LITMIR.BIZ

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When they were done shooting, they always picked up the spent casings and reloaded them with gunpowder. This was the first casing her father had taught her to reload. She hadn’t been able to part with it. It made a lump form in her throat and she dropped it back inside her dress.

      One of her two cell phones rang. One connected to the team only. The other was a secure line, chipped for international use and connected to AA.gov, an Athena Academy network overseen by the Department of Defense. She had done courier assignments for AA.gov in the past, and if this was another assignment it would be a welcome interruption to her dad hell.

      She reached in her purse, found the phone and popped it open. An encrypted text message scrolled across the LCD screen. She hit a button and the encryption scrambled into English:

      Lucy,

      A contact named “Delphi” wishes to hire you and your team to go after a target in Cape Town, South Africa.

      She narrowed her eyes at the moniker Delphi and typed back:

      I’ve never worked for a contact named Delphi before.

      The response:

      This is a legitimate assignment. It’s tied to recent threats against the Athena Academy, including the kidnapping of two students. Athena alums have been targeted, as well. You could be in danger, so if you accept this assignment keep your own Athena alum status on the QT. Do you accept?

      Lucy read the message again, intrigued by what she was told and what she was not. Like who had been kidnapped, and was this target in South Africa behind these threats. She typed:

      Will accept.

      Another line appeared:

      Stand by for verbal briefing with Delphi in two minutes.

      She slapped the phone closed and waited for the briefing. Thoughts of breaking the news of her shortened visit to her mom made her grimace. She hated disappointing her, but she’d make up for it later. Maybe ask her to vacation at her ranch. Her father, well, he’d probably wish her gone. What about Val? She was to arrive at the end of the week. Lucy truly missed her friend. They’d just have to reschedule.

      Lucy watched two women, balancing full laundry baskets on their heads, stride past her as the phone rang again.

      She answered, eager to speak to this Delphi. If she was going to risk her life and the team’s lives, she wanted to directly communicate with this person. And she wondered how Delphi was tied to the AA.gov network.

      Cape Town, Africa

      Nolan Taylor followed the red line that led to the porter’s booth on the walk of Cape Town International Airport. When he reached the end, he paused, the toe of his black wingtips an inch from the end of the line. He set down his suitcase and glanced behind him.

      The big bloke was still following him. He had paused, going through the motions of buying a newspaper from a vending machine. Sunglasses covered the fellow’s eyes, but his head was turned Nolan’s way. He looked about thirty, his pink fair-skinned scalp showing through his crew-cut white hair. His fairness hinted at a Scandinavian descent. He was burly, tall, about six foot three but still three inches shy of Nolan. From the bulge under the bloke’s tweed sport jacket, Nolan suspected a concealed weapon. Nolan hadn’t wanted to suffer yards of red tape to bring his own Ruger revolver into South Africa, but he wasn’t completely helpless. He had his fists and a T-shaped push knife hidden in his belt buckle.

      Nolan quickly stood. He’d made a lot of enemies ferreting out terrorists. It was the main reason he’d left England. At least two terrorist organizations had a price on his head. Was this bloke an assassin? An alarm went off on his watch. Exactly 10:00 hours. He had two hours before his interview at Pincer. Enough time to deal with Viking. With a flick of his finger, he snapped the alarm off.

      He handed the porter a five-pound note and spoke to him in Afrikaans, or “Cape Dutch,” a West Germanic language spoken mainly in Cape Town. “Praat U Engels?”

      The porter nodded. “Ja.”

      He switched to English. “Be a good chap and get me a taxi.”

      The line of taxis, ten cars deep, stretched along the walkway, comprised of every make and model of car, mostly older models. He even saw an ancient Checker Cab; thoughts of London and home stabbed him. He missed his parents until there was an ache in his chest. But he couldn’t contact his family and put them in danger. No, he was on his own.

      The porter blew a whistle and motioned toward the taxi at the front of the line. The taxi sped forward. Another cab pulled out from the back of the line and floored it. The taxis raced toward him, headlights to headlights. The driver on the left overtook the one on the right, cutting him off, almost colliding. Brakes screeched as the winner stopped at the curb in front of him.

      The loser shook his fist at the winner and yelled an expletive in Afrikaans. Taxi wars amused Nolan. Capitalism at work.

      He waited until the porter threw his suitcase in the trunk, then slid inside, his knees touching the front seat.

      The Crown Victoria smelled of stale cigarettes, body odor and filth. He leaned forward to speak to the driver, a small man with dreadlocks. “Praat U Engels?”

      The driver bobbed his head. “Ya, boss.”

      “Excellent. There’s a big chap in a tweed sport coat in front of us—don’t look. He’s getting into a black Taurus sedan in the valet area. He’s been following me. You’ll get a twenty-pound tip if you lose him.”

      “Ya, boss, lose him.” The man nodded, whipped the taxi out into the flow of traffic.

      Nolan memorized the license plate number: 1267PR as they passed the Taurus.

      The taxi driver zipped around a double-parked bus, taking his tip seriously.

      Nolan kept the Taurus in view as it sped up, and Viking bullied his way into the traffic behind them. The sporting part of him, the part that enjoyed a good game of rugby, made Nolan grin.

      Jijiga, Ethiopia

      “Hello, Lucy,” an electronically altered voice said.

      She hadn’t expected the disguised voice and it raised her suspicion. “Look, if this is some game you’re playing—”

      “For safety reasons I protect my identity. I assure you I want to hire you. We are working on the same side.”

      “Convince me. Name a person on your side.”

      “Lucy, this is Allison Gracelyn speaking. This is a conference call.”

      “Allison?” Lucy knew Allison Gracelyn. She was the daughter of Marion Gracelyn, the founder of the Athena Academy. Allison was a fellow Athena alumna and a consultant to the board of directors. Lucy trusted Allison.

      “It’s me. Delphi thought you might need some convincing, so I was allowed to participate in this briefing.”

      Yep, that was Allison’s voice. It was all the convincing Lucy needed. “Okay, I’m in.”

      Delphi’s creepy altered voice said, “You probably know that House Representative Bryan Ellis is under arrest for fraud and attempted murder of Athena alum Francesca Thorne.”

      “I heard about it on the news.” When Lucy had seen the report that Ellis had tried to kill Francesca, she had wondered why. The report hadn’t gone into much detail. “Why did he try to kill her?”

      “She was instrumental in his arrest.”

      “Oh.”

      “What you probably don’t know is that fellow Athena grad Nikki Bustillo recently captured a computer hacker, Martin Slobojvic, a Kestonian wanted in a dozen countries for corporate espionage and spying. We found out he’s been working for Bryan Ellis—”

      “In what capacity?”

      “Someone

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