Out of Sight (9 page)

AJ hadn't, though. She'd thrived on it. She'd made it through her class—despite the "incident." And she wouldn't lose her momentum now.

"I slept three hours. That's enough."

"You're a restless sleeper."

"Wha—" She swung her head to look at him. "How do you know that?"

"Came in to ask you something. You were waging war on your pillow."

AJ felt her cheeks grow warm at the thought of Kane seeing her at her most vulnerable. "I have nightmares sometimes."
Most of the time.
Asleep and awake, she had nightmares. These days she had to be pretty damn exhausted to get any rest at all.

"Because of what happened?"

This was her fault. She'd wanted him to talk to her. Now that he had, of course, she wanted him to shut up. She didn't want to talk about what had happened. About the night sweats and the cold, shrieking terror that locked her muscles. She didn't want his sympathy. She didn't want him even knowing what had happened to her. But, of course, he did. Even if he hadn't heard of it, he would have looked up her service record before she'd come on the op.

The knowledge that he'd read her report made her cheeks burn hot. "I'm working through it. And I'll do my job. If you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about it." And before he took satisfaction finding something that effectively shut her up, she changed the subject as fast as she could. "If I'm going to off Raazaq, what's your job now, since Escobar and Struben are out of the picture?" She bent to pick up the water bottle at her feet, uncapped it, and took a swig.

"I'm your spotter." He paused. "And your bodyguard for the duration."

"Snipers have spotters. They
don't
have bodyguards."

"Lucky you."

AJ bit her tongue. Yeah. Lucky her.

She turned in her seat to look at him. If the situation were different, she might consider making a play for him. Of course, she'd have to be crazy, but damn, he looked good.
Realty
good. Still, the situation wasn't different—he was her boss and she was the lowly rookie. She'd do well trying to keep her brain wrapped around the job at hand.

His shaggy dark hair looked silky to the touch. He was tanned, fit, and smelled so damn yummy, AJ was salivating. Just looking at his long-fingered hands made all her juices flow and her breasts tighten. His hands were relaxed on the steering wheel, large and limber, and his fingers cupped the hard plastic like a lover's…

She took another deep swig of cool water just as the car went over a bump in the road. Water trickled down her chin and wet the neckline of her T-shirt. Nice and cool. It put an abrupt halt to her fantasy. She was tempted to douse herself, just for the hell of it. Instead, she swiped her chin with the back of her hand and glared at him. "Really?"

"Really. Raazaq has a preference for beautiful, redheaded American women. He's also a sadistic son of a bitch, and given half a chance will rip your wings off because it amuses him."

"I don't have wings."

He shot her an annoyed glance. "Would you prefer I said he'd perform weird, perverted sex acts on you and then rip your throat out with his bare hands, or watch while his people cut out your tongue… or worse?"

"Wings are good."

"Get him alone," Kane said grimly. "Do the world a service. Kill him. We'll be Stateside by the weekend, with no one the wiser."

The Hummer hit a rut in the road and she bounced high enough to slam the top other head into the ceiling. When she landed again, she asked, "Now, why does this sound just too simple?"

"The best plans usually are."

The Fayoum Oasis was one of Cairo's weekend getaway destinations. Only a couple of hours outside the busy metropolis, the waters of the Nile had been diverted here centuries ago, creating a rich agricultural area. Considered the "garden of Egypt," El-Fayoum had lush fields of vegetables, sugarcane, groves of citrus fruits, and nuts and olives. It also had one of Egypt's largest saltwater lakes, which was used for recreation.

"Did you know the Auberge du Lac was originally built as a hunting lodge by King Farouk?" AJ asked as they pulled under the portico of the hotel.

"No," he muttered, "but I bet you're about to tell me how many bathrooms there are."

She did.

As with all her comments and observations for the past couple of hours, Kane just tried to ignore her, throwing a grunt in when nothing else would do. The woman
talked.
Incessantly.

She'd given him a blow-by-blow history lesson as they'd traveled the desert roads. Past children working in the cotton fields with cows and camels, past mud huts and date palms, past sand and vegetation. Past inquisitive women turning to stare at their vehicle through a narrow slit in their veils. AJ Cooper had chattered on. Non. Frigging. Stop.

He'd always considered himself something of a student of Egypt. Well, if he was a student, he'd just met the professor.

"Winston Churchill stayed here in 1945," Cooper informed him as they were swamped by bellhops and children the second they opened the car doors.

Every one of their all-male audience dropped back a step, eyes wide, mouths falling open when Cooper unfurled her long bare legs from her seat and straightened as she glanced around, apparently oblivious to the commotion she was causing.

She wore a sleek, fuchsia-colored silk tank top tucked into a multihued pink floral skirt, which dropped in soft folds to swirl around her shapely calves. Her loose red hair caught the sun, and shone a brilliant, blatant,
hot
orange. Against her creamy, lightly tanned skin the long skeins were enough to have every man in a hundred-mile radius panting to run his fingers through the fiery strands. She screamed female sexuality. An Egyptian goddess sent to earth to torment mere men into doing rash and foolish deeds for just one smile.

"Winston loved the place," she told him, whipping that amazing hair back from her face. "Said he felt like King Tut—which was pretty funny, considering poor Tut died at thirteen and…"

Kane strode toward the front door, leaving the staff to remove their luggage from the vehicle, and Cooper, still talking, to follow. He caught a glimpse of the shimmering blue waters of Lake Karoun. According to his loquacious travel guide, the oldest man-made lake in the world.

He wanted a cold shower and an hour of peace and quiet.

The woman talked as much as his sister, Marnie, did, all while tap dancing on his last nerve. The two women would get along great. And if they were ever in the same room together, Kane would have to kill himself.

AJ Cooper rattled his cage and set every sense on red alert. There was no doubt that the second Raazaq saw her, he'd be a goner. In more ways than one.

If Cooper didn't inadvertently screw this one up again.

On the phone, he'd discussed her situation with the T-FLAC shrinks. They believed she could do the job.

He was here to see that she did.

All in all, Kane thought, as they followed a fleet of moon-eyed hotel personnel to their rooms, things were going according to plan.

All they needed now was for their prey to see the bait.

The small plastic-surgery scars, one on the inner curve of her shoulder, the other on her back, had barely healed. The marks were still pink and shiny, and an obscenity on her clear, smooth skin, despite the skills of T-FLAC's best team of doctors. Kane had an old scar on his left shoulder in exactly the same position. But it was a knife that had dug into his flesh, not a bullet.

The bullet that had shaken AJ's confidence had taken her right up to death's door and helped her knock. It was a lot harder to go into a battle situation when you knew what the impact of a bullet felt like. Kane knew. He'd had several.

She was swimming laps in one of the hotel pools. She was a strong swimmer. Good form. He bit back a smile. Terrific form. Jesus. Even the women poolside were watching her. Poetry in motion in a white bikini.

AJ's slender arms sliced through the water, she jackknifed into an underwater dive, showing a nicely curved ass, then surfaced on the pool's edge beside his lounger, arms folded on the lip of the pool. She blinked diamond droplets of water off spiky lashes. "I'm starving. Let's eat."

"Out here, or one of the restaurants?" The air was hot and still. The setting sun glowed red and magenta over nearby Lake Karoun, and the pigeons were returning to their tall domed pigeon house nearby. Hungry for their dinner, not knowing they'd be someone else's dinner the next day. It was a dog-eat-dog world.

"Here's fine." She hauled herself out of the pool, dripping wet. Kane almost swallowed his tongue.

That damn white suit was transparent, and blast if his gaze didn't lock right onto the dark circles of her nipples, standing taut against the wet fabric. He needed to send a memo to wardrobe. There was attractive and there was blatant. Cooper didn't seem to be aware of the view she was affording the other swimmers.

The thought annoyed the hell out of him. He, and every other male who laid eyes on her, apparently, wanted to jump her bones. He gave a "back off, asshole" look to a young stud who appeared stupid enough to come over. The guy tried to hold eye contact, then wisely subsided into his lounger. He wasn't as dumb as he looked.

There were a dozen excellent reasons not to have sex with Cooper. Not the least of which was they had a mission that couldn't be screwed up a second time.

They both had to keep their minds on business. But if she was going to walk around three-quarters naked for the next couple of days, he was sure to be a basket case.

Being around her made him irritable. He couldn't have her. Shouldn't want her. Didn't want to want her. And just looking at her slender, voluptuous body spiked his blood pressure and made him hornier than he could remember being. Ever.

It was a damn nuisance. Not an insurmountable problem, but a nuisance, nevertheless.

He tossed her a towel, and she absently blotted her face, leaving her long hair glued to her wet skin like seaweed to a mermaid. She shrugged into the toweling robe she'd thrown over her lounge earlier, and reached for the menu on the small table holding their drinks. "What's your pleasure?"

He wondered what her reaction would be if he told her.

Twenty-four hours, and still no sign of Raazaq.

If he was anywhere within a hundred miles he knew about the American redhead staying at the best hotel in town. Everybody was talking about her. From their auspicious arrival yesterday, to the shoot this morning, Kane and AJ had been blatant and out there.

If their mark didn't contact them by early this evening, they'd have to go and seek him out.

They were in the car again, this time traveling a few miles to the Pyramid of Hawara. This morning Kane had taken shots of her near the lake. AJ might be oblivious to her looks, but the camera loved her.

She was a natural, and a photographer's dream. Not self-conscious in any way, AJ was more concerned with their need to draw a crowd to attract Raazaq than she was with his recording her every move.

And damn, she did a good job of attracting a crowd. Little kids loved her and she gave it right back, laughing and playing with them whenever she had a break. She ignored the young men with their hot eyes and teased the old men who looked at her in fond memory of what they would have liked to have done with her if they were thirty years younger.

She was more than he'd thought she'd be. More than just a great face and an incredible body. More than a halfway decent agent and a good shot. She was the whole damn package. Through the viewfinder he found her face even more compelling. Other than her obvious physical beauty and the symmetry of her features, there was a strength of character, and a complete lack of guile one didn't expect to find in a woman who could turn intelligent men into puddles of testosterone.

By the time they'd been at the morning location for half an hour, upwards of a hundred people had joined them. Standing respectfully in a semicircle around them, AJ's admirers had offered to assist, fetch, carry, and generally make themselves useful in the hope of getting closer to the woman or getting a
baksheesh,
a tip, for running errands, or carrying water.

Now, back in their car, on the way to the Pyramid of Hawara, nine vehicles, three horses, and two camels followed in their wake. It was a damn parade, and if Raazaq didn't know about her, then he clearly wasn't around.

"Did you know that seventy-eight percent of all women, if given the chance, would rather drive than be driven?"

"Is that so?"

She blinked her eyes at him. "You don't believe me?"

"Nope." Kane brought his attention back to the desert road ahead. If the fools wanted to eat his dust, more power to them. "You're a natural at this. Why didn't you pursue modeling? It's a hell of a lot more lucrative than working for T-FLAC."

A nerve flexed in her jaw. "There's more to me than a face. And money isn't everything."

She'd got a bit of sun this morning and her nose and cheeks were pink and glowing. It made her look younger and, damn it, even more appealing.

"Tell me about being Miss Illinois."

She rolled her eyes and chuckled. "Oh, please. That is so yesterday."

He did his best not to react to that laugh. Her low, throaty laugh was a man's fantasy come to life.

"Don't like tiaras?" he asked.

AJ snorted. "Trust me, I still have nightmares about my pageant years." She mulled it over. "Of course, being forced to wear high heels and be slathered in makeup
is
my idea of a nightmare. Wanna hear about the Pyramid of Hawara?"

"Do I have a choice?" He glanced in the rearview mirror. The convoy was still behind them, kicking up a mile-long cloud of dust.

"Sure. You can hum under your breath while I talk. Built by Amenemhet the Third, the pyramid was the most visited site of the ancient world." She turned in her seat, held her hair back from her face, and grinned at him. "It was also called the Labyrinth because it's so enormous inside. It's been estimated to have over three thousand rooms in the two stories. Twelve covered courts—"