The Informationist: A Thriller

by Taylor Stevens

  His arms were still around her, and he whispered, “It wasn’t without cause.”

  “That’s not the point,” she said.

  “It’s not the first time?”

  “No.”

  “The scars?”

  She nodded almost imperceptibly and said, “The missing years. You’ve wanted to know, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You deserve to know,” she said, and tilted her head to give him a pained, exhausted smile. “It starts with Francisco. I met him for the first time when I was fourteen.”

  It was completely dark by the time she’d finished a confession that encompassed nine years of buried secrets, embracing details even Logan didn’t know. They lay on their backs and stared at the ceiling, engulfed in silence for a long while, and then Bradford turned his head toward her. “It’s surprising you’re still sane,” he said.

  “Sane?” She sighed. “There are days, months, sometimes even years that go by when I’m sure I’ve attained some state of normalcy, when I can look at myself in the mirror and really believe that somehow I’m like ‘them’—those people out there who’ve lived normal lives and have no fucking clue what the dark side of humanity can do to a person’s mind. And then there are days like today and yesterday, when it’s obvious that the demons are still there, waiting in the background, taunting me.”

  She turned to face him. “Thank you,” she said. “For saving my life in Mbini, for getting me out, getting me here.”

  And then, without waiting for a response, she let go and tumbled backward into the void, a mental freefall into the darkness of the abyss.

  BRIGHT SUNSHINE STREAMING through day curtains was what woke her. Bradford was gone, the room was empty, and she was numb. Not the dead of internal shutdown or the muted silence of mental noise held at bay by adrenaline and distraction. There were no words or phrases or voices, no tension or anxiety, only acceptance, tranquillity; strange and unfamiliar.

  She lay on the bed, arms behind her head, and breathed in each passing moment of peace, oblivious to time until Bradford walked in the door. He had entered quietly and, seeing her awake, moved directly to her.

  He sat on the bed. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said, and stretched, smiling. “Surprisingly good. How long was I under?”

  “About seventeen hours. Didn’t want to leave you, but we couldn’t wait another day to get tickets.” He dropped the documents on the bed. “Flight’s tonight at nine.”

  “I need to contact Logan.”

  He nodded. “Business center will be open for a few more hours. First you need to eat.”

  It was strange, this process of conversing, interacting, eating, going through the motions of daily life without anxiety, without mental noise embossing itself onto synaptic activity and guiding reflex. It was calm, collected silence, and it remained that way through attempt after attempt to reach Logan, until after nearly two hours of intermittent dialing Munroe gave up and called Kate Breeden.

  The conversation was brief, Munroe unwilling to discuss the assignment or the events of the past few days and Kate unaware of Logan’s whereabouts, having also been unable to contact him. Munroe wanted the bike in Houston—for that she needed Logan—and the best she could do was provide Kate the flight-arrival information and hope the message eventually got to him.

  While most people trying to locate Logan might have trouble reaching him by phone, the number Munroe used was known to few, was always carried and nearly certainly answered. There had been occasions in the past when Logan had dropped off the radar—each had been its own relative nightmare—and so Munroe heaved an internal sigh, reached for the tickets, realized Bradford had walked off with them, and then promised Kate she’d send the information by e-mail.

  And there, waiting in the mailbox, unbelievable as it was, sat the final puzzle piece that transformed the present and gave context and meaning to everything that had taken place from the day Munroe accepted the assignment. She blinked now at the page, information tumbling in her mind like cotton cloth in a dryer: flashbacks, conversations, awareness, and understanding. She scrolled and reread:

  TO: Michael@race-or-die.com

  FROM: Logan@race-or-die.com

  SUBJECT: I think you need to see this

  Michael,

  I have no way of getting in contact with you other than e-mail. The photos speak for themselves, although I’m not entirely sure what they mean. It’s possible you’re well aware of this already; I was not.

  The reason for the attached: In spite of your instructions, Kate refused to release funding until I provided a complete inventory list. Her demands for this information went beyond odd behavior to intimidation and then threats of legal action, which I know had nothing to do with you although she used your name. For these and other reasons not worth getting into now, I placed Kate under surveillance.

  If you need to reach me, I have a new number … see signature line below.

  Munroe scrolled through photo after photo of Kate Breeden and Richard Burbank, each a snapshot in time that left no doubt their relationship went far beyond the tradition of lawyer-client privilege. There was a fragmented moment when Munroe’s internal stillness became overwhelmed by rage and the piercing stab of betrayal, and it seemed that the newfound calm would dissipate into the ether. But there were no voices. There was no anxiety, no internal percussion, simply controlled anger and the knowledge that there was work to be done.

  She dialed, and the relief she felt at hearing Logan’s voice was obviously reciprocated on the other end of the line.

  “You got my e-mail?” he asked.

  “I did, and I need your help,” she said. “I’m putting events into play, and I won’t be back stateside for a bit. There’s the possibility that when I don’t show up in Houston as Kate expects, she’s going to run. I need to know where she is at all times. Can you handle that?”

  “I’ve already got it covered.”

  “What about Richard Burbank?”

  “Him, too.”

  “Instinct paid off, Logan. I owe you big time.”

  “Michael, what the hell is going on?”

  Munroe sighed. “She set me up.”

  There was silence on the other end, followed by a stream of expletives, and when they ended, Munroe said, “Burbank used me as a cat’s-paw, and Kate fed him the information to make it possible. Don’t go anywhere. I’ve got a few things I need to take care of first, but I’ll be seeing you in about a week.”

  “What’s the plan? What are you going to do about Kate?”

  “Trust me,” she said, “you really don’t want to know.”

  When Munroe exited the hotel, Bradford stood waiting with the taxi. They rode to the airport in silence, and after they had checked in and were standing in the terminal waiting for the flight to board, Bradford said, “Something’s going on, and I’d like to know what it is.”

  Munroe rested her head against the wall, stared up at the ceiling, and let out a slow breath. “It goes against every instinct I have to talk about this with you,” she said, and then she paused and turned toward him. “I’m not going to give you a lot, but you deserve at least something. I’ll tell you what I can, and that’s the best I can do.”

  “I’ll take what I can get.”

  “I know now where the information leak is,” she said. “It cuts deep and personal, and I need to deal with it on my own terms, in my own way.” She paused. Sighed. “We have two days to get to Houston and put the information in front of the board.” She turned to look at him. “It’s on you, Miles. I won’t be returning with you, won’t be stateside until I sort through this—Paris will be good-bye.”

  Bradford struck the heel of his boot on the cement floor, repetitive dull taps that filled the silence, then slid down the wall into a squat, staring at nothing. “I’m not stupid enough to attempt to stand in your way,” he said. “Even though it’s what I feel I should do.” He looked up. “I’ve just lived thro
ugh two days of hell with you, Michael. To say that I’m concerned is the understatement of the year. You’re not planning to go chuteless off Angel Falls, are you?”

  Munroe shook her head and then smiled weakly. “I’m all right, Miles. Really, I am. I’ll be back in Dallas in a few weeks—I promise I’ll look you up. I owe you that.” She held eye contact long enough to remain credible and then slid down the wall to the floor and sat beside him.

  She had lied through omission, had conveniently left out the part where she planned to follow him to Houston and commit murder in cold blood.

  chapter 23

  Paris, France

  Munroe stalked the streets, collar turned up, hands tucked deep into the pockets of the ankle-length coat she’d procured off a departing passenger at the airport. Even in the sun, the difference between the equatorial summer night and the mild Parisian winter morning was about sixty degrees, and it would have been a relief to return to the warmth and comfort of the room she’d secured at the Park Hyatt.

  She moved decisively in the direction of Place Pigalle, the city’s chic red-light district famous for the Moulin Rouge, sex shops, and peep shows, its side streets and alleys notorious for so much more. The forces urging her onward were entirely her own; there were no voices, no anxiety, and the demons were silent. Her senses were overwhelmed by the thirst for revenge, and she paused for a moment and stood beside a wall, one leg kicked back against it for support while she studied passersby.

  The intense focus on murder should have been disturbing, but she felt no conscience.

  This was the abyss, that murky mental darkness she had so long held back one anxious breath at a time, though it wasn’t dark. Here it was light and freedom. It was total control and power and peace. And enveloped in this goodness was the knowledge that she had finally become the monstrosity of Pieter Willem’s making. His taunting laughter called out from the dead and was brushed aside as an inconvenient afterthought; all these years later he had won, and now she no longer cared.

  Munroe thrust her hands deeper into the coat pockets and followed the sidewalk. Her eyes tracked random faces in the pedestrian crowd, her feet moved, and her mind churned in process and calculation. She crossed to rue Saint-Denis and spotted in a doorway, leaning against stone masonry as if unaware of solicitous glances paid by prospective clients, a body with a face that matched what she’d been searching for. He was a boy of seventeen or eighteen—prostitute, drug addict, child of the streets. Perfect alibi.

  She walked a long diagonal path across the road and made eye contact; the boy straightened at her approach, his eyes sizing her up in a look disguised as interest. She was close enough now to breathe him in and allow the other senses to confirm what her eyes had already noted. Right height, right build, good facial features. Hair would need to be colored and shortened, but otherwise he would do. “I want you for a week,” she said. “Who do I need to talk to?”

  Taking the boy off the streets meant having to negotiate with thugs, and Munroe followed him down an alley and up narrow tenement steps with her right hand wrapped around the weapon she’d carried out of Cameroon. There were moments when tension filled the run-down room, when money changed hands and avarice appeared to control mental faculties and a fight seemed inevitable, but in the end she stepped back into daylight without having to resort to threats or violence and with the boy trailing reticently behind.

  She went as far as the end of the street, then turned and stopped. She grabbed his wrist and pulled him close, lifted his sleeves, searched for needle marks and bruises, found none; put her thumb to his chin and moved his head to the side, examining his skin. “What’s your drug of choice?” she asked.

  “I don’t do drugs.”

  “I don’t have fucking time to waste,” she said. “It’s not heroin, it’s not meth. What is it? Crack? Coke? Prescriptions?”

  He mumbled an affirmative.

  “You have a dealer?”

  He nodded, and she tossed him a phone. “Call him.”

  The boy’s first name was Alain, and Munroe didn’t catch his last, didn’t care to, didn’t need it. He was a breathing and functioning young male whom nobody would miss; it was all that mattered, and she’d be back to clean up this loose end long before the week expired.

  Paying off the boy’s hustlers had been for his peace of mind, not hers. She wanted him unafraid, comfortable, willingly following instructions. And they were simple: Remain at the Park Hyatt and run up as large a bill as possible—room service, Internet shopping sprees, anything he wished so long as for that one week he received no visitors and did not set foot outside the hotel. Every day he did this, his drugs would be delivered to the room by front-desk staff believing they were handling business documents, the instructions given them having been far more detailed and explicit than those she gave him.

  When Munroe left the hotel, Alain was fast asleep, and she’d made sure he would remain that way for the final few hours she’d be moving about town leaving the last traceable threads of her existence. At the bank she deposited her passport, ID, and credit cards in a safe-deposit box and walked out the door with only the forged Spanish passport in the name of Miguel Díaz and twenty thousand dollars.

  She purchased a laptop, burned several copies of Emily’s recording to DVD, and sent two overnight to Logan for safekeeping. She stopped by a specialty electronics store to purchase harder-to-find items and then, after calling to confirm locations on Kate Breeden and Richard Burbank, left for the airport, where a charter waited to take her to London. From there the flight would route to Canada, and she would enter the United States on foot, then travel by road to Boston, where she would connect with a second charter and continue on to Houston.

  Munroe spent the trip poring over documents she’d culled off the vastness of the Internet. Everything she knew about the Burbank assignment had passed through Kate Breeden, and as information was only as good as its source, everything was now suspect. Munroe read and jotted notes, her concentration broken only by the stops, starts, and connections of the journey. Time spent on the ground allowed her to follow threads and download additional files, and by the time the wheels of the last flight hit the tarmac in Houston, she knew exactly why Emily Burbank had been meant to die.

  The eighteen-hour transit put Munroe on the ground a half day behind Miles Bradford and less than ten hours before the board of trustees was scheduled to meet. It was a narrow window of opportunity, and she counted on Burbank’s greed and Kate’s duplicity to hold them in place until after the board met.

  From the airport Munroe caught a cab and stopped first at a pet store before heading downtown to the Alden, where a request at check-in netted the room adjacent to Breeden’s. As of yesterday this was where Kate had been staying, and although a prior call to the front desk had confirmed that she hadn’t checked out, it said nothing about her actual whereabouts. In an alcove off the lobby, Munroe switched from leather gloves to latex and dialed Breeden’s room, let the phone ring, and after getting no response, took the elevator up.

  In the dark interior of her own room, Munroe removed the eyehole from the door, replaced it with a camera that fed into the laptop, and then for ease of egress depressed the door latch with a strip of tape. Preparations made, she lay next to the door with the laptop at her side, and when her head touched the floor, exhaustion that had previously gone unnoticed settled in. How long had it been since she’d slept? Thirty-two hours, thirty-seven?

  Through two hours of numbing silence, Munroe fought to keep alert, and now, at two in the morning, there was still no sign of Breeden. Based on Logan’s surveillance photos, Munroe had been certain that Burbank wouldn’t have Kate stay overnight, but still, choosing the hotel had been a gamble that might have done nothing other than waste a perfect opportunity. Munroe was waging an internal debate over the emergency recourse of contacting Logan for an update when the soft vibrations of footfalls alerted her to a presence, and a few seconds later Kate’s profile filled th
e screen on the laptop.

  Exhaustion was displaced by adrenaline, and Munroe was out the door, in the hallway, and standing behind Breeden with the weapon pressed into the woman’s spine before she’d had a chance to open her door. “Hello, Kate,” she said.

  Breeden jumped slightly, put a hand on her chest, said, “Michael, you scared the bejesus out of me,” and fumbled with the handle. Munroe opened the door and shoved Kate inside, pointed toward the bed, and said, “Sit.”

  Breeden remained standing. Slow and hesitant, she said, “No.” And then, with a bark of nervous laughter, “What are you going to do? Kill me?”

  Munroe slammed the back of her hand against Breeden’s face, and the force of the blow knocked her to the bed. Kate looked up with shock in her eyes, and then with deliberation wiped a trickle of blood from her mouth. Munroe pressed the muzzle of the gun to Breeden’s forehead and said, “Yes. I’m going to kill you. And the question you need to ask yourself is how much pain you’re willing to endure before you die, because you know I’m certainly capable of inflicting it.”

  Munroe took a step back and tossed Breeden a roll of duct tape. “Around your ankles.” When Kate had finished, Munroe pushed her backward so that she was in the center of the bed. She wrapped the tape between Breeden’s ankles and then used it to anchor Breeden’s feet to the bed frame. When she had finished, Munroe stepped back and said, “Fucking touch the tape and I’ll put a bullet in your kneecap.”

  Breeden sat, hugged her knees, and a tear trailed down the side of her face. “Why are you doing this?” she said. “What is it that you want from me?”

  Munroe ignored the questions and picked Breeden’s purse up from the floor, fishing out the keys. “Which one goes to Richard Burbank’s house?”

  A look of pained innocence crossed Kate’s face, and she said, “Why would you think I’ve got his keys?”