She decided as she finished her meal that when she got home she was going to take a serious look at her life and what she wanted out of it. She’d be forty in three years, and while that didn’t sound old to her now she remembered how ancient it seemed when she was twenty. She was nowhere near her career goals and felt that she wasn’t going to get much higher on the corporate ladder without some drastic action.

Which she’d thought she’d taken by coming to Namibia, but now this was turning out to be a bust, and her logic came full circle to being angry at herself for being so wrong.

The air grew a bit chilly with the wind coming off the cold water. She shrugged into her sweater and paid her tab, leaving a generous tip even though her guidebook said waiters didn’t expect one.

She started back to her hotel, taking a different route than before just to see more of the old town. The sidewalks were quiet except around a couple of restaurants and there was no traffic on the street. While wealthy by Africa’s standards, Namibia was still a poor country, and people tended to live with the rhythms of the day. Most were asleep by eight, so there were few lights in the homes.

Sloane became aware of the footsteps when the wind died suddenly. Without its gentle hiss the tap of shoes on concrete carried easily. She turned and saw a shadow duck around a corner. Had the person kept coming she would have considered the moment a figment of paranoia. But the person didn’t want her to know he was there, and Sloane realized she wasn’t all that familiar with this part of the city.

She knew her hotel was to her left, four, maybe five streets over. It dominated Bahnhof Street, so if she could reach that road she’d be fine. She took off running, lost a sandal after only a couple of steps and quickly kicked off the other as her pursuer gave a startled grunt at her reaction and started after her.

Sloane ran as hard as she could, her bare feet slapping against the sidewalk. Just before she turned a corner she chanced looking back. There were two of them! She thought they might have been a pair of the fishermen she and Tony had questioned, but she could tell both men were white and it looked like one of them had a pistol.