The Catch: A Novel by Taylor Stevens

the rifle and struck him hard, and when he collapsed completely she stood over him breathing heavily, wrestling through the desire for blood and violence that had enveloped her in those seconds he’d fought back.
    Munroe knelt and searched his clothes. Found a small handheld radio, snatched it up, clutched the rifle, and returned starboard. On the water she discerned the outline of an inflatable boat tethered to the freighter by the tails of the grappling hooks, and one man below working to keep the little craft from being washed into the hull of the ship.
    If he’d only planned to deliver his accomplices, then he would already have been gone. Instead, he waited. She could use that.
    Munroe searched the deck for Victor again. Couldn’t see him and so ran along the coaming in the direction he’d last been. Three minutes to find him and then she’d be gone, three minutes of time ticking off inside her head, and all she happened upon was empty deck.
    She crossed between hatches one and two, glanced fore and aft.
    Spotted a motionless form several meters in the direction she’dcome and skirted through shadows toward it and found not Victor but the ship’s captain.
    In the burn of disappointment Munroe punched the man. He didn’t move. He wasn’t dead, she could tell that much, but was unconscious and bleeding from a head wound—as if he’d been on his way to the hold with the weapons and had been too close to the last flash-bang when it had gone off.
    In the heat of the moment, direction change in the midst of battle, a decision that had as much to do with frustration over not finding Victor as it did with scorn and loathing for this lump of a thing that meant something to the invaders, Munroe reached for the captain’s collar and dragged him toward her escape. She couldn’t guess what they wanted with him, but by getting him off the ship she’d deprive them of a trophy, and maybe find answers, maybe purchase a foothold for Victor, for Amber.
    Another round of automatic fire from the water shattered the temporary stillness and this time the muzzle flashes appeared to be moving closer.
    Time. She had no time.
    Munroe pulled the captain into the shadows and foot by foot wrangled him to the rope that the intruders had used to pull the weapons on board.
    In the dark where she had left them, one of the battered men had crawled to his knees. Hand on his head, he swiped at the blood. Counting every wasted second and regretting her decision not to dump him overboard, Munroe strode toward him. He opened his mouth but no sound came out, and he scratched backward to get away from her. Munroe slammed the butt of the rifle to the side of his head and he stopped moving.
    The battle on the bridge intensified.
    She returned to the captain. Pulled the rope beneath his back, looped it under his arms, twisted and tied it into a bowline knot. The rope was thinner than she would have liked, was enough to carry his weight but would probably cut into him. Face to the rail, focuson securing the man, she missed the scrape from behind. Felt the movement before it reached her, let go of the captain and stood at the same time the rifle muzzle pressed into her spine.
    The adrenaline uptick fed into her veins, clarifying thought into rapid calculations. One hand raised slowly in a show of surrender, her other inched toward the sheath for the knife.
    The muzzle punched into her back was accompanied by a rush of Somali, ordering her to turn around, the volume and tempo of the words telling her the person holding the gun was overadrenalized, scared; words she ignored because there was no logical reason she should have understood them, and if the man with the rifle followed the same instructions as his predecessors, he couldn’t kill her until he’d confirmed she wasn’t the same white face he’d seen in photographs.
    Ears straining, Munroe stretched past the battle, searching for clues to the number of men behind her, calculated the risk of