To Tempt a Sheikh(2)

And he'd be dead if Harres didn't get him out of here.

Harres had no doubt his captors would rather kill the man and lose the  info his mind contained than let it fall into Aal Shalaan hands.

Observations segued into action. He lunged, grabbed the man's arm. Next  second, he could swear a rocket launched through his teeth and exploded  behind his eye sockets. It took him seconds to realize what had  happened.                       
       
           



       

The man had hit him.

Still half-blind, Harres ducked, employing his other senses to dodge the  barrage of blows the man rained on him. Harres charged him again,  detained him in a crushing bear hug. He had no time for a more intimate  introduction to those fists that packed such an unexpected wallop.

The man writhed in his hold with the ferocity of a tornado, almost breaking it.

"Quit struggling, you fool," Harres hissed. "I'm here to save you."

Seemed the man couldn't decipher Harres's words through the shroud  covering his mouth. Or he didn't believe him. The man simultaneously  delivered a bone-cracking kick to his left shin and kneed him. Harres  barely avoided that last crippling impact, marveling at Burke's agility  and speed even as he squeezed the man harder. The much smaller, wiry man  would give him a run for his money if he had the use of both hands and  more space.

Harres wrenched the cloth from his mouth, plastered the man against the  uneven stone wall, a forearm against his throat applying enough pressure  to make him stop fighting, pushing his face up to his so they again  made eye contact.

A buzz zapped through him again as those glowing eyes slammed into his,  as the body he imprisoned seethed against his with a mixture of defiance  and panic.

Harres shook away the disorientation, firmed his pressure. "Don't make  me knock you out and carry you like a sack of dirty laundry. I don't  have time for your paranoia. Now, do as I tell you, if you want to get  out of here alive."

He didn't wait for the man's consent. But in the second before he  wrenched away, he thought he saw the fearful hostility in Burke's eyes  soften. He filed away the observation for later dissection as he began  dragging Burke back where he'd come from.

A fire exchange ripped the night, aborted his momentum.

Reinforcements must have arrived. His heart stampeded with the need to  charge to his men's aid. But he couldn't. They'd all signed on knowing  that only securing their target mattered. Anything-and anyone else-was  expendable.

Feeling his blood boiling and curdling at once, he turned to the man. They'd have to use the escape route he'd already secured.

The man was ahead of him, already turning there. Harres snatched a  dagger from the weapon belt around his thigh, slashed Burke's tethers,  put it away, then bent to give him a boost so he could climb out of the  window. And the man did another uncanny thing. He leaped up from a  standstill, like a cat, clutched the six-foot-high ledge for the moment  it took him to gain leverage and impetus to catapult himself through the  opening. He cleared it in one fluid move. In a second, Harres heard the  distinctive sound of someone hitting the ground on the other side of  the wall in a rolling landing.

Was this guy an acrobat? Or was he a Black Ops agent, too?

Whatever he was, he was far more than even Harres had bargained for. He  just hoped the tenacious sod didn't take off, forcing him to pursue  Burke once he got out of here. It would take him more than the three  seconds flat the man had taken to clear that tiny hatch with his size.

In about ten seconds, Harres flipped himself backward through the  opening, the only way he'd been able to get enough leverage to squeeze  himself through. As he let his mass drag him down, meeting the ground  with extended arms, he had an upside-down view of the man's waiting  silhouette. So Burke was intelligent enough to know where his best  chances lay.

He landed on flat palms, tucked and flipped over to his feet, standing  up and starting to run toward the man in one continuous motion. "Follow  me."

Without a word, the man did.

They ran across the sand dunes guided only by Harres's phosphorescent  compass and a canopy of cold starlight. He couldn't use a flashlight to  find his trail back to his sand car. There was no telling if any of  their adversaries had slipped his men's net. A flashlight in this  darkness would be like a beacon for the enemy to follow and all this  would have been for nothing.

He ran with his charge in his wake, telling himself the others were  safe. He wouldn't know for certain until they reached their own  helicopter several miles away and entered coverage zones where he could  communicate with them.

For now, he could think only of getting T. J. Burke to safety.

Ten minutes later, he felt secure enough to turn his senses back to the  man. Burke was keeping up with him. The rhythm of his feet said he was  running faster than Harres to make up for the difference in the length  of their legs. So not only an agile and ready fighter, but in great  shape, too. Good news. He hadn't been looking forward to hauling the guy  to the sand car if he collapsed. But it was clear there was no danger  of that. Burke was pacing himself superbly. No gasping, just even, deep  inhalations and long, full exhalations.                       
       
           



       

And again something … inexplicable slithered down Harres's body as those  sounds seemed to permeate the night, even with his own ears being boxed  by the wind. The sensation originated from somewhere behind his  breastbone and traveled downward, settling low, then lower.

He gritted his teeth against the disturbance as they reached his sand  car. He jumped inside the open-framed, dune-buggy-style four-wheel  vehicle. "Get in behind me."

Without missing a beat, Burke slid behind him on the seat, spread his  legs on either side of Harres's hips, plastered his front to his back  and curled himself around him as if they'd been doing this every day.

A shudder spread through Harres as he revved the motor. In seconds, he  was hurtling the sand car over the dunes, driving with even more  violence than the urgency of the situation dictated.

He drove in charged silence, catapulting the car over dune edges,  crashing it in depressions, spraying sand in their wake and pushing the  engine to its limit. With every violent jolt, the man's arms tightened  around his midriff, his legs grabbing him more securely, his cheek  pressing deeper into his back until Harres felt they'd been fused  together.

His breath shortened by the moment as the heat of the man's body seeped through every point of contact, pooled in his loins.

Adrenaline. That was what it was. Discomfort. At having someone pressed so close, even in these circumstances.

Yes. What else could it possibly be?

In minutes, the crouching silhouette of his Mi-17 transport helicopter  came into view. It was the best sight Harres had ever seen. He'd not  only managed to reach their way out, but now he could get the man off of  him.

He screeched the sand car into a huge arc, almost toppling it before bringing it to a quaking stop by the pilot's door.

He wrenched Burke's hands from his waist and leveraged himself out of  the car in one motion. The man jumped out behind him, again with the  stealth and economy of a cat, then waited for directions.

He took in details now that his vision was at its darkness-adapted best.  With his windswept golden hair and those iridescent eyes, Burke looked  like some moon elf, ethereal, his beauty untouched by the ordeal-

His beauty?

"Jump into the passenger seat and buckle yourself up." He heard his  bark, knew all his aggression was directed at his insane thoughts and  reactions. "I'll stuff the car in the cargo bay-"

The crack of thunder registered first.

Second, comprehension. A gun's discharge.

The shock in the man's eyes followed.

Last, the sting.

He'd been hit.

Somewhere on his left side, level with his heart. He had to assume not in it. He didn't feel any weakening. Yet.

Someone had slipped his men's net, had managed to sneak up on them. This could be the last mistake he ever made.

He exploded into action, charged the man to stop him from taking cover. They had no time for that.

He shouldn't have worried. Burke was no cowering fool. He was bolting to  the helicopter even as more and more gunshots rang around them. He now  knew the shot that had connected had been random. That was no sniper out  there. That still didn't mean whoever it was couldn't hit a huge target  like the chopper.

In seconds they were in their seats and Harres had the monster of a machine roaring off the ground, levitating into the sky.

He pressed the helicopter for all the altitude and velocity it was  capable of. In less than a minute he knew they were too far for anyone  pursuing them on foot or ATV to even spot anymore.