Special Forces: The Operator Read online

  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

  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 t
he 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.