Macy showed him through her room’s side-entrance, Tucker not stopping to ask questions about it or the hole in the door. She quickly packed her bag, everything except for her gun, which she kept at her hip on the inside of her jeans. She draped her shirt over the gun’s grip and then took another look at Tucker, squinting to make him out, to see through the years of his aging. Was it really him?

He was certainly as handsome as she’d remembered. Age had been good to him, turning a fresh-faced rookie into a solid professional. Was he still with the force? No, he couldn’t be, or what the hell would he be doing here?

What the hell was he doing here?

Part of her was itching to know just how the hell this was happening, how it was him, how he’d found her. And why. Another part of her, her legs mostly, wanted to run out of there at full speed.

“I don’t have a car or anything,” she said, unlatching the door to the hallway.

“I do.”

“Well, I have a scooter. Recently acquired.” She shrugged, turning back to look at him one more time.

He shook his head. “Leave it.”

He had wrapped a hand towel around his bicep. A small red stain seeped through.

“What happened?”

“I’m okay. Just a graze.” He checked his wrap-job, and then looked back at her. “How about you? You okay?”

“What’s going on?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “We can talk more in the car.”

“Where?”

“Out back.”

“Okay,” Macy said. “Let’s split up. I’ll take the front and—”

“No. No way. I didn’t come this far to split up again.” He moved past her, his body brushing against hers as he pulled on the handle and held the door open. “Let’s move.”

They moved out, together. Tucker lead her toward the rear stairway, jamming the metal push-bar of the door and blasting it open, their feet pounding down the stairs until they were back in the acrid night air. It was humid and everywhere smelled of burnt oil and plastic. Macy could feel the chemical process on her skin. She could taste it.

“Nice place for a vacation,” he said, leading across the small dirt lot behind the hotel.

“It’s not a vacation.”

“I know.” Tucker went to open the passenger-side door of a silver SUV, but she moved in first, blocking him.

“I got it,” she said. “Thanks.”

“You got it.” He went around the other side and got in, starting the engine. “It’s a rental. I got tired of getting gouged by the cabs. It’s nuts here.”

A wave of sadness gripped Macy’s heart. “Yeah,” she said, thinking of the old man. “It’s nuts.”

“I even tried those vans. You know those blue and white ones?”

“They’re called Candongueiros,” Macy said. “And you’re basically risking your life every time you set foot in one.”

“Jesus . . .” Tucker pulled out of the parking lot, driving slow and steady and not like someone fleeing a dead body. “I didn’t know it at the time, but I think there must be a law for those bus drivers—they have to be severely intoxicated before getting behind the wheel.”

She watched him navigate the busy, chaotic streets of Luanda, but her mind was everywhere but.

“Look, Macy, I can’t even pretend to know what you’re thinking right now. I don’t even know what I’m thinking.”

It was good to have something in common.

Tucker continued. “So, I don’t want to overload you with questions, okay?”

“Thanks,” she said, quietly.

They were moving faster now, turning left onto an ocean-side road. In the tall lights above the promenade, the air was thick with dust. The wind had picked up, flags whipping straight. Tucker cleared his throat and said, “I think our first goal should just be to get the hell out of here, and then—”

“Out of where? Luanda?”

“Well . . .”

“Why? I was trying to get to—”

“I can take you to Kyle Raleigh.”

She didn’t say anything, but his gaze burned into her.

“I went to his house today. Beth’s house. You were there this morning.”

“Tucker? I thought you weren’t going to overload me with questions.”

“I’m not,” he said. “You asked me the questions.”

“Fair enough.” She turned around, checking through the rear window. There were a few pairs of headlights behind them.

Tucker sighed. “Fine. Where do you want to go? What’s your plan?” He slowed down for a group of people walking in the middle of the road.

“Just drive.”

“Where? Through them?”

“Yes.”

The crowd parted as Tucker accelerated. That was the rule of the roads here. If you’ve got somewhere to be, you just go.

“Where’s Kyle?” she said.

“South Africa. Johannesburg.”

She looked behind the car again.

“Is someone back there? Someone following us?”

“I’m not sure, just keep going.”

“You’ve had a lot of experience with that, huh?”

“Yeah,” she said. “So if I tell you to go . . .”

“Then I’ll go,” he said. “I’ll go as long as it’s with you.”

“Why?”

He didn’t say anything, but Tucker’s lips moved like he was processing it, trying it out on himself first. It was odd, that he hadn’t thought that far to prep an explanation.

“Hey,” Macy said, trying to soften her voice. “Let’s trade. If you tell me what the hell you’re doing, then I’ll do the same.”

“I already know what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re running from hit men, for years, all the way here from Syria. I’ve only technically been stalking you for twenty-four hours, but I still knew all about what happened to you. It was major news.”

“That’s why they’re trying to be subtle about it,” she murmured, thinking of the kids on the scooter and the kid out the window. It was piling up and getting confusing.

“Who?”

“I’ve lost track at this point,” Macy said. “But you know how it started.”

“What are they being subtle about? Offing you?”

Macy pulled her gun out and let it rest in her lap, the barrel pointing at Tucker.

“What are you doing?” Tucker said it as they rode over a bump, his voice wavering. Either that or he was genuinely nervous. But he wasn’t the nervous type, she thought, anyway. “And can you please not point that at me?”

She held the gun steady. “I really need you to explain what you’re doing here. No offense, but it would be best for both of us if I knew.”

“Just for the record,” he said, “I’m not offended that you don’t quite trust me. After all that you’ve been through, I can understand that. But, I mean . . .”

“I don’t trust anyone.”

“And that’s fine.”

“Even myself,” she said, her thumb disengaging the safety lever. “I don’t even trust myself with this gun right now.”

“Even though I just risked my life to help you, in a close-quarters gunfight in a fucking shower stall?”

“I’ve had people waiting for me in shower stalls before. None of them were doing it for my betterment.”

“I’m sure,” he said. “So you really think I was sent across the world to kill you? Me?”

“Not really.”

“Then put the gun away.”

“We’ll compromise,” she said. “I’ll put the safety back on.” Tucker didn’t say anything. When he pulled off to the side of the road in front of a burnt-out apartment, her hand tightened around the grip. “What are you doing?”

He threw the car in park, holding both hands on the wheel and taking a deep breath. He turned to her. “Let’s hash this out.” The blue lights of the dashboard made his face smooth and cold. He looked freshly shaven. Militarized. “I’m not driving anywhere as long as you’re pointing a fucking gun at me.”

She knew he’d gone off to the military after St. Louis. But that was about it. No connection after that. No social media, no contacts, no shared friends. Macy thought she’d never see him again. She almost preferred that. Who knew how he’d felt about it?

She stared back at that hard blue face. She tried to find a hint of vengeance somewhere in there, a hint of malice.

After a moment, Macy rocked her hip forward off the car seat and put the gun back in its holster.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Sorry.”

“I didn’t like how that felt.”

“I know.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing out here? Carjacking people?”

She laughed a little.

“Is that how you get around? What’s your hustle?”

“My hustle is to just keep it moving. If I ever slow down, I’m dead.”

He was watching something in the rearview mirror now, a car driving up slowly and then past them. “How do you eat? I mean, where do you get your money?”

“I have a contact back home.”

“He sends you money?”

“She.”

“She sends you money.”

“Yeah, barely. Just enough to get by.”

“Who? A friend?”

Macy didn’t like the way he cocked his head after that. “Why are you asking?”

“Just curious.”

“I’ve been out here for years, running.”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine.”

“Just running . . .” She looked back behind the car again. “Think we should get going?”

“Where do you want to go?”

At that point, she had no idea. Having to think about scraping together another night somewhere, another safe night, made her head hurt. “Let’s just start driving.”

He pulled back onto the road without a word. By now she was sure that he understood the kind of danger she was in. He had just experienced it firsthand, up close in a smoke-filled hotel bathroom. Why had he been there in the first place?

“How did you find me at the hotel?”

“I had a friend hack a few Luanda cell provider companies, got access to the towers, and used triangulation to find the area you’d most likely be.”

“You did that?”

“My friend did.”

“And he speaks Portuguese?”

“We have hackers, and linguists, and whatever else.”

“So that’s what you are, then?” Macy said. “You’re a whatever else?”

He ignored the question. “I went to all the hotels in the area. I had a hunch and I got lucky. Found your name on one of the books.”

“Your friend hacked all the hotels, too?”

“No. Fifty bucks American did. But you can’t be surprised. You set it up that way. A trap.”

“A decoy room,” she said. And it had caught an old friend. What were the odds?

“Well, it turned out being a trap for me. I think that was the closest I’ve ever been to death, and I’ve been through a lot of fucked-up experiences.”

“You handled it well.”

“No, I didn’t,” Tucker said. “That guy would be dead if that were the case.”

“He most likely is dead. You saw the pile of him.”

“I mean, I would’ve gotten off a kill shot. I was actually expecting it to be you so I wasn’t so zealous with the gun. I wasn’t prepared for that, to run up against one of your assassins on the first night. Is that really how it goes? Every night is like that?”

“I’m not sure if he was an assassin,” Macy said. “Maybe just a thief. I’ve been running into a few of those lately. Kinda get them confused.”

“Bad guy either way.”

“Not always.” She thought about the desperation of the average Angolan. “It’s just how it is out here.”

Tucker nodded. He looked around him, and into the mirrors before putting his foot down and accelerating into the dusty night. The wind had swept a big brown cloud into the city.

“So what was your plan?” she said.

“I came here to take you to Johannesburg.”

“To Kyle?”

“To the team,” Tucker said.

“What team?”

He looked at her with a furrowed brow. “Really?”

“I don’t know of any team in Johannesburg.”

“You never heard of DARC Ops?”

The cyber security company from Washington. The group responsible for disrupting the initial plans to kill her. She’d more than heard about them; she was grateful for their existence.

Tucker kept alternating glances between the road and his phone, thumbing through something. The screen glowed under his strong jaw. “Yeah, I thought you’d know about them.”

She watched him operate in the dark. She thought of his rental car, his technology and tactics, his skills in finding her. What could have brought him to Angola? Was it DARC Ops? “Is that why you’re here?” she said. “Are you . . .?”

“Funny how that worked out, huh?”

“I just can’t believe it. What do you know about cyber security?”

“That’s almost a front. Of course, they have experts, hackers, but a lot of our work is black ops. I started with them three months ago, just ground support for various jobs. They fly me all over.”

“Why you? I mean, how did you get involved?”

“You don’t believe me, huh?”

“I believe you.”

“You’re just amazed they picked up a bum like me?”

“No.” Aside from that, Macy didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t ready to go down memory lane. Eventually, she’d have to trudge through it with him. In the back of her mind, even well before Syria, she’d always planned on it, somehow. And here, incredibly, sitting next to him after ten years, she finally had the chance. Only she couldn’t wrap her head around it.

He continued, a grin on his face. “A reject cop like me?”

Macy turned to face him, her face feeling hot. “You don’t have to make it so obvious.”

“Make what obvious?”

“That you’re enjoying this,” Macy said. “Like the scorned girlfriend who wants to find her ex after five years, showing off her new engagement ring.”

His grin had melted away. “If I remember correctly, you’re the scorned girlfriend.”

Macy huffed and slumped back against her seat.

“Not even girlfriend,” he said. “Just scorned.”

She looked out her window. “So what’s in South Africa? Johannesburg. What’s so special about it?”

“Our team arrived yesterday morning for a mission. Completely separate from whatever this is.”

“Okay.”

“But when Kyle had news about you, your whereabouts in Luanda, I just knew I had to do something. It was my idea, this whole thing.”

Macy sat quietly, feeling, ever so slightly, like an idiot.

Tucker continued, “I left the group, took a charter jet out here. I packed my bags and flew out within an hour of hearing about your story.” His voice had softened. His face, too. There was something fragile about it, the texture of his skin, the way he held his mouth. He looked almost mournful. “Obviously I wasn’t really prepared. It was just sort of a reaction. Like an instinct.”

She studied his face through the dark. Then she looked at his hands, both of them wrapped around the wheel.

He sighed. “I didn’t even think it through. I probably should have.”

She stayed quiet, studying the road in front of their headlights.

“You know,” Tucker said. “This is as hard for me as it is for—”

The car jerked, the brakes engaging as the car lurched and then slowed to a stop behind a long queue of traffic that emerged from the dust at the last minute. Up ahead was a Luanda Police pickup truck parked to the side. It had its blue and red flashers on. An officer was outside of it, talking to each car as it rolled up beside him and stopped.

“Oh shit,” Tucker said. “What’s this?”

“Looks like a checkpoint,” she said in a calm voice.

“Yeah, but why?”

She had seen plenty of checkpoints in Luanda. Though she’d never been stuck by one yet. Macy watched the officer walk up the driver’s side of a white van, looking in, and then holding his hands on the bottom of the window frame as he talked to—or possibly interrogated—the occupants.

Tucker, his voice not as calm Macy’s, said, “Do you think they’re looking for us?”

“Aren’t they always?”

“I mean, because of the hotel.”

“I mean because of me,” Macy said. “Should we turn around?”

“No, that’d be worse. It’ll attract too much attention.”

“Well, it looks like we’re already about to have some.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Tucker said.

“You will?” It was pretty cavalier of him, to waltz into Luanda not knowing anything about the people or the street codes, not knowing what a landmine sign is or what a checkpoint meant, and to have him sit here now and “take care of it.” Take care of her.

She had become used to taking care of herself since Syria. She made it this far with that, with just her, so why change things up now?

“I feel like I’m already dragging you into trouble,” she said.

“It’s no trouble.”

They were next in line.