Out of Sight by Cherry Adair Read Free Book Online

her eyes on until the spinning stopped, and she had/to wait it out. She concentrated fiercely on the conversation next door, hoping for a clue. Something to tell her where she was and what was going to happen next. Beyond the obvious torture thing.
    Someone was going to die come morning. She got that part. The who, where, and why eluded her. However, the fact that they sounded excited about it filled her with dread. Nothing worse than a bad guy who loved his work. She'd hazard a wild guess there weren't that many victims left to choose from.
    Carefully touching the back of her head, AJ discovered a huge, tender lump on the left side. Which accounted for the headache, but didn't tell her who'd hit her or how she'd ended up in this pit.
    She rolled to her knees, wanting to put at least a body-length distance between her nose and the floor. The air wasn't much better at two feet than it was at ground level, but at least nothing could crawl into her hair. She was either in a bathroom or a cell. She'd vote for the cell. Or perhaps she was two for two.
    It took less than a minute to travel around the room and trace the circumference with her hand. Eight feet by eight feet. Stone walls. No furniture. No toilet. There went the bathroom theory. Cement floor. Wooden door. Locked, of course. That was it.
    And one female T-FLAC agent who was shit out of luck.
    "Don't panic," she told herself firmly as her heartbeat sped up, and sweat popped out on her brow. Just don't panic. Yeah, right. Trapped. Beat up. Maybe about to be killed. Why spoil the fun with panic?
    AJ braced her arms on the wall, and shifted her feet apart to do press-ups against the rough stone. She needed energy, and a plan. Thinking about what was happening next door or her various aches and pains wasn't going to achieve either. The physical movement helped her concentrate.
    "Come on, AJ," she ordered quietly, "think. You're a smart girl. The cream of the Academy. Now's your chance to prove it." Her muscles quivered in protest as she lowered herself slowly. First she had to figure out where she was. Somewhere hot… it was stifling in here… she raised her body away from the wall, slowly.
    Arabic… She got a mental flash of the pyramids. Egypt… Yes! She was here to eliminate Raazaq!
    That was it. AJ gusted out a relieved breath. Okay. The blow to the head hadn't scrambled her brains totally. She was here with a team to take out Raazaq.
    And the team consisted of—?
    And the plan was to—?
    She let her forehead rest for a moment on the rough stone wall. Totally or not, her brains were scrambled. "Oh, shit."
    Kane slumped against the wall facing the small rural jail on the outskirts of Cairo and took another clumsy swig from the bottle cradled in his gnarled hand. Damn fool woman had got herself locked up. And not by the Cairo police, either. Raazaq had damn long arms.
    They'd kill her in the morning. They'd sure as hell worked over the two guys locked up inside with her. Their screams of pain could be heard quite clearly in the hot, still night. Damn it to hell.
    Oh, yeah, they'd kill AJ Cooper without a blink. After they tortured every scrap of intel she had out of her. In the most painful and brutal ways possible. He suspected the only reason they hadn't interrogated her yet was they were saving the woman for last. To prolong their entertainment.
    If they knew how scared she was already, it would probably take all the fun out of it.
    She'd spill her guts in two seconds flat at the fast hint of torture.
    He shuddered at how cleverly cruel they could be. How they'd withheld food and water in exchange for intel. And when he hadn't given it up, how they'd brutalized his team. One at a time. Until he'd thought he'd go mad with their screams of agony. It went on for days, and days…
    In a cold sweat, he shoved his personal nightmare aside. Wasn't going to happen. Not on his watch. But Jesus, he fucking hated being put in this position again. Responsible for somebody