Out of Sight Read Free Page A

with him over the back of her seat. I'm so sorry, Manny.
    Escobar gave her a goofy smile from his prone position. We're cool. "Scratch."
    A scratch that hurt like a red-hot poker being thrust into your flesh. Over and over and over again. AJ absently rubbed the healing wound on her left shoulder. "Liar."
    "Macho." He grinned before admitting, "Hurts like hell." He glanced from AJ to Struben then back again. "Did we get him?"
    "Ask Coop," Struben said flatly.
    Manny might not've heard the accusation in Struben's voice, but AJ had. The injured man shifted his focus to look up at her again. His face was ghostly pale, sweaty, and covered with sand.
    "No," she told him flatly, envying him his ability to take pain without a flinch.
    "Back to plan A, huh?"
    If Kane Wright allowed her to stay in country to do what she was sent to do, then yes. She shot Wright a sideways glance. His face was as sweaty and sandy as the rest of theirs, his expression closed. The stubble on his rigid jaw made him look sinister and dangerously appealing. AJ gave herself a mental shake. She was in enough trouble without bringing her attraction to him into the mix.
    "Plan A," Kane agreed, but before AJ could relax, he added, "with modifications."
    Her cheeks flamed, and her temper rose as anger began to overtake humiliation. She pushed it back and tried for calm and rational. "I can do it."
    "Forget it." He spoke into his lip mic, so it sounded as though he were whispering directly into her ear.
    AJ shivered. "You're good. But even the great Kane Wright can't pull this one off. You need me."
    "Don't bet on it. Sparky." He downshifted and the car lunged forward like an aging tiger after prey. "Just cover the retreat. Assuming you can do that without shooting one of us."
    "Up yours," she muttered, and glanced down to see Escobar's wink. At least Manny wasn't blaming her. But then, he didn't have to. She could do that for herself. No matter what Kane might say to their superiors, it wouldn't be enough to best what she was already telling herself. She'd failed. When it had mattered most, she'd come up short.
    She'd be damned if she'd prove her family right. She was cut out for this line of work. Not only cut out for it, but capable, and good. Damn it.
    She wouldn't fail again. Right now she could do her job by protecting their backs. She'd show Kane she wasn't just ballast. AJ braced herself as best she could as the small car shot down the incline in a cloud of dust. Kane hadn't turned on the headlights, and the sliver of a moon was nothing more than a suggestion of cool, pale light in the ink-black sky. The tires bounced and rattled on the shaley ground. There was no road, just sand for miles around.
    No one said a word. What was there to say? The fact that they'd found Raazaq's camp was a miracle in itself. It was surprisingly close to the city, but still a ways off the beaten path. Kane had surmised Raazaq's people were laying in supplies before they took off for Fayoum. If they could eliminate Raazaq before he traveled south it would save them a lot of headaches.
    Well, thanks to her, they hadn't succeeded. They were back to square one.
    AJ wanted to breathe a sigh of relief that they'd made it out of there alive despite her screwup. But she knew damn well they weren't safe yet.
    "We've got company," she and Struben said in unison as several pairs of headlights crested a rise behind them, illuminating the cloud of sand in their wake. Shots blasted at them as Raazaq's men roared up in their sand spume. Just show. They were too far away, as yet, to make any impact. But that was about to change.
    Like everything else Kane Wright did, he drove incredibly well. The car was a piece of crap, but the best they'd been able to commandeer on short notice. Yet Kane made the vehicle corner like a well-oiled machine. Still, the shocks were nonexistent, and AJ bit her tongue several times, tasting the metallic tang of blood, as they bounced over the dunes.
    "Savage