protections of a warrant.

  StingRay removed the checks and balances of power by spoofing cell towers and pinging all cell phones within a targeted area every few seconds, gathering the accompanying data whether the phones were on calls or not. The machines were small and portable, could be carried in a backpack through a crowded stadium or placed on the front seat of a car cruising a neighborhood.

  This wasn’t a technology used by the NSA, whose collection efforts were far more wide-sweeping and sophisticated, nor was it carefully reserved for high-value FBI and DEA stakeouts and stings. The devices were prevalent across middle America, used by city police and small-town sheriffs without any offset against abuse of authority, and, because the laws that governed technology in the two thousand and teens were written in the previous century, nothing prevented an officer from listening in on ex-lovers or business competition.