by Cherry Adair
The bad news was, despite the claims on the sunscreen tube, their sweat was washing off the cream. The good news was, they could still sweat. Not sweating meant heatstroke. As the body dried out, the blood became more viscous in turn, not circulating around the body adequately. Heatstroke could kill. It would be an agonizing death.
Not on Kane's watch.
"We will." Kane's voice was grim as he surreptitiously checked AJ's features for any sign of excessive fatigue, or distress. She was distressed, all right. But she was maintaining. He couldn't ask for more. Fuck, he was maintaining, himself.
"Even your strong will can't make us get there any faster," AJ said flatly. She turned to glare at him. "Stop staring at me, would you, please? If I need a break, feel sick, or otherwise require your assistance, believe me, I'll let you know. We're both equally tired, equally hot, equally footsore, and equally edgy. You don't have to check me every eight seconds, okay?"
"Thirty."
"Every thirty seconds, then, "
"Yes, ma'am."
"We won't be walking forever, camel boy," AJ groused, and then under her breath, "Just frigging feels like it."
"Walking in the sand's supposed to be great for your legs, though," Kane teased, hoping for a smile.
"You've already got great legs," AJ snapped.
"Not mine, yours," he said, and finally earned the smile.
"Oh. Have I mentioned," she asked, "that heat makes me crabby?"
"Should have said something," he said. "I'd have turned on the air conditioner."
"Oh, God. Don't toy with me, camel boy."
His lips quirked, and his eyes gleamed as he looked at her. "You're doin'great, Abemathy Jawonda."
"Yeah, great. I feel so damn useless," she said, frustrated.
"We're doing the best we can. And right now we're the only game in town."
"Oh, no pressure."
"Relax."
"Relax? Worse-case scenario: all the world's leaders gathered in one place. Couldn't be a better setup for a terrorist. Especially someone like Raazaq. Jesus God, Kane. What if we don't get there in time? "
"If we don't get there in time, we don't get there in time. We'll deal with it then. That slimey son of a bitch is confident no one is going anywhere," he said flatly. "He'll drag this out. Terrorize the principals. Freak out the security people. Then he'll move. Raazaq is a control freak. He plans. He waits."
AJ nodded, remembering everything she'd ever read on the man. "His M.O. is playing cat and mouse."
"Right," Kane said flatly. "Supersize the cat, and blind the mice. That's Raazaq. And no one has any idea what the hell he's doing. But you can bet whatever he's up to, he's going to be out of the line of fire, and safe."
"Which would mean he wants to watch the fun from afar and he's sent someone else in to do his dirty work," AJ suggested with dread, trying to wrap her brain around the ramifications of numerous important world leaders being leveled by a deadly virus at the same time. In fact, they could all be lying somewhere right now, dead and dying while Raazaq was off on his next reign of terror.
"No. Raazaq'll be there." Kane was sure of it. "Right there. Certainly within visual contact himself. He was in a neighboring building when that girls' school was bombed," Kane said, voice grim.
"He watched that explosion." AJ's voice went soft, thoughtful. "He watched the fire department and EMTs scramble. He watched the hysterical, weeping families gather, and he watched those children's bodies being taken away in small black bags. Raazaq is hands-on. That's what makes him so damn terrifying. He enjoys his work, and he particularly revels in the up-close-and-personal misery and pain of others. This setup is a Raazaq wet dream. Wiping out presidents and kings and queens? No, he'll want to do this one himself. Properly protected, of course, and with an immediate means of escape.
"He could intend to kill everyone to create world chaos," she speculated, digging a protein bar out of her backpack, then thought better of it and tossed it back. She wasn't hungry enough to force down something that unappealing. Somehow she didn't imagine there was anything close to real chocolate in it.
"Or," she continued, "he could be holding the viral agent over them as leverage for blackmail."
"Which could possibly mean he has some form of communication with the outside world."
"Except he wouldn't be stupid enough to let anyone trace or track him. Damn it."
For the next three hours they kept their speculations to themselves. AJ was now moving by rote. Putting one heavy, hot foot in front of the other. Trying not to come up with every worse-case scenario, but finding her mind could be pretty damn creative when there was nothing to look at but sand, and sand, and—
Trees?
Cool, green, shade-giving… trees.
She blinked. "Man, does that mirage look real, or what?"
"No mirage. That's the real deal."
"Oh, God," she said on a moan, "don't toy with me."
"Water, Cooper. Real water. With trees."
"Are T-FLAC agents allowed to weep with joy?"
"In certain cases," he assured her, "oh, yeah."
There was an enormous sand dune between them and those treetops, but now that they had a tangible goal, their footsteps quickened and they scrambled up the slope like mountain goats.
They crested the rise, and there it was, spread out below them. A lumpy sea of green. A thousand shades of wonderful, glorious green, green, green. Even AJ's eyes sighed in relief.
An oasis. Verdant, lush, staggeringly beautiful after endless miles of pale sand, it shimmered dreamlike in the early-morning light. Towering date palms, sycamores, acacias, and carobs spread for miles before them. And even more gorgeous than the green was the water that fed all that lush vegetation.
Two wide, blue pools of still water glittered, and made every corpuscle in AJ's body cry out for a long, deep taste.
"Look at that." AJ pointed. As if Kane could possibly miss the two enormous structures peaking over the treetops. Illuminated by the brilliant sunlight and crystal-clear blue sky.
On the right, a pale stone replica of a pyramid towered half a dozen stories above the treetops. On the left, the real deal, pyramid-wise. Pale marble, glossy as the day it was built two thousand years ago.
Hallelujah. They'd arrived.
AJ inhaled deeply. For the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, the simple act of inhaling didn't burn the membrane inside her nose. And the smell. The glorious smell. Water, vegetation, the faint fragrance of cooking.
The air smelled green, fresh, and life-giving.
Resisting running down the other side of the dune like a kid at the beach to fall nose-first into something cool and fertile, AJ pointed to a lazy curl spiraling into the sky. "Look. Smoke."
"No. I think that's steam. Must be a hot spring. Now, that looks interesting." He indicated a long rectangle of cleared trees off to their left.
Since they were looking down across the treetops, they couldn't actually see what the clearing was for, but it seemed pretty obvious to AJ, and her heart did an excited little flip. "What's the bet that's an airstrip?"
"Apparently the only way in and out." Kane scanned the treetops narrow-eyed. There appeared to be no roads entering the massive oasis.
Unfortunately, there was no sign of any troops, either.
No sign of life. No sound of human habitation. Still… "He's here." Just a feeling, but its effect was so strong, it was as powerful as a stare from an unknown source, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.
"Hell, yes, he's here," Kane agreed. "This discovery is new, fresh, important. You can bet there's someone, several someones, damn important down there." He pointed. "That looks like it might be a hotel."
"Yeah. My guess, too." AJ swiped her arm over her sweaty face. "They expect a lot of tourists, apparently."
"Let's go. We're going to drag our butts in the front door and act surprised when we bump into him. Car broke down. Didn't think it was too far to the next village.
Walked—et cetera, et cetera."
AJ raised a brow. "He'll think we're morons, or be really suspicious."
"And you care… why?"
"Good point."
Just seeing the various shades of green made her feel cooler. Hell, her legs felt lighter, too, as they slid and stumbled their way down the dune in a cascade of rose-tinted sand. They weren't attempting to hide, which made it a lot easier to move. Until they reached the oasis, they were out in front of God and everyone as they slithered their way down the dune.
When they finally reached the bottom and level ground, they moved toward the tree-surrounded water like zombies.
"Amazing anything can grow out here, isn't it?" AJ asked in awe as they approached the tree line.
"Given water, plants will thrive anywhere. Did you notice there's no cultivation? No crops?"
"Those over there look like olive trees."
"Yeah, and look how old they are. Probably planted thousands of years ago for whichever pharaoh was buri—Company," he said under his breath.
She'd seen them. The three men stepped from the shadows. Wearing Western dress, they were well accessorized. Locked and loaded.
"Hope these are the good guys," AJ said sotto voce.
Kane stopped, and AJ followed suit. They lowered their weapons as the men approached. As they did so, several more men came in from the sides and flanked them. A total of fifteen heavily armed men. Perfect. Just freaking perfect.
"Hands up." The tall man in the lead said flatly, motioning them with the business end of an Ml6. He had military-short, white-blond hair, a sunburned, craggy face, and a neck like a prizefighter. "Keep your hands where we can see them at all times." The guy scowled. "Now, who the fuck are you, and what have you done to our communication systems?"
Kane let his hands drop, but kept them in plain sight. He quickly I.D.ed himself and AJ as T-FLAC operatives. The man talking to him I.D.ed himself as Barry Walsh, head of the Secret Service. Once he'd studied their I.D.s for what seemed like forever, Walsh handed them back.
They shook hands. Nice and polite. "Jesus." Kane looked behind the men, expecting to see the President of the United States strolling from among the date palms. "The President is here?"
"And Mrs.," Walsh said grimly. He motioned his men to stand down. "We have a situation here. Hope to hell you two came in some sort of vehicle. Nothing around here is operable."
"We walked in," Kane told him. "Can we get to cover before we talk?"
"Yeah. This way."
Walsh's men surrounded them, and they all merged into the shade of the trees.
"The U.N. is having a hush-hush world peace summit at the new resort." Walsh motioned behind him.
"First time in history this many world leaders have gathered in one place at the same time. Frankly, we—" he glanced around as if checking to make sure no one could overhear him, "—all the security personnel—were flat-out against it. Too many things to go wrong, the isolation, the fact that the only approach is by air. Having all the eggs in one convenient basket—Fuck. Was whoever thought this up smoking crack, or what?"
Kane nodded in sympathy. He'd dealt with the big shots before and wasn't surprised. "And nobody listened to you."
"They listened," Walsh admitted, "but our reasons for saying no were their reasons for thinking it was a swell idea." He grimaced. "We've all had our own people out here for months, testing security, et cetera. The hotel's clean. Every leader has their own people. Top of the line. The best in the business. Everything was set. Coordinated to a hair. Nothing was going to go wrong. Nothing." He shoved one hand over his hair and muttered a curse.
"Everything went like silk. Until the khamsin blew in. Everything electrical, mechanical—shit, anything with a fucking moving part—shut off. Blackout. We're not sure yet why it's out, but everything still is." He narrowed his gaze on Kane. "So, I talked. Spill it. What do you know? Why are you here?"
"Fazur Raazaq," Kane told Walsh and his men flatly.
One of Barry's guys straightened as if he'd been shot. He leaned down and whispered something that Kane couldn't catch, but it had Barry's eyes narrowing farther. As word spread back to the other guys, they crowded closer, some of them keeping a wary eye out on the surrounding desert, but most of them moving close enough to hear Kane's news.
"Bloody hell." A man sat down beside Barry. "Ian Graham, MI5," he said, jerking Kane and AJ a quick nod. "How could Fazur Raazaq possibly have access to something with this level of classification? He'd have to have moles all over the bloody world to find out about this gathering."
"You can bet the bank that information will be revealed in time. But the breach of security isn't our problem," Kane reminded the men. "Deactivating Raazaq is."
"He's in possession of that virus stolen from the Russians last week," AJ said tautly. "And he's here now, so that must mean he's planning to release the viral agent in the hotel. Either to use the world leaders as leverage, or to kill them in one quick stroke."
"Fuck that for a joke!" Walsh snapped. "He isn't touching the President!"
"Or the Prime Minister," Graham said flatly. "We'll protect our people no matter what. But there've been no overt threats as yet. We all simply seem to be trapped here."
Walsh scowled. "We sent several teams on foot to get reinforcements. You must've passed at least one."
"They didn't make it," Kane informed him. He filled them in on the group they'd come across earlier.
"Fuck—Excuse me, ma'am. What the hell is going on?"
"First things first." Kane took charge. "How many of your people have desert survival training?"
"Not enough," Ian admitted.
"Then we need to give another batch some intense training, ASAP," Kane said. "Someone has to meet the troops and give them whatever we have. Which at this point is precisely nothing. You can bet that as we speak every SEAL, Ranger, Spec Ops person in the free world is on their way in. They couldn't be that far behind us."
"Without a doubt," Walsh said with some satisfaction. "But Raazaq isn't going to hold off whatever he's planning until help arrives. He's going to do whatever it is he's going to do before he can be stopped. He's a wily little bastard. Seems to have planned this to a T."
Kane nodded tightly. "Bastards screw up all the time. We'll flush him out. But I'd feel one hell of a lot better having Hazmat, medics, and transportation standing by."
"Wouldn't we all," Barry said dryly. "Shall we get some caterers in here while we're at it?"
Kane smiled tightly. "Point taken. Nobody's coming. Not for a while yet, anyway. So we do what we can."
"Agreed."
"I'll go with the team heading back into the desert." AJ stepped forward.
The fact that she was a woman didn't seem to faze Walsh. "Good id—"
"No," Kane told her. "You have to be here. Raazaq will respond to your presence."
"Then you have to g—"
"I'll be here with you. Who do you trust?" he asked Walsh.
"Brody, Todd, Dixon."
Ian spoke up, too. "I can send Doyle, Smythe, and Tennyson."
AJ smiled. "The poet?"
Ian smiled back. "He's a poet, all right. And his muse is an M16."
"Is he prepared for the desert?" Kane wanted to know.
"No one is prepared for the desert, mate. But they'd better make it."
Walsh stood up. "Covert or overt for your arrival?"
"We've met Raazaq. And unless we keep AJ hidden for the duration, he'll know she's here. We'll go overt and draw him out."
They started walking toward the hotel. It was blessedly cool beneath the thick foliage of the date palms, and thick grasses and weeds grew with lush profusion.
"Tell us who's here."
"The President and First Lady The P.M. of England, the Queen, too, no less. One of the Saudi princes. Queen Sofia of Spain—"
"Jesus."
"Exactly."
Raazaq was definitely here. Kane described him. But Graham told them th
ere were over five hundred people in residence at the hotel. As soon as they'd realized that nothing electrical worked, that no vehicle or plane operated, each security team had confined their people to their quarters. Unaware of where the danger was coming from had kept the teams on high, red alert.
Food tasters. No air-conditioning, which was making tempers flare. "You wanna tell the President he can't go outside?"
"Perhaps out is where he should be, "AJ said, with a frown.
"We considered it. Can't keep them secure outside. In is better," Walsh said. "But I gotta tell you, everyone is getting stir-crazy."
Graham sent one of his men for food and water for them while they formulated a plan.
Walsh and a few of his men were the only ones with weapons.
As soon as Raazaq and his key people had arrived, the guests had been thrown into chaos as his soldiers searched every room, every bit of luggage, and stripped everyone of their firearms. No exceptions. Even the cutlery had been purged of knives. The slightest reluctance to give up their weapons had been grounds for immediate death. The body count was high. Over two hundred security personnel had given their lives in an attempt at fighting back. But eventually everyone had given up their weapons. They were hopelessly outnumbered.
Until Kane and AJ had told them who it was, Walsh and his men had speculated that this was a hostage situation.
Now they were all on the same page.
Kane quickly distributed the weapons he and AJ carried, not enough for everyone, but better than nothing. With something akin to pain, she watched one of the men pick up her Dragunov. "It pulls a bit to the left," she told him, handing him the clips.
"I'll take good care of it, ma'am. And I'll make sure you get it back when this is over."
"Thanks." She gave him a smile that made the man turn red and had his eyes glazing, then turned to Kane. "Do we have—?"
He patted the duffel. "Got it covered. Let's go over the plan one more time."
It made sense for them to arrive as though they were unaware of anything wrong. Their vehicle had broken down, they'd walked—all true. Raazaq might be tempted to make contact with AJ. If not, he'd be aware of her presence and keep hidden, making his discovery more difficult.
