Special Forces: The Operator
Special Forces: The Operator
Cindy Dees
Bound together by duty… Staying together by passion Special Forces Rebel McQueen is prepared for anything…that is, except sexy security specialist Avi Bronson. When Rebel and Avi discover an imminent terrorist attack they must protect thousands of innocent lives. But who will save Rebel from certain heartache if she dares to succumb to Avi…
Bound together by duty, they are the first line of defense.
The Mission Medusa series continues
Intense training has prepared Special Forces member Rebel McQueen for anything…that is, except sexy security specialist Avi Bronson. They are complete opposites, and yet only Rebel and Avi believe in an imminent terrorist attack. Together, they must protect thousands of innocent lives. But who will save Rebel from certain heartache if she dares to succumb to Avi—and her most dangerous attraction?
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author CINDY DEES is the author of more than fifty novels. She draws upon her experience as a US Air Force pilot to write romantic suspense. She’s a two-time winner of the prestigious RITA® Award for romance fiction, a two-time winner of the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award for Romantic Suspense and an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Best Author Award nominee. She loves to hear from readers at www.cindydees.com (http://www.cindydees.com).
Also By Cindy Dees (#ufded4925-f88d-5b39-b4a4-5eb2a9dcd180)
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
Mission Medusa
Special Forces: The Recruit
Special Forces: The Spy
Special Forces: The Operator
The Coltons of Roaring Springs
Colton Under Fire
Code: Warrior SEALs
Undercover with a SEAL
Her Secret Spy
Her Mission with a SEAL
Navy SEAL Cop
Soldier’s Last Stand
The Spy’s Secret Family
Captain’s Call of Duty
Soldier’s Rescue Mission
Her Hero After Dark
Breathless Encounter
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Special Forces: The Operator
Cindy Dees
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-09415-3
SPECIAL FORCES: THE OPERATOR
© 2019 Cynthia Dees
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
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They waited in silence as the first course of their meal was served: hors d’oeuvres of wild mushrooms stuffed with crab, escargot and truffle pâté.
He silently took pleasure in watching the orgasmic expressions crossing Rebel’s face with each new flavor she encountered. She was a great deal more expressive than she likely thought she was. But then, a man like him was adept at catching every nuance of facial and body language, too.
Eventually, he leaned forward. “I did get one interesting piece of intel from my people this afternoon.”
She looked up expectantly from her potato-leek soup, abruptly all business, food forgotten. He sent a silent mental apology to the chef.
“I’ll share it with you, but on one condition,” he murmured.
“What’s that?”
He stood up, went around the table and held out his hand to her. “Dance with me.”
Dear Reader (#ufded4925-f88d-5b39-b4a4-5eb2a9dcd180),
Welcome to the third installment in the ongoing adventures of the Medusas!
I cannot tell you how much fun it has been to revisit my first-ever women Special Forces operators and see what they’re up to these days. Thank you so much for the opportunity and for all your emails and letters asking for more Medusa stories. I hope you’re enjoying the team’s new adventures even half as much as I am.
Many moons ago, I wrote about the Medusas operating at the Winter Olympics, and it seemed only fitting that this time around the team should be sent to work at the Summer Olympics. Thus, this story was born.
Throw in a fun setting, the whole Medusa team and a supersexy hero. Stir until well blended. Serve hot, of course. Voilà, the perfect recipe for exciting suspense and a truly yummy romance.
As always, I encourage you to pour yourself your favorite reading drink, sit back, settle in and enjoy the wild ride that Medusa Rebel McQueen and her perfect hero, Avi Bronson, take us on as they race to save the day and find love.
Let the games begin...
Warmly,
Cindy
Contents
Cover (#ud2ac3891-ac52-5d33-8e34-492f3cfac70e)
Back Cover Text (#ubf70c055-18cd-5625-b9aa-6668aa9c45c3)
About the Author (#u69accbac-4fd1-59c5-9190-cf40cc28d37e)
Booklist (#ube0eab85-1bf7-5b63-882e-489c30eaca79)
Title Page (#u3d2d4bd4-5208-5c16-bb6c-359b0555aa3a)
Copyright (#u9f6a1985-2bc9-568a-9ec3-e8b38271eb9c)
Note to Readers
Introduction (#u82afc4ef-2ab9-5501-82f6-d3e74470ad19)
Dear Reader (#u5647254f-f268-572a-ab6f-88353fccf046)
Chapter 1 (#ub0bc83f5-cac6-5f56-a961-219228a4a364)
Chapter 2 (#u0fa66960-114e-552a-99cb-d8889ebaa05e)
Chapter 3 (#u17415814-138c-5d2c-bc62-a07d65cb2190)
Chapter 4 (#u1f0ce433-81ea-55c9-881b-3d16fba6c9c6)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#ufded4925-f88d-5b39-b4a4-5eb2a9dcd180)
It started as a hot tub party.
It quickly devolved into a hot tub orgy.
Rebel McQueen was supposed to provide security for a dozen members of the US women’s softball delegation in the midst of it, but she’d last seen her charges disappearing into a mass of gorgeous naked bodies that was the Norwegian men’s water polo team.
Acute regret speared into her.
Where did she go wrong with her life that she was a lousy security guard while these other young women of her approximate age and physical ability were partying with possibly the hottest guys on the planet?
The “hot tub” was actually a giant swimming pool in the Olympic Village that had been heated to spa temperatures for the duration of the games. Easily two hundred athletes were in the pool now, engaging in every manner and combination of sexual play.
She got it. They were young, athletic, far from home, and had precompetition adrenaline galore before the games opened tomorrow night. But she was responsible for those softball players, and she couldn’t spot a single one of them right now. All she could make out in the churning water were writhing limbs and the occasional flash of a pale face. The rest of it could just as easily have been a feeding frenzy of sharks.
The Medusas—the highly classified, all-female, Special Forces team she was part of—were an ultra-under-the-radar part of the American security contingent at these games.
Tonight, the American security staff was undermanned, and she’d volunteered to help out. But she’d had no idea she was in for this! The Medusas had been briefed that the Olympic Village would be a wild party scene, but nothing in her Special Forces training had prepared her for a frat party with twenty thousand wild children determined to play. Hard.
Play. Not a word that had meaning in her world. Duty. Honor. Country. Those words, immortalized by General Douglas MacArthur, were the ones she lived by.
Oh joy. Word of the orgy must be spreading, for more athletes started arriving at the pool in a steady stream, stripping naked and jumping in.
It was arguably the best-looking group of naked people Rebel had ever seen, at any rate. Idly, she played a game of “guess the sport based on body type.”
There went a lean, no-fat marathon runner.
Disproportionately massive torso and skinny legs? A rower.
Big gut, wreathed in muscle—weight lifter.
A crowd began to form around the edges of the pool. Whether they were purely spectators to the debauchery or waiting for an inch of open water to join in, she couldn’t tell. But they elbowed Rebel back from the pool with their muscular, jostling bodies.
Swearing under her breath, she let herself be propelled back. Her orders were to be inconspicuous. Instead of resisting, she occupied herself with watching the watchers. Which was why she happened to glimpse a familiar face in the crowd. A face that made her lurch. A face that emphatically should not be here.
The face of a terrorist.
Surely she’d made a mistake. She moved quickly around the pool, trying to keep an eye on the man, who looked shockingly like Mahmoud Akhtar. Mahmoud led a terror cell that kidnapped her teammate, Piper Ford, last year.
Piper’s fiancé was an undercover CIA officer who’d helped her escape from Mahmoud, and who’d captured photographs of the entire cell of Iranian operatives. Rebel had looked at an eight-by-ten glossy photo of Mahmoud posted in the Medusas’ ready room every day for the past eight months. She knew his face.
And she’d just seen it here in Sydney, Australia.
Next to Mahmoud, a second man stood up from where he’d been squatting by the edge of the pool. Yousef Kamali. Mahmoud’s second-in-command and also a glossy photo on her team’s personal Most Wanted wall.
She wove through the throng of people to the spot where Mahmoud and Yousef had been standing and turned in a slow three-sixty.
No sign of the two men.
She had to be wrong. No way could known terrorists gain access to the Olympic Village. Not unless the Iranian government had given them credentials that attached them to the Iranian Olympic team...
Nah. The Iranians wouldn’t be so brazen.
She spied two males wearing black tracksuits with green-white-red stripes down the arms and legs. Iran team uniforms. She swore under her breath.
The pair was moving away from the pool area quickly. Purposefully.
Frowning, she debated whether to leave her post and follow them. It wasn’t like the softball girls were leaving this party anytime soon. But she was responsible for their safety, which technically included apprehending terrorists.
The Iranians approached a streetlight with its pole-mounted surveillance camera and, as she looked on, both men simultaneously turned their faces to the right.
Away from the camera.
Sonofa—That was the deliberate act of someone who didn’t want to be identified. The act of a trained operative. Or a terrorist.
She took off running, but the two men were well ahead of her, and more athletes were streaming toward the pool. She dodged and weaved, doing the whole fish swimming upstream thing, desperately trying to keep the Iranians in sight. But she was only five foot four, and it was darned near impossible to see over the glamorous amazons that were most Olympic athletes.
Finally, she broke out of the worst of the crush and glimpsed her quarry passing through one of the checkpoints to leave the Olympic Village. She put on a burst of speed as they scanned their credentials and stepped onto a city street.
She flew through the checkpoint without bothering to scan herself out. She couldn’t lose the Iranians! Once they hit the giant street party outside the village, following them was going to get immeasurably harder. She had to close as much of the gap as she could before they lost themselves in the crowds. Sydney was in full celebration mode, and this part of the city had been completely shut down to allow foot traffic to fill the streets.
Rebel raced through crowds of revelers, but the Iranians picked up speed in front of her, and she stretched out into a full sprint. The men turned a corner and disappeared.
When she approached the intersection, she slowed, turning the corner fast and low. It turned out to be a relatively quiet, dark street lined with closed office buildings. And it was empty. She raced down it, searching side to side for the Iranians. Nothing. She burst out into another crowded thoroughfare.
Where did they go?
There. To her left. She gathered herself to take off running again just as the men disappeared into a building ahead.
Without warning, big, hard hands grabbed her by both arms, dragging her back into the dark street she’d just emerged from. She stumbled backward, fetching up hard against a building. Immediately, she was flattened against it by a living wall of muscle.
Chagrin roared through her. She’d gotten so focused on chasing her quarry in front of her that she’d forgotten to watch her own tail. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She knew better.
“Let go of me,” she ground out. The terrorists were getting away!
“Who are you?” a male voice rasped from over her head.
“The person who’s going to hurt you if you don’t let me go. Right. Now.”
“Little thing like you?” Humor laced her battering ram’s voice.
No help for it. She was about to be conspicuous.
* * *
Avi Bronson yelped as the fleeing suspect, a tiny, shockingly quick female, stomped painfully on the top of his left foot. He swore when she grabbed his thumb off her shoulder and gave it a vicious wrench.
“Damn, woman! You’ve practically dislocated my thumb.”
A normal man would step back from the tiny virago now throwing painful elbows at him, kneeing him dangerously close to his groin and scratching at his face. But he was a trained Special Forces soldier, and the last thing he dared do was let this woman get an arm’s length between them where she could really wind up with a fist or foot and actually damage him.
He leaned in against her, using his superior size and weight to mash her even flatter against the wall at her back, silently thanking his wool suit coat for absorbing the worst of her attack.
She went still abruptly.
“Are you done?” he asked cautiously.
“Yes.” Her tone was surly. Not even close to subdued.
“If I step back from you, will you stop attacking me?” he tried.
Too long a pause. Then, “Yes.”
Liar.
He jumped back all at once, throwing up his fists to defend himself. And just in the nick of time. She flew at him like an angry bird.
But then she surprised him by spinning away and taking off at a dead run down the street. Genuinely irritated now, he gave chase.
Crap, she was fast.
Of course, she had the advantage over him in weaving through the heavy crowd, being as small as she was. He struggled to keep sight of her as she dodged among the civilians ahead of him.
Then she did a weird thing,
She came to a dead stop in front of a giant discotheque, staring at it in what could only be utter disgust.
Avi screeched to a stop beside her. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to come with me—”
“Oh, save it,” she muttered, yanking out a set of Olympic credentials from inside her jacket. The holographic ID card hanging from a lanyard around her neck and declaring her to be from the American delegation, certainly looked authentic.
“Nonetheless. I need you to come with me,” he repeated.
She finally turned her full attention on him, and he was taken aback by her giant blue eyes, glaring at him as indignantly as if he’d kicked her puppy. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“Olympic security,” he said shortly.
“I showed you my credentials. Let’s see yours,” she challenged.
“Not here,” he muttered. A lifetime of being reviled and targeted for being Israeli had taught him to be deeply reticent about announcing his nationality in crowded, public settings. Not to mention, he was not about to air Olympic security business on a street full of half-drunk spectators.
“Why won’t you show me your credentials?” the woman demanded.
“Just come with me, will you?”
“I can’t. I need to get surveillance video from inside this club.”
“I can get you the footage faster than anyone in there can if you’ll come with me.” He said the last few words through gritted teeth. This woman was really starting to get under his skin. She was blithely ignoring him as if she didn’t give a flip for being stopped by Olympic security.
“Fine,” she declared. “There are at least four exits from this place to three different streets, and thanks to you, I have no way of knowing which direction the men I was following went. I’ve lost them.”
“Lost who?”
She blinked, as if abruptly becoming aware of being closely surrounded by dozens of Olympic guests. “Uhh, nobody I care to talk about out here in the open.”
“Hence my request that you come with me.” He emphasized the word request to make it perfectly clear that this was, in fact, not a request at all.
The woman took several quick strides away from him, back toward the Olympic Village and then had the gall to stop and look over her shoulder at him. “Are you coming or not, He-Man?”
He lurched into movement, not sure whether to be amused or fantasize about strangling her. He fell in beside her, matching his long stride to her shorter one. “Are you always this touchy?” he murmured.
“You haven’t seen anything, yet. We’re in public and I have to behave myself.”
“Good Lord.”
“Oh, praying won’t save you from me.”
He glanced down at her in something approaching shock and she continued, smiling sweetly all the while, “When we get back to the village, I’m going to give you a piece of my mind...and chew off a chunk of your hide while I’m at it.”
Amused. He was definitely amused. A grin crept across his features. She reminded him of a little angry sparrow—her feathers all puffed up and flapping her wings furiously at the big bad hawk. She looked ready at any second to fly at his head and peck at him.
“You’re cute when you’re mad,” he murmured as he took her by the elbow to guide her through a particularly thick cluster of drunks spilling out of a bar into the street.
Her biceps flexed under his fingers and he noted that her arm was rock hard within his grasp. She definitely worked out. But then, the Olympics drew the fittest people on Earth into one place.
Leaning in close to her and using his big body as a shield, he protected her from jostles and errant hands as they passed through a group of loudly singing young men wearing Irish national soccer team paraphernalia. One of them, carrying a brimming full pitcher of beer in each hand stumbled, and Avi spun in front of the woman, taking a hefty slosh of beer down his back for his trouble.
While the drunk mumbled a slurred apology, Avi merely rolled his eyes and ushered the woman onward. Cold, sticky wetness made his shirt cling to his back as the beer soaked through his suit.
“Thanks,” she muttered reluctantly.
“You’re welcome.”
There was a bit of a delay getting her scanned into the village since she hadn’t scanned out properly when she left, but the guard sorted it out quickly enough when Avi flashed his own senior security credentials.
“I have to make a phone call,” she announced, stopping just inside the fenced enclosure surrounding the large campus of dormitories, dining halls, workout facilities and delegation headquarters. Sighing in frustration at yet another delay, he nonetheless stopped and waited while she pulled out her cell phone.
He listened with interest as she said, “Tessa, it’s me. I need one of you to head over to the north village pool and take over babysitting the women’s softball team. I’ve got another situation to sort out right now.” A pause, then, “I’ll tell you about it when I get back to Ops. Speaking of which, could you call Major T. and have him meet me at the ops center ASAP?”
Avi heard an exclamation that sounded like surprise from the person on the other end of the call.
The woman snorted. Then, “He’s never off duty. He eats, sleeps and breathes the job. And I seriously have to speak with him. We have a potential situation.”
Spoken like a true security operator. Avi frowned. Who was this woman?
She was speaking again. “...join us after you fish the women’s softball team out of the pool and tuck them back in their rooms.” She added, “Oh, and their clothing is in a pile at the northwest corner of the pool. Yes. All of their clothing. It’s an orgy over there. Thanks. Bye.”
She pocketed her phone and glared up at him. “Let’s make this fast. I have someplace to be.”
He crossed his arms and smirked down at her. “All right. Let’s try this again. Who are you?”
“This is still far too public an environment for me to answer that. And I’m certainly not telling you anything without you showing me proper identification.”
“Fair enough. Come with me.” He turned and headed toward the Israeli security operations center. Returning the favor from earlier, he glanced back over his shoulder and asked wryly, “Are you coming, She-Woman?”
The woman lurched into motion, scowling. Smiling a little to himself, he led her to his delegation’s headquarters.
The atmosphere was all business inside the Israeli security operations center. Ever since Munich almost fifty years ago, the Israelis operated on the assumption that their athletes were active terror targets. And it was up to the men and women in this room to protect those athletes—the finest flowers of Israel’s youth.
He didn’t stop in the main area crammed with desks, video monitors, computers and mostly big, capable men. Spying an empty office, he stepped inside, turned on the light and waited for his prisoner to join him. Not that he would call her that to her face. His ribs and foot still ached from her initial assault. She might be tiny, but she had sharp elbows and knew how to use them.
In the bright light of the office, he got a good look at her face. She had smooth, soft-looking skin, regular features that grew more pretty the longer he looked at them, and those big, blue eyes of hers. They were her best feature, for sure. Her hair was a soft chocolate brown shot through with strands of gold, like she spent a fair bit of time outside. He already knew she was stronger than her small stature suggested.
She pulled out her credentials again and this time he did the same. Silently, they exchanged badges.
“Rebel McQueen,” he read aloud. “That’s an unusual name. Did your mother dislike you?”
“No. She was a fanatical Steve McQueen fan. He was an actor—”
“I know who he was. The Great Escape is one of my favorite movies.”
She mused, “Allied prisoners break out of Nazi prison camp. I could see why that movie would be popular in Israel.” The woman continued, “Anyway, McQueen’s nickname was ‘the American Rebel.’”
He commented sympathetically, “You must have to explain that a lot.”
“You have no idea.” She rolled her eyes, and they traded brief smiles of commiseration.
She glanced down at his identification. “Avi Bronson. Israeli Defense Forces? Mossad?”
“Sayerat Matkal,” he replied. Not that she would have any idea what that was. Which was the point. His team didn’t advertise their existence, let alone their presence at a venue as public as the Summer Olympics.
“Unit 269?” she blurted.
“You know who we are?” he blurted back, shocked that she’d heard of his special operations unit. It wasn’t the sort of thing most civilians knew about.
“Yes,” she replied impatiently. “You guys are the primary hostage rescue unit for the Israeli Defense Forces. I’d have thought most of you security types here would be Mista’arvim—counterterrorism units.”
He shrugged. “I did a stint with them a few years back. I also rolled with Shayetet 13 early in my career.”
“The Navy SEAL equivalent, huh? Well, aren’t you the overachiever?”
He frowned down at her “Okay, so you know more about Israeli Special Forces units than the average bear. How is that?”
“It’s my job?”
“Don’t be cute with me. What do you do as a member of the American delegation, Miss McQueen?”
“Lieutenant McQueen. US Navy. Roving security for the American delegation. Sometimes it’s handy to have female security guards. We can go places men can’t.”
He frowned. “Regular US military personnel aren’t assigned to Olympic security details.”
She shrugged, offering no further explanation of why she, a military member, was here on a distinctly civilian assignment.
His mental antennae wiggled wildly. She wasn’t telling him the truth. Or at least not the full truth.
“Why did you flee the village without scanning out properly?” he tried.
“I told you. I was following someone. I didn’t have time to mess with scanning my ID.”
“And who were you following?” he asked gently when she didn’t continue.
She huffed. “I thought I saw a guy named Mahmoud Akhtar.”
“Akhtar? Here?” Mahmoud Akhtar was the kind of guy who made men like Avi lose sleep at night. Akhtar was highly trained, highly intelligent and highly radicalized. He was a known agent of the Iranian government and believed to be a wet operator—meaning his skills and missions covered everything up to and including terror and assassination. It could not possibly be good news for the Israeli delegation if Akhtar was here in Sydney. “Are you sure?” Avi asked the woman curtly.
“No. I’m not sure.” She sounded exasperated. “I was trying to get close enough to make a positive identification when you decided to go all Neanderthal and tackle me.”
“I didn’t tackle you. I merely stopped you for questioning.” She opened her mouth, obviously to argue, and he took an aggressive step forward to loom over her. He had nearly twenty-five centimeters—ten inches—on her in height. “If I had tackled you, you would have been smashed flat on the ground. And I would have handcuffed you.” He added, “As it was, I probably should have tackled you. But I was exceptionally restrained.”
She snorted. “You should have been even more restrained. Mahmoud and his buddy, Yousef Kamali, got away, thanks to you.”
He frowned, reluctant to believe her claim that an international terrorist had been strolling around the grounds of the Olympic Village. But caution dictated that he take her seriously, of course.
She didn’t seem delusional.
And the fact that she even knew who Mahmoud Akhtar and his sidekick, Yousef Kamali, were, meant she had some sort of access to classified material—also indicative of a not delusional female.
Still. Akhtar here? It would be a huge risk for a terrorist of his notoriety.
She interrupted his skeptical train of thought, demanding, “You said you could get me video from that nightclub. I want to see it right away. I might be able to make a positive ID from that.”
“Come with me.” He led her into the main room and gestured for her to sit at his desk. Reaching past her shoulder, he typed into his keyboard quickly, calling up the Israeli link to the entire Sydney CCTV—closed-circuit television—system.
Clicking on the map of downtown Sydney that popped up, he selected the nightclub. It took a moment, but then his screen flashed up black-and-white imagery of the exterior of the disco where Rebel had finally stopped running.
“Do you have interior video feed?” she murmured up at him.
He glanced down at her and was close enough to see that her eyelashes were long and silky, a soft brown that matched her hair. And she smelled good. A gentle, sweet scent like vanilla, warm and inviting. A study in contrasts, she was turning out to be. Sharp words, sweet mouth. Hard elbows, soft skin. Tough attitude, gentle eyes.
“Interior video?” she repeated.
Oh. Right. He shook himself out of staring at her and typed again. Planting both hands on the desk, he leaned forward beside Rebel to study the crowd gyrating on-screen. He hit the pause button and froze the image. Face by face, he scanned all the people in the frame. He didn’t see anyone resembling the Iranian terrorist.
Rebel leaned back. “This is hopeless. The crowd is too thick to spot my guys without a full forensic analysis of this video. What if we run the video in real time and see if we can spot Mahmoud and Yousef entering the club?”
He estimated it had been fifteen minutes since he’d detained her, and he backed up the video twenty minutes to be safe. He hit Play.
He pulled up a rolling chair from the next desk over and sat down beside Rebel. Their shoulders rubbed together as they both leaned forward, staring intently at the moving images in front of them.
Both of them jolted at the same moment as two men wearing black tracksuits entered the frame. They bumped into each other, and Avi mumbled an apology at the same time Rebel did. Their gazes met, startled, and she looked away immediately, a blush staining her cheeks. Was she shy, or did she find him attractive, or both? Hmm. Interesting.
She stabbed at the video monitor. “Those are my guys.”
“Unfortunately, that’s only the back of their heads,” he commented. “Let me see if there’s another angle.” He advanced the video frame by frame in search of a good facial shot of the men.
Nothing.
He pulled up the second camera in the club, and damned if the men weren’t moving through the space with their heads turned to the side, avoiding being seen clearly on that camera, too.
Rebel leaned back in disgust. “They did that same trick when they were leaving the village. They turned their faces away from the surveillance cameras as if they knew exactly where they were.”
He pushed away from the desk and leaned back in his chair, linking his hands behind his head as he stared at her. “Let’s say you’re correct, and that’s Mahmoud Akhtar. How did he get into the Olympic Village?”
“Obviously, the Iranians gave him credentials.”
“Their entire delegation undergoes thorough background checks by the International Olympic Committee. And my people run our own background checks above and beyond the IOC’s. We would have spotted him.”
She threw him a “duh” look. “Obviously, the Iranians substituted him after the fact in place of someone who passed the background check.”
“Or he could have stolen the credentials. But either way, the next question is why?” he asked reasonably.
“Because the Iranians have something planned to disrupt the games.”
“Like what?” he asked, interested to see how she answered. The Israelis had spent the past four years running possible scenarios of their own and preparing to stop each one.
She shrugged. “He won’t be operating alone. Last time we had contact with him, he was the leader of a six-man cell. The man I saw with him tonight, Yousef Kamali, was one of those men. My guess is Mahmoud has reconstituted his team.”
Avi jumped all over her slip of the tongue. “We? We who? What group are you really a part of?”
She threw him a withering glare. “A group you don’t need to know about.”
He arched a skeptical eyebrow at her. “Did you not hear who I work for?”
She shrugged. “I stand by my statement.”
Huh. So she worked for some superclassified security team the Americans had put together—that included women. His Mossad buddies would find that interesting.
“You never answered my question,” he pressed. “What do you think Mahmoud and this hypothetical team of his are up to?”
“I have no idea. But I know a guy who might be able to make an educated guess.”
“I know several guys who’ve spent the past few years making educated guesses,” he snapped. “Give me more than that.”
“I don’t have more. But I can tell you one thing. If Mahmoud Akhtar is here, he’s up to no good.”
“On that, we are agreed.” He met her gaze grimly, and this time her big blue eyes were brimming over with worry. An urge to rock his chair forward onto all four legs, gather her into his arms and comfort her shocked him into stillness. This woman was the last person he would expect to accept comfort from him. Such a prickly little thing, she was.
“Would you like to come with me to my security team’s meeting?” she said all of a sudden, surprising him mightily.
“Do I have the proper clearance to attend it?” he asked, his voice as dry as the desert.
She rolled her eyes. “I can’t guarantee my boss will let you stay, but you Israelis are an obvious possible target. It makes sense to loop you into at least some of what we know about Mahmoud.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
“In the spirit of Olympic cooperation, I’m offering you an olive branch,” she said with a huff. “Take it and be grateful, already.”
“Fair enough. Thank you.” He quoted quietly, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”
“Should I recognize that?” she asked.
“It’s your Bible. Psalms 133.”
She frowned. “I don’t get much time for religion in my work.”
“Hmm. My work is all about religion. Or freedom of religion, at any rate.”
“Right now, a threat to your peoples’ freedom is walking around out there, no doubt planning something dastardly. Although I’d put it at about equal odds between your country and mine as to which one is the primary target,” she replied.
He asked, “When was the last time your people had contact with Akhtar? What were his targets at that time?”
“Last fall. And his target was a schoolteacher. He planned to kidnap her and blackmail her husband into filing a false report on a nuclear facility in Iran. Instead, Mahmoud accidentally kidnapped one of my teammates. She escaped with the help of an undercover man on the team. We got to the teacher’s husband—a nuclear facilities inspector in Tehran—before Mahmoud did, and the husband filed a report showing that Iran was trying to import nuclear triggers from Russia by way of Turkey.”
“I heard about that!” Avi exclaimed. “Wasn’t there some sort of shoot-out in Tehran? Several major arms dealers killed and the deal scuttled? Our...sources...report the Iranians were livid.”
She shrugged looking entirely unrepentant.
“You were involved with all of that?” he asked incredulously.
“You don’t have to sound so surprised.” She was back to being defensive. And her hackles were standing up again. Maybe she was more like a baby badger than a hedgehog.
“C’mon, then,” she said briskly. “Bring your Olympic credentials and your fancy security clearance with you. You’ll need them both to hear what my team has to say.”
Chapter 2 (#ufded4925-f88d-5b39-b4a4-5eb2a9dcd180)
Rebel jumped as Avi’s big, warm palm landed lightly in the small of her back. The power and gentleness of it sent crazy zinging sensations ricocheting in all directions through her body. She inhaled light and fast, her adrenaline levels ready for combat—or sex.
Oh, c’mon, Self. You’ve been around plenty of hot special operators in the past year. This one is no different.
Except the tingling didn’t go away. And her breathing didn’t settle down.
“This way,” he murmured, guiding her through the maze of Israeli security personnel at their desks. “There’s a rear exit where we won’t be seen.”
Now he was getting the idea. She liked—she needed—to operate under the radar and away from the prying eyes of the public as much as possible. They slipped out into the warm night and, by unspoken mutual agreement, wove around the edges of the Olympic Village, mostly avoiding the surveillance cameras whose feeds were shared with all of the security delegations.
She swiped a key card she pulled out of a zipped pocket inside her jacket and stood before a retinal scanner to gain entrance for herself and her big Israeli guest into the back entrance of the American operations center. It had its own building containing both offices and housing for the large contingent of security specialists in Sydney to protect American athletes.
Vividly aware of the big man following her and the curious glances being thrown his way, she led Bronson across a room much like the one at Israeli operations, crowded with desks and video monitors. This room, too, was half-filled with big, capable-looking men and a few serious, focused women. Ignoring them, Rebel led her guest to the conference room and ushered him inside.
Her boss, Army Major Gunnar Torsten, looked over her shoulder at the Israeli. He did a double take. “Avi?”
“Gun? Long time no see,” the Israeli exclaimed.
Rebel looked on in disgust as the two men shook hands warmly and clapped each other on the back. Of course, they knew each other. Torsten was fond of saying how small the Special Forces community really was.
The men were a study in physical contrast. Where blond Torsten’s hair was straight and buzzed short, the Israeli’s dark hair was wavy and thick enough to run her fingers through it. Torsten was fair and blue-eyed, where Avi Bronson was bronzed and brown-eyed. But that was where the contrast ended. Both men were tall, fit, and moved with confident grace. Also, they both had that particular cool look in their eyes announcing they were lethal, and furthermore, that they knew it.
“What brings you to the Land of Oz, Avi?” Torsten asked.
“Olympic security detail. You?”
“Same.”
Torsten glanced at Rebel. “You summoned me, Lieutenant McQueen?”
She winced at his dry tone, not sure whether to interpret the use of her title as formality for the guest’s benefit or a signal that she was in trouble for her presumption. Her boss was a very hard man to read.
She responded grimly, “I spotted two men tonight who looked shockingly like Mahmoud Akhtar and Yousef Kamali.”
Torsten sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re sure it was them?”
“I only saw them from a distance, but I know Mahmoud’s face. I’m pretty sure it was him.”
Torsten stared at her for a long moment as his expression passed through shock and chagrin, ending up wreathed in speculation.
She watched her boss cautiously as he placed a phone call on the speakerphone sitting on the table in front of him. He said without preamble, “Piper, how quickly can Zane join us?”
Rebel’s teammate answered briskly over the speaker, “He can be here in twenty-four hours from when I call him, sir.”
That wasn’t bad, given that the flight itself took on the order of twenty-two hours.
“Make the call,” Torsten said quietly. He disconnected the call to Piper.
Avi piped up. “Who is this Zane person?”
Torsten answered, “CIA officer. Embedded with Mahmoud and his cell in the US for several months last year. Best expert we’ve got on the bastard.”
“And who are these ladies you’re working with?” Avi asked, gesturing at the phone and then at Rebel.
The room fell silent. Rebel stared at Torsten, who stared at the Israeli.
Torsten asked obliquely, “You’re still operational, my friend? You’ve still got all your clearances?”
“Yes to both.” Avi was frowning and looking back and forth between her and Torsten, now.
Rebel watched apprehensively as Torsten stood up, closed the conference room door and came back to the table to sit. He wasn’t going to brief in the Israeli, was he? Her safety, and that of her teammates depended in no small part upon the secrecy around them.
Torsten said, “I command a team of women called the Medusas. They’re a fully operational Special Forces team. I have four more operatives out working in the village, right now.”
Piper and Tessa, original team members along with Rebel, were probably still working on fishing the women’s softball team out of the pool party and herding them back to their quarters.
Gia Rykhof and Lynx Everly, the two newest additions to the team, were working a media event for the US Women’s Gymnastic team, tonight. These Olympic Games were Gia and Lynx’s first operational assignment. They had more training to do before they would be fully up to speed, but both women could still handle themselves in most any situation.
“An entire team made up of women?” Avi repeated blankly.
“Correct,” Torsten answered briskly.
Avi Bronson was not the first man to react that way to hearing about the Medusas, and he would not be the last. But it still bugged Rebel that he acted so surprised and didn’t automatically take her and her teammates seriously.
Chauvinist.
Torsten leaned forward, asking Avi, “What have your people got on Mahmoud and Yousef?”
“Nothing recent that I’m aware of. Not until I caught up with your...operative...earlier after she raced out of the village without scanning out properly. She’s the one who brought Mahmoud Akhtar to my attention and claims to have seen him.”
“Claims to have seen him?” Rebel echoed in annoyance. “I know what I saw!”
Torsten intervened smoothly. “Avi believes you. And so do I. Where did Mahmoud and Yousef go?”
She answered more calmly, “I followed them out of the Olympic Village to a discotheque. They entered from one street, crossed the club and must have exited onto another street. I lost them when your buddy, here, tried to detain me and prevented me from following them.”
“I was just doing my job,” Avi protested.
Rebel glared at him. Damned if his dark eyes and darker soul didn’t light up with amusement in response. He seemed to think she was hilarious. As long as he didn’t think she was a joke—and he stayed out of her way next time—she could live with him laughing at her.
“Did they act like they were fleeing you or moving toward a specific destination?” her boss asked.
“Unknown.” She shot another disgusted look in Avi’s direction.
Torsten followed up tersely with, “Where in the village did you first spot Mahmoud and Yousef?”
At least her boss was taking her seriously. She answered, “They were standing beside the north pool. I don’t know if they saw me and I spooked them or if they just turned and left. But either way, they left the pool and headed for the nearest exit. Interestingly enough, they turned their faces away from every surveillance camera they passed.”
“Which suggests they know the security layout of the village,” Torsten replied. “Have they been added to the Iranian delegation?”
Avi jumped in. “I cannot believe the Iranians would try to slip terrorists into the games on official credentials. The scandal if they got caught would be humiliating.”
Rebel shrugged. “In my experience, the Iranians will suffer a humiliation or two if it means they can destroy an enemy.”
Avi met her gaze head-on. “Truth.”
“Possible targets?” Torsten threw out.
Rebel ticked off, “American athletes, Israeli athletes, a large public venue containing lots of athletes, a large venue containing lots of spectators—”
Avi interrupted, “In other words, everyone and everything at the Olympic Games.”
Torsten drummed his fingers on the tabletop, a rare sign of tension from her excessively self-disciplined boss. “When Zane gets here, we’ll see if his people have any chatter on what Mahmoud might be up to.”
Zane’s people being the CIA.
A spear of jealousy for Piper stabbed Rebel. Zane and Piper were wildly in love, and he was about to come join her for possibly several weeks in a beautiful, romantic locale. Lucky dogs.
Rebel’s last boyfriend had dumped her when he found out she’d agreed to join some kind of special team that was going to involve her traveling all over the world for several years to come. As long as she’d been stationed at a desk and never deployed, he’d been all over her naval career. But as soon as it had interfered with his convenience and comfort, she was history.
Jerk, she thought tiredly. Not that she could blame him entirely. She’d volunteered for the Medusas knowing full well it might break them up. Maybe she’d taken the job partially because she thought it might break them up. Which made her a coward, at least in the romance department.
But how often did a woman get a chance to be on one of the most classified—and cool—teams on the planet? To serve her country in a direct, meaningful way? And to fulfill a lifelong dream of doing something awesome?
That had been her main reason for joining the Medusas. Dumping the loser had been a side benefit.
Avi was talking, and she yanked her attention back to the discussion at hand. “...will touch base with my Mossad contacts and see if they’ve heard anything about Mahmoud Akhtar. How should I let you know what I find out?”
Torsten answered, “Why don’t you liaise with Rebel, since you two already know each other? I’m up to my elbows in alligators chasing down other rumors and threats, but I want to give this possible sighting of Akhtar highest priority. I’ll pull Lieutenant McQueen off her other security rotations for now so she can follow this up specifically.”
Avi nodded, the ghost of a grin flitting across his face. Was he pleased that she would be working with him? Or was that indulgence for the little girl playing commando with him? God, he was as hard to read as Torsten.
The Israeli glanced at his watch. “It’ll take me an hour or so to find out what the Mossad knows and to take a shower and change clothes.” He glanced at Torsten. “On the way here, I took a beer down my back defending the honor of your girl. Had I known she was an operator, I’d have let her take the beer in the face.”
The men traded grins, and she bit her tongue. She was standing right here, while they talked over her head and called her a girl. Of course, she knew Torsten actually thought highly of her, or else he wouldn’t have invited her to be a Medusa in the first place, nor would he have passed her through the rigorous training program. He’d washed out plenty of other women without any compunction.
But it bothered her that when he was around a male counterpart he reverted to Neanderthal talk about her and her sisters-in-arms. Of course, it was entirely possible he was speaking in sexist terms intentionally to relax Avi about the whole idea of working with a female special operator. Torsten was fully that calculating a guy.
Avi stood, and she was vividly aware yet again of how big a man he was. He had to be pushing six foot three. And every inch of him was solid, functional muscle. He wasn’t thick, but he wasn’t exactly a beanpole, either.
His face was a wee bit on the long side for Hollywood, but his nose was proportional to his face, his cheeks and jaw were just the right amount of craggy, and his smile was wide and beautiful when he shook hands with Torsten.
All in all, he was a ruggedly handsome man in an understated way. Like most special operators in her experience. They didn’t draw attention to themselves, and a person’s eye tended to slide past them without stopping to really notice them. But then, she supposed she could be accused of the same thing. She never wore makeup and left her hair its natural mousy brown color. She wore boring clothes that hid her figure, and in general, she worked hard not to be noticeable.
Avi glanced at his watch and then speared her with a penetrating look that made her feel positively naked. “What say we reconvene at ten o’clock for a late supper? Have you eaten tonight?”
Supper? Him and her alone? Her stomach leaped against her ribs until she silently admonished it to behave. She managed what she hoped was a nonchalant shrug. “Okay. That’ll give our guy in Washington some time to track down any intel from our end—”
Torsten’s and Avi’s cell phones rang at the exact same moment, exploding in stereo in the small room. As they reached for their phones, she saw red lights illuminate all over the ops center through the glass window—including the emergency phone from the International Olympic Committee’s operations headquarters.
And then her own phone vibrated in her pants pocket.
Uh-oh. She didn’t even need the hackles rising on the back of her neck to know it was something bad.
She jammed the phone to her ear and immediately heard screams and shouting from the other end. Over the din, Piper yelled, “There’s been an incident at the pool. Bring everyone you can. And bring bottled water and first aid kits!”
Torsten and Avi were already moving, sprinting for the door. She darted out right on their heels without stopping to ask why water was necessary. She trusted her teammate and expected the need for water would become clear when they got to the scene of whatever had happened.
She and the two men each grabbed a case of bottled water from the stack in a storeroom and raced outside to a golf cart, leaped in and drove at the electric vehicle’s top speed—close to twenty-five miles per hour—to the pool.
The scene was utter chaos when they arrived. Naked athletes laid all over the lawn around the pool in various degrees of distress. Many of them appeared to have suffered some sort of burns on their skin and had angry red patches, and even raw wounds, on their bodies. Most were coughing and rubbing their eyes, and some were vomiting.
A few people, obviously trying to render first aid, were moving among them, but the victims vastly outnumbered the medics. Thankfully, though, help was starting to arrive as golf carts and running coaches and trainers got wind of the problem.
She leaned forward and shouted in Torsten’s ear that the American athletes would probably be congregated by the northwest corner of the pool where they’d left their clothes.
He headed that way, but had to stop well short of the pool because of the sprawl of humanity on the ground.
She tumbled out of the golf cart dozens of yards short of the pool, grabbed a case of water and picked her way through the mess as quickly as she could. The athletes moaning and crying at her feet acted like people who’d just escaped a burning building full of smoke as they coughed thickly and nursed what looked like burns.
The medics on scene appeared to be trying to attend to the most severely affected, but coaches and team officials were shouting for their own athletes to be seen first. The result was a disorganized mess with no semblance or proper triage and sorting of patients into those who could wait and those who could not.
Rebel looked around for the fire and saw no smoke, no flames, no building with people pouring out of it.
“There! Tessa and Piper!” Torsten shouted at her, pointing off to their right.
She followed him toward her teammates, weaving between victims as fast as she could. Avi veered away as someone shouted at him—probably an Israeli athlete or coach. Ignoring him, she ran to her own teammates.
“What the hell happened?” Torsten demanded.
Piper looked up from the legs of one of the women softball players where she was pouring bottled water over several angry, palm-sized burns.
“Athletes were partying away in the pool, and all of a sudden, people started coughing. Shortly thereafter, they started thrashing around and screaming. Other athletes started pulling them out, and then people started screaming about acid in the water.”
“How can we help?” Rebel asked quickly. All of the Medusas had emergency medical training, but most of Rebel’s to date had been classroom theory and not practical field experience.
“Grab bottles of water and flush the wounds. There’s definitely something caustic in the water that has to be washed off the skin of anyone who was in the pool. A few of our girls need eyewashes, but I don’t have the right solution or equipment to irrigate their eyes.”
Rebel spent the next few minutes rinsing off the American women’s skin and reminding them not to rub their eyes. The girls were coughing up a lot of mucus, and their eyes were watering copiously. But fortunately, none of them seemed badly injured. The softball players claimed to have been on the far side of the pool from the worst of whatever had happened.
The Medusas handed off the American athletes to another American security type who escorted the women to an ambulance where an eye washing station had been set up, and the Medusas grabbed their remaining bottled water and headed for the most seriously injured athletes.
It was a frantic race to provide breathing support for those who were struggling to get air, to keep the people puking their guts out from choking, and to get as many skin wounds rinsed and dressed as possible. Over the next half hour, though, the plentiful medics and team coaches nearby arrived and gradually got ahead of the crisis.
More ambulances pulled up, and the most seriously burned athletes were carted away to area hospitals. The less seriously injured limped away to their rooms to take more complete showers, and gradually, the lawn around the pool calmed.
It was nearly midnight before the scene was fully cleared of victims, leaving behind only police and security types for the most part. Rebel pushed loose strands of hair back from her face and made her way over to where Torsten and Avi Bronson had their heads together.
They glanced at her as she joined them and kept talking in grim undertones.
Avi was saying, “...Aussies are saying they think someone accidentally shocked the pool. It should have been closed, but they got their wires crossed.”
“What did they shock it with?” Torsten responded.
“Concentrated chlorine.”
Rebel frowned. “Wouldn’t whoever have poured it into the pool seen it filled to the brim with people and refrained from putting caustic chemicals in the water?”
“This pool has an automated cleaning system that releases chlorine into the pool from several dozen injection points along the bottom of the pool for more rapid and even distribution of the chemicals.”
“Snazzy,” she commented wryly.
“Did someone forget to turn the system off?” Torsten asked.
Avi nodded. “That’s what Olympic officials are saying.”
Rebel frowned. “If the chemical was supposed to be distributed evenly, then why weren’t the American women athletes affected much? Why were athletes on one side of the pool hit worse than the rest?”
“Could be your athletes were in a part of the pool where the water wasn’t being churned up as actively,” Avi offered.
She didn’t argue, but the explanation didn’t sit right with her.
“I don’t know about you,” Avi commented, “but I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten since noon, and it’s been an active evening for me.” He threw her a significant look.
She got the message. Chasing her had been part of that activity. Rolling her eyes at him, she remarked, “Gee. My teammates and I have been trained, in a crisis, to ignore simple bodily urges like hunger. I would have thought a big, macho guy like you would know how to do that, too.”
Torsten grinned and slapped Avi on the shoulder. “Score one for the lady.”
“Yes, but the crisis is over,” Avi retorted. “Now is the time to attend to my body’s needs.”
Well, hell. There went her stomach jumping around like an excited puppy again. She was not interested in his body’s needs—hunger or otherwise.
“How about that supper you and I were going to have?” Avi asked her.
Panic flitted through her belly. “Are you hungry, sir?” she asked Torsten. “Do you want to join us?”
“Nah. I’ll have a pile of incident reports to fill out after this mess. I’m going to head back to the office and get started on that. You two go eat.”
Her and the hot Israeli alone? Together? She didn’t know whether to be delighted or terrified... Definitely terrified. She’d never dated anyone in remotely the same realm of hotness—not a date, dammit. It would be a working supper. No more.
He glanced at Avi. “Can I give you two a ride somewhere?”
“Sure. Drop us off at the north gate.”
He wanted to leave the village, did he? She’d assumed they would just go to the huge, inflatable tent that was the village dining hall. The white tent would easily hold two football fields and was ringed with food stations offering literally any kind of food a person could imagine, from every corner of the world. Chefs and food were shipped in to meet the wants and needs of each delegation present.
They arrived at the gated checkpoint, and Torsten stopped the cart. Avi hopped off and held out a hand to help her out of the backseat. More hesitantly than she wanted to let on, she laid her hand in his palm. His hand was big and warm and gentle, encompassing hers lightly as his fingers wrapped around her hand.
She had no doubt that hand could crush her windpipe. Casually. Hence the gentleness of Avi’s grip was striking.
Drat. There went her stomach again.
He released her hand, but her stomach didn’t go back to normal.
Sheesh. He was just being polite. And she appreciated the gentlemanly gesture. It was always a bit of a balancing act being around men—she didn’t mind being treated like a lady as long as they understood that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, too.
Although truth be told, she doubted Avi actually took her the least bit seriously. The good news: it wasn’t her job to convince him of anything. She was merely here to trade information on Mahmoud Akhtar and then get on with her regularly scheduled life.
Avi, however, seemed inclined to go for a stroll and enjoy the sights. To that end, he led her away from the gate and wound into the blocked-off streets still impressively jammed with partying pedestrians. With the games starting tomorrow, everybody who planned to attend the Olympics was pretty much in town by now.
“Have you gotten an opportunity to get out and see Sydney, yet?” he asked her, leaning in close to be heard without shouting.
Gosh dog it, she really did need to eat, if for no other reason than to weigh down her stomach and keep it from hopping around like a bunny in her belly.
“I haven’t done any sightseeing,” she confessed. “We hit the ground running when we got here and dived right into helping with our delegation’s security requirements.”
“You Americans. Always in such a hurry.”
“We get more done that way,” she retorted.
“What’s the point, though, if you miss the beauty of life along the way?”
“Philosopher, are you?”
He shrugged. “I enjoy every moment as much as I can. And I try not to take anything for granted before I die. Life’s short, after all.”
“That’s a pretty dark view of the world,” she responded.
“I live in a country where every time you step out of your house you knowingly put your life at risk. And I don’t exactly have a boring, routine job.”
“Still. I try not to dwell on death. I would rather focus on being and staying alive.”
“On that we are in complete accord,” he murmured, ushering her across a blocked-off street crowded with pedestrians. They slipped into a dark little restaurant called The Adler, and the sudden silence was a relief from the noisy party outside.
The bay window of the restaurant held a large, carved wooden mountain with little wooden skiers mounted on its painted slopes, and a collection of cuckoo clocks hanging above it. She was going to go with this being a Swiss-themed joint.
They had no trouble getting a table and sat down in a booth in a back corner. A tea candle in a glass globe gave out most of the light, and the table had an odd well cut into the middle about a foot deep.
“What is this place?” she asked curiously.
“Fondue joint,” Avi replied. “Best cheese fondue this side of Zermatt, Switzerland.”
“Huh. I took you for a steak and potatoes kind of guy.”
He leaned back and grinned. “Perhaps you’re guilty of misjudging me as badly as I initially misjudged you.”
“What did you initially take me for, then?”
“A groupie who managed to sneak into the village to pick up hot athletes,” he answered frankly.
“Gee, thanks,” she replied sarcastically.
He shrugged unapologetically. “You wouldn’t be the first one.”
He wasn’t wrong of course. Just yesterday, the American delegation had chased out a half-dozen drunk Polish guys from the American athlete building. They’d claimed to be looking for an American high jumper who was also a high-fashion model and on the covers of all the fashion magazines these days.
“If you’re not a steak and potatoes guy, then how would you describe yourself?” she challenged.
A waitress came and Avi ordered quickly in German: some sort of meal package for two, and then Rebel’s limited German gave out as he and the waitress conversed in the tongue quickly and fluently, ending on a laugh. Rebel had to stop herself from glaring off the flirting waitress, which privately stunned her. She had never been the jealous type before, and it wasn’t like she had any claim on Avi Bronson, thank you very much.
The waitress brought a fondue pot filled with a creamy cheese sauce, a platter of bread cubes and a handful of long dipping forks.
“It’s hot,” Avi warned her. “Don’t burn your mouth.”
She nodded and dipped a bread cube in the smooth sauce that smelled lightly of wine and Emmentaler cheese. She blew on the bite and popped it in her mouth. “Oh my God,” she groaned. “That’s fantastic.”
“Told you.”
“I will never question your culinary recommendations again.”
He smiled a little as he dipped a cube of his own. “I take my food very seriously.”
“What else do you take seriously? You never answered my question of how you’d describe yourself.”
He shrugged as he swirled a bread cube in the pot. “I would like to think I’m on my way to becoming a Renaissance man. You know what I do for my work. In my free time, I enjoy art, music, reading and good food.”
“What kind of art?” she asked.
“Modern interactive art is my passion, but I enjoy a good Rembrandt as much as the next person.”
“Music?”
“Every kind. Except Nazi-metalhead.”
“Books?”
“That’s a bit tricky. I prefer history or dead poets, but I make myself read literature and pop fiction.”
“Why?”
“To be well-rounded.”
“That all sounds terribly intellectual and dry. What do you do for fun?”
He leaned forward, and a boyish smile hovered on his lips. “I kill people.”
“Oh, puh-lease.” She rolled her eyes at him. “You must suck at your job if you have to whack people often. The idea is to get in and get out without being spotted and without ending up in a fight. Or didn’t they teach you that part in Israel?”
He laughed outright at her pithy observation. “Well, damn. Most women are unbearably turned on by knowing I can kill.”
“Sorry. It’s just an unpleasant part of the job to me.”
The waitress removed their cheese fondue, which they’d mostly polished off between them, and replaced it with a bubbling pot of hot oil and a platter of meats and vegetables.
“What makes you happy?” Avi asked when they’d demolished most of the main course.
“Happy?” she echoed. “I don’t believe in happiness.”
“Why ever not?” he exclaimed.
“Because it’s a lie. People confuse pleasure with happiness, and most humans only want pleasure. Which is transient, fleeting and passes quickly. It’s not worth ruining my life in pursuit of a few moments here and there that constitute mere pleasure.”
“Wow. Cynical much?” he murmured.
She shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy my work. I take deep satisfaction from it, in fact. But that’s because I’m doing something important that will improve the quality of the world... I hope.”
Avi shuddered. “What a dreadful way to go through life.”
“What’s dreadful about being committed to my career?”
“Nothing. I’m committed to mine, as well. Passionately.”
“Why passionately?” she followed up.
“Because I live in a small country surrounded by larger enemies. Israel’s ongoing survival is always an open question. Unlike your country with oceans on either side of it and no enemies on Earth who can match your power, my country is tiny and imminently crushable. It takes many people of passion to keep her safe.”
“Just because the United States is big and powerful doesn’t mean we can stop working at staying safe. We have lots of enemies, and our size and power makes us a prime target. Hence, the need for people like me.”
He nodded. “We have a point of agreement, then. Both of our countries need robust security forces to ensure their safety.”
“Speaking of which, when do you expect to hear from your people about our friend? I’m dying to know what they have to say about him.”
One corner of his mouth turned up sardonically. “Are you in such a big hurry to jump in bed with him, then?”
She frowned across the table at them. They might have to speak elliptically about Mahmoud Akhtar in public, but she wasn’t loving the sleeping with Akhtar analogy.
Avi grinned unrepentantly. “Lighten up a little, Rebel. It was a joke.”
“Again, you didn’t answer my question.”
He sighed. “You need to learn how to slow down. Relax a little. Like now. Enjoy the good food and exceptional company. There will be time later for business.”
Great. He was clearly determined to torture her.
Except when the dessert course came—a rich, silky, dark chocolate fondue and a platter of succulent fresh fruit, berries and delicate ladyfinger cookies—she forgot her impatience and lost herself in savoring the delicious sweets.
“Be careful, Rebel. You’re looking suspiciously close to happy over there.”
“I didn’t say I don’t like pleasure. Just that I don’t live for it.”
“I fear, mademoiselle, that you are missing out on most of the best things in life with that grim philosophy of yours.”
“I am who I am,” she retorted. She refrained from reminding him she didn’t owe him a blessed thing. After all, she was supposed to work with this guy and trade information. No sense in antagonizing him outright.
“That’s a rather Socratic take on life,” he commented. “How does the saying go—I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.”
She retorted, “I know I’m intelligent, because I know better than to read people like Socrates and let them put my mind all in a twist.”
Avi laughed warmly. “Touché.” He signaled for the bill and handed over a credit card before Rebel even had a chance to grab for the bill.
“Next meal’s on me,” she declared.
“If it makes you feel better, I’ll let you buy me supper sometime,” he said evenly as he signed the check and tucked the receipt in his pocket. “But it’s not necessary. I won’t think any less of you as an independent woman because you do or don’t insist on paying your own way.”
“It’s a matter of principle for me,” she admitted.
“How so? Don’t you like being taken care of?”
“More like I don’t like being smothered.”
He paused in the act of standing up to study her intently. After a moment, he finished straightening to his full height and gestured for her to precede him from the restaurant.
Dammit. Too revealing a comment. She shouldn’t have said that. She slid out of the booth and headed for the front door.
The Adler was a narrow space, and as they slipped past a group of loud drunks at the bar, Avi placed a protective hand in the middle of her back. The touch was light, impersonal even, but it also declared clearly to all the men they sidled past to leave her the hell alone.
Lord knew, she could break in half most any man who groped her. But for some reason, she took comfort in Avi removing the need for her to be defensive for a change. Sometimes it got damned fatiguing having to be on guard against drunks, lechers and general idiots.
They’d left the restaurant and were strolling back toward the village through still shockingly crowded streets before Avi murmured quietly, “Who smothered you, Rebel?”
She opened her mouth to declare it none of his business, but surprised herself by saying, “Basically all the men in my life.”
“Even Gunnar Torsten?”
“You have to admit he’s an intimidating man. Hard to know. Demanding. While I wouldn’t say he smothers any of us, he is challenging to work with. But at least he believes women have a place in the...community.” She omitted the words Special Forces, but Avi would know what she’d meant.
“It’s an interesting idea, building an entire team of women operators. I’d love to talk with you about it sometime, hear more about what you do.”
She shrugged. “Major T. obviously thinks you have the clearance to know about it, so I have no problem talking with you.”
“Perfect. What are you doing for dinner tomorrow?”
Gulp.
Chapter 3 (#ufded4925-f88d-5b39-b4a4-5eb2a9dcd180)
Avi showed up at the American security center exactly five minutes early for his date with the fascinating American woman, Rebel. He was beginning to think her name fit her better than her parents could have imagined when they gave it to her.
He’d worked with enough American Special Forces teams over the years to know that in the American military, if a person wasn’t five minutes early, they were late.
Rebel was seated at a computer, frowning intensely at it when he stepped into the busy space. The Israeli command center had been hopping most of the night as well, tracking which of their athletes had been injured in the pool accident and rescheduling preliminary competitions for them. The IOC had been more understanding that he’d expected, actually. But then, the accident in the pool had been the host committee’s fault.
“Hi, Rebel,” he said quietly so as not to startle her.
She glanced up at him just long enough for color to bloom on her cheeks. Interesting. An autonomic response to him, huh? Good to know. Particularly since he was deeply intrigued by her, too.
“Whatcha working on?” he asked.
“Check this out.” She handed him a crude diagram she’d drawn on a piece of paper. A rectangle took up most of the sheet of paper, and it was filled with tiny numbers—hundreds of them from zero to nine.
“What am I looking at?” he asked.
“I’ve spent the day asking every injured athlete I can get a hold of how bad their injuries are—I developed a scale from zero to nine to log the severity of their symptoms—and where they were in the pool when they first noticed them. Then I mapped all of that information in a rough diagram of the pool. Notice anything interesting?”
It leaped out at him right away. All of the nines were clustered tightly together about halfway down the east side of the pool. The eights and sevens clustered around that bunch of nines, and the numbers grew steadily smaller the farther away the victims had been from that spot of origin on the east side of the pool.
He looked up at Rebel. “What do you make of this?”
“I don’t think the excessive chlorine in the pool was introduced through the automated chlorination system. I think it was put in the pool by an individual standing beside it, right about there.” She jabbed at her drawing where all the nines were centered.
“The IOC has already closed the investigation,” he commented.
“Of course they have,” she replied scornfully. “They don’t want any hint of sabotage or an attack of some kind to sully their games.”
“They also don’t want to panic anyone by having wild rumors or unsubstantiated accusations floating around,” he observed.
She looked up at him, her gaze frustrated. “I get that. But I think the evidence is clear. We are, in fact, dealing with an act of sabotage. Combine that with my spotting Mahmoud Akhtar and Yousef Kamali at the east side of the pool last night, and you do the math.”
He sighed. “We don’t have a positive ID on either man. We can’t even confirm they’re here.”
“Is that what your Mossad contacts said?”
“They said they’ve heard nothing to indicate that Akhtar or Kamali is outside of Iran, let alone here and active.”
“That doesn’t mean they aren’t here. It just means your people don’t know they’re here,” she countered.
“What does the CIA have to say on the subject?”
She shrugged. “Zane is due to land in about an hour. I’ll let you know what he says.”
Tonight, Avi had chosen a more formal restaurant for them. He’d made a reservation for seven thirty, and it wasn’t the kind of place that held a table for a party if it was late. “We need to go,” he announced.
Rebel stood up, and he glanced at her dark, tailored business suit. It was expensive fabric and well made, but it did nothing to enhance the body beneath it.
They were outside the village and close to the restaurant before he asked, “Why do you wear suits like that? Do you want to make yourself look like a man?”
“I find that men are easily distractible creatures. Also, as a group, they’re not generally taught to judge a woman by her intellect or skill at her profession, but rather to judge her by her looks. If I want them to think of me as a professional, I have to look like one. And that means not girl-ing up.”
“You don’t think it’s possible for a woman to be attractive and do a job?”
“Of course I think it’s possible. I just don’t think it’s possible for men to perceive an attractive woman as a professional.”
“That’s a pretty dim view of men, Ms. McQueen.”
She shrugged. “I call it as I see it.”
“You really have been surrounded by stupid chauvinist jackasses, haven’t you?”
Her gaze jerked up to his.
“Why do you look surprised that I might have liberated views of women?” he asked. “Women have served side by side with men in the IDF since the founding of Israel in 1948.”
“Apparently, I was born in the wrong country,” she responded dryly.
“A mistake that can be rectified. I’m sure there’s a place in my country for a woman with your special abilities.”
She laughed. “Thanks, but I’m good with where I’m at. The Medusas are unique.”
“Other countries are training women Special Forces operatives.”
“True. But none of them are fielding entire teams made up of women who do the same sorts of missions as men. Most add a single woman to a team here and there. Also, not many countries are giving women full SF training. They’re modifying the training for women and not making them meet the same standards as men.”
“You had to meet men’s standards?” he exclaimed, startled.
“What would be the point if we didn’t?” she snapped.
He absorbed that in silence as they reached the restaurant. He held the door for her, and as she slid past him he muttered, “All the men’s standards?”
“All of them.”
“But...you’re so tiny.”
“Lower muscle to weight ratio for me to overcome. And I fit into small spaces my male counterparts don’t. Makes for great sniper nests that hostiles don’t spot.”
“You’re a—” He broke off, realizing belatedly that they were standing in a posh restaurant, and it probably wasn’t the ideal place to blurt out that his dinner companion was an assassin.
“Not my specialty,” she murmured. “I’m mainly a photo intelligence analyst. I look at live video images from drones and interpret them in real time.”
“So you have an eye for detail?”
“You could say that.” Her voice was as dry as the Negev Desert.
Their table was ready, and he followed Rebel and the maître d’ into the private dining room Avi had reserved for them. The decor of the room was dark, with paneled walls and burgundy carpet. Crisp white linen covered their candlelit table, though, and the places were precisely set with Limoges china and Lalique crystal. The table looked like a glittering jewel nestled in a bed of dark velvet. It was impossibly romantic.
Which was exactly the point. He’d set a personal goal of teaching the overly serious American commando how to loosen her collar a little and enjoy the finer things in life.
The maître d’ seated Rebel and then retreated, leaving the two of them alone. He sat down across from her and unfolded his crisply starched linen napkin, spreading it across his lap in anticipation of the culinary delights to come.
“Where have you brought me?” she asked in alarm. “I’m afraid to breathe hard, lest I break something.”
“The food is outstanding, and we can speak in private, here. And my government is picking up the tab, so don’t worry about the cost.”
“Cost? I bet his place doesn’t even put prices on the menu.”
He smiled. “They don’t. Shall I choose a wine for us?”
“You’d better. All I know about wine is it’s bad if it’s still bubbling.”
He laughed, shocked. “Still bubbling? That’s obscene.”
“That’s Boone’s Farm in a box.”
“Boone’s Farm? That’s not actually wine. It’s—” he searched for a proper description “—corn syrup, food coloring and rubbing alcohol.”
She laughed, and he stared, shocked at what happened to her face when her customary intensity gave way to actual joy. Her eyes sparkled, color came to her cheeks, and the fineness of her bones, the soft perfection of her skin came to life. It was as if her entire being smiled for a moment.
“You should laugh more often,” he declared.
The laughter faded from her eyes, and determination to make her laugh again came over him. But first, their waiter arrived, and Avi ordered a ridiculously expensive bottle of wine to go with the chef’s choice.
The waiter left and Rebel leaned forward, looking distressed. “What are we eating tonight?”
Avi shrugged. “Whatever the chef serves to us. I’ve eaten here several times and he has never disappointed me.”
“But what if it’s something weird?”
“I thought you Americans do a half-decent survival school. After eating bugs and worms, are you really that worried over what a Michelin three-star chef is going to make for you?”
She leaned back, looking disgruntled. In a heartbeat, she’d gone from stunningly beautiful to fluffy kitten cute.
“You’re quite the chameleon, Rebel.”
“How so?”
“I’ve identified at least four versions of you so far, and each one is entirely different.”
“Do tell.” She sipped the wine the waiter had poured for her, and abruptly, her attention riveted not on him but on her glass. “Holy crap,” she muttered.
“Is it ruined?” he asked quickly. “Cork in the wine? Soured?”
“No. I had no idea wine could taste like this. I don’t even like wine. But this is...amazing.”
He leaned back, grinning. “Ahh. Welcome to the civilized world. Where pleasure is more than fleeting and people achieve actual happiness.”
She scowled at him, back to being a hedgehog—prickly, but still adorable.
He sipped at his wine, savoring the complex bouquet. “So tell me this. Why would men like Mahmoud and Yousef bother dumping chlorine in a pool? It’s a far too low-level attack—too amateur for men of their training and skill.”
“Agreed. Unless it was some sort of test run. Maybe they were checking the emergency response. Or maybe they wanted to see if any sophisticated monitoring and detection equipment was brought out and used.”
An interesting theory. He replied, “It’s not as if poisoning a bunch of people with a chlorine attack is likely to succeed without being detected. It stinks to high heaven, and people have some time to run away from the fumes, and in this case skin burns, before they’re seriously injured or killed.”
“Obviously,” she retorted. “But what if they’re planning to use some other poison gas in a larger attack? Why go to all the trouble of setting up a lethal attack if you know the Olympic security team is prepared to detect it and stop it?”
“But we are prepared to identify the usual nerve gasses.”
She shrugged. “I know that, and you know that. But do the Iranians know that? Or are they testing the edges of our defenses to measure what we can and can’t respond to?”
“Or maybe a few drunk hooligans thought dumping a bunch of chlorine in the pool would be a funny joke.”
She studied him long and hard enough that he began to wonder what she was thinking about him. Only perverse stubbornness stopped him from asking. The same stubbornness frustrated his parents to no end, but had also saved his life on countless occasions when he refused to give up in the face of impossible odds. Hell, he was beginning to think getting this woman to relax and enjoy herself a little was one of those damn near impossible tasks.
Clearly, she intended to keep the talk over dinner entirely business. So be it. For now.
“Fine,” he conceded. “If it was, in fact, an attack, you’re likely right. It probably wasn’t random drunks. Have you considered the timing of the attack? Could it even have been your terrorists?”
She shrugged. “Mahmoud and Yousef left the pool about thirty minutes before everyone started reacting to the chlorine. They would have had to use some sort of dissolving packaging or pellets that melted slowly for the timing to work.”
“Okay,” he replied. “That’s a plausible hypothesis. Do you have any proof of it?”
“There are no lights in that pool, hence no underwater video. I’ve checked the security cameras for last night, but the crowd is so dense around the pool I can’t make out anyone who might have dumped anything in the water.”
“So your theory will have to remain just that. A theory.”
“A scary theory that you and my bosses would do well to take seriously,” she retorted.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry,” he murmured.
“I’m not angry. Just worried.”
“Fair enough. If you’re worried, I’m worried,” he responded gallantly.
“Really?”
He met her gaze squarely. “Yes. Really. Even if I don’t know you that well, yet, I do know Gunnar Torsten. And anyone he trains is someone to take seriously.”
They waited in silence as the first course of their meal was served, hors d’oeuvres of wild mushrooms stuffed with crab, escargot and truffle paté.
He silently took pleasure in watching the orgasmic expressions crossing Rebel’s face with each new flavor she encountered. She was a great deal more expressive than she likely thought she was. But then, a man like him was adept at catching every nuance of facial and body language, too.
Eventually, he leaned forward. “I did get one interesting piece of intel from my people this afternoon.”
She looked up expectantly from her potato-leek soup, abruptly all business, food forgotten. He sent a silent mental apology to the chef.
“I’ll share it with you, but on one condition,” he murmured.
“What’s that?”
He stood up, went around the table and held out his hand to her. “Dance with me.”
Chapter 4 (#ufded4925-f88d-5b39-b4a4-5eb2a9dcd180)
Rebel gulped. If there was one thing in the whole world she was terrible at, it would be dancing. “But, there’s no music,” she protested, praying the excuse would divert Avi.
He walked over to an intercom panel on the wall and pressed a few buttons. Lilting violin music suddenly blared. He turned the volume down and then turned to her, holding out a hand.
She looked around in panic. The room was plenty large enough to accommodate dancing. There were no apparent cameras to make an embarrassing record of her clumsiness. She resorted to confessing, “I’m a terrible dancer.”
“Well of course you are. Dancing is about expressing joy. And we’ve already established you need a lot of work in that department.”
She frowned, not appreciating being called a failure at anything, even if it was true.
He captured her hand, which she realized in some shock was waving around nervously, and tugged her to her feet.
“You’re going to regret this,” she warned him as he drew her into his arms.
“Put your right hand on my waist and your left hand on my shoulder...assuming you can reach my shoulder.”
She snorted. “Very funny. I’m not that short.”
“In my world, you’re practically a midget.”
Her eyes narrowed in challenge. “You’d be surprised the things I can do that a giant lout like you can’t even begin to do.”
“Sounds like a fascinating conversation for another time. But right now, I’m giving you a lesson in waltzing. First, listen to the music. One-two-three. One-two-three. Do you hear the downbeat?”
“Yes.”
“On each ‘one,’ I’m going to step forward with my right foot, and you’re going to step backward with your left foot. Like this. I’ll take it slow.” He placed both of his hands on her waist and guided her through the step.
Thank goodness. He just did the back step several times, and she caught on quickly.
“Now, we’re going to step to the side on the second and third beats. Like this. Step-together.”
She nodded after a few repetitions.
“And now we put them together, and we find the rhythm of the music. Just relax, and let me lead, okay?”
“Since when is this a trust exercise?” she blurted.
He smiled down at her a little ruefully. “Leave your left hand on my shoulder and put your right hand in mine.” She grasped his hand, as always stunned by the electric energy flowing from him.
“I have to say, Rebel, I didn’t expect you to discover my real motive so quickly. This is entirely about trust. That and loosening you up a little. You are a smart one, aren’t you?”
She might have answered, but he whisked her backward and into a whirl around the room that took her breath away. His hands moved her with effortless power, but still, she had to concentrate on relaxing and releasing the habitual tension from her body.
Ahh, but when she did, they were suddenly dipping and swooping, turning in light, swift circles until she felt like a swallow in flight. It was actually a rather fantastic sensation. The music lifted them off their mortal feet, spinning them into a breathless world of candlelit magic.
Or maybe it was the big, graceful man staring down at her, his eyes as dark as midnight, the expression in them bemused. If there had been any humor in his expression when they started the waltz, by the time the song ended, it was long gone.
The music shifted into some other, more formal rhythm, and they came to a stop beside the table. His hand was warm and firm on her waist, and his fingers flexed, tightening momentarily against her side.
He released her abruptly, stepping back almost as if startled. She knew the feeling. She was shocked to her toes. That had been an almost-sexual experience. And it had been wonderful. Which begged the question of why he’d insisted on dancing with her. Had trust and getting her to chill out been his only motives, after all? Or had he been subtly demonstrating to her that he knew how to woo a woman?
For no doubt about it, he most definitely knew what he was doing in that department.
It almost made a girl wonder if maybe the problem with sex in her life prior to this had been men of inadequate knowledge rather than the sex itself.
Hmm. Sex with Avi Bronson. A suddenly fascinating concept.
The door opened, and their waiter wheeled in a cart loaded with what turned out to be the most delectable food she’d ever tasted. Quail roasted to tender perfection with herbed skin that was crispy and savory, oyster stuffing that made her groan in delight and tender asparagus that was so fresh and light she wanted to ask for more—and she didn’t even like asparagus, normally.
She refrained from licking her plate, but it was a struggle. She looked up at Avi in regret. “You do realize you’ve ruined me for ever enjoying an MRE again.”
“You like dehydrated military food?” he exclaimed.
“I did. But now... I shudder to think what it will taste like in comparison to this.”
He smiled indulgently. “My work is done, then.”
Something disappointed landed with a thud in the bottom of her stomach. Drat. She’d really hoped he might be interested in showing her more of these sophisticated pleasures she’d heretofore had no idea existed.
“Why the sad face?” he asked quickly.
“I’m sorry this meal has to end.”
“Never fear. We have several more courses to go.”
“Where am I going to put more food? You do realize I’m going to have to work out like mad for a week to burn off all these calories.”
He shrugged. “I’ll go for a run with you tomorrow if you’d like. After all, it’s my fault you indulged like this. I’m obligated to help with damage control.”
Hmm. That would be interesting. She enjoyed running and was one of the fastest Medusas. “You’re on.”
She was done with dessert and sipping a cup of coffee so good it nearly brought her to tears when she finally remembered to ask, “By the way, what was the piece of intelligence you said you’d gotten?”
He sighed. “And, the pleasant interlude ends. Back to business, eh?”
She smiled a little at the disappointment in his voice. “Sorry.”
“When you apologize like you mean it, I’ll know I’ve broken through that workaholic exterior of yours.”
“Good luck with that.” She set down her coffee cup. “The intel?”
“Right. A source in Tehran reports that Mahmoud has spent the past six months or so training with a team of approximately eight operatives on a military base. They were seen going in and out of mocked-up buildings repeatedly.”
“Sounds like they were training for a specific attack,” she commented.
“That’s how I would interpret it, as well.”
“Any information on what the buildings looked like?”
“No. Our source isn’t that highly placed.”
“Still. Are you going to take me seriously now when I say I saw Mahmoud and Yousef and that I’m convinced they dumped the chlorine in the pool?”
“I always took you seriously, Rebel.”
“Yeah, but no one else is likely to.”
“Do you want me to put forward your theory to the IOC security team because they would take me more seriously?”
She sighed. “I appreciate the offer, but I expect Major Torsten will tell them about it if he thinks I’ve adequately backed up my theory with evidence.”
“He’s a good man. He won’t take credit for your work. You’ll get the credit.”
“Or the blame,” she added.
Avi shrugged. “If you think you’re right, stick by your guns. Who cares if you got this one wrong? We all make mistakes from time to time. Better to be overcautious and be wrong than say nothing and have a preventable attack happen.”
“Yes, but this is the first time the new Medusas have worked the Olympic Games. If I’m making a wrong call and people get all worked up for no reason, the egg will be on all of my teammates’ faces along with mine.”
“You’re a team, right? Wouldn’t you suffer a little humiliation on behalf of one of your sisters?”
“Well, yes.”
“And they would do the same for you. Don’t second-guess yourself. Trust your gut.”
He was right. She took a deep breath. “Thanks for the pep talk.”
“Anytime.”
The waiter brought back Avi’s credit card, and he signed the check quickly.
“Do I want to know what that meal cost?” she asked.
“No. But it was worth every shekel to watch you enjoy yourself like that.”
Alarmed, she let him hold her chair as she stood up. Had she made a spectacle of herself? The idea sent shivers of horror across her skin. If she’d learned nothing else in her father’s repressive home, it was that women should never, ever, draw attention to themselves.
“What were you thinking about just then?” Avi asked, startling her out of dark memories.
“Nothing.”
Avi responded evenly, “I’m not letting you get away with putting me off like that. Tell me what you were thinking about.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because it put pain in your eyes. I want to know what or who hurt you.”
He sounded half-prepared to go out and beat up bullies on her behalf. Which was sweet. And strange. She wasn’t accustomed to any man looking out for her. In fact, she’d spent most of her adult life making sure no man needed to look out for her.
She glanced up. He was staring down at her expectantly. He looked ready to stand there all night, not moving an inch, until he got his answer.
Well, hell. She huffed and then admitted, “I was thinking about my father.”
“Your father? Why would he put such pain in your eyes?”
“Because he wasn’t—isn’t—a very nice man. He believes that women should be seen and not heard. And that women should stay out of men’s way.”
Sarcasm lacing his voice, he responded, “He must love your job choice.”
“We don’t speak.”
“Ahh.” A pause. Then Avi said quietly, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried, and I’m sorry your father is a jerk. But thank you for letting me know what I have to overcome.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well, now I know that not only will you be sensitive to feeling smothered, but you’ll also have issues with domineering men.”
“I don’t—” She broke off. “Okay, fine. I do.”
He gifted her with a smile so beautiful she could hardly look at it or at him. Lord, he was a handsome man.
He said, “Thank you for your honesty. I value it more than just about any trait in my friends.”
Only friends? And there went her stomach again, dropping into her shoes in disappointment. Since when did she want to be more than friends with this man?
Since he’d taught her how to waltz and introduced her to fine cuisine—and not only saw her as a soldier, but also saw her as a woman.
Which also made her feel naked. Vulnerable. Most people ignored her, and she tended to prefer it that way. Too bad he hadn’t seen her as more. It would have been nice if this man had looked at her and seen a woman of interest, maybe even a potential romantic interest.
But no. He’d seen a friend.
It was better than nothing. But not by much.
If only she was more capable at the whole romance and seduction thing. But that was like wishing she could hold the moon in her hand. It was never going to happen.
* * *
Their walk back to the Olympic Village was quiet, and Avi was content to let Rebel stew in her thoughts. He was prepared to move slowly with her, take his time and let her work out whatever she needed to work out in her head before he pushed her to the next level. She wasn’t the kind of woman a man could proposition for cheap sex after a date or two and expect an affirmative response.
Huh. Since when had he started to consider sleeping with her?
He thought back and pegged it at the moment when she’d shown him her map of the injured athletes in the pool. Her passion and intensity had been sexy as hell.
He glanced sidelong at her as they crossed a busy street crowded with drunks. She was a tiny little thing, but it was easy to miss that because of how big her intellect and confidence were. Oh, she hid both well. As any good special operator should. But they were there. And sexy, too.
When he’d finally gotten her to relax into the waltz, she’d been light as air in his arms. A good natural athlete, she was, to pick up the dance so quickly. In touch with her body. Which was promising for more intimate dances—
He should really stop imagining sex with her. They both had a job to do. And although this was far below the usual level of danger he operated in, both of them needed to give the security of their respective delegations their full attention.
Maybe after the games were over he could volunteer to do some training with the Medusas, possibly as an instructor, or in some sort of exchange program with his team to run scenarios using teams of women operators. He could sell it to his superiors as an observation trip to see if the Israelis should consider training a female Spec Ops team of their own.
The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.
“Does your team ever run exercises with foreign teams?” he asked abruptly.
“To date, we’ve mostly had individual foreign instructors come to our main training facility to work with us as we come up to speed. We haven’t worked with full teams. You’d have to ask Major T. if he ever plans to put us in the field on exercises. Right now, he’s keeping our existence under pretty close wraps.”
As well he should. The Medusas were safer the fewer people knew they existed. And apparently, he’d also developed a sudden interest in the safety of the Medusas, along with Torsten.
“This is my stop,” Rebel announced, jerking him out of planning how to sell an exercise with the Medusas to his boss.
They were, indeed, standing in front of the American security team’s building.
“Sweet dreams,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her on the cheek.
She froze, startled as most Americans were when they first encountered the European habit of kissing pretty much everyone. He smiled to himself as he turned away. He was enjoying throwing her off balance far more than he should. But it would be good for her to pop that boring bubble she tried to hide in.
As for him, he was headed for his room to change into dark clothing, and then he was going to stake out the small apartment building the Iranian delegation was staying in by itself at the request of the Iranian government. Not that he blamed them. The Israelis had insisted on having a facility to themselves, too.
Midnight had come and gone when Avi spied movement out the back door of the Iranian building. He zoomed in his binoculars. Four men and two women, dressed in the black tracksuits of the Iranian team slipped outside.
Apparently, the mice were planning to play while they were away from the cat. Although, the Iranian government usually kept a ridiculously tight leash on its athletes overseas, too. Which explained why he was surprised this bunch tonight had made it out of their quarters successfully. He waited for any possible tails to slip out of the building to follow the athletes, but none did.
He briefly debated staying to watch the building or giving in to his curiosity to see what the Iranian athletes did when off the leash. His curiosity won.
They were almost out of sight, now, heading toward the south end of the village and the many athletic complexes clustered there. He had to hurry not to lose them. There were plenty of facilities open around the clock in the village—the dining hall, gyms, game rooms, media rooms, medical and physio offices. So why were the Iranians headed toward the sports complex at this hour? The venues would all be closed, locked up and locked down.
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Cindy Dees
Bound together by duty… Staying together by passion Special Forces Rebel McQueen is prepared for anything…that is, except sexy security specialist Avi Bronson. When Rebel and Avi discover an imminent terrorist attack they must protect thousands of innocent lives. But who will save Rebel from certain heartache if she dares to succumb to Avi…
Bound together by duty, they are the first line of defense.
The Mission Medusa series continues
Intense training has prepared Special Forces member Rebel McQueen for anything…that is, except sexy security specialist Avi Bronson. They are complete opposites, and yet only Rebel and Avi believe in an imminent terrorist attack. Together, they must protect thousands of innocent lives. But who will save Rebel from certain heartache if she dares to succumb to Avi—and her most dangerous attraction?
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author CINDY DEES is the author of more than fifty novels. She draws upon her experience as a US Air Force pilot to write romantic suspense. She’s a two-time winner of the prestigious RITA® Award for romance fiction, a two-time winner of the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award for Romantic Suspense and an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Best Author Award nominee. She loves to hear from readers at www.cindydees.com (http://www.cindydees.com).
Also By Cindy Dees (#ufded4925-f88d-5b39-b4a4-5eb2a9dcd180)
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
Mission Medusa
Special Forces: The Recruit
Special Forces: The Spy
Special Forces: The Operator
The Coltons of Roaring Springs
Colton Under Fire
Code: Warrior SEALs
Undercover with a SEAL
Her Secret Spy
Her Mission with a SEAL
Navy SEAL Cop
Soldier’s Last Stand
The Spy’s Secret Family
Captain’s Call of Duty
Soldier’s Rescue Mission
Her Hero After Dark
Breathless Encounter
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Special Forces: The Operator
Cindy Dees
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-09415-3
SPECIAL FORCES: THE OPERATOR
© 2019 Cynthia Dees
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Note to Readers (#ufded4925-f88d-5b39-b4a4-5eb2a9dcd180)
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They waited in silence as the first course of their meal was served: hors d’oeuvres of wild mushrooms stuffed with crab, escargot and truffle pâté.
He silently took pleasure in watching the orgasmic expressions crossing Rebel’s face with each new flavor she encountered. She was a great deal more expressive than she likely thought she was. But then, a man like him was adept at catching every nuance of facial and body language, too.
Eventually, he leaned forward. “I did get one interesting piece of intel from my people this afternoon.”
She looked up expectantly from her potato-leek soup, abruptly all business, food forgotten. He sent a silent mental apology to the chef.
“I’ll share it with you, but on one condition,” he murmured.
“What’s that?”
He stood up, went around the table and held out his hand to her. “Dance with me.”
Dear Reader (#ufded4925-f88d-5b39-b4a4-5eb2a9dcd180),
Welcome to the third installment in the ongoing adventures of the Medusas!
I cannot tell you how much fun it has been to revisit my first-ever women Special Forces operators and see what they’re up to these days. Thank you so much for the opportunity and for all your emails and letters asking for more Medusa stories. I hope you’re enjoying the team’s new adventures even half as much as I am.
Many moons ago, I wrote about the Medusas operating at the Winter Olympics, and it seemed only fitting that this time around the team should be sent to work at the Summer Olympics. Thus, this story was born.
Throw in a fun setting, the whole Medusa team and a supersexy hero. Stir until well blended. Serve hot, of course. Voilà, the perfect recipe for exciting suspense and a truly yummy romance.
As always, I encourage you to pour yourself your favorite reading drink, sit back, settle in and enjoy the wild ride that Medusa Rebel McQueen and her perfect hero, Avi Bronson, take us on as they race to save the day and find love.
Let the games begin...
Warmly,
Cindy
Contents
Cover (#ud2ac3891-ac52-5d33-8e34-492f3cfac70e)
Back Cover Text (#ubf70c055-18cd-5625-b9aa-6668aa9c45c3)
About the Author (#u69accbac-4fd1-59c5-9190-cf40cc28d37e)
Booklist (#ube0eab85-1bf7-5b63-882e-489c30eaca79)
Title Page (#u3d2d4bd4-5208-5c16-bb6c-359b0555aa3a)
Copyright (#u9f6a1985-2bc9-568a-9ec3-e8b38271eb9c)
Note to Readers
Introduction (#u82afc4ef-2ab9-5501-82f6-d3e74470ad19)
Dear Reader (#u5647254f-f268-572a-ab6f-88353fccf046)
Chapter 1 (#ub0bc83f5-cac6-5f56-a961-219228a4a364)
Chapter 2 (#u0fa66960-114e-552a-99cb-d8889ebaa05e)
Chapter 3 (#u17415814-138c-5d2c-bc62-a07d65cb2190)
Chapter 4 (#u1f0ce433-81ea-55c9-881b-3d16fba6c9c6)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#ufded4925-f88d-5b39-b4a4-5eb2a9dcd180)
It started as a hot tub party.
It quickly devolved into a hot tub orgy.
Rebel McQueen was supposed to provide security for a dozen members of the US women’s softball delegation in the midst of it, but she’d last seen her charges disappearing into a mass of gorgeous naked bodies that was the Norwegian men’s water polo team.
Acute regret speared into her.
Where did she go wrong with her life that she was a lousy security guard while these other young women of her approximate age and physical ability were partying with possibly the hottest guys on the planet?
The “hot tub” was actually a giant swimming pool in the Olympic Village that had been heated to spa temperatures for the duration of the games. Easily two hundred athletes were in the pool now, engaging in every manner and combination of sexual play.
She got it. They were young, athletic, far from home, and had precompetition adrenaline galore before the games opened tomorrow night. But she was responsible for those softball players, and she couldn’t spot a single one of them right now. All she could make out in the churning water were writhing limbs and the occasional flash of a pale face. The rest of it could just as easily have been a feeding frenzy of sharks.
The Medusas—the highly classified, all-female, Special Forces team she was part of—were an ultra-under-the-radar part of the American security contingent at these games.
Tonight, the American security staff was undermanned, and she’d volunteered to help out. But she’d had no idea she was in for this! The Medusas had been briefed that the Olympic Village would be a wild party scene, but nothing in her Special Forces training had prepared her for a frat party with twenty thousand wild children determined to play. Hard.
Play. Not a word that had meaning in her world. Duty. Honor. Country. Those words, immortalized by General Douglas MacArthur, were the ones she lived by.
Oh joy. Word of the orgy must be spreading, for more athletes started arriving at the pool in a steady stream, stripping naked and jumping in.
It was arguably the best-looking group of naked people Rebel had ever seen, at any rate. Idly, she played a game of “guess the sport based on body type.”
There went a lean, no-fat marathon runner.
Disproportionately massive torso and skinny legs? A rower.
Big gut, wreathed in muscle—weight lifter.
A crowd began to form around the edges of the pool. Whether they were purely spectators to the debauchery or waiting for an inch of open water to join in, she couldn’t tell. But they elbowed Rebel back from the pool with their muscular, jostling bodies.
Swearing under her breath, she let herself be propelled back. Her orders were to be inconspicuous. Instead of resisting, she occupied herself with watching the watchers. Which was why she happened to glimpse a familiar face in the crowd. A face that made her lurch. A face that emphatically should not be here.
The face of a terrorist.
Surely she’d made a mistake. She moved quickly around the pool, trying to keep an eye on the man, who looked shockingly like Mahmoud Akhtar. Mahmoud led a terror cell that kidnapped her teammate, Piper Ford, last year.
Piper’s fiancé was an undercover CIA officer who’d helped her escape from Mahmoud, and who’d captured photographs of the entire cell of Iranian operatives. Rebel had looked at an eight-by-ten glossy photo of Mahmoud posted in the Medusas’ ready room every day for the past eight months. She knew his face.
And she’d just seen it here in Sydney, Australia.
Next to Mahmoud, a second man stood up from where he’d been squatting by the edge of the pool. Yousef Kamali. Mahmoud’s second-in-command and also a glossy photo on her team’s personal Most Wanted wall.
She wove through the throng of people to the spot where Mahmoud and Yousef had been standing and turned in a slow three-sixty.
No sign of the two men.
She had to be wrong. No way could known terrorists gain access to the Olympic Village. Not unless the Iranian government had given them credentials that attached them to the Iranian Olympic team...
Nah. The Iranians wouldn’t be so brazen.
She spied two males wearing black tracksuits with green-white-red stripes down the arms and legs. Iran team uniforms. She swore under her breath.
The pair was moving away from the pool area quickly. Purposefully.
Frowning, she debated whether to leave her post and follow them. It wasn’t like the softball girls were leaving this party anytime soon. But she was responsible for their safety, which technically included apprehending terrorists.
The Iranians approached a streetlight with its pole-mounted surveillance camera and, as she looked on, both men simultaneously turned their faces to the right.
Away from the camera.
Sonofa—That was the deliberate act of someone who didn’t want to be identified. The act of a trained operative. Or a terrorist.
She took off running, but the two men were well ahead of her, and more athletes were streaming toward the pool. She dodged and weaved, doing the whole fish swimming upstream thing, desperately trying to keep the Iranians in sight. But she was only five foot four, and it was darned near impossible to see over the glamorous amazons that were most Olympic athletes.
Finally, she broke out of the worst of the crush and glimpsed her quarry passing through one of the checkpoints to leave the Olympic Village. She put on a burst of speed as they scanned their credentials and stepped onto a city street.
She flew through the checkpoint without bothering to scan herself out. She couldn’t lose the Iranians! Once they hit the giant street party outside the village, following them was going to get immeasurably harder. She had to close as much of the gap as she could before they lost themselves in the crowds. Sydney was in full celebration mode, and this part of the city had been completely shut down to allow foot traffic to fill the streets.
Rebel raced through crowds of revelers, but the Iranians picked up speed in front of her, and she stretched out into a full sprint. The men turned a corner and disappeared.
When she approached the intersection, she slowed, turning the corner fast and low. It turned out to be a relatively quiet, dark street lined with closed office buildings. And it was empty. She raced down it, searching side to side for the Iranians. Nothing. She burst out into another crowded thoroughfare.
Where did they go?
There. To her left. She gathered herself to take off running again just as the men disappeared into a building ahead.
Without warning, big, hard hands grabbed her by both arms, dragging her back into the dark street she’d just emerged from. She stumbled backward, fetching up hard against a building. Immediately, she was flattened against it by a living wall of muscle.
Chagrin roared through her. She’d gotten so focused on chasing her quarry in front of her that she’d forgotten to watch her own tail. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She knew better.
“Let go of me,” she ground out. The terrorists were getting away!
“Who are you?” a male voice rasped from over her head.
“The person who’s going to hurt you if you don’t let me go. Right. Now.”
“Little thing like you?” Humor laced her battering ram’s voice.
No help for it. She was about to be conspicuous.
* * *
Avi Bronson yelped as the fleeing suspect, a tiny, shockingly quick female, stomped painfully on the top of his left foot. He swore when she grabbed his thumb off her shoulder and gave it a vicious wrench.
“Damn, woman! You’ve practically dislocated my thumb.”
A normal man would step back from the tiny virago now throwing painful elbows at him, kneeing him dangerously close to his groin and scratching at his face. But he was a trained Special Forces soldier, and the last thing he dared do was let this woman get an arm’s length between them where she could really wind up with a fist or foot and actually damage him.
He leaned in against her, using his superior size and weight to mash her even flatter against the wall at her back, silently thanking his wool suit coat for absorbing the worst of her attack.
She went still abruptly.
“Are you done?” he asked cautiously.
“Yes.” Her tone was surly. Not even close to subdued.
“If I step back from you, will you stop attacking me?” he tried.
Too long a pause. Then, “Yes.”
Liar.
He jumped back all at once, throwing up his fists to defend himself. And just in the nick of time. She flew at him like an angry bird.
But then she surprised him by spinning away and taking off at a dead run down the street. Genuinely irritated now, he gave chase.
Crap, she was fast.
Of course, she had the advantage over him in weaving through the heavy crowd, being as small as she was. He struggled to keep sight of her as she dodged among the civilians ahead of him.
Then she did a weird thing,
She came to a dead stop in front of a giant discotheque, staring at it in what could only be utter disgust.
Avi screeched to a stop beside her. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to come with me—”
“Oh, save it,” she muttered, yanking out a set of Olympic credentials from inside her jacket. The holographic ID card hanging from a lanyard around her neck and declaring her to be from the American delegation, certainly looked authentic.
“Nonetheless. I need you to come with me,” he repeated.
She finally turned her full attention on him, and he was taken aback by her giant blue eyes, glaring at him as indignantly as if he’d kicked her puppy. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“Olympic security,” he said shortly.
“I showed you my credentials. Let’s see yours,” she challenged.
“Not here,” he muttered. A lifetime of being reviled and targeted for being Israeli had taught him to be deeply reticent about announcing his nationality in crowded, public settings. Not to mention, he was not about to air Olympic security business on a street full of half-drunk spectators.
“Why won’t you show me your credentials?” the woman demanded.
“Just come with me, will you?”
“I can’t. I need to get surveillance video from inside this club.”
“I can get you the footage faster than anyone in there can if you’ll come with me.” He said the last few words through gritted teeth. This woman was really starting to get under his skin. She was blithely ignoring him as if she didn’t give a flip for being stopped by Olympic security.
“Fine,” she declared. “There are at least four exits from this place to three different streets, and thanks to you, I have no way of knowing which direction the men I was following went. I’ve lost them.”
“Lost who?”
She blinked, as if abruptly becoming aware of being closely surrounded by dozens of Olympic guests. “Uhh, nobody I care to talk about out here in the open.”
“Hence my request that you come with me.” He emphasized the word request to make it perfectly clear that this was, in fact, not a request at all.
The woman took several quick strides away from him, back toward the Olympic Village and then had the gall to stop and look over her shoulder at him. “Are you coming or not, He-Man?”
He lurched into movement, not sure whether to be amused or fantasize about strangling her. He fell in beside her, matching his long stride to her shorter one. “Are you always this touchy?” he murmured.
“You haven’t seen anything, yet. We’re in public and I have to behave myself.”
“Good Lord.”
“Oh, praying won’t save you from me.”
He glanced down at her in something approaching shock and she continued, smiling sweetly all the while, “When we get back to the village, I’m going to give you a piece of my mind...and chew off a chunk of your hide while I’m at it.”
Amused. He was definitely amused. A grin crept across his features. She reminded him of a little angry sparrow—her feathers all puffed up and flapping her wings furiously at the big bad hawk. She looked ready at any second to fly at his head and peck at him.
“You’re cute when you’re mad,” he murmured as he took her by the elbow to guide her through a particularly thick cluster of drunks spilling out of a bar into the street.
Her biceps flexed under his fingers and he noted that her arm was rock hard within his grasp. She definitely worked out. But then, the Olympics drew the fittest people on Earth into one place.
Leaning in close to her and using his big body as a shield, he protected her from jostles and errant hands as they passed through a group of loudly singing young men wearing Irish national soccer team paraphernalia. One of them, carrying a brimming full pitcher of beer in each hand stumbled, and Avi spun in front of the woman, taking a hefty slosh of beer down his back for his trouble.
While the drunk mumbled a slurred apology, Avi merely rolled his eyes and ushered the woman onward. Cold, sticky wetness made his shirt cling to his back as the beer soaked through his suit.
“Thanks,” she muttered reluctantly.
“You’re welcome.”
There was a bit of a delay getting her scanned into the village since she hadn’t scanned out properly when she left, but the guard sorted it out quickly enough when Avi flashed his own senior security credentials.
“I have to make a phone call,” she announced, stopping just inside the fenced enclosure surrounding the large campus of dormitories, dining halls, workout facilities and delegation headquarters. Sighing in frustration at yet another delay, he nonetheless stopped and waited while she pulled out her cell phone.
He listened with interest as she said, “Tessa, it’s me. I need one of you to head over to the north village pool and take over babysitting the women’s softball team. I’ve got another situation to sort out right now.” A pause, then, “I’ll tell you about it when I get back to Ops. Speaking of which, could you call Major T. and have him meet me at the ops center ASAP?”
Avi heard an exclamation that sounded like surprise from the person on the other end of the call.
The woman snorted. Then, “He’s never off duty. He eats, sleeps and breathes the job. And I seriously have to speak with him. We have a potential situation.”
Spoken like a true security operator. Avi frowned. Who was this woman?
She was speaking again. “...join us after you fish the women’s softball team out of the pool and tuck them back in their rooms.” She added, “Oh, and their clothing is in a pile at the northwest corner of the pool. Yes. All of their clothing. It’s an orgy over there. Thanks. Bye.”
She pocketed her phone and glared up at him. “Let’s make this fast. I have someplace to be.”
He crossed his arms and smirked down at her. “All right. Let’s try this again. Who are you?”
“This is still far too public an environment for me to answer that. And I’m certainly not telling you anything without you showing me proper identification.”
“Fair enough. Come with me.” He turned and headed toward the Israeli security operations center. Returning the favor from earlier, he glanced back over his shoulder and asked wryly, “Are you coming, She-Woman?”
The woman lurched into motion, scowling. Smiling a little to himself, he led her to his delegation’s headquarters.
The atmosphere was all business inside the Israeli security operations center. Ever since Munich almost fifty years ago, the Israelis operated on the assumption that their athletes were active terror targets. And it was up to the men and women in this room to protect those athletes—the finest flowers of Israel’s youth.
He didn’t stop in the main area crammed with desks, video monitors, computers and mostly big, capable men. Spying an empty office, he stepped inside, turned on the light and waited for his prisoner to join him. Not that he would call her that to her face. His ribs and foot still ached from her initial assault. She might be tiny, but she had sharp elbows and knew how to use them.
In the bright light of the office, he got a good look at her face. She had smooth, soft-looking skin, regular features that grew more pretty the longer he looked at them, and those big, blue eyes of hers. They were her best feature, for sure. Her hair was a soft chocolate brown shot through with strands of gold, like she spent a fair bit of time outside. He already knew she was stronger than her small stature suggested.
She pulled out her credentials again and this time he did the same. Silently, they exchanged badges.
“Rebel McQueen,” he read aloud. “That’s an unusual name. Did your mother dislike you?”
“No. She was a fanatical Steve McQueen fan. He was an actor—”
“I know who he was. The Great Escape is one of my favorite movies.”
She mused, “Allied prisoners break out of Nazi prison camp. I could see why that movie would be popular in Israel.” The woman continued, “Anyway, McQueen’s nickname was ‘the American Rebel.’”
He commented sympathetically, “You must have to explain that a lot.”
“You have no idea.” She rolled her eyes, and they traded brief smiles of commiseration.
She glanced down at his identification. “Avi Bronson. Israeli Defense Forces? Mossad?”
“Sayerat Matkal,” he replied. Not that she would have any idea what that was. Which was the point. His team didn’t advertise their existence, let alone their presence at a venue as public as the Summer Olympics.
“Unit 269?” she blurted.
“You know who we are?” he blurted back, shocked that she’d heard of his special operations unit. It wasn’t the sort of thing most civilians knew about.
“Yes,” she replied impatiently. “You guys are the primary hostage rescue unit for the Israeli Defense Forces. I’d have thought most of you security types here would be Mista’arvim—counterterrorism units.”
He shrugged. “I did a stint with them a few years back. I also rolled with Shayetet 13 early in my career.”
“The Navy SEAL equivalent, huh? Well, aren’t you the overachiever?”
He frowned down at her “Okay, so you know more about Israeli Special Forces units than the average bear. How is that?”
“It’s my job?”
“Don’t be cute with me. What do you do as a member of the American delegation, Miss McQueen?”
“Lieutenant McQueen. US Navy. Roving security for the American delegation. Sometimes it’s handy to have female security guards. We can go places men can’t.”
He frowned. “Regular US military personnel aren’t assigned to Olympic security details.”
She shrugged, offering no further explanation of why she, a military member, was here on a distinctly civilian assignment.
His mental antennae wiggled wildly. She wasn’t telling him the truth. Or at least not the full truth.
“Why did you flee the village without scanning out properly?” he tried.
“I told you. I was following someone. I didn’t have time to mess with scanning my ID.”
“And who were you following?” he asked gently when she didn’t continue.
She huffed. “I thought I saw a guy named Mahmoud Akhtar.”
“Akhtar? Here?” Mahmoud Akhtar was the kind of guy who made men like Avi lose sleep at night. Akhtar was highly trained, highly intelligent and highly radicalized. He was a known agent of the Iranian government and believed to be a wet operator—meaning his skills and missions covered everything up to and including terror and assassination. It could not possibly be good news for the Israeli delegation if Akhtar was here in Sydney. “Are you sure?” Avi asked the woman curtly.
“No. I’m not sure.” She sounded exasperated. “I was trying to get close enough to make a positive identification when you decided to go all Neanderthal and tackle me.”
“I didn’t tackle you. I merely stopped you for questioning.” She opened her mouth, obviously to argue, and he took an aggressive step forward to loom over her. He had nearly twenty-five centimeters—ten inches—on her in height. “If I had tackled you, you would have been smashed flat on the ground. And I would have handcuffed you.” He added, “As it was, I probably should have tackled you. But I was exceptionally restrained.”
She snorted. “You should have been even more restrained. Mahmoud and his buddy, Yousef Kamali, got away, thanks to you.”
He frowned, reluctant to believe her claim that an international terrorist had been strolling around the grounds of the Olympic Village. But caution dictated that he take her seriously, of course.
She didn’t seem delusional.
And the fact that she even knew who Mahmoud Akhtar and his sidekick, Yousef Kamali, were, meant she had some sort of access to classified material—also indicative of a not delusional female.
Still. Akhtar here? It would be a huge risk for a terrorist of his notoriety.
She interrupted his skeptical train of thought, demanding, “You said you could get me video from that nightclub. I want to see it right away. I might be able to make a positive ID from that.”
“Come with me.” He led her into the main room and gestured for her to sit at his desk. Reaching past her shoulder, he typed into his keyboard quickly, calling up the Israeli link to the entire Sydney CCTV—closed-circuit television—system.
Clicking on the map of downtown Sydney that popped up, he selected the nightclub. It took a moment, but then his screen flashed up black-and-white imagery of the exterior of the disco where Rebel had finally stopped running.
“Do you have interior video feed?” she murmured up at him.
He glanced down at her and was close enough to see that her eyelashes were long and silky, a soft brown that matched her hair. And she smelled good. A gentle, sweet scent like vanilla, warm and inviting. A study in contrasts, she was turning out to be. Sharp words, sweet mouth. Hard elbows, soft skin. Tough attitude, gentle eyes.
“Interior video?” she repeated.
Oh. Right. He shook himself out of staring at her and typed again. Planting both hands on the desk, he leaned forward beside Rebel to study the crowd gyrating on-screen. He hit the pause button and froze the image. Face by face, he scanned all the people in the frame. He didn’t see anyone resembling the Iranian terrorist.
Rebel leaned back. “This is hopeless. The crowd is too thick to spot my guys without a full forensic analysis of this video. What if we run the video in real time and see if we can spot Mahmoud and Yousef entering the club?”
He estimated it had been fifteen minutes since he’d detained her, and he backed up the video twenty minutes to be safe. He hit Play.
He pulled up a rolling chair from the next desk over and sat down beside Rebel. Their shoulders rubbed together as they both leaned forward, staring intently at the moving images in front of them.
Both of them jolted at the same moment as two men wearing black tracksuits entered the frame. They bumped into each other, and Avi mumbled an apology at the same time Rebel did. Their gazes met, startled, and she looked away immediately, a blush staining her cheeks. Was she shy, or did she find him attractive, or both? Hmm. Interesting.
She stabbed at the video monitor. “Those are my guys.”
“Unfortunately, that’s only the back of their heads,” he commented. “Let me see if there’s another angle.” He advanced the video frame by frame in search of a good facial shot of the men.
Nothing.
He pulled up the second camera in the club, and damned if the men weren’t moving through the space with their heads turned to the side, avoiding being seen clearly on that camera, too.
Rebel leaned back in disgust. “They did that same trick when they were leaving the village. They turned their faces away from the surveillance cameras as if they knew exactly where they were.”
He pushed away from the desk and leaned back in his chair, linking his hands behind his head as he stared at her. “Let’s say you’re correct, and that’s Mahmoud Akhtar. How did he get into the Olympic Village?”
“Obviously, the Iranians gave him credentials.”
“Their entire delegation undergoes thorough background checks by the International Olympic Committee. And my people run our own background checks above and beyond the IOC’s. We would have spotted him.”
She threw him a “duh” look. “Obviously, the Iranians substituted him after the fact in place of someone who passed the background check.”
“Or he could have stolen the credentials. But either way, the next question is why?” he asked reasonably.
“Because the Iranians have something planned to disrupt the games.”
“Like what?” he asked, interested to see how she answered. The Israelis had spent the past four years running possible scenarios of their own and preparing to stop each one.
She shrugged. “He won’t be operating alone. Last time we had contact with him, he was the leader of a six-man cell. The man I saw with him tonight, Yousef Kamali, was one of those men. My guess is Mahmoud has reconstituted his team.”
Avi jumped all over her slip of the tongue. “We? We who? What group are you really a part of?”
She threw him a withering glare. “A group you don’t need to know about.”
He arched a skeptical eyebrow at her. “Did you not hear who I work for?”
She shrugged. “I stand by my statement.”
Huh. So she worked for some superclassified security team the Americans had put together—that included women. His Mossad buddies would find that interesting.
“You never answered my question,” he pressed. “What do you think Mahmoud and this hypothetical team of his are up to?”
“I have no idea. But I know a guy who might be able to make an educated guess.”
“I know several guys who’ve spent the past few years making educated guesses,” he snapped. “Give me more than that.”
“I don’t have more. But I can tell you one thing. If Mahmoud Akhtar is here, he’s up to no good.”
“On that, we are agreed.” He met her gaze grimly, and this time her big blue eyes were brimming over with worry. An urge to rock his chair forward onto all four legs, gather her into his arms and comfort her shocked him into stillness. This woman was the last person he would expect to accept comfort from him. Such a prickly little thing, she was.
“Would you like to come with me to my security team’s meeting?” she said all of a sudden, surprising him mightily.
“Do I have the proper clearance to attend it?” he asked, his voice as dry as the desert.
She rolled her eyes. “I can’t guarantee my boss will let you stay, but you Israelis are an obvious possible target. It makes sense to loop you into at least some of what we know about Mahmoud.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
“In the spirit of Olympic cooperation, I’m offering you an olive branch,” she said with a huff. “Take it and be grateful, already.”
“Fair enough. Thank you.” He quoted quietly, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”
“Should I recognize that?” she asked.
“It’s your Bible. Psalms 133.”
She frowned. “I don’t get much time for religion in my work.”
“Hmm. My work is all about religion. Or freedom of religion, at any rate.”
“Right now, a threat to your peoples’ freedom is walking around out there, no doubt planning something dastardly. Although I’d put it at about equal odds between your country and mine as to which one is the primary target,” she replied.
He asked, “When was the last time your people had contact with Akhtar? What were his targets at that time?”
“Last fall. And his target was a schoolteacher. He planned to kidnap her and blackmail her husband into filing a false report on a nuclear facility in Iran. Instead, Mahmoud accidentally kidnapped one of my teammates. She escaped with the help of an undercover man on the team. We got to the teacher’s husband—a nuclear facilities inspector in Tehran—before Mahmoud did, and the husband filed a report showing that Iran was trying to import nuclear triggers from Russia by way of Turkey.”
“I heard about that!” Avi exclaimed. “Wasn’t there some sort of shoot-out in Tehran? Several major arms dealers killed and the deal scuttled? Our...sources...report the Iranians were livid.”
She shrugged looking entirely unrepentant.
“You were involved with all of that?” he asked incredulously.
“You don’t have to sound so surprised.” She was back to being defensive. And her hackles were standing up again. Maybe she was more like a baby badger than a hedgehog.
“C’mon, then,” she said briskly. “Bring your Olympic credentials and your fancy security clearance with you. You’ll need them both to hear what my team has to say.”
Chapter 2 (#ufded4925-f88d-5b39-b4a4-5eb2a9dcd180)
Rebel jumped as Avi’s big, warm palm landed lightly in the small of her back. The power and gentleness of it sent crazy zinging sensations ricocheting in all directions through her body. She inhaled light and fast, her adrenaline levels ready for combat—or sex.
Oh, c’mon, Self. You’ve been around plenty of hot special operators in the past year. This one is no different.
Except the tingling didn’t go away. And her breathing didn’t settle down.
“This way,” he murmured, guiding her through the maze of Israeli security personnel at their desks. “There’s a rear exit where we won’t be seen.”
Now he was getting the idea. She liked—she needed—to operate under the radar and away from the prying eyes of the public as much as possible. They slipped out into the warm night and, by unspoken mutual agreement, wove around the edges of the Olympic Village, mostly avoiding the surveillance cameras whose feeds were shared with all of the security delegations.
She swiped a key card she pulled out of a zipped pocket inside her jacket and stood before a retinal scanner to gain entrance for herself and her big Israeli guest into the back entrance of the American operations center. It had its own building containing both offices and housing for the large contingent of security specialists in Sydney to protect American athletes.
Vividly aware of the big man following her and the curious glances being thrown his way, she led Bronson across a room much like the one at Israeli operations, crowded with desks and video monitors. This room, too, was half-filled with big, capable-looking men and a few serious, focused women. Ignoring them, Rebel led her guest to the conference room and ushered him inside.
Her boss, Army Major Gunnar Torsten, looked over her shoulder at the Israeli. He did a double take. “Avi?”
“Gun? Long time no see,” the Israeli exclaimed.
Rebel looked on in disgust as the two men shook hands warmly and clapped each other on the back. Of course, they knew each other. Torsten was fond of saying how small the Special Forces community really was.
The men were a study in physical contrast. Where blond Torsten’s hair was straight and buzzed short, the Israeli’s dark hair was wavy and thick enough to run her fingers through it. Torsten was fair and blue-eyed, where Avi Bronson was bronzed and brown-eyed. But that was where the contrast ended. Both men were tall, fit, and moved with confident grace. Also, they both had that particular cool look in their eyes announcing they were lethal, and furthermore, that they knew it.
“What brings you to the Land of Oz, Avi?” Torsten asked.
“Olympic security detail. You?”
“Same.”
Torsten glanced at Rebel. “You summoned me, Lieutenant McQueen?”
She winced at his dry tone, not sure whether to interpret the use of her title as formality for the guest’s benefit or a signal that she was in trouble for her presumption. Her boss was a very hard man to read.
She responded grimly, “I spotted two men tonight who looked shockingly like Mahmoud Akhtar and Yousef Kamali.”
Torsten sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re sure it was them?”
“I only saw them from a distance, but I know Mahmoud’s face. I’m pretty sure it was him.”
Torsten stared at her for a long moment as his expression passed through shock and chagrin, ending up wreathed in speculation.
She watched her boss cautiously as he placed a phone call on the speakerphone sitting on the table in front of him. He said without preamble, “Piper, how quickly can Zane join us?”
Rebel’s teammate answered briskly over the speaker, “He can be here in twenty-four hours from when I call him, sir.”
That wasn’t bad, given that the flight itself took on the order of twenty-two hours.
“Make the call,” Torsten said quietly. He disconnected the call to Piper.
Avi piped up. “Who is this Zane person?”
Torsten answered, “CIA officer. Embedded with Mahmoud and his cell in the US for several months last year. Best expert we’ve got on the bastard.”
“And who are these ladies you’re working with?” Avi asked, gesturing at the phone and then at Rebel.
The room fell silent. Rebel stared at Torsten, who stared at the Israeli.
Torsten asked obliquely, “You’re still operational, my friend? You’ve still got all your clearances?”
“Yes to both.” Avi was frowning and looking back and forth between her and Torsten, now.
Rebel watched apprehensively as Torsten stood up, closed the conference room door and came back to the table to sit. He wasn’t going to brief in the Israeli, was he? Her safety, and that of her teammates depended in no small part upon the secrecy around them.
Torsten said, “I command a team of women called the Medusas. They’re a fully operational Special Forces team. I have four more operatives out working in the village, right now.”
Piper and Tessa, original team members along with Rebel, were probably still working on fishing the women’s softball team out of the pool party and herding them back to their quarters.
Gia Rykhof and Lynx Everly, the two newest additions to the team, were working a media event for the US Women’s Gymnastic team, tonight. These Olympic Games were Gia and Lynx’s first operational assignment. They had more training to do before they would be fully up to speed, but both women could still handle themselves in most any situation.
“An entire team made up of women?” Avi repeated blankly.
“Correct,” Torsten answered briskly.
Avi Bronson was not the first man to react that way to hearing about the Medusas, and he would not be the last. But it still bugged Rebel that he acted so surprised and didn’t automatically take her and her teammates seriously.
Chauvinist.
Torsten leaned forward, asking Avi, “What have your people got on Mahmoud and Yousef?”
“Nothing recent that I’m aware of. Not until I caught up with your...operative...earlier after she raced out of the village without scanning out properly. She’s the one who brought Mahmoud Akhtar to my attention and claims to have seen him.”
“Claims to have seen him?” Rebel echoed in annoyance. “I know what I saw!”
Torsten intervened smoothly. “Avi believes you. And so do I. Where did Mahmoud and Yousef go?”
She answered more calmly, “I followed them out of the Olympic Village to a discotheque. They entered from one street, crossed the club and must have exited onto another street. I lost them when your buddy, here, tried to detain me and prevented me from following them.”
“I was just doing my job,” Avi protested.
Rebel glared at him. Damned if his dark eyes and darker soul didn’t light up with amusement in response. He seemed to think she was hilarious. As long as he didn’t think she was a joke—and he stayed out of her way next time—she could live with him laughing at her.
“Did they act like they were fleeing you or moving toward a specific destination?” her boss asked.
“Unknown.” She shot another disgusted look in Avi’s direction.
Torsten followed up tersely with, “Where in the village did you first spot Mahmoud and Yousef?”
At least her boss was taking her seriously. She answered, “They were standing beside the north pool. I don’t know if they saw me and I spooked them or if they just turned and left. But either way, they left the pool and headed for the nearest exit. Interestingly enough, they turned their faces away from every surveillance camera they passed.”
“Which suggests they know the security layout of the village,” Torsten replied. “Have they been added to the Iranian delegation?”
Avi jumped in. “I cannot believe the Iranians would try to slip terrorists into the games on official credentials. The scandal if they got caught would be humiliating.”
Rebel shrugged. “In my experience, the Iranians will suffer a humiliation or two if it means they can destroy an enemy.”
Avi met her gaze head-on. “Truth.”
“Possible targets?” Torsten threw out.
Rebel ticked off, “American athletes, Israeli athletes, a large public venue containing lots of athletes, a large venue containing lots of spectators—”
Avi interrupted, “In other words, everyone and everything at the Olympic Games.”
Torsten drummed his fingers on the tabletop, a rare sign of tension from her excessively self-disciplined boss. “When Zane gets here, we’ll see if his people have any chatter on what Mahmoud might be up to.”
Zane’s people being the CIA.
A spear of jealousy for Piper stabbed Rebel. Zane and Piper were wildly in love, and he was about to come join her for possibly several weeks in a beautiful, romantic locale. Lucky dogs.
Rebel’s last boyfriend had dumped her when he found out she’d agreed to join some kind of special team that was going to involve her traveling all over the world for several years to come. As long as she’d been stationed at a desk and never deployed, he’d been all over her naval career. But as soon as it had interfered with his convenience and comfort, she was history.
Jerk, she thought tiredly. Not that she could blame him entirely. She’d volunteered for the Medusas knowing full well it might break them up. Maybe she’d taken the job partially because she thought it might break them up. Which made her a coward, at least in the romance department.
But how often did a woman get a chance to be on one of the most classified—and cool—teams on the planet? To serve her country in a direct, meaningful way? And to fulfill a lifelong dream of doing something awesome?
That had been her main reason for joining the Medusas. Dumping the loser had been a side benefit.
Avi was talking, and she yanked her attention back to the discussion at hand. “...will touch base with my Mossad contacts and see if they’ve heard anything about Mahmoud Akhtar. How should I let you know what I find out?”
Torsten answered, “Why don’t you liaise with Rebel, since you two already know each other? I’m up to my elbows in alligators chasing down other rumors and threats, but I want to give this possible sighting of Akhtar highest priority. I’ll pull Lieutenant McQueen off her other security rotations for now so she can follow this up specifically.”
Avi nodded, the ghost of a grin flitting across his face. Was he pleased that she would be working with him? Or was that indulgence for the little girl playing commando with him? God, he was as hard to read as Torsten.
The Israeli glanced at his watch. “It’ll take me an hour or so to find out what the Mossad knows and to take a shower and change clothes.” He glanced at Torsten. “On the way here, I took a beer down my back defending the honor of your girl. Had I known she was an operator, I’d have let her take the beer in the face.”
The men traded grins, and she bit her tongue. She was standing right here, while they talked over her head and called her a girl. Of course, she knew Torsten actually thought highly of her, or else he wouldn’t have invited her to be a Medusa in the first place, nor would he have passed her through the rigorous training program. He’d washed out plenty of other women without any compunction.
But it bothered her that when he was around a male counterpart he reverted to Neanderthal talk about her and her sisters-in-arms. Of course, it was entirely possible he was speaking in sexist terms intentionally to relax Avi about the whole idea of working with a female special operator. Torsten was fully that calculating a guy.
Avi stood, and she was vividly aware yet again of how big a man he was. He had to be pushing six foot three. And every inch of him was solid, functional muscle. He wasn’t thick, but he wasn’t exactly a beanpole, either.
His face was a wee bit on the long side for Hollywood, but his nose was proportional to his face, his cheeks and jaw were just the right amount of craggy, and his smile was wide and beautiful when he shook hands with Torsten.
All in all, he was a ruggedly handsome man in an understated way. Like most special operators in her experience. They didn’t draw attention to themselves, and a person’s eye tended to slide past them without stopping to really notice them. But then, she supposed she could be accused of the same thing. She never wore makeup and left her hair its natural mousy brown color. She wore boring clothes that hid her figure, and in general, she worked hard not to be noticeable.
Avi glanced at his watch and then speared her with a penetrating look that made her feel positively naked. “What say we reconvene at ten o’clock for a late supper? Have you eaten tonight?”
Supper? Him and her alone? Her stomach leaped against her ribs until she silently admonished it to behave. She managed what she hoped was a nonchalant shrug. “Okay. That’ll give our guy in Washington some time to track down any intel from our end—”
Torsten’s and Avi’s cell phones rang at the exact same moment, exploding in stereo in the small room. As they reached for their phones, she saw red lights illuminate all over the ops center through the glass window—including the emergency phone from the International Olympic Committee’s operations headquarters.
And then her own phone vibrated in her pants pocket.
Uh-oh. She didn’t even need the hackles rising on the back of her neck to know it was something bad.
She jammed the phone to her ear and immediately heard screams and shouting from the other end. Over the din, Piper yelled, “There’s been an incident at the pool. Bring everyone you can. And bring bottled water and first aid kits!”
Torsten and Avi were already moving, sprinting for the door. She darted out right on their heels without stopping to ask why water was necessary. She trusted her teammate and expected the need for water would become clear when they got to the scene of whatever had happened.
She and the two men each grabbed a case of bottled water from the stack in a storeroom and raced outside to a golf cart, leaped in and drove at the electric vehicle’s top speed—close to twenty-five miles per hour—to the pool.
The scene was utter chaos when they arrived. Naked athletes laid all over the lawn around the pool in various degrees of distress. Many of them appeared to have suffered some sort of burns on their skin and had angry red patches, and even raw wounds, on their bodies. Most were coughing and rubbing their eyes, and some were vomiting.
A few people, obviously trying to render first aid, were moving among them, but the victims vastly outnumbered the medics. Thankfully, though, help was starting to arrive as golf carts and running coaches and trainers got wind of the problem.
She leaned forward and shouted in Torsten’s ear that the American athletes would probably be congregated by the northwest corner of the pool where they’d left their clothes.
He headed that way, but had to stop well short of the pool because of the sprawl of humanity on the ground.
She tumbled out of the golf cart dozens of yards short of the pool, grabbed a case of water and picked her way through the mess as quickly as she could. The athletes moaning and crying at her feet acted like people who’d just escaped a burning building full of smoke as they coughed thickly and nursed what looked like burns.
The medics on scene appeared to be trying to attend to the most severely affected, but coaches and team officials were shouting for their own athletes to be seen first. The result was a disorganized mess with no semblance or proper triage and sorting of patients into those who could wait and those who could not.
Rebel looked around for the fire and saw no smoke, no flames, no building with people pouring out of it.
“There! Tessa and Piper!” Torsten shouted at her, pointing off to their right.
She followed him toward her teammates, weaving between victims as fast as she could. Avi veered away as someone shouted at him—probably an Israeli athlete or coach. Ignoring him, she ran to her own teammates.
“What the hell happened?” Torsten demanded.
Piper looked up from the legs of one of the women softball players where she was pouring bottled water over several angry, palm-sized burns.
“Athletes were partying away in the pool, and all of a sudden, people started coughing. Shortly thereafter, they started thrashing around and screaming. Other athletes started pulling them out, and then people started screaming about acid in the water.”
“How can we help?” Rebel asked quickly. All of the Medusas had emergency medical training, but most of Rebel’s to date had been classroom theory and not practical field experience.
“Grab bottles of water and flush the wounds. There’s definitely something caustic in the water that has to be washed off the skin of anyone who was in the pool. A few of our girls need eyewashes, but I don’t have the right solution or equipment to irrigate their eyes.”
Rebel spent the next few minutes rinsing off the American women’s skin and reminding them not to rub their eyes. The girls were coughing up a lot of mucus, and their eyes were watering copiously. But fortunately, none of them seemed badly injured. The softball players claimed to have been on the far side of the pool from the worst of whatever had happened.
The Medusas handed off the American athletes to another American security type who escorted the women to an ambulance where an eye washing station had been set up, and the Medusas grabbed their remaining bottled water and headed for the most seriously injured athletes.
It was a frantic race to provide breathing support for those who were struggling to get air, to keep the people puking their guts out from choking, and to get as many skin wounds rinsed and dressed as possible. Over the next half hour, though, the plentiful medics and team coaches nearby arrived and gradually got ahead of the crisis.
More ambulances pulled up, and the most seriously burned athletes were carted away to area hospitals. The less seriously injured limped away to their rooms to take more complete showers, and gradually, the lawn around the pool calmed.
It was nearly midnight before the scene was fully cleared of victims, leaving behind only police and security types for the most part. Rebel pushed loose strands of hair back from her face and made her way over to where Torsten and Avi Bronson had their heads together.
They glanced at her as she joined them and kept talking in grim undertones.
Avi was saying, “...Aussies are saying they think someone accidentally shocked the pool. It should have been closed, but they got their wires crossed.”
“What did they shock it with?” Torsten responded.
“Concentrated chlorine.”
Rebel frowned. “Wouldn’t whoever have poured it into the pool seen it filled to the brim with people and refrained from putting caustic chemicals in the water?”
“This pool has an automated cleaning system that releases chlorine into the pool from several dozen injection points along the bottom of the pool for more rapid and even distribution of the chemicals.”
“Snazzy,” she commented wryly.
“Did someone forget to turn the system off?” Torsten asked.
Avi nodded. “That’s what Olympic officials are saying.”
Rebel frowned. “If the chemical was supposed to be distributed evenly, then why weren’t the American women athletes affected much? Why were athletes on one side of the pool hit worse than the rest?”
“Could be your athletes were in a part of the pool where the water wasn’t being churned up as actively,” Avi offered.
She didn’t argue, but the explanation didn’t sit right with her.
“I don’t know about you,” Avi commented, “but I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten since noon, and it’s been an active evening for me.” He threw her a significant look.
She got the message. Chasing her had been part of that activity. Rolling her eyes at him, she remarked, “Gee. My teammates and I have been trained, in a crisis, to ignore simple bodily urges like hunger. I would have thought a big, macho guy like you would know how to do that, too.”
Torsten grinned and slapped Avi on the shoulder. “Score one for the lady.”
“Yes, but the crisis is over,” Avi retorted. “Now is the time to attend to my body’s needs.”
Well, hell. There went her stomach jumping around like an excited puppy again. She was not interested in his body’s needs—hunger or otherwise.
“How about that supper you and I were going to have?” Avi asked her.
Panic flitted through her belly. “Are you hungry, sir?” she asked Torsten. “Do you want to join us?”
“Nah. I’ll have a pile of incident reports to fill out after this mess. I’m going to head back to the office and get started on that. You two go eat.”
Her and the hot Israeli alone? Together? She didn’t know whether to be delighted or terrified... Definitely terrified. She’d never dated anyone in remotely the same realm of hotness—not a date, dammit. It would be a working supper. No more.
He glanced at Avi. “Can I give you two a ride somewhere?”
“Sure. Drop us off at the north gate.”
He wanted to leave the village, did he? She’d assumed they would just go to the huge, inflatable tent that was the village dining hall. The white tent would easily hold two football fields and was ringed with food stations offering literally any kind of food a person could imagine, from every corner of the world. Chefs and food were shipped in to meet the wants and needs of each delegation present.
They arrived at the gated checkpoint, and Torsten stopped the cart. Avi hopped off and held out a hand to help her out of the backseat. More hesitantly than she wanted to let on, she laid her hand in his palm. His hand was big and warm and gentle, encompassing hers lightly as his fingers wrapped around her hand.
She had no doubt that hand could crush her windpipe. Casually. Hence the gentleness of Avi’s grip was striking.
Drat. There went her stomach again.
He released her hand, but her stomach didn’t go back to normal.
Sheesh. He was just being polite. And she appreciated the gentlemanly gesture. It was always a bit of a balancing act being around men—she didn’t mind being treated like a lady as long as they understood that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, too.
Although truth be told, she doubted Avi actually took her the least bit seriously. The good news: it wasn’t her job to convince him of anything. She was merely here to trade information on Mahmoud Akhtar and then get on with her regularly scheduled life.
Avi, however, seemed inclined to go for a stroll and enjoy the sights. To that end, he led her away from the gate and wound into the blocked-off streets still impressively jammed with partying pedestrians. With the games starting tomorrow, everybody who planned to attend the Olympics was pretty much in town by now.
“Have you gotten an opportunity to get out and see Sydney, yet?” he asked her, leaning in close to be heard without shouting.
Gosh dog it, she really did need to eat, if for no other reason than to weigh down her stomach and keep it from hopping around like a bunny in her belly.
“I haven’t done any sightseeing,” she confessed. “We hit the ground running when we got here and dived right into helping with our delegation’s security requirements.”
“You Americans. Always in such a hurry.”
“We get more done that way,” she retorted.
“What’s the point, though, if you miss the beauty of life along the way?”
“Philosopher, are you?”
He shrugged. “I enjoy every moment as much as I can. And I try not to take anything for granted before I die. Life’s short, after all.”
“That’s a pretty dark view of the world,” she responded.
“I live in a country where every time you step out of your house you knowingly put your life at risk. And I don’t exactly have a boring, routine job.”
“Still. I try not to dwell on death. I would rather focus on being and staying alive.”
“On that we are in complete accord,” he murmured, ushering her across a blocked-off street crowded with pedestrians. They slipped into a dark little restaurant called The Adler, and the sudden silence was a relief from the noisy party outside.
The bay window of the restaurant held a large, carved wooden mountain with little wooden skiers mounted on its painted slopes, and a collection of cuckoo clocks hanging above it. She was going to go with this being a Swiss-themed joint.
They had no trouble getting a table and sat down in a booth in a back corner. A tea candle in a glass globe gave out most of the light, and the table had an odd well cut into the middle about a foot deep.
“What is this place?” she asked curiously.
“Fondue joint,” Avi replied. “Best cheese fondue this side of Zermatt, Switzerland.”
“Huh. I took you for a steak and potatoes kind of guy.”
He leaned back and grinned. “Perhaps you’re guilty of misjudging me as badly as I initially misjudged you.”
“What did you initially take me for, then?”
“A groupie who managed to sneak into the village to pick up hot athletes,” he answered frankly.
“Gee, thanks,” she replied sarcastically.
He shrugged unapologetically. “You wouldn’t be the first one.”
He wasn’t wrong of course. Just yesterday, the American delegation had chased out a half-dozen drunk Polish guys from the American athlete building. They’d claimed to be looking for an American high jumper who was also a high-fashion model and on the covers of all the fashion magazines these days.
“If you’re not a steak and potatoes guy, then how would you describe yourself?” she challenged.
A waitress came and Avi ordered quickly in German: some sort of meal package for two, and then Rebel’s limited German gave out as he and the waitress conversed in the tongue quickly and fluently, ending on a laugh. Rebel had to stop herself from glaring off the flirting waitress, which privately stunned her. She had never been the jealous type before, and it wasn’t like she had any claim on Avi Bronson, thank you very much.
The waitress brought a fondue pot filled with a creamy cheese sauce, a platter of bread cubes and a handful of long dipping forks.
“It’s hot,” Avi warned her. “Don’t burn your mouth.”
She nodded and dipped a bread cube in the smooth sauce that smelled lightly of wine and Emmentaler cheese. She blew on the bite and popped it in her mouth. “Oh my God,” she groaned. “That’s fantastic.”
“Told you.”
“I will never question your culinary recommendations again.”
He smiled a little as he dipped a cube of his own. “I take my food very seriously.”
“What else do you take seriously? You never answered my question of how you’d describe yourself.”
He shrugged as he swirled a bread cube in the pot. “I would like to think I’m on my way to becoming a Renaissance man. You know what I do for my work. In my free time, I enjoy art, music, reading and good food.”
“What kind of art?” she asked.
“Modern interactive art is my passion, but I enjoy a good Rembrandt as much as the next person.”
“Music?”
“Every kind. Except Nazi-metalhead.”
“Books?”
“That’s a bit tricky. I prefer history or dead poets, but I make myself read literature and pop fiction.”
“Why?”
“To be well-rounded.”
“That all sounds terribly intellectual and dry. What do you do for fun?”
He leaned forward, and a boyish smile hovered on his lips. “I kill people.”
“Oh, puh-lease.” She rolled her eyes at him. “You must suck at your job if you have to whack people often. The idea is to get in and get out without being spotted and without ending up in a fight. Or didn’t they teach you that part in Israel?”
He laughed outright at her pithy observation. “Well, damn. Most women are unbearably turned on by knowing I can kill.”
“Sorry. It’s just an unpleasant part of the job to me.”
The waitress removed their cheese fondue, which they’d mostly polished off between them, and replaced it with a bubbling pot of hot oil and a platter of meats and vegetables.
“What makes you happy?” Avi asked when they’d demolished most of the main course.
“Happy?” she echoed. “I don’t believe in happiness.”
“Why ever not?” he exclaimed.
“Because it’s a lie. People confuse pleasure with happiness, and most humans only want pleasure. Which is transient, fleeting and passes quickly. It’s not worth ruining my life in pursuit of a few moments here and there that constitute mere pleasure.”
“Wow. Cynical much?” he murmured.
She shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy my work. I take deep satisfaction from it, in fact. But that’s because I’m doing something important that will improve the quality of the world... I hope.”
Avi shuddered. “What a dreadful way to go through life.”
“What’s dreadful about being committed to my career?”
“Nothing. I’m committed to mine, as well. Passionately.”
“Why passionately?” she followed up.
“Because I live in a small country surrounded by larger enemies. Israel’s ongoing survival is always an open question. Unlike your country with oceans on either side of it and no enemies on Earth who can match your power, my country is tiny and imminently crushable. It takes many people of passion to keep her safe.”
“Just because the United States is big and powerful doesn’t mean we can stop working at staying safe. We have lots of enemies, and our size and power makes us a prime target. Hence, the need for people like me.”
He nodded. “We have a point of agreement, then. Both of our countries need robust security forces to ensure their safety.”
“Speaking of which, when do you expect to hear from your people about our friend? I’m dying to know what they have to say about him.”
One corner of his mouth turned up sardonically. “Are you in such a big hurry to jump in bed with him, then?”
She frowned across the table at them. They might have to speak elliptically about Mahmoud Akhtar in public, but she wasn’t loving the sleeping with Akhtar analogy.
Avi grinned unrepentantly. “Lighten up a little, Rebel. It was a joke.”
“Again, you didn’t answer my question.”
He sighed. “You need to learn how to slow down. Relax a little. Like now. Enjoy the good food and exceptional company. There will be time later for business.”
Great. He was clearly determined to torture her.
Except when the dessert course came—a rich, silky, dark chocolate fondue and a platter of succulent fresh fruit, berries and delicate ladyfinger cookies—she forgot her impatience and lost herself in savoring the delicious sweets.
“Be careful, Rebel. You’re looking suspiciously close to happy over there.”
“I didn’t say I don’t like pleasure. Just that I don’t live for it.”
“I fear, mademoiselle, that you are missing out on most of the best things in life with that grim philosophy of yours.”
“I am who I am,” she retorted. She refrained from reminding him she didn’t owe him a blessed thing. After all, she was supposed to work with this guy and trade information. No sense in antagonizing him outright.
“That’s a rather Socratic take on life,” he commented. “How does the saying go—I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.”
She retorted, “I know I’m intelligent, because I know better than to read people like Socrates and let them put my mind all in a twist.”
Avi laughed warmly. “Touché.” He signaled for the bill and handed over a credit card before Rebel even had a chance to grab for the bill.
“Next meal’s on me,” she declared.
“If it makes you feel better, I’ll let you buy me supper sometime,” he said evenly as he signed the check and tucked the receipt in his pocket. “But it’s not necessary. I won’t think any less of you as an independent woman because you do or don’t insist on paying your own way.”
“It’s a matter of principle for me,” she admitted.
“How so? Don’t you like being taken care of?”
“More like I don’t like being smothered.”
He paused in the act of standing up to study her intently. After a moment, he finished straightening to his full height and gestured for her to precede him from the restaurant.
Dammit. Too revealing a comment. She shouldn’t have said that. She slid out of the booth and headed for the front door.
The Adler was a narrow space, and as they slipped past a group of loud drunks at the bar, Avi placed a protective hand in the middle of her back. The touch was light, impersonal even, but it also declared clearly to all the men they sidled past to leave her the hell alone.
Lord knew, she could break in half most any man who groped her. But for some reason, she took comfort in Avi removing the need for her to be defensive for a change. Sometimes it got damned fatiguing having to be on guard against drunks, lechers and general idiots.
They’d left the restaurant and were strolling back toward the village through still shockingly crowded streets before Avi murmured quietly, “Who smothered you, Rebel?”
She opened her mouth to declare it none of his business, but surprised herself by saying, “Basically all the men in my life.”
“Even Gunnar Torsten?”
“You have to admit he’s an intimidating man. Hard to know. Demanding. While I wouldn’t say he smothers any of us, he is challenging to work with. But at least he believes women have a place in the...community.” She omitted the words Special Forces, but Avi would know what she’d meant.
“It’s an interesting idea, building an entire team of women operators. I’d love to talk with you about it sometime, hear more about what you do.”
She shrugged. “Major T. obviously thinks you have the clearance to know about it, so I have no problem talking with you.”
“Perfect. What are you doing for dinner tomorrow?”
Gulp.
Chapter 3 (#ufded4925-f88d-5b39-b4a4-5eb2a9dcd180)
Avi showed up at the American security center exactly five minutes early for his date with the fascinating American woman, Rebel. He was beginning to think her name fit her better than her parents could have imagined when they gave it to her.
He’d worked with enough American Special Forces teams over the years to know that in the American military, if a person wasn’t five minutes early, they were late.
Rebel was seated at a computer, frowning intensely at it when he stepped into the busy space. The Israeli command center had been hopping most of the night as well, tracking which of their athletes had been injured in the pool accident and rescheduling preliminary competitions for them. The IOC had been more understanding that he’d expected, actually. But then, the accident in the pool had been the host committee’s fault.
“Hi, Rebel,” he said quietly so as not to startle her.
She glanced up at him just long enough for color to bloom on her cheeks. Interesting. An autonomic response to him, huh? Good to know. Particularly since he was deeply intrigued by her, too.
“Whatcha working on?” he asked.
“Check this out.” She handed him a crude diagram she’d drawn on a piece of paper. A rectangle took up most of the sheet of paper, and it was filled with tiny numbers—hundreds of them from zero to nine.
“What am I looking at?” he asked.
“I’ve spent the day asking every injured athlete I can get a hold of how bad their injuries are—I developed a scale from zero to nine to log the severity of their symptoms—and where they were in the pool when they first noticed them. Then I mapped all of that information in a rough diagram of the pool. Notice anything interesting?”
It leaped out at him right away. All of the nines were clustered tightly together about halfway down the east side of the pool. The eights and sevens clustered around that bunch of nines, and the numbers grew steadily smaller the farther away the victims had been from that spot of origin on the east side of the pool.
He looked up at Rebel. “What do you make of this?”
“I don’t think the excessive chlorine in the pool was introduced through the automated chlorination system. I think it was put in the pool by an individual standing beside it, right about there.” She jabbed at her drawing where all the nines were centered.
“The IOC has already closed the investigation,” he commented.
“Of course they have,” she replied scornfully. “They don’t want any hint of sabotage or an attack of some kind to sully their games.”
“They also don’t want to panic anyone by having wild rumors or unsubstantiated accusations floating around,” he observed.
She looked up at him, her gaze frustrated. “I get that. But I think the evidence is clear. We are, in fact, dealing with an act of sabotage. Combine that with my spotting Mahmoud Akhtar and Yousef Kamali at the east side of the pool last night, and you do the math.”
He sighed. “We don’t have a positive ID on either man. We can’t even confirm they’re here.”
“Is that what your Mossad contacts said?”
“They said they’ve heard nothing to indicate that Akhtar or Kamali is outside of Iran, let alone here and active.”
“That doesn’t mean they aren’t here. It just means your people don’t know they’re here,” she countered.
“What does the CIA have to say on the subject?”
She shrugged. “Zane is due to land in about an hour. I’ll let you know what he says.”
Tonight, Avi had chosen a more formal restaurant for them. He’d made a reservation for seven thirty, and it wasn’t the kind of place that held a table for a party if it was late. “We need to go,” he announced.
Rebel stood up, and he glanced at her dark, tailored business suit. It was expensive fabric and well made, but it did nothing to enhance the body beneath it.
They were outside the village and close to the restaurant before he asked, “Why do you wear suits like that? Do you want to make yourself look like a man?”
“I find that men are easily distractible creatures. Also, as a group, they’re not generally taught to judge a woman by her intellect or skill at her profession, but rather to judge her by her looks. If I want them to think of me as a professional, I have to look like one. And that means not girl-ing up.”
“You don’t think it’s possible for a woman to be attractive and do a job?”
“Of course I think it’s possible. I just don’t think it’s possible for men to perceive an attractive woman as a professional.”
“That’s a pretty dim view of men, Ms. McQueen.”
She shrugged. “I call it as I see it.”
“You really have been surrounded by stupid chauvinist jackasses, haven’t you?”
Her gaze jerked up to his.
“Why do you look surprised that I might have liberated views of women?” he asked. “Women have served side by side with men in the IDF since the founding of Israel in 1948.”
“Apparently, I was born in the wrong country,” she responded dryly.
“A mistake that can be rectified. I’m sure there’s a place in my country for a woman with your special abilities.”
She laughed. “Thanks, but I’m good with where I’m at. The Medusas are unique.”
“Other countries are training women Special Forces operatives.”
“True. But none of them are fielding entire teams made up of women who do the same sorts of missions as men. Most add a single woman to a team here and there. Also, not many countries are giving women full SF training. They’re modifying the training for women and not making them meet the same standards as men.”
“You had to meet men’s standards?” he exclaimed, startled.
“What would be the point if we didn’t?” she snapped.
He absorbed that in silence as they reached the restaurant. He held the door for her, and as she slid past him he muttered, “All the men’s standards?”
“All of them.”
“But...you’re so tiny.”
“Lower muscle to weight ratio for me to overcome. And I fit into small spaces my male counterparts don’t. Makes for great sniper nests that hostiles don’t spot.”
“You’re a—” He broke off, realizing belatedly that they were standing in a posh restaurant, and it probably wasn’t the ideal place to blurt out that his dinner companion was an assassin.
“Not my specialty,” she murmured. “I’m mainly a photo intelligence analyst. I look at live video images from drones and interpret them in real time.”
“So you have an eye for detail?”
“You could say that.” Her voice was as dry as the Negev Desert.
Their table was ready, and he followed Rebel and the maître d’ into the private dining room Avi had reserved for them. The decor of the room was dark, with paneled walls and burgundy carpet. Crisp white linen covered their candlelit table, though, and the places were precisely set with Limoges china and Lalique crystal. The table looked like a glittering jewel nestled in a bed of dark velvet. It was impossibly romantic.
Which was exactly the point. He’d set a personal goal of teaching the overly serious American commando how to loosen her collar a little and enjoy the finer things in life.
The maître d’ seated Rebel and then retreated, leaving the two of them alone. He sat down across from her and unfolded his crisply starched linen napkin, spreading it across his lap in anticipation of the culinary delights to come.
“Where have you brought me?” she asked in alarm. “I’m afraid to breathe hard, lest I break something.”
“The food is outstanding, and we can speak in private, here. And my government is picking up the tab, so don’t worry about the cost.”
“Cost? I bet his place doesn’t even put prices on the menu.”
He smiled. “They don’t. Shall I choose a wine for us?”
“You’d better. All I know about wine is it’s bad if it’s still bubbling.”
He laughed, shocked. “Still bubbling? That’s obscene.”
“That’s Boone’s Farm in a box.”
“Boone’s Farm? That’s not actually wine. It’s—” he searched for a proper description “—corn syrup, food coloring and rubbing alcohol.”
She laughed, and he stared, shocked at what happened to her face when her customary intensity gave way to actual joy. Her eyes sparkled, color came to her cheeks, and the fineness of her bones, the soft perfection of her skin came to life. It was as if her entire being smiled for a moment.
“You should laugh more often,” he declared.
The laughter faded from her eyes, and determination to make her laugh again came over him. But first, their waiter arrived, and Avi ordered a ridiculously expensive bottle of wine to go with the chef’s choice.
The waiter left and Rebel leaned forward, looking distressed. “What are we eating tonight?”
Avi shrugged. “Whatever the chef serves to us. I’ve eaten here several times and he has never disappointed me.”
“But what if it’s something weird?”
“I thought you Americans do a half-decent survival school. After eating bugs and worms, are you really that worried over what a Michelin three-star chef is going to make for you?”
She leaned back, looking disgruntled. In a heartbeat, she’d gone from stunningly beautiful to fluffy kitten cute.
“You’re quite the chameleon, Rebel.”
“How so?”
“I’ve identified at least four versions of you so far, and each one is entirely different.”
“Do tell.” She sipped the wine the waiter had poured for her, and abruptly, her attention riveted not on him but on her glass. “Holy crap,” she muttered.
“Is it ruined?” he asked quickly. “Cork in the wine? Soured?”
“No. I had no idea wine could taste like this. I don’t even like wine. But this is...amazing.”
He leaned back, grinning. “Ahh. Welcome to the civilized world. Where pleasure is more than fleeting and people achieve actual happiness.”
She scowled at him, back to being a hedgehog—prickly, but still adorable.
He sipped at his wine, savoring the complex bouquet. “So tell me this. Why would men like Mahmoud and Yousef bother dumping chlorine in a pool? It’s a far too low-level attack—too amateur for men of their training and skill.”
“Agreed. Unless it was some sort of test run. Maybe they were checking the emergency response. Or maybe they wanted to see if any sophisticated monitoring and detection equipment was brought out and used.”
An interesting theory. He replied, “It’s not as if poisoning a bunch of people with a chlorine attack is likely to succeed without being detected. It stinks to high heaven, and people have some time to run away from the fumes, and in this case skin burns, before they’re seriously injured or killed.”
“Obviously,” she retorted. “But what if they’re planning to use some other poison gas in a larger attack? Why go to all the trouble of setting up a lethal attack if you know the Olympic security team is prepared to detect it and stop it?”
“But we are prepared to identify the usual nerve gasses.”
She shrugged. “I know that, and you know that. But do the Iranians know that? Or are they testing the edges of our defenses to measure what we can and can’t respond to?”
“Or maybe a few drunk hooligans thought dumping a bunch of chlorine in the pool would be a funny joke.”
She studied him long and hard enough that he began to wonder what she was thinking about him. Only perverse stubbornness stopped him from asking. The same stubbornness frustrated his parents to no end, but had also saved his life on countless occasions when he refused to give up in the face of impossible odds. Hell, he was beginning to think getting this woman to relax and enjoy herself a little was one of those damn near impossible tasks.
Clearly, she intended to keep the talk over dinner entirely business. So be it. For now.
“Fine,” he conceded. “If it was, in fact, an attack, you’re likely right. It probably wasn’t random drunks. Have you considered the timing of the attack? Could it even have been your terrorists?”
She shrugged. “Mahmoud and Yousef left the pool about thirty minutes before everyone started reacting to the chlorine. They would have had to use some sort of dissolving packaging or pellets that melted slowly for the timing to work.”
“Okay,” he replied. “That’s a plausible hypothesis. Do you have any proof of it?”
“There are no lights in that pool, hence no underwater video. I’ve checked the security cameras for last night, but the crowd is so dense around the pool I can’t make out anyone who might have dumped anything in the water.”
“So your theory will have to remain just that. A theory.”
“A scary theory that you and my bosses would do well to take seriously,” she retorted.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry,” he murmured.
“I’m not angry. Just worried.”
“Fair enough. If you’re worried, I’m worried,” he responded gallantly.
“Really?”
He met her gaze squarely. “Yes. Really. Even if I don’t know you that well, yet, I do know Gunnar Torsten. And anyone he trains is someone to take seriously.”
They waited in silence as the first course of their meal was served, hors d’oeuvres of wild mushrooms stuffed with crab, escargot and truffle paté.
He silently took pleasure in watching the orgasmic expressions crossing Rebel’s face with each new flavor she encountered. She was a great deal more expressive than she likely thought she was. But then, a man like him was adept at catching every nuance of facial and body language, too.
Eventually, he leaned forward. “I did get one interesting piece of intel from my people this afternoon.”
She looked up expectantly from her potato-leek soup, abruptly all business, food forgotten. He sent a silent mental apology to the chef.
“I’ll share it with you, but on one condition,” he murmured.
“What’s that?”
He stood up, went around the table and held out his hand to her. “Dance with me.”
Chapter 4 (#ufded4925-f88d-5b39-b4a4-5eb2a9dcd180)
Rebel gulped. If there was one thing in the whole world she was terrible at, it would be dancing. “But, there’s no music,” she protested, praying the excuse would divert Avi.
He walked over to an intercom panel on the wall and pressed a few buttons. Lilting violin music suddenly blared. He turned the volume down and then turned to her, holding out a hand.
She looked around in panic. The room was plenty large enough to accommodate dancing. There were no apparent cameras to make an embarrassing record of her clumsiness. She resorted to confessing, “I’m a terrible dancer.”
“Well of course you are. Dancing is about expressing joy. And we’ve already established you need a lot of work in that department.”
She frowned, not appreciating being called a failure at anything, even if it was true.
He captured her hand, which she realized in some shock was waving around nervously, and tugged her to her feet.
“You’re going to regret this,” she warned him as he drew her into his arms.
“Put your right hand on my waist and your left hand on my shoulder...assuming you can reach my shoulder.”
She snorted. “Very funny. I’m not that short.”
“In my world, you’re practically a midget.”
Her eyes narrowed in challenge. “You’d be surprised the things I can do that a giant lout like you can’t even begin to do.”
“Sounds like a fascinating conversation for another time. But right now, I’m giving you a lesson in waltzing. First, listen to the music. One-two-three. One-two-three. Do you hear the downbeat?”
“Yes.”
“On each ‘one,’ I’m going to step forward with my right foot, and you’re going to step backward with your left foot. Like this. I’ll take it slow.” He placed both of his hands on her waist and guided her through the step.
Thank goodness. He just did the back step several times, and she caught on quickly.
“Now, we’re going to step to the side on the second and third beats. Like this. Step-together.”
She nodded after a few repetitions.
“And now we put them together, and we find the rhythm of the music. Just relax, and let me lead, okay?”
“Since when is this a trust exercise?” she blurted.
He smiled down at her a little ruefully. “Leave your left hand on my shoulder and put your right hand in mine.” She grasped his hand, as always stunned by the electric energy flowing from him.
“I have to say, Rebel, I didn’t expect you to discover my real motive so quickly. This is entirely about trust. That and loosening you up a little. You are a smart one, aren’t you?”
She might have answered, but he whisked her backward and into a whirl around the room that took her breath away. His hands moved her with effortless power, but still, she had to concentrate on relaxing and releasing the habitual tension from her body.
Ahh, but when she did, they were suddenly dipping and swooping, turning in light, swift circles until she felt like a swallow in flight. It was actually a rather fantastic sensation. The music lifted them off their mortal feet, spinning them into a breathless world of candlelit magic.
Or maybe it was the big, graceful man staring down at her, his eyes as dark as midnight, the expression in them bemused. If there had been any humor in his expression when they started the waltz, by the time the song ended, it was long gone.
The music shifted into some other, more formal rhythm, and they came to a stop beside the table. His hand was warm and firm on her waist, and his fingers flexed, tightening momentarily against her side.
He released her abruptly, stepping back almost as if startled. She knew the feeling. She was shocked to her toes. That had been an almost-sexual experience. And it had been wonderful. Which begged the question of why he’d insisted on dancing with her. Had trust and getting her to chill out been his only motives, after all? Or had he been subtly demonstrating to her that he knew how to woo a woman?
For no doubt about it, he most definitely knew what he was doing in that department.
It almost made a girl wonder if maybe the problem with sex in her life prior to this had been men of inadequate knowledge rather than the sex itself.
Hmm. Sex with Avi Bronson. A suddenly fascinating concept.
The door opened, and their waiter wheeled in a cart loaded with what turned out to be the most delectable food she’d ever tasted. Quail roasted to tender perfection with herbed skin that was crispy and savory, oyster stuffing that made her groan in delight and tender asparagus that was so fresh and light she wanted to ask for more—and she didn’t even like asparagus, normally.
She refrained from licking her plate, but it was a struggle. She looked up at Avi in regret. “You do realize you’ve ruined me for ever enjoying an MRE again.”
“You like dehydrated military food?” he exclaimed.
“I did. But now... I shudder to think what it will taste like in comparison to this.”
He smiled indulgently. “My work is done, then.”
Something disappointed landed with a thud in the bottom of her stomach. Drat. She’d really hoped he might be interested in showing her more of these sophisticated pleasures she’d heretofore had no idea existed.
“Why the sad face?” he asked quickly.
“I’m sorry this meal has to end.”
“Never fear. We have several more courses to go.”
“Where am I going to put more food? You do realize I’m going to have to work out like mad for a week to burn off all these calories.”
He shrugged. “I’ll go for a run with you tomorrow if you’d like. After all, it’s my fault you indulged like this. I’m obligated to help with damage control.”
Hmm. That would be interesting. She enjoyed running and was one of the fastest Medusas. “You’re on.”
She was done with dessert and sipping a cup of coffee so good it nearly brought her to tears when she finally remembered to ask, “By the way, what was the piece of intelligence you said you’d gotten?”
He sighed. “And, the pleasant interlude ends. Back to business, eh?”
She smiled a little at the disappointment in his voice. “Sorry.”
“When you apologize like you mean it, I’ll know I’ve broken through that workaholic exterior of yours.”
“Good luck with that.” She set down her coffee cup. “The intel?”
“Right. A source in Tehran reports that Mahmoud has spent the past six months or so training with a team of approximately eight operatives on a military base. They were seen going in and out of mocked-up buildings repeatedly.”
“Sounds like they were training for a specific attack,” she commented.
“That’s how I would interpret it, as well.”
“Any information on what the buildings looked like?”
“No. Our source isn’t that highly placed.”
“Still. Are you going to take me seriously now when I say I saw Mahmoud and Yousef and that I’m convinced they dumped the chlorine in the pool?”
“I always took you seriously, Rebel.”
“Yeah, but no one else is likely to.”
“Do you want me to put forward your theory to the IOC security team because they would take me more seriously?”
She sighed. “I appreciate the offer, but I expect Major Torsten will tell them about it if he thinks I’ve adequately backed up my theory with evidence.”
“He’s a good man. He won’t take credit for your work. You’ll get the credit.”
“Or the blame,” she added.
Avi shrugged. “If you think you’re right, stick by your guns. Who cares if you got this one wrong? We all make mistakes from time to time. Better to be overcautious and be wrong than say nothing and have a preventable attack happen.”
“Yes, but this is the first time the new Medusas have worked the Olympic Games. If I’m making a wrong call and people get all worked up for no reason, the egg will be on all of my teammates’ faces along with mine.”
“You’re a team, right? Wouldn’t you suffer a little humiliation on behalf of one of your sisters?”
“Well, yes.”
“And they would do the same for you. Don’t second-guess yourself. Trust your gut.”
He was right. She took a deep breath. “Thanks for the pep talk.”
“Anytime.”
The waiter brought back Avi’s credit card, and he signed the check quickly.
“Do I want to know what that meal cost?” she asked.
“No. But it was worth every shekel to watch you enjoy yourself like that.”
Alarmed, she let him hold her chair as she stood up. Had she made a spectacle of herself? The idea sent shivers of horror across her skin. If she’d learned nothing else in her father’s repressive home, it was that women should never, ever, draw attention to themselves.
“What were you thinking about just then?” Avi asked, startling her out of dark memories.
“Nothing.”
Avi responded evenly, “I’m not letting you get away with putting me off like that. Tell me what you were thinking about.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because it put pain in your eyes. I want to know what or who hurt you.”
He sounded half-prepared to go out and beat up bullies on her behalf. Which was sweet. And strange. She wasn’t accustomed to any man looking out for her. In fact, she’d spent most of her adult life making sure no man needed to look out for her.
She glanced up. He was staring down at her expectantly. He looked ready to stand there all night, not moving an inch, until he got his answer.
Well, hell. She huffed and then admitted, “I was thinking about my father.”
“Your father? Why would he put such pain in your eyes?”
“Because he wasn’t—isn’t—a very nice man. He believes that women should be seen and not heard. And that women should stay out of men’s way.”
Sarcasm lacing his voice, he responded, “He must love your job choice.”
“We don’t speak.”
“Ahh.” A pause. Then Avi said quietly, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried, and I’m sorry your father is a jerk. But thank you for letting me know what I have to overcome.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well, now I know that not only will you be sensitive to feeling smothered, but you’ll also have issues with domineering men.”
“I don’t—” She broke off. “Okay, fine. I do.”
He gifted her with a smile so beautiful she could hardly look at it or at him. Lord, he was a handsome man.
He said, “Thank you for your honesty. I value it more than just about any trait in my friends.”
Only friends? And there went her stomach again, dropping into her shoes in disappointment. Since when did she want to be more than friends with this man?
Since he’d taught her how to waltz and introduced her to fine cuisine—and not only saw her as a soldier, but also saw her as a woman.
Which also made her feel naked. Vulnerable. Most people ignored her, and she tended to prefer it that way. Too bad he hadn’t seen her as more. It would have been nice if this man had looked at her and seen a woman of interest, maybe even a potential romantic interest.
But no. He’d seen a friend.
It was better than nothing. But not by much.
If only she was more capable at the whole romance and seduction thing. But that was like wishing she could hold the moon in her hand. It was never going to happen.
* * *
Their walk back to the Olympic Village was quiet, and Avi was content to let Rebel stew in her thoughts. He was prepared to move slowly with her, take his time and let her work out whatever she needed to work out in her head before he pushed her to the next level. She wasn’t the kind of woman a man could proposition for cheap sex after a date or two and expect an affirmative response.
Huh. Since when had he started to consider sleeping with her?
He thought back and pegged it at the moment when she’d shown him her map of the injured athletes in the pool. Her passion and intensity had been sexy as hell.
He glanced sidelong at her as they crossed a busy street crowded with drunks. She was a tiny little thing, but it was easy to miss that because of how big her intellect and confidence were. Oh, she hid both well. As any good special operator should. But they were there. And sexy, too.
When he’d finally gotten her to relax into the waltz, she’d been light as air in his arms. A good natural athlete, she was, to pick up the dance so quickly. In touch with her body. Which was promising for more intimate dances—
He should really stop imagining sex with her. They both had a job to do. And although this was far below the usual level of danger he operated in, both of them needed to give the security of their respective delegations their full attention.
Maybe after the games were over he could volunteer to do some training with the Medusas, possibly as an instructor, or in some sort of exchange program with his team to run scenarios using teams of women operators. He could sell it to his superiors as an observation trip to see if the Israelis should consider training a female Spec Ops team of their own.
The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.
“Does your team ever run exercises with foreign teams?” he asked abruptly.
“To date, we’ve mostly had individual foreign instructors come to our main training facility to work with us as we come up to speed. We haven’t worked with full teams. You’d have to ask Major T. if he ever plans to put us in the field on exercises. Right now, he’s keeping our existence under pretty close wraps.”
As well he should. The Medusas were safer the fewer people knew they existed. And apparently, he’d also developed a sudden interest in the safety of the Medusas, along with Torsten.
“This is my stop,” Rebel announced, jerking him out of planning how to sell an exercise with the Medusas to his boss.
They were, indeed, standing in front of the American security team’s building.
“Sweet dreams,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her on the cheek.
She froze, startled as most Americans were when they first encountered the European habit of kissing pretty much everyone. He smiled to himself as he turned away. He was enjoying throwing her off balance far more than he should. But it would be good for her to pop that boring bubble she tried to hide in.
As for him, he was headed for his room to change into dark clothing, and then he was going to stake out the small apartment building the Iranian delegation was staying in by itself at the request of the Iranian government. Not that he blamed them. The Israelis had insisted on having a facility to themselves, too.
Midnight had come and gone when Avi spied movement out the back door of the Iranian building. He zoomed in his binoculars. Four men and two women, dressed in the black tracksuits of the Iranian team slipped outside.
Apparently, the mice were planning to play while they were away from the cat. Although, the Iranian government usually kept a ridiculously tight leash on its athletes overseas, too. Which explained why he was surprised this bunch tonight had made it out of their quarters successfully. He waited for any possible tails to slip out of the building to follow the athletes, but none did.
He briefly debated staying to watch the building or giving in to his curiosity to see what the Iranian athletes did when off the leash. His curiosity won.
They were almost out of sight, now, heading toward the south end of the village and the many athletic complexes clustered there. He had to hurry not to lose them. There were plenty of facilities open around the clock in the village—the dining hall, gyms, game rooms, media rooms, medical and physio offices. So why were the Iranians headed toward the sports complex at this hour? The venues would all be closed, locked up and locked down.
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Cindy Dees
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 23.04.2024
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О книге: Bound together by duty… Staying together by passion Special Forces Rebel McQueen is prepared for anything…that is, except sexy security specialist Avi Bronson. When Rebel and Avi discover an imminent terrorist attack they must protect thousands of innocent lives. But who will save Rebel from certain heartache if she dares to succumb to Avi…