Out of Sight (26 page)

The white marble pyramid towered over the distant tree-tops and glinted milk-pale in the sunlight. Clearly the threat to get out of the hotel and gather inside the other structure had been a ruse to clear the hotel.

This was where Raazaq wanted everyone. Outside. In the open. Out in the hot sun. Perspiring. A perfect conductor for a viral agent to be rapidly absorbed through the skin.

Kane stiffened. "Jesus. The pyramid!"

He did a controlled speed walk down the steps and started for the perimeter. Running now would cause panic and confusion. But Christ, he needed to run.

He caught up with AJ on the far side of the clearing near the tree line and grabbed her upper arm. "Come with me."

She gave him a wide-eyed, startled look as she matched her long stride to his. "What's happened?"

"Nothing. Yet."

"Then where are we g—"

"Raazaq is in the pyramid. It's the only place that he and his key people will be safe from the viral agent. They can't leave the area any more than we can."

Weapons drawn, they slipped into the wooded area between the hotel and pyramid. "Then why did he want everyone to go inside?" AJ checked the clip in each of the Rugers as she speed walked. Kane knew she'd checked them several times already. But this was show time. She wasn't going to chance anything going wrong now.

As soon as they lost sight of crowd, they started running. A winding path lined with grasses meandered between the dense shade trees up a slight rise. It was marginally cooler in the shade, but not much.

"Son of a bitch doesn't
want
them inside the pyramid," Kane told her, not releasing her hand as they ran. "He knew nobody would follow that order. He counted on it. He wants them out in the open. Sweating. Unprotected."

"They're out there like lambs to slaughter—Jesus God, Kane." Her feet hesitated, but Kane yanked her along with him, keeping her moving. "We have to go back. Warn the—"

"Walsh is working on it, if they haven't figured it out by now themselves. We have our jobs, he has his."

They ran the long mile silently, until they finally reached the shadow of the pyramid. The path widened slightly, leading them to a low, narrow doorway overhung with shrubs and long grasses—clearly intentionally left that way for atmosphere, as the rest of the path had been cleared for foot traffic.

AJ looked up, and up. The pyramid was huge, at least five stories high. The twenty-ton blocks of white stone were smooth, and tightly interlocked, and rose in a direct line into the heavens, stark creamy-white against the blue of the sky.

The pyramid itself was a work of art, priceless in its antiquity, a testament to man's creativity. It had stood here for over two thousand years. Or had it? Was it, too, part of Raazaq's devious plan?

Either way, AJ wondered if it would survive today.

She used both hands to cup her weapon and stepped into the opening.

The temperature immediately dropped twenty degrees. There was enough light streaming in from the outside to show their way down a flight of rough-hewn steps descending at an angle of approximately twenty-five degrees. The ceiling sloped thirty feet above them as they raced silently down the stairs, their feet almost silent on the hard stone. A metal handrail and small recessed lights led the way down, disappearing into what looked like a black hole.

It got progressively darker as they left behind sunlight and fresh air and came to the bottom of the stairs, into a small chamber. Discreet spotlights illuminated unblemished walls of hieroglyphics. Clearly there was a generator or other power source here. Something not affected like everything outside this building.

The room smelled faintly musty, but there was also the pungent stink of sweat, and the sharp, acrid-sweet smell of Raazaq's cologne.

He's here,
AJ signed. She indicated across the chamber to the ascending staircase.

Kane nodded, pointed to their boots. They undid laces and tugged off their footwear. At this point they needed every element of surprise open to them. Barefoot was quieter. AJ tucked their boots and socks out of sight behind a labeled display of baskets and small bottles. They started up the stairs. Past the mammoth stone that was marked to indicate it had been moved to reveal the ascending passage at the time of discovery.

AJ's heart raced as her feet padded up the cool steps. At the top of these stairs, or in the next chamber, was Fazur Raazaq. She was going to do her job and rid the world of a monster.

She halted when Kane grabbed the back of her shirt, then quickly spun around.
What?
she demanded with raised eyebrows.

You go back,
he signed,
get people to safety. I'll finish here.

She froze, stunned, one foot on the next step. She stared at him. He signed again.
Go back. I'll finish.

He didn't trust her to do the job. Or do the job right.

Jesus God. The knowledge struck a blow to her heart. Ego. Struck a blow to her
ego.
After all they had been through… all they'd shared…
No way in hell!
AJ mouthed silently, shrugging off his restraining hand and spinning to race up the stairs.

Time was running out, she could practically hear the sand pouring out of an old-fashioned hourglass.
And he wanted her to go back?

She felt his hand on her again, and angrily shrugged it off. He grabbed her arm and spun her around and she tumbled several steps down to stand just above him.

Let me go, you dumb-ass,
she mouthed, fury whipping through her blood like a forest fire.
What the hell do you think you're doing?
She pushed at his shoulders. The stairwell was only a yard wide, the stone on either side of them dark with damp. The smell of Raazaq's cologne surrounded them.

They were eye to eye.

AJ shoved again, but this time Kane grabbed her face in both hands.

And kissed her.

The act shocked AJ so much, she almost screamed out loud in sheer surprise. What the hell was he thinking? The kiss was over almost before it had begun. Puzzled by the rage and desperation in the ill-timed kiss, she braced her hands on his chest.

"Wha—"

Be careful,
he mouthed as he brushed his finger down her cheek. His hands were warm. Her skin, cold. AJ paused there for half a heartbeat, then nodded and took off up the stairs. She could hear the faint shush of Kane's bare feet running lightly behind her.

They emerged silently into a larger room at the top of the stairs. The Queen's Chamber, AJ would bet. It was lavishly decorated with hieroglyphs embossed and painted in vibrant colors, highlighted with gold. Across the marble floor lay a gold sarcophagus. The lighting here was soft and almost dreamy. Artificial palm trees, replete with dates, swept up to the unblemished limestone-gabled ceiling.

AJ pointed to one of three side corridors. Touched the tip of her nose and pointed ahead.
Follow his smell.

Kane nodded.

The first corridor smelled flat and faintly musty. The second, blocked by a long-ago rockfall that had yet to be excavated. The third corridor—like the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears—was just right.

Raazaq's cologne. Bingo.

It felt to AJ as though slow,
agonizingly slow,
hours had passed since she and Kane had entered the pyramid. But logic told her they'd taken less then ten minutes to sprint through the staircases and rooms to get to this point.

Now the question was, were they in time to stop a madman?

There was a metal door at the top of the stairs. Titanium by the look of it. The dull surface gleamed in the glow of the small, recessed lights on either side. Hardly part of the original decor. Someone had done some serious remodeling.

Weapon locked and loaded, AJ looked at Kane with raised brows. How the hell were they going to get inside undetected?

He indicated she cover him, crouched down, ran his fingers carefully around the paper-thin crack. A crack so fine, not a glimmer of light from the room beyond shone through. He ran his hands around, all the way around. Twice.

No handle, no keypad. No way in. Other than the faint sound of AJ's breath, Kane couldn't hear a damn thing. If Raazaq was inside the King's Chamber, then the room, the door, the fucking pyramid, were soundproof.

Christ. So near and yet so far. Nothing short of a nuclear blast was going to open that door.

May I?
AJ mouthed politely, leaning over his crouched position. She rapped sharply on the door with her fist.

Kane rose to his feet. If it made her feel better to attempt… it—

The door slid slowly open.

Hot damn.

He shot her a quick glance.
Ready
?

A nod. Gleaming green eyes.

Weapons at the ready, they stepped into the room.

"Welcome, I've been waiting for you." Raazaq's voice was muffled inside the heavy white biohazard suit he wore.

Kane counted six other people suited up. No one seemed particularly concerned with their presence. But then, if he were the one holding a high-tech-looking laser gun, he would be pretty unconcerned, too.

"Shit," AJ whispered beside him.

That about covered it.

Bright white sterile walls, chrome, steel, computers blipping, monitors flashing. The King's Chamber had been converted into a lab.

"Impressive,
evet?"
Raazaq motioned several of the men forward to divest Kane and AJ of their weapons.

"Yeah, it is," Kane said dryly. On the wall above a bank of TV monitors, red numbers on three small digital clocks ticked away the countdown. One read nine minutes, two seconds. The next read zero. The third, four minutes, eighteen seconds. "Too bad we don't have time to admire your handiwork."

His eyes on Kane, Raazaq said to AJ, "So I was right, Miss Cooper. Your friend is
not
what he seemed. And clearly I underestimated
you.
Now, please to give your guns to my men, both of you. Any small spark at this point and you would go..
. pouf."

"But then, so would you," Kane pointed out, shaking his head no as two men approached them to relieve them of their weapons. The men hesitated, looking to Raazaq for direction.

Kane felt a slight brush of air against his back as the door closed silently behind them.

Four minutes, fourteen seconds.

If the clocks indicated what Kane believed they indicated, one batch of the virus had already been dispersed. They had four minutes and… eleven seconds… to stop the next one.

"Hand over your weapons or I will shoot the girl." Raazaq took one of the futuristic weapons from his men. It looked small and deadly in his gloved hands. Kane had never seen anything like it. He had no idea what the weapon could do, and he didn't particularly want to find out.

"Go for it," he said coldly, not looking back at AJ to see her reaction to his offer. He shifted his feet slightly to stand in front of her. "You'll be doing me a favor."

"Excuse me," she said indignantly, stepping forward and around him to give him a hard punch to his good shoulder. "Don't
I
get a vote?"

He pushed her back, flat of his hand to the middle of her forehead. Not lightly.
Get behind me, damn it.
"Lady, you've been a thorn in my side, and a pain in my ass, for days. I'd shoot you myself if I didn't object to wasting the bullet." He moved away from her, crossing the room while Raazaq's men grinned from behind their faceplates.

Four minutes, eight seconds.

"You low-life, unchivalrous bastard!" AJ shrieked. The baseball cap flew off her head, strands of red hair trailed behind her like a flaming banner as she charged him.

Fully entertained now, Raazaq's men started to laugh.

Kane sidestepped at the last minute. AJ kept going, hit Raazaq full force with the hurtling weight of her body, and took him to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs so perfect, so classic, Kane almost applauded. Damn, she was good.

He didn't wait to see who was where. He left Raazaq to AJ. There were a few other problems for him to deal with.

Three minutes, forty-nine seconds.

AJ thumped her butt down hard on Raazaq's chest, pressed her knees into his shoulders, and placed her feet on top of his flailing hands to subdue him. She pressed the barrel of the Sig over the faceplate, directly in line with the smallpox scar in the middle of his forehead. He bucked. She pressed down harder with her knees, leaning her entire weight into it. While he tried to twist and buck his way from beneath her, AJ used one hand to fumble for the fastenings on the helmet protecting Raazaq's brain from her bullet.

One of the men raced over, grabbed her with an arm about the throat, and tried to yank her up and off. AJ shot out her arm, slamming the heel of her hand up into his balls. Bio-hazard suit or not, the guy felt it. He gave a high-pitched scream, fell to the floor, rolled around in a fetal ball, clutching himself, and screamed like a girl. Three minutes, thirty seconds.

"Now, where were we?" AJ rode Raazaq's bucking body like a barrel racer as she struggled to remove his head-covering one-handed while maintaining her balance.

Encumbered by the bulky biohazard suit, he couldn't maneuver as quickly or as efficiently as she could, but he sure as hell tried. Bucking and squirming, he screamed for his men to get the crazy bitch off him. AJ finally managed to fumble the helmet off, and flung it aside.

She pressed the barrel of the Sig hard between his eyes. "Let me get rid of this ugly scar for you." She averted her head—"Nooo!"—and pulled the trigger. Two minutes, eleven seconds.

Covered in his blood, AJ jumped off Raazaq's lifeless body and raced to assist Kane, stepping over the guy on the floor who was sobbing and screaming, still clutching his balls.

Kane was doing fine on his own. Three men lay dead, a fourth looked like he was trying to crawl into a monitor head-first, a fifth was circling Kane, and number six slumped against the closed door, either dead or unconscious. One minute, fifty-two seconds.

AJ raced to the bank of monitors and panels of flashing lights across the room. What to do? What the hell to do? Crap, she'd never been very good with computers. She stared at the rows of buttons. Some lit, some not. Looked up at the digital clocks on the wall. One minute, thirty-eight seconds. She fired into the console, then stood, feet braced, arms extended, and emptied the entire clip into the beeping, flashing mass of confusion.

The room went completely dark.

In seconds, flames exploded from a hundred different places as wires shorted and connections broke.

"Haul ass, Aphrodite Jacintha," Kane shouted from the door. "This place is gonna blow!"

AJ spun around to stare at him. "What did you say?"

"I said, haul ass! Come on!"

She looked over her shoulder. By the fire's light, she saw the timer had stopped at one minute, eleven seconds.

Had it worked?

Please, God.
Had it worked
?

AJ didn't stay to find out. Spinning on her heel, she charged across the room, jumped a couple of bodies, and raced toward Kane.

He jerked open the door, grabbed her hand, and pulled her after him, slamming the heavy door behind them. They raced down the stone steps together in the pitch dark. A shout and shot from behind them were cut off by an agonized shriek. Smoke billowed overhead through the now-open door. The noxious cloud chased them down the stairwell, thick and cloying. It whirled in their passing and whipped along just a breath behind them. They heard the
snap-crackle-pop
as the flames grew and fed on Raazaq's state-of-the-art lab.

"Go! Go! GO!"
Kane shouted, hauling AJ behind him, his fingers like an iron clamp around hers.

God, it was dark, the air almost too thick to breathe. They both hacked and coughed as they raced through the blackness. Raced for their lives.

They skidded around a sharp corner.
Slam!
AJ's shoulder bounced hard into an invisible wall; without a pause she pushed off it and kept going.

Through the Queen's Chamber, down the corridor, down another flight of stairs, the fire hot on their backs now. Hot air pushing at them. Flames licking at the ceiling. Sucking up oxygen. Hard to breathe. Harder to see.

Fifty-two seconds, she counted off in her head. Fifty-one.

Down the stairs, along another corridor. Down the next flight. AJ's breath wheezed from her burning lungs.

Faster. Faster. Faster.

The fire raced them to the oxygen outside. The powerful stench of burnt hair, fried electrical components, incinerated plastics stung her nostrils.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. Couldn't see anything, anyway. Throat raw. The only sane thing, Kane's hand, strong and sure gripping hers as they flew across the stone floor.

The stairs trembled and shook beneath their bare feet.

Kane was practically pulling her arm out of the socket, but AJ wasn't about to complain. She was running flat-out, but he was still faster.

He missed a step, tripped down several of them, had to hop, skip, and jump to regain his balance, then righted himself and continued on. "Faster, damn it!" he yelled. "Faster!"

A square of sunlight. The exit. Straight ahead.

Thank God.

Kane hauled her the last few feet, then pushed her outside ahead of him just as an ominous creaking groan rent the air.

"Move it!" He shoved her hard.
"Go. Go. Go."

AJ staggered, then turned back to grab his arm. "What the hell are you doing?
Come
on."

"I'll be right behind you."

"No." AJ grabbed his hand in both others. "Togethe—Oh, God. Your ankle?"

Is broken.
"It's fine. Move it. Cooper. Just flicking move it!"

AJ grabbed his arm and slung it around her neck, hand dangling over her shoulders. She held on to his fingers tightly. "I don't go anywhere without you."

Leaning heavily on her, because he had no choice, Kane ran in an agonizing hobble, skip. "Stubborn woman."

"Obstinate man." The grip she had on his hand was so tight, it cut off his circulation. Jesus. What a woman.

Down the path. Winding—shadow, sunlight, shadow, sunlight. Dancing black spots. White-hot pain. Fear like he'd never known before.
AJ. Jesus, AJ. Got to get her to safety.
He ran faster. Shadow, sunlight, shadow, sunlight.

He stumbled badly. She held him up.

"You can do it. You can. Just a little bit farther. Almost there." AJ kept up a panting litany as they stumbled and rumbled their way as fast as they could.

Christ. Not fast enough.

Billows of black smoke filled me air. He felt enormous heat on his back.

It was going to blow. The whole damn thing was going to blow.

"Faster," he croaked. "Faster, for Christ sake!" Sweat popped out on his forehead and black spots danced in his vision. He staggered as the white-hot pain lanced from his ankle directly to spear his brain. His knees buckled. He almost dragged AJ to the ground with his dead weight, but she grit her teeth and pushed him upright again.

He tried to unhook his arm.

Her short nails dug into his hand and she hitched her shoulder. "I'm… not… done… with… you… yet!" she panted, dragging him along willy-nilly. "Come on, Wright, you lily-livered sissy-pants! Suck it up and move your ass, damn it!"

They burst through the trees at the bottom of the hill.

Into chaos.

People were screaming, crying, running around like chickens with their heads cut off as they panicked after the fact. The crowd was in full-blown survival mode as security personnel raced their people back into the hotel and out of the way of falling debris.

"Just a little farther. You can do it, you can do it," AJ panted, all but carrying him. Kane outweighed her by at least eighty pounds. He wondered if AJ was even aware of just how much of his weight she was bearing as they stumbled across the lawn.

Raazaq's men were fleeing for safety just as fast as everyone else.

They were a hundred yards from the front doors when the ground moved beneath their feet.

Kane flung himself at AJ, taking her down to the buckling lawn, where he covered her body with his own and pressed her flat. There was a sudden, expectant silence—

Then all hell broke loose.

Sand shifted as it had for centuries. As if driven by an earthquake, the ground bucked and twitched with the explosion. The white marble pyramid imploded in a mile-high white mushroom cloud. Flames and thick black smoke licked at the sky for hundreds of feet.

Kane buried his face in AJ's neck, covering her head with his arms as best he could.

It was over quickly. He waited several minutes before he looked up.

"You're squishing me!" AJ wiggled beneath him.

"Stay where you are." Kane flinched when he moved. The leg hurt like a son of a bitch.

"What? Did something get you?" She squirmed more aggressively. "Damn it, Kane,
I
should be the one on top, protecting
you
. You're the one who's hurt!"

Kane shifted off her back, and started laughing.

The sound of aircraft filled the air. Panting, drenched with blood and sweat, they rolled over, looked up.

The cavalry had arrived.

"Is that the prettiest sight you've ever seen?" AJ gasped, staring up at the Harrier jet fighters followed by Blackhawk helicopters coming in to land.

It was a good sight—hell, even a
great
sight. "No."

She rolled her head to look at him. "No?"

"No.
You're
the prettiest thing I've ever seen. Your face after we made love on that voyeur camel was incredible. You sitting on Raazaq's chest was pretty damn spectacular. Hell, watching you eat an orange fired my jets.
Those
are the prettiest sights I've ever seen." He grinned, lacing his fingers with hers and bringing their joined hands to his lips.