Out of Sight

Cherry Adair

Bestselling author of
In Too Deep

"Adair is one of the reigning queens of romantic adventure."

—
Romantic Times

OUT OF SIGHT

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3RD

She might be every man's wet dream, but right now Kane Wright wanted to nail AJ Cooper's beautiful ass to the wall.

A bullet slammed into the ruined wall behind him. Shards of ricocheted limestone stung his face, missing his eye by a blink. He didn't flinch. Hell, barely noticed it in the chaos around them.

"Cooper." He didn't raise his voice despite the volume of firepower lighting up the early-evening sky. The lip mic would transmit the sound of a gnat fart. Exchanged bullets kicked up sand and stone in a cacophony of noise and brilliant white light. "Get your ass back here!"

In lead position, AJ lay flat on her stomach fifty feet ahead of him on a cantilevered rock peninsula high above Raazaq's camp. She was in the ready position, but frozen like a deer in headlights, sniper rifle silent, and
useless,
in her hands.

"N-no," she whispered. Her voice shook on the single word, but she dug her toes into the sand and hunched over the weapon she held with a white-fisted grip.

Hell.

"Not a request. An order." Damn it. Another bullet pockmarked the building beside him and a new shower of rock and plaster rained down on him. The only reason the bullets hadn't struck any of his team was because the terrorist's camp was several hundred feet downhill in the shallow, palm-groved valley below them. The minute Raazaq's men got their hands on something more powerful than rifles, the odds would even up. This was the tangos' terrain; they had the home team advantage.

The element of surprise was shot. Kane and his team were screwed if they didn't wrangle their way out of this mess. Fast.

AJ's swallow sounded loud in his ear. "I can still get him."

"No," he said calmly. "You cannot."
Sharpshooter First Class, my ass.
She'd missed her target.

Hell.
The
target.

A clear shot, and she'd
missed
!

She'd been chosen for her uncanny marksmanship ability, and hurriedly pulled out of boot camp for this op, but clearly she wasn't ready for fieldwork. A little late in the fucking day to find this out. Sniping was a painstaking discipline, and she didn't have the cajones for the job.

In the space of minutes. Cooper had gone from being Kane's best asset to his biggest liability.

Three separate cylinders of yard-long white flame arced over their heads. A line of tracers sprang from each muzzle flash, allowing the tangos to shoot without a metal sight on their weapons. AJ's slender shoulders went rigid as the ammo impacted close by.

"Hit the limo,"
Kane ordered Struben and Escobar, as Raazaq's stretch did a wobbly rooster tail in the sand, then sped into the desert. One of his men managed to hit the left back tire. It swerved, but kept going. Shit.

"Hold them off until I get her clear," he told the two men.

"Cooper? Take it slowly and ease back, we've got you covered."

Click.

"Did you just turn off your mi—Goddamn it, woman!" Nailing her ass to a fucking wall was just the beginning.

Kane started crawling toward her. Getting on her case right now wouldn't accomplish anything. She was scared. Fear did strange things to people. He recognized the signs. Beneath the backward black ball cap she wore, her face was a pale oval, sheened with perspiration. Her soft lips, set and grim. The sniper rifle was tucked against her shoulder, her hands in position. But those hands were clenched, and no doubt sweating to beat the band. Kane had seen the same look from other rookies over the years.

Paralyzed with terror.

Rendered useless.

On some training op, that would be no big deal.

Tonight, she'd rucked it up for all of them.

Great. Just fucking great. This was all he needed.

In a training situation he'd have felt compassion and talked the rookie through it. God only knew, been there, done that. But this op was too critical, too time sensitive to mollycoddle anyone. She had to get her shit together. And she had to do it now.

A sharpshooter terrified to discharge her weapon.

Something his superiors had conveniently omitted in the briefing when they'd convinced him, against his better judgment, that she was invaluable to this operation.

Goddamn
it.

"It's over, rookie," he told her evenly, overriding her control of her own mic. Her breathing was fast and shallow in his ear. He felt a faint pull of sympathy, which he instantly quashed. "Surprise is shot. We're pinned down. Pull back. Now."

"I c-can do it."

If her hands shook as badly as her voice, they'd be lucky if her bullet hit something in the same country. "I gave an order, Cooper. The limo split. Your target's gone. Now get the hell back here."

More muzzle flares lit up the sky, filling the air with the thick smell of ozone and cordite. Twilight, coupled with flying stone and sand, and unpredictable brilliant bursts of light, reduced visibility to near zero. Kane wanted to race across the rubble separating them, grab the woman by the scruff of her neck, and… what?

Hell if he knew. Get her out of the line of fire, for one thing.

"Cooper. Pull back!" Radio silence throbbed in his ear once more. "Goddamn it, woman, turn on your mic and talk to me." The sky lit up with another artillery round. Score one for our side.
Good man, Escobar.

This was a waste of ammunition. Time to bail.

The op had gone tits up soon after the four-man team inserted two hours ago. The sun was mercifully setting, but the temp still hovered in the high nineties. He, of all people, should've known this break had been too easy. Too pat.

Sweat stung his eyes. His shirt clung to his skin like a shroud. And if he didn't get Cooper fully functioning PDQ, a shroud was what they'd all be wearing. Soon.

In the distance, the night skyline of Cairo made for a strange juxtaposition between the crumbling ancient ruins where they were taking cover and the world of modem-day Egypt.

Five hundred yards below them, Raazaq's camp was lit up like Ramadan and Christmas combined. When they'd arrived on this ruined little hilltop citadel, Kane had counted four all-terrain vehicles in the terrorist camp. Also, incongruously, the long, black stretch limo, which was now gone, and approximately thirty turbaned heads. Raazaq's people were armed to the teeth, and well trained.

Time to get the good guys the hell outta Dodge. Kane signaled Escobar and Struben. They signaled back.
Acknowledged.

AJ's entire body was backlit as a mortar shell exploded just this side of the rise. They'd brought out the big guns.

Close. Too damn close.

What the hell was she
thinking? Move, damn it!
She hadn't budged in three minutes. Even from yards back, and in the iffy light, he saw the whiteness of her knuckles as she clutched the Dragunov.
What you planning to do, Cooper? Club them to death? Shoot, damn it, shoot!

"Escobar," he muttered, and the other man's head jerked up. "Get her."

"Yo." Escobar, closer to the left and above the rookie, slid down the wall and inched his way toward Cooper's position.

Night slammed down, black and deadly. Dusk didn't last long in the desert. Escobar inched up beside Cooper, but she didn't acknowledge his presence. Probably didn't even hear him with the noise all around them.

Kane's annoyance had evolved into a serious case of pissed. She still wasn't acknowledging his order, or even noticing that her incompetence had forced him to send another team member to grab her ass out of the fire. She was shaking hard enough to make the sand vibrate and clutching the weapon as if she still had something to offer the op. Shit! She was endangering them all. Kane discharged a volley of shots over their heads, laying down cover fire.

Escobar grabbed her shoulder. Startled, Cooper whipped round and slammed her elbow up hard into his jaw at exactly the same moment a bullet slammed into his upper arm. She'd already turned back to the action before Escobar went down like a rock—from her blow, not the bullet. His weapon bounced off a cracked wall and skittered into the dirt to land three feet away as he slumped against the ruins like a Saturday night drunk.

"Shit." Kane started belly-crawling toward them. Fast. Why the hell had he let them talk him into bringing Cooper in on this mission? Not only was she unseasoned, she was insubordinate and un-fucking-predictable.

He crawled faster, past his injured operative—he'd live—over rocks the size of his fist, over jagged bits of broken brick, cursing under his breath every inch of the way. He grabbed Cooper's waistband in his right fist, put his left arm up to protect his head from her instinctive jab, and hauled her backward just as the crumbling wall beside her exploded in a shower of fragments.

Burying his face against her sweaty back, he covered her head with his arms. She struggled beneath him, all sharp bones and prickly attitude. "Wow I get your attention? A little goddamn late, Cooper."

"Get off me, I told you I could do it."

Kane pressed her flat with his hands and body until the hail of bullets moved on.

"Off."
AJ spat out a mouthful of dirt, and managed to turn her head so her cheek, instead of her nose, pressed into the ground. Her eyes stung, and her heart beat so fast she was terrified she'd hyperventilate and pass out. Nausea rose in ever-increasing waves.

She'd missed Raazaq.
Missed
!

It was humiliating enough her team knew she was chicken. Manny Escobar and Richard Sfruben might understand… But Kane Wright? No way.

To fail her assignment. To fail at something she was
good
at… and then to fall apart in front of the great Kane Wright, and on their first assignment together… She blinked grit from her eyes.

Easy shot. Cooper. Easy. Might've even worked if you'd kept your eyes open!
Humiliation didn't begin to cover her sense of self-disgust. She could have done it with a second chance. He should've… No, damn it.
She
should've…

She'd always admired and respected his reputation. Kane Wright was a T-FLAC legend. He wouldn't've needed a second chance. He'd been her role model since she'd been recruited from the Police Academy last year. She'd transferred her hero worship from her brother, Gabriel, to Kane Wright without even realizing it at the time. He was everything she wanted to be. Damn it,
could be—should be.

"Let me up. I can still get him." A lovely sentiment if either of them believed it for a second. They both knew Raazaq's people had spirited him out of their camp at the first missed shot.
Her
shot.

AJ shoved at him, but she might as well have tried to shove a mountain off her back. Frustration gathered in her chest, tight as a fist, while her heart pounded hard enough to choke her.

"He's long gone. You had your shot, Cooper. It's over. Now we get the hell out. Fast."

She'd jeopardized the mission and me team. The ultimate sin. "Damn it. I have to finish what I was sent to do."

"A day late, and a bullet short. Two seconds after you killed that lantern, Raazaq was outta there. You snooze, you lose." He was heavy, his breath hot on her cheek. "Now I see why they offered you that desk job. Accept it when you get back. Tomorrow."

She couldn't be tossed out of T-FLAC. She wouldn't. She had a family tradition to uphold. "Just get off me and let me do my job. I can still get his key people."

"Opportunity lost. No do-overs in the real world. Grab your weapons. Op over."

Yeah,
she thought, sick with a churning mix of disappointment, fear, and humiliation,
op over.
The sharp metallic scent of blood lingering in the hot night air impinged on her skittering thoughts.

Had Wright taken a bullet? "Were you hit?" she asked frantically. It came out as a hoarse croak.

"Not me. Escobar."

"Manny?" She tried to scan the area to see where Escobar was. See if he needed help. Her visibility was restricted because her face was being smashed into the ground by Kane Wright's weight, and the darkness.

"He'll live." His warm, moist breath fanned against the side of her face. "Grab your weapons and haul ass. Or do I have to repeat every frigging order ten times before you get it? Did you skip that part of your framing?" he growled. "You're supposed to follow orders without hesitation. Take a look at Escobar. Your hesitation is the only reason he's got an arm full of lead."

Thanks. Like I need your help to feel like any more of an inept schmuck.

The weight of Kane's body was oppressive, suffocating. Just like his reputation. Her clothing was drenched in sweat, and sand clung like guilt to any exposed skin. "Kinda hard with you on top of me."

He rolled off her and got to his feet, crouching low to keep from skylining himself for the enemy, then turned and held out his hand, presumably to help her up. AJ busied herself staggering to her feet and picked up the Dragunov where it had fallen when he grabbed her. She kicked the spring-loaded bipod back into position, then snatched up her fallen baseball cap, and crammed it, backward, on her head. Lifted the Dragunov to her shoulder…

Kane's hand shot out and clamped the muzzle of the sniper rifle in a hard grip. "Quit while you're ahead. Cooper."

This was ahead?

Shit.

She wanted to vomit.

She wanted to disappear.

Oh, God.
Worse
.

She wanted to
cry
.

He gave her a hard look that was easily translated, and released his hold on the rifle with an eloquent downward shove. "Let's do it," he said flatly, heading toward Manny in a low crouch.

Weapons-fire lit up the sky with a series of loud, reverberating bangs and blinding flashes.

"Grab his weapon." Kane stooped, shouldered Escobar in a fireman's lift, then moved crablike, backward, over rock and sand. "Get the lead out. Struben can't hold them off forever."

She could at least do
this
right. AJ got
off
a few covering shots, snatched up Manny's fallen weapon, then followed Kane, throat tight, heart galloping as bullets whizzed by, missing them by a breath. She flinched with every round.