Shoot to Thrill (31 page)

“
No!
Don’t touch me!” she screamed.

Oh, hell. “Baby, it’s me. I’m awake now. Please, honey. I’m not going to hurt you.” Shit, shit, shit.

With eyes squeezed tight, she pulled in a deep, halting breath and slowly exhaled. Good girl. He let out his own pent-up breath, and dared to gently rub his hand up and down her back.

“God, I’m so sorry. I must really have been out of it. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She gave him a tentative look, and her eyes gradually emptied of fear.

“I know,” she said, shuddering out a sigh. “I should have known better than to wake you like that, with no warning.”

“You okay?”

She nodded.

“Come up out of there.” He helped her to uncurl and scootch back up, then gave her a hug and held her until her heartbeat slowed from hyperspace down to just warp speed.

That’s when he noticed their positions. She was in the driver’s seat, and he the passenger. He frowned.
What the hell?

He tried to remember. And suddenly, he did. Why, the little . . .

He didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or be really, really angry. Except . . . Holy hell.

She’d been—

“Damn, woman,” he said, drawing back to gaze at her in serious admiration. “You
drove
?”

“Yeah.” Her smile was shy but unbelievably proud.

“You are one amazing lady, you know that?”

“You think?”

“Oh, yeah.” To top it all off, the sun was peeking over the horizon behind them. Jesus, she’d been driving for
hours
.

“Any idea where we are?” he asked, glancing around. He wasn’t worried. She’d been good with the GPS.

“That’s why I woke you,” she said, and pointed to something in the distance. Some kind of structure. “What is that? I couldn’t figure it out from the map and didn’t want to get any closer if . . .” Her words trailed off nervously.

“Let’s take a look.”

He turned to dig the night vision goggles from the field pack in the backseat. He slid them on and peered at the silhouetted buildings, which popped into an orderly complex he easily recognized. “It’s a refinery. Probably close to the Egyptian border. Are we that far north?”

She looked apologetic. “There was this huge area of sand dunes. I didn’t think I should chance going through them.”

“Definitely the right choice.” He adjusted the NVGs and looked closer at the refinery. “Hmm. Weird. No spotlights on the perimeter.”

“Is that bad?”

“Security’s usually pretty tight at these places, lights on 24/7.” He flipped up the goggles and eyeballed the silhouetted compound. Sure enough, except for the leap of fire spurting from one of the chimneys, the structure was completely dark against the dim rays of the dawn sky.

They watched silently for several moments, then she said, “What should we do?”

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 something 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.