Shoot to Thrill

by Bruhns, Nina

  What he’d like to do was check it out. He suddenly had a bad feeling about it. Something was wrong up there. He felt it instinctively.

  But if there really was trouble, he didn’t want Rainie within a hundred miles of it.

  “Maybe it’s been abandoned,” she ventured. “Because of all the unrest in the country.”

  He shook his head. “Doubtful. If the foreign owners jump ship, the facility is fair game for the Sudanese government to take over.”

  “So then it must be . . . Oh.” Comprehension seeped into her eyes. Along with a trickle of fear, and a whole lot of determination. “It shouldn’t be all dark like that, should it.” Not a question.

  “Probably not,” he conceded.

  She digested that. “Kick?”

  “Yup.”

  “I think it’s time you tell me exactly what your mission is. Why you’re here.”

  She already knew about the terrorist plans to bomb the Western embassies, thanks to Marc. She had to figure they’d been sent to somehow stop those attacks. It didn’t take a mind reader to know where she was going now. Like, were terrorists possibly connected to this, too?

  The hell of it was, they just might be. Kick wasn’t aware of any reports of local incidents involving a refinery, but in this part of the world things happened fast, and intel was slow in coming. Could this be abu Bakr and his band of merry fuckers setting up a diversion in preparation for the Khartoum bombings? In which case, this could get really ugly.

  She gazed at him expectantly. Right. The mission. Leaning back in the seat, he ran his palms over his eyes, pulling off the NVGs and tossing them into the back. Buying time. So he could decide how much to tell her.

  Yeah, because that strategy had worked so well last time he’d tried to keep her out of harm’s way.

  And yup, he’d really been delusional when he’d thought there might be a chance of keeping her from knowing exactly what he did. What he was. Especially after the bloody scene in that village. That had to have been a big clue.

  She’d thought that was bad; she was really going to hate him when she found out that’s what he did for a living. Even if he was working for the side of right and good, a sniper’s sole function was to kill people. Period.

  When he’d first been recruited by Zero Unit from the Marines, that hadn’t bothered him. In fact, he’d sought out the specialty. He’d been one angry young man. He’d wanted to kill the whole world back then, and one person at a time would do just fine. Especially if he could slap the label of patriotism on and not have to go to jail for doing it.

  It was a sick kind of therapy, but it must have worked. After a while it did start bothering him. More and more. Until he finally started to wonder who was worse, his targets or himself. But when the good guys had started dying instead of the bad guys, that’s when he’d finally had enough, and got out. Or rather, he’d tried.

  And he’d gotten that close to escaping that life. One last job to set things right. One last job, which, once he was clean, he would have done for free, even if Forsythe hadn’t promised to rip up his contract and expunge his CIA file. But Forsythe’s promise had undoubtedly died with him. Along with Kick’s chances of escaping his past while he still had a future. Hell, while he was still breathing.

  A normal life with a sweet woman like Rainie in it? Sure. Maybe when hell froze over.

  She was about to learn her lover was a paid assassin. And wouldn’t that go over well.

  As in ex-lover well.

  “Yeah, I guess you should know,” he said, resigned to his fucked-up fate. Hell, why should this be any different, just because he was stone in love with the woman?

  Jesus.

  He let out a weary sigh and raked his hair back with his fingers. Some days he felt as old and broken-down as those wind-worn statues of ancient kings littering the ground up in Egypt. Today he felt even older.

  “My designated target is Jallil abu Bakr,” he told her. “The leader of the al Sayika terrorist cell planning the attacks on the embassies in Khartoum.” He figured he didn’t need to explain what target meant in practical terms. She was a smart girl.

  “Just the leader? Not the whole cell?”

  Okay, smart but possibly a bit naïve.

  He gave her a wry curve of the lips. “Your faith in my abilities is flattering. But no, others will take care of that task once abu Bakr is eliminated.”

  The word eliminated did it. She swallowed. Glanced away. To her credit, she met his eyes again. “Others? What others? There’s just you, now. Us,” she quickly corrected.

  But she was oh, so wrong about that. There was no “us.” Not now. Certainly not her and him. Hell, there would probably never be an “us” for him. But he let it go.

  “STORM Corps,” he explained. Lest there be any misunderstandings, any delusions left in her mind, he said, “I’m to personally take out abu Bakr, then call in an air strike. Disguised to look like the Sudanese government cracking down on terrorism, a STORM bomber will completely destroy the insurgent camp and everyone in it.”

  She blinked owlishly. Swallowed more heavily. “I see.”

  Yeah. He figured she did. Finally. Hi, honey, how was your day at the office? Great. Killed twenty people today . . .

  “But—” She cleared her throat. “But why make you come all the way over here and . . .” She cleared her throat again. “I mean, wouldn’t the air strike . . . If everyone . . . It would accomplish the same thing without putting you in such danger.”

  Jesus. She was still worried about him? Trying not to get tangled up in the pathetic hope that spurred, he shook his head. “Abu Bakr is one very intelligent, very evil dude. He and his al Sayika coleader Abbas Tawhid have been eluding us for years, just like Bin Laden. Until the Afghanistan op, no one had even seen abu Bakr’s picture. But I managed to get a look at him in the flesh once before—” He flexed his leg at the onslaught of bitter memories, and wiped sweat from his brow. “Anyway, this time we need to be sure he’s dead. One-hundred-percent no-doubt-about-it certain. So he doesn’t get away from us again.”

  The sun had climbed higher by now and the pink sky was melting to azure blue. As she turned to face him, golden rays lit up her golden hair and dusted her golden skin, making her even more perfect and beautiful. Ethereal. She’d probably be worshipped as a fucking goddess if she were transported back in time four thousand years. Sort of how he worshipped her now.

  She slowly nodded. “I understand. So where do I come in?”

  Was she kidding? She obviously hadn’t been listening. “Baby, you don’t.”

  Her meadow green eyes snapped back at him, goddesslike in their vehemence. “I thought we’d been through this. I’m here to help you, and I have no intention of hiding under a rock while you take all the risks.”

  “Rainie—”

  She glared out at the desert, toward the structure in the distance. “We should see what’s going on at that refinery. I can tell you want to.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “So let’s get going.” She reached for the gearshift.

  Holy hell. “Whoa! Let’s take a pit stop first. Get ourselves organized. A plan. And you’ll need a weapon.”

  And he needed to wait until his head stopped spinning. Probably from the fact that he’d told her what he was, and she hadn’t run screaming for the hills. Yet, anyway.

  So what the hell was that supposed to mean? For him?

  For them?

  Surely, it didn’t mean he actually had a chance?

  OKAY. She was officially terrified.

  Rainie held the handle of the long KA-BAR knife Kick had insisted she carry—like she’d ever actually use it—gripping it so hard her fingers cramped.

  Deep breath. Let it out.

  Deep breath. Let it out.

  Crouching behind a prickly, scraggly bush growing just outside the refinery’s perimeter fence, she watched Kick efficiently snip the chain links so they could slip through. Inside. Where he was convinced some
thing bad was happening. He didn’t even look worried, but she was about to pee her pants.

  Her own fault. When he’d parked the Jeep half a mile back and said he was going into the seemingly deserted compound to have a look around, fool that she was she’d insisted on going with him. At the time she couldn’t imagine anything scarier than being left behind at the Jeep all by herself.

  In the past few minutes her imagination had gotten a whole lot better.

  Deep breath. Let it out.

  I will be fine.

  I can do this.

  She had to do this. It was either that or die of a heart attack before she could prove to Kick—and herself—that she really wasn’t a big scaredy-cat, candy-ass wimp.

  Even though that’s exactly how she felt.

  “I’m in,” he said low, and glanced back at her. “Wait there. I’ll be right back.”

  What? Alarmed, she stoop-ran over and dropped to her knees beside him. “Oh, no, you don’t. I’m going—”

  He grabbed her wrist and took the knife from her, slapping his gun in its place. “If Marc were along, he’d stay right here covering my six. I expect you to do the same.”

  She was definitely going to hyperventilate. “If Marc were here, he’d actually know how to do that. What the hell’s a six?”

  Kick gave her a lopsided smile. “My ass.” He wrapped her fingers around the butt of the pistol. “If a bad guy tries to hurt you, point this at him and pull the trigger.”

  Her eyes started to sting. She didn’t know if she could do that. “How will I know if it’s a bad guy?”

  Something shifted in his smile. “You’ll know. Just don’t point it at me, okay?” She made a noise intended as a laugh, but it sounded half hysterical even to her. He handed her a Roman flare he’d dug out of the field pack earlier. “You remember the plan, right?”

  The plan. Sure. If she saw anything suspicious, she was to set off the flare.

  She really wished she knew what he meant by suspicious.

  He took hold of her shoulders. “If anyone—like a patrol or guard—comes along the fence, run like hell back to the Jeep before they find you. If they see you, shoot them. Don’t hesitate. Just pull the damn trigger. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  Her palm was sweating, making the metal of the gun slick and unwieldy in her hand. Before she could make him stay and give up this idiocy, he gave her a firm but quick kiss. And then he was gone.

  She wanted to scream in protest as he belly-crawled through the hole in the fence then got up and ran to the nearest building. With his back to the wall he took a few long breaths, gave her a shooing motion with his hand, then disappeared around the corner.

  Oh, sweet Lord. Please let him be all right.

  After closing up the fence gap as best she could, she retreated to a shallow gully several yards back to wait for him, lying on her stomach with just her eyes peering over the top. She gripped the pistol hard.

  Would she be able to use it on a human being? She’d always worked to save lives. She didn’t know if she could take one.

  She thought with dismay about what Kick had told her. That he’d been sent here to kill a man. Apparently that was his job. Killing people. Or it had been when he’d worked for Zero Unit. She wondered how many people he’d killed in his life.

  Gooseflesh rose on her arms. But to be honest, she wasn’t sure if it was from pure revulsion or a perverse kind of attraction. Because it had to be perverse to be attracted to a man who could kill another human being. Didn’t it?

  Or maybe her attraction was understandable, because of her past. Knowing a man could protect her, would not hesitate to kill to protect her, if need be . . . that was a mighty powerful thing. Was she a sicko for being relieved to know that about Kick? To be so drawn to him even though he was . . . or maybe just because he was . . . so downright dangerous?

  She knew the answer even before she’d asked herself the question. She’d answered it the first moment she’d seen him across that crowded speed dating ballroom. She’d taken one look into his eyes and known she’d go anywhere he asked, do anything he wanted. Let him do anything he wished with her. To her. Because he was dangerous.

  Even when things had gone so terribly wrong, when he’d turned out to be someone completely different from the man he said he was, when he’d kidnapped her at gunpoint, Jesus, she’d still been attracted to him. No, she’d been more attracted to him. Because of those eyes. Those flint-hard, seen-it-all, done-it-all eyes.

  She’d known instinctively that he was the only man she’d ever met who could kill to protect her. Who would kill to protect her. She’d been an instant goner.

  And wasn’t that an eye-opening self-realization.

  Along with the next one. The realization that it didn’t matter what he’d done in the past, or what he was about to do. Nothing could make her change the way she felt about him. She’d love him anyway.

  NINETEEN

  IT took Kick less than fifteen minutes to return.

  Rainie almost wept with relief when she saw him run across the open ground between the nearest building and the fence. He was carrying something that made his gait uneven. Or maybe his leg was bothering him again. It had been getting quite a workout the past few days. She knew he’d been hurting. But he hadn’t complained, not once.

  She met him at the fence and he pushed a big red jerry can into the opening.

  “Got us a few more gallons of petrol. Figured we might need it.”

  She grabbed the top handle of the square container and dragged it through, landing on her butt in the dirt because it was so darn heavy. No wonder he’d been limping.

  “What’d you find out?” she asked as he crawled under, picked up the jerry can with one hand and helped her up with the other.

  “First let’s get the hell out of here.”

  His expression lay somewhere between murderous and . . . Okay, maybe just murderous. Fear lanced through her. This couldn’t be good news.

  She ran to keep up with his long strides. “You okay?”

  “No.”

  “What happened?”

  “We just need to get out of here, all right?”

  She shut up. And threw a nervous glance over her shoulder as she ran, half expecting armed “tangos” to be sprinting after them, guns blazing. But the place appeared as deserted as ever.

  By the time they reached the Jeep and he threw the gas can in the back, she was out of breath and scared to death.

  “Please,” she said as they jumped in and he started the engine with a roar. “Tell me.”

  “You really don’t want to know.”

  “Probably not, but I need to know.”

  His eyes sought hers, bored holes into her gaze. “They’ve killed everyone. The Europeans and the Sudanese who worked there. Killed them all and stuffed them into a storage shed to rot.”

  Her heart stalled. “Oh, dear God.”

  “I was afraid it might be something like this.”

  “I don’t understand. Why?”

  “I told you abu Bakr is one smart mother. My guess? It’s a diversion in the making. When he leaks a report on this to the press, it’ll draw the world’s attention away from Khartoum long enough to launch his real attack.”

  She stared at Kick, appalled. “You mean this abu Bakr killed these innocent people just so the CIA or whoever will think this is his primary attack, let down their guard, and be unprepared for the embassy bombings? Like those sick first-responder traps?” Working in the ER, she was familiar with the horrifying phenomenon.

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re right. He is evil. We have to stop him.”

  “I need to call STORM. Let them know what’s going on.”

  Kick drove for a few miles, then pulled to a stop in the shelter of some low hills, and got out the SATCOM. She listened as he swiftly called in and described what he’d found. She felt sick to her stomach and tuned out the rest of the conversation. How could people do these things t
o other human beings?

  When he put the radio away, she asked, “What can we do about this?”

  “Nothing. Not yet.” His jaw worked. “It’s too late to save those refinery workers. So we let abu Bakr think his plan is working. Right up until I put a bullet between his eyes.”

  She bit her lip to keep from wincing at the vehemence of his hatred. Not that it wasn’t justified. This abu Bakr was a true monster. She didn’t doubt that he deserved a death sentence. What she wasn’t sure about was her own government acting as judge and Kick playing executioner, with no jury involved. Even monsters deserved a fair trial.

  Didn’t they?

  Or were some crimes so heinous that the perpetrators gave up that right when caught in the act?

  She didn’t get a chance to ponder it. Suddenly, a vehicle roared up right behind them, scaring her to death. It had bounced up out of nowhere.

  “Goddamn it. Hang on!” Kick yelled, and jammed down the accelerator. It leapt forward.

  Bang!

  The Jeep spun crazily.

  Rainie screamed while Kick swore a blue streak, struggling to keep the Jeep from rolling. “Down!” he yelled. “Keep your head down!”

  Another shot exploded through the air, followed by an ear-shattering pop! The Jeep slammed to a stop, wrenching her against the seat belt.

  “Get on the floor!” Kick ordered.

  Terror ripped through her. She started to shake. Please God, don’t let this be happening.

  He whipped off his seat belt, positioned himself between the seats, and started shooting back. Bang! Bang! Bang! She slammed her hands over her ears.

  Between shots she could see him shouting at her. But she was too terrified to understand his words. Her ears rang like church bells. Her heart thundered so hard she was sure it would burst into pieces.

  All at once, men swarmed around the Jeep.

  The world stopped turning. Fear literally paralyzed her where she sat.

  Oh, God. She’d been so wrong before. She’d thought being kidnapped by hooded agents and forced onto a plane to some unknown country had been her worst nightmare. Or being left alone in a deserted cave. But, no. This was her worst nightmare. This!