The day begins with a phone call to Rachel who's been feeling restless, but she knows the importance of patience and the need for certainty and it's fine. She understands why it's taking them so long. But Brooke has good news: Brooke calls to tell her "Tonight."

Rachel says, "The moment it's done you let me know."

"I will."

Before she hangs up Rachel says, "Be strong." Maybe it's the way she says it but what she really means, Brooke suspects, is don't fuck up.

Brooke scopes out Seager's villa again—then his watcher, Barra Kane, who putters around her own apartment doing housework. Seager's schedule is old familiar but his day is not really important to them. Domenic has overheard plans Seager has made for tonight, and that's when they'll do it. That's when they'll grab him. Brooke and Domenic, then, too, have a sluggish day of waiting. Domenic navigates a big newspaper at the table and Brooke closes her eyes as she lets herself tip over on the sun-warmed couch.

The moment reminds her of another time, in another safe house with another man. This doesn't feel so different and it comforts her. It's her, slipped into a steamy bath, the door eased way open so she can hear that everything is where it should be, that Benson is padding around nearby. When he stops someplace where their eyes connect from across the apartment, there's kind of a mutual feeling between them of trust, Brooke decided then, a reaffirmation that they are both still here this evening. It was the slightest difference between keeping an eye on each other, and keeping an eye out for one another. She'd been doing this longer than he had, during this point of contact in their lives—the part of the figure-8 where two independent circles meet and overlap and stay for a while before moving on—and she guided him. She protected him, or she felt like she did. It was moments like these where she didn't think she'd be able to go through with killing him, if she was ordered to. It would have felt absurd or cruel, completely out of place. But that's their climate: moments of this amazing calm, silent and unpolluted, and then because of forces from above, because of things happening thousands of miles away, everything changes.

She pulls herself up when she hears an unforgettable noise coming from the other room. It's not a threatening noise, but it's nauseating and makes her antsy: a plastic crackle that flutters like a bed sheet too uncontrollable to shake out and fold and get a handle on. Then there's the squeal of tape stretching out across a surface.

She enters the unused bedroom where Domenic has been unfurling plastic from a giant roll, slicing through the cloudy material with an orange boxcutter, and laying it all over the floor. Domenic pauses to glance over and sees that she's awake, but continues his work. Brooke says nothing when she begins to help. She pulls free the plastic while he cuts it to pieces. They cover every inch of the white drywall, uniformly taping and stapling together their kill-room. The cord of their construction lamp in the corner they secure with electrical tape as well, as if they have a mind to prevent foolish workplace accidents. They work in silence and leave the same way as they shut off the light and seal the door—when it locks it traps all sound and everything inside.

Domenic fixes them an early dinner and they sit and eat in the dinette, hushed. The clock ticks down to sunset and Domenic pats his coat and leaves the apartment. He takes their very commonplace, older-styled hatchback and Brooke watches through the blinds his taillights winding down the road towards Seager's villa.

They decided on the perfect place yesterday. When Seager leaves his villa he always takes a certain route into town, cutting down a steep footpath that eventually brings him to a main road into the more urban part of Kyklos. While his villa is, by design, awkwardly open, there is a patch of foliage on the footpath—a large tree mostly—that creates a solid blindspot from a certain angle, that being the Seer's Tower (the apartment of Seager's vigilant protector). Once Seager passes by the tree, he's firmly in Barra's reassuring grasp so their ideal outcome is that he just vanishes, and Barra is left wondering. No matter what she does afterwards—call for reinforcements, call the cavalry—Domenic will have pulled off a clean grab. They'll recede back into their safe house like hermits and lock the door and it will all be over soon after. Then it is up to Rachel, whatever she'll be doing.

Domenic needs to leave his car on the road around the corner, farther away from the footpath than he'd like so he'll have to do some walking, but he parks and just smokes for now. Brooke watches the villa with her binoculars. Eventually Seager leaves in his casual summer clothes and takes his usual route and the job begins.

Brooke raises Domenic on their frequency and says, "He's out and he's moving. One minute."

Domenic gets out of the car and heads up the road after Seager and she can see him hurry up, trying to close the distance as casually as he can. Now they're both on the footpath.

Here they suffer their first setback. Brooke's mouth goes dry when she sees Seager look over his shoulder purely by chance and take notice of Domenic. Although Brooke hears nothing, and nobody says anything, she can nearly feel Domenic's heart stop from where she is. Seager doesn't react because Domenic is anyone or can be anyone. It's been 15 years of beachside indulgence for Seager... why become suspicious now?

But Brooke sees a very slight hand movement from Seager. He's got a chatter in his palm.

"Domenic, you gotta make a move," she says.

Domenic's pace is still unhurried, matching Seager's, because he doesn't want to spook him. Brooke levels her binoculars at the woman who lives across the water and finds her on her balcony, face buried in her own spotting gear. She wasn't there a moment ago. Brooke hisses: "He's made contact with the Seer, Domenic. There's no more time."

Seager reaches the tree and Domenic knows this is the cut-off point. They're still invisible to Barra but only just. He draws his pistol and tells Seager to stop but Seager doesn't. He just passes the tree and Domenic says, "I'll fucking shoot. Stop."

Seager freezes. When Brooke finds Barra again, she finds her with a sniper rifle in her arms. Brooke breaks from her binoculars and gets to a knee and while she shoves an arm deep underneath the couch she says, "She's a shooter—don't take another step."

"Walk backwards," she hears Domenic order Seager, but Seager doesn't move.

Brooke tugs her own rifle free and lays it across the windowsill. She acquires Barra but her scope hasn't been adjusted to take a shot like this. She thinks about it and makes the calculation in her head. It's not an easy one, even in the steadiest of Spartan hands—if such machine accuracy is even possible at this distance and in a pinch. She starts winding and clicking and knows she'll only have one shot.

Barra is still blind, Brooke thinks. Barra still can't see Domenic behind the large cluster of tree leaves so there she is just resting her rifle on the railing of her balcony, waiting for Domenic to appear. Brooke can make out her lips moving—she's talking to Seager like Brooke's talking to Domenic, instructing him, and they are the real matchup of this. Like they're corner men, she thinks Barra is urging Seager to draw Domenic out, while Domenic is telling him again to walk towards him. But neither man does anything, at a complete standstill. She thinks Seager doesn't know Domenic has orders not to kill him, so he's stuck safely in place, afraid of doing something too daring or too brave.

But Brooke is wrong about all that. Barra isn't telling Seager to walk. She's actually telling him not to move—be very still. Brooke sees her fiddle with her scope, like she's going to take a wild shot anyway, and Brooke suddenly figures it out: less visible to Brooke and more so to Barra, from her angle in her tower, are the glass walls of Seager's villa that's not too far away. The lights inside have all gone out, and what's all there has become a gigantic mirror of their sunset hillside.

Brooke screams for Domenic to roll. Domenic throws himself towards the base of the tree in a show of absolute trust just as a rifle round explodes through the tangled leaves and smashes into the hill off the footpath. Almost instantaneously Brooke takes her shot at Barra; the glass door of that apartment blows up, soundless from here. Brooke ejects the casing and looks for a confirmation of the kill. The balcony is empty, but Brooke is uncertain. Her compensation and adjustments were hasty and improvised. She keeps her eyes stuck on Barra's apartment.

She hears Domenic cry out from over the radio. She says, "What's happening? Domenic!"

"Little fucker sprayed me!"

"What's wrong with you?"

"I can't see!"

"Seager?"

"He's taken off!"

Brooke keeps watching Barra's apartment but she knows she's being pulled away. "Can you catch him?"

"That's another story," Domenic says. He coughs and blows his nose. "He's got a hell of a head start and once I'm downhill I'm blind."

"Then I'm chasing." Brooke waits until the last possible second and finally drops the rifle. She snatches up her jacket and strides to the door. "Be my eyes and keep low. Sniper might still be around."

"You won't get here in time," Domenic says, panting.

"I have wheels."

"You do?"

#

Across the water, Barra Kane lies flat on a limp deck chair, little fragments of glass all over her body. She's got one hand on her rifle, the other on the reclining lever that's cranked upwards. Her target was warned, and it saved her life. When she thinks it's safe she slides down to the floor and covers her hands with a pair of flip-flops she has lying around, and crawls in from her balcony. Her hands and feet crunch through shards of her broken sliding door. Once inside she kills the lights in her apartment and keeps low while she grabs a loaded handgun from underneath the oven. With a quick sweep of the hallway, Barra runs downstairs and minutes later, her sleek, red four-door veers manically into traffic. She's racing towards the centre of town.

At the other end of the bay, Brooke climbs into a blustery off-roader parked at the end of the block. It's a rental that belongs to the often drunk, often loud group of vacationers that are staying in the suite nearby. Brooke knows where they leave the keys and they're out tonight—they've walked or cabbed into town because that's where everyone else is going—so she was in and out of their place. Tonight's a public holiday in Kyklos and all over the island. She starts up the car and rumbles off. It's dark enough to need headlights now.

"Where am I going, Domenic?" she says.

"Take the main road into town. Seager's still on the move—I can see him from here. You blow past every stop sign and make a few liberal turns, you'll get there before he does."

Brooke takes his unwitting advice: she charges through an empty t-junction and pulls hard to the left, into the curb where beyond the lit-up town opens up fully past this sudden drop. The off-road vehicle bucks hard but makes it over and she careens down the side of this huge, bumpy hill on a path straight to Seager. Its suspension groans and lifts off the rocky surface on two or three wheels sometimes but she always manages to wrestle it back down. Then the ground levels out and she crashes through hedges and reaches the main road, swerving over the line and rejoining her lane more or less. She keeps going, around another bend, and then the glimmering town centre is just ahead.

She nearly totals the back of someone's truck when traffic halts completely farther on. People come from all over, walking down the side of the road like a huge Diaspora, whooping, shirtless or shoeless from the beach. Dusty cars line the shoulder all over the place, both up and down the lanes. She looks for an exit but she's crammed in. High beams cut across her rear-view mirror. "God dammit," she says.

"He's reached the centre now. Where are you?"

"In traffic."

"Ah."

They'd wanted there to be all this commotion tonight. Now it was becoming a nuisance. The entire town centre she can see is packed with wandering, drifting people.

When there's enough space to get off the road Brooke finds a place to put the car and gets out. She's rammed it halfway into a ditch because she has no more time to waste but any onlookers who pass by just hoot good-naturedly at her parking job and take another sip from their beers and keep walking. Brooke says, "Is he still there?"

"He's moving in a straight line. I nabbed his chatter out of his hand when he hit me so unless his lady told him where to meet, the man's just running scared."

Walking fast, Brooke starts to pick up straight-line speed. She's able to dart around the ambling packs of people and close the distance and she spots Seager down the street. He moves briskly but he's not in shape. He's motivated by panic, most of all.

"Domenic, I'm on him," she says. "You get back to the car and work on getting us out of here."

"I can do that."

Brooke follows Seager at a distance. He's beginning to lag a bit, catching his breath. He looks behind him but he doesn't know who he's looking for. There are too many people around him to make sense of anything. Too many sounds and too much motion he gets lost looking at. But he does change direction, and after a few confident turns, Brooke has a feeling he's got a destination in mind.

"Is there anything we missed, Domenic? A place he knows to get to? Seager's heading west on Lada. And he just took another alleyway."

"You sure he's not just trying to shake you?"

Brooke skips the alley and sees him at the next intersection. He's still going somewhere and not trying to hide. "Triglias now, still moving west."

Domenic pauses to think, then he says, "You're running out of time. There's a bar and grill a few blocks away called Dinakis. You know it? I've a hunch that'll be the spot."

"How come?"

"There's a barfly inside who'll be startlingly sober."

"How much do you trust your hunches?"

"If you let Seager step foot inside, I'm telling you there is a very real chance we lose him for good."

Brooke picks up her pace and crosses the street, then breaks into a harrowing run.

#

Seager pushes through another partying mob wiggling around to the nearby rattles and thumps of percussive buskers, and he spots Dinakis' warmly lit sign. It's an opened-up establishment on the corner that extends way out onto the sidewalk and it's packed with diners. He hurries on inside, breathing hard, wiping his forehead with his dishevelled sleeve, and proceeds to the bar at the back where there's already a man waiting for him. Any other day this person would look like a sleepy regular, but right now he's keen-eyed and poised on his stool.

He asks Seager as he approaches, "Are you hurt?"

"Just lightheaded. Don't they pay you to come running?"

"Ms. Kane said she lost contact with you."

"They took my chatter."

"Were you followed?"

Seager looks out towards the street. "I don't know. Probably."

"We need to go." The man reaches into his jacket and gets to his feet. "Ms. Kane's on her way—another few minutes, she said. She'll meet us out back." He leads Seager past the washrooms and before they head through the kitchen door, he beckons for another man across the restaurant to join him—with Seager compromised, there's no point in sticking around. This one's another private security type in disguise with a hand near a pistol somewhere on him and they all leave through the kitchen.

The moment that door swings shut, though, the tall, inky-haired brunette who's leaning on a casual arm at the busy end of the bar (who arrived and flirted for a quick minute with the barfly who did not reek of booze, right before Seager burst in, sweating) turns her head. She's seen and heard everything.

Seager and his protection detail move past the greasy grill and sweltering deep-fryers and catch confused looks from the kitchen staff, but they don't slow down. Nobody asks questions. The kitchen leads into a hallway, and the exit is just ahead.

Brooke's shoes are suddenly loud and rapid on the floor behind them, and when they turn around she's already in the middle of the trio. She has fast hands that disarm, and a really jagged elbow and she is an Old Testament surge that doesn't stop coming: the one closest sneezes nose blood across the wall while the other pushes Seager aside and yanks free his own handgun but with her enormous reach and gathered momentum Brooke chops at his arm and it whips back down by his side numb maybe broken, and she gives him a huge, two handed heave down the remainder of the hallway and out through the back exit. They're outside now and she's gathered him into a headlock. Seager's already taken off and Brooke sees him tearing down the alleyway towards the street. It doesn't take much more effort on her part to put the man she's got struggling in her arms to sleep and she discards him next to the dumpster.

She's two steps into resuming her chase after Seager when she feels headlights shining up her back because her shadow stretches out before her. She hears an engine rev from the opposite end of the alley.

It takes only a suspecting glimpse behind her at this car's red sheen before Brooke snaps to and begins to charge out of here. There's the wail of wheelspin like a gung-ho racecar driver leaving a rainy starting line that screeches after her.

Brooke makes it out of the alleyway before Barra Kane blasts free a second later having lost a side mirror on her ungainly corner exit, and her car lurches over the sidewalk. She slams a foot on the brakes and points a pistol at Brooke but she's already ducked behind a terrified couple holding each other on the curb. Barra doesn't take the shot so Brooke dashes into the street and begins to cut through the mishmash crowd that's clogging up everything.

Frustrated, Barra dumps her pistol back into the cupholder and does her best to keep up, stopping and going through the good-time chaos that's taken over the town. In the distance, people splash around in a magnificent fountain and spill their wineglasses and scream in delight.

Now Seager is making this up as he goes and he's going anywhere he can. Brooke keeps on him, moving with thick-skinned insistence and resolve like how you try to get to the foot of the stage at a rowdy music festival. He looks back once or twice and spots her because now he knows who's after him.

"Domenic," Brooke has to yell, over the noise, "The Seer's after us. She's in a red Hirata. You copy?"

He says, "I'll keep an eye out. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Where are you?"

"Still trying to get anywhere near, unfortunately."

Domenic's in their hatchback so Brooke assumes he must be facing the same trouble every other driver is. He needs to arduously crawl through foot traffic, honking as he goes.

Seager reaches the other side of the street and Brooke tails him down the sidewalk. He disappears into a coffee shop and locks the door behind him. Brooke's barely a moment behind him, and she rattles the handle but the shop inside is a disorganized, understaffed muddle and nobody is paying attention to her. Through the glass she sees Seager slowly backing away towards the rear of the shop, eyes on her.

Back on the street, Barra's red car is about a block away, obvious as she painstakingly parts the crowd on a beeline towards them. All she needs is a good angle for a clear shot. With a grunt, Brooke gives the door handle a harsh tug, and the bolt snaps in two. Some people turn at the sound; Seager's eyes bulge and he scrambles to leave. Brooke needs to jostle and push her way through the backed up checkout line but she gets past and reaches the backdoor.

She feels like she's been set up when she steps outside because an engine roars and Barra encased in steel comes flying into her from the side. Brooke rolls off the car, smashing her shoulder into the windshield. Barra swerves to a stop where the alley ends at a sudden wall and she reaches for her pistol but her door pops open and she's hauled out of her seat. Brooke flings her against the side of the building and flays the knuckles of her fist on stucco when Barra bounces away like a flashy wrestler on and off the ropes.

She's quick; Barra jabs her in the ribs as she escapes and with a giant leap off the side of her car, she lands on Brooke's back, arms coming in for a choke, strong legs wrapped around her waist. Brooke's fingers close around Barra's wrist and she pithily pries apart her arms and gulps at the air.

Barra pounds on the back of her head before Brooke runs her backwards into the wall and obliterates a ceramic gutter pipe. She begins to crush the smaller woman, grinding her heels into the cobblestone. Trapped like this she can't hit Brooke anymore and it becomes painful to breathe, but Barra is already confident she knows the best way to take her out. When Brooke turns her attention to forcing Barra's knees apart and off of her, Barra's deft hands manage to undo her own belt and she drops it over Brooke's head. She jerks it tight across her throat and Brooke suddenly feels a sense of alarm.

But it's not really debilitating because she can probably tear apart the leather with her two hands if she wanted to. It was more just ferocious and unexpected—Brooke wonders briefly why she hasn't outright killed Barra yet. Still, she loosens up and sinks to her knees like she's in trouble, letting Barra to her feet—in a second her very vulnerable, thin legs are right next to Brooke. She grabs hold and cleanly lugs Barra to the ground, the swiftness of her pounce taking the other woman by clear surprise.

With a single punch, Barra's face is bloody and her head lolls as Brooke pins her down with a knee on her gut, and a hand on her chest. She's already fighting to remain conscious and that's the fight. Her hands are down by her sides.

Brooke sees movement at the end of this alleyway and she holds back her next blow. Seager's standing there, but he's got a look on his face that's one of fear and shame because he's unable to help, and he wants to help. He can't leave Barra when she's like this, Brooke realizes, because he loves her.

Barra spots him too and shouts dazedly at him to run. This time Seager stays put. With a cautious slowness, Brooke gets off of Barra and she holds up her bloody hands, outstretched, like she's approaching a skittish thing. She wants to show him that she means no harm, that Barra will be fine. He looks at her with a kind of scorn, like she's betrayed him because he does recognize her and she makes him sick. It makes Brooke feel like she's let him down somehow.

Seager begins to walk off, leading Brooke away, and she looks over Barra once more. She decides she's not a threat like this. And if Seager must live, as Rachel has dictated, there is a chance this will have just been an off-day for the couple. Seager will return to his life after he has been used by Rachel, and although Barra is being paid to be here, she is still a part of that life. Brooke has no reason to steal her away from Seager. She thinks she might have decided this at an earlier point than now.

So she follows him but he doesn't wander far, just eventually into a hotel lobby where he takes a comfortable seat in the middle of everything and everyone and waits for her to approach. It's an upscale, heart-of-Kyklos kind of tourist accommodation; lit torches and showy Ionian columns encircle the lobby. Guests come and leave and seep in from outside the lively street, in the square. Seager stares her down with every step, waiting for her to pull out a weapon and finish him off in front of everyone, but instead she takes a seat next to him.

He starts to say something, but Brooke jabs him with a hypo needle when no one is looking. She keeps a hand on his arm, and he slumps over to rest on her shoulder. Though it looks like she's whispering something soothing to him, she's saying to Domenic, "We're at the Mykonos Resort. It's done."

"Amazing work, Fields. Well done," Domenic says. "Shall I circle 'round back?"

"We'll be coming out the front."

"I'll let you know when I'm there."

#

Barra Kane has managed to pick herself up and stumble back to her car. She knows Seager must be gone by now, and she'll need to call in and report her failure. But for now she sits in her car, bleeding and aching, with the feeling that she's been robbed of something and she doesn't understand it. When she finally starts up the car and puts it into reverse (there is only one way back onto the street), another vehicle backs up out of an adjoining passage behind her and she abruptly halts. She waits for this other car to go but it remains completely still, idling.

She peers through the rear view mirror. She takes her pistol with her when she gets out and is killed instantly when Domenic shoots her. He's been waiting here ever since he spotted her red car. His is a silenced shot and sounds like nothing because it sounds like a mischievous firecracker gone off in an alleyway, that's all. She violently collapses in the hellish taillight glow with her back against her sagging, open door. She bleeds black down the front of her jacket and sanguine dress she would've worn to meet Seager tonight.

Brooke helps Seager into Domenic's car when he pulls up in front of the hotel later and nobody asks questions because he looks like he's a terrible drunk and they're doing him a favour. When they get going again they are surrounded by people who are going to party until daylight; who thump harmlessly on the windows as they drive and holler happy drunken things; who look right into their backseat to see only a man who's pretty fucked up and nothing's wrong; who so engulf the car until Brooke and Domenic look like anyone else driving on the road, all just trying to get to somewhere tonight. Fireworks flare up and batter the dark sky and the crowds all over the town clap and cheer. It's done. They did it. They kidnapped Seager. But like they're riding out a tense, unpredictable storm, neither Brooke or Domenic say anything on the long drive back.

Rachel will be pleased. Brooke will call her tonight and wait for her to tell her good job. Then Rachel will get to work, putting this knowledge to use, that she is the one who controls Seager now. It means much more to her than it does Brooke or Domenic, who know only that Seager must live (for now?). This next part is crucial if she wants to pull off whatever she is about to start pulling off. Which brings us to...