A Summer Smile

fumes by the door. She halted, stunned by the sheer intensity of the pain. She heard a muttered imprecation from Daniel, and then his arm was around her, pushing her through the door, down the stairs, and out into the sunlight. The desert heat enveloped her, suffocating her. They were running toward the jeep, she realized. Another round of explosions was going off, shaking the earth beneath her feet and causing puffs of fire and smoke to appear like lethal blossoms on the starkness of the dunes.

Daniel’s hands were encircling her waist, lifting, almost throwing her into the jeep. He jumped into the driver’s seat and put the jeep into gear. The windshield in front of them exploded in a cobweb of splinters with a neat hole in the center. A bullet hole! She glanced back to see Hassan a few yards from the plane aiming again with the rifle. Hakim was stumbling down the steps of the plane, still reeling with pain.

“Get down!” Daniel’s roar was so harsh, she obeyed instantly. “Dammit, I was hoping the gas would give us a few more minutes.” His foot jammed down on the accelerator and the jeep leaped forward. Another bullet whistled past her head and ricocheted off the frame of the windshield. Daniel began to zigzag across the sands. Other shots followed, hitting somewhere in the rear of the jeep. Daniel was fumbling underneath the seat and bringing out a small black metal box.

“What’s that?” Zilah had to shout to be heard over the roar of the motor and the hail of bullets.

“I was going to wait until we were farther away, but I think we need the distraction more than the distance.” Daniel pressed the red button on the box.

The earth heaved as an explosion four times as strong as the previous ones rocked the desert. She glanced back over her shoulder to see that the Learjet was now nothing but a blazing inferno. “You blew up the plane!”

“I told you we needed a distraction.” He looked back over his shoulder. Hakim, who had been close to the plane, had been knocked off his feet and was crawling with desperate swiftness away from the flaming wreckage. Another rifle shot sounded. “Hassan doesn’t appear to have been stopped, but I think we’re out of range now.”

“You blew up the plane,” she repeated, dazed.

“Ben Raschid wants them,” Daniel said calmly. “I didn’t want to chance them turning chicken and flying out of here. I also wanted to make them mad enough to come after us across the border.”

“You planned for them to follow us?”

“You’re damn right.” His grin took on a touch of ferocity as he shot a sideways glance at her. His gaze lingered on her swollen lip. “I’ve decided that I want them too.”

She was wiping her streaming eyes with the handkerchief. “Well, I don’t think there’s any question you succeeded in making them mad enough. When the other two men return with the jeep, they’ll probably be hot on our trail.”

“Probably. But by that time we’ll be out of this desert and halfway through the hills. You’ll be across the border and safe at my friend’s compound before they reach Sedikhan.” His lips tightened grimly. “And then I’ll go on a little hunting trip.”

A shiver ran through her. The ferocity was no longer a touch but glittering sharp as a dagger in his face. Daniel Seifert was obviously a very dangerous man. For an instant she felt almost sorry for Hassan and his men. Then she realized just how ridiculous that thought was. He was only one man, for heaven’s sake. Clearly an extraordinary man, judging from his actions in the past half hour, but not invulnerable. “No,” she said quietly. “I’ve caused enough trouble. I don’t want you to put yourself in any more danger because of me.”

“My choice,” he said tersely. “You don’t have anything to say about it. I want them.”

“I do have something to say about it.” Her green eyes were suddenly sparking. “I’m very grateful for your help, but I won’t accept any more from you. I’ll handle everything from now on.”

“We’ll see about that,” Daniel muttered.

The glance she threw at him was exasperated. She felt as if she were beating her head against a stone wall. “I mean it, you know.”

He patted her knee affectionately. “I know you do.” His smile was so warm and gentle, she could almost forget the harshness that had been there before. “You seem to think you can handle the whole damn world.”

She lifted her chin. “I can.”

He chuckled, his dark blue eyes twinkling. “Maybe you can at that. It will be fun to stick around and at least see you try.”

She frowned. “How did you do it?”

His brow lifted inquiringly.

“My rescue. It was quite spectacular.” She shook her head in wonder. “Almost unbelievable.”

“I’m very good,” he said with a roguish grin. “I’ve been known to boggle the mind on occasion.”

“You’ve certainly succeeded in boggling mine. It was like something out of a James Bond movie.”

“The fireworks were a little theatrical, I admit. I have a tendency to be somewhat flamboyant, but it doesn’t make me any less effective. Clancy Donahue is also very fond of gadgets and indulges me.”

“You’re one of Clancy’s agents?”

His expression hardened. “I’d forgotten how familiar you are with Bradford and his friends. I was one of Clancy’s lieutenants, but I’m retired now. This is in the nature of a special mission.” His grim expression dissolved into a reckless grin. “He offered me something I couldn’t refuse.”

“It must have been very valuable to cause you to risk your life.”

“I think it may prove to be priceless.” His gaze held her own for a long moment, and she experienced that same bewildering sensation as when he had touched her lip on the plane. But he wasn’t touching her now, she thought. Only with his eyes and that smile that caused an almost physical rapport. She hurriedly looked away. “You didn’t answer me. How did you do it?”

He shrugged. “I spent most of the night planting those charges and setting the timers. The only dicey one was on the fuselage of the plane. If Hassan’s outside guard had been on the ball, he would have spotted me. There was no ground cover.”

“Was that a tear gas bomb you exploded on the plane?”

He shook his head. “It was one of Clancy’s chemical specials, created to affect the sinuses and the respiratory tract. It’s far more sophisticated than tear gas, as well as much more painful. One good whiff and it almost completely incapacitates a man.” His eyes darkened with concern. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “My chest aches and I can’t seem to stop crying. Otherwise I’m fine.” She frowned. “But how did you manage to stand it with nothing to cover your face?”

“Nose plugs and contact lenses.” He grimaced. “Together with that damned false ear I felt like the bionic man from the television series.”

“Oh, yes, the false ear.” She shook her head and chuckled. “I nearly fell over when you tore your left ear off. It looked so real.”

“Nothing but the best for Clancy. He did give me a choice of which appendage I wanted to duplicate for the bomb. But there were only two choices, and the other appendage I refused to destroy even in effigy.” He glanced casually at the gauges on the panel in front of him and his smile disappeared. He uttered a brief but violent curse.

“What’s wrong?”

“The gas, dammit. The gauge is dropping like a stone. One of the bullets must have hit the gas tank.”

Her eyes widened apprehensively. “We’re almost out of gas?”

He nodded. “And we’re still a good ten miles from the beginning of the foothills. We’ll be lucky if the jeep makes it another eight or nine miles. We’ll still have to hike a mile or two in the desert.”

“Is that all?” Zilah breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought we were going to be stranded out here for Hassan and his men to find.”

“It’s bad enough. It means that we’ll have only a short head start on Hassan and may have to play hide-and- seek in those hills tonight. We’ll have to stay off the main paths. We’ll be lucky if we get to the border by tomorrow morning.”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter when we get there, just so we do. A night in the hills won’t be so terrible.”

“You can handle it?” he asked mockingly.

“I can handle anything,” she said in a grave tone of voice. “I’ve had an excellent teacher.”

His lips tightened. “Bradford?”

She nodded. “David taught me practically everything I know.” Her voice softened. “He’s a wonderful, wonderful