by Cherry Adair
Ignoring the order, the man remained where he was.
One moment he was standing still, his hands at his sides, the next he had a pistol in his right hand.
"No. No. No!" AJ yelled as the guy blew out his own brains in a spectacularly messy display. "Damn it to hell. Why'd you do that?"
"Apparently," Kane said flatly, "failing Raazaq was a worse alternative than anything we might subject him to."
"Hell."
Now they had no more information than they'd had an hour ago. "Yeah," Kane said laconically, dropping the AK-47 to his side as AJ did the same with the Dragunov. "Sure they were Raazaq's?"
"Hundred percent. I recognized several of them."
He believed her. Her eyesight was remarkable. "Then we're close enough to make the bastard antsy. Come on, let's hit the road and ruin Raazaq's day."
It couldn't be any later than seven a.m., but the day was already hot as the sun rose into a cloudless blue sky. They needed hats, sunscreen, and water. Now.
Kane called to the brothers. No show. "Poor bastards must be scared out of their wits."
"I hope they weren't hit." AJ walked faster up the small rise. Kane grabbed her arm as her booted foot slipped on the rocks.
"I doubt they raised their heads the whole time," he told her dryly, releasing her. "They're fine."
They crested the rocks and stared down into the small depression where their guides and the camels had been. "Had been" being the operative phrase. Kane swore. The Shaaeawi brothers were gone. No great loss.
They'd taken all the camels with them. Oh, shit. Now, that was a huge loss.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
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A couple of saddlebags hurriedly tossed aside—and a cooling pile of camel dung—were the only things the brothers had left behind. By the look of overturned rocks, and the tracks in the sand, they'd taken off in an all-fired rush, headed back the way they'd come.
Kane glanced up to gauge their distance. While he and AJ had been fending off the attack, the brothers had barely waited for the bullets to fly before they'd made tracks. They were already mere dots on the far horizon.
And in way better shape at the moment than he and AJ.
Jesus. Two people, alone in the middle of the Western Desert's Great Sand Sea. No transportation. No navigational equipment. No form of communication.
No one knew where the hell they were. No one was looking for them. Worst of all, no one was on Raazaq.
They were screwed.
Talk about your Bad Day at Black Rock.
"Alone at last," AJ said wryly, apparently unperturbed by their dire situation. Except that Kane could see the rapid beat of her pulse in her sweat-dampened throat, and recognized the underlying note of tension in her cheerful voice.
Good for you, Kane thought with some relief. She wasn't about to panic at the daunting prospect of crossing the inhospitable desert in the heat of the day. There weren't many men who could look at this situation with a cool eye and no panic. But she was doing it. And damned if he didn't experience a rush of admiration for her. AJ Cooper was way more than he'd ever expected. And sometime soon, he hoped he'd get the chance to tell her so.
Right now, though—training or no—the situation certainly scared the bejesus out of him.
She crouched down and started rummaging through her saddlebag. "At least they left some of our stuff. We'll need our hats. It's going to be a hell of a long walk."
"Take necessities," he told her evenly. "Nothing else."
They couldn't stay where they were, and the walk was going to be long, hot, and dangerous. They couldn't be more exposed, more unprotected than they would be during the duration of that walk across the almost flat, barren landscape. Hell.
They'd be sitting ducks for miles.
Head bent, AJ saluted without looking up. Kane went over to his own bag and extracted his hat first thing. After settling it on his head, he grabbed sunblock, extra clips for the Sig and AK-47, and all the water containers they'd brought with them. Chugging down a couple of swallows of the warm water, he stuffed all the protein bars they'd tossed into the saddlebags into his pack. The less they ate, the less water they'd need to drink. And they'd have to make their water last. Yet their bodies would need fuel for the grueling trek.
One did not conserve drinking water in the desert. One drank it. And prayed there'd be enough to last the trip.
"Ready?" he called, glancing at his wristwatch. Still inoperable. He hadn't expected differently. How far did the block extend? And to what extent? And, fuck it, for how long?
Under normal circumstances there would be planes overhead, vehicles in pursuit, the snap, crackle, and pop of verbal communications from the Sat Comm link. Action. Movement. Noise.
Instead, there was this unearthly, surreal silence.
AJ blew out a breath as she stood up. "Ready as I'll ever be."
Kane ran a quick look over her. She'd braided her hair, then tucked it beneath her hat. Her skin glistened with a coat of sunblock, and she was standing hip-shot, slugging back water. She was also carrying a small lightweight backpack. In fact, the same make, color, and size as his own. He hid a smile. "Let's move out."
"Know any jokes?" AJ asked, trudging along beside him, her long legs matching his strides in a comfortable rhythm. Neither fast nor slow, as they paced themselves.
The sun was high overhead in the brilliant blue, cloudless canopy. The temps had reached the high nineties. Thank God the brothers had left their supplies—if not, they'd be doubly screwed, without protection from the unrelenting sun and a respectable supply of water.
Which was the only reason Kane wouldn't kill the little bastards if he ever caught up to them again. A good thrashing would be enough.
Kane kept an eagle eye on AJ, even though he pretended not to. She was holding up well. Her initial panic had evened out to a healthy apprehension. She'd done well today. Damn well. It would keep her sharp. However, the heat and the monotony of walking were soporific and might well slow their reflexes. They should've stopped and made shelter an hour ago. But his gut told him speed was necessary.
The intense and oftentimes seemingly cruel and inhumane training T-FLAC gave their operatives in desert survival gave them a better shot of making it now.
If the next oasis wasn't too much farther.
If their water lasted that long.
If they didn't get heatstroke.
"No," Kane told her, drinking from his canteen. He sloshed the water in the container—half-full—and clipped it back on his belt.
"Come on," she cajoled. "Everyone knows a joke or two."
"I don't. Stop wasting your breath. It's not going to get any cooler, and so far we haven't come across anything resembling a Hilton."
"See?" she prodded. "That was mildly amusing."
"It's too hot to be amusing. Tell me more about the beauty-pageant business."
"I was trying for light and friendly." AJ sounded mildly irritated now.
Kane laughed.
"Now, that wasn't supposed to be funny." AJ glared at him through the shaded brim of her straw cowboy hat. "Talk to me. Tell me something interesting about you. Since you didn't emerge from the womb as a T-FLAC agent. How about an episode of Kane Wright—The Early Years."
His lips twitched. Damn it, she was fun. "Like what?"
"Anything," AJ said heatedly. "Geez, Louise. We're out here in the freaking middle of nowhere, under a broiling noonday sun, gasping our last parched breath. Can't you think of something interesting to break the monotony? And in case you haven't noticed, you never answer any of my questions. Why is that, I wonder."
"Tell me this," he asked, not answering the question. Again. "Are we headed in a facsimile of the right direction? Or are we going around in circles?"
"We're going around in circles," she told him tartly. "I wanted to torture both of us and see how long it would take you to notice that our tongues were turning black and our skin was peeling off our bodies in sheets."
<
br /> "Great visual. Thanks," he muttered.
She huffed out a breath. "Oh, ye of little faith." She punched his arm, and he imagined behind her dark glasses she was rolling her eyes. "Of course we're heading in the right direction. Look at the sun."
He had. They were headed southwest. He'd merely asked to distract her. The monotony of putting one booted foot in front of the other, for mile after mile, was tedious. And if he hadn't been sure of their direction, all they'd had to do was follow Raazaq's tracks in the sand. Although it would've made their stroll through hell a bit more bearable, thank God there hadn't been even a slight breeze in twenty-four hours to blow away the impressions Raazaq had left in his wake. Arrogant bastard.
He hoped to God the pyramid AJ had mentioned was where she thought it was. Otherwise they were walking into the Valley of Death, he thought with real trepidation. Even if the damn pyramid was there, though, they wouldn't reach it for at least another six to eight hours, walking at this pace. They had hardly any food, but fortunately, they had just enough water to last that long.
Particles of sand refracted the sun like tiny diamonds in a light so brilliant, so fierce, it hurt the eyes, even with the specially fabricated lenses of their glasses. The heat rose off the umber-colored sand in glassy waves. It beat down unrelentingly from above, and radiated brutally from below. Inside his boots, Kane's feet burned fiercely. So must AJ's, but she hadn't said a word.
"It's too hot to go on," he said, practically. "We'll stop, make a shelter, and rest until dusk."
"We've got a rhythm going here." AJ wiped her face with her sleeve. "Let's walk another hour before we stop."
Kane shook his head. If he'd been alone, he may very well have continued another hour or two. And it would've been suicide. It was just past noon, and the sun was straight up and lethal.
"We're probably losing two pints of water an hour in sweat equity. We'll need to drink more water if we expend this much energy in this heat. We can't afford to waste a drop. Come on. That dune looks like a good spot."
The dune was already casting a small, very small, shadow, and they erected an open-sided canopy, utilizing the dune's protection. Within minutes they crawled inside, out of the sun. It wasn't noticeably cooler by any stretch of the imagination, but at least they were out of the direct rays.
AJ removed her hat and scratched her scalp with short nails. "My kingdom for a shower." She flopped down flat on her back and hiked up the hem of her caftan to expose her legs to the thigh. She wiggled her feet in the heavy boots. "How long do we have to wait?"
No time at all, he wanted to say. The knot in his stomach, the one that warned of danger, was coiling tighter and tighter by the hour. He lay his backpack next to hers, then started undoing the laces of his boots.
"At least four hours." He drew off the heavy boots and ditched his damp socks to dry in the sun. As much as his body needed the rest, needed to cool down as much as hers did, Kane's instincts urged him to keep moving. To speed up. To get there—Where, for Christ sake?—now. Not four hours later than now.
He leaned over and started unlacing AJ's boots. The high-tops were military issue, specially made for desert terrains. Impervious to sand, they were lightweight, but bulky-looking, and made her slender ankles look insubstantial and sexy as hell. He drew off her left boot and set it beside his own, then reached for the right.
"Oh, you prince. You're going to massage my poor aching feet for me?"
"You really were a cat in a previous life, weren't you?"
"Let me put it this way." AJ stretched. "If someone offered to give me a full-body massage right now, and we were in the middle of Grand Central Station, I'd strip down butt-naked right there and then lay on the cool, marble floor."
Kane drew off her damp socks and tossed them up onto the canopy overhead with his own. Her feet were a little pink. He inspected her soles for cuts and abrasions, and she sighed as his thumbs made a slow circuit of the balls of her feet. She was a tactile woman, and he found he enjoyed touching her as much as she enjoyed being touched.
"Did your trainers know about this little quirk?" he asked, manipulating her toes between fingers and thumbs. "Because," he continued while she sighed blissfully, "this could be a problem. We get intense training and psychological counseling in the event we're captured. Torture prep, et cetera. All the bad shit. But hell, if someone found out about your massage fetish, think how simple it would be to get anything out of you. You'd spill your guts for a foot massage."
"No I wouldn't—Yes. Riiiigh-t there. Not a mere foot massage. Now, a full-body? Hell, yeah. I'd tell them anything."
He dug his thumbs into her instep. "What's your real name?"
"A—" She opened her eyes, her lips twitched, and she wiggled her toes in his palms. "Nice try, camel boy."
He patted her feet and scooched back. Before lying down, he dug a clean pair of socks out of his pack, and lay the AK-47 and a clip beside him on the tarp.
After watching him, AJ imitated his actions, then lay beside him on her back, not touching but close enough for him to smell the heat of her body.
"Do you know that bushmen in the Kalahari find the deepest part of an old water course and dig a hole in the sand about an arm's-length deep to find water? Then they take a reed tube as tall as they are—which isn't very tall, now that I come to think about it—and insert it into the hole and pack the sand around it. Then they suck on the tube for two minutes until water comes into their mouth."
Kane rolled onto his side, his head supported on his arm. "There aren't any rivers—dry or otherwise—around."
"I wasn't suggesting that we tr—"
"Close your eyes, Abbreviate Jabberer."
She wriggled her brows. "Wanna fool around?"
"Sleep," he ordered.
She obediently closed her eyes, but she was smiling. "Can we, after?"
"If you can work up the energy," Kane said dryly, brushing a sweat-dampened curl off her forehead.
"Maybe you should just give me a little smooch to see me through." She opened her eyes to peer at him through her lashes.
He ran his thumb over her full lower lip, and she drew it into the damp cavern of her mouth and sucked on it. The sensation shot directly to Kane's groin. He groaned.
"Is that a ye—" AJ's jaw cracked with the huge yawn.
He extracted his damp thumb, and smiled. "Go to sleep. It'll be cooler for all sorts of interesting things when you wake up."
" 'Kay. You take first watch." Her voice slurred as she closed her eyes. She was fast asleep in seconds.
Hours later, with nothing to do but walk and think, AJ realized that as far as Kane Wright was concerned, she was insatiable. This couldn't be a good thing. She was a career agent. She didn't want anything more. Which, when she thought about it, was probably fine and dandy, since she doubted Kane wanted anything more than a roll in the hay—sand—himself.
She scowled. What was he hiding. Something interesting, she bet.
Raazaq's tracks marked their path. An easy, no-brainer route, which gave her far too much time to think, damn it.
And with this much thinking time, her brain naturally turned to Kane.
After knowing each other such a short time it wasn't as though she expected a declaration or anything. They were both getting exactly what they wanted. Spectacular sex. She was perfectly satisfied. She frowned, trudging along beside Kane in the moonlight. God only knew, they both wanted the same unemotional… encounter, so what the hell was her problem? Why wasn't that now enough?
Wake up and smell the coffee, Cooper. This man is going to offer you nothing more than the here and now. He'd said so in no uncertain terms. Like it or lump it, that's the way it was.
She liked it just fine, she told herself firmly, just frigging fine. They were both getting exactly what they wanted.
Oh, crap, here I am, tramping through a desert looking for a psycho, and I'm worried about my love life? Get your mind back on business, Cooper.
But w
alking was soporific, and no matter how much she tried to push thoughts of the silent man next to her aside, it was impossible.
Kane talked about his family with affection. Something she envied. Her father and brother had been only a peripheral part of her life, and her mother's obsession with beauty and all that entailed had made their relationship strained, to say the least. When AJ thought about her mother, "affection" wasn't a word she'd use. "Pushy." "Obsessive." "Driven." All worked.
Interestingly enough, having spent twenty-seven years ignoring compliments about her physical appearance, she found it refreshing that Kane didn't seem to care one way or another how she looked. Hell, just that was enough to make a girl fall in love.
She stumbled at the thought.
Not that she was in love. Hell, no.
"How're you holding up, Alison Jumpup?"
I don't know anything about him, AJ thought wildly. Nothing. This is insane… "How can you still talk?"
"Stamina, babe, stamina. Check that out." He pointed to the churned-up sand veering off their path. "Looks like that's where Raazaq's men broke off to circle back for us."
AJ nodded, not wasting breath talking.
"Want to stop for a few?"
"No way. Let's keep going. Straight ahead until dawn."
"Tell me when you're ready for a break."
"Absolutely."
Kane chuckled. "Liar."
"I'll stop when you stop."
"How 'bout I want to stop now?"
"I'd call you a sissy-pants and keep walking."
"A sissy-pants?"
She turned to grin up at him. While that smile was strained and exhausted, it still had the power to hit Kane in the solar plexus. "Yeah."
"By all means, let's keep walking, then." He returned her brave grin. "I've got a rep to protect. How about we get to the third dune ahead, then stop for ten?"
"Okay." There was a long, pregnant pause. "Would you tell me about Libya?"
Apropos of what? "Jesus, why?"
"Because we're out here in the middle of nowhere, alone in the frigging dark, and it would make me happy if you would share just a small slice of your life with me for once. Not to mention I've spilled my guts and told you my deepest, darkest secrets, that's why."
