Danger in the Desert

by Merline Lovelace

  “One of you better tell me what’s going on,” she spit out, “or Fahranna will have to set a few stitches.”

  Kahil raised both hands and backed toward the door. “You tell her, Ace.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out in the hall. I must notify my superiors of tonight’s incident.” His dark eyes glinted. “And tell my wife she may have to open her surgery.”

  He left the door open a crack, and for a long, taut moment the remaining occupants faced each other. Jaci didn’t fool herself into believing she could carry out her threat. She’d witnessed Deke in action. Yet she would be damned if she’d relinquish the lamp until she got some answers.

  “Anytime you’re ready, Griffin.”

  Nodding, he scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. He’d pulled on his loafers and the shirt she’d temporarily appropriated, but the dark stubble on his cheeks and chin gave him a rakish—and dangerous—air. The ankle holster he’d strapped on before Kahil and the others arrived added to that image.

  “Okay, here’s the thing. A good number of folks here in Egypt believe the legend linked to the scarab you found.”

  Stunned, Jaci dropped her arm. She’d formulated all kinds of wild conjectures since the attempted break-in. The possibility it might involve the legend Kahil had related earlier this evening wasn’t one of them!

  “Only a few hours after you found the scarab,” Deke related grimly, “Egypt’s internal security watchdogs started picking up email and cell phone chatter. The communiqués all had an American tourist at their focus.”

  “Me?”

  “You.”

  Reeling, she tried to make sense of the extraordinary situation.

  “So…?” She swiped her tongue over dry lips.

  “So were the men who tried to break into my room tonight after me or their precious beetle?”

  “They don’t know you left the scarab in Kahil’s possession, so it could have been either.”

  He paused a moment before thrusting the knife in deeper.

  “The situation is more serious than you may realize, Jaci. The people who buy into this legend have decided you’re Ma’at’s messenger. They want to use you as a rallying point for an uprising that would overthrow the present government. You can understand why Egypt’s president would contact ours to express his concern.”

  “This goes all the way up to the president?”

  “Yeah, babe, it does.”

  Jaci sank down at the foot of the bed. The lamp hit the floor as she struggled to accept the mortifying, degrading truth.

  “So this supersecret government agency you work for sent you to check me out?”

  He nodded.

  At least he didn’t lie to her this time. She gave him that much as her silly, stupid image of a knight in shining armor disintegrated.

  She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t! Ignoring the hot sting at the back of her eyes, she lifted her chin.

  “What did you decide, Agent Griffin? Am I Ma’at’s messenger?”

  “Come on, Jaci. You and I both know you didn’t have a clue about the political turmoil you generated.”

  Okay, now she was not only naive but ignorant. Feeling like the biggest idiot on two continents, she raised her chin another notch.

  “Just out of curiosity, did you reach that conclusion before or after we had sex?”

  He smothered an oath and turned the question back on her. “What do you think?”

  “To borrow your words,” she said acidly, “I don’t have a clue.”

  With another oath, he started for her. She stopped him with a steely glare.

  “Answer the question, Griffin.”

  “Dammit, woman, making love to you wasn’t part of the plan. If you must know, taking you to bed tonight went against all my training and instincts.”

  Pure, unadulterated pain piled on top of the anger and humiliation sloshing around inside Jaci’s chest.

  “Just what—” she stopped, bit down hard on the inside of her lip “—just what every girl wants to hear,” she managed after a moment. “Her lover had to force himself to provide stud service.”

  “Oh, hell!” His mouth twisted in disgust. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “At this point, I don’t give a crap what you meant.” She struggled to hide her hurt and humiliation. “The sooner you’re out of my sight and out my life, the better.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m afraid that can’t happen until I escort you back to the States.”

  “Back to the States?”

  “Kahil and I agree. It’s best for everyone concerned if we put you on the next plane out of Cairo.”

  His placating tone had the exact opposite of its intended effect. Incensed all over again, Jaci surged to her feet. Being lied to was one thing. Letting this man—or anyone else!—cut short the trip she’d dreamed of for so long was something else again.

  “Get this straight, Griffin. No one’s putting me on a plane out of Cairo.”

  “Jaci…”

  “Colonel El Hassan has the scarab in his possession. He can—” she waved a hand, desperate to avoid termination of her trip “—he can say I turned it over to him. Confirm I’m just a visiting tourist, with no ties to Egypt. That should debunk this idea that I’m a messenger from Ma’at.”

  “Should,” the colonel echoed as he reentered the room, “being the operative word. Unfortunately, the group we’re dealing with is quite fanatic. They obviously believe you’re Ma’at’s chosen one, as evidenced by tonight’s attempt to take you and, we must assume, the scarab. For your own safety, Jaci, you must leave. Or…”

  His dark eyes locked with hers. A shiver raced down her spine. Almost as if she actually possessed the powers ascribed to her by the fanatics Kahil had just described, she sensed what he would suggest.

  Deke must have divined it, too. With a low growl, he put himself between her and the colonel. “You’d better not be thinking what I think you are, buddy.”

  “I am…if you are thinking that Jaci could help us neutralize these radicals.”

  A muscle jumped in the side of Deke’s jaw. His eyes as cold and hard as granite, he confronted his friend.

  “There’s no telling what these clowns might do if they get desperate. You can’t put Jaci on the front lines.”

  “Egypt’s national security may be at stake. I will do whatever is necessary.”

  The temperature inside the room seemed to have dropped a good twenty degrees. Jaci felt the ice as Deke issued a low, lethal warning.

  “You’ll have to go through me first.”

  “If I must.”

  “Hey!” Spurred by a welter of confused emotions, she thrust between the two men. “Remember me?”

  Hands on her hips, she dragged in a deep breath and looked from one to the other.

  “I found the scarab. I’ll decide what role—if any!—I’ll continue to play in this bizarre drama.”

  Chapter 9

  Rebel had just deposited her third cup of coffee on the Control Center’s main console when a yellow signal light flashed. Surprised, she threw a quick glance at the digital display of world times.

  It was a little past midnight, D.C. time, and 6:10 a.m. in Cairo. It had only been a few hours since Ace’s last report detailing the attempted break-in at the target’s hotel room.

  Raking back the honey-colored hair that insisted on falling over her forehead, Rebel answered the signal. Ace’s face filled her computer screen. He looked, she decided with a quick kick to her pulse, distinctly unhappy.

  “What’s up?” she asked quickly.

  “Change of plans. Thornton’s agreed to El Hassan’s harebrained scheme.”

  Rebel gave a low whistle. “Does she really under stand what she’s getting herself into?”

  “Hell, no!”

  The biting response made her blink. In all the time she’d worked with Deke Griffin, she’d never known him to lose his cool.

  ’Course, she’d never known him to call in
a report from a target’s bedroom in the middle of the night, either. Ace lived up to his reputation—and then some!—off duty. On duty, he’d always maintained a strict separation between business and pleasure.

  Until Jaci Thornton…

  What made the situation so damn intriguing was the fact that Rebel had combed through every scrap of data she’d dug up on Thornton. Aside from the woman’s association with this suspicious character, Dr. Abdouh, she appeared as pure as the driven snow. Definitely not the type Ace’s radar usually locked onto!

  Interesting that she’d had the guts to agree to Colonel El Hassan’s daring plan, though. Despite herself, Rebel felt a sneaking admiration for the assistant research librarian from Gainesville.

  “Lightning called in a little while ago,” she advised Ace. “He’s on his way in. I’ll bring him up to speed on the situation as soon as he arrives.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you need backup? Just say the word and I’ll jump a jet out of Andrews. Or…”

  Her glance went to the wall-size world map dominating one wall of the Control Center. Green lights designated agents currently inactive. Red lights signified those in the field. Aside from Ace, there were only two others out on ops. One of those two was just wrapping up a particularly hairy op in Turkey.

  “Or I can divert Blade.” Her mouth curved in a sly smile. “He’s ten minutes from boarding a plane in Ankara. Nothing I’d like better than to yank him off that one and put him on another.”

  Ace’s grim expression eased for a second. He, along with everyone else in OMEGA, had witnessed the titanic clash between Rebel and Clint Black, code name Blade, during her first week on the job. It was all due to a misunderstanding, but Rebel had been forced to knock Blade flat on his ass to get his attention. Both professionals, the two agents had smoothed things over. On the surface, at least.

  “Much as I would enjoy having you pull Blade’s chain,” Ace said with a wry smile, “I’ve got Thornton covered for now. If I need help, I’ll let you know.”

  “Roger that.”

  Rebel had barely disconnected when the blue bulb indicating Lightning’s executive assistant was at her desk illuminated. Less than two minutes later, Lightning’s designator lit up. Quickly, Rebel called downstairs.

  “Hey, Chelsea. You’re in early.”

  “Not early enough,” Lightning’s assistant answered in her well-bred, Boston Brahmin accent.

  “I thought I’d catch up on a little work before the boss arrived, but I haven’t even had time to brew a pot of coffee.”

  Like Rebel, Chelsea Jackson was relatively new to OMEGA. She’d replaced silver-haired Elizabeth Wells, much beloved by field agents and technicians alike. The females in the agency appreciated the new assistant’s cool efficiency. The males seemed to take her inbred reserve as a challenge to their masculinity, but Chelsea had shed that reserve to congratulate Rebel on the way she’d handled Blade. The two women had been friends ever since.

  “I need to talk to Lightning.”

  “I’ll let him know you’re on the way down.”

  Rebel took a second to drag a comb through her hair and slap on some lipstick. Feeling somewhat revived, she hit the titanium-shielded elevator that would whisk her down to the first floor. Before exiting, she checked the monitor set at eye level. It wasn’t likely any outsider would have arrived at the Offices of the Special Envoy in the short moments since Chelsea had cleared her, but security consciousness ran deep in Rebel’s psyche.

  Chelsea was at her desk, looking as cool and collected as always. “I’ll buzz you in.”

  She pressed a hidden switch with her knee. Rebel nodded her thanks and entered the mahogany-trimmed office that had served a succession of OMEGA’s directors.

  As always, tanned and tawny-haired Nick Jensen roused instant and very different reactions. Rebel was secretly in awe of his razor-sharp intellect and respected his flat refusal to ask an agent to do something he himself wouldn’t…or couldn’t. But damn, the man was hot!

  “I just got another report from Ace,” she in formed him. “He said Thornton agreed to Colonel El Hassan’s plan.”

  The news surprised Lightning as much as it had Rebel.

  “That’s interesting. Nothing in the target’s profile suggests she has the temperament—or the guts—to let herself be staked out like a sacrificial goat.”

  “Sounds like that’s exactly how the colonel plans to use her.”

  “Is Ace good with this?” Nick asked.

  “No, but he’s going along with it. For the time being. He’ll provide an update once he and El Hassan work out the final details.”

  “When does he anticipate that will happen?”

  “Within the next few hours,” Rebel replied. “He and Thornton are on their way to El Hassan’s military headquarters as we speak.”

  Jaci stared out the passenger window of the car. With the hazy light of dawn, reality had set in. It felt as gray and all-pervasive as the mist swirling off the Nile. She contemplated the chill of both while a tight-jawed Deke wove through streets already crowded with the morning rush.

  “This is crazy,” he ground out for the second or third time.

  Not as crazy as letting herself fall for a con man, Jaci thought miserably.

  Oh, he had the law on his side. The entire U.S. government, as a matter of fact. Yet he’d manipulated her with the consummate skill and utter ruthlessness of a professional grifter.

  And she’d taken the bait. Gullible and naive and just plain dumb, she’d actually believed a man like Deke Griffin could be attracted to her. Now she was the bait, despite Mr. Secret Agent’s very vocal objections.

  Cursing, he dodged a taxi and continued the heated argument he’d begun with Kahil at the hotel. “You’re in over your head here, Jaci. The guys who want to overthrow the government are fanatics. Certifiable whack jobs. You don’t know—none of us know—how violent they could become in their attempts to bring about their so-called cosmic reordering.”

  She refused to look at him. Staring through the swirling mist, she said stonily, “All the more reason to help Egyptian authorities identify the cult members.”

  “Kahil and his associates have other options at their disposal. They don’t need to use you to lure these guys out in the open.”

  Enough was enough! Burying her misery, Jaci swiveled to face him.

  “Listen up, Griffin. You’ve ruined the vacation I looked forward to for more than a year. In the process, you’ve reinforced the fact that I’m a total loser when it comes to judging men. You will not talk me out of doing what I think is right.”

  His jaw working, he kept his eyes on the unpredictable traffic. “We’ll discuss the loser bit later. At the moment, I’m more concerned about your safety than your irritation that I didn’t tell you the whole truth about myself.”

  She didn’t doubt that! The man made a career of lies and half-truths.

  “Irritation doesn’t begin to describe what I’m feeling at the moment,” she snapped.

  “All right. Okay. You’re pissed. We’ll talk about that later, too.” He pinned her with a dark look before returning his eyes to the road. “For now, just answer me this. Do you really think you’re doing ‘right’ by jumping into the middle of a foreign country’s political agenda?”

  “I didn’t jump,” she pointed out frigidly. “I was pushed.”

  “My point exactly.”

  Scowling, he cut around a slow-moving truck so top-heavy with produce it looked as though its wheels would collapse. Horns blared and drivers gestured, but Deke ignored the hubbub.

  “You don’t have to get in any deeper, Jaci. I can turn around now and head for the airport.”

  If she’d known the details of the plan Colonel El Hassan had devised, Jaci would have taken Deke up on his offer right then and there.

  She came close to it when she and Deke walked into the colonel’s office and he informed them that he had everything arranged. The terse announcement made
Jaci’s already jumpy nerves take another skip.

  Swallowing a rush of sudden doubts, she took the chair the colonel held out for her. He’d shaved and changed into a fresh uniform since responding to Deke’s middle-of-the-night call. Silver wings gleamed above his breast pocket. A variety of other hardware decorated his epaulets and collar.

  By contrast, Deke sported a night’s worth of stubble above the open neck of the shirt Jaci had clutched to her front with both fists. The once-crisp cotton was a wrinkled mess. His pleated trousers weren’t in any better shape. Yet his steely eyes remained locked on the colonel’s as El Hassan detailed his plan.

  “Even with the forces at my disposal, I cannot adequately protect you in the city. Not without potential harm to innocent civilians. And not if I want to throw out a net wide enough to catch more than a few small fish.”

  That wasn’t what Jaci wanted to hear from one of Egypt’s top security officials! Her stomach churned with doubts as he continued.

  “So my people will spread word among your friends on the tour—and to any who may be watching or listening—that you have decided to take a side trip to see something of Egypt outside Cairo and the ancient temples.”

  “Where am I going?”

  “To Jawal Oasis, in the Western Desert.”

  The irony of it hit her immediately. She’d fantasized about being carried off to a desert oasis, with Deke doing the carrying. Instead, she’d travel under military escort. So much for her erotic imaginings!

  “Jawal is a traditional watering hole for Bedouin caravans,” the colonel told her. “Very small and very isolated, which makes it possible for us to track every living thing that approaches.”

  The picture of a tiny pool ringed by palm trees and endless sand dunes leaped into Jaci’s head.

  “I’m certainly no military expert,” she said hesitantly, “but wouldn’t someplace that small and remote be more difficult to defend against an attack?”