CHAPTER ONE

She might be every man's wet dream, but right now Kane Wright wanted to nail AJ Cooper's beautiful ass to the wall.

A bullet slammed into the ruined wall behind him. Shards of ricocheted limestone stung his face, missing his eye by a blink. He didn't flinch. Hell, barely noticed it in the chaos around them.

"Cooper." He didn't raise his voice despite the volume of firepower lighting up the early-evening sky. The lip mic would transmit the sound of a gnat fart. Exchanged bullets kicked up sand and stone in a cacophony of noise and brilliant white light. "Get your ass back here!"

In lead position, AJ lay flat on her stomach fifty feet ahead of him on a cantilevered rock peninsula high above Raazaq's camp. She was in the ready position, but frozen like a deer in headlights, sniper rifle silent, and useless, in her hands.

"N-no," she whispered. Her voice shook on the single word, but she dug her toes into the sand and hunched over the weapon she held with a white-fisted grip.

Hell.

"Not a request. An order." Damn it. Another bullet pockmarked the building beside him and a new shower of rock and plaster rained down on him. The only reason the bullets hadn't struck any of his team was because the terrorist's camp was several hundred feet downhill in the shallow, palm-groved valley below them. The minute Raazaq's men got their hands on something more powerful than rifles, the odds would even up. This was the tangos' terrain; they had the home team advantage.

The element of surprise was shot. Kane and his team were screwed if they didn't wrangle their way out of this mess. Fast.

AJ's swallow sounded loud in his ear. "I can still get him."

"No," he said calmly. "You cannot." Sharpshooter First Class, my ass. She'd missed her target.

Hell. The target.

A clear shot, and she'd missed!

She'd been chosen for her uncanny marksmanship ability, and hurriedly pulled out of boot camp for this op, but clearly she wasn't ready for fieldwork. A little late in the fucking day to find this out. Sniping was a painstaking discipline, and she didn't have the cajônes for the job.

In the space of minutes, Cooper had gone from being Kane's best asset to his biggest liability.

Three separate cylinders of yard-long white flame arced over their heads. A line of tracers sprang from each muzzle flash, allowing the tangos to shoot without a metal sight on their weapons. AJ's slender shoulders went rigid as the ammo impacted close by.

"Hit the limo," Kane ordered Struben and Escobar, as Raazaq's stretch did a wobbly rooster tail in the sand, then sped into the desert. One of his men managed to hit the left back tire. It swerved, but kept going. Shit.

"Hold them off until I get her clear," he told the two men. "Cooper? Take it slowly and ease back, we've got you covered."

Click.

"Did you just turn off your mi—Goddamn it, woman!" Nailing her ass to a fucking wall was just the beginning.

Kane started crawling toward her. Getting on her case right now wouldn't accomplish anything. She was scared. Fear did strange things to people. He recognized the signs. Beneath the backward black ball cap she wore, her face was a pale oval, sheened with perspiration. Her soft lips, set and grim. The sniper rifle was tucked against her shoulder, her hands in position. But those hands were clenched, and no doubt sweating to beat the band. Kane had seen the same look from other rookies over the years.

Paralyzed with terror.

Rendered useless.

On some training op, that would be no big deal.

Tonight, she'd fucked it up for all of them.

Copyright © 2003 by Cherry Adair.