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The sun wasn't yellow in Cape Town; it was white in a sky the flat pastel blue of a crayon. The wooden buildings were stained and bleached to near white and even the crowded patches of shadow under flapping awnings were hot and still. People were still drinking coffee, though.
Charlie sat on the stone steps outside on an old church, her head angled back into the slightly cooler shelter of the door. A well-thumbed – not by her – travel guide lay next to her, a mid-range digital camera hung around her neck and her ankle holster was rubbing her leg raw. She ran her hand through her hair, lifting it off the back of her neck.
'No sign of him,' she sub-vocalised. 'It's past three.'
There was a pause and then Captain Tanner growled in her ear. 'Give it ten more minutes, then move on.'
'Copy,' Charlie said. Her eyes flicked up to the house opposite, searching the glare-bright windows for any sign of the rest of her team. She couldn't see them – well, if she could their target would too – but they were there.
'Eyes on the street, Matheson,' Tanner snapped.
Charlie covered a flinch with a cough and focused on the street. One half of their target sat on a blue wooden chair, sipping iced tea and reading the Chicago Tribune through dark lensed sunglasses. The dossier they'd been given on showed him with short cropped brown hair, but he'd been in Africa long enough for the sun to bleach his curls pale blond.
He looked normal, a good-looking ex-pat with some money behind him. Charlie had expected something more...dramatic...from the barely real Division's elusive Dirty Thirty.
Every day he drank iced tea, ate a sandwich and read his paper. He was waiting for something. Their information said his partner – another Division operative – was meeting him for a drop. So the SEAL team stayed on stand-by, watched and waited.
Charlie scratched the back of her neck, sweat itching on the skin. A blue car drove by, windows too dark to see through. Something made her gaze follow it, and she nearly missed the target slouch into the seat opposite.
She had not expected that on her watch. 'Target acquired,' she said, words catching on her suddenly sticky tongue. One hand dropped to her ankle, freeing her Colt. 'He's here.'
The man pulled off a shabby baseball cap, scrubbing his hand through his shaggy dark hair. A sweaty t-shirt clung to lean, bony shoulders, a livid white scar peeking from under the sleeve. Charlie stood up, one hand holding the gun behind her leg, and slung her bag up onto her shoulder.
She walked over the road and paused by the menu, trying to look as quintessentially touristy as she could manage. No noise in her ear. She scratched her nose, hand covering her mouth, and whispered, 'Captain?'
Not even a crackle. Her hand tightened on the gun, finger curling around the trigger, and she turned to look at the targets. They were both looking at her.
She snapped the gun up, hand cupping the butt for support. Someone screamed. 'Put your hands on the table. Don't move.'
The dark-haired guy looked her up and down, tongue swiping over his lower lip, and then glanced at his partner.
'This you?'
'No.'
'It's the US government, gentlemen,' Charlie said. Where was her back-up? She shuffled around the table so she could get the blond in view. 'Surrender, and you'll be-'
The car was back. The shiny, dust-free car with the clean black windows, driving back down the street. Third time that day.
She grabbed the blond's shoulder and yanked. 'Get up. You too. Move.'
The blond grabbed her wrist and twisted, pitching her over his lap. He grabbed for her gun. Charlie rammed her elbow into his stomach and twisted when he grunted, driving her fingers at his throat. He blocked, slamming her arm to the side, and-
'Shit!' The other man jumped up, kicking the table out of the way. 'Bass, move. Now.'
Charlie was shoved uncermoniously onto the ground, landing awkwardly. She propped herself up, pushing a handful of hair out of her face, and saw the car barrelling towards them. It hit the kerb and bounced. People were screaming and scrambling out of the way. Charlie jerked her gun up and fired, bullets hitting the windscreen in a tight cluster. Cracks splintered out from the impact and the window sagged in, revealing an empty driver's seat and a light blinking in the back seat.
'Shit.' Charlie scrambled to her feet and threw herself behind one of the overturned tables. The explosion hit in a wash of heat and force, frying the ends of her hair and slapping her back into the door. Her ears rang, a high, rattling buzz, and her vision kept fading in and out to black. She hung onto consciousness by sheer will-power, dragging herself up the door.
The dark-haired target stepped into her vision, a smile twitching over his face.
'You're coming with me, sweetheart,' he said.
The last thing she saw was his fist coming at her face.
A hand slapped Charlie's face. She blinked awake, squinting up at the man leaning over her. He caught her chin.
'SEALs were not this pretty in my day,' he said.
Charlie glared at him and took inventory of herself. There was still a rattling buzz in her ears and everything was aching dully. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, metal digging into her wrists, and the dull weight of her earpiece was gone.
'What's your name?' he asked.
She smirked at him, mute, and glanced around. Toilet and a bath and white tiles cold under her body. Bathroom. Easy clean, that wasn't promising. Charlie braced her feet against the floor and squirmed into a sitting position. Her hair fell into her face. The target brushed it back, fingers surprisingly gentle against her cheek.
'Your team is dead,' he told her. That was like a punch to the gut. Charlie tried not to let it show. 'This was a black op, because no one is meant to know we exist, so either you co-operate with us...or we leave you here for the authorities. Think about that for a while, eh?'
He stood up and left, closing the door behind her. Charlie squirmed around until she got her feet under her, pushing herself up the wall. Then she couldn't think of anything to do, sitting back down on the toilet. Whoever had sent the bomb had killed her team – it hadn't been the Division targets, she'd not lost contact until after she'd had eyes on both of them – and Division had been US operatives once.
'OK,' she said, voice echoing off the walls. 'Let's talk.'
The door creaked open and the blond uncuffed her, his complete lack of wariness slightly insulting. Charlie rubbed her wrists and followed him out. Habit made her glance around, looking for a way out. It found the dark haired operative sitting on the bed, t-shirt stripped off as he picked splinters of glass out of his ribs.
'Clever girl,' he said.
'What's your name?' she asked, crossing her arms. 'All your dossier had was a number.'
He stared at her for a second. It was the blond who answered.
'Sebastian,' he said, brushing past her. He stopped at the window, staring out in the street. 'Sebastian Monroe.'
There was a pause and the other man smiled crookedly. 'It's been a while, but I'm Miles. Miles Matheson.'
Charlie stepped backwards, her chest cramping. She stared at his face, trying to see the lie. It wasn't there. The skin was darker, more weathered, and face harder – but it was the same face that had looked down from their mantle since she was little.
Uncle Miles. Her dead, hero uncle. Except that wasn't what Division was. No one in Division was a hero.
'Nora,' she said, stealing one of her dead team's names. 'Nora Clayton.'