He moaned, caught between intense pleasure and even more intense pain.
Damn.
It shouldn’t hurt this much.
The fingers switched to the other side, missing the most important bits in between. He wanted to scream in frustration. Instead he screamed from the white-hot pain that exploded beneath her pressing fingertips.
A man’s voice said something in bad Arabic. “
Antibiotics. He to need.
”
Shit.
Not the redhead. A man. Some fucking asshole doctor.
Pig roused himself from the remnants of slumber. Not a dream. This was real. A rare visit by an outside asshole. One who was playing doctor.
He frowned, playing back the words in his head. Hell. A
foreign
outside asshole playing doctor. As in a
non-Arab Westerner helping these asshole terrorists
asshole doctor.
What the hell?
He tried to concentrate on the voice. But the foreigner had moved away from his pallet, conversing in clipped, hushed tones by the bright, square-ish opening to his filthy hovel. Conversing, no doubt, with the chief tango jerk-off asshole.
Damn, he had to find out who it was.
He dared to crack open his eyelids, covering the movement with a thrash of his head and a sickened groan. Desperately, he attempted to focus his barely there eyesight, trying like hell to get a visual so he could ID the scumbag traitor’s fuckface when he got out of this hellhole.
But all he saw was a shadowed profile silhouetted against the brighter square of outside sunlight. Definitely a foreigner—no beard, no girly dresslike
gellabeya
. And the man wore real shoes, not sandals.
But shit. Shit. Shit.
Why couldn’t he see more? He wanted to nail this fucker to the wall.
When he escaped—
Suddenly, rough hands grabbed his aching body, surprising him into a feeble yell of protest. “Get your fucking hands off me, you goddamn motherhumpers,” he growled.
A fist crashed into his jaw, shooting off rockets in his head like the Fourth of July. And what little sight he had spun into an ever-smaller pinpoint of light.
Fuck.
Ah, well. Consciousness was overrated anyway.
THIS
was going to get ugly.
Kick could feel it with the certainty of sixteen years’ experience, down to his very bones.
He’d left Lafayette and Rainie hiding in a deep
V
between two huge dunes and, armed with the H&K, he’d climbed up the razorback of the dune closest to the village so he could observe the action below. Lafayette hadn’t been too pleased about being left behind. He’d get over it.
Kick moved quickly and silently. His Paiute friend had also taught him how to tread just above the bottom of a dune’s
V
, and just under its top crest, so as he crouch-ran a small wave of sand was displaced and slid down, covering his footprints. If you were really looking, in places you could still see the depressions left by his boots, but for the most part they blended.
He belly-crawled just up under the crest and poked his binoculars over the top. As the two Jeeps approached the village, it erupted in chaos. Women and girls ran for the safety of stone and mud huts, boys took off for the date palm grove growing by the patch of watery sludge that was the source of the oasis. The men gathered agitatedly in a cleared area in front of the largest hut. The poor fucks didn’t have a weapon between them. At least not that Kick saw. But . . . what was that glint in the window . . . ?
The Jeeps drove smack into the middle of the group of men and came to a sand-slinging, man-scattering halt. There were three tangos in each vehicle. Leaving a spot open in both for a prisoner. Or a conscript.
The tangos jumped out of the vehicles, yelling and waving guns in the air to round up the village men into a tight clutch, then made them squat in the dirt. Disgust sent bile up Kick’s throat.
Two of the tangos broke off to conduct a search of the village. But at least no one was shooting. Yet.
Kick’s Arabic wasn’t all that great but he understood enough to know the guy who seemed to be in charge was interrogating the village men about the crashed FedEx plane. Asking about pieces of the wreckage. Threatening to kill anyone who helped survivors. The usual bullshit.
Instinctively, Kick checked the H&K’s magazine and silently chambered a round. Too bad he couldn’t shoot the bastards. He could not blow his cover, no matter what they did. Even if not acting ate at his stomach like acid going through metal.
At least that answered one question. The bad guys didn’t live here, or even know these people.
He ground his jaw as he watched the überdirtbag raise his rifle and strike a villager’s head. The sickening crack of the impact and the man’s cry echoed sharply off the walls of the huts. The bastard laughed.
Kick’s trigger finger literally itched.
Suddenly, he heard another cry. From a woman. Quieter. Close by.
Instantly he was on his feet and running toward it. He heard it again. Muffled. More frantic.
He ran faster.
The third cry was right around the next dune. He rolled to a halt, crab-crawled the last few feet to the edge. Peered around. And saw her.
God
damn
it.
He shook his head, slinging sweat like a roundhouse sprinkler. Fighting the urge to break cover. Grappling to get hold of his twitching body.
One of the tangos had a young girl by the hair and was dragging her behind the dunes where no one could see what he was doing. She was crying, trying to scream, but the asshole’s hand was clamped hard over her mouth.
God, so young.
She couldn’t be more than fourteen, her struggles useless against the much older and stronger man.
The fucking bastard.
Then he had her on the ground, yanking up her long, homespun dress.
No. Kick was moving even before the decision was made in his head. No way. No goddamn way.
The girl’s terrified eyes went even wilder when she saw him barreling down on them. She shook her head, silently screaming and screaming under the man’s brutal grip over her mouth. Kick wished he could call to her not to worry. But she’d understand soon enough he meant no harm. To
her
anyway.
At the last second he flipped his rifle around to his back, and in one swift movement leapt on the man, caught him in a headlock, and with a vicious twist snapped the fucker’s neck.
The girl’s scream stopped abruptly, as abruptly as her assailant’s movements. Her eyes were still wide with fear as he lifted the body off her. He allowed himself a millisecond’s glance downward.
Thank God.
He’d been in time.
She pulled down her dress and scrambled away. But not too far. She stopped on her hands and knees a few yards from him, staring back at him in terrified, tearful confusion. A wave of nausea had him taking large, quelling gulps of air as he waved his hand in the direction of her home. Not for what he’d done. But for what had almost happened to her.
“Go on,” he said quietly. “I’ll take care of this piece of garbage.”
He’d deliberately not left a visible mark on the man. If he worked fast, he could make it look like natural causes.
Well. Unless you did an autopsy. Not likely to happen out here.
He swung the body over his shoulder and retraced the rapist’s steps to the edge of the dune closest to the village. He held him upright and checked his pants.
Thank you, Jesus.
He wouldn’t have to touch the fuck. The fly was open and he was already exposed. Kick let the scum fall onto the sand as though he’d just collapsed while standing there. Then he opened his own fly and made a nice little puddle next to the body.
There.
They’d think the creep had a heart attack taking a piss.
He turned and was about to hightail it out of there when he remembered the trail of footprints leading back into the dunes.
Shit.
Following them would lead to the site of the girl’s struggle, and tell an altogether different story.
Suddenly she appeared next to him, holding a thick bunch of palm fronds. She said something in Arabic he didn’t get. But he understood when she made a shooing motion with the fronds, then started to wipe away the prints from the sand.
He gave her a somber smile, and thanked her. “
Shukran.
”
Then he turned and took off at a run. Around and back to the top of his dune. To wait with pulse pounding in his throat to see if the ruse worked.
Or if they’d come after him with guns blazing.
“I
don’t like it,” Marc said for the dozenth time. “I’m going after him.”
Rainie put an anxious hand on his arm. “No. Kick said to wait here. You’re in no shape to help, anyway.”
The STORM agent liked that pronouncement even less, judging by the dark look he gave her. Too bad. She was scared enough as it was. If he went, she’d have to go with him. And she didn’t want to be anywhere near those guys in the Jeeps.
Not that she liked the idea of Kick out there facing them alone. A shiver traveled down her spine just thinking about it. He’d been gone forever. What was he doing?
Waiting was like torture. The sun and heat were relentless, with no shade to be found in the smooth rise and fall of the dunes where they were hiding. They were nearly out of water, too.
Marc had insisted she give him Kick’s handgun, which she’d gladly relinquished. But despite his macho bravado, he was getting weaker by the hour. Even his uninjured hand shook as he held the gun. She feared an infection might be taking hold in his broken arm. He needed medical help. Gangrene was a real possibility, especially in this heat.
What the
hell
was going on with Kick? Why didn’t he come back?
All at once the air was split by the
pop! pop! pop!
of gunfire.
Her heart leapt into her throat. “My God!”
“
Merde
,” Marc growled.
They both jumped to their feet. He swayed against her. She grabbed him, but he shook her off with a grimace, lifted the SIG, and took off at a stumbling lope toward the gunfire. “Stay there!” he called over his shoulder.
Panic seared through her. A thousand conflicting responses kept her rooted to the spot.
Fight? Flee? Help? Stay?
Then another burst of gunfire exploded beyond the dunes. And suddenly she knew only one thing mattered.
“
Kick!
”
God, no, please
no
!
“Marc, wait!” she screamed. And ran full tilt toward the danger.
THIRTEEN
RAINIE
tripped and fell as she sprinted through the unwieldy dunes to catch up to Marc. She clawed at the sand, fighting to get to her feet.
Was she already too late?
She scrambled up and kept running. Terrible images streaked through her head. Images of a bloody Kick lying dead and—
She ran flat into Marc’s back.
They would have both gone sprawling, but this time he whirled and caught her with his good arm, banding her against his side as they spun to a halt.
She let out a sob. “Please, let me—”
“Shhh. Rainie, hush,
fille
,” he urged in a strange voice. Subdued, but intense. His hand cupped her head, trying to turn her face into his shoulder. She fought him. Jerked herself free. Whirled back around.
She was not prepared for the sight that greeted her.
Bodies littered the ground.
Blood. Bodies. Bloody bodies.
She gasped in horror.
People screaming.
“Nooo!”
A man rushing toward her.
Everything went red.
A child screaming. A girl screaming at the feel of huge hands grabbing for her. At the sight of her parents’ bodies, lifeless and—
“Rainie!”
She struggled harder. She had to get away. Had to—
“
Rainie!
”
Against her will, her eyes flew open. And she saw—
Something was wrong. Something was different. It wasn’t the carjacker coming for her; it was—
“Kick?” she sobbed.
One set of arms released her and another set pulled her to a hard, warm chest. Strong fingers stroked her back and a voice choked out, “Damn it, Rainie, I told you to stay put.”
Kick’s voice.
Thank God.
She’d had a flashback. Only a flashback.
She was shaking so hard her teeth chattered. She didn’t even try to speak. She just stood there and let him hold her as the shakes subsided. Lord, she wanted to stay there forever and soak up his strength like she was a dry sponge. It felt so good to have someone to lean on, like she was six again and “It’s going to be fine, honey” still had a shot at being true. How long had
that
been?
Lord, she hadn’t had a flashback in years. Seeing dozens of injuries every day in the ER had long since inured her to the sight of blood. She’d thought, anyway. So what had set it off?
“Let’s get you away from here,” Kick said, something ugly coloring his tone. He pushed her back toward the dunes.
But . . . if it was just a flashback, why was he herding her away from . . . what? She turned her head and made herself look again.
“Rainie, don’t—”
The bodies were still there. And the blood.
“Sweet Jesus.”
His arm tightened around her. “You don’t need to be here. Go with—”
“No.” She dug in her heels. This time she was prepared.
She could do this.
She took a deep breath and pulled away from his comforting warmth. Forced herself into nurse mode. “What can I do to help?”
“Nothing.”
“But—”
“They’re all dead,” Kick said evenly.
Okay. She was okay
. “How do you know?”
“Because they were animals and deserved to die.”
Stunned, she gaped at him as his bitter words razored through her gut. All the way to her soul. God, she’d been right about him. “You
approve
of this slaughter?”